As President Donald Trump draws closer to a potential decision on expanding his military pressure on Venezuela, his administration is facing skepticism from congressional Republicans on multiple fronts.
GOP senators questioned the administration’s decision-making on Monday after the White House confirmed a second September strike on alleged narcotraffickers who survived an initial attack. It’s a decision that has already prompted bipartisan investigations on both sides of the Capitol.
Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., said that the second strike on alleged traffickers who were already wounded “seems way over the edge to me.” Justice called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a “good guy” and the “right choice to be leading our military” but added that “if he made that decision, I think he’s made a bad decision.”
“We have always been trained to believe that folks who surrender, we don’t just mow them down for the sake of mowing them down,” Justice said. “You have a situation like this where you’ve got survivors evidently in the water and we pulled a second strike off? It’s just not acceptable.”
Still other Republicans were befuddled by Trump’s pardon of an ex-president of Honduras who was convicted of drug trafficking — a decision that appears to undercut the tough anti-drug effort that he has billed as the chief reason for his multiple strikes off the coast of Venezuela.
It’s a make-or-break moment for Trump’s foreign policy in the Americas. After essentially shutting down the US’ southern border, he shifted focus to Venezuela with repeated strikes on alleged drug boats that have sparked calls for more information to be shared with Congress.
Still, even as some Republicans questioned Trump’s campaign, most backed the president. The controversy over the Sept. 2 double-strike could change things.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday that Admiral Frank Bradley, the commander of the US Special Operations Command, was in charge of the September operation, adding that he “worked well within his authority and the law.”
But after Hegseth and a Pentagon spokesperson initially denied reporting on the order to strike wounded survivors, some senators were left with further questions. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a staunch critic of the Trump administration’s Venezuela operations, told Semafor he was “confused” after Hegseth’s initial denial.
“Was he incompetent enough not to know that it happened? Or was he lying yesterday?” Paul said. “He acted like he didn’t even know it happened … he said it was fake news yesterday. And today: ‘It happened.’ I would think someone needs to hold someone’s feet to the fire.”
Trump has defended Hegseth and said he believed him “100 percent.”
