After US expectations were dashed this week for a transition of power in Venezuela, President Donald Trump is urging caution among senior advisers moving forward and expressing frustration that some aides are more openly teasing military intervention, according to officials familiar with the matter.

After a phone call with President Vladimir Putin on Friday, Trump also downplayed Russia’s involvement in Venezuela, contradicting claims from top Trump administration officials that Moscow continues to prop up the regime there.

It amounted to, at times, a picture of a President at odds with the officials who this week have called vociferously for a change in power in Caracas and have consistently declined to rule out a US military intervention.