Even Republicans Are Challenging Trump's Claim That His Venezuela Campaign Is About Drugs

[AZProgressive]

Even some Republican lawmakers criticized the Trump administration’s assertion that it is engaging in a military campaign in Venezuela to block fentanyl trafficking into the US.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who is resigning from Congress on Monday following a split from Trump, said on Sunday that the president should target Mexico if he wants to stop fentanyl.

“The majority of American fentanyl overdoses and deaths come from Mexico. Those are the Mexican cartels that are killing Americans,” Greene told NBC’s Meet the Press. “If this was really about narco-terrorists and about protecting Americans from cartels and drugs being brought into America, the Trump administration would be attacking the Mexican cartels.”

(snip)

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also condemned the Trump administration’s narrative on Venezuelan drugs on Sunday. “Wake up MAGA. VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for,” Massie wrote on X.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-venezuela-fentanyl/

Al Jazeera also reported that the indictment of Maduro doesn't mention the word fentanyl, not even once.

[Lovie777]

1. Because Venezuela is not the main source for dealing fentanyl...............

The current RW government is again lying. Now they want to attack Cuba, Mexico, Columbia, Greenland and probably Canada.

I guess in their dreams all of the above can self-deport.

[durablend]

3. Republicans *should* self-deport

[patphil]

2. Of course it's oil; always been about oil.

In fact, it'll probably be business as usual for the drug cartels once the smoke clears from all this.
Trump will probably get protection money from them, and that will be that. It's the same kind of BS as we saw when he pardoned Hernandez. You know there had to be money changing hands on that one. Trump is strictly transactional in his dealings.
And, there'll be a lot of money coming in from the oil companies...same kind of deal will be cut. They get the oil, Trump gets a pile of money.
This is how Trump does things; nothing is for free.