“Morning Joe” namesake Joe Scarborough said on Tuesday that he spoke with President Donald Trump for about 20 minutes on Monday, in which the president promised the U.S. operation in Venezuela would be different than its Iraq efforts because “we’re going to keep the oil.”
Scarborough said on his MS NOW show that the president initially spoke “on background,” a journalistic agreement that generally allows a source to have their quotes used without named attribution. Trump then used most of the conversation to defend the U.S. effort to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as “flawless” and one that would showcase the U.S.’ strength to adversaries such as Russia and Iran.
But when Scarborough pressed Trump on how the mission differed from President George W. Bush’s endeavors in Iraq, Trump moved the conversation on the record.
“I asked him, ‘Mr. President, when you say, ‘We’re going to run everything,’ it obviously causes deep concerns because of the disaster in Iraq,’” Scarborough recapped. “The president’s response: ‘Joe, the difference between Iraq and this is that Bush didn’t keep the oil. We’re going to keep the oil.’ And to underline his point, Trump said his comments were no longer on background and said, ‘In 2016, I said we should have kept the oil. It caused a lot of controversy. Well, we should have kept the oil.’”
Trump has repeatedly touted how the U.S. operation in Venezuela will bolster U.S. oil companies, telling NBC News on Monday that he believes the U.S. could upgrade Venezuela’s oil infrastructure in less than 18 months.
“A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue,” Trump said.
Scarborough, who has sparred with the president over the years, said he has spoken to Trump a “half dozen” times since the president returned to the White House. Monday’s conversation marked the first time they had spoken in “a few months,” he further noted.
