Schumer criticizes Trump’s military operations in Venezuela after Maduro’s arrest

Almost six years ago, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer delivered a Senate speech criticizing President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, including ripping the president for the fact that Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was still in power.

Speeding up Maduro’s arrest in the US on drug charges under the second Trump administration, Schumer accused the Trump administration of creating “endless war” in Venezuela by removing Maduro from power.

“Perhaps his best metaphor was his claim to bring democracy to Venezuela. There’s a big goal there. It failed,” Schumer said in February 2020, just a day after Trump delivered his State of the Union address that year declaring that Maduro’s dictatorship “will be crushed and broken.”

“The president is bragging about his Venezuela policy? Give us a break. He hasn’t ended the Maduro regime,” Schumer continued. “Maduro’s regime is more powerful today and more focused today than when the president started fighting Maduro. The same thing with North Korea, the same thing with China, the same thing with Russia. The same thing with Syria.”

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Trump invited then-opposition leader Juan Guaidó to Washington, DC, to attend his State of the Union address, identifying him as the “legitimate” leader of Venezuela as Maduro remains in power. Guaidó declared himself interim president after Venezuela’s opposition-led National Assembly declared Maduro’s re-election in 2018 illegal.

“The United States is leading a coalition of 59 nations against the socialist dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro,” Trump said in his speech before pointing to Guaidó’s presence in a joint session of Congress. “Maduro is an illegitimate ruler, a dictator who tortures his people. But Maduro’s grip on dictatorship will be shattered and broken.”

Schumer said in his Senate speech the next day that Guaidó’s presence in the State of the Union is proof that Trump’s foreign policies are not working, or the opposition leader would be in the presidential palace and not DC.

Trump confirmed the successful operation of the US military in Venezuela on Saturday morning that led to the capture of Maduro and his wife, who were taken to the US to face a criminal trial in New York. The Venezuelan dictator has been charged with narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of assault rifles and weapons of mass destruction, and conspiracy to possess firearms and weapons of mass destruction.

Nicolás Maduro and other government officials were indicted in 2020 under the Trump administration for the first time on allegations of large-scale narco-terrorism and drug-trafficking conspiracy. (Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Maduro, along with other officials in the regime, was indicted in 2020 under the Trump administration for the first time on allegations of large-scale narco-terrorism and drug trafficking conspiracy. Maduro has denied such charges and has not been arrested for trial. His 2026 charges extend to the 2020 indictment.

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Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, first reported to the court on Monday.

News of the operation spread like wildfire around the world on Saturday, as many Democratic lawmakers objected to the administration conducting the strike and hostage-taking without notifying Congress first. Schumer has been among prominent Democrats to express outrage over the project, saying it opens the door to “endless war.”

“Maduro is a terrible, horrible person, but you don’t deal with lawlessness and more lawlessness, and that’s what happened here,” Schumer told “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos Sunday. “There is no authority … they didn’t just take the ships out of the water. They went inside Venezuela, they bombed civilian and military areas, and it’s illegal to do what they did without the approval of Congress.”

President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago club, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, Palm Beach, Fla. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)

“The American people are worried that this is creating an endless war,” he added. “The very thing that Donald Trump campaigned against over and over again was no more endless wars. And for now, we’re going straight to the same place, without barriers, without negotiations.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office and the White House about Schumer’s 2020 comments but did not immediately respond.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy also criticized the Trump administration in 2019 for not intervening in Venezuela as Guaidó declared himself interim president and protests erupted in the nation’s streets.

“If Trump cared about consistency, he would make a genuine case for intervening in Venezuela (getting rid of Maduro is good for the United States) rather than trying to pretend his administration is concerned with toppling anti-democratic regimes,” Murphy wrote in X at the time. “Finally, don’t get me wrong – I support a very democratic US foreign policy. I think we’re better off pushing for political change everywhere we do business or have an interest, not just when the guy who controls the oil doesn’t like us.”

Murphy said on Sunday during an appearance on CNN that “there are bad, brutal rulers all over the world. That doesn’t give the president of the United States the right to attack those countries, especially because we’ve seen how this script plays out.”

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Trump and his administration hailed the capture as a success, noting that no American troops or equipment were lost during the operation while also fending off criticism from Democrats. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined the news shows Sunday morning where he was excited about the project, including why Congress was not notified before its launch.

“This was not an act that required congressional approval,” Rubio told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Actually, it wouldn’t need congressional approval because this wasn’t an attack. This is not an extended military operation. This is a very precise operation that involved a few hours of operation. It was a very critical operation, too. It was an operation that required all of these conditions to be in place at the right time, in the right place.”

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Rubio added that officials cannot risk leaking the conference, as such information “endangers the mission and kills people, or kills the campaign by choice.”