-President Trump has been floating the possibility
of using military force in Venezuela.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
You might recall that during the presidential campaign,
Trump tried to pretend that he was anti-war.
Despite supporting the Iraq war at the time,
he claimed repeatedly that he was against it
and even confronted Jeb Bush to his face
about his brother's decision to invade Iraq.
-Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake, all right?
The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives.
We don't even have it.
Iran is taking over Iraq
with the second-largest oil reserves in the world.
Obviously, it was a mistake.
George Bush made a mistake.
We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty.
We should have never been in Iraq.
We have destabilized the Middle East.
-"And if I'm president, I won't stop at the Middle East.
I'll destabilize the entire world."
[ Laughter ]
Also, I don't know why you're yelling at Jeb
about the Iraq war.
You think they checked with him?
[ Laughter ]
They barely let him in the family photos.
[ Laughter ]
Look how red Trump's face is.
How is it possible for a human being
to blend into their background like that?
I knew he changed positions all the time.
But I didn't think he was an actual chameleon.
Comments like that led some pundits to the absurd conclusion
that Trump was somehow anti-war, like this now infamous headline
from the "New York Times" op-ed page --
"Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk."
Donald Trump is many things, but he is not a dove.
New Yorkers hate him, and he eats fast food.
He's clearly a pigeon.
[ Laughter ]
He even -- [ Applause ]
For what it's worth...
he even stands like a pigeon.
[ Laughter ]
And we knew -- we knew Trump was lying
about his supposed anti-war leanings
because he kept repeating one of his favorite talking points --
"When we invaded Iraq, we should have taken the country's oil."
He even foreshadowed a possible return to Iraq
in a speech at CIA headquarters the day after his inauguration.
-The old expression -- "To the victor belong the spoils."
You remember I always used to say, "Keep the oil."
I wasn't a fan of Iraq. I didn't want to go into Iraq.
But I will tell you, when we were in, we got out wrong.
And I always said, in addition to that, "Keep the oil."
Now, I said it for economic reasons.
But if you think about it, Mike, if we kept the oil,
you probably wouldn't have ISIS,
'cause that's where they made their money in the first place.
So we should have kept the oil, but okay.
Maybe you'll have another chance.
-Wait, what?
What do you mean, another chance?
You can't just tease something like that and then move on.
That's like dropping news on your parents
while you're hanging up on the phone.
"Okay, Mom, I've got to run. I love you, too.
Deb and I are splitting up. Bye."
One of these days we're going to find out
that Trump sold the country to Russia
in the middle of one of his rambles.
"We're having the Clemson team over.
We're serving them Big Macs. They have that sauce.
It's like Russian dressing,
which, you know, it's from Russia,
which is fitting because they own the White House now."
And Iraq is not the only country
Trump has teased as a target for regime change.
According to Bob Woodward's book "Fear,"
Trump once told former Defense Secretary James Mattis
he wanted to take out Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,
but Mattis ignored him.
Trump called Mattis
and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator.
"Let's [bleep] kill him. Let's go in.
Let's kill the [bleep] lot of them," Trump said.
Mattis told the President that he would get right on it,
but after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide,
"We're not gonna do any of that."
It is amazing that you can just ignore
the President of the United States,
and he'll probably forget what he asked you to do.
He's like a dog who really wants a tennis ball.
If you just fake throw it and then put it in a drawer,
he'll forget about it.
So, Trump the dove asked the Secretary of Defense
to kill a Syrian dictator
and teased a potential return to Iraq to take the country's oil.
And now he's threatening the possibility
of military action in Venezuela.
-We have now heard that the Trump administration
has unveiled sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry,
and they've actually implied
we could soon see military action there.
-Republican senator Lindsey Graham confirmed
that President Trump has mused
about possible military intervention in Venezuela.
-Is there any circumstance
under which American forces would get involved?
-Look, the President has made it very clear on this matter
that all options are on the table.
-Are you considering a military option for Venezuela?
-We're not considering anything,
but all options are on the table.
-Does that mean you're considering...
-Just all options always. All options are on the table.
-All options are on the table.
That's reminding me of something.
Oh, right. There it is.
[ Laughter ]
"Help yourself, guys.
All options are on the table.
We have all the McNugget sauces."
When Trump says all options are on the table,
it's because he doesn't know what the options are.
He knows military, and that's it.
Someone should dare him to name a second option.
"Well, there's military, then there's Army,
and then if we have to, we'll send in the space force."
[ Laughter ]
Now, there's no question that there's a serious humanitarian
and political crisis in Venezuela,
and the regime of President Nicolás Maduro,
who won a rigged election in May, is genuinely awful.
This is Maduro.
You probably recognize him from the classic dictator look
sported by guys like Joseph Stalin,
Saddam Hussein, and the Soup Nazi.
[ Laughter ]
Maduro has presided
over an economic catastrophe in Venezuela.
Just to give you an idea, Venezuela used to be
one of the world's richest oil-producing countries.
Now there are widespread food shortages and hyperinflation
that has rendered the currency essentially worthless.
-The economic free fall is from falling oil prices
and failed economic policies.
The government printed more money,
and bills became so worthless, women turned them into art.
Inflation could hit 10,000,000%.
That's how many bolívars it costs to buy a chicken.
It takes a stack of almost-worthless paper
to buy toilet paper.
-Look at that.
That's how much money it takes to buy toilet paper.
You might as well use the money instead of the toilet paper.
"Honey, that Chipotle isn't sitting well with me.
Can you pass me $1 million?"
Maduro has jailed prisoners, cracked down on dissidents
to try to stay in power.
Meanwhile, many Western nations
have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó
as the legitimate president,
which means there are two rival presidents.
The political situation is so crazy,
there's even a rival supreme court.
And it isn't even in Venezuela.
For the last year and a half, a second Venezuelan supreme court
has presided over the country's laws
through the miracle of cloud computing.
Its 33 jurists live in the U.S., Panama, Colombia, and Chile.
Every 15 days, they hold court via video conference
in what Bloomberg called "a Skype judiciary."
They're making supreme court decisions via Skype.
I can't even figure out how to Skype with my mom.
Everything's on a five-second delay,
and every other word cuts out.
That must be why all their cases are called
"say that again" v. "just send me a text."
There's no question that Venezuela is in crisis.
The question is, what's the best way to resolve the crisis
without making things worse?
On the one hand, countries like Mexico and Uruguay
have already proposed a new process
of inclusive and credible negotiations
to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
On the other hand, the Trump administration
has chosen to back Guaidó and impose sanctions.
Vice President Mike Pence even secretly called Guaidó
and told him the U.S.
would support his claim to the presidency
and recorded a message to the Venezuelans
urging them to do the same.
-Hola.
I'm Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States.
The United States supports the courageous decision
by Juan Guaidó, the president of your National Assembly,
to assert that body's constitutional powers,
declare Maduro a usurper,
and call for the establishment of a transitional government.
We say to all the good people of Venezuela,
estamos con ustedes.
We are with you.
Muchas gracias.
Y vayan con Dios.
-Wow.
Mike Pence's Spanish makes Michael Bloomberg
sound like the mayor of Barcelona.
[ Laughter ]
There's something very odd
about hearing Mike Pence say the word "hola."
It's like when the gym teacher has to cover Spanish class.
"Hola. Señor Perez is out with strep.
The assignment is on el boardo."
And while Pence was backing Guaidó,
Trump was apparently floating the possibility
of military intervention to Republicans
like South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham.
And even Graham, one of the most pro-war politicians in Congress,
told Trump that was a bad idea.
-Senator Lindsey Graham says
that recently as a couple of weeks ago,
President Trump discussed the possibility
of using military force in Venezuela.
Graham, recalling his conversation with Trump,
told Axios, "Trump said,
'What do you think about using military force?'
And I said, 'Well, you need to go slow on that.
That could be problematic.'
And he said, 'Well, I'm surprised.
You want to invade everybody.'"
-Yeah, dude, seriously, take a hint.
Even the guy who wants to invade everybody
is telling you to relax.
It's like Kathie Lee and Hoda
telling you to cool it on the Pinot.
Now, the scary thing about Trump
floating military action in Venezuela
is that the people who used to ignore his crazy fantasies,
like Mattis, are no longer there.
Now Trump is surrounded by hard-liners
like National Security Advisor John Bolton,
who's called for regime change in several countries,
and then there's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
On Monday, they held a briefing at the White House
to unveil new sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector.
-Today Treasury took action
against Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA.
Persons operating in the Venezuelan oil sector
may now be subject to sanctions.
Refineries in the United States have already been taking steps
to reduce the reliance on imports from Venezuela.
Those imports have fallen substantially in recent months.
-I'm sorry, but what is going on with this map?
It's not exactly a good look for this White House
when the map has all of Russia
and only half of the United States.
Was this Trump's idea?
"This is the official map now. California is gone."
[ Laughter ]
Now, there's concern among experts
and some Democrats in Congress
that the sanctions could only make the economic situation
in Venezuela worse for the ordinary citizens.
But that wasn't the scariest thing about the briefing.
The scariest thing was what they didn't say --
specifically, what Bolton had on his notepad
that was caught by the cameras.
-"The Washington Post" reports a notepad
held by National Security Advisor John Bolton
appeared to disclose a possible plan
to send 5,000 U.S. troops to Colombia.
It comes amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela.
Bolton held the notepad facing outward
during a White House briefing yesterday.
There were two items scrawled on the pad --
"Afghanistan, welcome the talks" and "5,000 troops to Colombia."
-That's right.
Bolton was holding his notepad toward the cameras,
and when they zoomed in, it said "5,000 troops to Colombia."
Here's my question.
Why is he carrying around a notepad
with only two sentences on it?
Just remember it.
When I go to the bathroom,
I don't need to write down "brush teeth and floss."
The bottom line is this.
You can think Maduro is awful and oppose him
and also think military action is a bad idea.
Those aren't mutually exclusive.
We probably shouldn't trust the same guys
who supported a disastrous war in Iraq
to do a better job in Venezuela.
Instead of threatening war, maybe call up allies
and countries in the region and say...
-Hola.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]