Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Dem Senator Chris Murphy Dodges When Asked Whether Toppling Maduro Helps Anyone

Dem Senator Dodges When Asked Whether Toppling Maduro Helps Anyone (Screenshot/CNN)

Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy on Tuesday avoided answering directly after CNN host Kasie Hunt asked whether removing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro benefits anyone.

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social early Saturday that U.S. forces captured Maduro and removed him from Venezuela during a large-scale military strike. During an interview on “The Arena,” Hunt asked Murphy if the world was better off without Maduro in charge of Venezuela. Murphy deflected and pointed to what he said was rising instability in the country’s streets.

“You know, people asked that question after Gaddafi was taken out,” Murphy told Hunt. “Isn’t the world a better place because Muammar Gaddafi is no longer in charge of Libya? And then the country collapsed into a catastrophic civil war that they have not come out of today.”

Murphy said that removing Maduro could backfire, saying the country risks trading one authoritarian ruler for another.

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“And the same thing could be happening inside Venezuela. What did Venezuela get out of this? They got for the short term a substitution of one brutal dictator for another. Delcy Rodríguez is not a Democrat. She is not going to be opening up the country to elections,” Murphy added. “And that might be the best-case scenario that just one dictator replaces another. That country might lurch into civil war, into instability, which would end up in literally, potentially, hundreds of thousands of new migrants being pushed out of Venezuela and off to the U.S. border.”

Murphy said few mourn the arrest of Maduro.

“So, yeah, nobody is shedding a tear that Maduro is in jail. He was a criminal. But for the people of Venezuela and for the world, the situation in the future might end up being worse, not better,” Murphy said.

As some California Democratic lawmakers condemned the capture of Maduro, Venezuelans across Southern California celebrated his removal. Several Democratic officials in California took to X to criticize the operation, with Democratic California Sen. Adam Schiff repeatedly attacking the mission and initially branding it a “brazen illegal escalation.”

“Nicolás Maduro was a thug and an illegitimate leader of Venezuela, terrorizing and oppressing its people for far too long and forcing many to leave the country,” Schiff wrote. “But starting a war to remove Maduro doesn’t just continue Donald Trump’s trampling of the Constitution, it further erodes America’s standing on the world stage and risks our adversaries mirroring this brazen illegal escalation.”

Despite those public denunciations, a group of centrist House Democrats has privately voiced frustration with how their party has reacted to the operation. Several swing-district lawmakers told Axios that Democrats risk a political miscalculation by refusing to acknowledge the removal of a brutal dictator, saying the party’s messaging clashes with how voters view Maduro’s capture.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/CNN)