Secretary of State Marco Rubio schooled CBS’s Margaret Brennan who asked why the US administration only arrested Nicolas Maduro and not the other narco-terrorists, like the defence minister of Venezuela, wanted by the US. “I am confused. Are they still wanted by the United States? Why didn’t you arrest them if you are taking out the narco-terrorist regime?” Brennan asked Rubio on Face the Nation.”You’re confused? I don’t know why that’s confusing!” Rubio said, explaining that it was a difficult operation to take Maduro out of the military compound he was staying in. “You’re gonna go in and suck up five people?! They’re already complaining about this one operation! Imagine the howls we would have from everybody else if we actually had to go and stay there four days to capture four other people! We got the top priority. The No. 1 person on the list was the guy who claimed to be the president of the country that he was not and he was arrested along with wife who was also indicted,” Rubio said. “It is not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the country. The guy lived on a military base: land, within three minutes kicked down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter and leave the country without losing any American or any American asset!””And you are asking me why we didn’t do this at five other places at the same time? That’s absurd. I do think that this is one of the most daring, sophisticated and complicated missions this country carried out in a very long time,” Rubio said. On running Venezuela, Rubio clarified that US would continue to enforce an oil quarantine that was already in place on sanctioned tankers before Maduro was removed from power. “And so that’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that,” Rubio said.”We continue with that quarantine, and we expect to see that there will be changes, not just in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also so that they stop the drug trafficking,” he said.
