Vice President JD Vance on Thursday insisted he was involved in the planning for the US operation to depose Nicolas Maduro.
“So, I’ve heard a couple of things – one that I was kept out of the planning for the Venezuela operation, that’s false,” he said at a White House briefing. “And another, that [Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard] was kept out of the planning for Venezuela operations. That’s completely false.”
Vance went on to defend the operation and the way it was planned. “Look, we’re all part of the same team, and one of the things that is really amazing about that operation is that we kept it very tight to the senior Cabinet-level officials and related officials in our government, and we kept this operation secret for a very long time. I’m very proud of that,” he added.
The vice president seemed to be responding to a New Yorker piece earlier this week, which noted Vance was not present in photos showing members of the president’s national security team at Mar-a-Lago during the Venezuela operation.
Reflecting on his role in the administration, Vance said he planned to do “whatever the president asks me to do.”
“Every other day, I’m chairing the meeting that we do among White House principals to talk about next steps to try to ensure that Venezuela is stable, and as the president has directed us to do, to ensure that the new Venezuelan government actually listens to the United States and does what the United States needs it to do under our country’s best interest,” he said.
“So, I’m going to be as involved as the president wants me to be — so far that’s been very involved, and I’ll keep on doing that, so long as the president asks me to do it.”