Kentucky’s congressional delegation was split on the Trump administration’s military invasion of Venezuela and removal of its president this weekend.
While some Kentucky Republicans supported the military incursion, GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, as well as the lone Democrat, Rep. Morgan McGarvey, strongly condemned it.
Massie — whose criticism of Trump often rankled the president last year — made a series of social media posts questioning the military intervention.
“Wake up MAGA,” Massie wrote. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.”
Massie linked to his speech on the House floor on Dec. 17, when two of his resolutions narrowly failed that would have blocked the Trump administration from military action within or against Venezuela unless Congress declared war or authorized military force.
Early Saturday morning, U.S. military forces entered Caracas and struck multiple targets, capturing Nicolás Maduro and extracting him to New York to face indictments related to drug trafficking and machine guns. Trump subsequently claimed that his administration would run Venezuela and American oil companies would operate its massive oil reserves, while suggesting he could take similar military action in Cuba and Mexico, or again in Venezuela.
“We can’t take a chance, after having done this incredible thing last night, of letting somebody else take over where we have to do it again,” Trump said on Fox News. “We can do it again, too. Nobody can stop us.”
Massie later posted on social media that the Trump administration “worked with big U.S. oil companies before the attack to line up billions of dollars in capital for developing Venezuela’s oil reserves, yet they couldn’t be bothered to consult Congress.”
“What’s happening: lives of US soldiers are being risked to make those oil companies (not Americans) more profitable,” Massie wrote.
Not all Republicans in Kentucky’s congressional delegation were critical, as Rep. Andy Barr — currently running for Senate — strongly defended the military action.
“Critics of President Trump’s actions in Venezuela should be ASHAMED,” Barr posted on X. “Far from violating international law, President Trump is ENFORCING the law with this action in Venezuela.”
Barr also called Maduro “an evil socialist dictator and a narco terrorist who flooded America with drugs, illegal immigrants and criminals, and who sponsored and funded radical Islamic terrorism in the Middle East.”
GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell also posted that the president “has broad constitutional authority and long historical precedent for the limited use of military force.”
“A free, democratic, and stable Venezuela, led by Venezuelans, is in America’s national security interests — I expect the Administration to brief Congress soon on how it intends to secure this outcome,” McConnell wrote.
McGarvey, the lone Democrat in Kentucky’s delegation, blasted the military incursion in an interview, comparing it to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“You would think that this President has learned from past American mistakes,” McGarvey told Kentucky Public Radio. “America must not and cannot start another reckless, unjustified war that's fought for the interest of oil companies.”
McGarvey added there was “clear hypocrisy" in the administration’s citation of drug trafficking as a reason for the invasion and extraction of Maduro, as Trump in November pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted in 2024 of a drug trafficking conspiracy and sentenced to 45 years.
McGarvey said he hoped enough Republicans in the House majority would break off to pass a new war powers resolution blocking Trump from further military action.
“I think that hopefully we'll have some Republicans stand up and say that sending our husbands, wives, sons and daughters into combat is extremely serious and requires direct approval from Congress,” McGarvey said.
