Venezuela

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is a heady experience to go through a classified briefing at the highest levels of our government, and virtually every U.S. Senator of both political parties had that opportunity this morning. I took advantage of it. It is rare and important. It was an explanation by our leaders in the Cabinet and the administration of what happened in Venezuela just a few days ago when Mr. Maduro was removed from power and brought to the United States to be held accountable for his actions in narcotics terrorism.

This is not a new issue to me. In 2018, I took a trip to Caracas and met with President Maduro, his First Lady, and members of his administration. It was clear to me that Venezuela was in trouble. You could see it on the streets. People were literally starving, and hospitals were going without medicine. It was pretty clear to me that Maduro was ruling not by democratic appeal but by the force of his power in office.

He was facing an election in just a few weeks, and I told him at that time that, if he did not have international observers at his election to verify that it was an honest election, the world would not believe the results. He ignored my advice, which was no surprise. He went ahead with the election and had a disputed result. He claimed victory, which others said didn't happen, and he did it again a few years later. So he discredited himself in the eyes of the world community, and his country continued to suffer.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Venezuelans abandoned Venezuela, saying it was impossible to live there under his authoritarian rule without the basics of life: food, medicine, and shelter. So this decision to remove him is not one that causes tears in my household. We believe he was unfit for office. He was defeated in the election, and he had to pay a price for it. I am glad that he is not in power today.

During the course of our briefing this morning, our military leaders and others spelled out the details of how he was physically removed from office just a few days ago. He still is going to be held accountable in the courts of law in the United States--that is for sure--but there is also discussion about where we go from here.

If you remove the President of a country, what happens next?

Under their constitution, a woman named Delcy Rodriguez, the Vice President, was sworn in as his successor. I met her during my visit there. She is a hard-liner when it comes to the politics of the region and her brother even more so. We spoke for a period of time, and I became convinced that they would be difficult to deal with, although that is the reality of the moment.

Here is the point I want to make: I understand why our administration was very careful in disclosing information about the removal of Maduro from office. The lives and futures of the men and women in uniform from the United States were on the line, and we should not compromise their safety in any way to achieve our goal; but there comes a point--and that point should be immediately--when this administration decides to trust the American people and tell them the whole story. I believe there are things that can be said which will not compromise the safety of the United States or our friends but that explains to the American people what is at stake here.

What happened in that raid to remove Maduro from office?

Most of the details are an amazing display of military superiority, which the United States enjoys, but there were other questions that were raised, too, during the course of this.

In addition, the question is, Where do we go from here? What is going to happen to Venezuela's future? What is our responsibility? What are we accepting?

The American people need to be in on that conversation. It is easy, I learned in my time in the House and Senate, to get into a war but that it is far more difficult to get out of one. I worry that, many times, we have blundered into a situation which looks so simple in terms of nation building, and it turned out to be so complex. Then the war went on for years and years and years at the expense of not only American taxpayers but, more importantly, American lives. It is time for the American people to be part of that conversation. Why do I think so? Because the Constitution explicitly says it.

The Constitution says that the power to declare war in the United States resides in this Chamber and in the House of Representatives. Congress has the only authority to declare war. This President, like many others of both parties, has ignored that requirement and, I think, at his own peril. They are engaging us in a long-term conflict which could cost us dearly, and they are not engaging the American people in the discussion and rationale of our ultimate goals in the region.

This briefing this morning was a good one. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia asked a question, and I think it was the right question: When are we going to trust the American people enough to tell them exactly what happened in Venezuela leading up to the removal of Maduro and what is likely to follow? It is an important, critical question. It will be costly in terms of the future of the United States of America if we are not explicit and honest with the people of this country. Now is the time for that honesty.

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