‘An illegal war’: Democratic 2028ers scold Trump on Venezuela

The top Democratic contenders to succeed Donald Trump in the Oval Office excoriated the president for his overnight strike on Venezuela on Saturday, sharply criticizing the president’s foreign policy and trying to drive a wedge between the president and voters wary of foreign entanglements.

Trump, they argued, launched the operation to distract from a souring political situation on the home front.

“It's an old and obvious pattern,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wrote on X Saturday. “An unpopular president — failing on the economy and losing his grip on power at home — decides to launch a war for regime change abroad. The American people don’t want to ‘run’ a foreign country while our leaders fail to improve life in this one.”

It’s a sign of an emerging trendline that could mark both the upcoming midterms and the 2028 elections, as Democrats look to paint Trump as betraying his campaign promises by focusing too much on global affairs rather than domestic issues.

Trump rode to electoral victory in 2024 under the banner of “America First,” vowing to remove the U.S. from expansive overseas involvement and instead focus on the welfare of U.S. citizens.

During a press conference Saturday morning at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump defended the Maduro capture as “America First” because “we want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability. We want to surround ourselves with energy.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker argued that Trump should prioritize affordability, a key buzzword that spurred Democratic victories in last November’s off-year elections.

“Donald Trump’s unconstitutional military action in Venezuela is putting our troops in harm's way with no long-term strategy,” he wrote on X. “The American people deserve a President focused on making their lives more affordable.”

The operation, which Trump announced via Truth Social early Saturday morning, saw U.S. troops capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in their downtown Caracas compound, flying them out of the country. The couple, along with their son, will soon stand trial on drug trafficking charges.

The Trump administration, in the meantime, will “run” Venezuela, Trump announced in the Saturday press conference

“We'll run it properly,” he said.” “We'll run it professionally. We'll have the greatest oil companies in the world go in and invest billions and billions of dollars and take out money, use that money in Venezuela.”

Democrats quickly pounced on the president’s actions. Within hours of Maduro’s announced capture, the Democratic National Committee sent out a fundraising email deeming it “another unconstitutional war from Trump, who thinks the Constitution is a suggestion.”

“Trump promised peace, but has delivered chaos,” the fundraising email, signed by DNC Chair Ken Martin, read. “The most important thing we can do right now is work to elect more Democrats who will check this administration’s power and prevent more disaster.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) echoed the message. “We keep voting against dumb wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, & Libya,” he wrote on X. “But our Presidents bow to a foreign policy blob committed to militarism.”

Other 2028 Democratic contenders — including Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Sen. Mark Kelly, both veterans — condemned the administration’s open-ended approach to their takeover in Venezuela.

“I lived through the consequences of an illegal war sold to the American people with lies,” Gallego wrote on X. “We swore we would never repeat those mistakes. Yet here we are again. The American people did not ask for this, Congress did not authorize this, and our service members should not be sent into harm’s way for another unnecessary conflict.”

Kelly noted that Maduro is “a brutal, illegitimate dictator who deserves to face justice,” but questioned the U.S.’ end game: “If we learned anything from the Iraq war, it’s that dropping bombs or toppling a leader doesn’t guarantee democracy, stability or make Americans safer,” Kelly wrote on X.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pushed back on Trump’s assertion that the Maduro operation was about drug trafficking.

“If it was, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X, referencing Trump’s pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to decades in an American prison on drug trafficking charges. “It’s about oil and regime change.”

One potential future Democratic presidential hopeful celebrated Maduro’s capture enthusiastically. "¡Libertad! Today I celebrate with the people of Venezuela in Colorado and elsewhere. The tyrant has fallen!” wrote Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.

But in a separate post, he lamented the lack of insight into "what the plan actually is, or even who is in charge" and urged the White House to "present a clear plan for what a transition to genuine democracy and self-rule entails."

Republicans waiting in the wings to succeed Trump, however, loudly backed the president’s moves. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, two key administration figures seen as the GOP’s most likely heir apparents once Trump leaves politics, were quick to praise the president on Saturday.

“The president offered multiple off ramps, but was very clear throughout this process: the drug trafficking must stop, and the stolen oil must be returned to the United States,” Vance, whose rose to political prominence in part by embracing isolationist tendencies, wrote on X. “Maduro is the newest person to find out that President Trump means what he says.”

“This is a president of action,” Rubio, who has long been more hawkish, said at the Mar-a-Lago press conference.”This is not a president that just talks and does letters and press conferences. And, you know, if he says he's serious about something, he means it.”