‘Why Didn’t That Happen?’ Welker Grills Rubio On Trump Not Getting Congressional Approval for Strike

NBC’s Kristen Welker confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio about President Donald Trump not getting Congressional approval for the strike on Venezuela.

In the latter moments of a nearly 20-minute interview on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Welker referenced a Vanity Fair article in which White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said the president would need to get a green light from Congress before launching a land strike on Venezuela.

“White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair that an attack on Venezuela’s mainland would require approval from Congress,” Welker said. “Why didn’t that happen? And will it happen with any future action the administration plans to take in Venezuela or elsewhere?”

Rubio defended the president’s decision not to seek approval from Congress.

“This was not an action that required congressional approval,” Rubio said. “In fact, it couldn’t require congressional approval because this was not invasion. This is not an extended military operation. This is a very precise operation that involved a couple of hours of action. It was a very delicate operation, too. It was one that required all these conditions to be in place at the right time in the right place. You couldn’t afford leaks. We couldn’t afford anything out there that would have endangered the mission and gotten people killed, or killed off the mission in the optionality. We didn’t even know if the mission was going to happen. How can you notify something you’re not even sure if it can happen? Because in order for it to happen, you had needed to have weather conditions in place.”

Welker pressed Rubio on whether the White House plans to work around Congress or work with them.

“Will you seek Congressional approval for any further action in Venezuela or the region?”

“Well, we will seek congressional approval for actions that require congressional approval, but otherwise they will get congressional notification,” Rubio said. “And this is not an operation that require Congressional approval. In fact, this is an operation akin to what virtually every single president for the last 40 years has conducted. The difference is that when it’s Donald Trump, you know, all these Democrats go bonkers.”

Watch above, via NBC.