Secretary of State Marco Rubio hilariously smacked down ABC’s George Stephanopoulos during a segment of Stephanopoulos’s “This Week”, defending the Trump Administration’s move to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and arguing that the operation simply made sense and was obviously in American interests.
The back-and-forth debate and verbal smackdown that came during it stemmed from Stephanopoulos trying to attack the operation in Venezuela by snapping, “Let me ask the question again. What is the legal authority for the United States to be running Venezuela?”
Rubio snapped back by noting that the administration clearly has legal authority for the matter, saying, “Well, I explained to you what our goals are and how we’re going to use the leverage to make it happen. As far as what our legal authority is on the quarantine, I’m — very simple. We have court orders. These are sanctioned boats and we get orders from courts to go after and seize these sanctions. So there — that’s — I don’t know, is a court not a legal authority?”
Stephanopoulos responded by trying yet again to put Rubio on the back foot, saying, “So, is the United States running Venezuela right now?” Rubio hammered him by noting that he had already explained what was going on but would do it yet again, saying, “Well, I’ve explained once again. I’ll do it one more time. What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward. And that is we have leverage. This leverage we are using and we intend to use. We started using already.”
Continuing, he described the all-important oil situation and what is going on with oil exports, saying, “You can see where they are running out of storage capacity. In a few weeks, they’re going to have to start pumping oil unless they make changes. And that leverage that we have with the armada of boats that are currently positioned allow us to seize any sanctioned boats coming into or out of Venezuela loaded with oil or on its way in to pick up oil.”
Concluding that point by noting that the administration has full legal authority for the moves, he said, “And we can pick and choose which ones we go after. We have court orders for each one. That will continue to be in place until the people who have control over the levers of power in that country make changes that are not just in the interest of the people of Venezuela but are in the interest of the United States and the things that we care about. That’s what we intend to do.” He then insisted, “The legal authority is the court orders that we have.”
Still doubling down on the same point, Stephanopoulos pressed Rubio on the running Venezuela point, saying, “When the president was asked yesterday who will be running Venezuela, he said it was you. He said it was the defense secretary. He said it was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Are you running Venezuela right now?”
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Rubio, obviously annoyed with the whole situation, noted once again that he has already explained this, then went on to reiterate what is going on. He said, “George, I’ve explained again that the leverage that we have here is the leverage of the quarantine. So, it — that is a Department of War operation, conducting in some cases law enforcement functions with the — with the Coast Guard on the seizure of these boats. I’m obviously very intricately involved in these policies. And by the way, very intricately involved in moving forward and what we hope to see some of these changes being addressed.”
Building on that, he noted, “Unfortunately, the person that was there before who was not the legitimate president of the country was someone we could not work with, was someone that we could not — he had already suckered the Biden administration a couple years ago on a deal he didn’t keep. And this is someone we simply couldn’t work with. We are hopeful that there are people in place now. We’re going to find out. The proof will be in what they do or fail to do that will start making some of these changes that will ultimately lead to a Venezuela that looks substantially and dramatically different from what’s been in place for 15 years.”
Concluding by schooling the woke TV host and noting how this is putting Americans first, Rubio said, “But my number one objective is America. We care about Venezuela. We want it to do well moving forward. But our number one objective here is America. No more drugs. No more drug — no more Tren de Aragua gangs coming our direction. And no more — an area of the country in our hemisphere that becomes a crossroads for every single adversary we have around the world. Hezbollah, Iran, all of them have turned it into their playground. That can’t and will not continue under this administration.”
Watch him here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video