Donald Trump tight-lipped on Venezuela land | Political News

President Donald Trump stayed tight-lipped on whether or not the U.S. would take into account land strikes on Venezuela during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday.

Trump was requested if the U.S. is on the trail to conflict with Venezuela, to which he responded “probably not,” before including that he believes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s days in workplace are “numbered.”

Trump also took the chance to take pictures at the South American nation, claiming they have been emptying “their prisons into our country.”

“They’ve dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country that we didn’t want, people from prisons. They emptied their prisons into our country. They also, if you take a look, they emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylum into the United States of America because Joe Biden was the worst president in the history of our country,” Trump said.

“They are fabricating an extravagant narrative, a vulgar, criminal and totally fake one,” Maduro added. “Venezuela is a country that does not produce cocaine leaves.”

Experts say the U.S. forces in the area aren’t large enough for an invasion. But they might help push out Maduro — and presumably plunge the nation into chaos.

“There’s a really high potential for violence and instability,” according to Geoff Ramsey, an professional on U.S. coverage toward Venezuela who is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. If Maduro loses energy, he said Venezuela may “devolve into a Libya-style meltdown that could last years.”

The Ford strike group, which incorporates 5 destroyers, will add to an unusually large U.S. army buildup in the waters off Venezuela. The Navy already has eight warships in the area — three destroyers, three amphibious assault ships, a cruiser and a smaller littoral fight ship that’s designed for coastal waters. It was not clear if all 5 of the destroyers in the Ford strike group would make the journey.

A U.S. Navy submarine also is working in the broader space of South America and is succesful of launching cruise missiles. The U.S. army also despatched a squadron of F-35B Lightning II fighter jets to an airstrip in Puerto Rico and not too long ago flew a pair of supersonic, heavy bombers up to the coast of Venezuela.

The administration says the army has killed at least 57 people in the strikes against vessels accused of transporting medicine. Trump has declared drug cartels to be illegal combatants because of narcotics flowing into the nation and said the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.