Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) believes Congress could soon play a larger role in the actions taken by the Trump administration against Venezuela.

Biggs spoke with The Daily Wire’s AmericaFest pre-show to discuss the recent actions against the South American nation and what it means in terms of border anti-drug policies as a border state lawmaker.

“Where we’re heading is Venezuela, effectively, has declared a narcoterrorist drug war on the United States of America. And we are engaged right now in trying to prevent them from getting to our country, and we’re trying to leverage, quite frankly, economically for Maduro to basically say, ‘Okay, we’re done being an exporter of narcoterrorism,’” he said.

Recently, the United States government has seized oil tankers with ties to the South American country, as Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro has not ceded power.

“Until he’s willing to do that, you’re going to see some action, and my guess is you’re going to see Congress be much more involved in this come January,” Biggs said.

When asked if there should be a formal declaration of war from Congress, he said, “The checklist that has to be gone through before there can be any kind of an attack on them, a kinetic attack on them, is the same thing that you would see in any other kind of threat or theater in the world.”

“We know who they are, we know that they’re drug runners, we know what they’re carrying, we know where they’re going. All that has to be confirmed, and they will stop; they won’t do it if they can’t answer all of those checkpoints,” Biggs continued.

However, he’s predicting that Congress will eventually be part of the process, as the situation could be “accelerated.”

The Republican is currently running for Arizona governor in a primary with businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson and Rep. David Schweikert.

Both Biggs and Robson have been endorsed by President Donald Trump, and whoever wins the primary will face off against Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs in November in one of the nation’s most competitive gubernatorial races. The Cook Political Report ranks the general election as a “toss-up.” Trump won the key battleground state in 2024.

Running to replace Biggs in Congress is former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who’s been a leading voice on border-related issues for years.

On the border, which has gone largely quiet since Trump took office, Biggs said it serves as proof that “we didn’t need new laws, we just needed to enforce the old ones.”

“We still have some problems — Arizona’s still the number one human and drug trafficking corridor,” he said. “We have it in our state, [and] we’re going to have to shut that down, but I will tell you, the morale is high from those who guarded the border, the Border Patrol guys and gals,” the congressman said.

New York City’s Democratic socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has named Ramzi Kassem — an attorney who previously represented Al Qaeda terrorists — to serve as the city’s chief counsel in his administration.

“I will turn to Ramzi for his remarkable experience and his commitment to defending those too often abandoned by our legal system,” Mamdani said of Kassem, adding, “City Hall will be stronger with him in it, and our work of building a more prosperous city for all will have a powerful advocate.”

“My sincere hope is that New Yorkers who have long felt on the margins of this city, the homeless veteran straining to survive, the patient searching for the care that they need, an immigrant trying to get by will feel that they now have leaders in their corner who understand their struggles and care to fight for them,” Mamdani continued. “That is the city I want to build. The prosperity I intend to deliver and the leadership that has too long been lacking.”

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Kassem said that the appointment, to him, represented a chance to give back to the city he loved: “I grew up in war-torn countries in the Middle East, authoritarian regimes, and New York City was really my first stable and permanent home. This is an opportunity for me to repay that debt. I’ve been trying to repay that debt ever since I came to this country, ever since I immigrated.”

Critics argued that Kassem, who once represented al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi in court, was a strange choice to be chief counsel in a city that was devastated by an al Qaeda-linked terrorist attack on 9/11, 2001. Al-Darbi pleaded guilty in 2014 in connection with a plot to bomb the French oil tanker MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen. He was convicted in 2017, and in 2018, President Donald Trump’s administration transferred him to the custody of Saudi Arabia.

He also represented Mohammad Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani, who allegedly attempted to assist in the 9/11 hijacking and was held in detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for two decades. Kassem, who was teaching law at City University of New York at the time, had been working with students over the course of a decade to get him returned to Saudi Arabia. They succeeded in doing so in 2022.

In more recent history, Kassem represented pro-Hamas Columbia University agitator Mahmoud Khalil — and prior to that, he served in President Joe Biden’s White House Domestic Policy Council as a senior policy adviser.

NEW: Zohran Mamdani announced the nomination of Ramzi Kassem as Chief Counsel of New York City.

Kassem returned to America from the Middle East in 2001, inspired by 9/11 to defend an Al Qaeda terrorist.

“I found myself pulled in the direction of doing rights work domestically… pic.twitter.com/Duxc04q3b3

— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) December 31, 2025

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino responded to the appointment, saying, “Less than 25 years after thousands of New Yorkers were killed on 9/11, the Chief Counsel of New York is going to be an Islamist lawyer who came to this country after 9/11 specifically to defend the very Al Qaeda terrorists we were fighting against. The fact that our immigration system post 9/11 even allowed him to step foot into the country is a monumental failure. Disgraceful isn’t a big enough word for what’s happening here. The federal government must get a LOT more involved in New York. We cannot allow these people to go unchecked.”