Secretary of State Marco Rubio will likely face questions from lawmakers about the U.S. military's capture of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
Rubio will likely face questions from lawmakers, many of whom are his former colleagues in the upper chamber, about thebetween the U.S. and Caracas, where acting Venezuelan president Delcy Rodriguez said she has had “enough” of “Washington’s orders over politicians in Venezuela.
” Trump has previously said the United States couldThe hearing lasted almost three hours, with Rubio discussing U.S. foreign policy in places such as Venezuela, Greenland, Ukraine, Iran, and Cuba. Rubio is scheduled to travel back to the State Department for a meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. The secretary of state discussed Machado in his Senate hearing, telling lawmakers that he has worked with her for over a decade. “What we’re trying to trigger here is a process of stabilization, recovery, and transition to something where Maria Corina and others can be a part of,” Rubio said.Booker bashed the decision as one of “hypocrisy” as the U.S. has issued human rights cautions about drug cartels and the possibility of threats to Americans in Venezuela. “We have an administration that has said very clearly that they’re not only going to be lifting temporary protective status for Venezuelans living in the US, but instead of protecting longtime American residents, the administration is putting people back on deportation flights and sending them into that madness,” Booker said. “The problem with temporary protective status was it was granted to so many people in such a vast numbers, so quickly, without proper vetting by the previous administration,” Rubio said. “There’s a real concern that there were gang members that had received TPS simply because of the nation they came from and the time in which they came.” Rubio said the TPS program under the Biden administration was so inflated that the Trump administration “felt it had to cancel the program in order to appropriately vet it through.” But Booker again pushed back on Rubio’s assertion, saying he “doesn’t trust” the Trump administration and its use of the word “terrorist.” “We’re taking people who have lived in our country for years and years and years, and sending them back into that hell, where they can be targeted, where they can be abducted, where they can be held for hostage because they know they have American family members that are still here,” he said.At his Wednesday hearing, Sen. Brian Schatz asked Rubio if the Trump administration would rule out regime change in Cuba, to which Rubio reacted with consternation. “Regime change? Oh no, I think we would love to see the regime there change,” Rubio answered. “That doesn’t mean we are gonna make a change, but we would love to see a change. There’s no doubt about the fact that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime.”chimed in on X to praise Rubio, his Cabinet colleague and friend, for the way the Secretary conducted himself during his back-and-forth exchange with Sen. “Watching Tammy Duckworth obsessively interrupt Marco Rubio during this hearing is like watching Forest Gump argue with Isaac Newton,” Vance“Thank God we have a Secretary of State who knows his facts AND has the patience of Job. Great job, @SecRubio,” Vance continued.invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. Rubio affirmed, in this conversation, that the United States is “not in a state of war with Venezuela.”Duckworth asked the secretary during her time whether he would advise the president to revoke his invocation of the act because he and other administration officials have said the United States is not currently at war with “That was a mechanism to remove people from our country that present a great danger,” Rubio said, explaining that while the U.S. isn’t at war with the country of Venezuela, the Tren de Aragua gang is “waging war on the United States” from the country., it has been used three times in U.S. history: during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.“The fact of the matter is that we are confronting these irregular groups, and that’s one of the great challenges of the new century in this hemisphere in particular,” Rubio told the committee. “These non-state actors who possess state-like capabilities in terms of their weaponry pose a grave danger to the United States.”, as the two clashed, with Duckworth interrupting as she pressed the secretary on the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.“It is very frustrating to me that we still have a repressive regime in power in Venezuela, suppressing human rights, yet we are cooperating with them. We are funding them, and we’re not calling out the ridiculousness of the violence that’s going on there,” Sen. “I know that you’re telling us today just to be patient, but a month later, we have no information on a timetable for a democratic transition. Maduro’s people are still in charge,” Sen. told Rubio. “Most of the political prisoners are in jail, and by the way, those that have been let out have a gag order on them from the government. The opposition leader is still in exile. This looks already like it is a failure.” “I’m concerned that we haven’t really changed the regime enough, and that America’s dollars are still going to drug runners and to significant organizations who we don’t want to have benefit from the funding that we’re selling now of oil and providing to Venezuela,” Sen. Rubio acknowledged that Rodriguez is not ideal for the administration either, but that the men “with guns” and in control of the levers of power would not accept a direct democratic transition at the moment. He used Spain and Paraguay as examples of transitions from autocratic to democratic regimes.Rand Paul says Venezuela raid would ‘of course’ be an act of war if ‘you reverse the circumstances’A collage of Sen. Rand Paul , left, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, during Rubio's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the raid to capture former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, at the Capitol in Washington. “I would ask you, if a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president, and blockaded our country. Would that be considered an act of war?” Paul asked Rubio. Paul noted that many Trump administration allies have argued that the actions against Venezuela have been “kinetic actions or drug busts.” Paul argued that if the circumstances were reversed, “it becomes very difficult for these arguments to hold up.” “We just don’t believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of a war act,” Rubio responded. The secretary of state made the points that the operation lasted only four and a half hours and that it was “a law enforcement operation to capture someone we don’t recognize as a head of state,” who had a U.S. bounty on his capture.“But would it be an act of war if someone did it to us? Nobody dies, a few casualties. They’re in and out. Boom. It’s a perfect military operation. Would that be an act of war? Of course, it would be an act of war! I’m probably the most anti-war person in the Senate, and I would vote to declare war if someone invaded our country and took our president,” Paul said.“Ultimately, we’re always going to act in our national interests,” Rubio said. “We’re always going to do what’s best for the United States and America. We’re always going to protect our system.”Rubio denied to lawmakers that the United States is imposing a “blockade” around Venezuela regarding its foreign oil sales, which he said would amount to “an act of war.” “Just to be clear, it’s a quarantine, not a blockade,” he said. “A blockade is an act of war. It’s a quarantine, and it’s been very effective.” The distinction from the secretary is notable, given the administration’s strategy of exerting control over Venezuelan oil sales. Prior to the U.S. military presence in the region, the Venezuelans participated in the shadow fleet used by Iran and Russia to evade Western sanctions and international maritime law. The U.S. has seized about half a dozen oil tankers around Venezuela since early December that were reportedly operating as part of the shadow fleet.within a specific area, while a blockade is foremost a military effort, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies., Rubio said, “For the first time in over a decade and a half, there is the real possibility of transformation, and a lot of it will depend on them, because there are many people living in Florida and across the country who would like to go back and be a part of Venezuelan economic life.” “Many of them are eager to do so and work. They’re going to need them. Venezuela is going to need them to come back and rebuild the businesses that were taken or lost and engage themselves in both civilian and economic life,” he added.“We started this operation on Sept. 2 with the attack on Venezuelans and boats in open waters. Now we are nearly five months in, next week is five months. Finally, a public hearing! Wow, how novel. Finally, a public hearing in the Senate or House,” Kaine said., though this is the first public hearing. Kaine said he has not been able to explain intricate details of the U.S.’s policy in Venezuela with members of the public because the Trump administration “has only shared it with members in a classified setting.” “I have Virginians deployed in this operation. I can’t answer their families’ questions. Thank God we’re having a public hearing five months in,” Kaine said.Collage of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen , Sen. Chris Coons , Sen. Chris Murphy , and Sen. Tim Kaine . More than an hour into Rubio’s hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the secretary appears to be responding to questions from, who criticized Rubio for only making himself available to the committee “five months” into the United States’s aggressive tactics concerning so-called “narco-terrorists” off the coast of Venezuela before the administration’s capture of former dictator “I’d like to talk about the complete weakness of the legal rationale about the strikes on boats in international waters, but I can’t because the administration has only shared it with members in a classified setting,” Kaine said. Similarly, Rubio defended the administration’s decision not to seek congressional approval before Maduro’s capture, part of Operation Absolute Resolve, reiterating that it was a “trigger” based mission. said. “It is critical that you consult with Congress for us to be safe. Our allies have to trust us. And for this committee to do our work, we have to trust you. Let’s work together.”Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, at the Capitol in Washington. “I can’t give you a timeline of how long it takes. It can’t take forever,” Rubio said, referencing that the U.S.’s ouster of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro occurred less than four weeks ago. After his arrest, Delcy Rodriguez, his vice president, became the interim president. Critics have pressed the administration about when democratic elections would be scheduled. “This is not unprecedented. I can point to a number of places — Spain, Paraguay — two examples of places in which there was a transition from an autocratic regime to a democratic regime, and it took time,” Rubio said.” for transition and stability in Venezuela. That process, Rubio outlined, started with “stabilization” under Rodriguez. The transition would then move into the “recovery” phase, followed by a leadership change.Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, at the Capitol in Washington. treats political prisoners whom they have released since U.S. forces captured and arrested former dictator Nicolas Maduro, Rubio said Wednesday.has put pressure on Venezuela’s government, which is now being led by Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, to release political prisoners, and while they have freed some, not every political prisoner has been released yet. “Do they still have political prisoners? They do, but many are increasingly being released every single day, and some are actually being released and beginning to speak out again,” Rubio told lawmakers. “And we’re going to watch very closely how they’re treated and how that happens, because that’ll be part of how we judge them and their actions.” Rodriguez said last week that more than 600 prisoners had been freed, though a leading Venezuelan human rights group said that number is inflated. Alfredo Romero, who is the leader of the Foro Penal human rights group, said on Monday that the group hadbefore the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, stating that “we’re in a good place right now” regarding the Arctic Danish territory.. In fact, even as I speak to you now, there’ll be some technical level meetings between us and our partners in Greenland and Denmark on this issue, and I think we have in place a process that’s going to bring us to a good outcome for everybody,” Rubio said.
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