Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Venezuela Victory part 2-Historically Transforming Latin America & What Happens Next

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Venezuela Victory part 2-Historically Transforming Latin America & What Happens Next · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome in his vernic with Center, Ted Cruz ben Ferguson
0:04
Speaker 1: with you. It is nice to have you with us
0:05
Speaker 1: as we are doing part two of our in depth
0:08
Speaker 1: conversation on Venezuela, What has happened since Maduro has left?
0:12
Speaker 1: What is next? And Center. We've got three different things
0:14
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about, and if people miss episode one,
0:18
Speaker 1: it's one that really went viral, so makes you go
0:20
Speaker 1: back and listen to it. But we're gonna go in
0:22
Speaker 1: depth again in this episode on three major different aspects
0:26
Speaker 1: of this story.
0:27
Speaker 2: Well, listen episode one, which came out Monday. We did
0:31
Speaker 2: a deep dive into number one, what happened, what happened
0:33
Speaker 2: in Venezuela, what President Trump did sending in the military
0:38
Speaker 2: to capture and arrest.
0:39
Speaker 3: Nicholas Maduro and his wife.
0:42
Speaker 2: We secondly discussed why Venezuela matters, what are the geopolitical
0:46
Speaker 2: consequences of Venezuela, the massive oil reserves, the massive gold
0:50
Speaker 2: reserves and other minerals. We talked about why Russia and
0:54
Speaker 2: China and Iran and HESBLA were all in Venezuela. And finally,
0:58
Speaker 2: we did a very careful explanation of the legal basis
1:02
Speaker 2: the legal authority for why President Trump had the authority
1:05
Speaker 2: to order this attack, to order this arrest.
1:09
Speaker 3: We laid it out in detail.
1:11
Speaker 2: We're seeing a lot of democrats and the media and
1:13
Speaker 2: law professors, all of which are coming from exactly the
1:16
Speaker 2: same place, claiming this is illegal, this was a kidnapping.
1:19
Speaker 3: All of that is nonsense.
1:21
Speaker 2: And if you didn't listen to Monday's podcast, you should
1:24
Speaker 2: go back and I lay out the legal basis and
1:26
Speaker 2: in fact the opinion from the US Department of Justice
1:31
Speaker 2: for the January third, nineteen ninety arrest of Manuel Noriega
1:36
Speaker 2: in Panama under very similar circumstances. And so those are
1:40
Speaker 2: three big questions we addressed today. We're going to address
1:44
Speaker 2: three additional questions. Number One, a lot of folks are
1:47
Speaker 2: asking who is the first Lady of Venezuela and why
1:53
Speaker 2: was she arrested? Why was she included in that. We're
1:56
Speaker 2: going to lay out some more detail as to what
1:58
Speaker 2: her background is. Secondly, we'll talk about what are the
2:02
Speaker 2: geopolitical consequences of Maduro being arrested, being prosecuted for the
2:08
Speaker 2: rest of Latin America and for the Western hemisphere. They
2:10
Speaker 2: are significant. We're gonna break them down carefully and systematically.
2:15
Speaker 2: And finally, and this is important, we're going to talk
2:18
Speaker 2: about what's next in Venezuela, what we can expect in
2:21
Speaker 2: the days and weeks and months ahead, What does this mean,
2:24
Speaker 2: what's the leadership going to be in Venezuela, And what
2:26
Speaker 2: should the United States want to have happen next in Venezuela.
2:30
Speaker 3: All of that on today's pod.
2:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really gonna be a fun one. When I
2:34
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2:36
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Speaker 1: That's Compassion dot Com. All right, So, Senata, we're gonna
3:51
Speaker 1: pick it up literally where we left off in Monday's pod.
3:55
Speaker 1: And there have been so many questions about the wife
3:59
Speaker 1: of Maduro. Why was she arrested, why was she charged?
4:02
Speaker 1: Why was she brought to America. I had to watch
4:05
Speaker 1: some of the crazy liberals and debate them on TV.
4:07
Speaker 1: They're angry that she was arrested instead of others around Maduro,
4:12
Speaker 1: that they would rather have had arrested. It was the
4:14
Speaker 1: argument that was being made which just made my head
4:17
Speaker 1: explode as I was listening to the incompetence. But let's
4:20
Speaker 1: go through why she was actually indicted, why she's being held,
4:24
Speaker 1: why she's arrested, why she's probably gonna be found guilty
4:26
Speaker 1: of a lot of major crimes.
4:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
4:28
Speaker 2: Look, look, she has been indicted, she has been charged,
4:31
Speaker 2: and she's being prosecuted. And yes she is Maduro's wife.
4:35
Speaker 2: She is also a lawyer. She's a long time Hugo
4:38
Speaker 2: Chavez loyalist. She's a communist, she's a Marxist, she is
4:43
Speaker 2: viciously anti American.
4:46
Speaker 3: She is corrupt.
4:48
Speaker 2: She was intimately involved in the narco trafficking that Maduro
4:52
Speaker 2: was engaged in. She has been sanctioned by the Treasury
4:56
Speaker 2: Department for her involvement in that. And she's also been
4:59
Speaker 2: a senior government official. And in fact, here I'm going
5:02
Speaker 2: to give you some of the background. The New York
5:04
Speaker 2: Post reported.
5:05
Speaker 3: So Cilia Flores was arrested.
5:10
Speaker 2: Celia Fortt Flores is the first Lady. She has been
5:13
Speaker 2: called the Latin Lady Macbeth. She's sixty nine years old,
5:18
Speaker 2: and she's been described by a former head of intelligence
5:21
Speaker 2: in Venezuela as being quote behind the curtain, playing, pulling
5:25
Speaker 2: the strings. And here's what one prosecutor in the Maduro
5:30
Speaker 2: government said, quote she is a fundamental figure in corruption
5:34
Speaker 2: in Venezuela, absolutely fundamental, and especially in the structure of power.
5:39
Speaker 2: And he continued, many people consider her far more astute
5:44
Speaker 2: and shrewd than Maduro himself. Now, what is her background.
5:51
Speaker 2: Her background, She was a lawyer for Hugo Chaves, the
5:59
Speaker 2: original Marx who took over Venezuela was elected and drove
6:03
Speaker 2: the economy into the ground. She has been nicknamed in
6:06
Speaker 2: addition to Latin Lady Bigbeth, she's been nicknamed First Warrior,
6:13
Speaker 2: and she's accused of accepting massive bribes from drug dealers
6:18
Speaker 2: and in fact, her nephews, and in fact they've been
6:20
Speaker 2: called her narco nephews, were both previously arrested in the
6:25
Speaker 2: United States for cocaine trafficking, and they planned to use
6:30
Speaker 2: the money from their drug sales. This is the narco
6:32
Speaker 2: nephews to fund Flores's twenty fifteen campaign for National Assembly
6:38
Speaker 2: in Venezuela. She is she is a political leader. She
6:45
Speaker 2: is alleged to participate in the trafficking of cocaine quote,
6:49
Speaker 2: much of which had been seized by Venezuelan law enforcement
6:53
Speaker 2: with the assistance of armed military escorts. That's, according to
6:56
Speaker 2: the indictment, while guarded by quote state sponsored get gangs
7:01
Speaker 2: known as collectibos. And the gangs, according to the indictment,
7:06
Speaker 2: were to quote protect their drug trafficking operation.
7:10
Speaker 1: By the way, ten years ago. It had to be
7:12
Speaker 1: at least ten years ago. Now, I went back to
7:14
Speaker 1: a conversation I had in New York City in the
7:16
Speaker 1: green room at Fox there was a Venezuelan dissident. Basically
7:20
Speaker 1: they'd been put into exile, and we were sitting talking
7:23
Speaker 1: about the oil and the narco terrorism. This was over
7:27
Speaker 1: a decade ago from him, and they described the wife
7:31
Speaker 1: to me as quote, not a housewife, but a brilliant mastermind.
7:35
Speaker 1: They said that Chavez would have never gotten to where
7:38
Speaker 1: he was without her being behind him, that she was
7:43
Speaker 1: able to really and as you mentioned, a lawyer, they said,
7:46
Speaker 1: she's very smart. She understands how to set this stuff up.
7:50
Speaker 1: She understands how to work it to the family's advantage
7:53
Speaker 1: and to make money, and the idea. They were laughing
7:55
Speaker 1: basically as they were describing, They're like, if you think
7:57
Speaker 1: this is just some first lady in essence a house wife,
8:00
Speaker 1: you are mistaken. She is ruthless to the cores. They
8:04
Speaker 1: described it, saying that that she was a businesswoman that
8:07
Speaker 1: the mob would even be afraid of.
8:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, listen, I mentioned Flores got her start
8:12
Speaker 2: with Hugo Chavez. Actually, Hugo Chavez was arrested in the
8:17
Speaker 2: wake of a failed coup attempt in nineteen ninety two,
8:20
Speaker 2: and Flores stepped forward as his lawyer. And in fact,
8:25
Speaker 2: she was such a socialist and such a Marxist, she
8:28
Speaker 2: was literally spray painting Chavez's names on walls around Caracas,
8:35
Speaker 2: and she stepped forward. She represented Hugo Chavez pro bono
8:38
Speaker 2: for free, and she ended up getting him out of
8:40
Speaker 2: jail in nineteen ninety four before he ever stood trial.
8:44
Speaker 2: And she met she met Maduro while being an activist
8:50
Speaker 2: for Chavez. And Chavez was elected president in nineteen ninety eight,
8:59
Speaker 2: and Maduro and Flores both served under Chavis. She was
9:04
Speaker 2: attorney general yep, and he was vice president. And and
9:08
Speaker 2: and this, you know, she is someone intimately involved in
9:15
Speaker 2: the corruption in the drug trafficking. Uh and and that's
9:19
Speaker 2: why she's been arrested. It's why she she is indicted
9:23
Speaker 2: and and and it's why I believe both she and
9:25
Speaker 2: her husband will be convicted.
9:27
Speaker 1: It really is interesting to see how the media has
9:29
Speaker 1: just gone to like compassion on this, where they're just like, well.
9:32
Speaker 2: No, she's just a sweet little old lady. You know,
9:35
Speaker 2: why are you picking on this sweet little old lady. Yeah,
9:38
Speaker 2: you know, sweet little old lady attorney general. You know,
9:41
Speaker 2: sweet little old lady Attorney general narco terrorist, drug trafficker.
9:46
Speaker 3: But other than that, she's a sweet little old lady.
9:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is why I, by the way, love doing
9:50
Speaker 1: this show because no one else is talking about this,
9:52
Speaker 1: and I hope people that listen they're like, Okay, well
9:54
Speaker 1: now we know, so you can correct the record and
9:56
Speaker 1: be like, well, it's just it was just an easy
9:59
Speaker 1: one for them to go, so they grabbed your No.
10:01
Speaker 1: This is a woman who literally helped set up all
10:04
Speaker 1: of this corruption and was heavily involved in it, which
10:06
Speaker 1: brings me to the big issue. And we've seen a
10:08
Speaker 1: lot of conversation about this as well by the talking
10:12
Speaker 1: heads members of Congress that you serve with. Uh And
10:15
Speaker 1: the word that I wrote down was Western hemisphere. There
10:18
Speaker 1: has been a fever pitch of Western hemisphere and how
10:22
Speaker 1: Venezuela fits into this and what happens with China or
10:25
Speaker 1: Russia or Iran Cuba gets involved, X Y and Z
10:28
Speaker 1: in Venezuela. Can we just take a half a step
10:32
Speaker 1: back explain politically what the meaning of Western hemisphere means
10:37
Speaker 1: for people that maybe don't understand why it's so important
10:41
Speaker 1: and how it relates to national security with the United
10:43
Speaker 1: States of America as a broader point before we go
10:46
Speaker 1: into to then why some other countries want to be
10:48
Speaker 1: involved in Venezuela.
10:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
10:50
Speaker 2: Look, the Western Hemisphere is just North America and South America.
10:53
Speaker 3: It's our half of the world.
10:55
Speaker 2: It's it's the the bi and also the Caribbean Islands,
10:58
Speaker 2: and and and and and but it essentially the land
11:01
Speaker 2: that has the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the
11:04
Speaker 2: Pacific Ocean on the west and and and the Western
11:06
Speaker 2: Hemisphere is distinct from the Eastern hemisphere, which is Europe
11:10
Speaker 2: and Asia and Africa and Australia. All of that's the
11:13
Speaker 2: Eastern hemisphere. But the Western hemisphere, you know, you know,
11:15
Speaker 2: going back to the very earliest days of America, where
11:18
Speaker 2: where the Monroe Doctrine laid out that that that we
11:21
Speaker 2: are going to protect the Western hemisphere. This is our hemisphere.
11:25
Speaker 2: And and we talked about in Monday's podcast how Donald
11:28
Speaker 2: Trump believes very much in the Monroe doctrine, so much
11:31
Speaker 2: so that it's now being widely referred to as the
11:33
Speaker 2: Donro doctrine because he's put his own own stamp on it.
11:38
Speaker 3: And and and I'm going.
11:39
Speaker 2: To give a couple of stories to give some context,
11:41
Speaker 2: because I think this is massively consequential for other countries
11:45
Speaker 2: in the Western Hemisphere and for US national security.
11:49
Speaker 3: I mentioned on Monday's pod.
11:51
Speaker 2: That that that the Office Legal Counsel is who prepared
11:56
Speaker 2: the legal memorandum UH that laying out the basis arresting
12:01
Speaker 2: Noriega and Panama. And I mentioned that Bill Barr was
12:05
Speaker 2: the head of the Office Legal Council who wrote that memo.
12:07
Speaker 2: But I also mentioned that there'd been lots of very
12:11
Speaker 2: respected lawyers who had headed OLC, including antonin Scalia, including
12:16
Speaker 2: William Rehnquists, and I mentioned Chuck Cooper, who was my
12:19
Speaker 2: very first boss when I came from clerking for Chief
12:22
Speaker 2: Justice Renquist, and I was a twenty seven year old lawyer.
12:26
Speaker 2: My first boss was Chuck Cooper. He's one of the
12:28
Speaker 2: top Supreme Court litigators in the country. And as it
12:32
Speaker 2: so happened, we recorded Monday's pod Sunday evening, and then
12:36
Speaker 2: we finished recording the pod and I went to have
12:38
Speaker 2: dinner with Chuck. So I literally went to Chuck's house
12:41
Speaker 2: as soon as we finished recording, and he told me
12:43
Speaker 2: a story I didn't know, which is during the Reagan administration, Chuck,
12:49
Speaker 2: as a young thirty something lawyer, was the one that
12:54
Speaker 2: Reagan sent down to Panama to negotiate with North no way,
13:02
Speaker 2: and so he went down there and he was sort
13:04
Speaker 2: of laughing, is like, I was the only one kind
13:06
Speaker 2: of foolish enough to accept the assignment. And he went
13:10
Speaker 2: down and he said, you know, Noriega came and arrived
13:14
Speaker 2: in like a caravan of of big armored cars and
13:18
Speaker 2: he had all sorts of soldiers with with automatic weapons.
13:21
Speaker 2: And you know, Chuck sitting there as this, you know,
13:24
Speaker 2: young lawyer from dj and they were trying to negotiate
13:28
Speaker 2: Noriega's leaving voluntarily, and he was going to leave voluntarily
13:32
Speaker 2: and go to a third country and he could live
13:35
Speaker 2: in exile and live in peace. And by the way,
13:37
Speaker 2: Trump tried to do the same thing, which is negotiate
13:40
Speaker 2: with Maduro. If you want to leave in peace, we'll
13:43
Speaker 2: let you leave in peace. And Noriego, just Noriega Maduro
13:47
Speaker 2: both made the same stupid mistake. They said, no, I'm
13:51
Speaker 2: not going to leave. And Chuck told me he said
13:53
Speaker 2: he was negotiating, and Noriego was like, absolutely not, I'm
13:56
Speaker 2: not going anywhere.
13:57
Speaker 3: That will never happen.
13:59
Speaker 2: And Chuck told me he finished the meeting at the
14:01
Speaker 2: end of the meeting, and he said said, Miss President,
14:05
Speaker 2: I need to tell you something, which is I'm going
14:08
Speaker 2: to leave now. I'm going to go back to the
14:10
Speaker 2: United States, but people are going to come after me
14:14
Speaker 2: and they're not going to take no for an answer.
14:16
Speaker 3: And he did that.
14:18
Speaker 1: By the way, isn't it amazing that Chavez has happened him?
14:21
Speaker 1: Maduro saw it, Maduro's wife saw it, and the sorry, yeah, it's.
14:29
Speaker 3: Hard to keep these Latin American dictator.
14:31
Speaker 1: Straight exactly, but you see it. It's like you would
14:33
Speaker 1: think they would look at the history and be like, Okay,
14:35
Speaker 1: we know how this ends, like we understand how this ends.
14:40
Speaker 1: And yet and it's there, like they can see it.
14:42
Speaker 1: It's tangible. They can see the fallout afterwards. They can
14:45
Speaker 1: see how it went down. And then when Donald Trump
14:47
Speaker 1: calls you and is like, hey, man, like we'll let
14:49
Speaker 1: you leave, like we're literally letting you leave, if you'll
14:52
Speaker 1: just leave, He's like, nope, never leaving. You can and
14:55
Speaker 1: then he goes down on stage. You can come and
14:56
Speaker 1: get me, you coward. Well okay, we did it.
14:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
15:00
Speaker 2: He was literally chanting and and and screaming at Trump,
15:03
Speaker 2: calling him a coward, and in Spanish guard thee And
15:06
Speaker 2: well it turned turned out he said come and get me,
15:08
Speaker 2: and Trump said okay, and and and he did, and
15:12
Speaker 2: and and that, Uh, look in terms of Latin America,
15:16
Speaker 2: I'll tell you also, yesterday I spoke with President Trump
15:19
Speaker 2: and and in the in the oval, and we talked
15:21
Speaker 2: about a lot of topics. But but I I told him,
15:24
Speaker 2: I said, listen, congratulations on on on the Venezuela attack.
15:28
Speaker 3: On the arrest.
15:29
Speaker 2: I said, mister President, candidly that that that that took
15:33
Speaker 2: cast iron balls to issue that order, because frankly, it
15:38
Speaker 2: could have gone wrong a thousand different ways.
15:42
Speaker 3: And and there's.
15:43
Speaker 1: Also part of it when you make those orders that
15:45
Speaker 1: I think people don't realize. You've been around it, and
15:47
Speaker 1: I've been around it. You were making a decision that
15:51
Speaker 1: very well could cost an America in their lives.
15:53
Speaker 3: Well, and the President and I talked about that.
15:56
Speaker 1: That's a lot. I mean, people don't realize I think
15:58
Speaker 1: how much that weighed, even on President Bush when I
16:00
Speaker 1: was around him, when he knew that there were Americans
16:03
Speaker 1: dying because the decision that you're making. Donald Trump, I
16:06
Speaker 1: think really understands that as well.
16:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we talked about that and we both talked
16:10
Speaker 2: about we marveled at the incredible military precision that they
16:16
Speaker 2: carried out. That the fact that this attack they went
16:19
Speaker 2: in and they landed in the middle of a major
16:24
Speaker 2: metropolitan city with five million people. They landed in the
16:26
Speaker 2: middle of a huge military base. You know, it's been
16:30
Speaker 2: now publicly reported that there were thirty two Cuban soldiers
16:34
Speaker 2: guarding Maduro, all of whom were killed.
16:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we did not lose a single.
16:40
Speaker 2: US serviceman who was there. Two were shot, but neither
16:46
Speaker 2: was killed. And I'll tell you something a fact I
16:49
Speaker 2: learned today at which I didn't know, which is when
16:52
Speaker 2: they had Maduro and the First Lady and the Cuban
16:56
Speaker 2: security forces were opening fire on them, and then they
17:00
Speaker 2: they were engaged in a firefight. Our soldiers blocked Maduro
17:05
Speaker 2: and the First Lady with their own bodies. No, they
17:07
Speaker 2: had body armor, but they were trying to make it
17:10
Speaker 2: un arrest that they actually treated it under the protocol
17:13
Speaker 2: for a hostage extraction because they didn't want them shot
17:17
Speaker 2: in the process. They wanted him to come back to
17:19
Speaker 2: the United States and faced prosecution and face justice. And
17:23
Speaker 2: so you want to talk about the bravery of Delta Force,
17:26
Speaker 2: literally putting their bodies with body armor in front of
17:31
Speaker 2: Maduro and the first Lady so that they didn't get
17:34
Speaker 2: shot by the Cuban. That's extraordinary. And I got to
17:40
Speaker 2: say so when I was talking with President Trump, he
17:43
Speaker 2: actually asked me he brought up He said, he brought
17:46
Speaker 2: up in the first term, his taking out General Solomoni
17:50
Speaker 2: in Iran. He talked about his taking out a bag Daddy.
17:54
Speaker 2: He talked about his launching the military bombing attack on
17:58
Speaker 2: the nuclear facilities, and he talked about this, and all
18:03
Speaker 2: of them were spectacular successes. And actually President Trump asked
18:07
Speaker 2: me a question. He said, ted, which was more important
18:11
Speaker 2: the nuclear facilities in Iran or take arresting Maduro actually stops.
18:18
Speaker 2: That's a hard one, I said, was President, that is
18:21
Speaker 2: a very good question. And I said, to be honest,
18:25
Speaker 2: it's really close. If you forced me to answer that,
18:29
Speaker 2: here's what I would say. I think taking out the
18:31
Speaker 2: nuclear facilities in Iran was more important geopolitically in terms
18:35
Speaker 2: of our national security. The Iyahtola with nuclear weapons could
18:39
Speaker 2: have murdered vast numbers of Americans, and so taking out
18:42
Speaker 2: those nuclear facilities made America much much safer. But I said,
18:47
Speaker 2: arresting Maduro is a very close second because it changed
18:52
Speaker 2: the entire geopolitical balance of power in the Western Hemisphere.
18:56
Speaker 2: And it's interesting the President said, you know, you know,
18:58
Speaker 2: I agree that that's exactly how I would run those
19:00
Speaker 2: two and so it was an interesting you know, Trump
19:03
Speaker 2: is rarely, i would say, deeply introspective. That's not just
19:09
Speaker 2: his nature, and he was kind of reflecting on that.
19:11
Speaker 2: We had a good conversation, and to be honest, I
19:13
Speaker 2: hadn't until he asked me that question. I hadn't really
19:16
Speaker 2: thought of. But hands down, those are the two most
19:20
Speaker 2: important foreign policy decisions that he's made. And in terms
19:25
Speaker 2: of the Western hemisphere, what does that mean. Well, let's
19:27
Speaker 2: take Cuba. Cuba is probably the country most impact and
19:30
Speaker 2: we talked about this a little on Monday's pod So
19:34
Speaker 2: Cuba for years, it's a communist dictatorship. It's been under
19:37
Speaker 2: communist control since Fidel Castro led a revolution that succeeded.
19:41
Speaker 3: In nineteen fifty nine.
19:42
Speaker 2: And the people, just like Venezuela, the communists in Cuba
19:47
Speaker 2: destroyed the economy that people suffer in misery and poverty.
19:51
Speaker 2: But they've been ruthless and for many decades. They survived
19:56
Speaker 2: in significant part because the Soviet Union sent him vast
19:58
Speaker 2: amounts of money, and so they were satellite power of
20:00
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. Obviously led to things like the Cuban
20:04
Speaker 2: Missile crisis, where the Soviets were trying to put missiles
20:08
Speaker 2: in Cuba to target the United States. But in the
20:11
Speaker 2: early nineteen nineties, when the Soviet Union collapsed, suddenly Cuba
20:16
Speaker 2: did not have that financial lifeline anymore. And when that happened,
20:21
Speaker 2: the country that stepped in was Venezuela. And because Venezuela
20:26
Speaker 2: has these massive oil reserves and at the time still
20:29
Speaker 2: had significant money. Essentially, the trade off that Venezuela has
20:33
Speaker 2: done for years is Venezuela sends massive amounts of oil
20:38
Speaker 2: to Cuba and it fuels the Cuban economy, what little
20:41
Speaker 2: of it there is, and Cuba in effect pays for
20:44
Speaker 2: it by sending thugs, by sending soldiers and guards. And
20:49
Speaker 2: the Cuban thugs they number one that they repress the
20:55
Speaker 2: Venezuelan people. They murder people, they torture people. But look,
20:58
Speaker 2: it speaks volume that Maduro's guards were the thirty two
21:03
Speaker 2: Cubans who were guarding him. I mean that's literally his
21:07
Speaker 2: armed forces around him.
21:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't Venezuelan armed forces, it was Cubans.
21:12
Speaker 2: And President Trump is continuing to enforce the oil blockade,
21:17
Speaker 2: so there is not Venezuelan oil flowing to Cuba right now.
21:21
Speaker 2: That is putting massive pressure on the Cuban economy. And
21:24
Speaker 2: I got to say, the communist leadership there is looking around.
21:28
Speaker 2: And number one, you want to talk about their military prowess.
21:31
Speaker 2: They had thirty two soldiers guarding Maduro. All thirty two
21:34
Speaker 2: Cuban soldiers are dead. Not a single US soldier lost
21:37
Speaker 2: his life. They're sitting there going okay, our days are numbered.
21:42
Speaker 2: And I'm hopeful one of the consequences of this will
21:46
Speaker 2: be a free Cuba, that the communist regime falls in Cuba.
21:50
Speaker 1: And that could be a fall because of just the
21:52
Speaker 1: economy totally collapsing and the lack of the lights literally
21:57
Speaker 1: staying on because of the oil not showing up.
22:00
Speaker 2: Yes, And I'll say more broadly, dictatorships depend upon the
22:06
Speaker 2: perception of strength, the perception of invulnerability. We're seeing this
22:11
Speaker 2: play out in Iran right now. In Iran, they're protests
22:13
Speaker 2: all over Iran on the streets and the people are
22:17
Speaker 2: rising up and regular listeners a verdict will recall that
22:21
Speaker 2: in the wake of President Trump or ordering the bombing
22:25
Speaker 2: on the Iranian nuclear facilities, I predicted on this podcast.
22:28
Speaker 2: I said, I think the Iotola and the Balahs their
22:31
Speaker 2: days are numbered. And here's why the Iatola lost a war.
22:37
Speaker 2: And there are real consequences in the real world when
22:40
Speaker 2: you lose a war. Now, first, they lost the Twelve
22:44
Speaker 2: Day War to Israel, and Israel took out all of
22:46
Speaker 2: their air defenses, took out much of their senior leadership,
22:49
Speaker 2: took out much of the IRGC, took out the head
22:51
Speaker 2: of the IRGC. Literally day after day after day they
22:54
Speaker 2: kept pointing someone new and he was killed the next day.
22:57
Speaker 2: And if you are a radical Islamist leader who not
23:04
Speaker 2: only loses a war, but loses a war to Israel, yeah,
23:09
Speaker 2: you know what, you ain't the supreme leader any war.
23:12
Speaker 2: You look weak and ineffective. And there's no ambiguity about it.
23:16
Speaker 2: There's no amount of spinning that can say no, no, no,
23:19
Speaker 2: we didn't lose. And then you put on top of that,
23:22
Speaker 2: the President of the United States bombs into oblivion your
23:26
Speaker 2: nuclear facilities. And what I said is, look, we don't
23:30
Speaker 2: have to send in the US military to Iran for
23:33
Speaker 2: the regime to fall. The regime is so weakened. My
23:37
Speaker 2: hope is the Iranian people will rise up. I think
23:40
Speaker 2: there's a real possibility that's happening right now, and they
23:43
Speaker 2: are weakened. The same is true certainly Venezuela. The fact
23:48
Speaker 2: that that Maduro was captured has weakened the communist regime there,
23:53
Speaker 2: But the communist regime in Cuba, the fact that their
23:57
Speaker 2: soldiers were just obliterated. Just like it weakens Iran, it
24:01
Speaker 2: weakens Cuba as well. And by the way, the same
24:04
Speaker 2: thing is true for Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua and other
24:08
Speaker 2: communists to Sandinista. The same thing is true for Gustavo
24:12
Speaker 2: Petro in Colombia, another radical left winger who's viciously anti American,
24:17
Speaker 2: and even Lula in Brazil. Now, Brazil is a more
24:21
Speaker 2: stable and stronger country than the other players, but Lula, Likewise,
24:25
Speaker 2: every leftist in Latin America who hates America and hates
24:30
Speaker 2: President Trump is materially weaker.
24:34
Speaker 3: And I believe a resting Maduro is going to result in.
24:41
Speaker 2: More freedom loving and America loving leaders in Latin America
24:46
Speaker 2: and more countries moving in the direction to be our friends.
24:51
Speaker 2: That's good for Latin America, but it's good for America.
24:53
Speaker 1: And there's another country when I ask you about, and
24:55
Speaker 1: that's Mexico. Yeah, you actually had a codell what three
25:00
Speaker 1: four months ago where you went down into Latin America.
25:03
Speaker 1: I would be very interested to see how that codell
25:05
Speaker 1: would go down today and what the conversations would be
25:09
Speaker 1: like with the leaders you met with today compared to
25:12
Speaker 1: Then let's talk a little bit about Mexico. It's pretty
25:16
Speaker 1: clear now that people are accepting the fact that it's
25:18
Speaker 1: a failed state. The narco terrorists are in charge of it.
25:22
Speaker 1: The president of Mexico is a figurehead at best. There's
25:26
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are asking the question is
25:29
Speaker 1: that now I guess you could say the reality of
25:31
Speaker 1: this because of what we are witnessing, and maybe she
25:35
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be as strong as she was before.
25:37
Speaker 1: What does this mean for the narco terrorists there? And
25:40
Speaker 1: what does this mean for America's response? And is this
25:42
Speaker 1: also an opportunity with us to stop the flow of drugs.
25:45
Speaker 1: We stopped the human trafficking, we stopped the illegal immigrants
25:48
Speaker 1: coming across the border. That's amazing, But there's still a
25:51
Speaker 1: lot of drugs that are in Mexico that come into
25:53
Speaker 1: the United States of America find their way in. So
25:55
Speaker 1: what does this do now for Donald Trump's hand and
25:58
Speaker 1: our national securities? Time and the drugs the same we
26:00
Speaker 1: did in Venezuela.
26:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.
26:02
Speaker 2: Look, so I think what you said about Claudia Scheinbaum,
26:04
Speaker 2: the president of Mexico, is too strong. I would not
26:08
Speaker 2: describe Mexico as a failed state, and I think she
26:11
Speaker 2: is in a fundamentally different position than a Maduro or
26:17
Speaker 2: the other communist dictators in Latin America. She is a leftist.
26:22
Speaker 2: She's following Amlo who was elected as a leftist. But listen,
26:25
Speaker 2: Mexico and the United States have massive trade and commerce
26:29
Speaker 2: back and forth. We cooperate on a great, great deal
26:35
Speaker 2: of matters. You know, we've talked on this podcast before
26:38
Speaker 2: about Mexican water.
26:39
Speaker 3: There's a water treaty called the Water.
26:41
Speaker 2: Treaty of nineteen forty four that obligates Mexico to provide
26:45
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty thousand acre feet of water a
26:47
Speaker 2: year to South Texas, and under Biden, the Biden administration
26:51
Speaker 2: didn't enforce that treaty and Mexico walked all over US
26:54
Speaker 2: and ended up being one point three million acre feet
26:58
Speaker 2: of water in arrears. Now what if that means a
27:00
Speaker 2: practical matter. It meant that the farmers in South Texas
27:04
Speaker 2: were facing a drought, not a natural disaster, but a
27:06
Speaker 2: man made disaster. It was caused by the Mexican government
27:09
Speaker 2: defying their treaty obligations. And by the way, the Mexicans
27:13
Speaker 2: were diverting that water from South Texas to the farmers
27:17
Speaker 2: in northern Mexico. And so the drought in South Texas,
27:20
Speaker 2: you had farmers who were taking about half their acreage
27:23
Speaker 2: out of production, were laying off workers. The only sugar
27:26
Speaker 2: mill in Texas in twenty twenty four closed down because
27:30
Speaker 2: of the drought caused by Mexico defying the treaty. And
27:35
Speaker 2: the farms in northern Mexico were lush and verdant. I
27:38
Speaker 2: mean they were a wash in water. And I spent
27:41
Speaker 2: the entire Biden presidency trying to get the Biden State
27:43
Speaker 2: Department stand up to Mexico.
27:45
Speaker 3: They refused to do so.
27:46
Speaker 2: When Trump came in, I went to him directly and
27:50
Speaker 2: asked him, and in fact I worked with him to
27:52
Speaker 2: draft a tweet that he sent that made very clear.
27:55
Speaker 2: He threatened Mexico, if you don't give the water that
27:58
Speaker 2: Texas deserves, were going to impost sanctions or tariffs. The
28:03
Speaker 2: day President Trump sent the tweet, and to be clear,
28:06
Speaker 2: it was a tweet that I helped write. Yeah, that night,
28:10
Speaker 2: Claudia Scheinbaum called an emergency cabinet meeting at seven pm
28:14
Speaker 2: that evening to decide how to respond, and she responded
28:17
Speaker 2: by releasing about four hundred thousand acre feet of water,
28:21
Speaker 2: which was enormously helpful to the farmers in South Texas.
28:24
Speaker 2: And then just in December, the Mexicans had started slow
28:29
Speaker 2: walking the water again, and so I went to Trump again.
28:31
Speaker 2: I went to the Oval and Number one, I told
28:33
Speaker 2: him the story of like the emergency cabinet meeting, which
28:36
Speaker 2: I don't know that he had heard the blow by
28:38
Speaker 2: blow of what had happened. But then I said, look,
28:42
Speaker 2: they're slow walking it again. Would you send another tweet?
28:44
Speaker 2: He said, sure, draft something for me and we'll do
28:46
Speaker 2: it within like a day or two. He sent out
28:49
Speaker 2: the other tweet, and he said, look, we're going to
28:51
Speaker 2: respond forcibly against Mexico unless you agree to provide us
28:57
Speaker 2: that they owe us for under the treaty a little
29:00
Speaker 2: eight hundred thousand acre feet of water remaining, and Mexico agreed,
29:04
Speaker 2: we're going to.
29:04
Speaker 3: Provide the water.
29:05
Speaker 2: So I will say Mexico, look, look, Claudia Schinbaum is
29:11
Speaker 2: no doubt disturbed by seeing Maduro weekend. And Mexico had
29:16
Speaker 2: to some extent aligned with the Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Columbia access.
29:21
Speaker 2: But Mexico also has very close relationships with the United States,
29:25
Speaker 2: so it stands on a different footing.
29:26
Speaker 3: But you're right.
29:27
Speaker 2: In August, when I was in Mexico meeting with senior
29:30
Speaker 2: government officials, I said, listen, you guys are either going
29:33
Speaker 2: to go after the narco traffickers who are in Mexico,
29:36
Speaker 2: the cartels who became massively powerful under Biden, or if
29:40
Speaker 2: you don't go after them. I said, I believe Donald
29:43
Speaker 2: Trump will, and they were skeptical. I got to tell you.
29:46
Speaker 2: One of my senior foreign policy guy was on the
29:49
Speaker 2: trip with.
29:50
Speaker 3: Me and he argued with me.
29:52
Speaker 2: And what he argued with me at the time is
29:54
Speaker 2: he said, I think Trump will go after Venezuela before Mexico,
30:00
Speaker 2: And I said, I don't know about that. I think
30:02
Speaker 2: the Mexican cartells he's very focused on it. Well, it
30:05
Speaker 2: turned out he maintains we made a bet on it.
30:08
Speaker 2: I don't recall any wager, but he.
30:11
Speaker 1: I believe that there was a bet. Now I totally
30:13
Speaker 1: believe it because I know you're talking about it. I'm
30:15
Speaker 1: going to side on this one for sure.
30:18
Speaker 2: I am skeptical that there was any wager, but I
30:21
Speaker 2: will say you're right for Mexico. Also, I have every
30:26
Speaker 2: confidence that it is going to focus the mind of
30:28
Speaker 2: the administration that when the Trump administration says let's go
30:33
Speaker 2: after the narco traffickers, they better cooperate or bad things
30:37
Speaker 2: can happen. And I think that's a great thing. As
30:41
Speaker 2: I told the President yesterday when I talked to him,
30:43
Speaker 2: I said, listen, the world is safer, the world is
30:45
Speaker 2: better off. America is safer when we have a strong
30:48
Speaker 2: commander in chief as compared to a weak commander in
30:51
Speaker 2: chief as compared to Joe Biden. And I'll tell you
30:53
Speaker 2: Trump and I both talked about We both immediately went
30:55
Speaker 2: to the same analogy, which was Jimmy Carter when he
31:00
Speaker 2: in a rescue team to rescue our hostages in Iran
31:03
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine, and that rescue team crashed in
31:09
Speaker 2: the desert. Two helicopters crashed into each other, and there
31:12
Speaker 2: was no opposing fire. They hadn't even gotten there, they
31:15
Speaker 2: just crashed and it was at Actually Trump asked me
31:18
Speaker 2: the following question. He said, do you think Carter would
31:22
Speaker 2: have lost if those helicopters hadn't crashed?
31:25
Speaker 3: And I said, I don't know.
31:26
Speaker 2: It's a very good question. And he said, or if
31:29
Speaker 2: there hadn't been a hostage crisis. I said, that's a
31:31
Speaker 2: really good question. I said, I think Carter lost for
31:34
Speaker 2: two big reasons. One, the economy was a disaster and
31:37
Speaker 2: he screwed it up badly. And two the incredible weakness
31:41
Speaker 2: of the hostage crisis. Americans don't like a week president.
31:43
Speaker 2: I think those two are what elected Ronald Reagan. And
31:47
Speaker 2: I told President Trump, I said, we don't have to
31:49
Speaker 2: go all the way back to Carter.
31:51
Speaker 3: We can go to Joe Biden.
31:52
Speaker 2: Joe Biden lost and you won number one because he
31:56
Speaker 2: screwed up the economy, and number two for the same thing.
31:59
Speaker 2: Four and policy weakness. And it's why I said that
32:02
Speaker 2: President Trump showed so much courage by ordering this attack
32:06
Speaker 2: because these things can go wrong.
32:08
Speaker 3: Now.
32:08
Speaker 2: I think part of the reason the military was so
32:10
Speaker 2: effective is he's he's taken the shackles off them and
32:15
Speaker 2: let them focused on war fighting, on doing their job,
32:18
Speaker 2: on being effective. You don't have a bunch of.
32:20
Speaker 1: Lawyers anymore right before. You don't have a bunch of
32:24
Speaker 1: dudes acting like chicks that are trying to get me
32:26
Speaker 1: armed forces.
32:26
Speaker 3: That that that's exactly right.
32:29
Speaker 2: And he allows them to focus on excellence and performing
32:33
Speaker 2: their job of keeping this country safe and and and
32:37
Speaker 2: it was an extraordinary operation in Venezuela.
32:41
Speaker 1: It really was. So let's go to Venezuelan now and
32:44
Speaker 1: rap with this what is next? And let me just
32:48
Speaker 1: I could look at my Twitter feed and I was
32:50
Speaker 1: on CNN last night and it was the topic of conversation,
32:55
Speaker 1: and that is there are a lot of people that
32:57
Speaker 1: believe that America First policy that Donald Trump ran on
33:01
Speaker 1: was not invading countries and staying indefinitely like Iraq, Afghanistan.
33:07
Speaker 1: There is a lot of concern. I heard it. You
33:11
Speaker 1: probably saw the clip of Lindsey Graham on Air Force
33:13
Speaker 1: One with the President saying, you know, this is the
33:15
Speaker 1: guy that loves to be in these forever wars. And
33:17
Speaker 1: there was people that were really concerned with that image
33:20
Speaker 1: of if that's who's in his ear. I don't want
33:22
Speaker 1: to get bogged down in Venezuela. I don't want our
33:26
Speaker 1: men and women to be there and the loss of
33:28
Speaker 1: life to mount and grow because we decide to take
33:32
Speaker 1: over a country indefinitely. There's a lot of people that
33:34
Speaker 1: voted for Trump. They believe that's what he was never
33:37
Speaker 1: going to do, and now they're like, well, hold on,
33:39
Speaker 1: we're here, we're going to take it over. There is
33:41
Speaker 1: a lot of concerns, So let's dive into that and
33:43
Speaker 1: talk about what this looks like next to Venezuela. What
33:46
Speaker 1: is responsibility, what responsibiity? Do we have to do it
33:50
Speaker 1: the right way, but also to not just sit there indefinitely.
33:54
Speaker 2: Well, listen, first of all, let me be clear, we
33:56
Speaker 2: are not at war with Venezuela. This is not a
34:00
Speaker 2: forever war. It's not even a war. This was a
34:03
Speaker 2: military operation to execute an arrest warrant. It was the
34:07
Speaker 2: military supporting the FBI and arresting indicted narco terrorists and
34:13
Speaker 2: it took a couple of hours and was over. They
34:14
Speaker 2: went in, they got them, and they left. That was
34:17
Speaker 2: the conclusion of the military conflict.
34:19
Speaker 3: It's not a war.
34:20
Speaker 2: It's not as I said, it's not a forever war.
34:22
Speaker 2: It was not even a five hour war. It was
34:24
Speaker 2: about a two hour war. And I wouldn't even call
34:27
Speaker 2: it a war. It was when you go and arrest someone,
34:30
Speaker 2: it was an arrest with the military supporting and protecting
34:34
Speaker 2: the law enforcement officers carrying out the arrest. What happens next. So,
34:41
Speaker 2: the day after Maduro was arrested, Delci Rodriguez, who was
34:45
Speaker 2: the vice president, was sworn in as the interim president. Now, listen,
34:50
Speaker 2: no American should be happy with Delsi Rodriguez as the
34:54
Speaker 2: president of Venezuela for any extended period of time. And
34:57
Speaker 2: I'm going to go into a little bit of background
34:58
Speaker 2: in terms of who she is and then talk about
35:01
Speaker 2: what should happen next. Now, Now, Delsia Rodriguez is a communist. Yes,
35:05
Speaker 2: she was the vice president. She hates America. Let me
35:07
Speaker 2: give you some of her background. She was the vice president.
35:13
Speaker 2: Before that, she was the oil minister, and she was
35:18
Speaker 2: she is a lawyer to like the first lady, and
35:21
Speaker 2: she's been in in just about every post she was. Also,
35:25
Speaker 2: she was foreign minister, she was President of the Constituent Assembly,
35:29
Speaker 2: vice president and oil Minister. She was sworn in as
35:33
Speaker 2: the interim president. You know who swore in? Here's that
35:36
Speaker 2: her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, who is the head of the
35:39
Speaker 2: National Assembly. So to understand this is is a corrupt Marxist,
35:46
Speaker 2: communist America hating woman.
35:48
Speaker 3: And let me give you her background. She was born
35:50
Speaker 3: in Caracas.
35:51
Speaker 2: She is the daughter of a Marxist Gorilla leader named
35:55
Speaker 2: Jorge Antonio Rodriguez, and she is a rather Her dad
36:01
Speaker 2: was a co founder of the Socialist League.
36:03
Speaker 3: Her dad was arrested.
36:06
Speaker 2: In connection with the nineteen seventy six kidnapping of American
36:09
Speaker 2: businessman William F. Niehouse and died in police custody, and
36:17
Speaker 2: one source said the following that Ordeal is the foundation
36:22
Speaker 2: and origin of Delce's hatred of the West and of democracy.
36:28
Speaker 2: Her whole background was Marxist and in fact, the source continued,
36:34
Speaker 2: the Gorilla Marxist element kidnapped at American executive nineteen seventy six.
36:39
Speaker 2: He was held for three years until authorities located the
36:43
Speaker 2: group hiding in the Amazon jungle.
36:48
Speaker 3: She is She was.
36:50
Speaker 2: Sanctioned by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign asset control.
36:57
Speaker 2: Because of her senior role in the Maduau administration, those
37:01
Speaker 2: sanctions are still in place. She was also caught transporting
37:07
Speaker 2: gold illegally into Spain. She had forty bags four zero
37:12
Speaker 2: bags full of gold in a private jet as the
37:15
Speaker 2: vice president, and they put the bags through the X
37:18
Speaker 2: ray and they said, wait, you got forty bags full
37:20
Speaker 2: of gold, and she was.
37:23
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm from Venezuela. This is normal, this is
37:25
Speaker 1: how we operate there. I'm the vice president. Right, that's
37:27
Speaker 1: some big deal.
37:28
Speaker 2: Look, she is a communist leader and she is not
37:32
Speaker 2: a friend of the West. Now, I will say this
37:36
Speaker 2: right now, it appears she's cooperating with the Trump administration.
37:40
Speaker 2: I'm sure it made an impression seeing Delta for show
37:43
Speaker 2: up at arrest Madua.
37:44
Speaker 3: In the first lady.
37:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, she could be next.
37:48
Speaker 2: She's cooperating right now. We'll see if she continues to cooperate.
37:52
Speaker 2: By the way, there are multiple reports of violence on
37:55
Speaker 2: the ground. There have been reports of potential coups from
37:58
Speaker 2: other leaders in the government. There is some stability, but
38:00
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what needs to happen. No one should
38:03
Speaker 2: be happy. Number one. What you said is exactly right.
38:07
Speaker 2: We do not want to see an American occupation. We
38:10
Speaker 2: don't want to see an extended American presence on the ground,
38:13
Speaker 2: and we don't want to see this America hating communists,
38:19
Speaker 2: essentially the Madurea regime continuing. What should happen is free
38:24
Speaker 2: and fair elections, and free and fair elections. Look, the
38:27
Speaker 2: last election we talked about in the last podcast that
38:32
Speaker 2: Madua was arrested because he's an arco trafficker, but he
38:34
Speaker 2: was also arrested because he's illegitimate because in the last
38:38
Speaker 2: election he lost decisively to the opposition party, and yet
38:41
Speaker 2: he stayed in power just as a thug and dictator.
38:44
Speaker 2: And that was part of the legal basis for why
38:47
Speaker 2: we could do this, because he was no longer legitimately
38:49
Speaker 2: ahead of state and he was not recognized as the
38:52
Speaker 2: head of state by the United States, including the Biden
38:54
Speaker 2: administration and much of the rest of the world. There
38:59
Speaker 2: should be free in fair elections, and I think it
39:01
Speaker 2: would be very very good for Venezuela and very very
39:05
Speaker 2: good for America if they were to elect a leader
39:09
Speaker 2: who who is a pro America, pro free market leader
39:14
Speaker 2: and Venezuela were to return to being a friend. Particularly
39:18
Speaker 2: look one of the big things. They've got the largest
39:21
Speaker 2: proven oil reserves of any country in the world.
39:24
Speaker 1: And it really is amazing that if you think about
39:26
Speaker 1: the amount of oil they have and also gold, that
39:30
Speaker 1: how quickly they could come out of this. If they
39:32
Speaker 1: just didn't have communists running the country like this is
39:35
Speaker 1: this would be one of the easiest is. I was
39:37
Speaker 1: described today by a banker and he was he was
39:40
Speaker 1: just trying to put in perspective. He's like, when other
39:43
Speaker 1: countries fall, then they need the World Bank. Then he'd
39:45
Speaker 1: be able to come in and give him cash and
39:46
Speaker 1: and and and and to help just stabilize at the
39:50
Speaker 1: bare minimum of the total collapse of their economy. He said,
39:52
Speaker 1: if you asked me right now, what country would I
39:55
Speaker 1: want to be able to take over based on their
39:57
Speaker 1: resources to build them back up the fastest. He was like,
40:00
Speaker 1: Venezuela is like one of the easiest ones in the
40:03
Speaker 1: whole world to do because of how minutes they have
40:07
Speaker 1: to sell. They could get their economy up and roaring,
40:10
Speaker 1: and the people could have a great life. And they
40:13
Speaker 1: used to have that. By the way that Venezuela people
40:15
Speaker 1: forget that.
40:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, remember in nineteen fifty Venezuela had the fourth highest
40:20
Speaker 2: GDP per capita in the world. The United States was first,
40:24
Speaker 2: then Switzerland, then New Zealand, and Venezuela.
40:26
Speaker 3: Was number four. That's what these communists screwed up. And listen.
40:30
Speaker 2: President Trump has focused a great deal on trying to
40:33
Speaker 2: get US oil companies to go and invest in Venezuela
40:36
Speaker 2: now to produce the oil.
40:38
Speaker 3: And even though they have.
40:38
Speaker 2: Proven reserves, their infrastructure has collapsed. It's good the corruption
40:43
Speaker 2: of the communism. They're not producing what they could, and
40:48
Speaker 2: to be able to produce will take an investment of
40:52
Speaker 2: likely hundreds of billions of dollars. It's not a cheap proposition. Now,
40:57
Speaker 2: the oil that will be produced would generate more revenue
41:00
Speaker 2: than that. But I'll tell you I actually spent a
41:03
Speaker 2: good chunk of the day talking to people in the
41:05
Speaker 2: energy industry and asking their views on Venezuela. And a
41:09
Speaker 2: big question that if you're let's say you're the CEO
41:13
Speaker 2: of Chevron or the CEO of ex On Mobile, and
41:15
Speaker 2: you're trying to decide do I invest tens of billions
41:19
Speaker 2: or hundreds of billions? Your number one question is what's
41:22
Speaker 2: the government there? Are they stable? Is their rule of law?
41:26
Speaker 2: Are they going to protect me or are they going
41:27
Speaker 2: to seize am I going to invest one hundred billion
41:29
Speaker 2: dollars and they come seize the assets like they did before.
41:32
Speaker 2: If you don't trust the government there to protect your pity,
41:37
Speaker 2: you're not going to invest. And it's why having free
41:40
Speaker 2: and fair elections and a stable government that is friends
41:43
Speaker 2: of the United States, that that is not Communists is
41:47
Speaker 2: critical to the success, uh, not just to Venezuela, but
41:52
Speaker 2: to the success of America's relationship with Venezuela. And so
41:56
Speaker 2: I will say, you know, there's some folks you're seeing
42:00
Speaker 2: people are saying, well, no, no, no, this this was not
42:03
Speaker 2: regime change because we just arrested Maduro. But the exact
42:06
Speaker 2: same regime is in place. And let me be clear
42:09
Speaker 2: this I very much hope will be regime change at
42:13
Speaker 2: the ballot box, which is a very different thing. That
42:16
Speaker 2: it will be the voters that that there will be
42:18
Speaker 2: a free and fair elections and the voters will choose
42:21
Speaker 2: We don't want these corrupt Marxist Narco traffickers. We want
42:26
Speaker 2: a leader that we choose to represent us and to
42:29
Speaker 2: bring us back to prosperity. And if you want prosperity
42:32
Speaker 2: in Venezuela. You want free enterprise, you want incentives for
42:37
Speaker 2: investment to develop the massive natural resources, and you want
42:41
Speaker 2: to trade with the United States of America. And so
42:43
Speaker 2: that's the outcome all of us should be rooting for.
42:46
Speaker 2: And I believe that's the outcome President Trump is working
42:49
Speaker 2: very hard to produce.
42:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be very interesting to see.
42:53
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep covering it. I can promise you that
42:56
Speaker 1: don't forget. We did this show Monday, Wednesday Friday, and
42:58
Speaker 1: if you miss part one of our deep dive into
43:01
Speaker 1: Venezuela and what has happened, make sure you go back
43:03
Speaker 1: and grab Monday's podcast wherever you get your podcasts, And
43:07
Speaker 1: also you can watch your episodes on YouTube. Subscribe to
43:10
Speaker 1: channel there. It's free. Also on Facebook, you can do
43:12
Speaker 1: that as well. Follow The Center and Night on x
43:14
Speaker 1: and we will keep you up to date on everything
43:16
Speaker 1: going on in the world and The Center and I
43:17
Speaker 1: will see you back here Friday morning.