Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday the U.S. was in charge of “the direction” of the situation in Venezuela after U.S. forces arrested and deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“President Trump was pretty clear yesterday. He said the United States is going to run Venezuela. Under what legal authority?” ABC News’ “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos asked.
“Well, first of all, what’s going to happen here is that we have a quarantine on their oil. That means their economy will not be able to move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interests of the Venezuelan people are met,” Rubio said.
But pressed on whether the U.S. was in charge of the country right now, Rubio said that what the U.S. was “running” was the direction of the situation.
“What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward. And that is we have leverage,” Rubio said.
“The leverage that we have here is the leverage of the quarantine. So that is a Department of War operation conducting, in some cases, law enforcement functions with the Coast Guard on the seizure of these boats,” Rubio said.
Rubio added that Maduro was someone the U.S. “simply couldn’t work with,” and said that the administration was not recognizing Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as the current legitimate leader.
“We don’t believe that this regime in place is legitimate via an election,” Rubio said.
“Ultimately, legitimacy for their system of government will come about through a period of transition and real elections, which they have not had,” he added.
-ABC News Nicholas Kerr
ABC News: Top Stories
Read the full article .
