Harris Calls Maduro Capture Unlawful While Venezuelan Exiles Celebrate Freedom

## When Losing Means Never Having to Say You’re Coherent

Kamala Harris wants you to believe that capturing one of the Western Hemisphere’s most brutal dictators was somehow the wrong move. Let that sink in for a moment.

The former vice president, still licking her wounds from a historic electoral defeat, decided Saturday evening was the perfect time to lecture the Trump administration about the capture of Nicolás Maduro. She called it “unlawful and unwise.” You know what’s actually unwise? Defending a socialist tyrant who’s starved his own people while his nation sits atop some of the world’s largest oil reserves.

Harris acknowledged that Maduro is “brutal” and “illegitimate.” Good start. But then she pivoted to her real concern: this operation doesn’t make America “safer, stronger, or more affordable.” It’s a curious trio of talking points. Since when did removing dictators need to pass a cost-benefit analysis drafted by political consultants?

The Venezuelan people are celebrating in the streets. Exiles who fled Maduro’s regime are weeping with joy. But Harris sees chaos.

## The Oil Argument Falls Flat

Here’s where her statement gets particularly rich. Harris claims this is all about oil and Trump playing “regional strongman.” She’s dusted off the old Iraq playbook, hoping Americans will reflexively recoil at any mention of foreign intervention.

But there’s a problem with that narrative. It ignores reality.

The Trump administration didn’t invade Venezuela to set up permanent bases or occupy territory. They executed a targeted operation to remove a dictator who’s been flooding our southern border with migrants, partnering with drug cartels, and cozying up to our adversaries in Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing. Those aren’t minor inconveniences. They’re genuine national security threats.

And yes, Venezuela has oil. Lots of it. So what? Are we supposed to pretend that energy security doesn’t matter? That allowing a hostile regime to control massive petroleum reserves while Americans pay inflated prices at the pump is somehow the moral high ground?

Harris spent years as part of an administration that begged dictators in Iran and Venezuela for oil while strangling American energy production. Now she’s clutching her pearls because Trump actually did something decisive.

## The Democracy Doublespeak

The most galling part of Harris’s statement is her sudden concern for Venezuela’s “legitimate opposition.” Where was this concern for the past four years? The Biden-Harris administration watched as Maduro imprisoned dissidents, rigged elections, and crushed any semblance of democratic opposition.

Trump’s operation just handed Venezuela’s actual democratic leaders their best chance in decades. But Harris would rather see continued negotiations with “Maduro’s cronies” than decisive action. She’s projecting her own administration’s failures onto Trump’s success.

She also threw in a jab about Trump pardoning a “convicted drug trafficker.” It’s whataboutism at its laziest. Presidential pardons and military operations exist in completely different spheres, but Harris needs to muddy the waters because her actual argument is tissue-thin.

## What Americans Actually Want

Harris claims “the American people do not want this.” Really? Based on what polling? Her impeccable political instincts that led to a landslide loss?

Americans are tired of watching dictators operate with impunity. They’re exhausted by the flood of illegal immigration driven partly by failed states like Maduro’s Venezuela. They want leadership that acts instead of endlessly deliberating.

The capture of Maduro sends a clear message to other thugs propped up by our enemies: there are consequences. That’s not warmongering. That’s deterrence. That’s how you prevent larger conflicts down the road.

Harris warns we’ve “seen this movie before” and references regime change wars. But conflating every foreign action with Iraq is intellectually dishonest. Sometimes removing a dictator is exactly the right call, especially when that dictator poses direct threats to American interests and has zero legitimate claim to power.

The truth is simple. Trump acted. Maduro’s gone. Venezuelans are celebrating. And Kamala Harris is on the wrong side of history, again.