Patriot Brief

• John Fetterman broke with Democratic Party rhetoric to praise the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

• Fetterman acknowledged the operation as a positive development for Venezuelans, regardless of party credit.

• His remarks stood in sharp contrast to Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer, who focused on speculative criticism instead.

Well, this is awkward — but credit where it’s due.

John Fetterman did something that has become almost extinct in modern Democratic politics: he acknowledged reality. Without qualifiers, without throat-clearing, and without pretending the laws of cause and effect change depending on who occupies the White House. He looked at the removal of a narco-dictator and said, plainly, that it was good for the people who’d been living under him.

That shouldn’t be controversial. Democrats themselves slapped a $25 million bounty on Nicolás Maduro less than a year ago. The only thing that changed is that Donald Trump was the one who finished the job. For most of the party, that alone was enough to flip the script from “justice” to “danger.”

Fetterman refused to play that game. He didn’t pretend Maduro’s capture was morally ambiguous. He didn’t warn about imaginary “endless wars.” He dealt in facts: Maduro’s removal helps Venezuela, and the military operation was executed cleanly and effectively.

Compare that with Chuck Schumer’s response — hand-wringing about hypotheticals while ignoring real Venezuelans who lived through economic collapse and narco-rule. One man spoke to outcomes. The other hid behind abstractions.

Fetterman didn’t just break with his party. He exposed it. When admitting that toppling a narco-dictator is good takes political courage, the problem isn’t Trump. It’s a movement that can no longer separate principle from reflexive opposition.

From Western Journal:

Well, this is awkward.

As much as I’ve spilled digital ink over the absolute deplorable state of the hyper-partisan Democratic Party in recent years, it turns out that there are still a few good, or at least fair-minded, ones out there.

(Even if they are rather slovenly dressed.)

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat, has proven rather consistently that he’s one of those nigh-mythical, fair-minded Democrats out there — hoodie, basketball shorts, and all.

And the latest example of this came when he broke from his party’s rhetoric to actually laud the capture of alleged narco-terrorist Nicolas Maduro.

Take a look for yourself:

Less than a year ago, President Biden upped the Maduro bounty to $25,000,000.

Removing Maduro was positive for Venezuela.

As a Democrat, I don’t understand why we can’t acknowledge a good development for Venezuelans—and how deft our military’s execution of that plan was.

— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) January 7, 2026

“Less than a year ago, President Biden upped the Maduro bounty to $25,000,000,” Fetterman posted to X on Wednesday. “Removing Maduro was positive for Venezuela.

“As a Democrat, I don’t understand why we can’t acknowledge a good development for Venezuelans — and how deft our military’s execution of that plan was.”

Fetterman is right — as odd as that is to type that out about any capital “D” Democrat.

Removing a brutal strongman who presided over economic collapse and a narco-state apparatus is a good development for Venezuelans, period.

It was true when Democrats put a $25 million bounty on Maduro’s head, and it didn’t magically become false because President Donald Trump happened to be the president who closed the loop. Acknowledging reality should never be dependent on which party gets credit.

Give Fetterman his due here. He didn’t hedge, didn’t hide behind hesitant throat-clearing, and didn’t pretend this was some morally ambiguous gray area.

He said plainly what most adults already know: Maduro’s removal helps Venezuela, and the operation itself was flawlessly executed. That shouldn’t be controversial. In fact, it used to be bipartisan consensus — the kind Democrats once claimed to value before politics curdled into pure tribal reflex.

So why can’t most Democrats say the same thing? Because too much of the modern Democratic platform isn’t built around outcomes anymore — it’s built around negation.

If Trump did it, it must be bad. If Trump succeeded, it must be reframed as dangerous, unlawful, or reckless. Fetterman’s small act of honesty exposes how hollow that posture has become.

When your politics prevent you from admitting that toppling a narco-dictator is good for the people he brutalized, the problem isn’t Trump, but the movement that can no longer tell the difference between principle and spite.

Compare Fetterman’s rhetoric to that of his supposed congressional “leader,” Sen. Chuck Schumer.

The New York lawmaker, as pointed out by Fox News, didn’t laud Trump but wailed about a potentially “endless war” — or, in other words, a pure hypothetical.

That contrast says everything.

Fetterman dealt in facts — what happened, why it mattered, and who benefits. Schumer, meanwhile, retreated into abstractions, warning of an “endless war” that doesn’t exist, while sidestepping the very real Venezuelans who suffered under Maduro’s rule. One response grapples with reality; the other hides behind speculative fear to avoid conceding that a Trump-led operation might have achieved something worthwhile.

In that sense, Fetterman isn’t breaking with his party so much as he’s exposing it.

Praising the removal of a narco-dictator shouldn’t require courage, but in today’s Democratic Party, it apparently does. And that may be the clearest indictment yet of a movement more committed to opposing Trump than acknowledging the world as it actually is.

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