Florida GOP lawmaker blasts Democrats' Venezuela response as '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."

"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.

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.

"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."

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