Ben Rhodes

You obviously were not notified in advance of that attack, and we'll get to that in a moment.

I just wanted to start by asking you, as someone who's followed this closely, when you heard the news, first of all, how did you hear the news?

Normally you would have heard it in a briefing before it happened, but how did you hear the news and what was your first reaction?

Actually, I want to stick with that for a second because you, like me, I'm sure, watched Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the press conference with Trump after the operation.

And he basically was describing what sounded like months of planning, pre-positioning all these resources.

Obviously, you have to plan a complex special forces raid like that.

It seemed like, and I'm sure you can't talk about this, but it seemed like there was a combination of

probably offensive cyber operations and special operations.

This took months.

Is it not the case that they were telling you that they weren't planning anything while they were planning something?

I mean, that seems like a big deal.

Because Trump also did say on Air Force One that he spoke to American oil companies before the operation.

So it feels like maybe Chevron got a heads up before.

Well, it seems like everything is about personal relationships now and not institutions.

But to get into what's going on, what is your reaction?

There's been a lot to digest.

Trump is now saying we're going to run Venezuela, but he's also basically keeping the Maduro regime in place absent Maduro.

He says that we're no longer talking about drugs as much as we're talking about oil.

What are your concerns right now?

going forward about what happens now that the United States has removed Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela.