{"id":77128,"date":"2019-03-27T23:47:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T06:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=77128"},"modified":"2019-03-27T23:47:38","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T06:47:38","slug":"president-trump-and-first-lady-fabiana-rosales-of-the-bolivarian-republic-of-venezuela-before-bilateral-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=77128","title":{"rendered":"President Trump and First Lady Fabiana Rosales of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Before Bilateral Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Thank you very much.  It\u2019s a great honor to have the First Lady of Venezuela.  She\u2019s been through a tremendous \u2014 she\u2019s been through a lot, let\u2019s put it that way.  She\u2019s been through what people don\u2019t want to have to go through and should never have to go through.  Her husband is a tremendous man who is working so hard.  And it\u2019s very dangerous.  It\u2019s dangerous stuff.  We hear what\u2019s going on.  We know exactly what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z_tQujbGWiQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Our Vice President, Mike, was there for a period of time and got to know your husband very well.<\/p>\n<p>But I just want to say we\u2019re going to have a terrific conversation; we already have.  And a lot of progress is being made.  With all of the problems, a tremendous amount of progress is being made.<\/p>\n<p>Venezuela was a country with tremendous potential and is still a country with tremendous potential.  But people are starving.  They\u2019re being killed.  They\u2019re being beaten.  What\u2019s going there is unfathomable to everybody that sees and everybody that gets reports.  We\u2019re getting reports that are horrible.<\/p>\n<p>The potential of Venezuela, if done properly and with democracy, would be incredible.  It was one of the richest companies [countries] \u2014 certainly one of the truly rich countries of the world, and now it\u2019s one of the poorest countries of the world.<\/p>\n<p>If you look at what\u2019s happened: Despite oil \u2014 the oil is not coming out.  Everything is broken.  They have no water.  They have no electric.  They have \u2014 the lights are out.  In fact, I understand, just today they had a big blackout.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019re very much in contact with your husband and with everybody else.  And a lot of things are happening.  Many things are happening.<\/p>\n<p>So, just in concluding, I want to say, again, to have you and your friends and representatives with us has been incredible.  I know that you\u2019ve also suffered tremendously.  And I\u2019d like you maybe to say a few words.<\/p>\n<p>But, please, First Lady?  I\u2019d love to have you say a few words to the media.<\/p>\n<p>MS. ROSALES:  (As interpreted.)  Thank you very much, Mr. President.  It is an honor for me to be here.  I thank you.  I thank the Vice President.  It was a pleasure meeting you, as well.  And, Mr. Bolton, it\u2019s an honor to count on you as we do.<\/p>\n<p>Venezuela is going through a terrible crisis.  The power crisis is very serious.  Children are dying \u2014 are dying in hospitals.  Children are dying because they have no food.  Hospitals are in darkness.  The crisis is serious.<\/p>\n<p>I fear for my husband\u2019s life.  Yesterday he was attacked.  His life was attacked.  Also, his Chief of Staff, Roberto Marrero, was kidnapped in a very violent and vile manner.  Not only is he his Chief of Staff, he is our personal friend.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, also, they detained his mother\u2019s cousin.  He was accused of terrorism.  And Gustavo Guaid\u00f3, his brother, was also accused.  So they are hitting everything that is closest to him, trying in that way to destabilize him.<\/p>\n<p>But what they don\u2019t know is that, when they do that, what they\u2019re doing is pushing us forward.  We will not rest.  We are here to save lives and to give back freedom.  We want to save our children, we want to save our elderly, who are the ones who are suffering.  And we are \u2014 this is what Venezuela is going through.<\/p>\n<p>Venezuela is not alone.  The U.S. is with Venezuela.  The international community is with Venezuela.  The world is with Venezuela.  The world sees and the world hears the terrible consequences of this dictatorship.  But Venezuela decided that this is the year of peace, and we are going to be able to get \u2014 to go forward.<\/p>\n<p>And we also want to warn the world that what we are seeing is a wave of attacks against the President.  There\u2019s repressions.  There\u2019s prison.  And what they want is to attack him.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re fighting for life and death.  And we know that what will triumph in the end is life.  I know that you will be part of this process.  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much.  That\u2019s very well said.  Beautifully said.  I appreciate it.<\/p>\n<p>Could you tell us about your husband?  Something happened that\u2019s very terrible.<\/p>\n<p>MRS. MARRERO:  He was at home last week.  And at 2:00 a.m., the political forces of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro entered in a brutal raid in our house.  He called me at 2:00 a.m.  He was, you know, like desperate.  There were like 16 people around trying to get by force in our house.  They finally did, and we \u2014 you know, with lack of communication.  And they destroyed our house, our child\u2019s room, everything.  They planted guns and things.  And this happened for three hours.  It was a nightmare.<\/p>\n<p>And after that, they kidnapped him, and we didn\u2019t know anything about him for six days.  They\u2019ve been trying to delay the process because we have no lights at all.  So the electricity is not working, so we doesn\u2019t know anything.  He was the second on board and a personal friend of Juan Guaid\u00f3.  So this is a personal attack to his team because they work together.  They take decisions together.  They were working together in the National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>So, as a family, we are afraid for his life.  We haven\u2019t had any communication.  We have a seven-year-old kid who doesn\u2019t know anything.  And I just explained to him, \u201cWe can\u2019t go back.\u201d  And I want to ask you, you know, help.  Because we are fighting but we can\u2019t do it ourself.<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  So they took him and he\u2019s in prison now?<\/p>\n<p>MRS. MARRERO:  Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Do you know where he is?<\/p>\n<p>MRS. MARRERO:  Yeah, well, we know the place, but we haven\u2019t spoken to him or seen him.<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  No communication whatsoever?<\/p>\n<p>MRS. MARRERO:  No communication at all.<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Okay.<\/p>\n<p>We are with Venezuela.  We are with your husband, as you know.  And we are with the people that he represents, which is a big, big majority of the country.  What\u2019s happening there should not happen and be allowed to happen anywhere.  So we\u2019re with you 100 percent, okay?  Please give my regards.  It\u2019ll all work out.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all going to work out.  It always does.  We\u2019re going to get it to work out.  Thank you very much.  It\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n<p>Steve?<\/p>\n<p>Q    Mr. President, what sort of complications does the Russian involvement now pose?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Russia has to get out.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s your next question?<\/p>\n<p>Q    Mr. President, are you thinking of increasing pressure on Venezuela?  And how will you do that?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Say it?<\/p>\n<p>Q    Are you thinking of increasing pressure on Venezuela?  And how will you do that?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Well, they\u2019ve got a lot of pressure right now.  They have no money.  They have no oil.  They have no nothing.  They have plenty of pressure right now.  So we\u2019ll see.  They have no electricity.  And other than military, you can\u2019t get any more pressure than they have.  Unfortunately, a lot of people are starving.  They don\u2019t take the aid; Maduro won\u2019t take aid.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve sent hundreds of millions of dollars\u2019 worth of aid to the border.  He won\u2019t take the aid.  He\u2019d rather have his people starve than take the aid.  I don\u2019t think that\u2019s good, even from a political standpoint.  Even from a dictator\u2019s standpoint, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s a lot of pressure on them right now.<\/p>\n<p>Q    How are you going to get them out, Mr. President?<\/p>\n<p>Q    (Inaudible) military?<\/p>\n<p>Q    How are you going to get them out?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  We\u2019ll see.  We\u2019ll see.  All options are open.  All \u2014 just so you understand, all options are open.  Go ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Does that mean military action?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  All options are open.  Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Would you tell them it\u2019s better to let go now before things get much worse?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  I\u2019m not going to tell them anything.  They\u2019ll make their own decision.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Mr. President, have you \u2014 you\u2019ve just said Russia needs to get out.  Have you in any way communicated that through Mr. Bolton or through your representative at the United Nations?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  They know.  They know very well.  They know very well.<\/p>\n<p>Go ahead.  Next question.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Is your staff opposed to you and your views on healthcare?  Do you think \u2014<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  No, look, we\u2019re not talking about healthcare right now, but I will.  The Republican Party is the \u2014 and you will see this very soon.  Because Obamacare is a disaster.  It\u2019s too expensive, by far.  People can\u2019t afford it.  And the deductible is horrible.  So the premiums cost too much.  The deductible is horrible.<\/p>\n<p>The only difference between now and the other administration is that we\u2019re administering Obamacare very well.  So we\u2019ve made it better.  But it\u2019s still horrible, no good.  It\u2019s something that we can\u2019t live with in this country because it\u2019s far too expensive for the people, not only for the country, but I\u2019m not even thinking about for the country.  It\u2019s too expensive.  The premiums are too expensive.  People are going broke trying to pay for it.<\/p>\n<p>And the deductibles are averaging over $7,000.  So you have to spend $7,000 before you get anything.  That\u2019s a very unusual circumstance.  So the deductibles are way too high.<\/p>\n<p>Obamacare is a disaster.  So we\u2019re going to be the party \u2014 and I said it yesterday, and I mean it 100 percent \u2014 I understand healthcare now, especially, very well.  A lot of people don\u2019t understand it.  We are going to be \u2014 the Republicans \u2014 the party of great healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats aren\u2019t.  They\u2019ve let you down.  They came up with Obamacare.  It\u2019s terrible.  I got rid of the individual mandate.  That was the worst part of Obamacare, because people were forced to pay a lot of money to get healthcare that they didn\u2019t want.  Okay?  Now they don\u2019t have to pay that money.<\/p>\n<p>People are, all over this country, thanking me.  Every time I go out, they thank me.  They don\u2019t have to pay a vast amount of money to have bad healthcare.  So we got rid of the individual mandate.  That was a big thing.<\/p>\n<p>We will \u2014 you watch \u2014 we\u2019re going to be the party of great healthcare.  And the Democrats have let you down.  They\u2019ve really let you down.  Obamacare doesn\u2019t work.  It\u2019s too expensive.  And the \u2014 you take a look at everything with deductibles; it\u2019s a disaster.  It\u2019s a disaster for our people.  We\u2019re not going to allow it to go.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019re coming up with plans.  We have a lawsuit right now going, where phase one of the lawsuit terminates Obamacare \u2014 essentially terminates Obamacare.  You know that.  That\u2019s the Texas lawsuit.  We think it will be upheld, and we think it will do very well in the Supreme Court.  And if the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we will have a plan that\u2019s far better than Obamacare.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you all very much.  I appreciate it.  Thank you.  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Mr. President, do you have a timeline for Venezuela?  Do you have a timeline for Maduro (inaudible)?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  No timeline.<\/p>\n<p>Q    No timeline?<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  No timeline.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Mr. President, on Venezuela \u2014 what do you hope the message is for the Maduro regime that she is sitting here in the Oval Office?  What is it that you want to \u2014<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  I greatly appreciate that she\u2019s here.  And she\u2019s been a tremendous representative for her country.<\/p>\n<p>Q    And the message to Maduro \u2014<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  And she\u2019s meeting tomorrow with the First Lady of the United States, in Florida.  They\u2019re meeting tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>Q    So that is a message that the United States is committed to seeing Venezuela \u2014<\/p>\n<p>PRESIDENT TRUMP:  I\u2019ll tell you, the \u2014 if you look at what we\u2019re doing, you will see a commitment that few people have made.  And, frankly, this didn\u2019t have to happen in Venezuela.  Past administrations, right here, should have been more forward-thinking.  This should never have happened in Venezuela.  This is a tragedy.<\/p>\n<p>You know, we\u2019re fighting all over the world for countries.  We\u2019re 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 miles away.  They never did anything with respect to Venezuela.  Past administrations allowed this to happen.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve inherited a mess, between North Korea and all of the problems we have all over the world \u2014 the entire Middle East and Venezuela.  These are things that never \u2014 they never should have happened.  They never should have allowed to get to this point.  But I\u2019ll fix it.  We\u2019re fixing it all over the world.  That\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.<\/p>\n<p>Just like, in a different sense, we are going to fix healthcare, we\u2019re going to fix a lot of problems that nobody else was able to do.<\/p>\n<p>And we just left, as you know, the Prime Minister of Israel.  They\u2019re having a lot of hard times over there right now.  But the Golan Heights, which every President promised they\u2019d do, they never did.  I did that \u2014 not only with respect to the Jerusalem and the embassy, but also now the Golan Heights.  They desperately need it.  It was good timing.  They desperately need it.  They need the Heights.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you very much, everybody.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Thank you.  Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Thank you very much. It\u2019s a great honor to have the First Lady of Venezuela. She\u2019s been through a tremendous \u2014 she\u2019s been through a lot, let\u2019s put it that way. She\u2019s been through what people don\u2019t want to have to go through and should never have to go through. Her husband is a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/venfirst.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}