CNN's Alayna Treene highlighted a "significant" comment made by President Donald Trump in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times about his administration's plans for Venezuela.
The 79-year-old president told the New York Times during a nearly two-hour interview he expected the U.S. to run Venezuela for the foreseeable future and praised the interim government, which is made up of loyalists of ousted leader Nicolás Maduro, for so far “giving us everything that we feel is necessary.”
The network's White House correspondent said that remark "stood out" to her.
"One of the quotesthat the president gave the New York Times and the in thisinterview that really stood outto me was when he said that theinterim government in Caracas,which is, of course, right nowmade up of all loyalists to thenow captured Nicolás Maduro, heessentially said that they are 'giving us everything that wefeel is necessary,'" Treene said.
"The reason Ifind that to be so significantis because of the reporting thatwe were reporting out all dayyesterday," she added, "which is essentiallythat the Trump administrationhas laid out conditions to Venezuela's interim governmentthat essentially, you know, whatthey need to do in order tocontinue pumping oil, and Ishould note, as well, that the Trump administration does notbelieve that, you know, Caracascan last financially for manymore weeks. They think they onlyhave a few more weeks withoutselling oil that they can reallybe financially viable movingforward. But some of those conditions included severing ties with U.S. foreign adversaries, countries like China, Russia, Iran, Cuba."
Trump will meet Friday with executives from U.S. oil companies who are wary of a lengthy and costly investment in rebuilding Venezuela's neglected energy infrastructure.
"Theyalso said that they want Caracasto have an exclusive partnershipwith America in all of theseoil sales," Treene said. "All to say, it comesahead of the president's meetingtomorrow with oil executives.Companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, andalso as they're trying toconvince these oil companies togo in and invest in Venezuelaand rebuild theirinfrastructure, something weactually heard from the energysecretary, Chris Wright,yesterday, that is going to be abig challenge, something thatthey are acknowledging."