Whether the Trump administration was right to capture Venezuela's leader or not, it's what the president did next that is "very dangerous," according to a former Trump appointee.
Matthew Bartlett, who was appointed to the State Department by President Trump during his first term, appeared on MS NOW over the weekend and was asked about how Venezuelans will be impacted. Specifically, the host asked, "What did you learn from working around this region about what an action like what happened yesterday, what that can do to the stability of the region?"
He replied, "Great question. I mean, this was a notion, as you mentioned, the first term where you had Venezuela just collapse internally. I remember in coordination meetings talking about the exodus of people being called something of an x ray of the country, just people coming out working to get medicine and refugees."
He continued:
"When countries collapse, they don't do it in neat and orderly ways. Now flash forward, we have regime change. And what does that mean? We just saw a press conference yesterday that was jaw dropping of the president assuming responsibility, saying we're going to run a country. A very difficult task. So again, I think we've seen kinetic action. And good people of good faith can have disagreements whether or not this was justified, but more importantly, what comes next?"
According to Bartlett, "that's where the questions continue to linger."
"Maybe some people did, but Donald Trump did not think about what the action after action would actually look like," a host said, prompting Bartlett.
Saying Trump was offering "mixed messages" in a "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" fashion, the former appointee said it's "very concerning" and added, "It's a slippery slope."
