Nevertheless, he avoided confirming or denying possible attack plans.
On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he “doesn’t believe” the United States will go to war with Venezuela, but avoided confirming or denying whether his administration has attack plans.
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In an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, when asked whether the U.S. “is going to war with Venezuela,” Trump replied, “I doubt it. I don’t think so. But they’ve treated us very badly,” before mentioning drug trafficking and the illegal immigration of Venezuelan criminals into the country.
Later, when journalist Norah O’Donnell asked about possible U.S. attacks on targets inside Venezuelan territory, Trump said he did not want to say “whether it’s true or not,” adding that he would not tell “a reporter whether I’m going to attack or not.”
Earlier, after stepping off Air Force One and being asked about possible concrete U.S. plans for an attack on Venezuela, Trump responded in a similar way.
“How can I answer a question like that? Are there plans for an attack on Venezuela? Who would say that? Assuming there were, would I tell you, honestly? Yes, we have plans. We have very secret plans,” Trump said, once again criticizing the question.
“Look, we’ll see what happens with Venezuela,” he added, before reiterating his claim that the Venezuelan government “sent thousands of people from prisons, mental institutions, and drug addicts.”
In the CBS interview, when pressed about the presence of an aircraft carrier—referring to the USS Gerald Ford, the largest and most sophisticated in the fleet, which could suggest an air operation—Trump responded sarcastically that “it has to be somewhere, it’s very big.”
Throughout the interview, Trump frequently interrupted the journalist to talk about immigration whenever she tried to return to her questions and avoided giving concrete answers. When asked whether Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “has his days numbered,” Trump was quick to answer: “I’d say yes, I think so.”
On Oct. 31, Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, denied that the United States is preparing to attack Venezuela, despite an undeniable increase in military pressure on Caracas.
