SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
A few days after the United States seized the leader of Venezuela and said it would run the country, President Trump was asked if there were any checks on his power on the world stage. Here's his answer.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop.
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: Not international law?
TRUMP: And that's very good.
PFEIFFER: That's from Trump's two-hour interview Wednesday with The New York Times. The U.S. military action against a sovereign nation without authorization or consultation with Congress is a dramatic shift from previous presidential administrations. It also raises questions about what Trump plans to do next. NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson is with us now to talk about that. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning, Sacha.
PFEIFFER: In recent years and even decades, we've gotten used to the U.S. working with allies, and that clearly did not happen here. What have we learned about how President Trump thinks the U.S. should use military force?
LIASSON: This was a week when Trump's worldview came into sharper focus than ever before. You just heard him say that nothing can stop him but his own morality or mind. He also said in that interview that he'll be running Venezuela indefinitely. He said, quote, "I don't need international law." He also said he's not looking to hurt people. And hat stance was previewed earlier in the week by his senior aide Stephen Miller, who was talking to Jake Tapper on CNN. Here's what he said.
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STEPHEN MILLER: We live in a world - in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world...
JAKE TAPPER: But are you saying that...
MILLER: ...That have existed since the beginning of time.
LIASSON: But brute power has not been the only ruling force. Since World War II, it's also been alliances and treaties and international rules backed up by the most powerful military in the world. And the U.S. has abided by them. In Europe, NATO has kept the peace for 80 years. That's a historical record. But the Trump administration seems to be marking a shift to a new kind of global balance of power where three aggressive superpowers - China, Russia and the U.S. - control their smaller, weaker neighbors.
Donald Trump has talked about taking Greenland, possibly by military force. Greenland is a territory of Denmark, which is a NATO ally. And in that New York Times interview, Donald Trump seemed to acknowledge this. He said, quote, "it may be a choice," unquote, between preserving NATO or getting Greenland.
PFEIFFER: Mara, on Venezuela, there was some pushback from U.S. lawmakers. Five Republican senators voted with Democrats to advance legislation that would require Trump to get congressional approval before taking more action in the country. How significant is that pushback?
LIASSON: I think it's significant, but that measure is not likely to become law. It is a rare pushback from members of the president's own party, and it prompted Trump to call for all five Republicans who voted with the Democrats to lose their seats. Of those five, only Susan Collins of Maine is up for reelection this year.
So Trump does not seem to be in any danger of losing his base or Republican support in Congress over Venezuela. Most polls show Republican voters approve of the operation to get Maduro. It's not clear how they'll feel over time. It depends on if running Venezuela turns into a success or a quagmire.
But right now, Donald Trump is extremely confident in his grip on his party. When NBC asked him if his MAGA base - many of whom liked his promise to keep the U.S. out of foreign entanglements - would stick with him, he answered, quote, "MAGA loves everything I do. MAGA is me. MAGA loves everything I do."
PFEIFFER: Trump has been talking a lot about Venezuela's oil, essentially coveting that oil, and he met Friday with U.S. oil and gas executives. How did that meeting go?
LIASSON: Well, it's really interesting because the president has been very enthusiastic about getting Venezuelan oil. That's one of the reasons he said that they did the incursion into Venezuela. But the executives he met with were not as enthusiastic as he was about going back into Venezuela.
Trump says he wants to give some of the oil profits to Venezuela. Some of the profits would compensate American companies who had their assets nationalized two decades ago. And he says the companies are ready to invest a hundred billion dollars. But that's not what we're hearing from the executives. The head of Exxon in that meeting told the president that, at least at this time, Venezuela is, quote, "uninvestable," and major changes would have to happen before Exxon goes back in.
PFEIFFER: Mara, in a very different topic, a domestic one, we've been watching, of course, the fallout from the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen, Renée Good, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week. There were protests all over the country yesterday. How much does this incident mark any shift in public sentiment or administration policy?
LIASSON: I think it's too early to tell. There have been a lot of concerns expressed, including among people who support ICE's mission, about how these officers operate and when they are sent. Ten thousand new agents were authorized by Congress in that big funding bill. So these are armed agents going into communities that don't want them there, and there are serious questions about the kind of training that these agents are getting as they are flooding into communities around the country. They say they are there to apprehend undocumented immigrants, but now we've seen several incidences of violence and casualties.
PFEIFFER: That is NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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