Foreign Affairs

Marco Rubio Lays Out How Trump Admin Will Gauge Venezuelan Cooperation

[Screenshot/Rumble/ABC News]

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that Venezuelan cooperation would be judged by the ruling party’s actions after the arrest of the country’s president.

American military forces, reportedly including the United States Army’s elite Delta Force, spearheaded the protection of a law enforcement operation which arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas, Trump announced in a Saturday morning post on Truth Social. Stephanopoulos questioned Rubio about what would occur next and what Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez told the secretary of state.

“Well, we’re not going to judge moving forward based simply on what’s said in press conferences. We want to see action here at the end of the day. Rhetoric is one thing. You see rhetoric for a lot of different reasons,” Rubio said. “There’s a lot of different reasons why people go on TV and say certain things in these countries, especially 15 hours or 12 hours after the person who used to be in charge of the regime is now in handcuffs and on his way to New York.”

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“So, what I will say is, moving forward, it’s very simple: we’re not going to be reactive here to statements at press conferences or what people say in a certain interview or what some media post somewhere,” Rubio continued.

“What we are going to react to is very simple, ‘What do you do?’ Not what you’re saying publicly. What happens? What happens next? Do the drugs stop coming? Are the changes made? Is Iran expelled? Is Hezbollah no longer able and Iran no longer able to operate against our interests from Venezuela? Does the migration pattern stop? Do the drug trafficking boats end? Do you deal with the ELN [National Liberation Army] and the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia], two narco-terrorist organizations who control territory and operate with impunity from the territory of Venezuela against the interest of Colombia and the United States? These are the things we want addressed,” he added. “If they are addressed, that’s how we’ll judge it. If they’re not addressed, that’s how we’ll judge it.”

Congressional Democrats decried the operation as an illegal war, with some prominent critics, including podcasters Keith Olbermann and Dean Obeidallah, taking to Bluesky to demand Trump’s impeachment.

Rubio said the United States was not ruling out further action.

“We retain all the options before this raid and this capture and this arrest was made,” Rubio told Stephanopoulos. “The quarantine is in place right now: if you’re a sanctioned boat and you’re headed toward Venezuela, you’ll be seized either on the way in or way out with a court order that we get from judges in the United States. We’ll continue to enforce our sanctions and that’s going to continue to happen until such time changes are made.”