Congress is locking horns with the Trump administration over military strikes in the Caribbean, and the showdown is getting hotter than a summer day in Miami.
Lawmakers are scrutinizing the administration’s aggressive moves to curb drug trafficking near Venezuela, with a fierce debate over legality and oversight threatening to clip the wings of Trump’s war on drugs, as Fox News reports.
The saga kicked off with a series of U.S. military strikes targeting alleged drug boats, with over 20 operations conducted near Venezuela since September 2025, aimed at choking the flow of narcotics into American streets.
A particularly contentious strike on Sept. 2 saw a Venezuelan vessel destroyed and alleged smugglers killed, with a second strike that day raising eyebrows across party lines for its questionable legality.
Democrats and even some Republicans are sounding the alarm, demanding the White House cough up video footage of that second strike to prove it wasn’t a reckless overreach.
The administration, standing firm, insists these actions in international waters are critical to stopping narcoterrorism, but the pause in strikes due to difficulty locating targets hints at operational hiccups.
Amid the tension, Trump has mused about land operations in Venezuela, declaring on a recent Wednesday that such actions could begin “very soon,” a statement that’s got Capitol Hill on edge.
Adding fuel to the fire, the administration has deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford to the region and conducted at least 21 strikes near Venezuela, with the latest confirmed on Nov. 15.
Meanwhile, the White House refuses to entertain talk of regime change but openly brands Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro a drug cartel leader, even upping the reward for his arrest to $50 million in August 2025.
Lawmakers aren’t sitting idle -- Sens. Jeff Merkley and Tim Kaine introduced the Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in Venezuela Act on Dec. 4, aiming to block federal funds for strikes without congressional nod.
A separate war powers resolution, backed by a bipartisan group including Sens. Kaine, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, and Rand Paul, seeks to bar Trump from engaging U.S. forces in hostilities against Venezuela, though past efforts have fizzled.
As Kaine put it, “We shouldn’t stumble into an unnecessary war with Venezuela -- risking U.S. servicemembers’ lives -- with no congressional authorization and incomplete information about the Administration’s objectives.” Well, senator, while protecting our troops is paramount, isn’t it also true that drugs pouring across our borders are a clear and present danger?
A closed-door briefing on Dec. 4 with Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley didn’t calm the waters, as allegations swirl from a Washington Post report claiming Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered a kill-all directive during the Sept. 2 strike, a charge the White House flatly denies.
“All of these decisive strikes have been in international waters against designated narcoterrorists bringing deadly poison to our shores,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly in a statement to Fox News Digital on a recent Thursday. Fine words, Ms. Kelly, but Congress seems hungry for more than assurances -- they want hard proof, and they’re not wrong to demand transparency when lives are on the line.
With Sen. Lindsey Graham suggesting in October that Trump is ready to see Maduro gone, and bipartisan calls for investigation intensifying, the administration might need to rethink its playbook or risk a full-on congressional revolt against its Caribbean strategy.
