Bernie Sanders / US Military Intervention in Venezuela 2026 / 2026-01-03
Position
“The President of the United States does NOT have the right to unilaterally take this country to war, even against a corrupt and brutal dictator like Maduro. The United States does NOT have the right, as Trump stated this morning, to 'run' Venezuela. Congress must immediately pass a War Powers resolution to end this operation.”
Contributing sources
Position from 2026-01-03
The Constitution vests war-making authority exclusively in Congress; military operations without prior Congressional authorization are unconstitutional
Their wording: “The President does NOT have the right to unilaterally take this country to war”
Sanders frames this as the central constitutional issue - regardless of whether the target deserves it, the process matters more than the outcome
Also held by (6)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Consistent with her broader framework, AOC demands that any military action receive democratic authorization through Congress, viewing unilateral executive war-making as a constitutional crisis regardless of the targetJoe Biden — Biden invoked Congressional war authority as a constraint on unilateral military action against Iran, though his own administration conducted strikes in Syria and Iraq under existing authorizations. The premise functions as both a constitutional principle and a practical brake on escalation.Tucker Carlson — Carlson sees the bypassing of Congress not as a one-time overreach but as a structural transformation of the American system from republic to empireTulsi Gabbard — Gabbard has consistently cited congressional war authority, though this premise sits in tension with her current role as Director of National Intelligence in the administration that ordered the strikesGavin Newsom — Consistent with his Iran position, Newsom treats congressional war authority as a foundational governance principle, framing the intervention as a systemic institutional failure rather than a policy disagreementRobert F. Kennedy Jr. — RFK invokes constitutional originalism as a check on executive war-making power - the founders deliberately placed the war power in Congress to prevent exactly the kind of unilateral military action being pursued against Iran
National sovereignty is inviolable under international law; no state has the right to militarily intervene in another state or abduct its leader, regardless of that government's character
Their wording: “The United States does NOT have the right to 'run' Venezuela”
Sanders rejects US imperial prerogative over other nations while explicitly not defending Maduro's regime
Also held by (11)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — AOC applies anti-imperialist principles consistently, arguing that even an authoritarian government cannot be replaced by external military force without violating the people's fundamental right to self-governanceJoe Biden — Biden applies the sovereignty principle to constrain US military intervention in Venezuela, creating consistency with his Ukraine and Greenland positions. He treats sovereignty violations as corrosive to the international order regardless of the target government's character.Tucker Carlson — Carlson holds this not from an internationalist perspective but from a consistency argument - if the US violates sovereignty, it can no longer credibly condemn Russia or China for doing the sameTulsi Gabbard — Gabbard holds this as a fundamental principle derived from her military service - she has seen firsthand that violating sovereignty produces worse outcomes than the regimes being replacedJackson Hinkle — Hinkle frames the Maduro capture as a violation of sovereignty within a pattern of US imperial interventionsJohn Mearsheimer — Mearsheimer frames the abduction of a sitting head of state as a fundamental violation of the international order that sets dangerous precedentsGavin Newsom — Newsom holds this as an institutional Democrat who frames foreign policy through legal and governance norms, arguing that US credibility depends on consistent application of the rules it championsCandace Owens — Framing the operation as a hostile takeover directly implies sovereignty violationScott Ritter — Ritter frames the operation as establishing a new doctrine of unilateral US regime change in the AmericasJon Stewart — Stewart mocks the casualness with which the operation was received, implying Americans have become desensitized to sovereignty violationsCenk Uygur — Uygur characterizes the Maduro capture as a kidnapping rather than a military operation or law enforcement action