Both frontrunners in the Texas democratic primary for U.S. Senate denounced the Trump administration’s military action in Venezuela over the weekend.
In a strike orchestrated early Saturday by the Trump administration, U.S. helicopters dropped aerial bombs on Venezuelan targets and troops infiltrated President Nicolas Maduro’s compound to capture him and his wife for rendition to the United States.
Since then, both State Rep. James Talarico and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett have spoken out, arguing the action’s purpose is about seizing the world’s largest oil reserves.
“We are putting our service members in harm’s way because of oil,” Crockett, the self-proclaimed “clear frontrunner,” said in an interview video posted to her Instagram Saturday. “At the end of the day, like, Trump isn’t trying to help. Trump is going after the resources in that country. I mean, we’ve seen this play out more than once.”
By saying we’ve been here before, the Dallas-area congresswoman might be obliquely referring to similar military actions in countries — many of them oil or mineral rich or with some other strategic advantage to the United States — including Iraq, Iran, Libya, Panama, Nigeria and others.
For his part, Talarico, who represents the Austin area, suggested the action was quid pro quo from Trump as a return on the investment of campaign dollars from top oil companies, citing a report by the New York Times.
“Last year, Trump promised American oil executives ‘a great deal’ if they donated $1 billion to his campaign,” Talarico tweeted Saturday. “Today, he gave them Venezuela — home to the largest oil reserves in the world.”
The industry responded by raising at least $75 million for Trump PACs ahead of the 2024 election, according to another New York Times report. Since then, oil execs have kept the donations flowing. Tycoons including Harold Hamm contributed to the construction of Donald Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom.
Speaking at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, Trump said America was going to “run” Venezuela going forward, and made no bones about the intended purpose of profiting off of the country’s oil reserves.
“We’re going to run the country right,” he said. “It’s going to be run very judiciously, very fairly. And it’s gonna make a lot of money.”
He added “We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”
Both Crockett and Talarico are running to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who’s currently locked in a heated primary battle with scandal-ridden Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
For his part, Cornyn offered “kudos” to Trump for the military action in a lengthy tweet echoing allegations in the indictment that Maduro was the head of narco outfit Cartel de los Soles. Paxton was considerably less verbose on the matter, simply tweeting “strong work” in response to JD Vance’s statement on the action.
The weekend’s intervention cost the lives of at least 80 civilians and military personnel, including 32 Cubans, according to Venezuelan and Cuban officials.
Maduro was arrested on an indictment on major drug trafficking and weapons charges and flown to New York, where he and his wife have been held in Brooklyn’s Municipal Detention Center.
The charges include “Narco-terrorism conspiracy,” “Cocaine importation conspiracy,” “Possession of machine guns and destructive devices,” and “Conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices” according to Attorney General Pam Bondi. The Venezuelan leader was arraigned in a federal court on Monday, where he pleaded not guilty to all four charges.
In court, defense attorney Barry J. Pollack said said there are “serious questions about the legality” of his client’s military abduction.
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