Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper said Thursday that former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is “a bad guy that they should get” but criticized the Trump administration for seizing him to gain access to the country’s oil.
Most Democrats have condemned Trump’s military capture of Maduro, though Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman praised the raid.
At a campaign event in Charlotte Thursday, Cooper was asked whether Trump's action was right.
“So this is about oil profits,” Cooper said. “This is a bad guy that they should get. But to run Venezuela in order to get oil profits, that’s wrong and I don’t think the people of this country want that.”
Cooper then criticized his likely Republican opponent in November, Michael Whatley, saying he supports the plan because of his past work as an oil and gas lobbyist.
The former two-term governor was in Charlotte for a health care forum with a retired doctor, business leaders and Mecklenburg County Commission Chair Mark Jerrell. He criticized Trump’s “One, Big Beautiful” tax and spending bill and the GOP for not continuing Obamacare subsidies.
