Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., praised the military operation that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and said she supports President Donald Trump’s decision to intervene.
Capito attended a closed-door briefing Tuesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and other federal officials familiar with the details of the operation.
“This was a very precise mission — this was a law enforcement mission to bring a narco-terrorist to justice and saying that there are no safe harbors for those who profit,” Capito said. “I’m supportive of what the president has done, and I look forward to making sure that Venezuela becomes the democracy that it has been in the past and can be in the future.
Rubio has outlined a three-point plan for Venezuela, Capito said.
“With the third point being a transition to a democratically elected, stable government,” she said. “But initially, the first thing is to stabilize where they are right now, and I think that’s the phase we’re in right now.”
Rubio described the plan as consisting of stabilization, recovery and transition.
“We don’t want it descending into chaos,” Rubio said Wednesday.
Trump has repeatedly suggested the United States should have a role in governing Venezuela going forward. In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times published Thursday, the president said “only time will tell” how long the U.S. remains involved.
She expects the U.S. to have a “much softer touch here than was initially reported,” Capito said.
“I think there’s a lot of strong, democracy-filled countries in and around the area that want to see a stable Venezuela,” she said. “I think that the Venezuelans are going to be able to stand up, but we first have to get everything calmed down and make sure that the country doesn’t fall back into the hands of another narco terrorist or a regime that is close to Iran and others.”
Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., has also expressed support for the operation in Venezuela.
“Maduro has not only illegitimately ruled over Venezuela and its people, but has enabled cartels to harm Americans through state-sponsored drug trafficking into our country — including West Virginia,” Justice said in a social media post. “I applaud the brave men and women of our armed forces who carried out this decisive action, and applaud @POTUS for his fearless leadership — America will not back down.”