The Trump administration’s top foreign policy players took to CapitolHill on Monday to brief committee leaders about Saturday’s capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro.
After the closed-door session, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast told reporters that Maduro’s former Vice President and the country’s current leader, Delcy Rodrguez, is in communication with the U.S., but that Secretary of StateMarcoRubio would like to see free and fair elections there at an unspecified date.
Mast also added that Rodriguez will work to ‘maintain stability’ in the nation and ensure a power vacuum is not created, while also keeping open lines of communication with the US as well as regional partners in Central America.
House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson also noted after the briefing that’this is not a regime change.’
Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, as well asAttorney General Pam Bondi, held a briefing for top leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, as well as House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations.
The Gang of Eight, made up of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson,House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,Senate Majority Leader John Thune, andSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, werealso included in the briefing.
Not included in Monday’s classified briefing were Senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin, chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, who demanded to know why they were not invited, as the administration is framing Maduro’s capture as a law enforcement operation.
“There is no legitimate basis for excluding the Senate Judiciary Committee from this briefing,’ the duo noted in a joint statement.
‘The administration’s refusal to acknowledge our Committee’s indisputable jurisdiction in this matter is unacceptable and we are following up to ensure the Committee receives warranted information regarding Maduro’s arrest,’ they added.
Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives at the U.S. Capitol Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in Washington, to brief top lawmakers after President Donald Trump directed U.S. forces to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives at the U.S. Capitol Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, for a closed-door briefing with top lawmakers after President Donald Trump ordered U.S. forces to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and bring him to New York to face federal drug trafficking charges
Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, were taken by Delta Force special operators from their home in the presidential palace in Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning, a maneuver that the dictator described as a kidnapping in his first court appearance in New York on Monday.
Republicans have heralded the operation, while some Democrats have been shocked that they were not brought up to speed on the intervention before it happened.
Senate Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Monday that, ‘Maduro is a tyrant,’ and that ‘nobody mourns what has happened to him.’
‘Now the crucial question is what comes back for Venezuela and, more importantly, for the United States,’ Schumer continued, before adding that ‘nobody seems to know.’
House Speaker Mike Johnson unsurprisingly backed the Trump administration’s work in Venezuela wholeheartedly, noting during his own press conference ahead of the briefing that ‘officials did exactly what they were supposed to do on the timetable they were supposed to do it in.’
Johnson added that Trump’s action was fully within presidential authority, and that it ‘did not require prior authorization by Congress. It just required notification.’
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks to the media as he arrives for a bicameral congressional leadership briefing with administration officials at the U.S. Capitol on January 05, 2026 in Washington, DC
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth arrives for a briefing with bicameral congressional leadership at the U.S. Capitol on January 05, 2026 in Washington, DC. The briefing addressed U.S. actions in Venezuela, including the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores
Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives at the U.S. Capitol Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in Washington, to brief top lawmakers after President Donald Trump directed U.S. forces to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
Trump himself pushed back on his congressional critics, telling NBC News that he has ‘good support congressionally.’
‘And Congress knew what we were doing all along, but we have good support congressionally. Why wouldn’t they support us?’
Trump declined to comment on whether or not anyone in Congress was told about the operation before it happened.
‘I don’t want to get into that,’ he replied, ‘but people knew.’
Senator Rand Paul, a Republican who often criticizes Trump said Monday that he didn’t understand how ‘bombing the capital of a country and removing the president’ was not an act of war, when his GOP colleagues criticized former President Barack Obama’s actions in Libya.
Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, meanwhile, noted that ‘it’s pretty strange why you can’t at least acknowledge it’s possible for Venezuela to have a better future when you don’t have a monster like that.’