Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday appeared to contradict President Donald Trump’s assertion that he and other U.S. leaders would “run” Venezuela after a stunning military operation over the weekend resulted in the arrest of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and thrust the future of the South American nation into uncertainty.
Instead, Rubio suggested that the U.S. would use its military to create “leverage” over the Venezuelan government currently in place, forcing it to take the White House’s preferred course of action.
“What we are running is the direction that this is going to move forward. And that is, we have leverage,” Rubio said when asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos whether he or other high-level American officials were currently in charge of the Venezuelan government. “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. And we can pick and choose which ones we go after.”