President Donald Trump announced before the press on Saturday morning that the U.S. government had conducted a military action in Venezuela and captured former President Nicolás Maduro, who had already been voted out previously. His vice president currently holds the seat in the interim.
Trump spoke with The Atlantic in an interview posted Sunday that made it clear new President Delcy Rodríguez must follow his orders or she could end up like Maduro.
"If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro," he said.
Maduro and his wife are being held in New York.
“She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump said Saturday.
Rodríguez has said Venezuela will "defend our natural resources” if Trump intends a takeover of the country's oil fields.
“We shall never be a colony ever again,” she said.
As for the future of Venezuela, “You know, rebuilding there and regime change, anything you want to call it, is better than what you have right now. Can’t get any worse,” Trump said.
“Rebuilding is not a bad thing in Venezuela’s case,” he continued. “The country’s gone to hell. It’s a failed country. It’s a totally failed country. It’s a country that’s a disaster in every way.”
Trump has run all of his presidential campaigns for the past ten years on the slogan of "America First," and the idea of regime change and nation building in Venezuela is enraging some MAGA supporters.
Trump was asked how the attack on Venezuela was any different than the war in Iraq, which was launched after a false claim they had weapons of mass destruction.
“I didn’t do Iraq. That was Bush. You’ll have to ask Bush that question, because we should have never gone into Iraq. That started the Middle East disaster,” Trump said.
On Dec. 15, Trump declared fentanyl a "weapon of mass destruction."
There has been a concern after the wife of Trump's top advisor, Stephen Miller, appeared to declare Greenland will be next.
Arriving at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Trump said, “We do need Greenland, absolutely." He claimed it was “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships.”
“They are going to have to view it themselves," Trump said of Greenland. "I really don’t know. He was very generous to me, [Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio], yesterday. You know, I wasn’t referring to Greenland at that time. But we do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense.”