Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All Things
Speaker 1: hillsdalet Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take
Speaker 1: advantage of the many free online courses there, and of
Speaker 1: course I listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue, all of them
Speaker 1: at hue for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple,
Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale Good morning, or ain't even greats America?
Speaker 1: A good Monday to you. I'm to you at on
Speaker 1: the West coast for a few weeks and what a
Speaker 1: remarkable weekend. And my head is off to the American military.
Speaker 1: Some were wounded in this and prayers for their quick recovery.
Speaker 1: According to the government of Cuba, thirty two Cuban security
Speaker 1: forces were killed in Operation Absolute Result, but we haven't
Speaker 1: had that confirmed by American sources yet. But apparently a
Speaker 1: couple of the special forces that entered the Maduro compound
Speaker 1: to take the dictator and his spouse out and put
Speaker 1: them into American custody, get them to Brooklyn where he
Speaker 1: appeared in court earlier today. We're wounded. Our prayers for
Speaker 1: their family. More detail on that as it occurs. First
Speaker 1: thing I want to say is it was absolutely legal.
Speaker 1: Now I realize we have Steelers fans, and then they
Speaker 1: might even be sober yet because of the way that
Speaker 1: they won yesterday. Article two, Section one, first sentence, The
Speaker 1: executive power shall be vested in a President of the
Speaker 1: United States. Article two, Section two, first sentence. The President
Speaker 1: shall be the Commander in chief of the Army and
Speaker 1: the Navy of the United States. You know what that means.
Speaker 1: That means he runs the Department of Justice, which had
Speaker 1: an indictment against Nicholas Maduro and his wife for many
Speaker 1: years now. So it's a law enforcement operation wrapped inside
Speaker 1: of a military operation that got it done, and it
Speaker 1: was absolutely legal. But for the benefit of the people
Speaker 1: who've been listening to mainstream media and a little bit
Speaker 1: confused about can the United States do that? I could
Speaker 1: take you all the way back to Jefferson ordering the
Speaker 1: Louisiana purchase when he named they it was constitutional for
Speaker 1: the Congress and he to agree to do it. But
Speaker 1: let's just stay in the last fifty years. Gerald Ford
Speaker 1: in the Maigias incident May twelve through fifteenth, nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: no prior authorization from Congress for grabbing that boat. President
Speaker 1: Carter ordered Operation Eagle Claw on twenty four April nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty It did not succeed the famous Desert One debacle,
Speaker 1: but he ordered it without telling Congress, President Reagan and
Speaker 1: the Grenada Operation Urgent Fury October twenty five, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: We could talk about George H. W. Bush in Panama,
Speaker 1: and I have, as many people have in December and
Speaker 1: January nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety to get mister Norriega
Speaker 1: out of there and into the US jail. We talk
Speaker 1: about Bill Clinton's seventy eight day bombing campaign of Serbia
Speaker 1: in March to June of nineteen ninety nine. We can
Speaker 1: talk about President Obama bombing Libya, though he was quote
Speaker 1: leading from behind in words attributed to him. Those air
Speaker 1: strikes began on March nineteenth, twenty eleven, Operation Neptune Spear
Speaker 1: May Tewond of twenty eleven to get Ben Lauden again
Speaker 1: didn't tell anyone before we did it, and of course
Speaker 1: he could do it. Some people we'll say, well that
Speaker 1: at the AUFM behind it, but f and they are right.
Speaker 1: But it does demonstrate we don't have to tell Congress.
Speaker 1: The strikes on Solomoni and albag Dottie which the President
Speaker 1: Trump mentioned from his first term in Saturday's extraordinary press conference.
Speaker 1: Both of them, you don't tell Congress. It's absolutely the
Speaker 1: use of the armed forces. It's covered by the Constitution.
Speaker 1: President Biden ordering Syrian air strikes in February twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: again no notification of Congress. First, the Donald Trump effect
Speaker 1: Trump derangement syndrome has completely shattered the ability of the
Speaker 1: American media and the Democratic Party to cover the obvious.
Speaker 1: He's a bad guy. He's an evil guy. He ran
Speaker 1: a cartel, so did his wife. He looted billions of
Speaker 1: dollars from Venezuela, which we'll try and get back for
Speaker 1: the Venezuelan people. Moreover, the three most important things that
Speaker 1: were said in the press conference the President did on
Speaker 1: Saturday morning, which I listen to live while I was
Speaker 1: trunneling down at Huntington Beach. Number One something, Secretary Rubio said,
Speaker 1: President Trump does not play games. Number Two something President
Speaker 1: Trump also said on that day, Secretary Rubio said he
Speaker 1: didn't play games. President Trump said life is a deal,
Speaker 1: and by that he meant everything is on the table,
Speaker 1: and I'm negotiating with you. I make you a couple
Speaker 1: of offers and you don't take him, you're stuck with
Speaker 1: the consequences. Iran learned that with Operation Midnight Hammer in
Speaker 1: June of last year, when their nuclear weapons program was
Speaker 1: destroyed by RB twos after the Eleven Day War begun
Speaker 1: by Israel with Iran during the course of the larger
Speaker 1: war that Israel actually had launched against it by Iran
Speaker 1: and its proxies in October of twenty twenty three. But
Speaker 1: I would point out all of this is absolutely with precedent.
Speaker 1: It's not unprecedent. It is an unprecedented level of complexity
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell. Listening to General Kin,
Speaker 1: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I was astonished
Speaker 1: by the number of moving pieces here, and I'm astonished
Speaker 1: in State secret now. Apparently there are reports that both
Speaker 1: the Washington Post and the New York Times had heads
Speaker 1: up of the operation, but were requested by the Pentagon
Speaker 1: and the President not to say anything, and they didn't
Speaker 1: because they would have put our men and women in
Speaker 1: the armed services at great risk. The element of surprise
Speaker 1: was essential to grabbing the cartelista, and mister Maduro pleaded
Speaker 1: innocent today, right, we don't believe that second thing that
Speaker 1: the president said after he said life is a negotiation.
Speaker 1: Life is a deal. He said on Air Force one yesterday,
Speaker 1: when asked by one of our terrific reporters, what happens next,
Speaker 1: he said that depends. Of course, that's the right answer.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't know what the regime, which has
Speaker 1: not been changed. We grabbed Maduro and his wife and
Speaker 1: the ability to do that, to blink out Caracas at night,
Speaker 1: and to take out their air control system and to
Speaker 1: get special forces in and out in two and a
Speaker 1: half hours. Sends a message to the acting president, who
Speaker 1: is Maduro's flunky, to the Interior ministry, and their interior
Speaker 1: minister is not like our Doug Bergham. He's not worried
Speaker 1: about the national parks. Their interior minister is the secret police,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of secret police in Venezuela. I'll
Speaker 1: talk with Dan Rundy about that later. What does he do,
Speaker 1: What does the head of the military do. Maduro depended
Speaker 1: upon both of them to secure power through two elections
Speaker 1: that he lost, and so he's a corrupt dictator. When
Speaker 1: the president says he took our money, he means he
Speaker 1: expropriated American assets and did not pay for them. Any
Speaker 1: sovereign country in the world can expropriate anything they want,
Speaker 1: but they have to pay for them. And we've had
Speaker 1: We've seen this many, many times since nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: and Fidel a lot of people expropriate assets Iran expropriated
Speaker 1: American assets in the nineteen seventy nine Iran revolution, the
Speaker 1: one that's coming undone in real time. And I'll keep
Speaker 1: you updated throughout the course of the show as to
Speaker 1: what is happening in Iran where the protests and the
Speaker 1: riots have gone on. At least sixteen people have been
Speaker 1: murdered there by the moolas the thugs over the weekend,
Speaker 1: according to Reuters. I'll keep you posted on that throughout
Speaker 1: the day. But to go back to what the President said,
Speaker 1: when it depends if Venezuela is talking to Secretary Rubio
Speaker 1: and Director Ratcliff, who runs a CIA, as well as
Speaker 1: of course people in the White House. Secretary Rubio is
Speaker 1: also the National Security Advisor, and I have former National
Speaker 1: Security Advisor Robert O'Brien on later in the program, Chairman
Speaker 1: of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Centator Cotton on later in
Speaker 1: the program. If they are talking to American officials and saying,
Speaker 1: here's what we're going to do. We're not going to
Speaker 1: shoot dissidents. We're going to hold elections. Chevron can begin
Speaker 1: to upgrade all the installations that are here. We're not
Speaker 1: going to steal any more money, and we're not going
Speaker 1: to kill people in the streets. And the Chavista movement,
Speaker 1: which is twenty to thirty percent of the population, is
Speaker 1: not going to ride and try and kill America. There
Speaker 1: are twenty three thousand Americans in Venezuela right now, twenty
Speaker 1: three thousand. So the word has gone forth, do not
Speaker 1: threaten or injure those Americans. And I would be worried if,
Speaker 1: of course I had a family member. I don't, but
Speaker 1: I had a family member in one of the many
Speaker 1: industries in America has in Venezuela. If I have a
Speaker 1: cruise ship in Venezuela and cruise ships do call on
Speaker 1: the islands of Venezuela, I would be worried, but only
Speaker 1: if they're morons, because and they might be, I don't
Speaker 1: know that they're not. Iran has turned out to be
Speaker 1: full of morons. If they're morons, they will threaten an
Speaker 1: American because you know Donald Trump won't put up with that.
Speaker 1: The Donro doctrine is if you're kill an American, will
Speaker 1: kill you. Most recently isis in Syria killed two American soldiers,
Speaker 1: one civilian, and we kicked the living day lights out
Speaker 1: of them for two days with air strikes. If they
Speaker 1: threaten an American, that threat will be dealt with. That's
Speaker 1: Operation Midnight Hammer. The Donroad doctrine is pretty doggone clear.
Speaker 1: Do not kill or threaten American. Do not send drugs
Speaker 1: into our country, do not send terrorists into our country.
Speaker 1: Because we had a long arm, we got a military
Speaker 1: that is second to none in the world. It's so
Speaker 1: astonishing the complexity of that operation. And unlike the Biden administration,
Speaker 1: we have the will and the ability to use the
Speaker 1: military that we are blessed with. Unlike the Obama administration.
Speaker 2: It's not all tak talk talk talk talk dot talk
Speaker 2: talk talk talk talk talk blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: It's action after an offer negotiate. Many offers were made
Speaker 2: to Maduro, been widely reported. Now he turned them all down.
Speaker 2: He's a billionaire who can't get it was billions. His
Speaker 2: son's got a billion dollars, allegedly according to some of
Speaker 2: the reports.
Speaker 1: I'll cover it all with people throughout the day, beginning
Speaker 1: with bethleing Seandark right after the that's her X handle.
Speaker 1: It's Bethany Mandel from the Mom Wars just got back
Speaker 1: from Israel. I wonder how she's reacting as an average
Speaker 1: American mom who's watching this and wondering, what's it mean
Speaker 1: for Israel, What's it mean for China, What's it mean
Speaker 1: for Russia? What's it mean for everybody who would play
Speaker 1: with the American people or their military anywhere in the
Speaker 1: world or take our people hostages. It means Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: got your number, and if he calls, answer and listen
Speaker 1: very close to you what he says, because, again the
Speaker 1: quote Secretary of State Rubio and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't play games. I'm Hugh Hewett. I'll be
Speaker 1: right Backstay two. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Ewett.
Speaker 1: Joined down by United States Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Senator Cotton is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee as
Speaker 1: well as of the Republican Conference. Senator Cotton, welcome, Happy
Speaker 1: New Year to you can I start with just your
Speaker 1: reaction to Operation Absolute Resolve.
Speaker 3: Happy New Year to you, Hugh and all your listeners.
Speaker 3: It was a very happy New Year achievement early Saturday morning,
Speaker 3: an amazing operation by our military and intelligence professionals to
Speaker 3: remind not just Nicholas Maduro but every bad guy around
Speaker 3: the world that the long arm of American justice is long. Indeed,
Speaker 3: it's hard to overstate how exceptionally well executed this operation was,
Speaker 3: but that's really become kind of the hallmark of President
Speaker 3: Trump's military operations over five years in office. If you
Speaker 3: think about the raid to kill the ISIS leader in Syria,
Speaker 3: to kill Iron's Paris mastermind in Iraq, to blow up
Speaker 3: Iron's nuclear program last June, and now to capture Nicholas Maduro.
Speaker 3: All were flawlessly executed and involved no loss of American life,
Speaker 3: and greatly advanced to America's national interest. This actually may
Speaker 3: be the most impressive of all when you hear how
Speaker 3: General Kane described so many different elements of our joint
Speaker 3: force and the fact that the capturing and exiltrating the
Speaker 3: target is in some ways harder than killing one or
Speaker 3: destroying something. So kudos to all those who are involved
Speaker 3: I don't think in overstate what a great operation it was.
Speaker 1: Now, Senta Cotton, you are a part of the Group
Speaker 1: of eight as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, along
Speaker 1: with your House counterpart, the ranking Democrat. I think it's
Speaker 1: Mark Warner and the ranking Democrat in the House and
Speaker 1: the leadership of both parties in the House of the Senate.
Speaker 1: When did you first get notice that this had happened?
Speaker 1: I know you weren't worn beforehand for security reasons, but
Speaker 1: when did you first find out?
Speaker 3: When missus Cotton, who's a lighter sleeper than I, began
Speaker 3: elbowing me in the side on three point thirty Saturday
Speaker 3: morning Central Time and saying, why is Marco Rubio calling you?
Speaker 3: And I said, I don't know, but I bet it's exciting.
Speaker 4: So he used to do what you are.
Speaker 1: I mean, he used to be in the Group of eight.
Speaker 1: He was the chairman of the Intel Committee. Do you
Speaker 1: consider yourself timely and adequately notified by the executive branch
Speaker 1: of what they ought to do?
Speaker 3: Yes, no question you and they have kept me in
Speaker 3: my committee and my other committee, the Armed Services Committee,
Speaker 3: apprized of the operations we've had in the Caribbean and
Speaker 3: the Eastern Pacific all along, and I think within twenty
Speaker 3: four hours, gosh, you less than that, Probably within maybe
Speaker 3: twelve or sixteen hours. I had spoken not just to
Speaker 3: President Trump, but every man that was on stage behind
Speaker 3: him Saturday. That's his core team, the people who are
Speaker 3: the architects of this policy and who carried it out.
Speaker 3: Marco Ribio, Pete Heexas, General Dan Kine, John Ratcliffe, Stephen Miller.
Speaker 3: Had spoken every single one of them before Saturday night.
Speaker 3: I did not get advanced notice or correct nor what
Speaker 3: I expect to ever advanced notice about such a mission.
Speaker 3: This is an operation, as we heard from the President,
Speaker 3: General Kane, that was heavily dependent on contingent factors like
Speaker 3: light and weather conditions in Venezuela and precise knowledge of
Speaker 3: Maduro's whereabouts at any given moment. That's not the kind
Speaker 3: of thing that you expect advanced notice to Congress for,
Speaker 3: nor for that matter, do expect advanced notice every time
Speaker 3: the executive carries out and arrest of a drug trafficker,
Speaker 3: whether it's in Venezuela or in Arkansas. Again, just in
Speaker 3: the ordinary course of affairs, that's not the kind of
Speaker 3: thing that the Executive branch calls up to the legislature
Speaker 3: and gives a notice.
Speaker 1: Of now, Sarah Cotton, the President's setting Saturday morning press conference.
Speaker 1: Congress leaks, and we know by that that sometimes political
Speaker 1: actors leak. But I also thought the Chinese and the
Speaker 1: Iranians are heavily invested in Venezuela. They probably try and
Speaker 1: monitor our electronic activity and our signals intelligence. I don't
Speaker 1: I think that there's even a risk of leaking by
Speaker 1: people who don't intend to leak. If they just say
Speaker 1: the wrong thing and the wrong cell phone, is that
Speaker 1: part of the issue.
Speaker 3: It could be hugh. And you don't even necessarily have
Speaker 3: to know what people are saying all of a sudden.
Speaker 3: If there's a flurry of activity of you know, calls
Speaker 3: going out to certain key congressional leaders, you can probably
Speaker 3: figure out that something must be up if you've had
Speaker 3: access to that knowledge. I don't want to confirm or
Speaker 3: deny any such access, but I think it's the best
Speaker 3: when you we've invested as much time and effort as
Speaker 3: our government and tracking the Duro's movements in putting the
Speaker 3: forces in place to affect this arrest, that there's under
Speaker 3: no circumstances you want to risk operational security, and what
Speaker 3: incredible operational security we had what's going on for more
Speaker 3: than four days.
Speaker 1: The other thing that's incredible is the level of unfamiliarity
Speaker 1: with special operations by our national news anchors yesterday, and
Speaker 1: Secretary Rubio spank them all. But my question to you is,
Speaker 1: when President Trump was asked on Air Force one, what
Speaker 1: happens next, he said, it depends, which I think is
Speaker 1: exactly the right answer. What will you be looking for
Speaker 1: from the Venezuelan regime which is still in place, including
Speaker 1: their interior secretary minister is not like Doug Bergham, that's
Speaker 1: the secret police down there, head of their military, and
Speaker 1: their new acting president. What do you think they ought
Speaker 1: to be doing right now?
Speaker 3: It depends heavily on their actions. As Secretary of Rubio
Speaker 3: said just before me on facination yesterday, we're not going
Speaker 3: to listen to what they say in speeches or press releases.
Speaker 3: We're gonna or what they say to us privately. We're
Speaker 3: going to monitor actions. And until just two days ago,
Speaker 3: those folks that you just mentioned, the Vice President, Interior minister,
Speaker 3: the Defense Minister, were I to the hip in league
Speaker 3: with Nicholas Maduro. They've been sanctioned, some of them have
Speaker 3: been indicted like him. It's always possible to turn turn
Speaker 3: over a new leaf. We've seen it in Syria with
Speaker 3: Akhmad al shara, a former altia Isis leader. We saw
Speaker 3: it in Libya with Kadafi after he came in from
Speaker 3: the cold when we scared him straight after the Iraq invasion.
Speaker 3: But those cases involved concrete, clear concessions to US interests
Speaker 3: or a longer track record of moving in the right direction.
Speaker 3: We don't have either of that yet in Venezuela. So
Speaker 3: the Venezuelans need to take certain actions, I would say,
Speaker 3: to prove that it's going to be a new day
Speaker 3: in Venezuela. They could release all political prisoners today, kick
Speaker 3: out the worst of the worst, the Iranians, the Cubans
Speaker 3: has Belah Loss and so forth. They could welcome back
Speaker 3: the opposition and guarantee their safe passage into Venezuela. These
Speaker 3: are all actions that could be taken immediately that don't
Speaker 3: prejudice any future actions on the nature of Venezuelan's government,
Speaker 3: who's going to lead it, when there might be elections,
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. Those are things that they
Speaker 3: can do to prove that they got the message that
Speaker 3: it needs to be a new day in Venezuela. And
Speaker 3: as President Trump said, if they don't, well, he reserves
Speaker 3: the right to do something to Rodriguez and anyone else,
Speaker 3: just like we did the Maduro. It may be worse.
Speaker 1: Now, last question, Senator Cotton, the President has threatened the
Speaker 1: Iranian regime if they murdered dissidents in the streets. What
Speaker 1: ought they to be thinking right now? If they're the
Speaker 1: molves or the IRGC or the head of the army.
Speaker 3: We got one minute, well, I mean, Hugh between the
Speaker 3: President's threat, which I welcomed very much, to stand up
Speaker 3: to the Iranian regime if they massacre their citizens protesting
Speaker 3: unlock what Barack Obama did in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: You can add they're great concern when they saw the
Speaker 3: American military swimp into Venezuela and now Venezuela's legitimate dictators.
Speaker 3: I imagine they're a little antsy in Tehran today and
Speaker 3: I would urge them. As Secretary Ruber said, to take
Speaker 3: Donald Trump seriously. Don't believe he's bluffing, don't believe that
Speaker 3: you can play play him in this, and don't massacre
Speaker 3: your own citizens soon effect the changes they're demanding.
Speaker 1: Center. Tom Cotton, Chairman of the Intel Committee, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining me on a busy day for you, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time. Happy New Year to everyone. If
Speaker 1: you get those calls in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: try and answer them and let your wife sleeton. Thank you, Senator.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back in America. Pache even grace in America.
Speaker 1: I'm due huit. Joined by Ambassador Robert C. O'Brien, formerly
Speaker 1: National Security Advisor to President Trump in term one of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's first term as president, is now the Chairman
Speaker 1: of American Global Security and I'm so glad to add
Speaker 1: Mona after this incredible weekend. Ambassador O'Brien, welcome. Let me
Speaker 1: begin with getting your reaction to Operation Absolute Resolve.
Speaker 5: Well, Hugh, was good to see you in Happy New
Speaker 5: Year to you as well, my friend. There was an
Speaker 5: exquisite operation performed brilliantly by first of all our choir professionals,
Speaker 5: the CIA guys who were prep for the battlefield. And
Speaker 5: we're down in the in the jungles and the urban
Speaker 5: areas of Venezuela for months prepping this thing. In the
Speaker 5: Intel right laying the ground where for you know, traders
Speaker 5: and treasoners and treesons u Venezuelans and and patriotic Venezuelans
Speaker 5: who wanted to see that the regime change to cooperate
Speaker 5: with our guys. And then Delta Force assisted by the
Speaker 5: hundred and Safety Airborne or Air Air Assault Regiment and
Speaker 5: Aviation Regiment, the n Ice Soccer's getting down there and
Speaker 5: into Venezuela in the middle of the night, and and
Speaker 5: Holly Maduro out of his fortress and brand of justice
Speaker 5: in America. Just one hundred percent exquisite operation from start
Speaker 5: to finish.
Speaker 1: Do you believe it is legal to have done this?
Speaker 5: We got, we got There was a warrant out for
Speaker 5: his arrest, It was indicted for drugs. This is not
Speaker 5: There was a lot of political reasons to do it,
Speaker 5: but this was a strict enforcement effort backed by the
Speaker 5: Biden administration when they were in office, and it was
Speaker 5: one hundred percent legal. He's now facing justice, and look,
Speaker 5: he's pretty lucky to be in a New York court
Speaker 5: when New York courts haven't been very generous to Donald
Speaker 5: Trump over the past few years. So well, you know,
Speaker 5: he's got a fair and impartial Clinton appointed judge, and
Speaker 5: we'll see how the case goes. But it looks pretty
Speaker 5: rock solid to me.
Speaker 1: Asked on Air Force One yesterday, what happened is next,
Speaker 1: President Trump answered that depends I think that made a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me. But what do you think
Speaker 1: it depends upon? Most ambachelor O'Brien.
Speaker 5: Well, it depends on how Delasi Rodriguez in the Tough
Speaker 5: East as the decided to play this. Look, they're a
Speaker 5: political party in Venezuela. They have some support, maybe twenty
Speaker 5: thirty percent of the votes in Venezuela. They continue to
Speaker 5: participate in the process, have free and fair elections and
Speaker 5: maybe have a role in a future sure, or they
Speaker 5: can be debathified like they would like the Saddam Hussein
Speaker 5: loyal in Iraq. And I think what President Trump and
Speaker 5: Marco Rubio and John Radcliffe are looking at is in
Speaker 5: Pete hayesith is what happened in Iraq, and we disbanded
Speaker 5: the Iraqi Army and disbanded the government and then that
Speaker 5: was chaos and isis arose and I think they're looking
Speaker 5: for a reasonable transition. There's a very well forward opposition
Speaker 5: in Venezuela led by Edmunde good Gonzalez, who was elected
Speaker 5: president with like two thirds of vote and just last
Speaker 5: year he's in Spain. He'll be coming back. You've got
Speaker 5: Ridam Machado, the Nobel Prize winner. You've got Juan Guido,
Speaker 5: who is the acting president and the foreign president of
Speaker 5: National Assembly. He's an excellent he'll be coming back to Venezuela.
Speaker 5: So that is a very strong opposition. I'm sure they're
Speaker 5: learning into the negotiations with Elsi Rodriguez, the current vice president,
Speaker 5: and we'll have a transition government and then get onto
Speaker 5: the business having framefare elections.
Speaker 1: Now the Minister of the Interior and the head of
Speaker 1: their military have not changed, but I assume they are
Speaker 1: involved in conversations with Secretary of Rubio and perhaps the agency.
Speaker 1: Is that your assumption as well, That's my assumption.
Speaker 5: And they'll be doing those negotiations in Spanish. Marco speaks
Speaker 5: fluent Spanish. They'll be negotiated with him, and he knows
Speaker 5: the regions very well. He's got a great team of people,
Speaker 5: including folks like Murca clopp for Coron who used to
Speaker 5: work for me, was the envoy for the region for
Speaker 5: a while. And they they'll take care of business. And look,
Speaker 5: they understand what happened to Maduro. None of those guys
Speaker 5: want to be seen in the New York courtroom. So
Speaker 5: they've got an opportunity here to play ball and cooperate
Speaker 5: and potentially preserve a political future for themselves in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Secretary of Rubio on Saturday and that extraordinary press conference.
Speaker 1: President Trump does not play games. End of quote. You
Speaker 1: worked with him closely for two years or his NSA
Speaker 1: at the end of his first term, how do you
Speaker 1: how do you read President Trump does not play games?
Speaker 5: Well, Marco is exactly right, and he's got my old
Speaker 5: position as well as means Secretary of State, the first
Speaker 5: person since Senator Kissinger in the whole both offices, and
Speaker 5: the poor guy's working his tail off. But he's doing
Speaker 5: a great job. And what he means is this is
Speaker 5: Donald Trump always presents the parties with a fair deal.
Speaker 5: He's an incredibly reasonable, pragmatic man. And in this case,
Speaker 5: he offered Maduro several off rams. He could have gone
Speaker 5: to Moscow or Beijing or Havana and left and and
Speaker 5: you know, left on his own terms and turned things over.
Speaker 5: He decided not to decided to play a tough guy
Speaker 5: with Donald Trump, and he looked he thought he could
Speaker 5: leverage us with his illegal immigration, send in Trinido aregised
Speaker 5: to the United States, sending cocaine and fentanyld under minus,
Speaker 5: inviting Hezbollah and Iran and China into the region. He
Speaker 5: thought all those things that'd give them an advantage. They didn't.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump doesn't play games, and he called his bluff
Speaker 5: and he Maduro is now in a Brooklyn jail, in
Speaker 5: a New York City courthouse, and so you know, he Trump.
Speaker 5: Trump gave him a lot of opportunities. He didn't take them.
Speaker 5: And look, this is what happens. It happened to Bagdaddy,
Speaker 5: it having to soul the money, happened to a lot
Speaker 5: of others. And when they didn't take the deal, they lost.
Speaker 5: Having the eye toll was a few months ago with
Speaker 5: the Operation Midnight Hammer, with the nuclear program. Trump said,
Speaker 5: look open your facilities to full inspections, and you know,
Speaker 5: stop making a bomb and we'll leave you alone. And
Speaker 5: the Iranians gave us the middle finger, and they saw
Speaker 5: what happened.
Speaker 1: Now. The most extraordinary statement in that press conference I
Speaker 1: listened to it live, is there's no transcripts. I'm doing
Speaker 1: this from memory. He either said President Trump either said
Speaker 1: all of life is a deal or life is a deal,
Speaker 1: meaning everything is the negotiation. Is that the essence of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump right there, very very much.
Speaker 5: So, I mean, look, he's and it goes back to
Speaker 5: my comin. He's not an ideologue. He's a very pragmatic guy.
Speaker 5: He wants what His only ideology is a deep love
Speaker 5: for America. Donald Trump loves America like no nobody I've
Speaker 5: ever met, kind of kind of like Ronald Reagan, and
Speaker 5: he wants for it's best for his country, and he'll
Speaker 5: he'll cut deals. I mean, look, he's he's shown that,
Speaker 5: he's shown he's been He was very reasonable with Kim John.
Speaker 5: He was very reasonable with cheating pain. Recently he's offered
Speaker 5: Puttin a great deal and Putin's refusing that deal, which
Speaker 5: is kind of surprising to me. So he's he's always
Speaker 5: willing to make a deal for peace and in the
Speaker 5: killing and he he war with these raids are a
Speaker 5: last option for President Trump. He even farwaver for doing
Speaker 5: the deal and doing things peacefully, and I think we've
Speaker 5: seen that. But if you push them too far, like
Speaker 5: Maduro did, you know, he found out what happens.
Speaker 1: I won't come back to Venezuela in a moment. But
Speaker 1: the President has also made a threat to Iran that
Speaker 1: if they kill protesters, and fourteen people are alleged to
Speaker 1: be dead according to Reuters over the weekend, as Iran
Speaker 1: convulsives with protests, he will take action. What should the
Speaker 1: Iotolhamini and the IOGC understand about that threat.
Speaker 5: Well, look, I saw today that the Iotola is already
Speaker 5: making plans to go to Moscow if President Trump enforces
Speaker 5: is s edict. So that's very good planning. Surprisingly, you know,
Speaker 5: the Iranian people who should be wealthy and doing well,
Speaker 5: have had a very difficult time economically. They can't get water,
Speaker 5: they know, they're lacking food stuffs. They said the Iotola
Speaker 5: has got ninety five billion dollars story away that he's
Speaker 5: going to take with him to Russia, which is crazy.
Speaker 5: But so I think the Iatola and the moles are
Speaker 5: already making plans to get out of Dodge if they
Speaker 5: cracked it on these protesters, which they apparently are doing.
Speaker 5: There was some open source information in the news. I
Speaker 5: don't know what it means that a lot of the
Speaker 5: one hundred and sixtieth Aviation Regiment, the Nice Soccers for
Speaker 5: moving to England and moving to Europe, which they did
Speaker 5: before the last attack on Iran. So you know, we'll
Speaker 5: have to see what happens. But I don't think the
Speaker 5: President's going to sit back and watching this. Some people
Speaker 5: be killed like Obama did in the Green Revolution when
Speaker 5: he signed with the Moles and ad Toolls or the
Speaker 5: people of Iran. I think that the president live r
Speaker 5: other side of the people of Iran over the Moles
Speaker 5: and the Iatolls.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me go back to Venezuela. The last American
Speaker 1: oil company operating there is Chevron. The others were expropriated
Speaker 1: and they were screwed. They won international arbitration awards. It
Speaker 1: is a country's right to exppropriate industry, but they have
Speaker 1: to pay for them, and they've been screwed. What do
Speaker 1: you think Chevron ought to do? I to be standing
Speaker 1: by and willing to rebuild that what has basically rushed
Speaker 1: it out twenty five years? We got a minute left
Speaker 1: bachelor one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: Chevron Ceo worked is a very smart guy. Chevron's hung
Speaker 5: in there under very difficult circumstances. A lot of people
Speaker 5: criticize them for it. I was actually in favor of
Speaker 5: Chevron's staying there and keep an American presence, hoping that
Speaker 5: something like this would happen, so Chevron can be the league,
Speaker 5: and I think the other American oil companies should get
Speaker 5: in there. But again, this is not to take the
Speaker 5: oil from the Venezuelan people. This is to produce the
Speaker 5: oil from the Venezuelan people. Make Venezuela great again, make
Speaker 5: Venezuela rich again, make the people healthy, wealthy and happy,
Speaker 5: and at the same time given the American oil companies
Speaker 5: a chance to produce and then make a profit as
Speaker 5: well on the contracts that they owned.
Speaker 1: A bachelor and Roberts the O'Brien, former National security advisor
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump, still a member of the Presidential Advisory
Speaker 1: Board on Intel and the chairman of American Global Strategy.
Speaker 1: Thanks for spending time us on a very busy newsday.
Speaker 1: I know you're in demand everywhere and I appreciate the time,
Speaker 1: Old Brent, Ambassador Robert O'Brien, thank you. Welcome back to America.
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. There are two stories going on in
Speaker 1: the world that are major. Of course, the United States
Speaker 1: capture of Maduro and his spouse, and in Iran there
Speaker 1: are convulsions on the streets. To talk about the latter,
Speaker 1: and maybe in a comment on the former, I'm joined
Speaker 1: by doctor Michael Urn, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States.
Speaker 1: He's also the founder of the Israel Advocacy Group. Doctor Orrin. Welcome.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the latter. How do you react to
Speaker 1: the remarkable operation conducted by the US military on the
Speaker 1: wee hours of the morning Saturday morning.
Speaker 6: From an it's really perspective you great news, that's great news.
Speaker 7: Listen. Generally speaking, Israel has an interest.
Speaker 6: In having in America that is willing and able to
Speaker 6: project power around the world, even if I would even
Speaker 6: prefer a president who is critical of Israel but willing
Speaker 6: to project power over a president who made love US
Speaker 6: an unwilling to protect power, because that's America's interest. And
Speaker 6: I think it's not just That's interests also not just
Speaker 6: Israel's interest. It's every ally of the United States, Germany,
Speaker 6: South Korea, Japan. We all want that strong, tough projecting America.
Speaker 7: And that's what we've seen now in Venezuela, and.
Speaker 6: That increases, that enhances the security of all of us,
Speaker 6: all of us, and then more specifically, Maduro is a
Speaker 6: great friend of Iran, a great friends. His Bolah, his
Speaker 6: Bulla operates out of Venezuela. It operates it's drug trade
Speaker 6: out of Venezuela. It's a huge blow to Iran, and
Speaker 6: it sends an unequivocal message to our common enemies, whether
Speaker 6: it be mister Petro in Colombia, the Cubans, everyone's unnotice.
Speaker 6: Now you don't mess with this guy and mister Trump
Speaker 6: meaning and.
Speaker 7: That redounds to our benefit.
Speaker 6: It certainly does, and it directly related to what's happening
Speaker 6: in Iran today.
Speaker 1: Let's go to what's happening in Iran. I am hungry
Speaker 1: for news, and the only place I can find it
Speaker 1: about up to date news in Iran is actually at
Speaker 1: the Times of Israel, and even it's a little bit
Speaker 1: behind AP and Reuters gives us a detail here in
Speaker 1: a detail there. What sort of a crisis is this
Speaker 1: for the regime in Iran that they're going through right now?
Speaker 6: I think we have to distiguis between what's going on
Speaker 6: in Iran in the last few days, what's going to
Speaker 6: happen next couple of days, and what's happening.
Speaker 7: In the longer term in Iran.
Speaker 6: Okay, we've seen this film before where people come to
Speaker 6: the streets and the Iran regime has an m where
Speaker 6: they let people sort of blow off steam for a
Speaker 6: week or two. A couple dozen people may get killed,
Speaker 6: but finally they're going to come down like the proverbial
Speaker 6: ton of bricks on this revolt. That's the way it
Speaker 6: was in two thousand and nine. That's the way it
Speaker 6: was in twenty twenty two with the women's revolt, which
Speaker 6: was very brutally suppressed. And we're going to see because
Speaker 6: this regime has tremendous power at its disposal. It has
Speaker 6: the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards, the it has the army,
Speaker 6: It has a a group of thugs called the Besiege
Speaker 6: who come out with baseball bats and beat these people
Speaker 6: over the head. They haven't come out with their big
Speaker 6: guns yet, and they're not going to go quietly into
Speaker 6: that dark night. I guarantee you. There's a question whether
Speaker 6: they may want to pick a fight with us in
Speaker 6: order to detract attention from their domestic woes.
Speaker 7: Maybe try to rally the people.
Speaker 6: That's possibility, and we have been very vigilant about that. Okay,
Speaker 6: so what's happening. They may succeed in suppressing this revolt
Speaker 6: for a week or two, but the fact of the
Speaker 6: matter is the longevity of this regime is now very
Speaker 6: much in question. They have been humiliated by Israel, humiliated
Speaker 6: by the United States. They have no electricity, they have
Speaker 6: no water, their currency, the reality has lost sixty percent
Speaker 6: of its worth. Women are no longer wearing headcoverings in
Speaker 6: the street. It's days are numbered one way or the other.
Speaker 6: And Iran's not coming back. They've now just lost this
Speaker 6: ally in Venezuela. They've lost Syria, They've lost Lebanon, They've
Speaker 6: lost Gaza. What's left? What's left for this regime?
Speaker 7: Not much? And the quicker it goes, the better.
Speaker 1: So how do you believe the Mullahs in the IRGC
Speaker 1: understand President Trump's threat to intervene if they kill protesters.
Speaker 1: What do they hear when they hear that.
Speaker 7: I think they not just hear it.
Speaker 6: They saw what happened with Maduro and they're going to
Speaker 6: take it very very seriously. And you know, if I
Speaker 6: were there, I could be making my travel plans to Moscow.
Speaker 1: Now there is a element in the West, especially in
Speaker 1: the United States, arguing that we'll make it worse if
Speaker 1: we get on involved in Iran in any way, for example,
Speaker 1: strikes on the IRGC or the besiege headquarters, or if
Speaker 1: Israel does the same thing. What's your response to that,
Speaker 1: You only make it worse, crowd.
Speaker 7: You know, it's like that bag. You know, there was
Speaker 7: an old.
Speaker 6: Holocaust joke quote unquote about too Jews about be executed
Speaker 6: by the s S and the s S officers making
Speaker 6: fun of them, and says, you know, any last words,
Speaker 6: and once you raises his hand together, Jude puts his
Speaker 6: hand down and says, well, hey.
Speaker 7: We're in enough trouble as it is.
Speaker 6: Okay, And it's true of many things, We're enough trouble
Speaker 6: as it is. I generally speaking, I think it's good
Speaker 6: that the Israel keeps a low profile.
Speaker 7: For the time being. We can help the revolt quietly.
Speaker 6: But the United States is a superpower, and I says,
Speaker 6: can wield his power in ways that even we can't.
Speaker 6: And and if it would bring about the fall of
Speaker 6: this regime by some kinetic intervention, I think that's certainly
Speaker 6: within the power and the proven record of this president.
Speaker 1: Now they've executed almost two thousand people since the Twelve
Speaker 1: Day War. Do you think they are afraid of people
Speaker 1: within the ordinary Iranian army, which is separate from the IRGC,
Speaker 1: or even the IERGC deciding maybe Hamani and the Mulas
Speaker 1: are not worth the trouble. We want to keep our
Speaker 1: thing going.
Speaker 6: I think after last summer they wou'd be foolish not
Speaker 6: to be afraid, because Israel knew where those scientists were living,
Speaker 6: they knew where senior commanders were living, they knew where
Speaker 6: so many of the.
Speaker 7: Rockets were situated.
Speaker 6: The degree to which Israeli intelligence, to say something of
Speaker 6: American intelligence, had penetrated Iranian leadership and the Ilana military
Speaker 6: and the r GC is certainly reason for all of
Speaker 6: those Mullas to be shaken in their boots.
Speaker 1: All right, last question, Ambassador Orn, what did you make
Speaker 1: of the Netahu Trump meetings last week? How were they
Speaker 1: received in Israel?
Speaker 7: Well, they're very well.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 7: I was personally surprised.
Speaker 6: I thought that the president would be more constrained, giving
Speaker 6: what's happened inside his own White House, inside the MAGA movement,
Speaker 6: with the you know, the criticism that he has not
Speaker 6: lived up to what he had promised to his voters
Speaker 6: to be put America first, as if you know, getting
Speaker 6: rid of a brutal drug dictator or even helping Christians
Speaker 6: in Nigeria who are threatened with Islamic extremists is not
Speaker 6: putting America first. But leave that aside. I thought he'd
Speaker 6: be more constrained, and he surprised me. He kept that
Speaker 6: credible military threat on the table. And Hugh, that is
Speaker 6: the key to everything that's going to happen in the
Speaker 6: Middle East from now on. Keeping that credible military threat
Speaker 6: on the table means a week that Israel could have
Speaker 6: peace with Lebanon, peace with Syria, who knows, maybe in
Speaker 6: peace with the Iran and certainly peace with Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 6: We're in a region where people respect strength and that's
Speaker 6: what the America is showing here and thrue strength will
Speaker 6: get peace.
Speaker 1: Doctor Michael Urran, thank you for joining me. Follow him
Speaker 1: at Dr Michael Lauran, Doctor Michael Oran on x. The
Speaker 1: Azeril Advocacy group founded by doctor Oran also worth your
Speaker 1: attention online. Don't go on in or America. I'm de Hewett,
Speaker 1: Morning Laurin. Even Grace America from the Relief Stock Relief
Speaker 1: Factor Studio West. I'm Hugh Hewett. It was like the
Speaker 1: Winter Olympic bad takes in the aftermath of the American
Speaker 1: Operation Absolute Resolve that got Nicholas Maduro in his spouse
Speaker 1: out of the military base in the middle of Caracas
Speaker 1: and to the United States, where he's under a wrist
Speaker 1: in a waiting trial in Brooklyn, and the bad takes
Speaker 1: mounted up like so many books in a library. Luckily,
Speaker 1: I am friends with Dan Rundy. Dan is a senior
Speaker 1: fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's
Speaker 1: the author of the wonderful book The American Imperative. And
Speaker 1: by the time it was noon on the West Coast,
Speaker 1: I've gotten an eight page briefing paper on Venezuela from
Speaker 1: Dan on Saturday morning. It makes it sound like he's
Speaker 1: the desk officer for the Agency for Venezuela.
Speaker 4: He's not.
Speaker 1: He's just actually pretty smart about South America. Dan, welcome,
Speaker 1: when last week we met at our favorite watering hole
Speaker 1: in downtown d C. In December, you gave me the
Speaker 1: rundown of South America. The good guys are Argentina, Bolivia,
Speaker 1: and Chile right now. The bad guys are Cuba. Always
Speaker 1: Nicaragua and Venezuela. So with that taking off point, what
Speaker 1: do you make of what happened on Saturday in the
Speaker 1: early morning hours of Saturday and what gender still on
Speaker 1: the table? You got a lot of runway run with it,
Speaker 1: mister Rundy.
Speaker 8: Thanks, thanks a lot you. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 9: It was like a late Christmas present to see what
Speaker 9: happened to Nicholas Maduro and his wife.
Speaker 8: These are very bad people.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 9: You know that Venezuela is a complicated place, and a
Speaker 9: lot of people can can justifiably talk about all the
Speaker 9: complexities of Venezuela. But President Trump, with this amazing action,
Speaker 9: with the with the help of our amazing military and
Speaker 9: our amazing intelligence services, cut the Gordian knot, cut the
Speaker 9: complexity and made it simple again. May He's created a
Speaker 9: new scenario for us to operate from. He wants five
Speaker 9: things from Venezuela. He wants us to stop he wants
Speaker 9: Venezuela to stop the drugs. He wants Venezuela to cooperate
Speaker 9: with justice. He wants to see the country stabilized. He
Speaker 9: wants the enormal energy operation, normal energy pol I see
Speaker 9: in Venezuela. It's been run in a crazy way, and
Speaker 9: they and President Trump wants Venezuela to stop exporting chaos.
Speaker 9: I was so happy to see this happen, and I
Speaker 9: thought the operation that was carried out over the weekend
Speaker 9: was one of the best things that that I've heard
Speaker 9: in a long time. I mean, it's been a year
Speaker 9: of a lot of good news and foreign policy, whether
Speaker 9: it's the the operation in Iran and now what's happened
Speaker 9: in Venezuela. And so I think we owe a big
Speaker 9: debt of gratitude to President Trump, our amazing military and
Speaker 9: our amazing intelligence service. And he he has created new
Speaker 9: leverage on the remaining Maduro regime in the in the
Speaker 9: hands of.
Speaker 10: Delsi Rodriguez to say, look, we've got the top two
Speaker 10: copos of your mafia state under arrest, and we're also
Speaker 10: holding your oil exports under embargo until you make some changes.
Speaker 9: So he's got a lot of leverage. And so I
Speaker 9: think it's really an exciting moment. I'm really gratified to
Speaker 9: see where we are.
Speaker 1: Dan Rondie, let's ground this in the reality of the
Speaker 1: complexity that you mentioned at the beginning. You immediately told me, Hugh,
Speaker 1: remember there are twenty three thousand Americans there. Do you
Speaker 1: think anyone would dare touch an American in Venezuela right
Speaker 1: now from the security services? Would they not be asking
Speaker 1: to get blown up?
Speaker 8: They're asking to get blown up.
Speaker 9: We talk a lot in the foreign policy world about
Speaker 9: resetting deterrence. President Trump with this action really reset deterrence.
Speaker 9: That's just a fancy way of saying you better not
Speaker 9: mess with us, and that there's a credible threat. After
Speaker 9: what happened over the weekend, there's a credible threat. So
Speaker 9: if they messed with American citizen in Venezuela, it would
Speaker 9: not be a really good idea for the security services
Speaker 9: to do that. It is a complicated place. It's a
Speaker 9: divided society in many ways.
Speaker 1: Did you freeze on me there, Dan, Yeah.
Speaker 9: Are certainly at the very least right. We want what
Speaker 9: we want to see is behave, certainly behavioral change. You know,
Speaker 9: I know that Senator Cotton was on the show earlier
Speaker 9: today and he talked about this on the Sunday shows,
Speaker 9: that we want to have behavioral change in Venezuela. Like
Speaker 9: I said, stop the drugs, cooperate with justice, behave like
Speaker 9: a normal country, and that you know, Venezuela, you used
Speaker 9: to be a really wealthy place. It was wealthier than
Speaker 9: places like Chili forty years ago. It was a stable place.
Speaker 9: It was an ally of the United States, and under
Speaker 9: Chavez and Maduro became a partner of Iran and let
Speaker 9: in Hezbealab partnered with the Russians and the Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 9: These are and then you know, had this very mobbed
Speaker 9: up relationship with the Cubans. It's a very bad place.
Speaker 1: Now, Dad, Runny. One of your data points you sent
Speaker 1: me and I do people should have like Dan so
Speaker 1: you don't have to talk through your hat. I got
Speaker 1: this long memo from Dan on things I needed No
Speaker 1: it was great. I knew what I was talking about
Speaker 1: on kill Me last night because I'd read it. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that between twenty and thirty percent of
Speaker 1: the population actually considered themselves Chevistas. Who are they and
Speaker 1: why are they Chevistas?
Speaker 8: You know you.
Speaker 9: I made a trip to Venezuela in twenty twelve and
Speaker 9: one of the things that shocked me this was during
Speaker 9: right after Hugo Chavs had died. And what shocked me
Speaker 9: when I was in Caracas Venezuela was that you drove
Speaker 9: around and you did see some signs of support for
Speaker 9: the Chavez Maduro regime. It's not the majority of the people,
Speaker 9: but there is a percentage of the people in the
Speaker 9: country that support this government. Some of it is because
Speaker 9: they give them jobs, some is because they give them money.
Speaker 9: Some of it is because there are poor parts of
Speaker 9: Venezuela that maybe had been overlooked in the past, and
Speaker 9: this government had done given them free stuff, if I
Speaker 9: can put it that way, and had sort of bought allegiance,
Speaker 9: if I can put it that way. So there is
Speaker 9: a percentage of the population that does support the regime.
Speaker 9: It's not a majority. It's probably twenty percent. It could
Speaker 9: be as high as thirty percent. Nobody knows because it's
Speaker 9: an authoritarian regime. But with President Trump's action over the weekend,
Speaker 9: we have the opportunity to have a different future for Venezuela.
Speaker 9: The vast majority of people don't want this government.
Speaker 1: And the Interior ministry.
Speaker 8: If you have there were elections, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1: The Interior minister there and not like Doug Bergham, right,
Speaker 1: he's not taking care of the national parks. He's the
Speaker 1: secret police. What are the odds?
Speaker 9: Yeah, there's a whole series. Yeah, there's a whole authoritarian
Speaker 9: regime setup. There's the military, there's the secret police. They
Speaker 9: also have armed citizens that are aligned with the government.
Speaker 9: That are these are you know, sort of like your
Speaker 9: local neighborhood militia, if I can put it that way.
Speaker 9: That's you know, that's on the payroll of the of
Speaker 9: the the Chavistas. So this is a very it's a
Speaker 9: police state, it's an authoritarian regime. They have repressed human rights.
Speaker 9: They have cheated on elections multiple times, including most recently
Speaker 9: in twenty twenty four. The person who won the election
Speaker 9: at Mundo Gonzalez was not allowed to take possession of
Speaker 9: the government.
Speaker 8: So you've had this a very.
Speaker 9: This is a thug thug regime, it's a narco terrorist state.
Speaker 1: What do the other countries of South America think about this?
Speaker 1: Obviously Colombia has gone left, Bolivia has gone right, Chile
Speaker 1: has gone right, Argentina has gone right. But within the region,
Speaker 1: what do they think about swooping in and grabbing the
Speaker 1: top narco and then getting out.
Speaker 9: So most of the countries may how about this. Many
Speaker 9: of the countries in the region, our allies are relieved
Speaker 9: to see this happen. Argentina has supported this, and is
Speaker 9: you've had Paraguay and.
Speaker 8: Bolivia supported this.
Speaker 9: So serious countries with serious leaders have gotten behind President
Speaker 9: Trump's action. You have a crazy person in the President
Speaker 9: Petro of Columbia who's insane. Now, thankfully you he is
Speaker 9: leaving later this year there are elections in Columbia.
Speaker 8: He can't run again.
Speaker 9: I do think him having a fight with President Trump
Speaker 9: helps the cuckoo left candidate who's trying to replace him,
Speaker 9: And so we need to be a little bit careful
Speaker 9: of kind of playing into President Petro of Columbia's getting
Speaker 9: into fights with President Trump because there's some percentage of
Speaker 9: the Colombian population that you know that supports crazy President Petro.
Speaker 9: But he's you know, he's a substance abuser, he's a PHO,
Speaker 9: makes a lot of bad personal choices. He's nuts, so
Speaker 9: he's not a serious person. Unfortunately, the President of Mexico
Speaker 9: has also chosen to take a similar position to President Petro.
Speaker 9: But overall, it's you know a collection of loser countries
Speaker 9: like Cuba, Nicaragua, who you know, who've screamed. But really
Speaker 9: I think there's significant relie if you look at the
Speaker 9: joy in the faces, and then you've seen dancing in
Speaker 9: the streets by ordinary Venezuelans. Venezuelans, eight million Venezuelans you
Speaker 9: had to flee the country because of the mismanagement of
Speaker 9: this narco state in Venezuela.
Speaker 7: They've all left.
Speaker 9: It's one of the largest refugee populations in the world
Speaker 9: are Venezuelans who've left Venezuelan in the last twenty years
Speaker 9: because this wealthy country was driven into the ground by
Speaker 9: this this mafia, this mafia group financed by drugs.
Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, Dan Rundy's going to
Speaker 1: stay here and we're talking about the three c's, China,
Speaker 1: and Chevron, and Dan's going to have a memo ready
Speaker 1: on the implications for each of those three and he's
Speaker 1: going to have advice for Chevron on what to do next.
Speaker 1: And then he's going to tell us about Nicaragua and Cuba.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere America. Rundy knows what he's talking about,
Speaker 1: which is unlike about ninety five percent of the people
Speaker 1: I've seen on media this weekend. So stay tuned to
Speaker 1: the qq At Chef Welcome back. I'm quq At. Dan
Speaker 1: Rundy is my guest senior fellow at the Center for
Speaker 1: Strategic International Studies in Washington, d C. And one of
Speaker 1: the few subject matter experts on Central and South America DAN.
Speaker 1: A few years ago when Secretary Pompeo would hold his
Speaker 1: Madison dinners, especially missus Hewitt, and I went and I
Speaker 1: sat across from Michael Wirth, who's the CEO of Chevron,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, this is the smartest guy in
Speaker 1: the room, mother not named Pompeo. If you're running Chevron,
Speaker 1: you've obviously got subject matter experts and country experts. What
Speaker 1: ought they to be considering right now in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of the Maduro expatriation to the United States.
Speaker 9: So Chevron is the only American company operating currently in Venezuela.
Speaker 9: It's it's been granted a special license by the previously
Speaker 9: the Biden administration as well as.
Speaker 8: The current Trump administration.
Speaker 9: Other American oil companies like Exon Mobile had their assets
Speaker 9: nationalized in the last fifteen years, and so it's been
Speaker 9: a risky and complicated arrangement for Chevron to operate in Venezuela.
Speaker 9: And there have been a number of reasons for that
Speaker 9: given what happened over the last three days. Chevron's in
Speaker 9: a unique first mover advantage because it has assets on
Speaker 9: the ground and has maintained a relationship that hasn't broken
Speaker 9: its relationship, either with the United States or with Venezuela.
Speaker 8: Now, the.
Speaker 9: High water mark you of oil production in Venezuela was
Speaker 9: nineteen ninety and I think it was three point five
Speaker 9: million barrels of oil a day. And there's lots of
Speaker 9: what's the price of oil, and a whole bunch of
Speaker 9: other things that would be needed. Right now, it's about
Speaker 9: a half a million to a million barrels of oil
Speaker 9: a day is sort of what they estimate for Venezuela.
Speaker 9: So to get back to that kind of level is
Speaker 9: an enormous amount of money, and you'd need there's a
Speaker 9: bunch of there's a whole complicated string of things you'd
Speaker 9: have to unpack, like who controls these assets, did they
Speaker 9: promise these assets as part of loans to people? Is
Speaker 9: it safe to invest in the country, is there some
Speaker 9: level of security, et cetera, et cetera. But assuming you
Speaker 9: you could get all of those things that the estimates
Speaker 9: are fifty billion dollars one hundred billion dollars, nobody really knows,
Speaker 9: and it could take five or ten years to get
Speaker 9: back to the levels of production, back to the high
Speaker 9: water mark of oil production in Venezuela. So could Chevron
Speaker 9: do something like that potentially.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 9: They spend about twenty billion dollars a year on big
Speaker 9: investment projects. They have a number of big investment projects
Speaker 9: in places like Kazakhstan and Angola. They do a lot
Speaker 9: of energy investing in the United States. Think thanks to fracking,
Speaker 9: and you know the the energy miracle we've seen in
Speaker 9: the last ten years in America with fracking, and we
Speaker 9: owe cheve run a debt of thanks for all the They're.
Speaker 8: One of the folks that have helped make fracking possible
Speaker 8: for America.
Speaker 1: So if they're doing a whiteboard and no doubt they've
Speaker 1: been whiteboarding exercise all weekend. I've been at CSIS when
Speaker 1: Dan Rundy is one run one of these seminars, and
Speaker 1: I'm astonished by what kind of factors they have to
Speaker 1: take into account before they make another dollars worth of investment.
Speaker 1: What's on their whiteboard Up in northern California where Chevron is,
Speaker 1: I don't think they've left chat what's on their their
Speaker 1: whitebo I think.
Speaker 8: There's several things.
Speaker 9: One would be is what, you know, what they first
Speaker 9: want to talk to the United States governance say, are
Speaker 9: we you know, is this something you want to you
Speaker 9: know that you know, to make sure that they're following
Speaker 9: the law, and they want to obey the rules of
Speaker 9: the United States. They always you know, they're they're they're
Speaker 9: a good citizen, they're a great company. Then they'd want
Speaker 9: to make sure that if they invested that they weren't
Speaker 9: going to have their assets nationalized later. What kind of
Speaker 9: guarantees are they for that? And what kind of government
Speaker 9: are we talking about? And then uh, you know, so
Speaker 9: I think there's any number of different questions like that.
Speaker 9: I mean, there's a lot of the debt in there's
Speaker 9: a lot of debt in Venezuela. Some of that debt
Speaker 9: is associated with the energy business, whether it's to suppliers
Speaker 9: or whether it's saying hey, please lend please Government of China,
Speaker 9: lend me some money and I'll use this collateral this
Speaker 9: oil well or the assets in this oil field. So
Speaker 9: they'd want to understand, like, well, if I drill in
Speaker 9: this oil field, is this is the are the the
Speaker 9: assets are kind of spoken for? In some loan that
Speaker 9: they've loaned to China. So there's a whole series of
Speaker 9: complicated things like.
Speaker 1: That, Well, who is going to be driving the day
Speaker 1: to day bus on this over at the Department of
Speaker 1: State and at the Central Intelligence Agency? Do you expect
Speaker 1: that there's a task force and what I'll call normalization
Speaker 1: of relations with a bad actor regime? That's what we're trying.
Speaker 1: It's like Libya following the invasion of Iraq. They opened
Speaker 1: their kimono and then we went and got their WMD
Speaker 1: and we did a deal and was very secret. Where
Speaker 1: will that be run out of dan? Who's going to
Speaker 1: have the lead? I know Secretary Rubio can't do everything.
Speaker 1: He's running everything right now, but.
Speaker 8: No Secretary Rubio can't do everything.
Speaker 9: But I expect this is going to largely fall to
Speaker 9: the Department of State, but there'll be an inner agency team.
Speaker 8: I also think what's important to you is.
Speaker 9: I think all of the folks in the Trump administration
Speaker 9: are cognizant of the experience of Iraq, which I was
Speaker 9: supportive of the US invasion of Iraq and I supported
Speaker 9: what President Bush did, But I think that from maybe
Speaker 9: perhaps in the minority, but I would at this point,
Speaker 9: but I would say that there were are. I think
Speaker 9: many people saw it as a cautionary tale. So I
Speaker 9: don't think we want to get I think they're they're
Speaker 9: seeking not They're trying to entice and work with the
Speaker 9: government that is currently you know, in place, to try
Speaker 9: and do behavioral change on a number of front stop
Speaker 9: the drugs, as I said, or rather cooperate with justice,
Speaker 9: stabilize the country, normalize the energy sector. And so I
Speaker 9: think part of it is going to be working trying
Speaker 9: to work with the existing illegitimate government, if we can
Speaker 9: put it that way in place. My hope and expectation
Speaker 9: is that this is a trend. They've been using the
Speaker 9: word transition, that this is ultimately a transition government, and
Speaker 9: that over the next period of time, maybe over the
Speaker 9: next six to twelve months, we either have hopefully new
Speaker 9: elections and the good guys win, you know. Ultimately, I
Speaker 9: think ed Mundo Gonzalez, who's the who should be the
Speaker 9: rightful president of Venezuela, and Maria Corina Machado, who won
Speaker 9: the Nobel Peace Prize who should be the rightful vice
Speaker 9: president of Venezuela, will get a chance to run again,
Speaker 9: and that we give a chance for the Venezuelan people
Speaker 9: have real, free and fair elections as a result of
Speaker 9: what President Trump did over the weekend, and as a result,
Speaker 9: we have a government that that's a legitimate government that
Speaker 9: we can actually work with. That would be my hope.
Speaker 9: But it's maybe that, maybe six or twelve months down
Speaker 9: the road.
Speaker 8: You mentioned the time, we have to work with this,
Speaker 8: this these thugs.
Speaker 1: You mentioned to me that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: guns in Venezuela in the hands of a lot.
Speaker 8: Of different a lot of guns.
Speaker 1: So we don't want to send a bunch of Americans
Speaker 1: in there with guns because they become targets like they
Speaker 1: did in the Sunny Triangle after the invasion of Iraq
Speaker 1: and we weren't ready for it. Do you expect the
Speaker 1: internal security services there to turn over a leap? Is
Speaker 1: that the best case scenario that they talked to But
Speaker 1: they don't want to end up in a Brooklyn jail.
Speaker 8: Right exactly.
Speaker 9: I think they saw what happened to their head Coppo,
Speaker 9: and I think they're thinking, hmm, maybe I don't want
Speaker 9: to get droned, or I don't want to have door
Speaker 9: kickers come for me in the middle of the night.
Speaker 9: I do think that's an incentive, and it's it's a
Speaker 9: way of which to concentrate the mind on behavioral change.
Speaker 8: We've heard this over the last several days.
Speaker 9: From supporters of the administration, and I'm very supportive what
Speaker 9: the administration did. I thought this was phenomenal. Is we
Speaker 9: want to change, have behavioral change with this, admit with
Speaker 9: this regime, with this, with these really bad actors. Now,
Speaker 9: do I think we want these people to.
Speaker 8: Be in power forever?
Speaker 9: No, we want these Ultimately we'd like to see I
Speaker 9: think we ought to want to see these people go
Speaker 9: and to have a return to the kind of Venezuela
Speaker 9: that we had forty years ago, which was a which
Speaker 9: was a stable, prosperous country and ally of the United
Speaker 9: States that wasn't exporting chaos and it wasn't exporting drugs.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back, Dan Rundy. We turned to Cuba next,
Speaker 1: and then China. I'm really to run to the side
Speaker 1: I think today, But don't go anywhere because Rundy actually
Speaker 1: knows what he's talking about, and that's very rare in
Speaker 1: media today on the Venezuelan talking as I've seen this weekend.
Speaker 1: Stay Tube, Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Ewett, blessed
Speaker 1: to have Dan Rundy with me, Senior advisor at the
Speaker 1: csis one of the Keystone think tanks of Washington, DC,
Speaker 1: and he's the author of the book The American Imperative,
Speaker 1: which is really a remarkably excellent book. Dan let's talk
Speaker 1: about Cuba. Secretary Rubio mentioned it in passing that it's
Speaker 1: run by semi incoherent ninety three year old Rauel Castro
Speaker 1: and a current dictator. They get their energy from Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Their security services didn't prove to be very good. What
Speaker 1: does this mean for Cuba?
Speaker 9: Okay, So Cuba used to get a lot of substats
Speaker 9: from the Soviet Union and on the Soviet Union and fell.
Speaker 9: There was like a ten year period where they didn't
Speaker 9: get any help from really anybody and they were in deep,
Speaker 9: deep trouble. Then Chaves showed up and bailed out Cuba
Speaker 9: for about twenty years. And as time has gone on,
Speaker 9: because the Chavistas and Maduro folks have mismanaged their economy
Speaker 9: and driven their economy to the ground, they had less
Speaker 9: and less to throw free oil to throw.
Speaker 8: Around, subsidized oil to throw around, and then with.
Speaker 9: Sanctions that the US has imposed, including in especially with
Speaker 9: the Trump administration, it's been even harder and harder to
Speaker 9: get a discounted free oil even if there was any
Speaker 9: to give out from Venezuela to Cuba.
Speaker 8: So they they have a broken economy.
Speaker 9: Thankfully Fidel Castro is dead, and I think Raoul Castro
Speaker 9: has also did. It's run by a guy named DS Canal,
Speaker 9: who's sort of like their chosen thug, you know, communist leader.
Speaker 8: They've thisy ideas.
Speaker 9: Canal recognized that they're in deep trouble in Cuba economically,
Speaker 9: they've had a drop in tourists them.
Speaker 8: They don't have the kinds of they.
Speaker 9: Have a broken, fake failed socialist economy because socialism doesn't work,
Speaker 9: as you know you and so they have had an
Speaker 9: ideological and security partnership. So the Cubans provided bodyguards to Maduro.
Speaker 9: And I think you saw that the Cubans are having
Speaker 9: two official days of morning because they recognize that our
Speaker 9: armed forces killed thirty two of their security.
Speaker 1: And we've got a yeah you're back, Dan, go ahead.
Speaker 8: Yeah, sorry, can you hear me?
Speaker 1: Yep? Go ahead, yeah, Just.
Speaker 9: That you know that Cuba, Cuba and Venezuela have had
Speaker 9: and mesh relationship for twenty five years.
Speaker 8: Venezuela's ran out of oil to give them.
Speaker 9: As Venezuel's ran out of oil to give them, Cubas
Speaker 9: in deeper and deeper economic trouble because Venezuela was sort
Speaker 9: of cuba sugar daddy for a long time in Cuba
Speaker 9: and return provided security and intelligence services to Venezuela. And
Speaker 9: as you saw the thirty two bodyguards or the security
Speaker 9: folks from Cuba that were killed by our armed forces
Speaker 9: because they were protecting Maduro, it says a lot.
Speaker 8: So I think hopefully Cuba's on its last legs.
Speaker 9: And can you imagine you if in the next twelve
Speaker 9: months we had some kind of state, we have a
Speaker 9: stable transition to something a heck a lot better in Venezuela,
Speaker 9: we have the mulahs leave town in Tehran, and sometime
Speaker 9: in the next twenty four months, god willing, the bad
Speaker 9: guys exit stage left in Cuba, all because of the
Speaker 9: actions of President Trump.
Speaker 8: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Now with the embargo that is there, do you expect
Speaker 1: the United States Navy to maintain it's armada and to
Speaker 1: continue to attempt to embargo the export of hot oil?
Speaker 1: From Venezuela.
Speaker 8: Certainly.
Speaker 9: I mean President Trump is always thinking about leverage, and
Speaker 9: so you heard Secretary of Ruvio talk about that they're
Speaker 9: going to continue to you, just as they have the
Speaker 9: illegitimate leader Maduro and the first Lady, both indicted criminals,
Speaker 9: basically both indicted subjects. That that's one formal leverage, is
Speaker 9: to have these two thugs in Brooklyn. To have an
Speaker 9: embargo on the energy is also another formal leverage that
Speaker 9: we have over this illegitimate thug regime. So absolutely, I
Speaker 9: expect now whether or not that aircraft carry and I
Speaker 9: know you you and your listeners have become very educated
Speaker 9: on the navy because of I'm a longtime listener of
Speaker 9: your show that you know, you've had a lot of
Speaker 9: naval experts on your show. At some point, the aircraft
Speaker 9: carrier will probably have to go back into port, I
Speaker 9: don't know, sometime maybe in the spring. But we have
Speaker 9: a lot of military assets in the Caribbean, and we're
Speaker 9: using assets like their airfields in Puerto Rico, et cetera.
Speaker 9: And so I think we're going to continue to have
Speaker 9: all the assets that we need, whether it's an aircraft
Speaker 9: care or else. Others to to maintain leverage on the
Speaker 9: on energy. I don't expect us to release that anytime
Speaker 9: soon because it's a it's it's a form of leverage,
Speaker 9: and President Trump likes using leverage strategically.
Speaker 1: Do you think, Dan, we got thirty seconds and then
Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk about China that the President
Speaker 1: will name the equivalent of the fella we sent to
Speaker 1: you Rock in two thousand and three, whose name is
Speaker 1: escaping the area grammar right.
Speaker 8: Do you expect CTA?
Speaker 1: Do you expect one of these sort of super beer?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 9: No, No, I don't because I think I think what
Speaker 9: they're trying to do is if I can use the
Speaker 9: term empower the current thus leaders to do the right
Speaker 9: thing and try to use behavior change.
Speaker 1: Dan, buy one more segment coming up, Don't Go Anywhere.
Speaker 1: Rundy is on tap for one more segment on the
Speaker 1: view A show, Welcome Back in America. It's my final
Speaker 1: segment with Dan Rundy, Senior Fellow at the Center for
Speaker 1: Strategic International Studies in Washington, DC, author of the book
Speaker 1: The American Imperative. Dan, it turns out China gets about
Speaker 1: four to five percent of its oil, a very specific
Speaker 1: kind of oil from Venezuela and it's refined by independent
Speaker 1: refiners in China called teapots, and it's used in heavy
Speaker 1: construction that's now going to stop. What do you expect
Speaker 1: the Chinese reaction to this to be and what kind
Speaker 1: of impact will it have on China.
Speaker 9: Well, you've got a really thoughtful audience. But I was
Speaker 9: surprised to hear this, and maybe your audience will be
Speaker 9: surprised to hear this. I was talking to someone in
Speaker 9: preparation for this session talking about China, and it occurred
Speaker 9: to my friend, and I agree with my friend that
Speaker 9: because kinda sees the world, they're the middle Kingdom.
Speaker 8: You know, people have heard that expression that they're the
Speaker 8: center of the world.
Speaker 9: And they sent a delegation of a senior ambassador to
Speaker 9: visit Maduro. I think like six hours or twelve hours before.
Speaker 9: There's a photo off of him, you know, receiving this
Speaker 9: delegation six or twelve hours before. They were still in
Speaker 9: their beds and they couldn't they couldn't mobilize or do
Speaker 9: anything during this time. And so I would not be
Speaker 9: surprised that the Chinese thought the Americans quote unquote did this,
Speaker 9: especially around a visit of our high level delegation.
Speaker 8: Now, I know that sounds.
Speaker 9: Crazy, but I can tell you that the way they
Speaker 9: look at the world and they see themselves as the
Speaker 9: world of revolves around them, that we somehow.
Speaker 8: Did this as a signal to them.
Speaker 9: Now, there is some truth to that in the sense
Speaker 9: that they buy a lot of oil. They buy some
Speaker 9: oil from Venezuela. The oil from Venezuela is this grungey,
Speaker 9: dirty crud.
Speaker 8: It's hard to process, as you were describing.
Speaker 9: And they, you know, they also have lent ton of
Speaker 9: money to Venezuela, some of it they had hoped that
Speaker 9: Venezuela might be part of the Belton Road initiative. Your
Speaker 9: listeners know that China's got this big initiative to build
Speaker 9: roads and infrastructure all over the world, and instead they've had,
Speaker 9: they've gotten, They're getting less than buying less oil from Venezuela.
Speaker 9: The Venezuelans owe them something on the orders of magnitude
Speaker 9: of something like forty billion dollars.
Speaker 8: It's going to be hard for them to pay the
Speaker 8: Chinese back.
Speaker 9: And we were talking earlier in the segment about Okay,
Speaker 9: under what circumstances will people invest in Venezuela. One of
Speaker 9: things we've got to sort out is like how much
Speaker 9: debt does Venezuela currently have and a lot of it's
Speaker 9: owed to China, And will the current debtors be willing
Speaker 9: to take what's called a haircut and reduce some of
Speaker 9: the amount of debt that they have, or instead of
Speaker 9: paying back the debt in twenty thirty, be willing to
Speaker 9: pay the debt having them the debt paid back in
Speaker 9: twenty fifty so that the amount of payments drops. So
Speaker 9: China's got a debt problem with Venezuela. China likes wants
Speaker 9: to buy oil from Venezuela ran in Russia because they
Speaker 9: don't if they ever wanted to invade Taiwan. They want
Speaker 9: to have a series of sources of supply that circumvent
Speaker 9: global sanctions on oil, and so Venezuela is one of
Speaker 9: their sources of supply that was sort of let's call
Speaker 9: it semi sanctioned free if you will, if they ever
Speaker 9: and so losing the Venezuelan oil is a headache for them.
Speaker 9: Not getting paid back their debt is a headache for them.
Speaker 9: And also the fact that they had some Chinese military
Speaker 9: equipment there that didn't work that well in this recent
Speaker 9: operation that we saw. So they're embarrassed and they've got
Speaker 9: some headaches, both economic headaches and they've got some energy
Speaker 9: headaches as a result of what's happened.
Speaker 8: I think that's all to.
Speaker 9: The good, because I don't wish the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 9: well at all.
Speaker 1: What's interesting, Dan, and we'll wrap up on this, is
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of outcomes from this operation,
Speaker 1: which is a in and out two and a half
Speaker 1: hour masterpiece of special operation. And adamal mcgraven was on
Speaker 1: the program last week. He said, we've been doing special
Speaker 1: opps for twenty years. We're getting really good at it.
Speaker 1: He wasn't talking about Venezuela, but he was talking about
Speaker 1: special ops. That one of the second order effects has
Speaker 1: got to be China worried about its supply. But Tehron's
Speaker 1: got to be worried about Donald Trump threatening them if
Speaker 1: they start mowing down the centers in the street. Do
Speaker 1: you think that they take that threat more seriously on
Speaker 1: this Monday than they did last Friday?
Speaker 8: Absolutely.
Speaker 9: I mentioned earlier you this concept and foreign policy called
Speaker 9: de terrence, right resetting to terrence. It basically means like
Speaker 9: making credible threats. Donald Trump is making credible threats. He
Speaker 9: has basically said, he says, he says he's going to
Speaker 9: do something, and then he does it, as opposed to
Speaker 9: when President Obamas that I'm drawing a line in the
Speaker 9: sand and didn't do anything. This resets deterrence, similar with
Speaker 9: the actions that the United States did with their allies
Speaker 9: Israel against the thug regime in Iran earlier last last year.
Speaker 9: So I think absolutely, from just even from five days ago,
Speaker 9: there's a much more credible threat on the Iranian regime
Speaker 9: of I and I think, thank goodness, President Trump came
Speaker 9: out last week and said, if you mess with the
Speaker 9: protesters on the ground, We're gonna mess with you, thug
Speaker 9: regime Iran.
Speaker 8: I thought that was great.
Speaker 9: Compare that the President Obama you where he basically encouraged
Speaker 9: protesters but then didn't protect them and didn't do anything.
Speaker 8: And so I think President Trump has been.
Speaker 9: Willing to to step forward and say I'm willing to
Speaker 9: protect the protesters was a phenomenal act. And what happened
Speaker 9: in Venezuela makes it very very clear that he's he's
Speaker 9: willing to back up those words with force, and thank goodness,
Speaker 9: he's willing to do so.
Speaker 1: Now, last question, Dan, should we be willing to spend
Speaker 1: American dollars to help Venezuela stand up a stable government
Speaker 1: transition and then uh, free and fair elections in a
Speaker 1: free market. Should we be willing to invest if the
Speaker 1: bad guys realize that the clock is ticking like it
Speaker 1: ran out of time from Maduro and they want to
Speaker 1: work with us, ought we to spend American dollars there,
Speaker 1: not soldiers, but dollars.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I think this is a great question you.
Speaker 9: I think there's a belief that there's a lot The
Speaker 9: largest amount of oil reserves in the world are in Venezuela.
Speaker 9: The largest amount of gold reserves in the world are
Speaker 9: in Venezuela. Now, assuming they haven't been pillaged and been
Speaker 9: able to kind of get a real sense of what's
Speaker 9: going on or how much that's been spoken for with
Speaker 9: you know, borrowing money against it, et cetera. There's a
Speaker 9: lot of resources Venezuela and theory should be a rich country.
Speaker 9: So I do think certainly we should be, at least
Speaker 9: on a lending basis, be willing to provide some money
Speaker 9: on the front end to say we're going to help
Speaker 9: get you back on your.
Speaker 8: Feet and lend you some money to do so.
Speaker 9: I think President Trump is right to say we should
Speaker 9: be we should participate in the upside of a prosperous Venezuela.
Speaker 9: That American workers in the American companies should be at
Speaker 9: the front of the line since we've just helped given
Speaker 9: them a new opportunity. They got the best shot in
Speaker 9: twenty five years. President Trump is providing the best shot
Speaker 9: in twenty five years for Venezuela.
Speaker 1: That is that is a wonderful way to conclude, Dan Rundy,
Speaker 1: are you nde? I hope you write this up for
Speaker 1: people other than talking heads like me, so that every
Speaker 1: American can read that. It's great to have an expert
Speaker 1: on hand who's willing to spend an hour with me.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dan Rundy. His book is the American Imperative.
Speaker 1: It's imperative that you get and read that if you
Speaker 1: don't understand what's going on in the world. State ture folks.
Speaker 1: So many people I know are disheartened that our country
Speaker 1: seems to have forgotten the importance of citizens and they
Speaker 1: wonder how a strong sense of citizenship might be revived.
Speaker 1: And so my friends at Hillsdale College have produced a
Speaker 1: free online course on the topic American Citizenship and Its Decline,
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Speaker 1: That's Hugh f R Hillsdale dot com. Hugh for Hillsdale
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Speaker 1: hill dot com. Beck ameer, I'm Hugh Hewett. Vic Matis
Speaker 1: is a Free Beacon arts and culture and weekend editor.
Speaker 1: If you're not reading the Free Beacon, you should be.
Speaker 1: He's also the cost of the getting Hammered podcast, which
Speaker 1: is back, Vic Maddis, Happy New Year to you. I
Speaker 1: was your New Year's Eve party.
Speaker 4: Happy to do you to you, Hugh. It was a
Speaker 4: great party.
Speaker 11: I did make that picture of Manhattan's that I mentioned
Speaker 11: on your show previously. That would be forty ounces of
Speaker 11: bourbon and twenty ounces of vermouth, sixty ounces.
Speaker 4: Good to the last drop.
Speaker 12: Oh the words of Teddy Roosevelt, all gone, Oh God,
Speaker 12: the night now, Vic, I got to say about the
Speaker 12: last episode of Getting Hammered, I was a little bit
Speaker 12: disappointed at the fact that you were mocking the pop
Speaker 12: Tarts bowl.
Speaker 1: And I myself have never had a pop tart, not one,
Speaker 1: not in all of my years on this planet. But
Speaker 1: I still think they're a staple of many homes. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's correct. I mean it's something, well, at least when
Speaker 1: I was a high schooler.
Speaker 4: You're on the go.
Speaker 11: You know, you're usually crashing on something, you know, homework
Speaker 11: that you haven't done, a paper that's due, and you
Speaker 11: know your mom is probably busy doing other things. Maybe
Speaker 11: she's making a lunch for you or not, who knows,
Speaker 11: but you don't have time to sit down for full breakfast.
Speaker 11: Sometimes you got to get on the road. You got
Speaker 11: to get in your car and get the school. Grab
Speaker 11: the pop tart, pop it in the toaster.
Speaker 4: It's good to go.
Speaker 1: That's what leads me to mister and missus Maduro, who've
Speaker 1: had a change in circumstance. Whether or not they like
Speaker 1: pop tarts doesn't really matter anymore. What do you think?
Speaker 1: What do you think he's thinking in his Brooklyn cell
Speaker 1: right now? I don't know.
Speaker 4: Maybe he's thinking what.
Speaker 11: Would Manuel Noriega do at a time like this, you know,
Speaker 11: I mean, this is what everybody's thinking. They're channeling back
Speaker 11: to the Manuel Noriego's you know, the collapse of his
Speaker 11: regime and his takedown which took several days from for
Speaker 11: the US military for that exfiltration operation. And I think
Speaker 11: Noriega did spend about seventeen years in a US prison
Speaker 11: before being sent out to I think France.
Speaker 4: And and Panama. I don't know if he can get
Speaker 4: out of this.
Speaker 11: On the other hand, he might be hopeful that they
Speaker 11: have a very old judge who is very quirky in
Speaker 11: his ways, and maybe he might throw a wrench in
Speaker 11: this whole operation. He is maybe hoping that the Trump
Speaker 11: administration gets caught up in the fervor and forgets something
Speaker 11: on the final you know, on the dotted line to
Speaker 11: fill out properly, and he can get somehow released. But
Speaker 11: I don't think that's going to happen. I think there's
Speaker 11: mounds of evidence that have been compiled since the twenty
Speaker 11: twenty indictment in the Southern District of New York, the
Speaker 11: narco terrorism, the drug trafficking. There's a lot to connect
Speaker 11: him to and he has to worry about that. He'll
Speaker 11: get his legal representation. This is the United States of America,
Speaker 11: after all. But if I were him, I would not
Speaker 11: be thinking I'd be heading back home any time I'm soon,
Speaker 11: nor would I think would he be wanted back home.
Speaker 1: Well, I got to ask you, Vic, I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit surprised that the a District court judge in the
Speaker 1: Northern District of California has not yet ordered his return
Speaker 1: to Venezuela, as they have done with a bregup. Right,
Speaker 1: there got to be a district court that will, you know,
Speaker 1: direct the Trump administration to reverse what they've done Somewhere.
Speaker 1: It won't stand, but someone will do it.
Speaker 11: What is the ACLU doing at this moment and where
Speaker 11: are they filing in a state or a city that's
Speaker 11: sympathetic to their cause and to leftist causes. This is
Speaker 11: how they've been able to, you know, obstruct the Trump
Speaker 11: administration every step of the way, even going up to
Speaker 11: the Supreme Court when it came to things like tariffs.
Speaker 4: So don't we.
Speaker 11: Should have jinx at Hugh? I mean, will hold our
Speaker 11: breath now? I think you know there's still tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I think it makes every American abroad, whether in uniform
Speaker 1: or not, safer. I think that every single America and
Speaker 1: benefits from what happened on Saturday. Do you agree with me?
Speaker 4: Yes, whether or not they like to admit it.
Speaker 11: We're talking about the reduction of fentanyl entering into the
Speaker 11: United States. A lot of people, you know, have died
Speaker 11: because of the fentanyl overdoses, and it's coming out of
Speaker 11: Venezuela largely. Maybe a lot of listeners know people personally.
Speaker 11: I certainly do people who have died from fentanyl overdoses.
Speaker 11: It is a terrible thing, and you're looking at a
Speaker 11: reduction already in a drug overdose opioid deaths in twenty
Speaker 11: twenty four. That trend will probably continue, and it's not
Speaker 11: unrelated to the drop in both illegal immigration across the
Speaker 11: southern border and of course what's happening in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Now I am surprised, I really have to say, I
Speaker 1: am surprised by the number of people who've gone on
Speaker 1: the air to pronounce that it was illegal and that
Speaker 1: Congress needed to be known it wasn't illegal, and Congress didn't.
Speaker 1: Senator Cotton was just on the air with a saying
Speaker 1: he's perfectly satisfied with the Collie got at three thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning on Saturday from Secretary of Rubio, who
Speaker 1: used to have the job that Senat Cotton has now
Speaker 1: chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. What do you think
Speaker 1: of these people? Do they just reflectively because Trump didn't
Speaker 1: have to be against it.
Speaker 4: That's part of it, Hugh, definitely.
Speaker 11: For example, when the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said
Speaker 11: that people should dress better on airplanes, just to stick
Speaker 11: it to Trump, people just even slobbier than they already do.
Speaker 4: So that was one thing.
Speaker 11: If Trump says water and air good for you, they're
Speaker 11: going to do everything in the power.
Speaker 4: To say it's bad for you.
Speaker 11: So that's one part of it, and the other part
Speaker 11: is something that Mark Halpern had said recently, which is,
Speaker 11: say what you will about Trump arrangement syndrome. One of
Speaker 11: the things that causes is amnesia. And so suddenly people
Speaker 11: do people to forget about Obama droning an American citizen
Speaker 11: he didn't, you know, get a charge with a warrant
Speaker 11: for that, and certainly going back to let's say Bill Clinton,
Speaker 11: you know, and launching strikes in Serbia, or our involvement
Speaker 11: with boots on the ground in Somalia, so suddenly those
Speaker 11: things are forgotten or they'll say that these are very
Speaker 11: terrible precedents, including Panama, that were you know, having to
Speaker 11: abide by.
Speaker 4: But the fact is there are precedents.
Speaker 1: Lots of president and that brings me finally to Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer and Democrats. Does any Democrat other than John Fetterman,
Speaker 1: have you seen one come out and say, good for
Speaker 1: the good old USA? Then zeelans deserve freedom, free frequent
Speaker 1: and fair elections, and free markets. Have you seen any
Speaker 1: Democrats say that?
Speaker 11: No, they seem to be in lockstep, as you were mentioning,
Speaker 11: with the exception of the Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who's
Speaker 11: on Fox this morning talking in fact about how you
Speaker 11: have to, you know, give credit to where it's due,
Speaker 11: regardless of the president, regardless of how you feel about
Speaker 11: President Trump, having him.
Speaker 4: Removed is a good thing.
Speaker 11: And there are for example, James Homan had an editorial
Speaker 11: in the Washington Post saying this is a good thing,
Speaker 11: and of course their readers went ballistic over that position
Speaker 11: because again, if Trump did it, it has to be bad.
Speaker 4: But they don't realize.
Speaker 11: That if they take a step back at how foolish
Speaker 11: that makes them look. And there are Venezuelans who are saying,
Speaker 11: have you talked to us people in Durrel, You know,
Speaker 11: not the protesters in New York, but the people at
Speaker 11: Venezuela and here in this country, they are happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think Florida got reader over the weekend, very
Speaker 1: very much. Lots of Venezuelans in Florida who had to
Speaker 1: go there because of the tyranny of Nicholas maduro Vic.
Speaker 1: Madis good to talk to. You follow him on ex
Speaker 1: Victoryina Madis, go and like and subscribe to getting hammered
Speaker 1: that he and Mary Catherine Ham bring you at least
Speaker 1: cleekly and stay tuned w right back on the UUs
Speaker 1: Show