1/3/25: BREAKING: TRUMP BOMBS VENEZUELA, KIDNAPS MADURO

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

0:31on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So no, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:28Monday from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, guys, woke up to some wild news this morning. Regime change in Venezuela. The president has announced that we have struck within Venezuela and abducted and kidnapped the president, Nicolas Maduro, along with his wife, who apparently set to face charges in the Southern District of New York. Obviously, this has been built up for some time with all of these strikes on various boats and the rhetorical case being made that Maduro is the head of a drug trafficking ring. There is zero evidence to back this up.

2:10And at other times, administration officials and their allies have made plain that their actual interest in Venezuela has to do with the natural resources there and specifically the oil. So here we go. Let me put up on the screen what the president posted initially to social media, to Truth Social. He said the United States of America has successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country. This operation was done in conjunction with the U.S. law enforcement. Details to follow, there will be a news conference today at 11 a.m.

2:43at Mar-a-Lago. Let me go ahead and give you what Pam Bondi, the attorney general, is saying about these charges. She says Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores have been indicted in the Southern District of New York. Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States. They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil and American courts. On behalf of the entire U.S. DOJ, I'd like to thank President Trump for having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American people.

3:20A huge thank you to our brave military who conducted this incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers. I will remind you that just shortly, short time ago, Trump pardoned an actual drug trafficker, Juan Orlando Hernandez, former president of Honduras, seemingly because some of Trump's tech oligarch buddies were mad about their Prospero crypto So fiefdom being undermined in that country. But in any case, if you had any illusion that Trump actually cares about the drugs, that should be thoroughly dismantled by the fact of his recent pardon of that former president of Honduras, one Orlando Hernandez, who actually was involved in drug smuggling and drug trafficking.

4:09Here we go. Trump on Fox and Friends talking about the incredible raid, as he describes it, that captured, kidnapped Maduro and his wife. Let's go and take a listen to this. Had quite a busy evening. Tell us about it. It was slightly busy, I would say. It was very dark all over, especially in Venezuela. The team did an incredible job. They rehearsed and practiced like nobody's ever seen. And I was told, and I was told by real military people that there's no other country on earth that can do such a maneuver. If you would have seen what happened, I mean, I watched it literally like I was watching a television show.

4:50And if you would have seen the speed, the violence, you know, they say that, the speed, the violence, they use that term. It's just, it was an amazing thing, an amazing job that these people did. Nobody else could have done anything like it. You're at Mar-a-Lago right now. How were you able to watch this? Well, we watched it from a room. We had a room and we watched it and we watched every aspect of it. We were surrounded by lots of people, including generals, and they knew everything that was happening. And it was very complex, extremely complex, the whole maneuver, the landings, the number of aircraft, which were a massive number, the number of helicopters, the different type of helicopters, different type of fighter jets.

5:35We had a fighter jet for every possible situation. And they just broke in and they broke into places that were not really able to be broke into, you know, steel doors that were put there for just this reason. And they got taken out in a matter of seconds. I've never seen anything like And you were able to watch this in real time. Yeah, don't forget, I've done some pretty good ones in other parts of the world, okay? I've done some pretty good ones, but I've never seen anything like this. I was able to watch it in real time, and I watched every aspect of it, and I listened to the communication between, you know, where we were in Florida and out in the field in Venezuela, and it was amazing to see the professionalism, The quality of leadership, the professionalism, General Raisin Cain is fantastic.

6:30Don't forget, we did another one not so long ago. It was called the knocking out of the Iranian nuclear threat, the nuclear power. That was unbelievable what they did there. And this is something that, gee, I don't know, it's amazing. And to have a few injuries but no death on our side is really amazing. So there you go. That is what the president is telling Fox and Friends this morning. I do have a guest who's going to join me momentarily, the head of the Latin American desk for DropSite News, to break down what we know and what this means. Obviously, incredibly significant geopolitical ramifications here.

7:19So definitely want to get to him in a moment. But first, I just wanted to give you a little bit more this rundown from People's Dispatch about what we know. At this point, you know, we have learned a little bit more since this was posted. But if I could go through here a little bit of their report. They talk about how explosions were reported at key military bases, civilian areas and other sites across the Venezuelan capital of Gracchus and surrounding areas in the early hours. Venezuelan government sent an official statement the attack was perpetrated by the U.S. and constitutes a grave military aggression against Venezuelan territory and population.

7:54They go on to talk about the Trump Truth Social Post. They say Venezuelan Vice President Delce Rodriguez spoke to Telesur shortly after confirmed that following this brutal situation, brutal attack, we are unaware of the whereabouts of the president, Nicolas Maduro, and that of the First Lady Celia Flores. Now, one thing that is worth noting here is that apparently, you know, the vice president is now in charge. So while Maduro has been kidnapped and removed to face charges in the U.S., which, I mean, you guys can only imagine how the U.S. would react if our president was kidnapped. But in any case, the rest of their administration appears to be intact and in control.

8:38So not the Nobel Peace Prize winning opposition leader, U.S. puppet Machado, but continues to be Delce Rodriguez and the rest of Maduro's administration so far appears to continue to be in control. So that is very significant. I also wanted to show you here they have a list of the sites that have been struck, according to sources in Venezuela. They say Tiona Fort, major military complex in the southwest of Caracas, La Carlota Base and Air Base in Caracas, and La Guerra Port and Naval Command, forgive my lack of Spanish pronunciation, Port Facility and Naval Command located in La Guerra State, Higurote Airport, airport in the coastal town in the state of Miranda.

9:24So those are the places that we know have been struck at this point. And with that, for additional reaction analysis, I'm going to go ahead and get to Jose Luis Granado Ceja, who is the head of the Latin America desk for DropSite News. Jose Luis, great to have you. Welcome. Thank you much for having me. Yeah, of course. So let me just get your reaction to the events as we understand them at this point. Well, what we just saw was absolutely extraordinary. I think this was always a possibility. I talked about the potential for decapitation moves, trying to go after the Venezuelan leadership. And it seems that that's precisely what happened last night in the morning, early morning of Saturday, where U.S.

10:07forces unilaterally attacked Venezuela, should be understood as such. This is yet another act of aggression, yet another act of war against Venezuela in particular, but I think against Latin America in general. Kidnapping the president, I think that's the accurate term. You know, there's talk about him being captured. I believe he's being held prisoner as a captive on the Iwo Jima, which is one of the many boats that was stationed just off the coast of Venezuela with this massive mobilization of the U.S. Navy. A fourth of the Navy is still in Caribbean waters. This situation is what we always feared what would happen.

10:42And it appears that the U.S. has successfully kidnapped Nicolás Maduro and set a terrible precedent for the region, for the country. I think we are in a new day here in Latin America as a result of what happened. What do you see as the motivation for this attack and kidnapping? So we have a lot of important actors inside of Washington in the White House right now who are dead set on finishing off any leftist progressive government in the region. Obviously, their biggest targets were Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, who have always been a thorn in the side of the U.S. and been a force against U.S. imperialism here in the region.

11:19And so all of that response to that, everything that we've seen over the last few months is a response to that drive by these actors, including Trump as well, of course, who were seeking to oust by any means necessary these leftist progressive revolutionary governments in the region. and, you know, the attacks on the extrajudicial executions that were happening, this land strike that happened a few weeks ago, and now obviously with the kidnapping of the president, it's just the latest iteration of a very long, a decades-long regime change effort. Venezuela is now a country that has seen two of its presidents kidnapped.

11:53To remember in 2002, the U.S.-backed coup against Hugo Chavez that briefly deposed him. He was held prisoner for two days as well, although he eventually was returned thanks to the uprising of the people. We're already seeing the population mobilizing in Venezuela. But this is what it is. It's regime change. It's regime change using violent, deadly methods. There's already reports of civilians being killed as a result of these U.S. strikes inside of Venezuela and this effort to kidnap Nicolás Maduro. And so all of that is because, on the one hand, as I said, the Bolivarian Revolution, this process that was started with the election of Hugo Chávez back in 1998, is always something that represented a threat to U.S.

12:29elites, to U.S. hegemony in the region. But it's also about resources. I mean, Trump has said as much in those words that it's about the oil. It's about the oil. It's about the gold. It's about the natural resources. Right now, it looks like the revolutionary regime is still in control of the country. It doesn't appear that the opposition is in a position to be able to try to seize power, which means that they actually won't have access to these resources. The situation has dramatically changed. I find it difficult to imagine any kind of negotiations happening with the U.S. now, except for the release of the president.

13:00And so there will probably still be that impulse in Washington in the White House to continue to try to find a way to have access to those resources. That's what this is really about. From the South Florida contingent. I mean, that is one of the things that is puzzling here is, you know, reportedly Maduro had offered, hey, if you want access to our resources, no problem. them. Now you're going to have a much more hostile, you know, head of the regime in place after you, you know, took these aggressive illegal acts and kidnapped their president. So what do you make of the fact that, you know, as of right now, Maduro's vice president is in charge of the country.

13:37So, yes, it's a regime change in the sense that the president has been, you know, kidnapped and deposed, but the rest of the regime is still intact and in place. Well, the United States had been escalating and escalating first with the deployment of these ships into the Caribbean, then with the extrajudicial executions, the strikes in the Eastern Pacific as well. You know, clearly we're trying to send a message, but they had kind of painted themselves into a corner because as we well have seen, Maduro wasn't willing to go. The only reason he's not in charge today is because he's been kidnapped.

14:06And so that put, you know, basically two unstoppable forces that eventually ran into each other. And this appears to be the sort of action where Trump can try to walk away from the conundrum that he has created in South America to say, well, we took out Maduro. That's what we wanted. This is a law enforcement action. But there are still very important forces that are going to continue to push for the end of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. That's what is also going to be on the table in the coming days and weeks, or maybe perhaps longer, in terms of what is going to happen next. I imagine that they're going to try to use this as an endpoint for them, but I don't really think that that's going to be successful because we have to understand that initially, these strikes on these alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean, these all started as an effort to appease the Florida Gusano lobby, to try to get them on board actually way back when there were negotiations around the big, beautiful bill.

14:58These lawmakers, these representatives were seeking for Trump to end the Chevron license, to end Chevron's activities in Venezuela, to send a single to their allies in the hard right reactionary opposition in Venezuela that the U.S. was still there for them. Because Trump wasn't willing to do that, he turned to this, this so-called drug operation, which really, as we said earlier, is really about regime change in order to win their support. And he did. But they're going to keep pushing for that. They're not going to be okay with Delcy Rodriguez or the Odeado Cabello, key figures in Venezuela politics, in power.

15:31And so I don't think this is actually going to represent an end. And of course, we have to think about the Venezuelan response and the broader response from Latin America. I really do think that there are a lot of elected leaders in this region who are wondering what this means for their relationship with the United States. I mean, I think about Mexico, for example, he has used similar language to describe Morena, the ruling party here in Mexico, saying that they're tied to drugs, that the drugs cartels run Mexico, you know, classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. How do we know he won't use the same arguments against Mexico.

16:04He's already tried to use them against Petro in Colombia. So this is really a major crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Can you talk a little bit more about these drug trafficking allegations just to kind of put this to bed? Because, you know, Susie Wiles, who's Trump's chief of staff, told Vanity Fair magazine that it would be illegal to to strike in Venezuela, to have some sort of land strikes in Venezuela without congressional authorization. Well, no congressional authorization was sought. or received. So they are using this pretext of, oh, well, we've indicted him and he's a drug trafficker and this was all in self-defense.

16:42And that's why we're able to do it without congressional authorization, which I think is total and complete bullshit. But in any case, can you talk about this flimsy pretext of claiming that Maduro is some sort of drug trafficker and that being the justification here and the rationale for why they kidnapped him? Flimsy is the right word. There is no real justification for this. Any legal analysts worth their salt would tell you as such. What the United States did is clearly illegal. It's yet another example of the United States trying to apply its laws extraterritorially. Within the United States, of course, it's their freedom to do what they want in terms of exercising legal authority inside of their borders, inside of their territorial waters.

17:24But this is clearly an action outside of that, trying to enforce U.S. law in this way. We've seen it before. There are historic presidents for this. Obviously, I'm thinking about Manuel López-Gas in Panama. But no, there's no legality to this, nor is there any legality to the extrajudicial executions. And yet, unfortunately, because I think there wasn't enough pushback against those, you know, policymakers felt emboldened to do something like this, to continue to flout international humanitarian law. As we also saw in the genocide against the Palestinian people, we live in a very, very dangerous world where it really doesn't carry any weight anymore.

17:56And it's might makes right, apparently. And that's what we saw here. There is no in terms of the actual allegations of narco trafficking. They're all an invention. The cartel of the sons, which is the one that they claim that Maduro is the head of, does not even exist. And it's the UN that says it. It's DEA reports that say it. The Cartel of the Sons is not an actual cartel in the way that we usually understand that term. There may be individual elements within the Venezuelan state who are engaged in drug trafficking, as there is in a lot of states of Latin America because of the massive demand from the United States for drugs to come into their territory.

18:29But that doesn't mean that Maduro is the head of our cartel or even the Tren d 'Arabia. You know, this has been overstated. It's a criminal organization, but it's not a cartel in the, you know, when you think about, you know, the ones that operate in Mexico, for example, right? The Cartel Jalisco Nueva La Generación, for example. This is a criminal group that kind of uses this name as branding in order to intimidate and to exercise influence over certain Venezuelans in particular. But Latin American migrants who are in the region, they're not an organization the way that they've been depicted.

18:55It is like we saw, you know, in the early 2000s, rhetoric, a campaign to try to manufacture consent for what are clearly illegal actions. I've heard this Panama comparison quite frequently. So maybe you could lay out for people what we did there and why people I mean, obviously, the Iraq war example is not necessarily one that this administration wants to replicate. So the Panama example is the one that I see the Trump regime's allies sort of putting forward as the model here. Yeah, you know, I've seen other reports online. I forget what the source was. But basically, Panama is viewed as a success inside of the Pentagon, whereas Iraq is a conundrum, a failure in a lot of ways.

19:42The thing to focus on here, I think, is, you know, that brazen attitude, that unhindered way that the U.S. operates in the region of thinking it has the authority to do this. The difference with Panama, beyond the size of the country and its geopolitical importance, you know, with respect to oil, for example, when it comes to Venezuela, is also that the U.S. already had thousands of troops inside of Panama because of the canal zone and the rest of it. And so, you know, the ability to quickly affect regime change in Panama did happen, right? They were able to put in, you know, a puppet regime that kind of, you know, dissolved everything that Noriega had done previously.

20:19Noriega was obviously captured, taken to the United States and is still in prison or was imprisoned in the United States because of that operation. This one's different because there's no troops in the United States. It appears inside of Venezuela at this point. It appears it was strictly focused on finding, capturing and kidnapping Maduro. Apparently, according to New York Times, it was CIA informant inside of Maduro's inner circle that actually allowed them to know his location. And so that probably is the reason why it facilitated the quick operation that we saw last night, as well as, you know, overwhelming attack on Venezuela's defense capabilities.

20:56There was a report from the Base La Carlota where they had anti-aircraft missile batteries there that were destroyed before the actual helicopters, the Chinook helicopters, started flying in. So in that sense, there is the parallel of capturing and kidnapping and detaining a sitting president. but it's very different in the sense that if they think that this has been going to lead to regime change, I don't think that's actually on the table, given the fact that there's probably going to be a lot of detentions in the coming hours and days. You know, the Venezuelan hardline opposition is probably celebrating what just happened here.

21:33That is a counter-patriotic sentiment. It is obviously illegal, especially in the context of an external threat that has been declared in Venezuela. So it's unlikely they'll even have the cadre attempt a regime change effort led by the Venezuelan opposition. Can you talk a little bit more about what you expect the response within Venezuela to be? And, you know, what are the early things that we're seeing right now? We published a really important piece in Dropside News written by my colleague, Andreina Chavez, where she talked with a lot of the Venezuelan grassroots, the communards. People have to remember, and this is not often reported in the bourgeois media, is that Venezuela is a country that has undergone a decades-long revolutionary process.

22:11And there are organizations and individuals who are ready and willing to go to the ultimate end in terms of defense of their territory. We're talking about armed self-defense groups that do exist here. They've talked about a war of all the people. Now, if there is boots on the ground by the United States, if this does escalate even further, you're going to see a very, very complicated situation of an armed resistance, not just by the state, but non-state actors inside of Venezuela to expel these invading forces and send them back home in coffins. That's what's going to happen if there is an invasion.

22:42Right now, we're seeing mobilization by the grassroots, by the Chavistas supporters, by these revolutionary organizations into the streets now. My colleagues are in the streets now, you know, at these spontaneous demonstrations. There's a lot of questions in the air. Ultimately, right now, the demand is give us proof of life. We want to know he's still alive. And we'll see what the The demand becomes in the coming days in terms of what the population wants to see. But I would imagine that in addition to that is an immediate return of the kidnapped president. He is the president of Venezuela. He is the president recognized by countries throughout the hemisphere and the world with important allies.

23:20The special envoy from China for Latin America was just in Venezuela yesterday. Russia obviously has very clear ties. And so this can very quickly become a broad geopolitical issue for the entire globe. But domestically, you can count on the Venezuelan people to resist. They will be on the streets as they are already in this very moment. Do you have any thoughts about the broader geopolitical implications here? You mentioned there were Chinese officials that were just meeting with Maduro. You know, Trump also just threatened to get involved in Iran again, especially if they crack down further on the protests that are occurring there when Netanyahu was here just days ago.

23:56So Trump said, hey, if Iran goes back to building nuclear weapons, we're going to strike them again or we would greenlight Israel striking them again. What sort of broader geopolitical implications do you see of this brazenly lawless, might makes right sort of law of the jungle action? Well, I think it's time for the world to realize that these are the camps that we are dividing ourselves into. It's either you're with the imperialists or with the counter hegemonic forces. and they are clearly willing to do just about anything in order to enforce that logic of might makes right. And I think it's really time that we have the emergence of the kinds of things we saw, you know, like the Nine Align movement, you know, these groups within the United Nations to take much firmer positions.

24:38I think in particular in Latin America, this has to be a wake-up call. There was a lot of pressure for there to be at least a statement, some kind of pushback. I had called for an ad hoc group. If the regional organizations are not willing or able to push back against all of this illegality, then whoever is willing to sign on to the statement should do so because the evidence, I think, is very clear to just about anybody at this point that the United States is just willing to do anything. thing. And that has to guide our decision, our relations with the United States, because how can we possibly trust someone who's willing to do this kind of thing, to kidnap a president?

25:17What's to stop him? That could be the argument used anywhere, just to raise an allegation and get rid of anybody who's inconvenient. And it really is dangerous. It's dangerous for the world. You know, the United States has a pure rival in China. Do they really want to provoke this kind of conflict with important allies of China in Latin America? I mean, this is the question that I think people in Washington also need to add to themselves. And as well, the people of the United States, is this the world they want to live in? Some of Donald Trump's report is due to his declaration of being a so-called peace president, of not seeking new forever wars.