Graham issues ‘fatal’ warning if Maduro stays in power as US buildup raises stakes

Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that the U.S. mission in Venezuela must end with Nicolás Maduro removed from power, arguing that leaving the embattled leader in place after a major U.S. show of force would be a “fatal mistake to our standing in the world.”

“If after all this, we still leave this guy in power… that’s the worst possible signal you can send to Russia, China, Iran,” Graham, R-S.C., told reporters after a classified all-senator briefing with War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump administration officials did not say whether a series of narco-strikes in the Caribbean could escalate into direct strikes against Venezuelan territory or a broader campaign to oust Maduro. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital the briefing was “absent of specificity and detail” and left “more questions than answers.”

“I want to reassert, again, you cannot allow this man to be standing after this display of force, and I did not get a very good answer as to what happens,” Graham said. “What I want is some clarity going forward. Is that in fact the goal?… If it’s not the goal, it is a huge mistake.”

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Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said he heard from briefers that there is a “very good process of determining if something’s a target or not” before striking narco-trafficking boats, but the administration did not clarify its broader strategy toward the Maduro regime. 

“Right now the focus has been on the boats,” Bacon said. “I don’t know what we’re doing yet with Venezuela writ large.”

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said the classified session also failed to address core questions. 

“I actually think that was, for me, more of an exercise in futility. I really have no answers. Really didn’t gain anything more than what the public already has gotten,” he said. He added that there was “really no conversation about why… we got 15,000 troops there,” arguing the deployment “doesn’t seem to be just about narcotics trafficking.” 

Meeks said briefers provided “no real rational decision or real answers” about whether the U.S. is preparing for “a war in Venezuela,” raising what he described as a pressing war powers issue. He said he plans to bring forward legislation this week addressing the recent strikes “in the Pacific, in the Caribbean” as well as any potential move by Trump “to go into Venezuela.”

Rubio told reporters the mission is “focused on dismantling the infrastructure of these terrorist organizations that are operating in our hemisphere, undermining the security of Americans, killing Americans, poisoning Americans.”

Hegseth told reporters the War Department would not release video footage of the Sept. 2 narco-strikes — in which Adm. Frank Bradley ordered a “double tap” strike to kill survivors — to the public. The video will instead be shown to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

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Graham dismissed the footage as “the least of my concerns” but said he urged Hegseth to release it so Americans could “make your own decisions.”

Hegseth and Rubio’s briefing came as the U.S. undertakes its largest military buildup in the region in decades: 15% of all naval assets are now positioned in the Southern Command theater. Graham cited the deployment as evidence that anything short of Maduro’s removal would undermine U.S. credibility. 

“It got, yeah, 15% of the Navy pointed to this guy,” he said.

Graham also pointed to historical precedent, arguing the U.S. has acted similarly when confronting hostile or destabilizing regimes. 

“We have legal authority, in my view, to do in Venezuela what we did regarding Panama and Haiti,” he said, recalling that in 1989 the U.S. “literally invaded Panama… took the president in power and put him in jail.”

He said he believes Trump intends a comparable outcome. 

“Every indication by President Trump is that the purpose of this operation is to shut down the (Maduro) regime and replace it with something less threatening to the United States,” Graham said.

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Pressed on whether he meant regime change or lethal force, Graham replied: “I don’t care as long as he leaves.”

The public is now waiting to see whether the Trump administration will turn to direct strikes on Venezuelan territory as a means of pressuring Maduro to leave power — a step Graham argued is necessary for the operation to succeed.