US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has declared that President Donald Trump’s recent removal of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela is “not regime change”, despite Trump’s own comments about US involvement in that country’s government.
Moments after leaving a closed meeting on the , Johnson vehemently defended Trump’s legal authority to conduct it — a subject that he said had been discussed in the room among key lawmakers and White House officials.
“We are not at war. We do not have American armed forces in Venezuela and we are not occupying that country,” Johnson said.
Questioned by CNN Regarding Trump’s repeated statements that the US is “going to govern” Venezuela, Johnson reiterated what he heard at the meeting and said: “The way it’s being described, this is not a regime change. This is a demand for a change in behavior by a regime.”
And he emphasized that there will be no American soldiers on Venezuelan soil to help form a new government.
“We don’t expect troops on the ground. We don’t expect direct involvement in any way other than coercing the interim government into putting this into practice,” he said.
