Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday warned that President Donald Trump’s focus on Venezuela may lead to a “fracture” among those who were drawn in by his campaign promise of avoiding foreign wars.
In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” the Kentucky Republican told host Margaret Brennan that an invasion of Venezuela or even a renewal of subsidies to Ukraine could see “a splintering and fracturing of the movement that has supported the president.”
“I think a lot of people, including myself, were attracted to the president because of his reticence to get us involved in foreign war,” Paul said.
Over the last few months, Trump has launched a campaign to eliminate alleged drug trafficking in international waters near Central and South America, mostly through controversial boat strikes – although he has also floated the idea of taking the strikes to land.
On Monday, the Trump administration will officially designate Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization – a decision Paul on Sunday criticized.
“I think by doing this, they are pretending as if we are at war,” said Paul, chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
“They’re pretending as if they’ve gotten some imprimatur to do what they want,” he warned. “When you have war, the rules of engagement are lessened.”
The administration’s boat strikes have sparked a global debate about the legality of such actions and what constitutes a violation of human rights. Last month, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the killings as a breach of international law.
Democrats in Congress have also expressed outrage over the strikes and the lack of briefings on the administration’s actions – something Paul said he too has not received despite his position on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
“They want to have it both ways. They want to say, ‘Oh, we can just say these people are terrorists, are narco-terrorists, so we can blow them up.’ … [but then] they don’t prosecute [survivors] for drugs,” said Paul.
“I’ve been given zero, not one briefing because I am skeptical of what they are doing,” Paul said. “They don’t brief me or the general Senate at all. A few hand-selected people may have gotten a briefing but I have not been invited to any briefings on Venezuela.”
Paul conceded that the flow of drugs into the country remains an issue but insisted that the government should focus on eliminating the demand for drugs here at home.
“We should be trying to work on the demand side, treating it as a health problem, as an addiction problem in our country and trying to lessen demand. And that is part of the overall solution,” he said.
