Secretary of State Marco Rubio clashed Sunday with “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan after she questioned why the United States didn’t arrest other indicted members of the Venezuelan government.
President Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post that American military forces, including the Army’s elite Delta Force, protected a law enforcement operation which arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas early Saturday morning. Brennan expressed confusion about why only Maduro and his wife had been arrested, prompting Rubio to react.
“You’re confused? I don’t know why that’s confusing.” Rubio asked, before Brennan responded, “They’re still in power.”
WATCH:
Trump declared during a Saturday press conference on the operation which captured Maduro that the United States was “running” Venezuela. He then mentioned senior administration officials, including Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine, would be in charge.
“You’re gonna go in and suck up five people? They’re already complaining about this one operation. Imagine the howls we would have from everybody else if we actually had to go and stay there four days to capture four other people. We got the top priority,” Rubio said.
“The number one person on the list was the guy who claimed to be the president of the country that he was not, and he was arrested, along with his wife who’s also indicted, and that was a pretty sophisticated and, frankly, complicated operation,” Rubio continued. “It was not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the country — the guy lived on a military base — land within three minutes, kick down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter, and leave the country without losing any American or any American assets. That’s not an easy mission, and you’re asking me why didn’t we do that in five other places at the same time? I mean, that’s absurd!”
Trump noted American forces suffered no losses in the operation during both the press conference and in his Truth Social post announcing Maduro’s capture.
“I do think this is one of the most, you know, daring, you know, complicated, sophisticated missions this country has carried out in a very long time. Tremendous credit to the U.S. military personnel who did it: it was unbelievable and [a] tremendous success,” Rubio said. “And today, an indicted drug trafficker who was not the legitimate president of Venezuela, who we don’t recognize, the Biden administration didn’t recognize, 60-something countries don’t recognize, the European Union doesn’t recognize, and many countries in Latin America don’t recognize — he was a[n] indicted drug trafficker. He was arrested, his wife was arrested, also indicted, and they are now facing justice in the American system of courts.”
“Right … but the others who were also indicted are still in place, so that’s the point of my questioning there. But you talked about not being the legitimate president— ,” Brennan started, before Rubio bluntly concluded, “So you wanted us to land in five other military bases?”
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