A Miami-area congressman whose district is home to a significant number of Venezuelan refugees says the failed communist state should hold new elections sooner rather than later.

‘It can’t be years, I’ll tell you that right now,’ said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. ‘This is what these regimes do, they just negotiate for time, try to wait you out, so you weaken your will. So it can’t be — I’m talking months, I am not talking years.’

Gimenez is the sole Cuban-born member of Congress, having fled the communist dictatorship as a child and settled in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.

He was also among the first members of Congress to speak with Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. government executed strikes on Caracas before capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores.

Maduro was flown to the U.S. by the military to face trial on terrorism charges at the hands of federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said the U.S. would ‘run’ Venezuela until the country could hold fair democratic elections — which Gimenez warned its people needed to see in the relatively near future.

‘Now the number of months, you know, I don’t know what the number would be, but certainly not years,’ the Florida Republican said. ‘And the people inside Venezuela need to see changes happening pretty quickly. People out here that live in the diaspora need to see that also.’

Gimenez said there were ‘millions of Venezuelans’ outside the country ‘that are waiting to go back home.’

‘The faster that we can transition to democracy and freedom, the faster they can go back,’ he said.

The former Miami-Dade County mayor is a supporter of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who Trump recently said, ‘doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.’

Meanwhile, Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was recently sworn in as acting leader in his place.

But Gimenez said that he believed Machado could win a free and fair election in Venezuela while downplaying the distance between himself and Trump on the issue.

‘I think the president is saying, and kind of rightly so, that at this point nobody in the opposition has the security apparatus needed to maintain order on the country. So you’ve got to deal with what you got right now,’ he said. ‘I’m not happy about it, but it’s just reality. But I do think that in the end, if I were to bet right now, yeah, I think she’d win.’

He did concede, however, that a democratic Venezuela would likely have Maduro’s communist supporters — nicknamed ‘Chavistas’ still within the government.

‘Look, there’s going to be, what, 30% are Chavistas, right? So yeah, I’m sure there’s gonna be 30%, but you can’t ever let it get to the point where they control everything, control elections, control the counting of elections, etc.,’ Gimenez said.

‘These Chavistas have already demonstrated that they will use democracy against democracy, so there has to be safeguards in place so that what happened 25 years ago never happens again.’

President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will temporarily ‘run’ Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro may prove to be a defining moment for the Western Hemisphere — either a disciplined effort to restore regional stability or the opening chapter of an avoidable, open-ended entanglement.

At his Mar-a-Lago press conference on Saturday, the president stated plainly, ‘We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.’ He added that members of his national security team standing behind him would oversee the effort and did not rule out ‘boots on the ground.’ Hours later, speaking aboard Air Force One, he sharpened the message further: ‘We’re going to run it, fix it.’

The strategic logic is easy to understand. Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves and has become a hub for narcotics trafficking, corruption and malign outside influence. The administration’s December 2025 National Security Strategy explicitly embraces what it calls a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine — pledging to deny non-hemispheric competitors such as China, Russia and Iran control over strategically vital assets in the Americas. In that framework, Venezuela is not merely a humanitarian tragedy; it is a test case.

But this is precisely where experience should sober ambition.

The first problem: Who is actually in charge?

A central contradiction now confronts Washington. How does the United States ‘run’ Venezuela when its constitutionally designated vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has already been sworn in domestically as interim president following Maduro’s removal?

Rodríguez’s claim to authority — backed by Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice and regime-loyal institutions — is rejected by Washington as illegitimate. Yet in practical terms, ministries, security forces and regional authorities inside Venezuela remain staffed by officials loyal to the old system. That means the United States is not governing Venezuela in name, law or day-to-day administration — even as presidential rhetoric suggests otherwise.

This disconnect between declared authority and actual control is where post-conflict operations often fail.

Lessons written in blood: Iraq and the cost of improvisation

I learned that lesson firsthand. In 2002 and 2003, I served as a member of then–Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Military Analyst Group. We were given extensive access — briefings, travel and candid discussions with officials planning both the Iraq invasion and what would follow.

In early 2003, several of us met with retired officers outlining postwar governance plans. We asked basic but essential questions: Who would secure ministries? How would local governance function? How would electricity, water and fuel distribution be restored? The answers were often vague, more aspirational than operational.

After the invasion, I visited Baghdad and met with Coalition Provisional Authority officials under Ambassador Paul Bremer. Again, the gaps were obvious. We had removed a regime but had not built the machinery needed to prevent the vacuum that follows. 

One decision still echoes: the CPA’s order dissolving Iraq’s security institutions, including the Ministry of Defense. RAND’s official history records that the order was issued with little objection at senior levels, even as misunderstandings were masked by apparent consensus. The result was predictable — security collapsed, insurgency surged and the U.S. presence expanded far beyond its original scope.

Venezuela now risks a similar mistake. Capturing Maduro may prove to be the easy part. Governing what comes next is the hard part — and the part America has too often improvised.

Panama is the wrong analogy

Some have compared Venezuela today to Panama in 1989, when U.S. forces captured Manuel Noriega and quickly installed Guillermo Endara as president. The comparison is tempting — and deeply misleading.

Panama was small, U.S. forces were already present, and a recognized successor government was ready to assume power. Venezuela, by contrast, has 30 million people, no broadly accepted transitional authority and entrenched military-criminal networks embedded throughout the state. What worked in Panama cannot simply be scaled up to Caracas.

‘Not day-to-day governance’— what that really means

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since clarified that the United States does not intend to govern Venezuela ‘day-to-day.’ That clarification matters — but it raises its own questions. If Washington is not running ministries, courts, budgets or police forces, what does that leadership look like?

In real terms, it appears the administration is signaling a model of indirect control rather than occupation. The primary lever is economic, especially oil.

Venezuela’s political and military elites survive on access to oil revenues. Whoever controls export permissions, sanctions relief, insurance access and dollar-denominated transactions controls the real center of gravity. Conditioning access to those revenues — while freezing assets abroad and coordinating sanctions enforcement with allies — offers Washington leverage over the top of the system without governing the country outright.

That approach amounts to influence without occupation: pressure without American administrators running Caracas.

A narco-state is not a one-man show

There is also a dangerous illusion at work — that removing Maduro dismantles the regime.

Maduro sat at the apex of a narco-state and was indicted in U.S. courts on charges of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism. But he did not act alone. His power rested on a network of generals, intelligence chiefs, judges, energy officials and cartel intermediaries who enriched themselves under the existing system. Many of those figures remain in place today.

They are unlikely to surrender quietly. Some will seek accommodation; others will resist through bureaucratic sabotage, violence or the manipulation of public fear. Without a credible transitional framework anchored in Venezuelan civil society and supported by international legitimacy, the system Maduro built may survive him.

The questions that must be answered — now

If the administration wants to avoid repeating Iraq, it must answer several questions publicly and soon.

What is the legal basis — and limit — of U.S. authority? Who provides immediate security, and under what rules? Which Venezuelan partners will be empowered to lead? What economic plan serves Venezuelans first, not just foreign interests? And how does this mission end?

Once the United States assumes responsibility for ‘running’ another country, it inherits responsibility not only for success but for failure.

The Trump administration can still make Venezuela a model rather than a warning. But doing so will require discipline: clearly defined objectives, credible Venezuelan partners, continuity in security forces, transparent reconstruction tied to humanitarian relief and an exit strategy that is real — not rhetorical.

Venezuela is not Iraq. But history has a way of repeating itself when preparation yields to improvisation.

President Donald Trump is set to huddle with House Republicans on Tuesday morning, days after the U.S. government executed strikes in Venezuela and captured the country’s leader Nicolás Maduro. 

Trump will address GOP lawmakers at the newly renamed Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, multiple sources told Fox News Digital. 

A White House schedule released late on Monday said Trump will speak around 10 a.m., and that his remarks will be streamed live.

House Republicans will be at the Trump Kennedy Center for an all-day policy forum Tuesday aimed at discussing their agenda for 2026, according to an email obtained by Fox News Digital.

It comes the day House lawmakers return from a two-week recess for the end-of-year holiday period.

Part of the day’s agenda was meant to include remarks by Trump to rally Republicans around their legislative priorities, but three sources told Fox News Digital they anticipate Venezuela will be a focus of the day as well.

‘My guess is he does 30 minutes on Venezuela and five on policy,’ one House GOP source told Fox News Digital.

Another source told Fox News Digital, ‘I would expect him to give a pretty typical rally-type speech … but who knows.’

That source expressed frustration that Republicans were waiting ‘until we get back to work to strategize.’

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., also said he expected Trump’s remarks to focus heavily on Venezuela.

‘I think the president is going to walk through not only the justification he had for it, which is the court of law in the United States, but also the fact that, how legitimate is a country if the… Canadians, the [European Union], and the United States, no one recognizes this guy? The only people who recognize him are our enemies,’ the Florida Republican said.

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, who is challenging Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, for his Senate seat, said he anticipated Trump to discuss November’s elections as well.

Asked what he thought he’d hear from the president, Hunt told Fox News Digital he could see Trump discussing ‘the successes of the administration, how important it’s been, what happened in Caracas a couple of days ago…codifying his agenda, and winning the midterms.’

‘I think we’re going to hear a lot of that,’ Hunt said.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has vowed to return to Venezuela ‘as soon as possible’ following America’s capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro, warning that the current regime is escalating an internal crackdown on dissent and journalists.

Speaking to ‘Hannity’ on Monday, Machado said the moment is now right for her return after spending more than a year in hiding. She secretly escaped Venezuela last month and traveled to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which she dedicated to President Donald Trump.

‘Well, first of all, I’m planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,’ Machado said. 

‘As I’ve always said, Sean, every day I make a decision where I am more useful for our cause. That’s why I stayed in hiding for over 16 months, and that’s why I decided to go out, because I believed that at this moment I’m more useful to our cause, being able to speak out from where I’m at right now. But I’m going to go as soon possible back home.’

Machado said developments in the past 24 hours have been deeply concerning, pointing to what she described as a sweeping executive order signed by Maduro on the same day he was captured and flown out of the country by U.S. forces.

‘What we’re seeing right now in the last 24 hours is really alarming,’ she said.

Machado said the order mandates the persecution of Venezuelans who support Trump’s actions and claimed at least 14 journalists have been detained. A state of emergency decree issued Saturday, but published Monday, orders police to ‘immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack by the United States,’ the text of the decree reads, according to Reuters.

She said the situation must be closely monitored by the United States and the Venezuelan people, arguing that the transition away from Maduro must continue.

‘So this is very alarming. This is something that has to be followed carefully, I’m sure, by the United States government and by the Venezuelan people,’ she said. ‘And certainly we believe that this transition should move forward.’

Machado also sharply criticized Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, calling her unfit to lead any transitional authority. Rodríguez, who has been vice president under Maduro since 2018, was sworn in as interim president on Monday.

‘Delcy Rodriguez, as you know, is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco trafficking,’ Machado said. ‘She’s the main ally and liaison with Russia, China, Iran, certainly not an individual that could be trusted by international investors. And she’s really rejected, repudiated by the Venezuelan people.’

Machado’s comments came just two days after the Trump administration announced that U.S. forces had captured the dictator and his wife, Cilia Flores, after successful ‘large-scale’ military strikes targeting the Venezuelan government. The dictator and his wife are now being held in New York while they await trial on narco-terrorism charges.

Fox News’ Maria Lencki and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s wife arrived to court in New York City wearing bandages on her face and complaining of bruises on her ribs, according to her lawyer.

Her attorney, veteran prosecutor Mark Donnelly, told the court that Cilia Flores suffered ‘significant injuries’ when U.S. forces raided the couple’s compound in Caracas on Saturday. Donnelly requested that Flores receive a full X-ray to determine whether she fractured a rib in the incident.

Flores was already wearing two bandages on her face, one on her forehead and another above her eye.

Both she and her husband pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism and other charges in their first appearance on Monday.

Maduro faces four charges: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Flores faces three charges, including cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Donnelly filed a motion to serve as counsel for Flores earlier Monday. He previously served 12 years at the Department of Justice, including as senior advisor to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.

‘Mark has extensive experience investigating white collar cases, having run the Southern District’s fraud division for over two years. His white collar practice included FCPA investigations, Healthcare Fraud, joint SEC matters, large scale investor fraud, and cyber security matters,’ Donnelly’s biography on the website for the Parker Sanchez & Donnelly law firm reads.

The Texas House of Representatives also enlisted Donnelly to assist in the 2023 investigation and impeachment trial for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton’s impeachment case made it to the Texas Senate, but he was ultimately acquitted on all charges.

Maduro and Flores, who have been married for 12 years, were first introduced while working closely with Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez. At the time, Maduro described her as having a ‘fiery character,’ according to Reuters.

The pair did not marry until nearly two decades after first meeting, after Maduro was elected president in 2013.

Fox News’ Emma Bussey contributed to this report.

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.’

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. 

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.

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.’

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz announced on Monday he is scrapping his re-election campaign for another term amid a massive fraud scandal in the state, but Republican lawmakers in Minnesota are calling the move an empty one. 

‘Don’t mistake Gov. Walz’s retirement for accountability,’ Minnesota state Sen. Mark Koran said in a statement to Fox News Digital after Walz’s Monday announcement. 

‘It’s an attempt to avoid it. Republicans will keep holding ALL elected Democrats accountable for Minnesota’s fraud mess, spending every dollar of the $18 billion surplus, and raising taxes by $10 billion.’

Accountability for Walz, according to several Republican lawmakers, involves him resigning as governor, which many have called for in recent months. 

‘The Governor is taking the easy way out, but it’s not good enough,’ state Sen. Michael Holmstrom said in a statement. ‘Minnesotans deserve and demand an IMMEDIATE resignation.’

‘Governor Walz couldn’t take the FRAUD heat so he’s getting out of the kitchen, but I’m going to keep holding ALL Democrats accountable for Minnesota’s fraud mess, blowing through the entire $18 billion surplus, raising taxes by $10 billion, and making life less affordable for all Minnesotans while rejecting Republican efforts to stop fraud. I’ll keep exposing these failures and holding Democrats accountable for what they’ve done to Minnesotans.’

Walz launched his bid for a third four-year term as Minnesota governor in September, but in recent weeks has been facing a barrage of incoming political fire from President Donald Trump and Republicans, and some Democrats, over the large-scale theft in a state that has long prided itself on good governance.

More than 90 people — most from Minnesota’s large Somali community — have been charged since 2022 in what has been described as the nation’s largest COVID-era scheme. How much money has been stolen through alleged money laundering operations involving fraudulent meal and housing programs, daycare centers, and Medicaid services is still being tabulated. But the U.S. attorney in Minnesota said the scope of the fraud could exceed $1 billion and rise to as high as $9 billion.

GOP state Sen. Rich Draheim accused Walz in a statement of simply ‘passing the buck’ with his ‘retirement’ announcement while ‘blaming Republicans for his failures.’

Minnesota Republican Sen. Andrew Lang echoed the messaging from his state party in a statement concluding that ‘retirement isn’t accountability.’

‘It’s him trying to wipe his hands clean of the fraud mess. But ALL elected Democrats own this. They fought Republican efforts to stop the fraud, failed to hold Walz’s agencies accountable, and let Minnesotans’ tax dollars get siphoned off by fraudsters.’

Walz met Sunday with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota to discuss his decision to drop his re-election bid, a source familiar confirmed to Fox News’ Alexis McAdams.

Word of their meeting comes amid speculation that Klobuchar, a former Hennepin County attorney who’s been elected and re-elected four times to the U.S. Senate, may now run to succeed Walz.

‘Make no mistake, I don’t want Tim Walz to be our governor,’ Minnesota Republican state Sen. Andrew Mathews said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘But rather than swapping Democrat governor candidates, I want to FIX the damage Gov. Walz has done: Blew through an $18 billion surplus, Raised taxes by $10 billion, Oversaw one of the largest fraud scandals in the country, Left Minnesota for months chasing a failed VP bid, Now decides to leave office.’

‘This isn’t accountability. It’s avoiding it.’

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.