'Damn Straight We Did': Stephen Miller Admits US Invaded Venezuela In On-Air CNN Outburst
CNN host Jake Tapper on Monday had pressing questions for White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, noting the US invaded Venezuela over the weekend and seized its now-ousted President Nicolás Maduro — which the MAGA loyalist proudly admitted on air.
“Damn straight we did!” Miller said during his appearance on The Lead.
President Donald Trump on Saturday announced US forces in Caracas had captured Maduro, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio later claiming that deadly accompanying strikes were necessary to protect US personnel during the nighttime extraction.
Miller on Monday justified the controversial operation as part of America’s supposed responsibility as a “superpower,” reiterating claims from Trump and a Justice Department indictment that Maduro has been trafficking narcotics into the US.
Miller grew increasingly frustrated, however, when pressed about the future of Venezuela.
Tapper asked why Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was installed as interim leader when Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, who was barred from running for president in 2024, still has widespread support in the country as the leader of Venezuela’s opposition party.
Miller argued it would be “absurd and preposterous” for the US to select her as interim leader, echoing claims from Trump that she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country,” leading Tapper to ask if Venezuela should even hope to hold an election.
Miller launched into a lengthy diatribe about American might, stating that “what we are doing here” is using the US military “to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere” — and that “we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower.”
“Sovereign countries shouldn’t be able to do what they want to do?” Tapper asked.
“The future of the free world depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology,” Miller claimed. “This whole period that happened after World War II, where the West began apologising and groveling and begging—”
“I don’t even know, honestly, what you’re talking about right now,” Tapper interrupted.
Miller went on to call Tapper “smarmy” for supposedly feigning ignorance, leading the anchor to reiterate that he had merely asked “if there should be an election.” Miller argued that with America’s help, Venezuela “will become more prosperous than it has ever been.”
Tapper noted, “The woman running Venezuela right now is part of the Maduro regime.”
Miller went on to argue that Tapper was viewing the situation from a “neoliberal frame” in which the US has a duty to demand “immediate elections be held everywhere, immediately.”
“No, that’s not what I think — but you invaded the country,” Tapper responded. “We went into the country and we seized the leader of Venezuela.”
Miller responded, “Damn straight we did! Because the point, Jake, is that we’re not going to let tinpot communist dictators send rapists into our country, send drugs into our country, send weapons into our country, OK?”
He went on to paint the conflict as a humanitarian effort, stating the US won’t let Venezuela “fall into the hands” of America’s “adversaries,” before claiming that the South American nation has a prosperous future ahead as a direct result of the operation. Trump recently confirmed the US will be “strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil industry.
Tapper appeared visibly drained by the exchange, but allowed Miller to finish his argument, which concluded with glowing praise of Trump — for supposedly conducting “one of the greatest foreign policy and military achievements this country has ever had.”