DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
We continue to learn more about the extraordinary U.S. operations in Venezuela last night. The country's president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife have been captured by U.S. forces. And as to what comes next, here's what President Trump said in a press conference this afternoon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: So we're going to stay until such time as - we're going to run it, essentially, until such time as a proper transition can take place.
ESTRIN: We have NPR's Ron Elving on the line with us. Good to have you here, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Daniel.
ESTRIN: Let's start with that press conference. What stood out to you?
ELVING: Two things were quite arresting. First, that President Trump was so upfront about saying that the U.S. is taking over Venezuela, running the country for all intents and purposes - not just displacing Nicolas Maduro, but displacing the current government and apparently running it, for all intents and purposes, for an unspecified period.
Second thing was the way that Trump again and again put Venezuela's oil resources front and center. He went back to oil whenever questions came up from the media, and he went back to it several times when he and members of his cabinet were speaking. And indeed, Venezuela is the world leader in proven oil reserves.
ESTRIN: Yes, good thing you brought that up because I want to ask you about those oil references. Let's play a couple of clips.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: We're not spending money. The oil companies are going to go in. They're going to spend money. They're - we're going to take back the oil that, frankly, we should have taken back a long time ago.
ESTRIN: OK, and here's another clip.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Well, no, we're going to have a presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil because we have to have - we're sending our expertise in.
ESTRIN: Ron, that doesn't sound like it has much to do with fighting drug cartels.
ELVING: No, no, Trump made clear he thought those oil resources belonged not only to Venezuela - and, of course, he said that we would develop them with Venezuelans' interests in mind - but to the American oil companies that had been involved in developing them and which Trump expects to return to Venezuela to develop them further with the support of U.S. armed forces or, as Trump called them, boots on the ground. Do you remember how much we talked about blood for oil or at least power for oil with respect to Iraq some years ago? And it's remarkable to hear some of the same sort of language again now in this context.
ESTRIN: Yeah. It sounds like the president is talking about a U.S. occupation of Venezuela, and there's been no congressional approval of any element of the Trump administration's tactics against Venezuela. How does it work with a military operation or occupation?
ELVING: Well, a military occupation would certainly seem to be under the category of the use of military force, and that takes an authorization. The president made clear he did not see any involvement by Congress as crucial. He said Congress was full of, his word, leakers, and we cannot have leakers, meaning that you can't have a secret operation understood, that if everybody in Congress knew about it, that would not be a secret. But there has been a process in place for years by which Congress, represented by a small group, is informed, even of operations of this kind.
So he is testing his remarkable run of success at dominating Congress or simply ignoring Congress, and he's now reached a new milestone. We are occupying other countries - in essence, supplanting their governments - without even asking Congress for an authorization for the use of military force, which we did do in respect to Iraq.
ESTRIN: Ron, let's talk about broader global implications here. President Trump is also threatening Iran. And during his first term, he did approve a lethal drone strike on an Iranian military leader when he happened to be in Baghdad. What are the odds of diplomacy with Iran at this point?
ELVING: Just a few months ago, of course, the U.S. took part in a massive airstrike on Iran in cooperation with the Israeli military, a strike against Iran's facilities for creating a nuclear weapon. Trump referred to that operation several times this morning. So there's no question the president is willing to use force inside Iran. But this situation - these current unrests in the streets, these protests in the streets - this is quite different.
And the president is not just saying that he would punish Iran for repressing dissent. He is saying he would, quote, "rescue" the victims of the regime there. What does the word rescue mean? How would he put a stop to the street violence we've seen in the past few days? Does that mean more boots on the ground, in this case, in Iran? And how would Iran make good on its threats of retribution against U.S. assets in the region?
ESTRIN: NPR's Ron Elving. Ron, thank you.
ELVING: Thank you, Daniel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR鈥檚 programming is the audio record.
