Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that the goal of the U.S. military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday was primarily to halt drug trafficking into the U.S. and that holding elections in Venezuela would be “premature at this point.”
“We care about elections, we care about democracy, we care about all of that, but the No. 1 thing we care about is the safety, security, well-being and prosperity of the United States. And that’s what we’re going to focus on first and foremost here,” Rubio told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, one day after President Donald Trump announced that U.S. military forces had captured the nation’s leader and his wife.
U.S. action in Venezuela
On Sunday, Rubio made clear in his remarks that “There’s not a war” between the U.S. and Venezuela.
“I mean, we are a war against drug trafficking organizations, not a war against Venezuela,” the secretary of state added.
His comments mirrored those that he made alongside the president and other Trump administration officials at Saturday’s press conference, maintaining that the strikes on Venezuela and the capture of Maduro were simply a law enforcement action and not the start of a war.
Still, Trump on Saturday told reporters, “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” but that for now, there were no members of the U.S. military in Venezuela.
In Congress, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle feared that the action would start a costly new war, while Democrats lambasted the Trump administration for not notifying Congress or seeking an authorization for the use of force from Congress ahead of time.
On Sunday, Rubio categorically denied that Congress needed to approve this military action ahead of time, telling “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, “we will seek congressional approval for actions that require congressional approval … and this is not an operation that required congressional approval.”
Rubio added that Saturday’s mission was “akin to what virtually every single president for the last 40 years has conducted.”
“The difference is that when it’s Donald Trump, you know, you know, all these Democrats go bonkers,” the secretary of state said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who appeared on “Meet the Press,” after Rubio, pushed back on the secretary of state’s remarks, denying his assertion that Saturday’s operation wasn’t an act of war.
“There’s been no evidence that the administration has presented to justify the actions that were taken in terms of there being an imminent threat to the health, the safety, the well-being, the national security of the American people,” Jeffries said. “This was not simply a counter-narcotics operation. It was an act of war.”
Venezuelan leadership in flux
Earlier in the interview, Rubio pointed to recent elections, which Maduro claimed he won despite widespread evidence that he lost.
“Elections did happen. They lost them, and they didn’t count the votes. Or, they refused to count the votes, and everyone knows it. So all of that, I think, is premature at this point,” the secretary of state said.
During a Saturday press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said that Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, had been sworn in as president and was in contact with U.S. officials, including Rubio. Later Saturday, in a national address, Rodríguez told Venezuelans, “We demand the immediate liberation of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores,” calling Maduro “the only president of Venezuela.”
Following Maduro’s removal from Venezuela by U.S. forces on Saturday, several U.S. Republican lawmakers called for members of Venezuela’s political opposition — including last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado — to take over running the country rather than Rodríguez.
Trump rejected that idea on Saturday, telling reporters that it would “be very tough for her to be the leader, because she doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.” He added that in conversations with U.S. officials, Rodríguez said “she’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”
On Sunday, Rubio praised Machado as “fantastic,” but added that U.S. officials hope to achieve their immediate goals in Venezuela faster than it would take for the nation’s opposition party to take power. “Unfortunately, the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside of Venezuela. We have short-term things that have to be addressed right away,” Rubio said.
He added that under Rodríguez’s leadership, “we expect to see more compliance and cooperation than we were previously receiving.”
On Saturday, Trump announced that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela until the nation could conduct its own peaceful transfer of power, but Rubio said Sunday that the president meant “running policy” in Venezuela that is “good for the people of Venezuela” and is “in our national interest.”
He reiterated that the Trump administration has “short-term things that have to be addressed right away” before assisting Venezuela with a transition to democracy.
“We all wish to see a bright future for Venezuela, a transition to democracy. All of these things are great, and we all want to see that,” the secretary of state said, adding: “But what we’re talking about is what happens over the next two, three weeks, two, three months, and how that ties to the national interest of the United States.”
Rubio added that Maduro, when he was still leading Venezuela, did not cooperate with the United States’ stated goals of curbing drug trafficking from South America.
Moving forward, the secretary of state outlined the United States’ demands for Venezuela, telling Welker, “You can’t flood this country with gang members. You can’t flood this country with drugs that are coming out of Colombia through Venezuela, with the cooperation of elements of your security forces. You can’t turn Venezuela into the operating hub for Iran, for Russia, for Hezbollah, for China, for the Cuban intelligence agents that control that country.”
Venezuela’s oil infrastructure
Rubio also addressed one of Trump’s stated goals from his Saturday press conference, which was to allow for U.S. investment in Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” the president said Saturday.
On Sunday, Rubio said, “We don’t need Venezuela’s oil. We have plenty of oil in the United States.”
But the secretary of state said the Trump administration’s goal is to curb the investment from U.S. rivals — like China, Russia and Iran — in Venezuela’s oil industry.
“What we’re not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States. You have to understand, why does China need their oil? Why does Russia need their oil? Why does Iran need their oil? They’re not even in this continent,” Rubio said. “This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live, and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors and rivals of the United States.”
