Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) participated in the Trump administration’s 23rd bipartisan briefing on Capitol Hill regarding national security operations related to Venezuela and holding Nicolas Maduro accountable for his crimes against the United States.
Following the classified briefing, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Senator Mullin addressed questions related to Operation Absolute Resolve and praised the law enforcement officials and military members who executed the mission flawlessly. Highlights below.
Senator Mullin also posted a social media video reaction to the briefing HERE.
Sen. Mullin’s full remarks can be found here.
On the success of Operation Absolute Resolve:
“This is an outstanding coordinated effort from the intelligence community to our men and women in uniform, only the United States could pull this off. And this is something that should have taken place, probably in the previous administration, but only President Trump had the backbone to pull it off, to pull out an indicted, illegitimate president that was holding Venezuela hostage.”
On the highly detailed briefing received by Senators:
“If any Democrat comes to this mic and tells you anything different, obviously I’m not going to get in the details, but they are absolutely lying about it, because there was a full, complete brief. I would say, probably one of the best briefs I’ve ever received since I’ve been in Congress.”
On bringing Maduro to justice for poisoning Americans:
“Our men and women that are in this line of work, this is what they sign up to do. This is what they train to do. This is why we have the best military and the best intelligence community in the world. They thrive to do this kind of work. What we did is we brought an illegitimate president out of Venezuela, brought him to the United States to hold him accountable for the men and women he’s killed on our streets by poisoning them. So, it was well worth it.”
On returning the United States’ national security focus to the Western Hemisphere:
“Let me tell you, we have contingency plans all around the world just in case something does happen. I’m not speaking specifically to any plan, but I’m just saying that’s what we do. We always have contingency plans to keep the American interest and our country… the President and this administration is putting a heavy emphasis on the Western Hemisphere. For 25 years, we have focused elsewhere. We are now focused on our backyard, and we should be.”
On putting a stop to Russia operating in the Western Hemisphere:
“This is our hemisphere, not Russia’s. If they’re going to operate here, we’ll know they’re operating here, and they will not call our bluff. We will stand up strong to them… It’s the Western Hemisphere, and there’s no army or navy that’s going to protect it better than we will. We’re protecting our interests. Russia is not going to operate here open and freely, period.”
On questions of regime change in Venezuela:
“If we were interested in having a full regime change, if we were interested in taking over Venezuela, we would have left our force in place. We had control of what we wanted to. We were there as law enforcement and the military was backing up law enforcement to bring a guy who was indicted almost six years ago to justice in the United States for killing people on our own streets by poison that he allowed to come out of his country.”
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