Military action in Venezuela emerges as an issue in a closely watched GOP primary in Kentucky

President Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela has emerged as a flash point in the closely watched Republican primary campaign between Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a long-running Trump antagonist, and retired Navy SEAL officer Ed Gallrein, who has the president’s backing.

Massie, showing his non-interventionist leanings, fired off a series of social media posts criticizing the dramatic action that captured Nicolás Maduro and removed him from the South American country.

“Wake up MAGA,” Massie wrote. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.”

The congressman claimed that Trump wrongly circumvented Congress when ordering the attack.

“In the Constitution, the Founders vested war making power in Congress, not the Executive branch,” he wrote.

Gallrein responded that Massie had “shown his true colors” by criticizing the military operation, and said the congressman’s stance “is not what the people of this district expect from a Republican.”

“This operation sends a clear message: the United States will not allow rogue regimes to enable criminal networks or use oil and other resources to fuel our global adversaries,” Gallrein said on social media. “Holding b...