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Trump says US will occupy Venezuela and take back “our” oil

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I second Shakezula’s recommendation that you go to the Guardian’s website for non-euphemistic coverage of Trump’s post-kidnapping/invasion press conference:

The US president has claimed at the press conference now under way in Florida that the United States is going to run Venezuela for the time being, although it’s unclear how that would be done.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said. He has given no details.

He just called Maduro a dictator and a drug kingpin.“We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind [after] decades of that. We’re not going to let that happen.”

He continued: “We’re there now … We’re going to stay until such time as a proper transition can take place.”

He then added, about Venezuela’s vast oil reserves: “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave.” Trump said the US military was prepared to make a second wave of attacks in the latest action overnight into Saturday but that was not needed.

The details of how or on what authority or with what kind of agreements, if any, that the US intends to “run” Venezuela in transition are unclear at this time. . . .

Trump is now being asked about US presence in Venezuela and what he means about “running the country”. He hasn’t illuminated this point yet.

“We’re designating people, we are talking to people,” the US president said. He’s now lapsed back into platitudes, as the press pool waits its turn to ask more question as the public seeks specifics. . .

Donald Trump said his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has talked with the Venezuelan vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, today and mentions that she agreed to work with the US.

The US president said she has already been sworn in as president. A few hours ago there were reports that she was in Russia, so the situation remains unclear at this moment and the press conference question-and-answer session with Trump is now bouncing around various semi-related topics.

As fragments of fact, as opposed to pure rhetoric and vague statements, come through we’ll piece them together.

“She’s, I guess, the president. She had a long conversation with Marco and said we’ll do what you need. She had no choice,” Trump just said of Rodríguez.

I guess we’re putting together a 1950s greatest hits package.

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