President Donald Trump's strike on Venezuela has evenly split the country: Republican hawks are cheering the Jan. 3 raid that dragged President Nicolás Maduro to New York to face criminal drug charges, while Democrats question whether constitutional rules and international laws were broken.
"We saw a president that had a backbone that stood up and did something that other presidents in the past wouldn't even dream of doing," Sen. Markwayne Mullin, of Oklahoma, said in a Jan. 5 video posted celebrating Maduro's apprehension. "We showed the might and the ability of the United States to go into your backyard and pluck you out of your house when you threaten us."
White House officials also tell USA TODAY that critics of Maduro's capture sounded similar alarms when Trump bombed Iran's nuclear facilities last June, which they contend paved the way for the Israel-Hamas peace agreement in October.
Many Venezuelan Americans, administration officials also point out, have swarmed the streets celebrating the toppling of Maduro, whose elections in 2018 and 2024 have been described as a "sham" by U.S. officials.
The Venezuela action comes at a perilous political time for the president, however, given that his approval numbers have sunk to the mid-30s ahead of the critical midterm elections this year.
