Out MS Now anchor Rachel Maddow eviscerated the Trump Administration’s flailing logic for its invasion of Venezuela and suggested a much simpler reason the president decided to arrest Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores: Because he can.
Maddow opened her segment by debunking the administration’s shifting explanations for the invasion, outlining how the president’s initial claims it was motivated by drugs didn’t make sense, considering the drug trade out of Venezuela does not actually affect the United States all that much.
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Besides, she said, Trump’s recent pardon of the former president of Honduras – who was convicted of trying to transport over 400 tons of cocaine into the United States – pretty much negates the idea that he cares at all about drug trafficking.
She also slammed claims that Trump invaded because Maduro is a dictator, considering the president has long praised foreign autocrats. Even his claims that he invaded for Venezuela’s oil make no sense, Maddow said. She called attention to a report from Reuters that U.S. oil executives say Trump has never spoken to them about his plans, despite claiming he has kept them in the loop.
“Donald Trump likes the sound of ‘Let’s take the oil,’” Maddow said. “He thinks that sounds cool and transgressive and tough. He thinks it makes him sound like, kind of a king, a military conquest kinda guy.”
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But she isn’t sure he understands what it actually means to “take the oil.” It’s not just sitting in barrels at stores, she pointed out. It’s under the earth’s surface and requires a massive and functional industry – not to mention billions and billions of dollars – to be drilled out. “Oil isn’t a thing you just mug someone for and then take it to the pawn shop for cash,” she said.
“If you’re Exxon,” Maddow added, “Do you think that because Trump just invaded and took away their president, now Venezuela is a great place, an excellent and stable place, to make… Multibillion-dollar investments that won’t pay off for years, if not decades?”
And if oil companies did recoup the investments, she said, they probably aren’t donating the proceeds to the U.S. Treasury, even though Trump seems to think the United States can pay for running the country through oil profits.
“Exxon’s just gonna give us the money?” Maddow asked, confirming that “taking the oil” is not a sensical reason for invading the country and arresting its leader.
The real reason for the invasion, Maddow said, may just be “the simplest thing imaginable.”
“What this is is a president who can barely bother with coming up with some barely false pretext because what he really wants is totally, unilateral, totally unaccountable, unquestioned ability to use the U.S. military anywhere for any purpose against anyone, even if it is inexplicable or unpopular or even illegal.”
“He wants to break the perceived connection between public legitimacy for military action and the use of the United States military. He wants the ability to use the U.S. military with the consent of no one,” she said.
In December, Maddow similarly warned that Trump is increasingly exhibiting dictatorial behavior.
“We’re no longer at the point where we need to be warned about what’s coming,” she said. “We’re now at a point where what we need is understanding what’s going on, knowing what our options are in terms of how to preserve our democracy, to make sure that we’re not going to be the generation that lost the republic,” she said.
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