by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Washington D.C. Bureau Chief
(Worthy News) – Democrats are facing renewed accusations of political hypocrisy after sharply condemning President Donald Trump for authorizing a U.S. operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan dictator and accused narco-terrorist Nicolás Maduro, despite years of publicly calling for his removal and criticizing Trump during his first term for failing to act decisively.
The Trump administration’s early Saturday operation, which U.S. officials described as a law-enforcement action tied to long-standing federal indictments, triggered immediate backlash from Democratic leaders. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of “fanning the flames of war” and unleashing “reckless regime change chaos.”
Yet Schumer’s outrage stands in sharp contrast to his own statements just years earlier. In 2020, with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó watching from the Senate gallery, Schumer blasted Trump for not ending Maduro’s rule, saying the policy had “flopped” and that the Maduro regime was “more powerful and more entrenched” than when Trump took office.
A similar reversal has come from Sen. Chris Murphy, who now calls Maduro’s removal an “illegal invasion” and a “war-mongering distraction.” Murphy claims Venezuela poses no threat to U.S. security — a dramatic shift from his earlier position. In 2019, Murphy argued that removing Maduro was “good for the United States,” openly criticizing Trump for failing to intervene as Venezuela descended into violent repression, economic collapse, and mass starvation.
Murphy even co-authored a 2019 op-ed describing Maduro as an illegitimate ruler who condemned his nation to a “humanitarian nightmare,” marked by rampant inflation, food and medicine shortages, corruption, and brutal repression. At the time, roughly 3 million Venezuelans had fled the country. By 2024, that number had ballooned to more than 8 million, many ultimately reaching the United States.
The Democratic backlash also clashes with the Biden administration’s own rhetoric. When federal prosecutors unsealed narco-terrorism charges and announced a $25 million bounty, then-President Joe Biden declared that Maduro was “a dictator who has brutalized his people and poisoned our communities with drugs,” affirming U.S. recognition of Maduro as both a criminal and a threat.
On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz pushed back against claims of war or occupation, telling the U.N. that the mission was not a military invasion but “a law enforcement operation in furtherance of lawful indictments that have existed for decades.”
According to federal prosecutors, Maduro led a “corrupt illegitimate government” that used state power to traffic thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States, enriching himself, his family, and Venezuela’s political and military elite. Maduro pleaded not guilty Monday in a federal courtroom in New York.
Despite acknowledging Maduro as a “tyrant,” former Vice President Kamala Harris condemned the operation as “unlawful and unwise,” warning against regime-change conflicts — even as Democrats previously demanded action against Maduro when Trump declined to intervene.
Critics on the right say the episode exposes a clear double standard: Democrats castigated Trump for years for failing to remove Maduro, then denounced him for doing exactly that. Supporters of the operation argue that enforcing U.S. law against a narco-terrorist leader responsible for mass displacement, drugs, and repression is not warmongering — but long-overdue accountability.
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