https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-4-2026
"Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the administration’s message about its
strikes on Venezuela to the Sunday talk shows this morning. It did not go well.
Asked by George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s
This Week under what legal authority
the U.S. is going to run Venezuela, as President Donald J. Trump vowed to do,
Rubio served up a lot of words but ultimately fell back on the idea that the
U.S. has economic leverage over Venezuela because it can seize sanctioned oil
tankers. Seizing ships will give the U.S. power to force the Venezuelan
government to do as the U.S. wants, Rubio suggested. This is a very different
message than Trump delivered yesterday when he claimed that the people standing
behind him on the stage—including Rubio—would be running Venezuela.
When Stephanopoulos asked Rubio if he was, indeed, running Venezuela, Rubio
again suggested that the U.S. was only pressuring the Venezuelan government by
seizing sanctioned oil tankers, and said he was involved in those policies.
When Kristen Welker of NBC’s
Meet the Press also asked if Rubio was running
Venezuela, Rubio seemed frustrated that “People [are] fixating on that. Here’s
the bottom line on it is we expect to see changes in Venezuela.” Historian
Kevin Kruse commented: “Yeah, people are fixating on a Cabinet Secretary being
given a sovereign country to run because the president waged war without
congressional approval and kidnapped the old leader. Weird that they’d get hung
up on that.”
When Stephanopoulos asked why the administration thought it didn’t need
congressional authorization for the strikes, Rubio said they didn’t need
congressional approval because the U.S. did not invade or occupy another
country. The attack, he said, was simply a law enforcement operation to arrest
Maduro. Rubio said something similar yesterday, but Trump immediately undercut
that argument by saying the U.S. intended to take over Venezuela’s oil fields
and run the country.
Indeed, if the strikes were a law enforcement operation, officials will need to
explain how officers managed to kill so many civilians, as well as members of
security forces. Mariana Martinez of the
New York Times reported today that
the number of those killed in the operation has risen to 80."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
