The senator from South Carolina has spent three decades advocating aggressive intervention as the solution to international problems. He had played golf in Florida and also watched live as his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted by US special operations forces the previous day. As soon as Trump mentioned a country, they egged him on. Perhaps the president allowed him to speak to stop him nodding like a puppet. In any case, he was eager to have his say: ‘We had Venezuela, we have Cuba, we have Colombia in our back yard.