Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Donald Trump (Agence France-Presse/Federico Parra and Darren McCollester)
The Department of Defense issued a statement to CNN Pentagon Reporter Barbara Starr refuting President Donald Trump's press conference Friday night.
“I’m not going to rule out a military option” for Venezuela, Trump explained in a short press conference in New Jersey. “Venezuela is not very far away.”
The internet immediately lit up with a kind of "fury" of its own, but the Defense Department was quick to refute the claim that the United States was randomly readying for war against the South American country. However, they blamed the accusation on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro instead of Trump's threatening words.
"Any insinuations by the Maduro regime that we are planning an invasion are baseless," the spokesperson told Starr.
Maduro announced earlier Friday that he was with Trump, but that was before the U.S. president threatened military action.
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