We are watching what looks like a serious escalation in Donald Trump's administration's dealings with Venezuela and its leader Maduro.

The U.S. dramatically seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker.

You're looking at brand new video released within the last hour officially from the Attorney General.

You can see the tanker in the distance. U.S. agents

repelling down from helicopters, you see here. They appear to search cabins and compartments on board

as the footage goes on. The Attorney General says the agents executed a seizure warrant for a crude

oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela as well as

Iran. And you're looking at this brand new video. As you can see, it's courtesy of the Attorney

General and it is unclassified according to the United States, which is why it's now on the news.

The New York Times report to federal judge signed off on this warrant. Of course, there is a domestic element to this, the laws being applied, but also this is a major international act. The attorney general says the seizure was done, quote, safely and securely, the U.S. Coast Guard boarding the tanker, as you can see from a, that's from a U.S. officials, but you can see what it looks like as they

rappeled down and boarded. This comes amidst a wider campaign by the United States under the

Trump administration and significant scrutiny on what we have learned about these deadly boat strikes.

Legal experts referring to that prior strike that has gotten

so much attention and scrutiny, have viewed it as, on its face, a potential war crime. The

administration has not really provided legal justifications for the killing in that second strike.

The U.S. has roughly 15,000 troops, we should note, and the largest air carrier in its fleet,

now deployed in that same region. This is a dramatic new video. I want to bring in General

Barry McCaffrey, retired four-star Army General and an analyst for us. And first, give us context on

what this means in the wider campaign and then after we hear your

analysis i'll tell viewers we're going to play the video again so you can give us your expertise on it

well it's a enormous escalation and an ongoing attempt to i think uh run maduro out of office

and to gain access to 300 million barrels

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