While crowds of Venezuelan exiles celebrated in the streets of America the U.S. military’s capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) offered a grim forecast on Tuesday, warning that the operation could plunge the region into a “catastrophic civil war” reminiscent of Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
During an exchange on CNN’s The Arena, host Kasie Hunt pressed Murphy on a fundamental question: Is the world better off without Maduro in power?
Murphy sidestepped a direct “yes,” instead pivoting to the potential vacuum left behind. He drew a sharp parallel to the 2011 ousting of Gaddafi, an event initially hailed as a victory for democracy that ultimately left Libya fractured and violent.
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“You know, people asked that question after Gaddafi was taken out,” Murphy told Hunt. “Isn’t the world a better place because Muammar Gaddafi is no longer in charge of Libya? And then the country collapsed into a catastrophic civil war that they have not come out of today.”
The Senator’s comments come days after President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that U.S. forces had successfully extracted Maduro from Venezuela in a large-scale military strike. While the administration frames the capture as a decisive blow against tyranny, Murphy argued that removing a figurehead doesn’t guarantee freedom—and might just swap one autocrat for another.
Murphy pointed specifically to Delcy Rodríguez, a key regime figure, as the likely successor.
“Delcy Rodríguez is not a Democrat. She is not going to be opening up the country to elections,” Murphy argued. “That might be the best-case scenario that just one dictator replaces another.”
The worst-case scenario, according to the Connecticut Democrat, is total destabilization. He warned that if Venezuela lurches into civil conflict, the result would be “literally, potentially, hundreds of thousands of new migrants” flooding toward the U.S. southern border.
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“Nobody is shedding a tear that Maduro is in jail. He was a criminal,” Murphy clarified. “But for the people of Venezuela and for the world, the situation in the future might end up being worse, not better.”
Murphy’s skepticism highlights a widening fracture within the Democratic Party regarding the operation.
On one side, prominent figures like California Senator Adam Schiff have slammed the mission on constitutional grounds. Schiff, while acknowledging Maduro was a “thug,” criticized the move as a “brazen illegal escalation” that bypassed Congressional approval and risks encouraging adversaries to take similar rogue actions.
However, this hardline opposition is clashing with the scenes on the ground and the political instincts of centrist Democrats. In Southern California, Venezuelan-Americans flooded public spaces to cheer the end of the Maduro regime.
According to Axios, a faction of swing-district Democrats is privately voicing frustration with their party’s messaging. They fear that by focusing heavily on procedural critiques or “what-if” doomsday scenarios, Democrats risk appearing out of touch with voters who see the removal of a brutal dictator as an unequivocal win.
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