Operation Absolute Resolve brings dictator Nicholas Maduro to the United States as President Donald Trump asserts American authority over Venezuela’s rehabilitation amid criticism.
„We’re in charge of everything. We’re in charge of everything… We’re going to run it. We’re going to fix it…. Well, we’re gonna run everything. We’re gonna run it, fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time. The main thing you have to fix, it’s a broken country.“
President Donald Trump, on Air Force One on Sunday night, had a remarkable back and forth with the traveling press corps about Operation Absolute Resolve, which captured and arrested dictator Nicholas Maduro and brought him to the United States, and which included his statements above about Venezuela.
Many people purport either not to understand what President Trump said on Sunday on his return flight, or during his Saturday morning statement and press conference or, as with the case of New York Times reporter Lulu Navarro, to assert that if the president and his administration „say they run the country, then whatever happens there now they own.“
Navarro continued in her online X exchange with me, „That is the consequence of saying they ‘run’ the country while repression continues.“ She added in another post „that the repression the regime is continuing to exert is now the responsibility of the US. They have toppled the leader but left the regime and its heinous actors in place to consolidate power.“
While Ms. Navarro and I had a cordial exchange — she is simply wrong about how our legal system would assign responsibility for „heinous acts“ done in Venezuela post-Madura, she is also wrong about what President Trump and Secretary Rubio have repeatedly stated.
The president’s many statements about „running“ Venezuela or being „in charge“ are a very clear assertion of general, non-specific power, like a parent might say to a child about his or her plans or to a school board when it comes to curriculum or like a coach might say to journalists covering a particular team. It is difficult to believe that anyone doesn’t actually understand what a generalized statement of authority means. We encounter them daily and we routinely understand them.
So those who are saying they don’t understand what President Trump and Secretary Rubio are saying can be classified as (1) ignorant; (2) stupid or (3) deceitful.
Similarly, those who want to lay at the president’s feet every bad or evil act done in Venezuela post-Maduro are subject to the same classification.
It is difficult, but not impossible for people to be unable to understand direct versus indirect authority. They may be ignorant, for example, of bankruptcy proceedings where a bankruptcy judge has general authority over the reorganization of a company that has filed for „BK“, but who doesn’t figure out the plan to emerge from that status or liquidate the assets but rather only passes on plans that emerge after objections have been heard from creditors.
