WEBVTT - Trump Kidnaps Venezuelan President Maduro 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:07.680 Al Zone Media, Welcome back to it could happen here, 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:12.039 a podcast about it happening well in various places, and 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.320 given the nature of our digital, interconnected society, it is 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.480 happening here all the time. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.319 But if you're even casually aware of what's going on 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.280 in the world right now, it is particularly happening in 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.600 Venezuela right now. And joining me to talk about the 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:33.800 US led and executed kidnapping of a world leader is 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.880 my two favorite kidnappers, Mia Wong and James Stout. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:40.919 Glad to be Hererobit, joining you to discuss kidnapping, one 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:41.839 of my favorite topics. 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.440 Yeah, my lawyers have advised me not to respond to 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:44.920 the statement. 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.239 Now, given all the people you both kidnapped, how are 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.400 you just rating this on a technical level as kidnappings go, 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.880 you know, on a level from let's say the while, 0:00:57.960 --> 0:00:59.800 if I remember the name of that guy with the plane, 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.920 would have been a funnier joke. I forgot his name though, No, no, no, 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:05.839 he was on a plane, didn't have a plane. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.240 Yeah, that's a reverse kidnapper. He kidnapped, He did on 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.600 kidnap himself, everyone on the plane. 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:16.880 I was talking about Lindberg. Charles Lindberg. But the jokes, 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:21.000 the joke's over. So let's talk about the international crimes 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.240 our government's doing. Ye did, did and doing. 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:26.920 I'm drinking a white claw, so I've got about the 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.280 same legal jurisdiction as they have because there is no 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.280 lawyeh when you're drinking white wall yeah, which I think 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:33.440 is the legal argument. 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:38.039 I mean, yeah. So what happened is, while most of 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:42.839 us were asleep last Saturday night, the United States, using 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.200 a mix of special forces like Tier one operators this 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.240 was like adulta force operation, primarily a whole bunch of 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.560 helicopters that looked like a mix of Blackhawks and Chinooks, 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.200 carried out a series of airstrikes on Caracas and kidnapped 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.960 the president of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, and his wife, killing 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.560 a significant chunk of their security detail, including thirty two 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:11.400 Cubans who are acting as essentially like military advisors slash 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.400 security for Maduro. Yeah, he has been taken back to 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.000 the United States. He's been arraigned in New York. They're 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:23.240 charging him with a variety of drug and gun related crimes, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.080 including some weird shit like possession of a machine gun 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.799 under US law, which is really weird. I guess they're 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.560 arguing that his control of the Venezuelan military counted as 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.359 a legal possession of an automatic weapon. Yeah, it's weird. 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.200 Yeah, And guessing it involves using the machine gun in 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.160 the furtherance of another crime, because there are specific charges 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.840 for like NFA violations related to drug things. Sure, but 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.720 it still seems very weird to tag that on there. 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:56.320 Like when what you're doing is kidnapping a world leader, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:57.760 you can't just also be like, oh, and he's got 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.800 a gun, like when he come on the forces of 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:02.840 a country. It's very strange, right. 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:03.320 Yeah. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.600 This also, I think pins into what's really really weird 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.080 about this. There's two aspects of this that are just 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.720 what the fuck. One of them is that the legal justification, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.000 this is given to Mike Lee from Secretary of State 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:21.399 Marco Rubio, was that the reason that there were air 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:27.679 strikes in the legal justification was protecting US soldiers carrying. 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.760 Out the US law enforcement. The military was needed to 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.320 protect the DEA agents who are actually conducting the arrest, right, 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:36.680 is the legal justification. 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.160 Yeah, the chances of some kind of due process violation 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.400 are hot. This all hinges on you thinking that the 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.800 law is a fixed thing, right, not an instrument of 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:50.920 the state and an instrument of power. And I think 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.360 that a more plausible analysis here is that the law 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.640 is not a fixed thing. But like in this instance, right, 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.120 if we go with that line, like the DA people 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.640 were there to ensure you process and to make the 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.240 arrest right and in theory I've read that they literally 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.400 had someone mirandize him, right. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.480 Yeah, which, okay, I want to I do want to 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.480 put seth the thing curetaux. And this is something that CNN, 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.480 like when they were reporting on this point. So this 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:21.680 is insane because this implies that US law applies in Venezuela. 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:22.880 Right, which it doesn't. 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:23.760 Absolutely does. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.200 That's literally the point. The point of a state is 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.800 that your law applies inside of your board. 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:34.679 The argument that they are making because Trump directly and 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:39.800 and prior to this had called into relevance the Monroe doctrine, right, 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.440 which is basically stating that everything happening in the Americas 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:45.960 is the purview of the United States. So this was 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.159 initially uh and they're still arguing that it is kind 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.600 of a a what President Monroe was using as an 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:57.440 excuse for intervening in situations where foreign colonizers were attempting 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.599 to exert power and colonies they own owned in the 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.039 Americas or had owned in the Americas, right, And the 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:08.080 US is basically saying, fuck you, this is our backyard. Right. 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.720 And I think the the argument that they're making now 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:16.599 is that that's relevant because Iran and Russia and Cuba 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:22.839 all have political and business interests in Venezuela, particularly Cuba. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.520 But in a more broad sense, they're making the argument, 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.960 and Stephen Miller has made this very directly, that the 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.640 Americas are all kind of our property and we're perfectly 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.839 justified in intervening to take resources that we want because 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.719 we shouldn't have to just accept that a foreign country 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.400 has different opinions on how those resources should be used 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:47.120 in the United States, and that we have no moral 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:52.240 responsibility to listen to what other people want in our hemisphere. 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.400 It's our hemisphere, and we, meaning the Trump administration, should 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:57.400 do whatever we want. 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.360 Yeah, And I think there's two kinds of legal effective 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:01.359 here things that are important. 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:01.599 One. 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.120 I think there's that one, which is, yeah, the American 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.000 Empire is just saying we are an empire and we 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.200 could do whatever we want. But then there's also the 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.760 does the president have the power to do this unilaterally 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.360 piece of it, which no, he no, like just does 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.120 not like this. This is objectively an act of war, 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.120 right and previously right, A lot of administrations have done 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.440 things kind of like this, yeah, right, but like everything 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.800 has been under the fig leaf of the AUMF, right, 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.839 the two thousand and one Authorization of Use a Military Force, 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.560 which if you go back and read the document, the 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.719 actual like AUMF, it's very clear that it's anyone who's 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.560 related to nine to eleven. Yeah, yeah, and so this 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:41.919 has been used to do interventions in like places. There 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:43.160 are things that have nothing to do with this, right, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.920 But this is not even that. This is just the 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.800 president claiming that he can do acts of war. 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.800 Yeah, And I guess the justification that they gave was 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.760 the example they cited was Nat Diego right in eighty 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:02.359 nine Panama, Right, But that was that was a war 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.880 that was operation, like American soldiers died, right. No, Diego 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.440 went to the Vatican embassy and eventually, I believe you 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.640 surrounded him. They've like blasted you two him, which is 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:17.200 obviously a war crime. And he eventually left the embassy 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:20.280 around negotiated his exit, I guess, but that's a completely 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:24.280 different thing to just bouncing into the residence of the 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.800 president of another country at night black backg. 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.640 Like that's also debatably legal, But yes, it was a 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:31.760 different Yeah. 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.120 Very very much. Yeah, it's also wrong, like. 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.400 We're not defending what was done there. I know, this 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.840 is even more blatant, right, It's like, it's not defending 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.240 what George W. Bush did in Iraq to be like, 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.480 at least they bothered to pretend there was a justificate, 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.120 Like they spent some time really cooking up a justification 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.040 and some effort, and there's none of that here. They 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.920 just don't give a shit anymore. Right. That's that you're 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.880 not being like an means it was okay with Bush. It, 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.560 you're just pointing out it's even more mask off now, right. 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:05.520 Yeah. 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.320 Well, and I think it is different in that, like 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.040 the invasion of a rock involved Congress, this is just 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.520 Trump going I can do this, right, And that's really 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.840 fucking alarming. Yeah that he just is like, yeah, fuck it, 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.760 I can just do a war now completely by myself. 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:23.360 None of you have any fucking power war for me. 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.600 I can just declare war a thing that is explicitly 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:30.520 in the Constitution, like supposed to be Congress's job. And 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:34.120 I think that's really that's another very allowering part of this, 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.240 because this is I think, by far the most just Trump, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.840 pure dictatorshit that we've seen so far, and it's not 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.200 being treated like that. Yeah, because a lot of sort 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.400 of like I don't know that there's a lot of 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:50.000 people who wanted this something like this to happen, and 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.800 so they're kind of just not looking at the fact 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.800 that this is just this is just pure dictatorship shit. 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.000 Yeah. I think a lot of people, because they didn't 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.960 like Maduro, they're waiting to look aside from the means 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:05.440 as long as they get the ends they want. But 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.360 the means are extremely serious here. 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.960 Yeah, and I think we should acknowledge, like stop for 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.520 a second to talk about the Maduro of it all, 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:19.400 because my stance is that his legitimacy as president, his 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.200 personal legitimacy, whether or not he's committed crimes are all 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.200 completely irrelevant. Right. I have not, in any of my 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.959 public facing statements I've been in the past years ago, 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.400 talked about how I wish the protests had worked to 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.960 remove him from office within sort of like the context 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.320 of Venezuelan's actually having their way, kicking him out and 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.080 replacing him with something better. But I have not brought 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.080 up any of that in the context of what's happened 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.360 recently because it doesn't matter, right, Like, fundamentally, it doesn't 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.080 matter if Maduro is like completely legitimately elected and the 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:54.240 people's hero or a complete fraud and an authoritarian. That 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.360 has nothing to do with whether or not the US 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:01.959 has any illegal or moral justification for coming in arresting 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.240 this guy and then saying we own the country and 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:10.640 we don't. It's dictator shit, it's fascist, it's deeply wrong, 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.599 it's bad. Like, there's nothing else to say if you 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.600 find anyone getting caught in starting to be like, well, 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.320 but you know, Maduro did this, Maduro did that. That 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:22.000 is either a person who is acting in bad faith 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.920 or a person who has themselves been tricked, right, because 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.040 you don't need to discuss any of that. None of 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.960 that is relevant to what we're talking about here, which 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.800 is that the US, like this is a violation of 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.880 international law and all of the kinds of norms that 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.200 we attempted to put in place after World War two 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.080 to stop another catastrophe like that from happening, and it 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:46.040 is only going to embolden the worst instincts of both 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.439 the people running the United States right now. They will 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:50.959 continue to try to do shit like this, and it's 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.440 going to embolden the worst instincts of other leaders around 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.280 the world. It is comprehensively bad for everyone. 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:01.000 The comprehensive result of this is again the US has 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:05.680 annexed I guess Venezuela that Trump is claiming that he 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:10.480 personally and his Secretary of State and his Council of 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:15.280 advisors are not like now, control and run a country. 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:15.840 Yeah. 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.120 This is so evil. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.840 Yeah, and it's very unclear who's going to be doing 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:25.120 Because Trump made those that statement, Rubio walked it back 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.320 a little bit and said that, like, well, we'll be 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.400 working with the administration in place, which is, by the way, 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.199 just the same administration that existed before, merely with the 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.040 vice president taking on the role of president. 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:37.800 Yeah, we should talk about it a little bit. 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.240 Yeah. After that backtracked a little bit too, to try 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.760 and be more in line with the Boss. But it's 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:48.520 very unclear what they actually intend and what they mean 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.000 by saying we're running it, because from what I've read, 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.040 it doesn't look like Rubio is actually going to be 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.280 mannered like while he's been the guy taking point on 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.640 justifying this, I don't think he's going to actually be 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:01.880 managed any of this on a day to day basis. 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.360 He's got a lot on his plate already. Stephen Miller 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.640 seems to be the guy who is trying to position 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:12.119 himself to actually be the Paul Brimmer in this situation. 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:14.760 Who was the guy that the Bush administration put in 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.800 charge of dealing with of like running a rack after 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:18.600 it was taken over. 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:19.719 Yeah, the viceroy. 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:25.640 Yeah, And it's unclear what is Miller going to get 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:29.640 that job? Will Rubio wind up doing it. It's looking 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.120 more like Miller right now, But also to what extent 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:36.080 will that job actually be running things? And you know, 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.080 we'll talk about that in a little bit, I'm sure. 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.280 But the kind of cliffs notes of the situation is 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.480 that there is evidence that came out right after the 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:50.360 kidnapping that Baduro's vice president had reached out to the 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:55.840 United States previously, like before the kidnapping, to talk about 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.959 the possibility of taking over the country after giving madear 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.559 up or him having a managed exile all of that 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.920 was discussed, and at least per the reporting on it, 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.559 she was turned down by the United States because they 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.600 thought they had a better option, and that option seems 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.959 to have fallen through largely because the quote unquote democratically 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:23.120 elected opposition leader who won a Nobel prize pissed off Trump. 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:25.800 It's unclear how accurate that is that by you know, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.640 by winning the prompt by accepting the Nobel prize, did 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.480 she get Eric kick herself out of the job. That's 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.400 what some reporting has suggested. It's unclear to me how 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:39.560 true that actually is. It seems possible, surely, But at 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:41.560 the end of the day, there was this offer made 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.280 by Maduro's VP that was turned down by the US. 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.040 And now it seems like, although we don't actually know 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.400 what's happened to the background, it seems like she's who 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.040 were working with. So either they came back and said, 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.480 you know, it will take the deal, or something else 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.520 is going on. But she has both made this statements 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.840 publicly that like, this is illegal, the United States is 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:08.360 run by a group of criminals and extremists, and also 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.880 but we'll work with them. So it does kind of 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.080 seem to me like she made in fact, be very 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.760 much in bed with the Trump administration and just trying 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:20.200 to like massage this for her public, you know, because 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.000 there's only so much you can get away with. I 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:23.360 don't know. 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.520 Yeah, just to be clear on the timeline, Robert, Yeah, 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.520 the first reporting of that, like Rodriguez option, we want 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.320 to call it that. Yeah, they call it as well, 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:39.280 was in October. That was out before the strike happened, right, 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.960 and at least in the Miami Herald story they suggested 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.920 that he had been part of that, so this could 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:47.880 be a different thing, but that he had offered to 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.000 step down over years, right. 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:52.040 Yeah, so I say it looked like there was a 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.160 period of time where he was talking about like a 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.240 managed exit, Yeah. 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.320 Going to Kato or Turkey or something like that. Yeah, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:04.119 now Rodriguez to Nina, But what would you expect Dlsea. 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.240 Rodriguez And yeah, it's unclear. Again, we don't really know. 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.920 Did they just remove Maduro without having a plan and 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.840 hadn't really finished talking with her or worked something out. 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:15.960 It was the last thing she heard from them, them 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.360 saying nah, we won't take this option, right, and then 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.440 Maduro gets kidnapped. Did they work out a separate deal? 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:23.640 That just hasn't been reported on. We actually don't know, 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:27.520 And I could totally see her being a stooge for 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.280 US action here because it keeps her in power and 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.120 it keeps her safe because Trump very recently threatened her, 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:37.760 like after she made statements calling his team a bunch 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.440 of extremists, she backpedaled and said, actually, if we're where, 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.720 we'll go in to work with the US, because Trump said, 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:44.520 I'll do something worse to you than I did to him. Like, 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:49.000 we don't know if they actually ironed out a set 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.240 of responsibilities and obligations in back channels, or if we 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.640 just removed Maduro and are like, all right, well, if 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.280 we have to kill her, we'll kill her too, Like 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.240 it's unclear what actually happened there. 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.520 Yeah, yeah, So we should also mention so this is 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:06.080 being recorded on the night of Monday, January fifth. You're right, 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:10.200 every kind of six or eight hours, new conflicting information 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:12.920 from the Truck Administration about what their plan is comes 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.880 out right, which which leads me to suspect they don't 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.880 have a plan at all, because it keeps changing every 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:25.200 couple of hours. So I don't know. But but in case, 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.640 by the time this comes out. There is some kind 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.440 of public deal that's been worked out. That's what's going on. 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:33.360 This is all changing extremely rapidly. 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.920 Yeah right, and you know what else changes rapidly, the 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.640 economics of podcasting. Yeah, here's some of that. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:53.960 These white coats working fowl. 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.440 And we're back. James is drinking a bad white claw, 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.680 which is really I think the information our audience is 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.440 most interested in. You know, invasions of Venezuela come and go. 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.000 The US kidnaps people all the time. But James drinking 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.280 a bad white claw. Let's let's let's actually really check it. James, 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.199 what's the flavor you're you're experiencing right now? 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:15.800 Let me getting updated to that, bro. But that is 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:16.920 green apple? 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:18.160 Green apple? 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.600 M oh boy, Yeah, yeah, it's it's foul. I wouldn't 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:24.400 recommend it. You're in the. 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.280 Market, Yeah that sounds awful. 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:27.480 Don't do it to yourself. 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.320 Yeah, it's really the having Delta force kidnap you from 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:33.520 your house of beverage. 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.320 Yeah absolutely, Uh, that's how they market Actually sweet, that's 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.280 that's on the can right right. They must have got 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.080 advance warning, like the time. 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:44.719 Yeah, what did they know and when did they know it? 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:51.080 We'll never know, so let's keep talking about Venezuela. Yeah, 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:52.800 we should talk about who Rodriguezz. 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:58.080 Yeah, Soguez was vice president and now she is president 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.240 or will be sworny in its president. I believe she 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:01.720 may have already been sworn him by the time you 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:02.000 hear this. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.280 She was sworn in I think like a couple hours ago. 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:06.400 For the last article I. 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.680 Read, So her father was a Marxist gorilla. Her father 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.520 kidnapped an American businessman, was arrested and then murdered, like 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.240 torture to death. Yeah, as part of the quote unquie 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.120 investigation into that. Right, her and her brother are kind 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.600 of like a power block in Venezuelan politic. She has 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.119 really become more relevant, I guess nationally since MyD Like, 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.520 she did do some stuff with Chaves early on, but 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.320 like clashed with him personally and I guess allegedly, I 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.879 mean I wasn't there, but Chaves didn't like that she 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.680 wasn't deferential to him, and at one point send her 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:42.359 home from I think they were in Russia and he 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:44.879 sent her home from a a sort of mission that 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.560 they were doing their diplomatic mission. Since then, she is 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.040 assuming a number of roles in Venezuelan government from since 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.560 twenty thirteen right when Mondora came to power, to include 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.240 overseeing intelligence at some time, and she has now become 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:03.000 obviously president. Right, she has previously worked with like the 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:07.040 Venezuelan I guess the analogy would be like Chamber of Commerce, 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.439 which had previously been seen by like Chubby small as 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:12.800 like a bourgeois enter di I either enemy. Right, she 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.080 has shown willingness to work with business, So I do 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.080 wonder if that factors into the US analysis that, like, 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:22.800 if she's willing to work with what it looks like 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:24.840 the oil companies that they want her to work with, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.560 then then they can overlook a whole lot of other stuff, right, 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.119 which has historically been how the US has approached places 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.960 with oil. But Yeah, in terms of this, I think 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:38.359 that's probably the sort of TLDR on her career. And 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.920 I think it is possible that she's willing to do 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.880 some kind of chuvis more like you know whatever we're 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.600 going to call this and have us extractive capitalism exists 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.320 so long as the regime continues to exist. But the 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:55.480 way that would work is still something that like I 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.320 can't really get my head around for a regime which 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.720 has made so much of its rhetorical legitimacy for so 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.520 long attacking the United States. 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.600 Right right, Yeah, And that's kind of I mean, that 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.359 seems to be the quandary Delsea finds herself in is 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:18.360 she both has to refer to what's happened accurately as 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:23.640 kidnapping and the actions of an illegitimate and deeply corrupt regime. 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.919 And also she can't act that way if what we 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.280 all think is accurate and she's basically acting as a 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.959 negotiated buppet of the United States. She can only go 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.840 so far. And I feel like she's trapped in kind 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.280 of a doomed situation, which may be part of what 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:47.240 our administration intends is for her to be fundamentally doomed 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:52.800 and fail and get coued herself, or you know, we 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.840 can replace her when there's protests against legitimacy. Like, I 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.800 don't know what exactly the game is here, but I 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.120 think that maybe something that was baked into the equation 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.440 that like, this is not a functional situation for her, 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:12.479 and when she gets forced out, that's something we can 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:13.320 take advantage of. 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.359 Yeah, it's the reason of analysis, I think. I mean, 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.720 we yeah, we should talk about the oil, right because 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.160 Trump has been talking about the oil, right yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:25.520 oh yeah, yeah, I know you said you wanted to 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.720 mention stuff about like it's not what it might seem 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:30.560 on the face of it, right, There aren't giant lakes 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.000 of oil in Venezuela you can just slurp up and sell. 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:34.439 Yeah. 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:38.120 So okay, it's sort of difficult to explain this all 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.200 without really getting into the weeds of like how oil 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:45.760 production works. But there's different like qualities of crude oil. 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:50.560