Rubio testifes about Venezuela at Senate hearing today

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the committee, is expected to ask Rubio if the Maduro raid was worth it, given the cost of staging U.S. forces in the region and the fact that the remainder of Venezuela’s leadership is still intact. 

“Maduro’s vice president — now the interim president— has taken no steps to diminish Iran, China or Russia’s considerable influence in Venezuela. Her cooperation appears tactical and temporary, not a real shift in Venezuela’s alignment. In the process we’ve traded one dictator for another,” Shaheen will say, according to her prepared remarks. 

Shaheen will accuse the Trump administration of “losing sight of what actually advances America’s interests and delivers results for the American people,” while China expands its influence. 

Shaheen will blame Mr. Trump’s tariffs for driving away allies and pushing them into China’s arms.  

“It is unilateral disarmament,” she is expected to say. 

Shaheen, who recently visited Denmark as part of a congressional delegation to reassure allies in the wake of Mr. Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, is also expected to bring up the diplomatic flap. She will say that Mr. Trump’s threats “have shaken public confidence in the United States to the core.” 

“At a moment when Russia is waging the largest land war in Europe since World War II, we should be strengthening allied unity and instead, we are undermining it,” she is expected to say. “From Venezuela to Europe, the United States is spending more, risking more and achieving less. And everyday Americans are paying the price, both at the grocery store and in a more chaotic and less safe world. That does not project strength. It hands our adversaries exactly what they want.”