By Stacy Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
The bombs came before dawn, while the country slept, and Congress was cut out of the conversation.
Early Saturday morning, the United States launched military strikes on Venezuela, killing civilians in and around Caracas and seizing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, flying them out of the country, according to Venezuelan officials. By midday, Washington was already talking about indictments, oil, and who would rule next.
By 1 p.m., the streets in front of the White House were filled with people who called it exactly what it was.
An illegal war.
“All Out to the White House: Stop Bombing Venezuela,” organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition, was not a symbolic protest. It was an emergency response to what organizers described as piracy, murder in international waters, and an open grab for Venezuela’s oil.
“This is not about ‘drug trafficking’ or ‘democracy,’” organizers said. “This is about stealing Venezuela’s oil and dominating Latin America.”
The White House did little to contradict them.
Asked who would lead Venezuela after the U.S. seized its president, Donald Trump told Fox News, “Well, we’re going to have to look at it right now.” He also said he expects the United States to get “very strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil industry.
The administration later announced that Maduro had been charged with narco-terrorism and would face “the full wrath of American justice on American soil,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
Venezuela’s attorney general said innocent civilians were killed when U.S. strikes hit multiple facilities in Caracas and surrounding areas.
There was no vote in Congress. No declaration of war. No evidence presented of an imminent threat.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said the American people “did not ask for this act of war to bring about regime change in Venezuela, nor did Congress authorize it.” He said Trump “has put our troops in harm’s way” and “has not provided a clear, fact-based rationale for these actions, nor the long-term strategy following these strikes.”
“This act of war is a grave abuse of power by the President,” Van Hollen said. “The Trump Administration is repeating the worst mistakes of our past and endangering American lives, and their motive for doing so is a farce.”
Van Hollen pointed to Trump’s recent pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, a convicted drug trafficker, saying the Venezuela attack had nothing to do with combating narcotics. “Maduro is a dictator,” he said, “but his regime did not pose the immediate threat necessary to warrant U.S. military action on foreign soil without Congressional approval.”
“This is not about demolishing a dictatorship,” Van Hollen said. “This is about trying to grab Venezuela’s oil for Trump’s billionaire buddies.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib said believing Venezuela deserves democracy does not give the United States permission to overthrow a sovereign government.
“You don’t get to oppose imperial overreach in theory and cheer it in practice when your guy is the one pulling the trigger,” she said. “The U.S. does not get to break international law, ignore Congress, and police the world.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett called the bombing and kidnapping “grave violations of international law and the U.S. Constitution,” saying, “These are the actions of a rogue state. The American people do not want another regime change war abroad.”
Keith Olbermann said Trump “has now endangered every man, woman, and child in this nation by his insane and illegal personal war against Venezuela,” adding that the president “must be impeached and removed from office immediately.”
Actor Wendell Pierce said Trump promised no “new stupid wars,” yet launched one without congressional approval. “People can’t afford groceries and millions are losing healthcare,” Pierce said. “This is unconstitutional and not what the American people asked for.”
Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich wrote that “1:50am January 3, 2026 the American military begins an unprovoked attack on the sovereign nation of Venezuela,” calling it “a violation of international law” and “criminal,” and asking, “Make America Great Again?”
Political commentators also cut through the administration’s claims. Venezuela produces less than one percent of the world’s illegal drugs but holds the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. Project 2025 outlines U.S. interference in Venezuela’s government in multiple sections. Trump said months before the 2024 election that he wanted Venezuela to collapse so the United States could take its oil.
U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Laura Richardson recently said Washington’s focus in Latin America is not democracy but control of oil, lithium, gold, and rare earth minerals.
Gaza has gas. Sudan has gold. Ukraine has titanium. Congo has cobalt. Venezuela has oil.
Polls show more than 70 percent of Americans oppose an attack on Venezuela. Organizers said this war would bring death abroad and drain tax dollars at home while working families struggle to survive.
“Neither Americans nor Venezuelans should die to enrich the executives at ExxonMobil and Lockheed Martin,” organizers said.
At the White House gates, the chants continued to rise and stay.
Stop the bombing now. Hands off Venezuela. No blood for oil.
As Van Hollen warned, “Congress must not abdicate its constitutional authority and allow control of the world’s most powerful military to fall into just one set of hands.”
