WASHINGTON — Even as Democrats accuse the Trump administration of misleading Congress in the wake of the president’s announcement of an oil tanker blockade on Venezuela, Republicans are dismissing Democrats’ — and some Republicans’ — fears.
At the Capitol on Wednesday, one senior GOP senator went so far as to mock Democrats for speaking up.
“Poor babies,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Raw Story.
Asked if he had been surprised by Trump’s announcement on Tuesday night, as senior Democrats complain they were, Cornyn said: “Not really.
“I mean [Venezuelan oil] is the lifeline for Iran and to some extent, for China, and an outlet for Russia to continue to be able to sell oil and finance its war machine against Ukraine. So I think it's not a surprise from that standpoint.”
Cornyn is a member of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees.
Raw Story said, “Your Democratic colleagues are saying they wish [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio would have focused on this yesterday, and they kind of feel deceived or misled a little bit.”
Rubio and Hegseth briefed both chambers of Congress during the day on Tuesday about controversial U.S. strikes on boats alleged to be carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
“Well,” Cornyn said. “I was in this briefing and [Democrats] were asking questions about the strikes. They weren't asking about” the blockade.
Raw Story suggested that was because the Democrats didn’t know the blockade was coming.
“Poor babies,” Cornyn said. “They just need to open their eyes.”
Most Democrats’ eyes have long been wide open to President Trump’s moves to secure regime change in Venezuela.
The administration has implemented boat strikes that have now killed nearly 100, while Trump’s regular statements on the matter have accompanied reports of both a major U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and CIA covert action in Venezuela itself.
Most Democrats and some Republicans maintain Trump needs congressional approval for any action against the regime in Caracas, led by the left-wing authoritarian Nicolás Maduro.
On the House side of the Capitol on Wednesday, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, told Raw Story: “We heard it again from the Chief of Staff, who said that these bombings won't stop until Maduro is out” — a reference to remarks from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a bombshell Vanity Fair profile.
After Trump’s blockade announcement, Meeks said, it was clear Venezuela was “about oil. It's not about drugs. It's about taking oil.
“You know, I'm a former special narcotics prosecutor. If you really try to stop drugs, you don't take the little guy, kill them and then pardon the top guys and don't go after them at all.”
That was a reference to Trump’s recent pardon of a former Honduran president convicted of drug trafficking.
“You try to get the little guys to get you all the information that you can so that you can go after the big guys,” Meeks said, going on to condemn the “double tap killing” of two men on a boat hit by the U.S. on Sept. 2.
The two men survived the original strike but were killed with a second missile — by most observers’ standards, a war crime or plain murder.
Hegseth has vehemently denied the strike was illegal, while shifting responsibility to a senior military commander.
Meeks and other Democrats said they were not satisfied with Rubio and Hegseth’s briefings.
“That wasn’t a classified session,” Meeks said.
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), a House Intelligence Committee member, said: “No one has gotten an intel briefing. So that's what we're owed.”
On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) also lamented the absence of comprehensive briefings, telling Raw Story: “That just reflects the attitude [the Trump administration has] with Congress.
“If the Republican majority in Congress will allow it, they will continue to follow their agenda regardless.”
Among that Republican majority, not all opinions were as dismissive, or harsh, as Cornyn’s.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voiced his continuing concern about the “double tap” boat strike.
Two months after the Sept. 2 killing, Paul said, when U.S. forces “saw people in the water, they're like, ‘Oh, you know what? Maybe we shouldn't kill helpless people in the water.’ And they plucked them out. And did they prosecute them? No, they sent them back to their country.
“There's so much that's inconsistent and wrong about this. With the video, every American should be able to see it. We should continue talking about it.”
Raw Story asked Paul for his view on Trump’s surprise announcement of an oil blockade.
“I’m opposed to it,” Paul said, bluntly.