Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review.
Speaker 3: Free Martini's coming up. Hey, so glad you're with us
Speaker 3: for the Monday edition of the Three of our TV Lunch.
Speaker 3: Happy New Year. If you haven't already heard all the
Speaker 3: year end specials, please go back and take a listen
Speaker 3: to those. We had a lot of fun doing those.
Speaker 3: We also had our predictions on Friday this year. We
Speaker 3: did not choose military action in Venezuela, but man, that
Speaker 3: would have been some low hanging fruit, an easy one
Speaker 3: come true. I think a lot of people saw it coming,
Speaker 3: given what we amassed there just off the coast of Venezuela.
Speaker 3: And so we'll be talking about the operation itself and
Speaker 3: what comes next in Venezuela, as well as the news
Speaker 3: today that Minnesota Governor Tim Walls not running for a
Speaker 3: third term. But Jim, certainly an exciting start to the year,
Speaker 3: to say the least.
Speaker 1: January third is a terrible day to be an enemy
Speaker 1: of the United States. That's the six year anniversary Cassim
Speaker 1: Solimani turning into a charcoal briquette on a highway in
Speaker 1: a I would say on January third, if you're an
Speaker 1: enemy of the United States, you should just stay in bed.
Speaker 1: But in the case of Nicholas Maduro, that didn't do
Speaker 1: any good.
Speaker 3: Now that didn't work either, So we get to all
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Speaker 3: Will We woke up Saturday morning to some pretty interesting
Speaker 3: news and that's that late Friday, early Saturday, the United
Speaker 3: States Military conducted an amazing mission to go into Venezuela
Speaker 3: arrest capture, however you want to say, Nicholas Maduro, the
Speaker 3: illegitimate president there and his wife, whisked them out of
Speaker 3: the country, put them on the USSC Regima, and now
Speaker 3: they're in the US, going to be facing a truckload
Speaker 3: of drug trafficking charges and so forth. Major press conference
Speaker 3: Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon at mar A Lago here's the
Speaker 3: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Raisin Kaan, explaining all
Speaker 3: that went into this.
Speaker 2: Over the course of the night, aircraft began launching from
Speaker 2: twenty different bases on land and sea across the Western Hemisphere.
Speaker 2: In total, more than one hundred and fifty aircraft, bombers, fighters, intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance,
Speaker 2: rotary wing we're in the air last night. Thousands and
Speaker 2: thousands of hours of experience were airborne. Our youngest crew
Speaker 2: member was twenty and our oldest crew member was forty nine,
Speaker 2: and there's simply no match for American military might.
Speaker 3: Just awesome. One of our helicopters did take fire, no
Speaker 3: one was injured, no one killed, obviously, so the huge
Speaker 3: relief there. And like I said, we'll be talking a
Speaker 3: little bit later about what comes next to Venezuela, Jim,
Speaker 3: But in terms of executing this very complicated mission, man,
Speaker 3: the military is good.
Speaker 1: Just phenomenal, just just mind boggling, on par with the
Speaker 1: bin laden operation back in twenty ten. Look, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the complication in this with the future of Venezuela
Speaker 1: in a few moments. But anytime you see a dictator,
Speaker 1: anytime you see an autocrat. Anytime you see someone who
Speaker 1: has a list of human rights abuses that is longer
Speaker 1: than a CBS receipt. Anytime you see someone like that
Speaker 1: in handcuffs and facing a grim fate, that is a
Speaker 1: good day for the world. That is a good and
Speaker 1: just development. It is. You know, everyone's a while. You
Speaker 1: see dictators go off to some cushy retirement, and I
Speaker 1: suppose that's a slight that's an improvement over them staying
Speaker 1: in power. But you always feel like, you know that
Speaker 1: justice has not been done in this world. Well you
Speaker 1: know in this case it will be done. He's now
Speaker 1: sitting in a jail cell in Brooklyn. You know, people
Speaker 1: say that Mondamie was going to drive everybody out of
Speaker 1: New York City, greg but at least one person's now
Speaker 1: moved to Brooklyn, in fact, one billionaire. Really, so you know,
Speaker 1: good news there. This was I'm gonna say long overdue.
Speaker 1: But Maduro is the worst of all possible drug trafficking
Speaker 1: abuses of his people. Allies with Russia. China has Iran
Speaker 1: involved in the oil smuggling regime out of Iran. Every
Speaker 1: American foe was kicking the cat on Saturday morning when
Speaker 1: they saw the news of this. Let's also point out
Speaker 1: that apparently a Chinese delegation had his last official meeting,
Speaker 1: so the Chinese delegation, So the Chinese delegation, presumably still
Speaker 1: in Caracas, got a front row seat to see what
Speaker 1: the US military can do, and that probably is going
Speaker 1: to go into the calculations of the Chinese, as well
Speaker 1: as Russia, as well as North Korea, as well as Iran.
Speaker 1: Listeners probably noticed that Iran having a rough start to
Speaker 1: the year, with the value of the currency collapsing and
Speaker 1: protests in the street and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: So oil smuggling with Venezuela appears to be off the
Speaker 1: menu of options. I think now we'll talk a bit
Speaker 1: about the potential cloudiness of the future of Venezuela a
Speaker 1: little bit, but really phenomenal performance was a gutsy called
Speaker 1: by the president. Now getting around it, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is bombing the rany of nuclear program. Greg Donald Trump
Speaker 1: might be the best Neocon president we've had since George W. Bush.
Speaker 1: I say that to tug in cheek, but not entirely so.
Speaker 3: No, it's amazing, and Maduro is so bad that even
Speaker 3: most Democrat statements actually had to have that caveat I
Speaker 3: explaining about whether Congres should have authorized this beforehand and
Speaker 3: so forth. The one politician that didn't denounce Maduro and
Speaker 3: just talked about how the regime change was horrible. Mo'm donnie.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's a great opportunity for him to
Speaker 3: denounce that other socialist, but no, he had to go
Speaker 3: with solidarity.
Speaker 1: There. Nice nice start there, game respects game.
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Speaker 3: to our second good martini, Jim. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you've noticed over the past few weeks there's been a
Speaker 3: little bit of a controversy in Minnesota. They've had some
Speaker 3: welfare fraud allegations rising to the tune of about nine
Speaker 3: billion dollars, and we talked about it a lot. I'm
Speaker 3: just kidding about that. But while we were out then
Speaker 3: the whole daycare fraud part of this broke, and it's
Speaker 3: just been snowballing and snowballing and snowballing. And now today
Speaker 3: Minnesota Governor Tim Walls, who just a little over a
Speaker 3: year ago was a few swing states away from being
Speaker 3: the Vice President of the United States right now, is
Speaker 3: announcing he will not seek a third term as governor
Speaker 3: of Minnesota. A really long statement blaming Republicans and the
Speaker 3: Minnesota Legislature for not getting to the bottom of the fraud.
Speaker 3: But he's got to focus on this, he's got to
Speaker 3: really be locked into this, and he can't do that
Speaker 3: and he can't devote himself full time to the campaign,
Speaker 3: So he has to put the state first and he's
Speaker 3: not going to seek that third term. It's just such
Speaker 3: a selfless act by Governor Tim Walls, who has been
Speaker 3: a completely a sleep at the switch in the best
Speaker 3: case scenario of this. Jim So, I don't think this
Speaker 3: comes as a huge shock. I think it comes as
Speaker 3: a welcome announcement for those who know that Tim Walls
Speaker 3: has been a disaster on this and so many other issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm going to begin. But first of all,
Speaker 1: let's point out that, like running for a third term
Speaker 1: isn't completely unprecedented in Minnesota, but I don't think it's
Speaker 1: been done since like the nineteen fifties or sixties, and
Speaker 1: they had two year terms back then. So Tim Walls
Speaker 1: was looking for something that the gut instinct of Minnesota's
Speaker 1: were not automatically inclined to give governors. There, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do a little bit of bragging here. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do a little bit of patting myself on the back.
Speaker 1: I know listeners so it's uncharacteristic with me. But I'm
Speaker 1: going to point out July twenty ninth, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: before Tim Walls was selected as Kamala harris Is running mate,
Speaker 1: and I wrote the first time I ever wrote about
Speaker 1: Tim Walls, I was like, come on, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: There's no way she's going to pick this guy because
Speaker 1: of how terrible he's at the record is of him
Speaker 1: as a governor of Minnesota. Quote Walls's record running the
Speaker 1: state government. Somehow manages to combine the honesty of former
Speaker 1: Illinois Governor Rod Blogoyevitch, the competence of former Louisiana Governor
Speaker 1: Kathleen Blanco, and these sharp eyed ethical watchdog instincts so
Speaker 1: soon to be former New Jersey Governor Bob Menendez. And
Speaker 1: then we emphasize this and red a whole lot of
Speaker 1: shady and unethical people in Minnesota see the state government
Speaker 1: as a giant pile of money just waiting to be
Speaker 1: taken with a sleepy guard in the form of the
Speaker 1: governor unquote. And so I go through the feeding our
Speaker 1: future fraud scandal hero pay that got wasted on dead people,
Speaker 1: not avoiding procedures to avoid conflicts of interest, just one
Speaker 1: after another, and I was like, come on, there's no
Speaker 1: way she's gonna of course, she did pick this guy,
Speaker 1: but he ended up being really bad as a running mate,
Speaker 1: really bad in the debates, really and you know, all
Speaker 1: of these scandals caught up with him. Now we learn
Speaker 1: more about the Somali aspect of it in the last year.
Speaker 1: But all in all, you know, Tim like, and here's
Speaker 1: why this is a more important story than I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people would like to acknowledge. Greg I
Speaker 1: would ask our listeners to think back to the coverage
Speaker 1: of Tim Walls for those first couple of weeks after
Speaker 1: he got picked. Right, Ah, he fixes carburetors, and he's
Speaker 1: a high school football and he's folksy and man, this
Speaker 1: guy is going to bring men back to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Men loved this guy, particularly in the blue Wall states,
Speaker 1: you know, Michigan, Pennsylvania, all of them are gonna you know,
Speaker 1: the Wisconsin. This is where this guy is going to
Speaker 1: really help the Denver. Of course, he did no good
Speaker 1: whatsoever in her book one hundred and seven Days, and
Speaker 1: became very clear Kamala Harris was underwhelmed with the performance
Speaker 1: of Tim Walls all right. Point after point it became
Speaker 1: very and so just think about the message you were
Speaker 1: told by, if not all of the mainstream media ninety percent.
Speaker 1: I remember, like in September October, CNN did one good
Speaker 1: story on the front scandals in you know that good
Speaker 1: for you Ce. Now, I don't think that undoes all
Speaker 1: of the other hosannas that he was getting from the
Speaker 1: mainstream media. And then look at the reality of Tim Wolves.
Speaker 1: All right, he didn't have the good sense to realize,
Speaker 1: I've had two terms. I'm leaving unindicted I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: you know, he could have left, got the book deal,
Speaker 1: got the teaching gig, maybe a media you know, MSNBC contributor.
Speaker 1: He could have gone and done up. But he chose
Speaker 1: to run for a third term. Kind of had to
Speaker 1: know that was not going to be easy. He had
Speaker 1: to know he did Republicans to be, you know, looking
Speaker 1: to go after him, and you know that all of
Speaker 1: this stuff was going to come out eventually. So that's
Speaker 1: where we are. Tim Wallas is an astonishingly poor judgment man,
Speaker 1: done an astonishingly poor job as governor. The Minnesota Democrat
Speaker 1: for all good chunck of last year, I was saying,
Speaker 1: if you're a Minnesota Democrat, are you sure you want
Speaker 1: this guy to be your nominee? And know they aren't.
Speaker 1: Now Amy Klobachar is going, like expected to be announcing
Speaker 1: a gubernatorial bid and she is going to throw staplers
Speaker 1: at these frauds collegs. She is going to she will
Speaker 1: use a comb as a spoon if she has to
Speaker 1: to fix this stuff. So we'll see what We'll see
Speaker 1: how that shakes out.
Speaker 3: My general will of thumb, as you know, is that
Speaker 3: every time a bad Democrat leaves we get a worse one,
Speaker 3: but Cloba Shar would probably be a slight up greade,
Speaker 3: assuming shit, there's the field. But who fills Cloba Shar's
Speaker 3: seat could be very interesting. It would appear that right
Speaker 3: now most Minnesotan's probably aren't in the mood for an
Speaker 3: ill hand Omar or a Keith Ellison. But don't assume
Speaker 3: that that's not going to happen. And we got, of course,
Speaker 3: have far the insane lieutenant governor who's currently running for
Speaker 3: Tina Smith's Senate seat. She's a piece of work too,
Speaker 3: that'll be if she wins that nomination and that Senate seat,
Speaker 3: that'll definitely be even a downgrade from Tina Smith. So
Speaker 3: we'll see how it all plays out. But Tim Walls
Speaker 3: fading away, Kamala Harris probably not running, Joe Biden pretty
Speaker 3: much out of public life, meant everybody who was on
Speaker 3: the national democratic scene in twenty twenty four pretty much
Speaker 3: heading exit stage left.
Speaker 1: And in a couple of years, Greg they're going to
Speaker 1: tread it like the fifth die Hard movie.
Speaker 3: Doesn't whole campaign every erace from history's right. All right, Well,
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Speaker 3: All right, Jim back to Venezuela for our crazy Martini,
Speaker 3: or maybe it's a complicated Martini. Today, it's probably safe
Speaker 3: to say that most Americans, including me, did not know
Speaker 3: before I woke up Saturday morning, that the vice president
Speaker 3: of Venezuela was a woman named Delsi Rodriguez. I'm guessing
Speaker 3: that wasn't too high on the name recognition chart here
Speaker 3: in the US. But nonetheless, she's in charge there now
Speaker 3: that Maduro is gone. It seemed from the press conference
Speaker 3: that Trump thinks he can kind of force his will
Speaker 3: for new elections, getting a more legitimate government there, because
Speaker 3: just because Maduro's gone doesn't mean that the last election
Speaker 3: isn't still invalid and what's left behind him isn't invalid.
Speaker 3: And so we're trying to create a country there where
Speaker 3: you know, the Chinese and the Iranians and the Russians
Speaker 3: aren't allies right there in our own neighborhood. But trying
Speaker 3: to figure it out with this person is not going
Speaker 3: to be easy. You wrote about it today in the Jolt.
Speaker 3: How likely is it that we can actually get what
Speaker 3: we want to get done there?
Speaker 1: Well in question, and we're taking at least two different
Speaker 1: messages from del Rodriguez. First, let's keep in mind that
Speaker 1: this is a woman who is morally indistinguishable from Nicolas Berduro.
Speaker 1: She is an absolute loyalist. She is a committed hardline
Speaker 1: socialist close ties to the Cuban intelligence agency. One thing
Speaker 1: that jumped out to me was that from twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty two she headed seven, which is the
Speaker 1: Venezuelan Intelligence Service, which is basically where they do all
Speaker 1: the torture and execution of political prisoners and critics of
Speaker 1: the regime, including sexual violence. So you know this is
Speaker 1: this is a person who has a sole blacker than
Speaker 1: Night and is not a good or better person in
Speaker 1: any significant way. The question is, does what just happened
Speaker 1: to Maduro prompt Rodriguez to behave in a manner more
Speaker 1: amenable to us interests, and if so, which ones are those?
Speaker 1: I think it's safe that the Venezuelan people deserve to
Speaker 1: pick their own leaders. They did not pick Rodriguez. I
Speaker 1: don't think. If I think if a year from now,
Speaker 1: two years, and now three years from now, Rodriguez is
Speaker 1: still in charge of this, there're gonna be some fair
Speaker 1: questions about what the point of this operation was. If
Speaker 1: you meet the new boss, literally the vice president of
Speaker 1: the old boss running things largely the same way. Now.
Speaker 1: Is Rodriguez not going to be as friendly with Iran
Speaker 1: and Hezbola and Russia and China. Maybe that would be
Speaker 1: a step in the right direction. Are they going to
Speaker 1: allow US companies to go in and develop the oil resources.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the US oil companies would be fine with that.
Speaker 1: That could be somewhat better for the economy of Venezuela.
Speaker 1: But I think when we first saw about this military
Speaker 1: operation and the fact that Maduro was in US custody,
Speaker 1: we kind of have this feeling like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: going to be a regime change. And I understand that
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of Americans, who after the experiences of
Speaker 1: an Iraqi Afghanistan, have a wariness about that, have a
Speaker 1: concern about casualties. No casualties on this so far. But
Speaker 1: this appears to be like a decapitation strike that literally
Speaker 1: just took out the top person, and everybody else in
Speaker 1: the Madua regime is just going to move up one position,
Speaker 1: and if they keep running the country the way they were,
Speaker 1: I don't it will be fair questions about whether this
Speaker 1: is really an improvement. I guess we'll say, you know,
Speaker 1: Rubio's heart is in the right place. You know, he
Speaker 1: knows the region very well. Apparently he had spoken to her.
Speaker 1: Trump said she was very gracious. I have a heart.
Speaker 1: That's not the first adjective if that comes to mind
Speaker 1: when I think about this woman. But fine. And then
Speaker 1: she initially put out some publicly defiant statements, and then
Speaker 1: on telegram late last night she put out a statement
Speaker 1: that was more about wanting peace and wanting cooperation, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And so there's a question of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe she does not want to wake up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night and find a bunch of US
Speaker 1: special operators at the foot of her bed giving her
Speaker 1: a wake up call, so conceive it. But maybe she
Speaker 1: is going to behave to. Maybe this's gonna be one
Speaker 1: of the things where there's gonna be behind the scenes
Speaker 1: cooperation while a shows of defiance for the Venezuelan people
Speaker 1: and the loyalists. We'll see how that shakes out. By
Speaker 1: the way, point out that the people who were killed
Speaker 1: in this operation were about thirty Cubans, meaning that Maduro
Speaker 1: did not trust the Venezuelans to protect him. By the way,
Speaker 1: a lot of specs so clearly the CIA had a
Speaker 1: whole kinds of information about Maduro's regime. They managed to
Speaker 1: build a mock up of the facility Maduro was sleeping.
Speaker 1: There were a whole bunch of Venezuelans who hate Madurero
Speaker 1: and we're perfectly happy to cooperate with Americans to help
Speaker 1: take him out. Then one of the last fight is
Speaker 1: kind of a just frustrating aspect of this. You mentioned
Speaker 1: that every Democrat, or almost every Democrat had at least
Speaker 1: one sentence of Nicholas Madurea was a real bastard who
Speaker 1: abused his people and deserved to go. Like at least
Speaker 1: everybody had some recognition of this. There are a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of protesters who are out there saying free Maduro.
Speaker 1: I want to point out none of these people ever
Speaker 1: marched for any of his political prisoners. None of these
Speaker 1: people ever marched in protests that the crimes against humanity
Speaker 1: that the United Nations found Maduro was guilty of. The
Speaker 1: one thing in Venezuela that they care about is keeping
Speaker 1: this bastard in power. And oh, by the way, what
Speaker 1: would they call Donald Trump a dictator? And their attitude
Speaker 1: is because of he's a dictator Donald Trump must be
Speaker 1: removed from power immediately, but Nicholas Muduro, who is indisputably
Speaker 1: a dictator, could stay in power as long as humanly possible.
Speaker 1: All these protesters in the streets yesterday are functionally pro torture,
Speaker 1: pro rape, pro oppression. They are pro stealing elections. There's
Speaker 1: nothing good about these people, and it was fact. I
Speaker 1: even saw some idiots in Portland insisting that Madua was
Speaker 1: legitimately elected. The entire election was stolen. Every international organization
Speaker 1: said this thing was stolen. Please pick up a newspaper
Speaker 1: once in a while, please, please, please. Reading is fundamental.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm gonna be an NBC, you know,
Speaker 1: public service announcement. The more you know Venezuela did not
Speaker 1: have a fair election in twenty twenty four, and Maduro
Speaker 1: was not the legitimate ruler of this you can have
Speaker 1: questions about whether Congress should have been at least consulted,
Speaker 1: if not approved. I would have preferred to see an
Speaker 1: authorization for the use of military force. I think it's
Speaker 1: a good idea when you're president to get Congress to
Speaker 1: buy into military action that haven't been said. We also,
Speaker 1: I see the protests have to say us out of Venezuela.
Speaker 1: We're gone. We left where there's nobody left there. We
Speaker 1: didn't leave three of our Delta Force guys back there.
Speaker 1: Nobody's left us out of Venice. We're done. Okay, you
Speaker 1: got what you wanted to go home? Yeah, look, so
Speaker 1: I get I'd like to see a stronger step in
Speaker 1: the direction of free and fair elections for Venezuela, respect
Speaker 1: for human rights in Venezuela, independent judiciary and independent They
Speaker 1: just like decided to ignore the legislature when the legislature
Speaker 1: wasn't cooperating with Maduro. So it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a mixed bag. We will see where things go from here.
Speaker 1: Hopefully better days coming up for Venezuela, but still confusion,
Speaker 1: like the Trump administration's you know, way of handling this
Speaker 1: after the military operation has been confusing. The reaction to
Speaker 1: progressive Democrats is utterly infuriating. Oh, it's insane.
Speaker 3: They could get a protest on the streets by Trump
Speaker 3: just saying hey, it's Monday. They're like, no, it's not.
Speaker 3: They'll disagree with anything Trump does and the other thing.
Speaker 3: It's kind of discouraging, but it's smart also not telling
Speaker 3: leaders of Congress for doing this because they can't trust
Speaker 3: them not to leak it ahead of time, some of them,
Speaker 3: so I had to keep operational security. So anyway, Jim,
Speaker 3: quite a start to the new year. We'll see what's
Speaker 3: on tap for tomorrow. See you tomorrow, Greg, Jim Garretty,
Speaker 3: National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks so
Speaker 3: much for being with us today. Please subscribe to the
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