President Donald Trump flipped the script on Democrats’ ‘no one is above the law’ mantra after years of hearing it aimed at him, invoking the phrase after news broke Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz would not seek re-election as a sweeping fraud scandal rocks his state.

‘Governor Walz has destroyed the State of Minnesota, but others, like Governor Gavin Newscum, JB Pritzker, and Kathy Hochul, have done, in my opinion, an even more dishonest and incompetent job. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!’ Trump posted to Truth Social Monday afternoon. 

The message followed Walz announcing Monday that he was withdrawing his re-election effort to continue serving as governor. Walz was first elected the state’s top leader in 2018 in a political career that also included him campaigning coast-to-coast in 2024 as former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. 

‘As I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all,’ Walz wrote in a statement. ‘Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.’

Minnesota has come under fierce scrutiny in recent weeks as a sprawling fraud scandal that has led to dozens of arrests, mostly from the state’s large Somali community, since 2022 comes to light. Minnesota was allegedly home to a massive COVID-era scheme that allegedly involved money laundering operations related to fraudulent meal and housing programs, daycare centers and Medicaid services, according to investigators. 

The Minnesota fraud is still being tabulated, with local officials speculating it could exceed $1 billion and rise to as high as $9 billion.

Trump’s use of the phrase ‘no one is above the law’ follows years of Democrats employing the same rhetoric against him as he faced a barrage of charges and court cases in between his first and second administrations. 

‘No one is above the law,’ President Joe Biden said after Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsified business records in a Manhattan court in May 2024. 

Trump faced four criminal indictments, which resulted in accusations of ‘lawfare’ on the national stage as Trump maintained his innocence and slammed the cases as efforts by the Democratic Party to hurt his political chances for re-election in 2024. 

‘As I’ve said before, no one is above the law, including Donald Trump,’ then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in 2023 after the Biden administration’s Department of Justice announced Trump had been indicted on 37 counts related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Even during Trump’s first administration, Democrats championed the phrase as they combated MAGA Republicans and Trump policies. 

‘Everybody wants the president to be held accountable in the most serious way,’ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of Trump in 2019 amid a discussion at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, underscoring that Democrats believe ‘no one is above the law.’ ‘And everybody believes, now I’m talking on the Democratic side, that no one is above the law, especially the president of the United States.’

‘We must be clear: no one, not even the president, is above the law,’ Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said in a statement in 2019 when introducing articles of impeachment against Trump. 

Upon his victory over the Harris–Walz presidential ticket in 2024, Trump has taken a victory lap for allegedly snuffing out the weaponization of government. 

‘We have ended weaponized government, where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent, like me. How did that work out?’ he said during his joint address to Congress in 2025. ‘Not too good. Not too good.’ 

Trump added in his Monday Truth Social post that ‘Minnesota’s Corrupt Governor will possibly leave office before his Term is up,’ and that he’s confident the fraud investigations ‘will reveal a seriously unscrupulous, and rich, group of ‘SLIMEBALLS.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson added in comment to Fox Digital on Monday afternoon when asked about the Truth Social post: ‘It shouldn’t take an education from the Quality Learing Center for Democrats to understand this: Tim Walz and his Somali friends have been caught ripping off hardworking Minnesota taxpayers and now they will face the consequences. President Trump is right, no one is above the law.’

Walz has taken ownership of correcting the fraud. He said his administration had been taking action to stop some suspected fraudulent payments over the summer and that his office referred some for prosecution. The governor, however, has said that multibillion figures were ‘sensationalized’ by Republicans.

‘This is on my watch, I am accountable for this and, more importantly, I am the one that will fix it,’ Walz told reporters in December. 

Fox Digital reached out to Walz’s office for a response to Trump’s Truth Social but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital’s Amanda Macias contributed to this report. 

A Florida Republican is arguing that Democrats’ largely negative response to the U.S. government’s operation in Venezuela is the ‘definition of Trump Derangement Syndrome.’

Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., represents a part of Florida that includes a significant chunk of the state’s central coastline.

‘It doesn’t take much research to find speech after speech of Democrat House members and Senate members who said that this guy is a bad guy, he should be taken out of power,’ Haridopolos told Fox News Digital.

‘Sometimes in politics, you’ve just got to say to the other side, politically, ‘Hey, we’re all Americans. This is in the best interest, clearly, of the United States.’ But they’re in a position where they’re so afraid of a Democrat primary that they will say anything to avoid having the extreme left attack them.’

He pointed out that it was the previous Democratic commander-in-chief, President Joe Biden, who raised the federal government’s bounty for Maduro’s capture to $25 million.

‘What did they expect was then going to happen? You think this guy was just going to voluntarily give up? He clearly was not. He was getting into bed with the Cubans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, even Hezbollah, as I understand. I mean, this guy was trying to create a group of enemies in an oil-rich state at our footstep,’ Haridopolos said.

Democrats and Republicans have been largely divided in their responses to the strikes in Venezuela.

Lawmakers on the left have mostly criticized the president and his officials, accusing them of illegal actions that ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution. Some progressives have even said Trump could be guilty of impeachable offenses.

The majority of GOP lawmakers praised Trump’s move as a necessary law enforcement action to get rid of a hostile actor threatening both the U.S. and the region writ large.

Haridopolos is no different, pointing out that the operation was carried out with no U.S. fatalities and relatively few among Maduro supporters in Venezuela.

He said his district is home to a number of Venezuelan refugees who were elated by President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Caracas and capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

‘I have a large population of Venezuelans within my community, and they are absolutely overjoyed,’ the congressman said. ‘They were in essence kicked out of their own country or fled through fear … because they lost their ability to make a living, or they were being terrorized by the government because they were anti-Maduro.’

Following the U.S. strikes, Maduro and his wife were both taken to New York City, where they will be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.

Maduro pleaded not guilty during his first court appearance on Monday.

Former President Joe Biden could be pulling in a hefty, taxpayer-funded pension — stemming from his expansive career as a federal employee, according to a new report. 

The National Taxpayer Union Foundation estimates that Biden could be collecting up to a $417,000 pension — more than he was making a year as president, and more than previous presidents — as a result of collecting pensions from several retirement programs he qualifies for after starting his career in Washington in the 1970s. 

‘It’s pretty unusual, historically unusual, to have such a large pension amount,’ National Taxpayer Union Foundation President Demian Brady told the New York Post. 

The estimate comes from Biden’s long-term career in politics, meaning he has the capability to receive benefits under the Former President’s Act of 1958, and retirement benefits from the Civil Service Retirement System for his time as a senator and vice president.

The Former President’s Act of 1958 stipulates that presidential pensions are equal to the salaries Cabinet secretaries receive, which is currently set at $250,600. Additionally, Biden could be eligible for up to $166,374 for his time as a senator and vice president under the Civil Service Retirement System, Brady told the Post. 

Still, it’s unclear if Biden will actually cash in on all of those benefits. A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Biden launched his career as a U.S. senator in 1972, and served as former President Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years starting in 2009. He earned $400,000 a year annually while president. 

The National Taxpayer Union Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Meanwhile, efforts are underway in Congress to curb how much former presidents can rake in once they leave office. For example, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, reintroduced the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act in 2025, whichwould cap presidential pensions at $200,000The legislation was referred to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. 

Past initiatives to rein in presidential pensions have failed. Obama ultimately vetoed a similar piece of legislation that Congress backed in 2016 just before he was set to leave the White House. 

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.’

Following the dramatic capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the United States is now positioned to exert significant influence over the future of the world’s largest oil reserves.

What President Donald Trump does next could reshape Venezuela’s energy industry, alter global oil flows and redefine the balance of influence among major powers long invested in the country’s crude.

Here are three key takeaways:

1. Venezuela holds massive oil reserves, but production remains severely constrained

Venezuela, a country almost twice the size of California, sits atop extraordinary wealth. 

With more than 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, Venezuela holds more crude than established energy heavyweights like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait. The Latin American country’s reserves are nearly quadruple those of the United States.

Once a major oil producer, the country pumped about 3.5 million barrels a day in the late 1990s. Since then, its oil industry has sharply deteriorated, with production falling to roughly 800,000 barrels a day, according to energy analytics firm Kpler.

A key reason: much of Venezuela’s oil is difficult and expensive to extract.

The country’s reserves are dominated by heavy and extra-heavy crude, which is costly to extract and relies on specialized equipment and refining capacity that have deteriorated after years of underinvestment, U.S. sanctions and political instability.

Similar dynamics have unfolded in countries such as Iran and Libya, where turmoil, financial distress and crumbling infrastructure have kept vast reserves locked underground.

As a result, scaling operations back up would require significant time, capital and technical expertise, with any production increase likely to be gradual rather than immediate.

2. Political risk remains a major concern for American energy companies

Decades of political instability, shifting regulations and U.S. sanctions have made Venezuela a high-risk environment for long-term investment. 

That risk dates back to the mid-2000s, when then-President Hugo Chávez reshaped Venezuela’s relationship with international energy companies by tightening state control over the oil industry.

Between 2004 and 2007, Chávez forced foreign companies to renegotiate their contracts with the government. The new terms sharply reduced the role and profits of private firms while strengthening Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA).

The move drove some of the world’s largest oil companies out of the country.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips exited Venezuela in 2007 and later filed claims against the government in international arbitration courts. Those courts ultimately ruled in favor of the companies, ordering Venezuela to pay ConocoPhillips more than $10 billion and ExxonMobil more than $1 billion. The cash-strapped country has paid only a fraction of those awards.

That history looms over Trump’s latest proposal.

Trump said on Saturday he would seek to revive the once-prominent commodity by mobilizing investment from major U.S. energy companies.

‘We are going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken oil infrastructure and start making money for the country,’ Trump said during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago. 

It remains unclear whether U.S. energy companies are prepared to do so. American firms have yet to say whether they plan to return to Venezuela to resurrect an oil industry hollowed out by years of neglect.

Chevron, the only U.S. oil titan operating in Venezuela, said in a statement to Fox News Digital that it was following ‘relevant laws and regulations.’

‘Chevron remains focused on the safety and well-being of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets,’ a Chevron spokesperson added.

ConocoPhillips wrote in a statement to Fox News Digital that it is monitoring the developments in Venezuela as well as the ‘potential implications for global energy supply and stability.’ 

‘It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments,’ a spokesperson for ConocoPhillips added.

ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

3. The push reflects a broader effort to leverage energy for geopolitical influence

As U.S. and European companies withdrew from Venezuela, Russia, China and Iran expanded their footprint in the country’s energy sector, using financing, fuel shipments and technical support to maintain influence.

That shift has also reshaped how Venezuelan oil is traded. Sanctions have fueled the rise of so-called ‘ghost ships,’ nondescript oil tankers that disable tracking systems to quietly move Venezuelan crude to foreign buyers outside traditional markets. The opaque trade has reduced transparency in global oil flows while helping Caracas sustain exports despite financial isolation.

For the Trump administration, the outcome has underscored an uncomfortable trade-off: restricting access to U.S. markets can limit revenue for sanctioned governments, but it can also push them deeper into the orbit of strategic rivals, turning energy policy into a front line of geopolitical competition.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have unveiled a new spending bill totaling at least $174 billion that could get a vote in the House of Representatives as early as this week.

It’s a significant step toward avoiding another government shutdown come Jan. 30, the deadline congressional leaders set after ending the recent 43-day shutdown — the longest in U.S. history — in November.

The legislation released on Monday is a package of three of the 12 annual spending bills that Congress is charged with passing: commerce, justice, science and related agencies; energy and water development and related agencies; and interior, environment and related agencies.

Senior Republicans and Democrats both signaled support for the bill, which was expected after it was created as the result of bipartisan discussions between the Senate and House Appropriations Committees.

‘This bipartisan, bicameral package reflects steady progress toward completing FY26 funding responsibly. It invests in priorities crucial to the American people: making our communities safer, supporting affordable and reliable energy, and responsibly managing vital resources,’ House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said in a statement. ‘It also delivers critical community projects nationwide, along with investments in water infrastructure, ports, and flood control that protect localities and keep commerce moving.’

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the panel, said the bill ‘is a forceful rejection of draconian cuts to public services proposed by the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress’ that is free of what she called ‘Republican poison pill’ provisions.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said its release is a step toward avoiding a ‘bloated omnibus bill’ and would ‘spend less than another continuing resolution’ in an apparent bid to ease conservative fiscal hawks’ concerns.

Two of those fiscal hawks, Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., sit on the House Rules Committee, the panel that acts as the final gatekeeper before most legislation gets a House-wide vote. It’s not immediately clear whether they will support the bill.

In a sign of potential support from conservatives, however, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital of the legislation, ‘We are still going through this minibus — but it appears to be in line with keeping this year’s discretionary spending below last year’s level — which is a good first step to actually lowering spending next year to control our runaway federal debt.’

The House Rules Committee is meeting to advance the legislation on Tuesday evening, with a final vote likely on Thursday. A subsequent procedural vote in the House, called a ‘rule vote,’ will need support from nearly all GOP lawmakers in order to advance.

The largest chunk of funding is aimed at the Commerce and Justice Departments, as well as related agencies. It provides roughly $78 billion in funding for NASA, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons, among other areas.

Coming in second is the energy funding bill, which would devote just over $58 billion in funding largely to the Department of Energy. Notably, the bill beefs up nuclear defense and energy production funding, allocating roughly $25 billion to the National Nuclear Security Administration. A large chunk of that funding would be directed toward nuclear weapons activities and stockpile modernization. 

Rounding out the trio is the interior funding bill, which would provide over $38 billion in funding spread across the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Forest Service and other related agencies.

Notably, the package includes just over $3 billion in ‘Community Project Funding,’ also known as earmarks, which lawmakers request for specific initiatives on their home turf. 

While the last shutdown originated in the Senate, it appears that Senate Democrats are willing to play nice with Republicans ahead of the deadline.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said ahead of Congress’ holiday break that Democrats’ goal was to complete the remaining slate of funding bills by the Jan. 30 deadline and noted that ‘we want to get through the process.’

Given that the latest package is a bicameral, bipartisan product, Senate Democrats are likely to support it. 

Advancing the package in the Senate would go a long way toward funding the government but still falls short of the entire list of a dozen bills needed to fund the government. And there are still some more difficult spending bills lurking in the background, like defense, which Democrats rejected during the shutdown. 

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, touted in a statement that the funding package put Congress back into the driver’s seat of funding the government, taking the keys from President Donald Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought.

‘Importantly, passing these bills will help ensure that Congress, not President Trump and Russ Vought, decides how taxpayer dollars are spent — by once again providing hundreds of detailed spending directives and reasserting congressional control over these incredibly important spending decisions,’ Murray said.

If the legislation passes both the House and Senate, Congress will have advanced six of its 12 spending bills. It’s worth noting that another shutdown would only affect the agencies and offices left unfunded at the time of its beginning.

While many Democrats erupted at President Donald Trump’s decision to arrest Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro on drug trafficking and terrorism charges, one particular prior taunt from former President Joe Biden resurfaced Sunday and promptly got ratioed.

Responding to an Axios report on June 21, 2020, that Trump would consider meeting with Maduro after the despot ignored the disputed election versus opposition leader Juan Guaidó, Biden said, ‘Trump talks tough on Venezuela, but admires thugs and dictators like Nicolás Maduro.’

‘As President, I will stand with the Venezuelan people and for democracy,’ Biden added.

Soon after the weekend operation at Miraflores – the Venezuelan dictator’s official residence – conservatives and at least one left-leaning political activist highlighted how, in the words of several civilian respondents, the comment ‘aged like milk.’

‘Whoops,’ remarked Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who is also running for the Yellowhammer State’s governorship this year.

‘And now, every Democrat is denouncing an operation to execute a federal warrant while we slept,’ Tuberville said.

The Auburn football legend went on to claim Biden’s comment showed ‘Democrats have no principles [and] it’s about whatever way the left wind is blowing to gain power.’

‘Yesterday’s margaritas with Kilmar Abrego Garcia is today’s Maduro,’ he said. ‘They’ll support a drug-trafficking dictator because this was another Trump win. Guaranteed.’

The Trump campaign arm’s ‘Rapid Response 47’ X account also re-upped Biden’s message, responding with a photograph of Maduro blindfolded on a U.S. government aircraft following his capture.

‘A tweet that did not age well,’ added Fox News host and former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

‘Has anyone called to see if Joe is still sleeping?’ remarked Pennsylvania state Rep. Aaron Bernstine, who represents Butler County, where Trump was nearly assassinated in 2024.

One respondent on X replied with a clip of Earl Sinclair from the 1990s ABC sitcom, ‘Dinosaurs,’ expressing surprise and dropping a glass.

‘This aged well,’ Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, said of Biden’s comment.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., added in a statement on social media that Trump ‘doesn’t just talk tough, he is tough.’

‘Does Joe Biden have anything to say now?’ she asked, as other critics cited a second Biden comment from that timeframe wherein the Delaware Democrat called Maduro a dictator and criticized his ‘human rights violations and extrajudicial killings.’

‘Wait. You mean ‘Don’t’ diplomacy didn’t get it done?’ remarked former NYPD inspector Paul Mauro, who is also a Fox News contributor.

Mauro had referenced Biden’s widely circulated response to an inquiry about what his message to Iran would be to prevent them from intervening in Israel. ‘Don’t,’ Biden replied before leaving the stage where he was speaking at MS-NOW host Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.

In 2022, Biden climate envoy John Kerry – a former Massachusetts senator – was videotaped shaking hands and smiling in brief conversation with Maduro at the United Nations’ climate change summit that year in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

When pressed on the surprisingly jovial greeting, Kerry spokesman Ned Price said the Venezuelan leader had ‘interrupted what was an ongoing meeting at COP27’ and called the exchange ‘very much an unplanned interaction.’

Other critics pointed out that former President Barack Obama established the first bounty on Maduro’s head in 2015 via executive order, which was increased by the Biden administration, then doubled to $50 million by Trump more recently.

‘Joe Biden hated Maduro just as much. He just wasn’t bold enough to get him,’ said Ja’Mal Green, a former Chicago mayoral candidate and community activist who previously aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., but appeared to sour on some of the far-left’s policies under current Mayor Brandon Johnson and now identifies as ‘politically independent.’

‘All [Biden] did was impose sanctions and never get the money owed. Democrats have to stop.’

‘Under Biden, he watched as Maduro slaughtered and oppressed the people of Venezuela. He watched as Maduro lost the election but still declared himself the winner. He then just allowed millions of Venezuelans to come to America to claim refuge, costing us hundreds of billions of dollars,’ said Green, who has also criticized Johnson over Chicago’s response to the illegal immigration crisis.

‘Under Trump, Maduro FAFO. He swooped in and took him out of the country altogether,’ Green said.

‘Regardless of our disagreements, sometimes diplomacy doesn’t work, and we must use aggression to free a nation. Trump freed Venezuelans today and I hope one day they can go home to a stable country.’

Green referenced recent nationwide protests against Trump and said the craziest part of ‘socialist[s] crying about Trump taking Maduro [was] saying it’s because he wanted a regime change. Maduro didn’t win the election. He’s only there because he took over the country. I thought y’all didn’t want kings.’

Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Biden for comment.

President Donald Trump was photographed with a signed ‘Make Iran Great Again’ hat alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as nationwide demonstrations in Iran continued against the regime’s political and economic corruption.

In a photo posted Monday morning on Graham’s X account, the senator could be seen flashing a thumbs up next to Trump as the president holds the black hat emblazoned with his signature.

‘Another great day with @POTUS who has brought America back, stronger than ever, at home and abroad,’ Graham wrote. ‘God bless our Commander in Chief and all of the brave men and women who serve under him.’

‘I’m proud to be an American,’ the post continued. ‘God bless and protect the brave people of Iran who are standing up to tyranny.’

Demonstrations have spread to more than 220 locations across 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported early Monday. At least 20 people have been killed, the group said, and more than 990 have been arrested.

What began as protests over economic hardship quickly escalated, with demonstrators chanting anti-government slogans.

Iran’s collapsing currency has fueled a deepening economic crisis. Prices for staples such as meat and rice have surged, while the country grapples with inflation of around 40%.

In December, the government introduced a new pricing tier for its heavily subsidized gasoline, raising the cost of some of the world’s cheapest fuel and adding to public anger. Tehran has signaled that further increases may follow, with officials now set to review fuel prices every three months.

The protests have continued even after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday said that ‘rioters must be put in their place.’

Khamenei’s branding of the pro-democracy activists as ‘rioters’ came a day after Trump’s unprecedented message of solidarity with the demonstrators.

Fox News Digital’s Benjamin Weinthal and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Democrats’ anger over President Donald Trump’s weekend operation in Venezuela is now turning into demands for his impeachment by some members of the party’s leftmost flank.

Several progressives have now called for proceedings against Trump after the administration carried out strikes in Caracas and captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. 

‘Many Americans woke up to a sick sense of déjà vu. Under the guise of liberty, an administration of warmongers has lied to justify an invasion and is dragging us into an illegal, endless war so they can extract resources and expand their wealth,’ Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., a member of the House’s ‘Squad,’ posted on X over the weekend.

‘We must pass Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s War Powers Resolution that asserts Congress’ authorities, and Trump must be impeached.’

Ramirez was referring to a resolution led by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., aimed at blocking Trump from carrying out military action against Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who is facing a primary challenge from his left, criticized Trump for bypassing Congress to launch what he called a ‘war’ with Venezuela, and he argued the administration failed to give lawmakers ‘any satisfactory explanation.’

‘This violation of the United States Constitution is an impeachable offense,’ Goldman said in a statement. ‘I urge my Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives to finally join Democrats in reasserting congressional authority by holding this president accountable for this gross violation of the Constitution.’

Rep. April McClain Delaney, D-Md., did not mention Trump by name, but she posted on X, ‘Let’s be clear, invading and running another country without a congressional declaration of war is an impeachable offense. Whether it makes sense to pursue impeachment as the best strategy to end this lawlessness is a tactical judgment that our Caucus needs to seriously deliberate.’

And Golden State gubernatorial hopeful Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., did not rule out supporting Trump’s impeachment when asked at a press conference in California, according to local outlet Pleasanton Weekly.

Progressive House candidates also spoke up, including Kat Abughazaleh, who is running for an open seat in Illinois.

‘I demand that Congress exercise its power, halt this conflict, and impeach this war criminal president,’ Abughazaleh posted on the Bluesky app.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for a response.

Republicans and Democrats have, for the most part, been sharply divided in their responses to the operation in Venezuela.

Democrats have accused Trump of running afoul of U.S. laws to launch an illegal invasion of a sovereign country.

Republicans, meanwhile, have defended it as a successful move to take out a dictator and longtime hostile actor to the U.S. and in the region as a whole.

Top GOP lawmakers have also argued there was no need to notify Congress prior to what they called a law enforcement action rather than a military operation.

Cuba acknowledged that 32 of its citizens — described by the government as members of the island’s armed forces and intelligence services — were killed during the U.S. operation that seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, declaring two days of national mourning in their honor.

Havana did not specify where the personnel were stationed during the raid. But their deaths have renewed scrutiny of years of reporting and international investigations documenting Cuba’s deep and covert involvement inside Venezuela’s military and intelligence structures.

Jorge Jraissati, a Venezuelan political analyst, said Cuba’s intelligence role was critical to the consolidation of power first under Hugo Chávez and later under Maduro. ‘Experts usually link Cuba as the most important intelligence provider of Venezuela. This includes issues like running elections, building diplomatic leverage with other countries and keeping the security forces in check, among others,’ he told Fox News Digital.

Jraissati said any transition in Venezuela ‘would require the American government, in partnership with the Venezuelan people, to work together on minimizing the Cubans’ influence over Venezuela’s state apparatus and society at large.’

A Reuters investigation published in August 2019 found that two confidential agreements signed in 2008 granted Cuba sweeping access to Venezuela’s armed forces and intelligence services. Under those agreements, Cuban officials were authorized to train Venezuelan troops, restructure intelligence agencies and help build an internal surveillance system focused on monitoring Venezuela’s own military, according to the report.

Those arrangements played a central role in transforming Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency — the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) — into a force designed to detect dissent, instill fear within the ranks and ensure loyalty to the government, the investigation found.

The findings were later echoed by the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela, which said it reviewed a 2008 memorandum of understanding between Cuba and Venezuela. The U.N. mission reported that the agreement provided for Cuban advisory oversight in the restructuring of Venezuelan military intelligence, including the creation of new agencies, training of counterintelligence officers and assistance with surveillance and infiltration techniques.

Former Venezuelan officials cited by Havana Times and El Toque have described Cuban advisers embedded across some of the country’s most sensitive institutions, including the civilian intelligence service SEBIN, DGCIM, the defense ministry, ports and airports and Venezuela’s national identification system.

Human rights organizations and international investigators say those structures were central to the government’s response to mass protests in 2014 and 2017, when Venezuelan security forces carried out widespread arrests and deadly crackdowns on demonstrators.

The U.N. fact-finding mission documented patterns of extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detention and torture, and reported that Cuban advisers helped train Venezuelan personnel in methods used to track, interrogate and repress political opponents.

Experts say Cuba’s admission that its military and intelligence personnel were killed during a U.S. operation inside Venezuela has sharpened focus on the alliance’s true depth, turning years of documentation into an immediate geopolitical issue.