Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., wants Congress to take a more active role as a check on the Trump administration’s use of military force following the surprise weekend operation in Venezuela, and he plans to force a vote on legislation that would halt further military action in the country without lawmakers’ approval.

Kaine joined a chorus of congressional Democrats who were frustrated at President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Venezuela’s capital of Caracas, and subsequent capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife without oversight or approval from Congress.

Congressional Democrats have long been frustrated at Congress’ diminished role in decision-making since Trump took office last year, particularly over continued strikes in the Caribbean ahead of Operation Absolute Resolve on Saturday.

Kaine argued on a call with reporters that Congress has the constitutional authority to weigh in on military action and was frustrated throughout Trump’s second term that the check and balance was being bowled over.

‘It’s time for Congress to get its a– off the couch and do what the Constitution mandates that we do — the Constitution we take an oath to,’ Kaine said over the weekend. ‘We have to put this before the American people, not just in private settings, but in public hearings by the key oversight committees, Intelligence, Armed Services, Foreign Relations in both houses, and explore whether the United States should enter into yet another war with unforeseen consequences.’

Kaine again plans to bring a war powers resolution for a vote in the Senate, which is expected to come to the floor this week.

It’s not the first time he has tried to reassert Congress’ authority when it comes to the administration’s use of military action. Kaine earlier this year forced a vote on a war powers resolution following Trump’s strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That resolution failed on a largely party-line vote, save for Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who joined all Senate Democrats in support.

The Virginia Democrat’s latest effort would prevent further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is a co-sponsor on the latest war powers resolution along with Kaine and Paul, said he would ensure the measure would get ‘adequate floor time so we could debate and discuss this.’

Schumer is also pushing for hearings to investigate the strikes and capture of Maduro and noted that he spoke with top Democrats on several committees who contended their Republican colleagues ‘have expressed a lot of troublesome comments about what Trump is doing and the way he is doing it.’

‘We’re going to be pushing our Republican colleagues to stand up for the American people, to get this done,’ Schumer said. ‘Congress should not be sidelined as the Trump administration gets sucked into another nation-building quagmire, and we’re going to hold them accountable, protect American lives, to protect America’s interests.’

Another issue that many congressional Democrats have is that lawmakers weren’t notified of the strikes until after the fact. Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued over the weekend that it would have been risky to notify lawmakers in advance given the sensitive nature of the operation. Trump charged that Congress was kept in the dark because lawmakers leak. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who didn’t receive notification of the operation until afterward, said that he was ‘comfortable’ with the timing. 

‘They didn’t tell me ahead of time,’ Thune said. ‘But I think there’s a reason why, like I said, before notification of Congress in advance of really critical and hypersensitive missions, to me, seems ill-advised anyway.’

A select group of lawmakers received their first closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on Monday following the Trump administration’s weekend military strikes in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro — a meeting that quickly divided along political lines.

The roughly two-hour meeting deep in the bowels of Congress featured top administration officials providing a classified briefing to congressional leaders and the chairs and ranking members of the armed services, intelligence and foreign relations committees. 

None of the Trump officials, who included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan ‘Raizin’ Caine and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, spoke after the meeting. 

But a handful of lawmakers did, and questions still lingered about what exactly would come next for U.S. involvement in the country, if other similar operations would be carried out across the globe, and who exactly was running Venezuela.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that there was no expectation that the U.S. would be on the ground, nor would there be any ‘direct involvement in any other way beyond just coercing the interim government to to get that going.’

‘We are not at war,’ Johnson said. ‘We do not have U.S. armed forces in Venezuela, and we are not occupying that country.’

‘This is not a regime change,’ he continued. ‘This is a demand for change of behavior by a regime. The interim government is stood up now, and we are hopeful that they will be able to correct their action.’

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast, R-Fl., echoed Johnson, and reiterated that the operation was a ‘specific law enforcement function that took place that took a significant obstacle out of the way for the Venezuelan people to go chart a new future.’ 

He didn’t expect further military action from the Trump administration in the country, either. 

‘These things are done before breakfast,’ Mast said. ‘They don’t do protracted war operations.’

However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., countered that the lengthy meeting ‘posed far more questions than it ever answered.’ 

One growing point of contention among lawmakers is just how directly involved the U.S. will be, given that Trump said that the U.S. would govern the country until a proper transition of power happened. 

Schumer said that the plan presented behind closed doors or the U.S. running Venezuela ‘is vague, based on wishful thinking and unsatisfying.’

‘I did not receive any assurances that we would not try to do the same thing in other countries,’ he said. ‘And in conclusion, when the United States engages in this kind of regime change and so called nation building, it always ends up hurting the United States. I left the briefing feeling that it would again.’

Schumer, along with Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., plan to force a vote later in the week on a war powers resolution that, if passed, would require the administration to get congressional approval before taking further military action in Venezuela. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that he was satisfied with the briefing and that ‘it was a very comprehensive discussion.’

Lawmakers will get another bite at the apple later in the week when Trump officials again return to Congress to provide a full briefing to lawmakers on Operation Absolute Resolve. 

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, lauded the military for a ‘brilliant execution’ of the mission, and noted that the region was better off without Maduro.

But, like Schumer, he was still searching for the next step. 

‘The question becomes, as policymakers, what happens the day after,’ Warner said. 

Switzerland announced Monday that it has frozen assets held in the country tied to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his associates following the U.S. capture of the leader in Caracas. 

‘On 5 January 2026, the Federal Council decided to freeze any assets held in Switzerland by Nicolás Maduro and other persons associated with him with immediate effect,’ the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) said. 

The decision, which will remain in effect for four years, aims to prevent the transfer of assets amid concerns that the funds were acquired illegally through a regime long accused of widespread corruption, according to the agency. The freeze does not apply to members of the current government, and Reuters reported that the order will affect 37 people. 

Should future legal proceedings ‘reveal that the funds were illicitly acquired, Switzerland will endeavour to use them for the benefit of the Venezuelan people,’ the FDFA said.

The council added that the asset freeze builds on existing sanctions against Venezuela, first imposed in 2018 under the Embargo Act, which includes restrictions on economic resources, travel, and specific goods. 

The new measure, enacted under the Foreign Illicit Assets Act (FIAA), now targets prominent individuals who were not covered in previous Swiss sanctions and are perceived as supporting the Venezuelan regime.

According to the FDFA, the decision was not made based on Maduro’s capture nor the legitimacy of his removal but amid concerns that his home country or others could launch legal action later to recover the potentially illegally acquired assets. 

Freezing the assets now acts as a ‘precautionary measure’ meant to preserve them for potential future proceedings, according to the Swiss authorities. 

‘The reasons behind Mr Maduro’s fall from power do not play a decisive role in asset freezes under the FIAA,’ the Federal Council said in a statement. 

‘Nor does the question of whether the fall from power occurred lawfully or in violation of international law. The decisive factor is that a fall from power has occurred and that it is now possible that the country of origin will initiate legal proceedings in the future with regard to illicitly acquired assets.’

Authorities added that the government is monitoring the situation closely and is calling for the peaceful de-escalation of the ‘volatile’ situation.

‘The situation is volatile, and several scenarios are possible in the coming days and weeks,’ the FDFA said. ‘Switzerland is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela. It has called for de-escalation, restraint and compliance with international law, including the prohibition of the use of force and the principle of respect for territorial integrity. Switzerland has also repeatedly offered its good offices to all sides in order to find a peaceful solution to the situation.’

House Freedom Caucus leaders are drawing battle lines as lawmakers return to Capitol Hill for the second half of the 119th Congress.

The conservative group’s board of directors is sending a seven-page letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., outlining proposed policy goals on a vast array of topics from American elections, to immigration, to federal spending, taking on ‘rogue’ judges, and housing affordability.

It comes ahead of a policy forum that Johnson is hosting on Tuesday to lay out the House GOP’s agenda for 2026. Republicans are expected to huddle from 9:30 am to 6 pm at the Trump Kennedy Center, where they’ll hear from committee leaders and President Donald Trump.

Trump’s remarks are expected to rally Republicans around passing their legislative goals for the year, but several people told Fox News Digital they also anticipate him focusing heavily on the U.S. government’s recent operation in Venezuela.

The first policy goal listed by the Freedom Caucus is forcing the Senate to take up the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the House early last year.

They’re also calling on Congress to pass legislation limiting early voting and reforming the census to only count American citizens.

On fiscal year (FY) 2026 appropriations, conservatives are calling on the House to ‘reduce or — at bare minimum keep flat total federal discretionary spending levels’ according to the document first obtained by Fox News Digital.

The recently released $174 billion spending bill that the House is expected to vote on this week would reduce current funding levels for the agencies it covers if were to pass.

Congress has yet to release information on six of its 12 remaining spending bills, however, while lawmakers face a Jan. 30 deadline to avert a government shutdown.

The Freedom Caucus is also urging Congress to crack down on the recent fraud scandal taking over Minnesota’s social programs by eliminating ‘all programs exposed as rampant with fraud and place punitive measures on states such as Minnesota that have allowed rampant fraud.’

‘Federal prosecutors have estimated that widespread fraud in Minnesota tied to Somali day care centers, COVID-era meal programs, housing, and special needs assistance programs alone could exceed $9 billion,’ the document said. ‘These revelations are startling, but just a drop in the bucket for a federal government that’s estimated to lose between $233 and $521 billion annually to fraud, according to government watchdog agencies.’

The document called for the denaturalization and deportation of ‘anyone who has committed fraud against the American taxpayer,’ specifically naming Minnesota’s Somali community, though doing so would likely require court intervention.

Conservatives’ policy roadmap also called on Congress to ‘freeze all immigration to the U.S., except for (very) temporary tourist visas’ for a temporary amount of time in order to revamp the U.S. immigration system as a whole.

In a section called ‘Stop Rogue, Activist Judges,’ the House Freedom Caucus urged the House to move forward on impeaching U.S. federal Judge James Boasberg ‘such as Judge Deborah Boardman, for reducing the sentence of a man who plotted and took steps to kill a Supreme Court Justice due to her indefensible views about transgenderism.’

An earlier push by conservatives to impeach Boasberg failed to gain traction among the wider House GOP conference, though the chamber passed ‘The No Rogue Rulings Act’ to limit the ability of district judges like Boasberg to issue nationwide injunctions.

The policy roadmap also called to radically shift America’s global priorities by completely removing the U.S. from the United Nations and halting all funding to the international body.

‘The UN is openly hostile to the United States, yet we remain its biggest source of funding. President Trump has significantly reduced wasteful spending on dangerous UN entities like UNRWA, and now Congress should go even further by enacting legislation such as H.R. 1498, the DEFUND Act, to completely withdraw the United States from the United Nations (UN) and end all funding and participation,’ the passage read.

Another section calls for banning stock trading for members of Congress, which Johnson said he would be in favor of last year.

The push to ban stock trading has gained rare bipartisan support among both Republicans and Democrats, but no such bill has yet seen a House floor vote.

Banning Sharia Law in the U.S. is also listed as one of the group’s policy goals, an effort that’s been led by Texas-based Freedom Caucus members like Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Keith Self, R-Texas, so far this Congress.

While it was founded as a group that was frequently adversarial to Republican leaders for not being conservative enough, the House Freedom Caucus has gradually gained influence within the House GOP during the 119th Congress.

Its chairman, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., has frequently stood alongside Johnson in his push for conservative legislative goals.

Johnson notably spoke at the group’s 10th anniversary celebration late last year. Harris and Roy also made a public show of unity alongside House GOP leaders during the recent government shutdown.

Republicans are going into this year, however, grappling with a razor-thin House majority and what’s expected to be a tough November election cycle.

A deepening political realignment across Latin America came into focus over the weekend at a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC, and sharpened further Monday at the United Nations Security Council, where governments publicly split over the U.S. role in the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

At CELAC, several leftist governments attempted to push through a joint statement condemning Maduro’s detention. The effort failed after a bloc of countries consisting of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago blocked consensus, preventing the regional body from issuing a unified defense of the Venezuelan leader, Merco Press agency reported.

The breakdown exposed growing fractures within what has long been a left-leaning regional forum and underscored the erosion of automatic solidarity with Caracas.

Melissa Ford Maldonado, director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, said the fractures reflect a broader regional reckoning with the consequences of socialist and narco-authoritarian rule.

‘We are witnessing a regional awakening across Latin America,’ Maldonado told Fox News Digital. ‘The failure of socialism, communism and narco-authoritarian rule has become impossible to ignore.’

The shift is increasingly visible at the ballot box, where voters in several countries — last month alone in Chile and Honduras — have moved away from entrenched left-wing governments and toward right-of-center leaders campaigning on themes of security, sovereignty, border control and law and order — messages that echo aspects of President Donald Trump’s political approach in the United States.

‘The developments at CELAC this weekend reflect that reality,’ Maldonado said. ‘The fact that several governments blocked a collective defense of Nicolás Maduro shows how divided the authoritarian left has become. Venezuela has become a cautionary tale.’

That division carried over into the Security Council on Monday, where Latin American and Caribbean states took sharply different positions, with some openly backing Washington and others denouncing the U.S. action as a violation of international law.

Argentina emerged as the most forceful regional supporter of the United States, praising President Donald Trump and framing Maduro’s capture as a decisive blow against organized crime.

‘The Government of the Argentine Republic values the decision and determination demonstrated by the President of the United States of America and his government, and the recent actions taken in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro, leader of the Cartel of the Suns,’ Argentina’s representative Francisco Fabián Tropepi told the council, adding the Maduro regime ‘has not only constituted a direct threat to the citizens systematic violation of human rights in the state appropriation of the country’s resources and destruction of democratic institutions, but also to the entire region by leading and exploiting its networks of drug trafficking and organized crime.’

Paraguay echoed that framing, claiming Maduro’s continued presence ‘was a threat to the region,’ adding that ‘the removal of the leader of a terrorist organization should immediately lead to the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela, making it possible for the will of the people, expressed at the ballot box, to become the foundation for the country’s reconstruction,’ its representative Marcelo Eliseo Scappini Ricciardi said.

Other CELAC members took the opposite view, condemning the U.S. action and warning that it set a dangerous precedent.

Brazil ‘categorically and firmly’ rejected what it called armed intervention on Venezuelan territory, describing the capture of Maduro as ‘a very serious affront to the sovereignty of Venezuela and an extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.’ 

Mexico denounced the operation as a violation of the U.N. Charter, arguing that external efforts to impose political change historically worsen conflicts and destabilize societies. Chile also condemned what it called unilateral military action and warned against foreign interference, while Cuba and Nicaragua delivered blistering denunciations of Washington, accusing the United States of imperial aggression and calling for Maduro’s immediate release.

The split at the U.N. mirrored the breakdown at CELAC, where governments increasingly appear unwilling to speak with one voice on Venezuela, even as they stop short of endorsing U.S. military force.

According to Maldonado, ‘Governments are increasingly forced to choose between defending failed autocracies, corruption and repression or responding to their own citizens,’ she said. ‘More governments are unwilling to carry that burden.’

Maldonado described Maduro’s capture as a break with decades of U.S. restraint in the region, ‘It shows that the United States is deadly serious about defending itself and the hemisphere, about stopping the flow of drugs, dismantling cartel-state alliances and about fighting back against the influence of China, Russia and Iran in our neighborhood.’

She argued that the regional reaction, split though it is, reflects a broader ideological shift.

‘There is a clear rightward shift underway in the region, and it is a healthy one,’ Maldonado said. ‘It reflects a growing alignment around the core principles of freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, national sovereignty and prosperity.’

While critics at the U.N. warned that U.S. action risks undermining international law, supporters argue the status quo had already collapsed under the weight of Venezuela’s humanitarian and security crisis.

‘Venezuela’s collapse has taught the region what happens when the state becomes your everything,’ Maldonado said. ‘When the state controls your job, your housing, your healthcare, your education, your courts and your information, freedom becomes conditional.’