President Donald Trump called up an unlikely source to crow about his master plan in Venezuela in one of a flurry of cozy phone calls since he re-entered the White House.
Opening Morning Joe on Tuesday, host Joe Scarborough suggested he has Trump on speed dial, saying he had spoken with the 79-year-old six times on the phone since the president returned to office last January.
In the most recent call, which took place Monday, the pair chatted about the surprise U.S. military operation that resulted in the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Scarborough said.
It might surprise a few that Trump would confide in Scarborough, given the president’s outwardly hostile relationship with the host’s network, MS NOW. Scarborough, along with his co-hosts, is highly critical of Trump and his second term, despite his own background in the GOP.
However, Scarborough’s co-host and wife, Mika Brzezinski, said on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live in September that the trio actually maintain contact, despite their public differences.
“It’s called our job,” Brzezinski said.
Scarborough broached the subject of the Trump calls on Tuesday morning by referring to a visit the couple made to Mar-a-Lago after Trump was elected in November 2024. They claimed the visit, which some said was tantamount to bending the knee, was intended to “restart communications” in a fractured political climate.
Scarborough said much of Monday’s roughly 20-minute phone call involved the president recounting what he described as the military’s “flawless execution” of the Caracas raid.
According to the host, Trump spoke at length about the courage of U.S. forces and the speed with which they overcame Cuban troops guarding Maduro, and said the operation would send a message about American strength to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and Iran.
Speaking separately to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he wanted U.S. oil companies to enter Venezuela to rebuild its energy infrastructure and “get the oil flowing the way it should be.”
Scarborough said he pressed Trump on comparisons to former President George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq after receiving the same public answers about what would come next.
“But when I pressed comparisons with America’s failed occupation of Iraq, the president’s response was very different,” Scarborough said, recounting Trump’s reply: “Joe, the difference between Iraq and this is that Bush didn’t keep the oil. We’re going to keep the oil.”
“Wow,” Brzezinski replied.
The U.S.-led invasion and occupation began in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein but devolved into years of chaos.
Scarborough said Trump emphasized that the remark was no longer on background and that he added: “In 2016, I said we should have kept the oil. It caused a lot of controversy. Well, we should have kept the oil—and we’re going to rebuild their broken down oil facilities, and this time we’re going to keep the oil.”
The host added: “So, this is a whole new world for America and its neighbors and the world. The question now for all of us is how far the administration actually plans to go. How much of this is bluffing?”
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