Kristen Welker Tries to Pin Down Marco Rubio On Who Exactly Will Run Venezuela: ‘Is it You?’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio failed to give a clear answer to NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday when she pushed him to explain who would be in charge of Venezuela, following the U.S. arrest of the country’s leader Nicolás Maduro.

Rubio joined Meet the Press to discuss the American military action conducted on Friday night that captured Maduro and his wife. He told Welker that the U.S. was categorically not at war with the country of Venezuela, though the administration’s strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs would continue.

“There’s not a war. I mean, we are at war against drug trafficking organizations. It’s not a war against Venezuela,” said Rubio. “We are enforcing American laws with regards to oil sanctions. We have sanctioned entities. We go to court. We get a warrant. We seize those boats with oil, and that will continue,” he said.

Welker pushed Rubio to clarify who was actually in control of nation — going to far as to ask Rubio if he himself was in charge.

“Mr. Secretary, who is in charge?” asked Welker. “Are you running Venezuela right now?”

“Yeah, I mean, I keep people, you know, fixating on that,” said Rubio. “Here’s the bottom line on it is we expect to see changes in Venezuela, changes of all kinds, long-term, short-term. We’d love to see all kinds of changes. But the most immediate changes are the ones that are in the national interest of the United States. That’s why we’re involved here, because of how it applies and has a direct impact on the United states, okay.”

In response, Welker mentioned the president’s claims on Saturday that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for the time being, asking Rubio who the “point people” would be before a new leader took charge of Venezuela and pushing him to clarify why the Trump administration was throwing their support behind Maduro’s vice president, rather than leaders of his opposition within Venezuela.

Read their exchange below:

WELKER: But Mr. Secretary, I think there’s a lot of questions about who the point people are during this transition. President Trump said, we’re going to run the country. So is it you? Is it Secretary [Pete] Hegseth? Who are those people who will be running the country specifically?

RUBIO: Well, it’s not running– it’s running a policy. The policy with regards to this. We want Venezuela to move in a certain direction because not only do we think it’s good for the people of Venezuela, it’s in our national interest. It either touches on something that’s a threat to our national security or touches on something that is either beneficial or harmful.

WELKER: And are you involved in that transition, secretary?

RUBIO: Well obviously I’m very involved in this. Well, of course. I mean, I think everyone knows I’m pretty involved on politics in this hemisphere. Obviously, the Secretary of State and National Security Adviser very involved in all these elements. The Department of War plays a very important role here, along with the Department of Justice, for example, because they’ve got– they’re the ones that have to go to court. So this is a team effort by the entire national security apparatus of our country, but it is running this policy. And the goal of the policy is to see changes in Venezuela that are beneficial to the United States, first and foremost, because that’s who we work for. But also, we believe, beneficial for the people of Venezuela, who have suffered tremendously. We want a better future for Venezuela, and we think a better future for the people of Venezuela also is stabilizing for the region and makes the neighborhood we live in a much better and safer place.

WELKER: President Trump said the administration is working with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez. Why does the administration oppose working with the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado? She’s the Nobel peace prize winner, of course, as well. Her coalition has the support of 70% of Venezuelans. Why not work with her?

RUBIO: Well, a couple things. First of all, Maria Corina Machado is fantastic and she’s someone I’ve known for a very long time and she, the whole movement is. But here’s the– we are dealing with the immediate reality. The immediate reality is that unfortunately, and sadly, but unfortunately the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside of Venezuela. We have short term things that have to be addressed right away. We all wish to see a bright future for Venezuela, a transition to democracy. All of these things are great. And we all want to see that. I’ve worked on that for 15 years on a personal level, both in the Senate and now as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. These are things I still care about. We still care. But we’re talking about is what happens over the next two, three weeks, two, three months and how that ties to the national interest of the United States. And so we expect to see more compliance and cooperation than we were previously receiving. With Nicolas Maduro, you could not make a deal or an arrangement. Although he, by the way, was given very generous offers. He could have left Venezuela as recently as, you know, a week and a half ago. There were opportunities available for him to avoid all of this because now he’s not someone we can work with. He suckered the Biden administration into stupid deals. He’s made a career out of not keeping deals and figuring out how to save himself by buying time. And we were not, President Trump was not going to fall into that trap. So now there are other people in charge of the military and police apparatus there, they’re gonna have to decide now what direction they wanna go. And we hope they will choose a different direction than the one Nicolas Maduro picked. Ultimately, we hope this leads to a holistic transition all the way around in Venezuela, societal, political, all of that. We’re in favor of all of them. But right now, we have to take the first steps and the first step is securing what’s in the national interest of the United States and also beneficial to the people of Venezuela. And those are the things that we’re focused on right now. No more drug trafficking, no more Iran has beloved presence there, and no more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world and not benefiting the people of Venezuela, or frankly, benefiting the United States and the region.

WELKER: You talk about a holistic transition. I think there’s a lot of focus on potential elections. How soon will elections be held? Within 30 days, Mr. Secretary?

RUBIO: Elections? Well, look, and this is a country that’s been governed by this regime now for 14 or 15 years. The election should have happened a long time ago. The elections did happen. They lost them and they didn’t count the votes or they refused to count the votes and everyone knows it. So of the problems that we had with the Maduro. We still have those problems in terms of them needing to be addressed. We’re going to give people an opportunity to address those challenges and those problems until they address it. They will continue to face this oil quarantine. They will continue to faced pressure from the United States. We will continue the target drug boats of they try to run towards the United states. We will continue. We will to seize the the boats that are sanctioned with court orders. We will continue to do that and potentially other things until the things we need to see addressed are addressed. Because ultimately above everything else we care about elections, we care, about democracy, we care about all of that. But the number one thing we care. About is the safety, security, well-being and prosperity of the United States. And that’s what we’re going to focus on first and foremost here. And and that’s, what these policies that these changes we need, to see made. Are about.

Watch above via Meet the Press.