Removal of the Use of United States Forces for Hostilities Within or Against Venezuela

Floor Speech

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, James Madison warned us that: ``In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive.'' Madison called it the crown jewel of Congress.

The Framers understood a simple truth: To the extent that warmaking power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves.

If the President believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case, and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America.

Let's be honest about likely outcomes. Do we truly believe that Nicolas Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington? How did that work out in Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria?

Previous Presidents told us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, that did not exist. Now, it is the same playbook, except we are told that drugs are the WMDs.

If it were about drugs, we would bomb Mexico, China, or Colombia, and the President would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez. This is about oil and regime change.

When it comes to regime change, we have already been down this road with Venezuela with nothing to show for it. In 2019, we recognized Juan Guaido. We seized their embassy here in D.C. We were told that regime change was imminent. Years later, Maduro remains in power.

Today, we are told to place our hopes in other exiled figures: Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado. I wish them well. I do. But Congress should not express moral sympathy in the form of a blank check for military escalation and American lives.

Let's take a moment to acknowledge the contradiction at the heart of this policy. This administration tells us that the Maduro regime is made up of narcoterrorists. By escalating toward war, we would predictably create countless refugees. At the same time, this administration has moved to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and deports them back to the very regime it condemns. So which is it?

Are we prepared to receive swarms of the 25 million Venezuelans who will likely become refugees and lose billions in American treasure that will be used to destroy and inevitably rebuild that nation? Do we want a miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere?

If that cost is acceptable to this Congress, then we should vote on it, as a voice of the people, and in accordance with our Constitution.

Yet today, we aren't even voting on whether to declare war or authorize the use of military force. All we are voting on is a war powers resolution that strengthens the fabric of our Republic by reasserting the plain and simple language in the Constitution that Congress must decide questions of war.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for this resolution.

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