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Bulwark Takes

Trump’s Venezuela Logic Turned America Into a Villain

Bulwark Takes

The Bulwark

Politics, News Commentary, News, Society & Culture

4.71.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Will Saletan takes on Donald Trump’s post-invasion claims about Venezuela and Maduro, putting Marco Rubio into a series of awkward Sunday show cleanups on war powers, oil, and pardons that exposes just how much of Trump’s story doesn’t add up.

Read Will's written piece: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/which-countries-will-trump-invade-next-after-venezuela-maduro

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, everybody. It's Will Salatan from The Bullwork. By now, everybody knows we've invaded Venezuela,

0:05.7

except we're not calling at that. We did manage to go in. The military went in, got the dictator,

0:11.6

Nicholas Maduro, got out, didn't create the biggest mess in the world, although they did make one.

0:16.8

But the guy who really made a mess was Donald Trump. So he did a press conference after the attack.

0:23.1

And he said a bunch of crazy stuff.

0:25.6

He said, we're going to run.

0:27.2

The United States is going to run Venezuela.

0:29.2

He said, we're going to bring in American oil companies to go and take the oil out and profit from it.

0:35.6

He said, we're doing all this to bring Maduro to the United

0:39.9

States to face drug charges, but then Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras,

0:45.4

who was convicted of drug charges, was serving his sense. Trump let him off. So basically,

0:51.1

Trump made this huge mess. And what happened on Sunday after the attack was that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State,

0:59.7

had to go on TV and clean up the mess that Trump left him.

1:04.2

Okay, so we're going to talk today about Rubio and how he did this.

1:07.7

So let me start first with Trump at his press conference, where he said

1:13.6

that we, the United States, are going to run Venezuela. Watch who is standing behind Trump as he

1:20.5

says this. What's the group you mentioned that would run Venezuela? It's largely going to be

1:25.6

for a period of time, the people that are standing

1:28.5

right behind me, we're going to be running it. So you saw the guy who was standing behind Trump.

1:34.1

That's Rubio. So then on Sunday, Rubio is on Meet the Press, and Kristen Welker asks him

1:41.2

about what Trump said. President Trump said, we're going to run the country.

1:46.8

So is it you? Is it Secretary Hegset? Who are those people who will be running the country

...

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