Some of Robertson's harshest rhetoric was reserved for Venezuelan President (and frequent U.S. thorn) Hugo Chávez. Robertson used a 2005 episode of The 700 Club to seemingly urge a state-sponsored assassination. "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it ... [The U.S. has] the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." Robertson later claimed that "take him out" could mean any number of things short of Chávez's death.