You would think Congressional Republicans would take offense from being kept out of the loop of last Saturday’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Heck, even the U.S. oil industry had been alerted to the raid. Aboard Air Force One on Sunday, President Donald Trump told reporters he had talked with the heads of the companies “before and after” Saturday’s attack.
With hindsight as his guide, House Speaker Mike Johnson pooh-poohed the slight.
“We’re not at war,” he said Tuesday, acting as if the possibility were alarmist. “We do not have U.S. forces in that country.”
Maybe not now. But we certainly did Saturday morning.
And what if something with the operation had gone wrong? What if Venezuelan forces had shot down one of our helicopters? What would Johnson be saying then?
Johnson assured Americans the worst is behind us.
“This is not a regime change. This is a demand for a change of behavior by a regime.”
Not one to parse words, President Donald Trump said he doesn’t see the difference. Or care.
In an interview Saturday with The Atlantic, Trump said “regime change, anything you want to call it, is better than what you have right now.”
Regime change. Changing behavior.
Close enough for Trump.
The words do get tricky.
To justify the bombings of alleged drug smuggling boats in South American waters since early September, the Trump administration says the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels. So far, an estimated 115 have been killed in 35 attacks.
So the boat bombings are classified as a war act, but according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Saturday’s raid was a “law enforcement” maneuver against a drug lord and as such did not require alerting Congress beforehand?
With this administration, the deliberate obfuscation is unnecessary. Trump is going to do whatever he likes because there’s no one to stop him.
