Speaker 1: Proby Billy Cunningham, the Great American and once again a
Speaker 1: lot of fast breaking events. A couple hours ago, Ambassador
Speaker 1: of Mike Waltz, the US Ambassador in the UN, laid
Speaker 1: out the case against Maduro. And it's interesting how just
Speaker 1: about three months ago Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, talked about, hey, gringo,
Speaker 1: come get me. If you think you can get me
Speaker 1: out of here, come get me, kind of fafo. And
Speaker 1: he found out what happened. Joining you and I now
Speaker 1: is brad winstrip He's now a private citizen, but he
Speaker 1: spent about twelve years in the Congress. As you know,
Speaker 1: he's a colonel retired US military, fought in the Rock.
Speaker 1: And also in February he was appointed to President Trump's
Speaker 1: Intelligence Advisory Board. And brad Winstrop, welcome again to the
Speaker 1: Bill Cunningham Show. And can you kind of lay out
Speaker 1: the case as to why we did what we did
Speaker 1: on Saturday morning Friday night against Maduro? Layout the case?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, essentially it comes down to several main things.
Speaker 2: Is for the safety of America, the security of America,
Speaker 2: the well being of America, and for prosperity for the
Speaker 2: American people. And what's happening within our hemisphere is a
Speaker 2: problem that we need to be concerned about. Then you
Speaker 2: can go back to the Row doctrine. Then they had
Speaker 2: concerns about this, that we need to protect our hemisphere,
Speaker 2: that it needs to belong to us. I mean, And
Speaker 2: basically what we did is this mission was a combination
Speaker 2: of military and law enforcement, no doubt, but it was
Speaker 2: to an extract and indicted criminal with criminal charges on
Speaker 2: drug offenses. And it was a tremendous success. And I
Speaker 2: think it's important to take a second back. And I
Speaker 2: guess maybe it's my military side that wants to brag
Speaker 2: about this, but there was no loss of American lives.
Speaker 2: They've suppressed their air defense, they cut their power, they
Speaker 2: got past guards and nikely Cuban defense. We operated from
Speaker 2: twenty bases using a H fifty aircraft. And you know,
Speaker 2: the guy wakes up, the basically unelected leader of Venezuela
Speaker 2: wakes up in the morning and he's in his home
Speaker 2: and in the afternoon he's in New York in a courtroom.
Speaker 2: You know, this guy was indicted on drugs, weapons, human trafficking.
Speaker 2: He defied election results. Gonzalez Edmundo Gonzalez was a clear winner.
Speaker 2: It's basically a post election coup with communists type of support.
Speaker 2: He's a leader of what they call cartelov sons dealing
Speaker 2: in cocaine and machine guns. But you know, from our
Speaker 2: standpoint for the United States, this isn't this isn't just
Speaker 2: drugs alone. I get that, and that's important to note,
Speaker 2: but that was a big part of it. But you know,
Speaker 2: as a country after nine to eleven, we lost three
Speaker 2: thousand people, sadly, and we went to war for twenty
Speaker 2: years under the Biden years, losing over one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: Americans to overdoses between ages eighteen to forty five. It's
Speaker 2: killing our next generation. And nothing was done or even
Speaker 2: said about it. Another Biden administration for Madua, they had
Speaker 2: a twenty five million dollar bounty on him if someone
Speaker 2: can bring him in, but yet they did nothing. And
Speaker 2: so we're here, we are, We've got precedents. You've got
Speaker 2: people now yelling, oh, Trump can't just take us to war.
Speaker 2: This wasn't an action of war. And some people in
Speaker 2: Congress need know the difference. And not only that, this
Speaker 2: is not much different at all with what was done
Speaker 2: previously with Noriega and Panama under George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 2: Noriega was not recognized as a leader of the country.
Speaker 2: There is Maduro. But we need to stabilize the Western
Speaker 2: hemisphere from all this influence. And at the time of
Speaker 2: the Monroe Doctor and it was more the European colonies,
Speaker 2: we were concerned about them colonizing more. But now we're
Speaker 2: talking about communist countries basically coming in and de facto
Speaker 2: colonizing countries. But you know, you saw Kennedy actoring the
Speaker 2: Cuban missile crisis. President Obama had a kill list. He
Speaker 2: actually killed American citizens, right, he did Milwaukee, and he
Speaker 2: just did that. And where were the voices yelling about
Speaker 2: that as they are now? When we did something, it
Speaker 2: was clearly in the interest of the American people and
Speaker 2: for our country itself. There's a difference between more war
Speaker 2: and a military and law enforcement action that protects the
Speaker 2: US interests in our citizens. You know, was Reagan not
Speaker 2: supposed to go into Grenada to protect the United States
Speaker 2: citizens there in nineteen eighty three? Right, of course not.
Speaker 1: And I have a long list of Obama. What Obama
Speaker 1: did in five or six different nations. He deployed almost
Speaker 1: one thousand drones killed many American citizens. When it came
Speaker 1: time to have some recompense for a cobbo Afghanistan that
Speaker 1: disastrous would draw. You were in Congress at the time,
Speaker 1: and he received some obamas. He received some information about
Speaker 1: some end of I'm sorry this is Joe Biden received
Speaker 1: some information about the terrorists who were responsible for the
Speaker 1: terrible events at the airport, and uh Biden and Harris
Speaker 1: vaporized about twenty people, half of whom were children by
Speaker 1: mistake by using drones. They got some bad intelligence and
Speaker 1: killed a whole bunch of innocent people in Afghanistan. And
Speaker 1: there was no calls by the Democrats against Biden whatsoever.
Speaker 1: But getting back to Venezuela, you were on the Intelligence
Speaker 1: Committee and the Congress, you're on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.
Speaker 1: Now talk about Hesbelah, which I found incredible. Years ago,
Speaker 1: it was reporting that Hesbelah had locations in Venezuela along
Speaker 1: with China. They were meeting with the ambassador to Venezuela
Speaker 1: just a few hours before the arrest, and also Iran.
Speaker 1: So this this isn't just South America. This is a base.
Speaker 1: It is China, and it's Iran. Explain that to the
Speaker 1: American people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why is this okay? And why are you willing
Speaker 2: to turn a blind eye about it. Look, some of
Speaker 2: the cries that are are coming from leaders of communist
Speaker 2: countries or those that are in affiliation with communist countries.
Speaker 2: They're the ones that have something to lose here, because
Speaker 2: they have everything to gain by being engaged with dictators
Speaker 2: in countries, taking their natural resources, doing all these things
Speaker 2: so that they can have dominance within the world. And well,
Speaker 2: as the Monroe doctors said, not in this hemisphere, and
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is sticking with that. Teddy Roosevelt was behind
Speaker 2: it as well, we're actually doing something about it. But
Speaker 2: you're right. January second of twenty twenty six, Maduro is
Speaker 2: meeting with the Special Envoy of the Chinese President. It's
Speaker 2: so obvious what is going on. And you know, I've
Speaker 2: seen some Democrats give very poised responses, but very few,
Speaker 2: and most suggests it's always about Donald Trump and whatever
Speaker 2: Donald Trump does, we're against. Well, this is for the
Speaker 2: American people, and I think that there is more agreement
Speaker 2: to what has taken place than meets the eye. And
Speaker 2: I think that Mike Wallaz did a good job today
Speaker 2: already depending us in the in the UN, and so
Speaker 2: what is next. What is next with this is, you know,
Speaker 2: we have to be steadfast and we have to be
Speaker 2: resolved in our efforts. And this carries the Cuba to Nicaragua,
Speaker 2: to other places that are in a similar situation. And
Speaker 2: we're going to give diplomacy a chance, just like Maduro
Speaker 2: had he had the opportunity. He had the opportunity. Maybe
Speaker 2: he thought we were kidding when taking out the drug boats,
Speaker 2: but we weren't. We offered diplomacy. He said, no, thank you, Well,
Speaker 2: we weren't kidding. We have leverage right now, We have
Speaker 2: leverage by our successes success. They are success in ram
Speaker 2: that this president says what he means, and we're doing
Speaker 2: it for the betterment of the American people in the
Speaker 2: long run and for the betterment of the Venezuelan people
Speaker 2: in this case as well. And you've seen other statements
Speaker 2: being made. President Trump is trying to help the betterment
Speaker 2: of the Iranian people with moving forward. So we say
Speaker 2: what we mean is to succeed in what we're doing.
Speaker 2: And we need to see that ministers resign, not just
Speaker 2: go into hiding. The ministers and the Venezuelan government need
Speaker 2: to resign from their posts, and that might include their
Speaker 2: defense minister, they're interior minister, or maybe they say we're
Speaker 2: willing to come around. We should have a good military
Speaker 2: to military relationship established and we'll see what the new
Speaker 2: vice president while now President Rodriguez, what takes place with
Speaker 2: this new president and willing to change to say, I
Speaker 2: am not Hugo shap or Maduro. I'm willing to make
Speaker 2: some changes here. Let's have some conversation. Dismantle the whole
Speaker 2: affiliation with the Cartel of Sons, which Maduro was a
Speaker 2: big part of. He had protection from them, he had
Speaker 2: protections from the Cubans, he's got Chinese affiliates. All of
Speaker 2: these things need to be abandoned or they'll probably continue
Speaker 2: to see some type of action and they need to
Speaker 2: understand that it can and will take place. But I
Speaker 2: think they should be willing to give Diplumbacy a chance
Speaker 2: by what they've just seen last couple of days.
Speaker 1: And Colonel Winstrip, we had a conversation reported by the
Speaker 1: President about two three weeks ago in which he spoke
Speaker 1: to Maduro and he laid out what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: He said you're going to you're indict it, We're going
Speaker 1: to seek your removal. We're going to seek your arrest.
Speaker 1: And he kind of laughed about that. Come get me.
Speaker 1: And then the President had called Airdwan, who's the leader
Speaker 1: of Turkey, and he said to Maduro, look, if you
Speaker 1: want to get out of town, we'll provide a plane.
Speaker 1: You take a plane. You can go to Istanbul. You
Speaker 1: can live in opulence, much like the leader of Syria
Speaker 1: Assad is now living in Russia. You can get the
Speaker 1: hell out of Dodge. Stop the drug trafficking, quit killing Americans,
Speaker 1: quit dealing with Hesbelah, ignore what the Chinese are doing
Speaker 1: with the illegal orders, et cetera, and you can get
Speaker 1: out of town and go to Turkey. So the president
Speaker 1: went so far Trump to say, we have arranged for
Speaker 1: you to leave, and if you don't go, there's going
Speaker 1: to be consequences. And that's when Maduro said to Trump,
Speaker 1: come get me. Speak operationally. Maduro and his wife lived
Speaker 1: on a huge military base in the middle and a
Speaker 1: giant structure, and there were hundreds of soldiers all around him.
Speaker 1: When I woke up Saturday morning and I saw that,
Speaker 1: I said, this is impossible. This is like that movie
Speaker 1: Air Force one and when somebody was extracted from a
Speaker 1: from a from the Kremlin and taken and tried, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, you got to be kidding me. Can you speak,
Speaker 1: as a former colonel as far as operationally, what did
Speaker 1: Delta Force have to do to get to the point
Speaker 1: of putting him in handcuffs flying him and his wife
Speaker 1: out of the country. Operationally what happened?
Speaker 2: Well, obviously details of these types of things you don't
Speaker 2: want to talk about, nor do I know all of
Speaker 2: the details, but I know the premise of what you
Speaker 2: need to do and that you need to take them
Speaker 2: off guard. So some of the actions that were taken
Speaker 2: were to suppress their air defenses. You cut their power.
Speaker 2: That's always a big, big factor in having success. You know,
Speaker 2: our special forces are very well designed and equipped to
Speaker 2: do things like get past the enemy lines. And in
Speaker 2: this case, you also likely very well know the layout
Speaker 2: of where you're about to go. Just like when we
Speaker 2: went in and got Bin Lauden. We do prepare, and
Speaker 2: as has been reported, this preparation has been going on
Speaker 2: for some time. So it wasn't like, hey, look we tried,
Speaker 2: now let's try and make a military plan. These types
Speaker 2: of things are already in place for a long time.
Speaker 2: Our intelligence is obviously very good to know exactly what
Speaker 2: we needed to do and to pull it off flawlessly.
Speaker 2: And this is something that all of Americas should be
Speaker 2: celebrating as a nation. You know, if you think about
Speaker 2: when we tried to get the hostages out of Iran
Speaker 2: that were there for four hundred and forty four days
Speaker 2: and that mission failed in the desert, and here this
Speaker 2: is pulled off tremendously, as was the bin laden rain.
Speaker 2: But we did this without any loss of life, at
Speaker 2: least on our end, and without a loss of life.
Speaker 2: We actually extracted who we wanted so that it could
Speaker 2: stand trial. This is amazing. This is this is not
Speaker 2: what Obama did. Obama didn't extract people to stand trial.
Speaker 2: And these were US citizens killed them. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 2: we really do need to look back and say thank
Speaker 2: you to our brave Americans on all fronts. Again, this
Speaker 2: was law enforcement as well as military combined. They made
Speaker 2: an arrest, is what they did. You know, a lot
Speaker 2: of times countries will arrest somebody for the United States
Speaker 2: or for another country so that they can be brought
Speaker 2: back to that country for trial. That wasn't going to
Speaker 2: happen because he took over the country basically threw a
Speaker 2: coup after the election, and so this was the only
Speaker 2: way it was going to happen. And he wasn't willing
Speaker 2: to face charges or even accept a deal where he
Speaker 2: could live in luxury somewhere else.
Speaker 1: They offered him, and he said, you can't do this.
Speaker 1: I'm the president. I'm in the middle of a Venezuelan
Speaker 1: military base. I have a safe room in my house
Speaker 1: with steel doors where it's reporting that Delta Force, which
Speaker 1: by the way, had replicas built in Kentucky in the
Speaker 1: military base in Kentucky's so they practiced and practice and
Speaker 1: practice with blow torches. They were going to use blow
Speaker 1: torches to extricate him from a behind the steel door.
Speaker 1: So they had everything planned out. Before he could shut
Speaker 1: the door with mister and missus Madora, Delta Force handcuffed him,
Speaker 1: handcuffed her. And this morning I see he appeared in
Speaker 1: federal court in New York City. A quarter pointed attorney
Speaker 1: has been taken over. And if I'm the leader of
Speaker 1: Columbia or Cuba, I'm thinking, oh my god, what's next?
Speaker 1: And so I don't know what's next, and for the
Speaker 1: media to say, well, what happens the day after? Many
Speaker 1: times the day after is a disaster, much like in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan or in Iraq where you served. Can you give
Speaker 1: us a minute or two on the day after. So
Speaker 1: here we are a couple of days after and three
Speaker 1: four days from now. What's going to be happening in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Whatever happens is going to be better than otherwise if
Speaker 1: Madora was still in charge. But how do you answer
Speaker 1: the question, since you're on the President's Intelligence Advisory board,
Speaker 1: what is next? What is that going to happen? In
Speaker 1: a week, a month, and a year, what's going to happen?
Speaker 2: Well, this is me just speaking for myself on this,
Speaker 2: but you know, we hope that there doesn't lead to
Speaker 2: violent eruptions within the country, and I hope that those
Speaker 2: with foreign influence within Venezuela back down. You know, we
Speaker 2: haven't heard from the Chinese special envoy who was just
Speaker 2: with Maduro. We haven't. We haven't heard from those type
Speaker 2: of people, so uh, there, that'd be best to just
Speaker 2: sort of step aside and walk away rather than trying
Speaker 2: to repress the Venezuelan people even further. With with some
Speaker 2: actions that may may be taken. So I think if
Speaker 2: we make it very clear that we're willing to have diplomacy,
Speaker 2: then maybe there'll be some peace, uh for for a
Speaker 2: little bit. And amongst the confusion, I mean, it has
Speaker 2: to be terribly confusing within that country who's in charge.
Speaker 2: You're seeing some protests by some pro Maduro people, but
Speaker 2: the people that aren't our staying in their in their
Speaker 2: homes still and they yeah smartly doing some of that.
Speaker 2: But I think that through diplomacy maybe we can make
Speaker 2: some strong suggestions that some people either change their tune
Speaker 2: or resign, as I was talking about. So let's hope
Speaker 2: that those things happen. The cooler heads prevail and others
Speaker 2: take warning and don't try and blow fire at the
Speaker 2: United States of America.
Speaker 1: Colonel Reinstrip, thank you very much for coming this Monday
Speaker 1: afternoon on the Bill Cunningham Show. The future is brighter
Speaker 1: with the president we have and brad Winstrip, thank you
Speaker 1: very much, and may God bless you and God bless America.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Bill.
Speaker 1: Let's continue with more news coming up with jer Home
Speaker 1: of the Bengals, and by the way, there's a big
Speaker 1: news conference on Friday at one o'clock with Duke Tobin.
Speaker 1: We're going to cover on news radio seven hundred ww