Ending Forever Wars

Oliver supports repealing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which has enabled endless U.S. military involvement around the world without proper congressional oversight. Then-Rep. Barbara Lee cast the lone vote against it—and she was right. For more than two decades, the U.S. has spent trillions of dollars waging war abroad while stripping civil liberties at home, from Bush-era surveillance to Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and secret police tactics under the Department of Homeland Security.

Even after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the defense budget continues to grow. Oliver believes it’s time to end the president’s unchecked war powers and redirect resources toward rebuilding here at home.

Israel-Palestine

Oliver agrees with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, including the use of starvation tactics. More than half of Gaza’s population is under 18, and Oliver believes the United States must prioritize protecting children and civilians.

He supports:

• An immediate suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel under the Leahy Law

• An end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and illegal occupation, settlement expansion, and apartheid system in the West Bank

• Recognition of Palestinian refugees’ right to return and achieve self-determination
  

Oliver believes lasting peace must center human rights and equality for all. He opposes continued U.S. military support for authoritarian or warmongering regimes.

Venezuela

Oliver condemns the Trump administration's extrajudicial murders of Venezuelan citizens in September and October 2025. The administration has escalated its use of military force in violation of international law and cut off diplomatic ties. Its October 3, 2025 strike coincided with the Supreme Court ruling the Department of Homeland Security could terminate Temporary Protected Status for 300,000 Venezuelans with established U.S. residency. Oliver wrote about Trump and the Supreme Court's effort to end Venezuela TPS in May 2025 in the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

The administration has justified its illegal domestic searches and seizures, violations of our constitutional rights, and abuses at the hands of masked ICE officers as a necessary cost of national security, a clear step toward authoritarianism.

Oliver will support legislation to establish pathways to citizenship for immigrants with TPS status and recent arrivals. He strongly opposes ICE's domestic campaign of detention and deportation, illegal regime change efforts, as well as the imposition of sanctions regimes that create needless suffering for innocent people and spur the very migration crises that politicians cynically exploit for electoral gain. Congress must assert its war powers over the executive branch to deescalate military tensions with Venezuela, reestablish diplomatic ties, and improve the economic conditions driving the desperation that fuels human trafficking, drug smuggling, and political destabilization that authoritarians use to secure power.

Ukraine-Russia & NATO

Oliver condemns Russia’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine and supports defensive U.S. military aid to help Ukrainians defend their sovereignty while prioritizing diplomacy as our primary tool of engagement with Russia's allies. Russia has occupied Ukrainian territory since 2014 and bears full responsibility for the conflict and its massive human cost.

Congress and the State Department must subject any U.S. military aid coordinated with the European Union and NATO to rigorous oversight. The United States must also support the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice's effort to hold leaders and states accountable for war crimes, including removing U.S. sanctions on ICC investigators and prosecutors.

Oliver believes it is in the United States' interest to extend the New START treaty with Russia and pursue nuclear non-proliferation, including a reduction in the United States' nuclear arsenal as part of a 10 percent overall reduction in non-pay, non-benefit U.S. military spending. As a condition of New START's extension, Oliver believes in-person inspections, paused during the Covid-19 pandemic, should resume.

Oliver also recognizes the damaging role Donald Trump played when he illegally tried to extort President Zelenskyy for political gain by withholding congressionally-approved U.S. aid—fueling conditions for Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Appeasement does not stop dictators. Oliver believes the U.S. must continue supporting Ukraine alongside our NATO allies to uphold freedom and international law.

Latin America & Caribbean

Oliver believes the U.S. must deepen its economic, cultural, and governmental partnerships across Latin America and the Caribbean. That starts with:

• Ending the embargo on Cuba

• Supporting labor and environmental protections in trade agreements

• Respecting self-determination for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Haiti

• Ending U.S.-backed coups, regime change efforts, and support for authoritarian governments

He believes the U.S. has a special responsibility to support economic and democratic development in countries whose sovereignty we’ve historically violated. That includes pushing for France, the U.K., and other former colonial powers to contribute to post-colonial reparative support, particularly for Haiti—the first Black republic in the Americas, still punished for seizing its liberty over 200 years ago.