Marco Rubio Visibly Annoyed With George Stephanopoulos After Host Badgers Him With Same Question

Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly told “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos that court orders to seize sanctions vessels supported U.S. military operations against Venezuela in a controversial exchange Sunday.

President Donald Trump announced early Saturday morning that U.S. military forces, including the army’s elite Delta Force unit, had captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and expelled him and his wife from the country. ABC News’ Stephanopoulos continued to press Rubio on the rationale for the operations, even after he had already cited court orders as legal authority. (RELATED: Jonathan Turley predicts if Maduro indictment will be ‘accepted by the courts’)

“President Trump was pretty clear yesterday, the United States is going to rule Venezuela,” Stephanopoulos asked, referring to comments the president made at a press conference the day before. “Under what legal authority?

“What’s going to happen here is we have a quarantine on their oil. That means their economy can’t move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and in the interest of the Venezuelan people are met. And that’s what we intend to do. So that leverage remains,” Rubio said.

“Let me ask the question again,” the host replied. “What legal authority does the United States have to rule Venezuela? »

“As far as our legal authority to quarantine, it’s very simple, we have court orders. These are sanctioned boats and we get orders from the courts to pursue and seize those sanctions…isn’t a court a legal authority?” » asked the Secretary of State.

This prompted Stephanopoulos to respond: “Is the United States running Venezuela right now?

WATCH:

“Well, I explained it one more time, I’m going to do it one more time. What we’re tracking is the direction in which this is going to go forward. And that is we have leverage. That leverage that we’re using and intending to use, we’ve already started using it, you can see where they’re running out of storage capacity. In a few weeks they’re going to have to start pumping oil unless they make changes,” Rubio replied. “And the leverage we have with the armada of boats that are currently positioned allows us to seize all sanctioned boats entering or leaving Venezuela loaded with oil or on their way to recover oil and we can choose which ones we can pursue. We have court orders for each one.”

Trump told a news conference Saturday about the operation that captured Maduro that the United States was “running” Venezuela, saying Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would be in charge.

“This will continue to be in place until the people who control the levers of power in this country make changes that are not only in the interest of the Venezuelan people, but that are in the interest of the United States and the things that we care about,” Rubio said.

“The legal authority is the court orders that we have,” Rubio added.

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