Rubio affirms that the United States is following “the direction” of the situation in Venezuela

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that the United States was in charge of directing the situation in Venezuela after U.S. forces arrested and deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday.

“President Trump was quite clear yesterday. He said the United States will govern Venezuela. Under what legal authority?” ABC News’ “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos asked.

“Well, first of all, what is going to happen here is that we will have a quarantine on your oil. That means that your economy will not be able to advance until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interests of the Venezuelan people are met,” Rubio said.

But when asked if the United States was in charge of the country right now, Rubio said what the United States was “running” was the direction of the situation.

“What we are following is the direction in which this is going to move. And we have influence,” Rubio said.

“The influence we have here is the influence of the quarantine. So this is a War Department operation that carries out, in some cases, law enforcement functions with the Coast Guard in the seizure of these ships,” Rubio said.

Rubio added that Maduro was someone the United States “simply could not work with” and said the administration was not recognizing Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as the current legitimate leader.

“We do not believe that this current regime is legitimate through an election,” Rubio said.

“Ultimately, the legitimacy of their system of government will come through a period of transition and real elections, which they have not had,” he added.

Rubio noted that the administration kept on the table “all the options we had before this raid.”

“If you are a sanctioned ship and you are heading toward Venezuela, you will be seized either upon entry or upon exit with a warrant that we obtain from judges in the United States,” he said.

Responding to questions about the legality of attacking Maduro without congressional authorization, Rubio said congressional permission was not necessary because “this is not an invasion.”

“Obviously, this was not friendly territory,” Rubio said. “So to arrest [Maduro]”We had to ask the War Department to get involved in this operation.”

Rubio said concerns about leaks were also a factor.

“You can’t notify Congress about something like this for two reasons. Number one, it will leak. It’s as simple as that. And number two, it’s an exigent circumstance. It’s emergent,” he said.

Blonde too He said he was not involved in Trump’s pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of drug trafficking in the United States, charges similar to those Maduro now faces.

“Well, the president has the authority to pardon. He is the one who reviewed the file with the people in the White House to make these pardon decisions,” Rubio said.

“Do you support it?” -Stepanopoulos asked.

“I was not involved in those deliberations. I have not looked at the case file,” Rubio said. “I have a lot of other things happening within my purview as secretary of state and national security advisor, but pardons are not one of them.”