Marco Rubio

So that's going to require a lot of careful thinking if that eventuality ever presents itself.

So I will point to two things.

The first is it's hard for us to conceive that an operation that lasted about four and a half hours and was a law enforcement operation to capture someone we don't recognize as the head of state, indicted in the United States.

We just don't believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of war.

We're not talking about some third world country here.

I mean, we're talking about a country that doesn't just have wealth.

It has memory.

It has history of economic activity, of people who own chains of pharmacies.

I know some of these people, people who own chains of retail stores, including American retailers who had a presence there.

We just want it to be a normal population.

prosperous country again, not a playground for Iran, Russia, and China in our own hemisphere.

We are not postured to, nor do we intend or expect,

to have to take any military action in Venezuela at any time.

The only military presence you'll see in Venezuela is our Marine Guards at an embassy.

After this operation happened, look at the people who criticized it.

China, Russia, Iran, Hamas, these were the people that were upset about this raid and what we did.

And I can tell you that in many countries in the Western Hemisphere, there was great pleasure in the fact that Maduro was removed.

The U.S.

made multiple attempts to make a deal with now former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to leave office voluntarily.

That according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.