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

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would say this, but I am glad I am not on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I thought the Rules Committee was tough. Listening to this debate, I would go out of my mind. I couldn't follow the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I want to correct something. This is not a Democratic resolution. It is a bipartisan resolution. Maybe that is something the chairman is not familiar with, but this is a bipartisan resolution. Democrats and Republicans have sponsored it.

In this Chamber, I guess we have all become accustomed to debating trivial issues passionately and important ones not at all. We spend a lot of time renaming post offices and passing bills that do nothing for anybody. Maybe the distinguished chairman is not used to doing big things.

Mr. Speaker, I will say that the issue of war is a big deal. It is a big deal. It should be a big deal to Democrats. It should be a big deal to Republicans.

It is our constitutional responsibility, and so I am here because I am deeply troubled that the President of the United States, in my view, is slowly but surely marching us toward open hostilities with Venezuela. I don't say that as a Democrat. I say it as an American who is worried about this country getting dragged into another potentially endless war.

Mr. Speaker, let me be crystal clear. I mean, that is what we are talking about. That is what we are talking about. This is not some hypothetical, abstract debate. Donald Trump has already engaged in acts that are considered hostile under U.S. law.

He has threatened to close Venezuelan airspace. He says that he plans a naval blockade against the country soon. He has warned that military strikes on Venezuela will start ``very soon.''

Our Constitution provides this body, the United States Congress, with the solitary authority to declare war, and the President, despite already engaging in hostile actions toward Venezuela, has neither requested nor received the authorization for the use of military force as required by the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

Mr. Speaker, American troops take an oath to protect and defend this country. It is our duty in Congress to debate and vote before they are put into harm's way.

Right now, by placing U.S. military assets off the coast of Venezuela, this administration has them in harm's way right now. That is why, in a bipartisan way, we have introduced this resolution. It provides the House of Representatives with the simple up-or-down vote. It is a simple ``yes'' or ``no.'' Do my colleagues want an unauthorized war in Venezuela or not?

Mr. Speaker, you may want a war in Venezuela. You ought to vote for it if you want it, but I do not want any war in Venezuela. I am joined on this resolution, again, by Members of Congress across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans who, like me, are deeply troubled by the idea of endless wars and of America spending more of its treasure on wars that are not clearly defined, that we have no idea how they will end up, at a time when we can't even provide people healthcare in this country and where we have homeless veterans.

I was here in 2002, Mr. Speaker. I voted against the war in Iraq, and Americans do not want another Iraq. If we intensify hostilities against Venezuela, we have no idea what we are walking into.

The oversight in this Congress has been almost nonexistent given what is going on. Congress has been lied to repeatedly--repeatedly by administrations from both parties who want to use our military in ill- defined and often unwinnable conflicts.

I remember the Bush administration telling us that the war in Iraq would be a cinch. It was clearly not. We spent over a decade at war. We lost American lives, civilian lives, and added trillions of dollars to our debt at the expense of the basic needs of the American people.

At least George Bush had the decency to come to Congress for approval in 2002. Don't the American people deserve that respect today?

This is about whether we want to use taxpayer dollars and risk American lives on regime change, endless wars, and costly quagmires, or whether we want to invest here in our own country and solve our own problems.

For God's sake, we live in a country where we, again, have homeless veterans, where we have hungry school kids, where seniors can't afford their medication, and families struggle to get by.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is immoral. It is not just a strategic failure but a moral failure that we have a President beating the drums of war without so much as a vote in the House of Representatives. This is not America first.

Mr. Speaker, I know that some of my colleagues may say that war is justified. I can't for the life of me figure out that logic, but I went to the classified briefing that the administration organized yesterday. I went to other classified briefings.

I heard no justification that there was some imminent military threat from Venezuela, nothing that would justify the hostilities that the President is engaged in right now in building up troops.

To those who want to go to war and say that this is about drugs and cartels, let me just say that this administration's own Drug Enforcement Administration reports that fentanyl is overwhelmingly produced in other countries using chemicals that come from elsewhere in the world. Venezuela isn't listed as a fentanyl source or transit country in any edition of the National Drug Threat Assessment.

More fentanyl comes from China and Mexico than Venezuela. Maybe the chairman wants to go to war with China and Mexico.

By the way, as is pointed out, Donald Trump pardoned the ex-President of Honduras who was found guilty of drug trafficking. The chairman said nothing about that.

Over 3,667 people in Florida died from fentanyl, and the President of the United States pardoned one of the people who was primarily responsible for getting fentanyl into our country. He also pardoned the dark web guy who smuggled fentanyl in from China. Not a word. No oversight. Who cares because they don't want to say anything about Donald. He is the pardoner in chief. If you want to stop drugs from coming in, start by not pardoning drug dealers.

Those who want to go to war also point out that Nicolas Maduro is a tyrant. I agree that he is a tyrant. He violates the human rights of his own people. He has unlawfully detained Americans and Venezuelans as political prisoners. He is a violent, vicious, brutal dictator. Guess what, Mr. Speaker. Sadly, the globe is full of violent, vicious tyrants--in China, Russia, and North Korea. Do you want to go to war with all of them?

For God's sake, we sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, countries that have awful human rights violations. I hate Maduro, and I condemn him all the time. While we should have a discussion about how to help the people of Venezuela, the answer is not going to war.

Congress should have the guts to at least debate this issue and vote on it and not just cede all of this power to the administration.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from The Washington Post titled: ``Trump pardons major drug traffickers despite his anti- drug rhetoric.'' [From The Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2025]

Trump Pardons Major Drug Traffickers Despite His Anti-Drug Rhetoric (By Meryl Kornfield and Emily Davies)

On President Donald Trump's first full day in office this year, he pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted of creating the largest online black market for illegal drugs and other illicit goods of its time.

In the months since, he has granted clemency to others, including Chicago gang leader Larry Hoover and Baltimore drug kingpin Garnett Gilbert Smith. And last week, he pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for running his country as a vast ``narco-state'' that helped to move at least 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.

Overall, Trump--who campaigned against America's worsening drug crisis and promised to crack down on the illegal flow of deadly drugs coming across the border--has pardoned or granted clemency to at least 10 people for drug-related crimes since the beginning of his second term, according to a Washington Post analysis. He also granted pardons or commutations to almost 90 others for drug-related crimes during the four years of his first term, the analysis showed.

At the same time, Trump has threatened military action against Venezuela over accusations that the country's government is supporting the drug trade and has pushed the Pentagon to conduct targeted strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean. The contrasting actions have come under fire from Democrats and other critics, who say Trump's broad use of clemency contradicts promises to get tough on drugs.

``President Trump is claiming to be taking action to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States,'' Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) said on the Senate floor Tuesday, describing the crimes of Ulbricht and Hernandez. ``. . . How does this protect Americans from the flow of narcotics entering our country?''

Asked about the contrast, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the pardon of the Honduran president doesn't make it difficult to defend the administration's lethal strikes on suspected drug traffickers.

``I think that President Trump has been quite clear, in his defense of the United States homeland, to stop these illegal narcotics from coming to our borders, whether that's by land or by sea, and he's also made it quite clear that he wants to correct the wrongs of the weaponized Justice Department under the previous administration,'' she told reporters last Monday.

Asked about Trump's spate of drug-related pardons and commutations, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Post that Trump had exercised his constitutional authority, and she attacked former president Joe Biden.

``The only pardons anyone should be critical of are from President Autopen, who pardoned and commuted sentences of violent criminals including child killers and mass murderers--and that's not to mention the proactive pardons he `signed' for his family members like Hunter on his way out the door,'' Jackson said.

Trump and his aides have baselessly claimed that Biden's staffers routinely used an autopen to sign pardons and other documents without his knowledge.

Trump has wielded one of the greatest powers of the presidency, clemency, far more this year than he did in his first term. He has pardoned almost all of the approximately 1,500 Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack defendants. He also has pardoned about a dozen members of Congress, mostly Republicans, including most recently Rep. Henry Cuellar (D- Texas), who was charged last year with bribery, money laundering and conspiracy.

By comparison, Trump granted clemency to more than 230 people in his first term, just two of those in his first year.

The pardon frenzy has given rise to a lucrative cottage industry, The Post previously reported. Public disclosures show that lobbyists have spent more than $2.1 million this year on firms that advocate for pardons, clemency and other forms of executive relief--more than double the total spent in 2024. The records also show that individuals seeking pardons have paid up to $1 million to hire people close to the president to plead their case.

Experts say the administration's efforts to strike boats near Venezuela have not proved effective in limiting the flow of drugs entering the country because the passage is not ordinarily used to traffic drugs to the United States. Drugs containing fentanyl, which have contributed to most recent drug deaths, are typically manufactured in Mexico and smuggled into the U.S. across the land border. The administration has not provided detailed evidence that the boats they have sunk had drugs on board and were heading for the United States.

The administration has claimed that the strikes are an effective deterrent for other drug traffickers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters last week that they paused the strikes ``because it's hard to find boats to strike right now, which is the entire point, right? Deterrence has to matter.'' However, experts say there is no available evidence to support the theory that trafficking is down.

``Drug trafficking is like water,'' said Regina LaBelle, a Georgetown University drug policy professor and former acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. ``It's going to find a way to get in.''

Critics of the war on drugs have also long asserted that the government has insufficiently addressed the root cause of deaths in the U.S.: addiction. Advocates have urged the government to invest more in overdose prevention measures, such as naloxone and treatment options.

The rate of overdose deaths has been on the rise for decades, fueled by fentanyl since around 2015, until the end of Biden's term, when the rate declined.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I don't want to be lectured by the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs because, as I mentioned, in Florida, 3,667 people have died from fentanyl.

This President has pardoned drug dealer after drug dealer, and there has not been a peep from my friends on the other side of the aisle, who are now talking about the issue of drugs in the United States, not a peep. I don't know how you explain that to the families of those who lost their lives, number one.

Number two, the chairman made a big deal about pictures, that if you are in a picture with somebody and you touch them, that somehow you are affiliated with them.

Here is a picture of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin with a nice handshake. Does that say that Trump is somehow Vladimir Putin's friend? Here is Trump with Kim Jong-un, giving him a nice hug, another dictator that Trump seems to be enamored with. I don't even know what the hell that proves, but the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs seems to think that photos are a big deal.

Let me read our resolution to you. It says: ``Pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544(c)), Congress hereby directs the President to remove the use of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization for use of military force.''

That is it. I can't even believe this is controversial. I can't even believe that my friends on the other side of the aisle have a problem with this. This is the most basic stuff.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said some strange things today about how you interpret photographs if the people are shaking hands or whatever, but, somehow, if your arm is around somebody that means that you are dear friends.

I am just looking at this photo of Donald Trump with his arm around Jeffrey Epstein. By the gentleman's standards, they must be in love.

This debate is not about the gentleman's personal weird code on touching. This is about war, and that is what we are here to talk about. Quite frankly, it deserves a more serious treatment from the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
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Mr. McGOVERN.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman from Florida have additional speakers?

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Mr. McGOVERN. The first thing you said.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Yes.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Read the intelligence.

Mr. Speaker, I really can't believe this debate from some of my friends on the other side of the aisle. They are talking about things that have nothing to do with the underlying legislation. I mean, they are talking about fentanyl. Well, fentanyl is coming from China. That is the problem. Do you want to bomb China? Then make the case to bomb China. That is where fentanyl is coming from.

They are talking about nuclear war. I don't even know what that has to do with what we are debating here today.

I think what is clear is my Republican friends are basically covering up for the President, who is sleepwalking us right into a war in Venezuela. That is the issue here.

The President, by his own words, has said that he wants to block the airspace in Venezuela. He has talked about troops in Venezuela. He is stationing American forces around Venezuela. Under U.S. law, those are acts of hostility.

I have seen this movie before, where my Republican friends get up and they talk tough: Let's go to war, let's go to war. Then we go to war, and it becomes a catastrophe. Then they say: Well, I never voted for a war. Oh, I didn't do that. That is not me.

Well, under the Constitution, we have a responsibility to declare war. We have a responsibility to debate war. Quite frankly, this Congress, given what is going on in Venezuela, ought to be doing more oversight and ought to be debating this issue. That it is somehow controversial or undercuts our attempts to stop drugs from coming into this country is ridiculous. It is ludicrous.

I have been around for a while. The one thing I can tell you with certainty, it is easy to get into a war. It is hard as hell to get out of war. I have been around long enough to hear Presidents of both parties talk about war as something simple: You can get into it, you get out of it easy, no big deal. That has never happened. That has never happened.

Even the Pentagon says it will be very complicated to topple Maduro, and what might result might be more violence, more chaos. It could be a quagmire.

All we are saying here is, let's do our job. If you don't want to do the job, I don't know why the hell you are here, seriously. The Foreign Affairs Committee ought to be taking the lead on this. This shouldn't be controversial.

My resolution is a bipartisan resolution. It deserves bipartisan support. This is the least we can do. This is the least we can do.

When we go to war, our troops have no choice but to follow the orders that are given to them. The bottom line is, we have a responsibility to make sure they don't get sent into a mess, that we know what the hell we are doing, that there is a clearly defined mission, and that this is the right thing to do.

It is the wrong thing to do, in my opinion. We have homeless veterans. We can't provide people in this country with healthcare. People don't have adequate housing. People are hungry.

You want to spend billions and trillions of dollars on another war. Well, I don't want any part of it. Please vote for this resolution.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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