President Donald Trump attended the U.S. Open on Sunday, and as he was flying to the tennis match from the White House, a reporter asked a question that's been on many of our minds over the last few weeks: "Are you considering attacking the cartels inside of Venezuela?"
The president's short response was cryptic, but it suggested that something could be on the horizon: "Well, you're going to find out."
As I reported on Friday, Venezuela's illegitimate president, Nicolás Maduro, flew two of his regime's aircraft close to one of the United States Navy warships currently patrolling the southern Caribbean Sea near Venezuela's borders. The newly named Department of War responded with a verbal warning and by sending 10 F-35 fighter planes to Puerto Rico.
President Trump took that warning a step further on Friday when he spoke from the Oval Office. A reporter asked him, "What happens if Venezuela flies jets over U.S. Naval vessels again?"
The president responded, "Well, I would say they're gonna be in trouble." He later added, "But if they do put us in a dangerous position, they'll be shot down."
Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Maduro is obviously panicking. He's made numerous erratic and contradictory statements in recent days—about Trump and the United States, the accusations against him, and Venezuelan opposition leader and U.S. ally María Corina Machado. He veers from threatening war with the U.S. one moment to begging for diplomatic meetings the next to sometimes dismissing Trump's threats completely, indicating that his narco-terrorist regime is clearly rattled. He threatens the United States in one breath and talks about how much he respects Trump and simply wants peace the next.
Maduro, who was dressed in camouflage, spoke from a military base on Friday and called for the mobilization of civilian militias. He claims his militia has over 4.5 million members, but CBS reports that number was much lower in recent years, not even reaching half a million people. Here's a sample of his propaganda from Friday (keep in mind that it's translated from Spanish):
To President Donald Trump, I say once again, from beautiful Caracas, from peaceful Venezuela. The attempt by some of your officials to bring about regime change in Venezuela is once again a mistake. Trying to create a false, absolutely false, case on drug trafficking to attack an entire country, to criticize a country's institutions, is like trying to cover up a plan for regime change with a dirty Hollywood-style case that divides between the good and the bad. Latinos are always the bad guys, and Americans are always the good guys.
The government of the United States of America must abandon its plan for violent regime change in Venezuela and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and respect the sovereignty, the right to peace, and the independence of our countries, heroically won by our liberators.
Here's video.
I've kept an eye on Latin American social media this weekend, and something I found a bit interesting is that there was talk of numerous private jets flying from Venezuela to Margarita Island, a popular tourist destination in the Caribbean that's about a 45-minute flight from Caracas. I was unable to confirm this myself, but the unverified reports, if true, indicate that Venezuela's elites are either in major vacation mode or they're bracing themselves for something that could happen on the mainland. The question remains: Is something concrete in the works or are our intimidation tactics having an impact?
There have also been online rumors of ramped-up U.S. military training in Puerto Rico, but again, I can't confirm that. We'll just have to see what this upcoming week brings.
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