Speaker 1: And hello, how are you a happy Monday? Sue you
Welcome to the Big Podcast on this fifth day of January,
year of our War, twenty twenty six. My name is
Tom Sullivan. Anything any thing happened over the weekend. I
mean it's it was a surprise. I don't know about you,
but when I woke up Saturday morning found out that
our military had gone into Venezuela and captured Nicholas Maduro,
I was going to say the president, But he's not
the president, that's the problem. He claims he is, But
that was an illegitimate election. I mean, clearly he lost.
By everybody's count, the opposition candidate got seventy percent seven
zero and so no, and he just refused to accept
the It was not only every international organization that was
watching that election came up with about the same number,
about seventy percent voted for the opposition candidate and not
for him. But he said, I'm going to ignore that
I'm still the president. Well, actually he's not, and he's
not recognized as the president by most nations of the world.
So what did they do. They arrested basically a drug
cartel leader, and well, yes, because that's what he was.
He was, he ran a cartel, he got paid off
from various people, mostly his generals. Let's see what are
the looking at the charges here against him. Narco terrorism
conspiracy charge number one, charge number two, cocaine importation conspiracy
charge number three, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, okay,
and number four conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Those are the four counts that are against him. He
showed up in federal court with his wife today, pleaded
not guilty and kept claiming that he was the president
of Venezuela. And our government says, actually, you're just you're
just a drug cartel criminal and you've been indicted years ago,
so they're gonna have to go back and find out,
you know, witnesses and things like that. But I've got
a variety of reactions. I think it's I think there's
a lot of people that, first of all, on the
left that for they don't like Donald Trump, so they
can not cannot bring themselves to say way to go no,
and they have to criticize whatever it is. And yet
they're criticizing the arrest of this Maduro guy who not
only was a drug dealer but he was also involved
in all kinds. I mean he arbitrary killings, disappearances of people,
the people that were in his prisons, torture and humane
or degrading treatment or punishment, forced labor. I mean, this
guy was a bad guy. And so it's awfully hard
for the people on the left that can't stand Donald
Trump to say anything other than they just come as.
Some of them are coming out and saying yes, actually,
that was a pretty good idea of them is DeBie
Wasserman Schultz, big, big, big powerful woman in the Democrat Party,
congresswoman from from South Florida. And what's going on in
Florida is interesting because most of the politicians, they're Democrat
and Republican, they get it. They've got a lot of
Nezeelan ethnic families living in as their congressional constituents, and
they know how bad this guy was. Here's a here's
a little clip from w Wasserman Schultz.
Speaker 2: My focus is on my community here in South Florida,
who are absolutely elated at the removal, the departure finally
of Maduro. But and I have spent a lot of
time over the last few days talking directly with leaders
in our community and a significant worry where we're kind
of moving to cautious optimism and now even closer to
real concern that all that has happened is that the
cronies from the Maduro regime are in charge. That now
actually Trump seems to have recognized, which is the first
time that's happened, that recognized a regime official as the
head of Venezuela, even though he's saying that he is
going to be running Venezuela, and that political prisoners have
not been released, and worst of all, things seem to
be getting worse in Venezuela. A decree was issued by
DLSI Rodriguez, the acting president today, who I certainly don't
recognize in that role, to have the police start arresting,
searching and arresting individuals who are caught promoting or supporting
the removal and arrest of Maduro. They're searching cars, I've
seen video of that happening. They are searching cell phones
of Venezuelans. So things actually appear to have gotten worse,
not better, and that has to be the focus. We
need a transition to democracy. We need to make sure
that there is prosperity and liberty that is restored to Venezuela,
and that just doesn't appear to be on Donald Trump's
priority list, and that's what they're concerned about.
Speaker 1: Okay, So she did her very best at criticizing Trump,
but she has an interesting point and it's one that's
being asked a lot. And there's a lot of questions
that we don't have answers to because we don't know
how people are going to react that are in positions
of power. This Delsea Rodriguez was appointed the vice president
by Maduro and so therefore since he wasn't the legitimate president,
she is not the legitimate vice president, but she's acting
and the courts there said, okay, you're the acting president
until Moduro if he comes back. And she was very
much opposed to everything that happened on Saturday, and then yesterday,
all of a sudden, something happened and she decided to
become much more cooperative. That's general Keane talks about this.
Speaker 3: The Trump administration has made quite a big decision here,
and that is to work with the Maduro government as
opposed to try to depose that government, which would obviously
lead to a physical presence of troops on the ground
and I believe they have some indications that they think
they can work with this government and move them in
the right direction. Everybody knows who they are. I mean,
the three top leaders of it are all indicted, just
as Maduro is. That's the Vice President, the Minister of Defense,
and the Minister of Interior, and these people have blood
on their hands also in terms of repression the Venezuelan people,
and certainly everybody knows who we're dealing with here. But
can we move them in the right direction? And what
are we talking about? Shut Down the narco trafficking, shut
down the Columbian gangs and the paramilitary militias that the
Minister of Interior has used as goons to repress the
Venezuelan people. The reason why the Venezuelan people aren't celebrating
Madua's removal is because they know the goons and thugs
are still in charge, and they fear going out on
the streets to celebrate. So obviously the administration has some
indication by talking to the Vice President that she is
willing to cooperate and listen, we have lots of leverage here.
We could have taken Maduro's compound down and killed everybody.
They know that we chose the tougher option and the
better option to go in there and try to extract
them and put them in it before a judge and
a jury. Eventually they know those options are available to
this president and dealing with those three top leaders as well.
So we have leverage here and what we want to
do in addition to what I just suggested, and the
Secretary of State said so on television on Sunday, the
objective is to move to a democratic form of government.
And listen so people understand we're not about nation building here.
This is not barja Herschegovina, it's not Iraq, and it's
not Afghanistan. Why because the democratic structure already exists in Venezuela,
albeit it's in the wrong hands under Chavez. On theer
Maduro and now on the device President. There is a
Supreme Court, there is a National Assembly, a legislative body.
There is an executive branch. There is a civil society
that has been significantly repressed for the last fourteen years
and absolutely punished. But that society will come to life
and be energized and be in the streets supporting a
movement towards elections. Which is what the administration wants to do,
but they know they can't do it immediately because it's
not prepared to do it immediately, and they want to
first achieve some debility and then move towards it. Don't
rush towards it, but make certain we get everything in
place to make certain their success. To here, it's an
open question. We don't know how much this regime will cooperate.
They want to protect themselves, but we have lots of leverage.
We also have an amnesty leverage. You work with us
and we'll give you exile and we'll give you no indictment.
You help achieve our political objectives and inside the country
and also our security objectives, and there may be something
positive for you at the end. So I don't know
what the conversations are. I'm only speculating, but the administration
believes at least now we can work with them and
help them accomplish our political and security objectives. If not,
we have an ORLS option as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as usual, I think General Kams to write on
these people know what just happened, and I'm sure they're
having a conversation of would you like to disappear? Would
you like US to come pick you up in the
middle of the night and bring you to a prison
in New York City. Because these people are also indicted,
the top three people, And so the question becomes, what
are they going to do, What are their decisions going
to be? Are they going to cooperate with the US.
Because if you go in and try and take over
a country, we have examples of it. Libya, Oh my gosh.
Obama went in and said we're going to take over
after Kadafi and it turned out to be a haven
for terrorism. The same with a rock that has not
turned out well. Afghanistan was a complete disaster. Go to
the Soviet Union when it collapsed. When it collapsed all
of a sudden, the form of government changed overnight, and
who the vacuum was created and who stepped in the mob?
The Russian mob. Still to this I think that's part
of Putin's whole group is the Russian mob, and they
took over the country. So trying to turn this over
to the Venezuelan people with legitimate, honest executives of the
country is much trickier than you might think. And we
don't know the answer to how that's going to turn out.
Because we don't know what these people are going to do.
So that's Rodriguez is the acting president of Venezuela. And
the thing is she was so opposed to everything that happened,
and all of a sudden yesterday she's calling for cooperation.
So there's a lot to still work on with that.
This whole idea about well why didn't you arrest everybody else?
It was brought up on Face to Nation Margaret Brennan
was quizzing Marco Rubio about all of this, and I thought, well,
I'll play you a piece of what Rubio and Margaret
Brennan went back and forth about.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I think the important thing to
point out is that the key to what that regime
relies on and is the economy fueled by oil. And
right now it is an oil industry that is backwards
and really needs a lot of help and work in
terms of it. And not only that, but it doesn't
help the people. None of the money from the oil
gets to the people. It's all stolen by the people
that are on the top there. And so that's why
we have a quarantine. There's a quarantine right now in
which sanctioned oil shipments there's a boat and that boat
is under US sanctions, we go get a quarridorder, we
will seize it. That remains in place, and that's a
tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in
place until we see changes not just further the national
interests of the United States, which is number one, but
also that lead to a better future for the people
of Venezuela. And so that's the sort of control the
President is pointing to when he says that we continue
with that quarantine and we expect to see that there
will be is not just in the way the oil
industries run for the benefit of the people, but also
so that they stop the drug trafficking, so that we
no longer have these gang problems, so that they kicked
the farc in the eln out, and that they no
longer cozy up to Hasbullah and Iran in our own hemisphere.
Speaker 5: I'm curious why the Trump administration decided to leave it
intact and only arrest Nicholas Maduro and his wife. The
person who controls the police, the chief thug dis di Cabello.
He's the Interior minister. He's been indicted by the United States.
He was in that indictment the administration released, he's a
narco terrorist. There's a twenty five million dollar price on
his head. He's still in place. The Defense minister, who
has deep ties to Russia fifteen million dollar price on
his head. He is still in place. I'm confused. Are
they still wanted by the United States? Why didn't you
arrest them? If you are taking out the narco terrorist regime.
Speaker 6: You're confused. I don't know why that's confusing. They're still
in me.
Speaker 4: It's very so we're not going to go in and
wrap up. You're going to but yeah, but you can't
go You're going to go in and suck up five people.
They're already complaining about this one operation. Imagine the howls
we would have from everybody else if we actually had
to go and stay there four days to capture four
other people. We got the top priority. The number one
person on the list was the guy who claimed to
be the president of the country that he was not,
and he was arrested along with his wife, who was
also indicted. And that was a pretty sophisticated and frankly
complicated operation. It is not easy to land helicopters in
the Middle of the largest military base in the country.
Speaker 6: The guy lived on a military base.
Speaker 4: Land within three minutes, kick down his door, grab him,
put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him
in a helicopter, and leave the country without losing any
American or any American assets.
Speaker 6: That's not an easy mission.
Speaker 4: And you're asking me why didn't we do that in
five other places at the same time.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's absurd.
Speaker 4: I do think this is one of the most you know, daring,
you know, complicated, sophisticated missions this country has carried out
in a very long time. Tremendous credit to the US
military personnel who did it. It was unbelievable and tremendous success.
And today, an indicted drug trafficker who was not the
legitimate president of Venezuela, well, we don't recognize. The Biden
administration didn't recognize. Sixty something countries don't recognize, the European
Union doesn't recognize, and many countries in Latin America don't recognize.
He was a convicted He was an indicted drug trafficker.
He was arrested, his wife was arrested, right.
Speaker 5: And so the others, the others who are also indicted
are still system. Of course, the others who are also
indicted are still in place, So that's the point of
my questioning there. But you talked about not being the legitimary.
Speaker 6: You wanted us to land on five other military bases.
Speaker 5: No, I'm asking why you chose that this was the
limit of the military operation. But to your point that
you just made that because that Maduro was not the
legitimate president.
Speaker 6: He was the guy who was claiming to be the president.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, the opposition target okay, the opposition leader Maria
Karina Machado and Mundo Gonzalez one that twenty twenty four election.
By your own account, they were some of the first
people you called when you were Secretary of State. You
said in Mundo Gonzalez is the rightful president of Venezuela.
Is that still the US policy? And if so, are
you working on a transition to have those elected leaders
run the country.
Speaker 6: Well, I think the couple things.
Speaker 4: I have tremendous admiration from Maria Karina Machado, I have
admiration fred Mundo. We have all those views about what
the election that happened the last time, and not only US,
but many other countries around the world.
Speaker 6: There's that, but there's the mission that we are on
right now.
Speaker 4: We have been very clear from the beginning because I
still think that a lot of people analyze everything that
happens in foreign policy through the lens of what happened
from two thousand and one to three thousand and fifteen
or sixteen. The whole foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya,
everything is Irock, everything is Afghanistan. This is not the
Middle East, and our mission here is very different. This
is the Western Hemisphere. Within the Western Hemisphere, we have
a country, potentially very rich country that has cozied itself
up under the control of this regime, has cozied up
to Iran, has cosied up to Hesbula, has cozied has
allowed narco trafficking gangs to operate with impunity from their
own territory, allows boats with drugs to traffic from their territory.
And we are addressing that. And by the way, for
eight nine million people in the largest mass migration event
in modern history have left that country since.
Speaker 6: Twenty four that regime is still in really impact on us.
That is what we are addressing now.
Speaker 4: When you spoke yesterday, we're not just addressing the regime.
We are addressing the factors that are a threat to
the national interest of the United States.
Speaker 5: Understood, you spoke with Delse Rodriguez, who is now, according
to President Trump sworn in as the president, as the
leader of Venezuela. Did she promise you that she is
expelling all those American adversaries from Venezuelan territory. What exactly
did she agree to do when she spoke to you.
Speaker 4: We are going to our objectives when it comes to
how Venezuela impacts the national entry to the United States
have not changed, and we want those addressed. We want
drug trafficking to stop. We want no more gang members
to come our way. We don't want to see the
Iranian and by the way, Cuban presence in the past.
We want the oil industry in that country not to
go to the benefit of pirates and adversaries of the
United States, but for the benefit of the people. We
want to see all of that happen. We insist on
seeing that happen, and we are going to work to
continue to see that happen. Well, right now, we are
going to see what happens moving forward. Let me just
say that I'm not obviously going to have these conversations
in the media. These are delicate and complicated things that
require mature statesmanship, and that's what we intend to do.
But our goals remain the same. The difference is that
the person who was in charge, even though not legitimately
in the past, was someone you could not work with.
We just could not work with him. He is not
a person that had ever kept any of the deals
he made, broke every deal he ever made, made a
fool out of the Biden administration on the deal they
made with him. And we offered him on multiple occasions
and opportunity to remove himself from the scene in a
positive way.
Speaker 6: He chose not to do so.
Speaker 5: But his number two is now running the country. His
number two is someone you can work with and you
is that what you're implying here? And did she tell
you that she will transition to democracy? And the woman
who won the election along with her partner there, Maria
Karina Machado, we.
Speaker 4: Are going to make we are going to make our
assessments of people. You're asking me to make an assessment.
We're going to make an assessment on the basis of
what they do. Now, what they say publicly in the interim,
not you know what they've done in the past in
many cases, but what they do moving forward.
Speaker 6: So we're going to find out.
Speaker 4: You're asking me, why do I know what decisions people
are going to make.
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 4: I do know this that if they don't make the
right decisions, the United States will retain multiple levers of
leverage to ensure that our interests are protected, and that
includes the oil quarantine that's a place, among other things. Well,
so we are going to judge moving forward. We're going
to judge everything by what they do, and we're going
to see what they do.
Speaker 1: So I don't know how you feel about that, but
I'm I feel pretty I feel positive about it. I
think that the group that's there is going to understand
that they either have to leave or they have to
start falling into line with what we are telling them
we want them to do. There's well besides that. I mean, again,
if you toss them out, there's going to be a vacuum,
and who knows who would step into that vacuum. It's
very dicey to change a regime of a country, but
in this case, as long as they behave essentially we will.
It looks like we're going to let them stay and
if they don't behave, they're going to be gone one
one way or the other. Former CIA station chief in Caracas,
guy by the name of Rick Delatore, talks about there's
also a problem of the drug cartel gangs that live
in Venezuela, right.
Speaker 7: And that is a concern.
Speaker 8: Right For a number of years now, the Maduro regime
has opened its stores to a number of Columbian terrorist
organizations like the farc D and the LNS and my Ketalia.
They're all living there in the jungles just outside of Kukata.
I've been there. I've been to that bridge. It's myself
at Auka in those areas. I think what's going to
happen next is is going to be interesting, and it's
going to be interesting to see how Columbia plays along
or if it doesn't. As as Venezuela comes under more
and more control of the US forces, obviously it will
be part of our objective to I suspect, to to
to weed out these terrorists that are the ones that
were partners with the Maduro regime and actually moving the drugs,
facilitating the human trafficking, working with Iran and others and
extracting gold and silver minerals and selling them. I think
what's going to happen is those folks are going to
have to make a decision. Are they going to want
to face us, you know, the United States Department of War,
or are they going to cross the border back into Columbia.
And if they try to cross the border back in
the Columbia, what's Columbia gonna.
Speaker 6: Do about it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so all of this is.
Speaker 1: Been thrown in the air. We're going to watch and
see how things land. But yeah, he's got So you
got those the thugs that were running the government for Maduro,
and you've got the cartel gangs that live out in
the forest. What are they going to do Because that's
their livelihood. They're going to either have to stop or
they're going to have to leave and go someplace else.
I've always believed followed the money, and I think the
cartels are no different than anybody else. They're going to
follow what is best for them financially. Here's the guy.
His name is David Smolsky. He is one of the
politicians in Venezuela that was on the opposition party the
party to one, but Madua would not allow them to
take office. His name again, David Smolski, and this is
his view about what's going to happen next.
Speaker 10: With your respect to President Trump, Maria Corina Mattau is
the most trusted leader in Venezuela, and I don't have
any doubt that she's going to be with President elegen
Mundo Gonzalez, the leaders of the revealing of Venezuela, where
obviously the US is going to be our main allies
and will have plenty of other allies in Latin America
and Europe and beyond. But Maria Coriina Matchau is a
leader who is out of this world and she's got
the support from almost every Venezuelan.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me let me start this out. I had
to look this up because I was trying to figure
out that ed Mundo Gonzalez was elected as the president,
got seventy percent of the vote, but Maduro said, you're not.
We're not going to recognize your win. That's ed Mundo Gonzalez.
So how does this Maria Corrino Machado fly into this.
She was the candidate for president and Maduro banned her
from running, so you can't run. So she said, Okay,
vote for this guy, ed Mundo Gonzalez, and he and
I are on the same page, and so she pushed
for his election and he did win. Basically he was
a proxy for Maria Coriina Machado. So that's how those
two names come up. And Maria Karina Machado has this
massive support of the people in Venezuela. This is a
guy who was a prisoner in one of the Venezuelan prisons.
His name is Matthew Heath, a marine veteran. He was
held for two years in Venezuelan jails and he describes
how things go when you're in their custody.
Speaker 7: Well, obviously that's a concern for all of us, is
that there's a failed state and then as worse than
it is now, millions of Venezuelans, more than this seven
million that have already left the country, flee to other countries. Obviously,
Columbia shares a large lane border. Believe it or not,
Colombia in the past has served has served as a
resting place for a couple of million Venezuelans. They've provided
social services to them, but it's a poor country. And
they can't support ten million.
Speaker 1: So it was brutal. People were beaten. He was beaten,
he was tortured, and that's what goes on in prison there.
So Maduro is looking around over at the Metropolitan the
Detention Center. He must think that it's a lovely place
to be. It's not a nasty place by our standards,
but by his standards. I think he's probably scratching his
head a little bit. So he went to court today,
Maduro did, and his wife, and the judge in the
case is ninety two years old and highly thought of.
I mean, he's getting kind of long in the tooth,
but John Miller and others think really highly of This
guy is a fairly fair judge. And these are the
charges that were read to Maduro today.
Speaker 11: Well, as our colleague was just mentioning, you know, they
have to present a case. And the indictment, which is
twenty five pages of you know, various charges, stems over
twenty years. But when you look at it and kind
of get past the storytelling of the case to what
reads from this document like something we're going to see
in court, you see a number of the people mentioned
in it were close associates of the Maduros, both the
husband and the wife. You see some of them have
pled guilty in earlier versions of other prosecutions around this case.
Those are the kinds of people that Eli Honig would
tell you are very likely to appear as government witnesses
and that they've pled guilty and they're now serving time,
And those are the kinds of people who are often
looking for some consideration to tell their story. That gives
you the kind of case where you're going to hear
stories of planes being loaded with tons of narcotics in
the presidential hangar at Simone Boulevard Boulevard Airport, where you're
going to hear about recorded conversations between DEA informants and
relatives of the Maduros where they talk about their association
with the terrorist group the FARC, which also is a
major narcotics entity, how they're trying to raise twenty million
dollars for an election to the Venezuelan Assembly for Maduro
before he was president. You're going to hear about allegations
that not only did they accept bribes, issued diplomatic passports
to drug traffickers so that they could bypass customs without searches,
that they issued orders for kidnappings and beatings of drug
traffickers who weren't paying bribes or olde bribes, or weren't
paying on time. This is the kind of case that
is going to hey take more than a year to
get to trial when you consider the amount of discovery
involved and be involve a lengthy time in court when
and if it does get going. So as we look
at these lawyers who are there today, we don't know
that those are going to be the lawyers who carry
this through or whether they're the lawyers for these initial
stages where they may argue the political nature of the
case rather than the evidence.
Speaker 1: That was one of the questions right up until almost
court time. Does he have a representative, Maduro and so
all of a sudden, yep, he does. His name is
Barry Pollock. He is a Washington d c. Lawyer. He
does a lot of international law. He has represented Julian Assange.
So we'll see whether he sticks around or whether he
just showed up to see whether there was anything for
in this. I mean, it's going to take a large
down payment to a lawyer, because if this guy is convicted,
or if the leaders in Venezuela turn on Maduro to
because of the fact that they wanted to get along
with the US, they may cut off funding for whatever
he wants for defense of his trial. So it was
with a lot of drama and they had. They brought
him over from the Metropolitan Detention Center over in Brooklyn.
They put him in a helicopter. They drove him in
a bear cat a couple of blocks from the Metropolitan
Detention Center over to a helicopter, flew him he didn't
have to deal with New York traffic this morning. Flew
him from Brooklyn over the East River into the heliport,
the Wall Street Heliport. They picked him up there in
another bear cat and drove him to the courthouse where
he was then presented before this ninety two year old judge.
There is a guy who is a regional expert on
that part of the world, Venezuela, all of the countries
surrounding that, And the question is with all this shakeup
going on in Venezuela, is it going to shake up
the whole region. His name is Eric Farnsworth. It could
affect it directly because Venezuela for a number of years
has essentially been a collapsing country. One quarter of the
entire population of thirty three million, now eight million Venezuelans
are outside the country, and that's happened long before yesterday's activities.
Speaker 6: But the fear is that if the.
Speaker 12: Remaining Venezuelan people in the country don't have sustained hope
that things are going to get better and that it's
not just Maduro but actually other senior officials from his
regime are going to leave and that their lives will
get better. There is fear that indeed you could have
an additional migration flow and that would go directly into
the neighboring countries like Colombia, like Brazil, and like countries
in the Caribbean. So this is directly implicating some of
the neighbors. There are other issues too, but that's for
the moment, that's the primary one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So if you're a cocaine dealer, you're growing, you're processing,
you're packaging cocaine, whatever, you're you're involved in the cocaine
business and you're in Venezuela, where are you going to go?
Are you going to go over to Colombia? Well, the
problem there is Colombia is probably the biggest cocaine dealer
exporter in the world, and is remember the president did
pardon the former leader of Colombia and they were he
was apparently involved with hundreds of pounds of cocaine shipments
from Colombia out to the rest of the world. So
what's going to happen there? Because business is business, and
if you're happily doing your cocaine business in Colombia and
all of a sudden the Venezuelan people trying to set
up shop, that's not going to work well. And how
long is this transition do whatever Venezuela is going to be?
How long do you think that will take?
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's a really important question. I don't have a
specific time frame, but I would say sooner rather than later.
For example, both the president elected Munda Gonzalez and Nobel
Peace Prize winner Maria Karina Machado are outside of Venezuela.
One would assume that they're going to return to Venezuela
at some point relatively soon. That would certainly be a
boost of energy and support for the opposition and for
the government elect. But the longer it appears as if
Delsia Rodriguez is going to remain as the de facto
leader of the country and some of the officials around
her like deos do al Cobeo and the head of
the military, Padrina Lopez, some of those people who have
bounties twenty five million dollars bounties remaining on their heads.
The Venezuelan people, I think, are going to begin to question, well,
what is the ultimate outcome of this? So I think
even if there isn't a direct change in the next
couple of days or even you know, weeks, I don't know,
but there is going to have to be some really
intensive signaling from the White House and from the State
Department that fundamental change really is on the way, and
it's not just about Maduro, but it's about his regime.
Speaker 1: So back to the CIA station chief from Caracas, Rick
Dalatory about what's going to happen next.
Speaker 8: Well, I think the good news is and those that
keep making these, in my opinion, false claims that this
is another Iraq or Afghanistan. Let's keep in mind there's
very few, if anyone, in Venezuela who's willing to lay
their life down and be a martyr in any way,
shape or form for Maduro and his politics. It's not ideology,
most most of the military are poor conscripts that that
that I pin paid or fed. They're more interested in
going back to their home villages and just living their lives.
The only folks that were really benefiting from this were
the generals and some of these far out wild West
kind of areas, so Baduro has never really had a
lot of control full control of some of those areas.
He's certainly benefited from the kickbacks and the money that
his generals were giving them from the cartel of destus.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 8: But so so so this is an area that that
it really is the wild West in the jungle, and
and I'm not exactly sure how we're going to play
in that, if if we'll even play at all. As
for what kind of boots on the ground, uh, And
I use that term very very loosely. I think certainly
there's a role for for civil civil engineers and others
to play in and infrastructure and kind of making sure
that the lights are on the gases working those kinds
of things. But I don't I don't see the kind
of occupation type forces that some are are painting. It's
a great day to celebrate, and they know this, right,
you've seen it everywhere. I think they're a little confused
by some folks who tell them that, you know, they're
worried for them, or this is bad news in some way,
and or that we apologize for you know, on behalf
of the United States, they're you know, they're looking at
them like you're nuts. This is we've been finding this
for all over twenty years. You know, they went from
being one of the wealthiest stations in our hemisphere to
being one of the poorest.
Speaker 1: And now there's our opportunity to join the real world again.
So the bottom line out of all of this is
it's too soon to tell. It's only been a couple
of days. They're going to try and work with the
people that are running the country right now, but basically
saying you better behave or else. And they saw their
colleague all of a sudden be picked up in the
middle of the night and move to New York City.
Speaking of Colombia, though, here's President Trump on Air Force
one last night, going back to Washington from Florida talking
about the head of Columbia.
Speaker 9: Colombia is very sick too, run by a sick man
who likes making cocaine and shalling it to the United States,
and he's not going to be doing good very long.
He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories, he's not going
to be doing good.
Speaker 6: For gener will be an operation by the US and Arkansas.
It's good to be no.
Speaker 1: The President says, he's got his site set on the
guy that's running Colombia, and Colombia is a far bigger
cocaine dealer than Venezuela, many times bigger. And so now
we've got to watch and see what's going to happen there,
whether those people start to change their way, and whether
other countries and drug dealers, and it brings up Putin
and trying to go in and Kidnappzelenski or she trying
to go in and get the leader of Taiwan. I mean,
you don't know what's going to be the reaction to
all of this. We still have more questions than we
have answers. But oil, everybody kept repeating the fact that
it's true that Venezuela used to be a major oil producer.
They're down substantially from where they used to be. But
has this affected the markets today, Well, let's take a look.
The stock market reacted in a very positive way. The
Dow up five hundred and ninety four. I think this
is a new record forty eight and nine seventy seven.
We're closing in on fifty thousand on the Dow. The
S and P up forty four, the Nasdaq up one
hundred and sixty, Gold up one hundred and twenty four
dollars to four thousand and four to fifty four. And
the price of oil, which is the big commodity everybody's watching,
it was up a buck, that's it, so the oil
markets weren't doing much of a reaction now at fifty
eight dollars for one barrel of oil. That's it for today.
Thank you for coming by. We will be back again tomorrow.
Hope to see you this