1/5/26: Trump Threatens Cuba, Mexico And Colombia, Maduro Internal Betrayal

24:39By the way, they left before the revolution, just so everyone knows. Oh, yeah. And visited after the revolution. And yeah, also their families involved in drug trafficking, was involved in drug trafficking. So few notes. We'll put that up. Few notes about Marco Rubio. Not sure about that, but OK. On the Cuba piece, there's a piece in American Prospect where you can read the details about the narco trafficking piece. In any case, the Cuba bet is both that they will, you know, have fear struck in the heart from this, you know, kidnapping, abduction, holding the leader of Venezuela hostage. And also they do, they benefit from, you know, inexpensive oil from Venezuela.

25:15And it is true. The Cuban economy is a mess. Like they are actually in very dire straits. So their like reverse domino theory is that perhaps just by withholding this Venezuela oil, that will be enough to shake the Cuban regime. And then with the threat that, you know, we could go in and take direct direct action as well. The whole mentality, I think the best way to think about it is a couple of things. Number one, in the same way that you have the Israel lobby, you have a Miami South America lobby that is obsessed with these things and that are very influential both in terms of financial donations, in terms of the administration, and in terms of a political constituency that's important to the Republican Party.

25:59So sometimes the moves that are taken seem irrational because you have to calculate in that you have this incredibly ideological diehard faction that is both money and political power that is dedicated to this neocon ideology with regard to any left-wing government that is in Central or South America or in the Caribbean. So that piece I think is really important to keep in mind. And then in terms of the way the Trump administration is operating here, Graham Plattner, which we may play later in the show, called it international gangsterism. And I do think that is the right mentality. They are operating like mob bosses through threats and intimidation.

26:38We're going to hold your leader hostage and do with him what we will. We're going to amass these forces in your region as a threat, and we're going to hope that those threats and that coercion is enough for us to be able to effectively run your country without actually doing the boots on the ground, the military occupation, etc. Now, they're not ruling that out. That's part of the sort of like mob threat on the table. Hey, we could come in and occupy your country. We could come back and bomb your country some more and kill more of your citizens. But it truly is this sort of like gangster mentality that they're hoping that the threat and the coercion is enough to be able to run the entire country and turn them into a puppet regime.

27:24It's possible. I mean, a lot of it, it's like gunboat diplomacy from the early 1800s. If you don't know what it is, we don't have enough time to go into it. But basically, the idea is you can roll in, you can open a port, you can coerce the government to do what it wants. But the idea and really why a lot of this fell out of favor from the United States is that what it unleashed effectively was not only the greatest war that Europe had ever seen, but then 20 to 30 years of complete destabilization, Hitlerism, fascism, the Soviet Union, and the United States were the ones who decided, they're like, look, we need to go to war in Europe to stop international gangsterism.

28:04Look, as people know, I think international law is fake. And that's why I'm like, I'm not using some illegal kidnapping and all of that might does make right, but that doesn't mean that you should do it. And so I think that everybody should talk in terms of good idea, bad idea. Now, when we talk here in terms of Venezuela, one of the reasons that a lot of this fell out of fashion, I guess, if you will, is that the United States for a long time, actually dramatically benefited from effectively doing the same thing, but under very different, not only tonal ways, but also in terms of the way that they acted in order to make sure that you didn't have the same contradictions arise, let's say when Russia invaded Ukraine and you want to sanction the hell out of their economy.

28:44What do we really even have to say here? And look, Monroe Doctrine, I mean, yeah, good luck explaining that to the Chinese when they're starting to talk about Taiwan. They're like, yo, look at the mileage between Washington and Venezuela. And then look at the little space there between us and between Taiwan. They're like, yeah, it's an unresolved question. You guys are in our sphere of influence. This is open and shut case. You have nothing to say. Now, I'm not saying this is going to make it more likely or less. I think it just makes it like I think if they were going to do it, they were going to do it.

29:12But the way that the United States and the world, of course, would have to react in that type of situation does dramatically matter. Remind people, Sagar, what percentage of chips are manufactured in Taiwan? It depends. I mean, if we're looking at overall, but in terms of the advance, the most important is over 90%. Yeah. Like literally the entire U.S. economy is gone like this. Like even if you don't care whether Taiwan is independent or under Chinese control or whatever, in terms of what actually will impact your life and our national security, your ability to buy basic consumer goods, you have a lot more interest in Taiwan than you do in the US.

29:48I've said this before. I mean, if Taiwan happens, all of us, like all of our camera equipment will probably be nationalized by the government. Like I'll probably, it's like in Russia, like we're literally gonna have to turn this laptop in. They're gonna take the chip out. We'll all have to go buy like 2006 laptops on eBay. You think I'm kidding. This could be that would after two years of something like that going on. And if we try to react negatively to that situation and don't come to some quasi deal with the Chinese, that's what it's going to look like. And beyond that, I mean, just like with us in Venezuela, the Chinese now currently figuring out what they want to do.

30:16But let's just really remember, like within this, it's the chaos element. And the chaos element, what it can unleash is if we look back and Marco Rubio is claiming with a straight face this is not Middle East. The point is not about the Middle East. The point is about the playbook is that in every single time, the United States has never been adept at being able to manage a multi-year occupation and or governance plan, which would actually benefit the people there and the people here in every single case, whether it was direct intervention, whether it was decapitation, what happened was chaos.

30:52The United States was never adept because of its own domestic abilities or whatever in order to actually manage this. And it unleashed hell for the region and eventually led to either blowback or problems for us. Now, the craziness of this is that in the interim, the Maduro regime remains in power without Maduro. And in fact, the most likely outcome as of today, we have no idea, of course, what will happen is that the current vice president will assume power, issue oil licenses. Her and her brother run the entire country. They will use some sort of concession and economic benefit from the United States with their new – I mean just lifting the sanctions would boom the Venezuelan economy.

31:33We'll reopen an embassy. Trump doesn't care about democracy. What do you think that Delce Rodriguez and her brother are going to do? They're going to lock up the entire opposition and kill them. Just, I mean, why wouldn't you if you were them? That is the modal outcome. Now, the problem then is that it becomes just like any other volatile U.S.-backed situation. I'm not saying any of this will fall apart in one year or two. That's what many people misunderstand. Like, in retrospect, you can see how Libya was a disaster. It took years for Libya to fully fall apart. In Iraq, 04, you could have actually made a case that it all worked out.

32:08But 05 in Afghanistan, that was the only time that it's really started to go off the rails. Everybody can say mission accomplished. It's easy. And then what in retrospect we see like the groundwork for the problem, everything falling apart. Not going to sit here and say that it's going to be chaos tomorrow. That's not how these things happen. What has always been the case for non-intervention or for deeply thoughtful intervention is that 40th order consequences are completely unpredictable. And you would rather not, as the United States, play with them. I mean, even now they're talking about how Midnight Hammer was some great success.

32:44It's like, really? Well, B.B.'s still trying to claim that he wants to bomb Iran. OK, so that's what I'm saying. And Trump's giving him the green light. When you read the history book, you'll just skip over. You'll go Midnight Hammer to here, right? And it'll look completely obvious. But in the interim, we're all having to deal with this ridiculous propaganda about how incredible it is. But to kind of wrap all of this section up, let's go and put A6 up on the screen just to show the chaotic element. Trump is currently threatening Venezuela's new leader with, quote, fate worse than Maduro. A second wave of strikes is possible.

33:15And, you know, even my analysis earlier is presumptive on the fact that she can keep control. The thing is about Venezuela and the reason why they couldn't actually do the regime change, we're going to talk about this with Eva, there are multiple competing factions. Remember, there are the oil fields. There are the cartels. Yes, they do operate in areas of Venezuela. There is the military. There are actually various factions within the military. There's the assembly. There is Rodriguez, but there's the Venezuelan kind of like quasi oil oligarchs like in Russia. There are multiple competing power centers.

33:50Who knows what will happen and whether there will be some internal coup against them? That's what happens in these scenarios is within chaos, anything can happen. And again, usually it does not work out to overall U.S. benefit. It usually leads to some sort of intervention or it can easily spiral. It can cause a decision tree, which very easily leads to more U.S. boots on the ground, which our president explicitly refuses to rule out. Also, yeah, Rubio saying there's no U.S. service members on the ground. Yeah, maybe not officially. I mean, the entire story of the captures is multiple CIA black squads running around.

34:28OK, so obviously there are you. They don't consider that, you know, military. I count it. I think everybody else. Yeah, you know, it counts to me. And then finally, a seven. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. What we have here is that, look, this hasn't been officially confirmed, but I called around. Some people are saying it's fake. It's not. What it does generally fit with, though, is that Venezuelan leaders offer the U.S. a path to stay in power without Maduro. And this is, I think, a good segue to Eva is that we really still don't know whether this was part of some backroom deal where the other people inside the Maduro regime made a deal with Trump and them and said, look, yeah, you can come and take him.

35:07So be it. Kill some Cubans, whatever. You can create some big victory. Yes. I mean, they have. Remember, whenever we say we want to take the oil, it's in their benefit, too. They want to sell it to us. Their economy has been destroyed by sanctions over the last decade. I mean they actually were doing okay what some 15 years ago or so. It's now that they've actually been driven down into the ground. That's what had a lot of the migration. They don't want any of those problems. They want to be rich too and they have no problem killing their opposition or any of that and effectively being like a quasi-corrupt state which is under semi like one-party-ish type rule.

35:42They don't want elections or fake elections or any of this. This could be a great outcome for them. They want to basically be almost a Gulf-style monarchy. Well, but that's part of the thing is, and this is something you and I have covered a lot, like none of this was necessary. The deal was on the table. You didn't need to kidnap Maduro to secure this deal. It was not required at all. I mean, the oil deal was there for and whatever other natural resources, which they do have other significant stockpiles and natural resources. That was all on the table. I think Trump, with his rhetoric and also under pressure from Rubio and that faction, felt like he needed to do some like, oh, my God, Venezuela spectacle to appease that constituency.

36:28And so that's how you end up with this outcome, because in terms of the economics of it, I mean, I think there's a pretty strong case to be made that he actually would have been better off not doing this. Because now you have Delce Rodriguez under more pressure domestically from, you know, but possibly because the population is looking like we don't want to be some colonial outpost. We don't want to just completely bend and be, you know, under the thumb of these of the Yankee oppressor. You know, so it actually creates some more potential dissent and some more pressure in terms of, you know, what what may happen going forward.

37:04So in any case, the deal was on the table, did not require this. And by the way, over 80 people were killed in the context of this military operation, did not require the kidnapping of a world leader, did not require any of this if you just wanted the frickin' oil. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to sit here, and this is what's so complicated. Because what I think Trump and his White House want is for everyone to absolutely lose it and be like, this is regime change, entanglement, and all that. That's not responsible. That's not what happened. But that doesn't mean that it isn't bad. And that also doesn't mean that you can't easily foresee many of the issues and also the triumphalism in the – look, I've just been in politics long enough.

37:42I always know the day after tweet, it usually doesn't age well, and especially when it comes to war. And just let me ask you this basic proposition, and I'll ask it to the nation. Do you have confidence that this team can competently pull off an oil extraction inside of Venezuela? Yes or no question. Do you have confidence that this team, you know, could have the – I mean, look, I hate Bush. I hate Cheney. Cheney was an actual oil man, all right? If anybody could have done it, it could have been him. If anybody could have done it, it could have been Ronald Reagan and those people. They were very smart.

38:14They were very competent. In fact, one of my favorite books is about Vietnam, what is the best and the brightest. We had the world's greatest minds, you know, sit there and come up with their stat sheets and their ideas behind how to win against North Vietnam. And in fact, you know, if they can't do something like that, really ask yourself whether this team can. And then say, do you have confidence that this can also be not only a single administration but a future problem that every one of our great – we're going to talk about the Democrats. That's do we really have confidence that this bipartisan establishment in our current country can competently pull this off?

38:54Or can we look at our long history of all of this and say, yeah, we probably would have been better off just striking a deal with Maduro. Hey, man, stop dancing, you know, in public and cut us some oil and minerals. He would have done it. I'm sure he would have. He would have been like, OK, fine, you know, stop threatening to kill me and then I will. But we'll see. Now you break it, you buy it. And they certainly do. So with all of that, let's get to Eva and let's see, get her reaction on some of the background behind this possible deal between the Maduro remnants of the regime and the Trump administration.

39:28Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated and Black America is at a breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

40:13This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult?

40:50NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast.

41:35On a recent episode, I sat down with Nick Jonas, singer, songwriter, actor, and global superstar. The thing I would say to my younger self is congratulations. You get to marry Priyanka Chopra Jonas. And also, you know, your daughter's incredible. That's beautiful, man. Yeah. Thank you. That's so beautiful. I can see that got you a little... Yeah, for sure. Our daughter, she came to the world under sort of very intense circumstances, which I've not really talked about ever. Growing up on Disney in front of a million, how did that shape your sense of self? I went blank. I hit a bad note, then I couldn't recover.

42:15And I built up this idea that music and being a musician was my whole identity. I had to sort of relearn who I was if you took this thing away. Who am I? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's turn now to the question of Delce Rodriguez. She was the vice president to Maduro. Now she has been sworn in. So she is the active president of Venezuela. And there's a question of whether or not she could have been involved in striking a deal with the Trump administration in advance of their kidnapping of Maduro and attack on the country of Venezuela.

42:54So following those actions, we've gotten some contradictory signals from Ms. Rodriguez. So first we had this very bombastic public statement where she said we'll never be slaves again. She also said that the action had a quote, Zionist tinge. Since then, we've gotten a new statement that has quite a different tone. We can put this up on the screen where she's seeking cooperation, she says. So she says, Venezuela reaffirms its commitment to peace and peaceful coexistence. Our country aspires to live without external threats in an environment of respect and international cooperation. We believe global peace is built by first guaranteeing peace within each nation.

43:29We prioritize moving towards balanced and respectful international relations between the US and Venezuela and between Venezuela and other countries in the region premised on sovereign equality and non-interference. These principles guide our diplomacy with the rest of the world. We invite, and this is the key paragraph, we invite the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence. President Donald Trump, our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war.

44:02This has always been President Nicolas Maduro's message and it is the message of all of Venezuela right now. This is the Venezuela I believe in and have dedicated my life to. So for further analysis of the situation, we are very fortunate to be joined by author and lawyer, Ava Gollinger. She is also the author of the book, The Chavez Code. Great to have you, Ava. Good to see you. Thanks for having me on. All right. So talk to us about Delcy Rodriguez and what you think is going on here. There's so much going on also under the surface, behind the scenes, that obviously most of us are not privy to.

44:36So things are very much in development in real time. But certainly there can be several things true at the same time. One, it can be true that there was some type of negotiation for this outcome that then has platformed and placed Delcy in the presidency in Venezuela for this transitionary period, as it's being referred to at least by the United States. And it can be true that Delcy and the government in Venezuela remain anti-imperialist and opposed to the U.S. control of their country. Both things can be true. I mean, this is a very dangerous moment for Venezuela. Even if there was a negotiation that took place ahead of time that somehow sacrificed Maduro or enabled his capture to remove him to give Trump a victory so that the rest could stay in power, it doesn't mean that they're welcoming U.S.

45:34intervention and invasion into the country. I mean, obviously they were pushed into a corner, but at the same time, there have been negotiations going on now for months, at least since the start of this year, and leading them have been Delcy and her brother Jorge, who up until now has been head of Venezuela's legislative body, the National Assembly. They are very astute and intelligent and, you know, internationalist individuals who have been involved in this particular part of the government throughout most of Maduro's presidency. So it's really not surprising to see that they are the two key players in this chapter of the Venezuelan government.

46:14But I think primarily they're trying to hold power. So by any means that's necessary. And it's in part to ensure their own power and their own posturing in the country, the wealth they have accumulated. But it's also to ensure that the opposition doesn't come back and take power, because they certainly don't want that to happen. And that's not something that's widely accepted and desired, at least in the Venezuela that I know. So I think that there can be several things true at the same time. Well, we should know you're one of the literal experts on the country. You spent a lot of time there. You knew many of these people personally.

46:51Part of the things I'm interested in here is about this deal with Delcey Rodriguez. You know, you have said that she's looked at in the country as more of a technocratic manager of the current, like quasi-socialist, capitalist system whenever it comes to oil, part of the reason that she may have been picked here by Donald Trump or at least accepted by the current Trump administration. I mean, how will you see her capability of balancing these two things, of wanting to either appease, work with the Trump administration, And then organic, internal, small-D democratic concern over the United States and this current intervention, the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro.

47:31What's your sense of the internal dynamics and her ability to manage that and what that's going to look like? Well, I think that that's going to play out over the next few days because certainly there's an internal power struggle going on. I mean, Delcy may have been the chosen one by the United States and through the negotiation process. That doesn't mean that she sort of has that power over the other groups, powerful figures in the in the government. You know, there are sectors like Delcy is not the one who's controlling the security forces in the military and the social movements. But again, they have been the key negotiators with Washington.

48:09And one other aspect is very well, a couple of things. One that's very interesting is that both her and her brother, Jorge, have never been sanctioned by the United States or implicated in any of these indictments, whereas pretty much almost every other member figurehead of the government has been. And that was reiterated in this most recent updated indictment that included Celia Flores, Maduro's wife, as well as his son and Diosdalo Cabello. And so that's curious because I think it puts them sort of on alert that they're the ones who are next in line, Diosdalo particularly, holding the threat on Maduro and his wife possibly to not give up any information because their son, well, his son, it's not their son together, but Celia's stepson could be next.

48:53And there's already outstanding indictments and sanctions against the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, and others in the security apparatus. So I think there's several factors going on that she has to comply to maintain order and power in the country right now. She has to be complicit to the U.S. I think that's what's gone on behind the scenes. But again, this has been a lobby in place now, at least for months, possibly since the beginning of the year. We saw her placement, for example, in the New York Times weeks ago, where she was presented as the moderate, which is entirely laughable because her history shows, while she may be more pragmatic to deal with in terms of business, certainly not moderate in terms of ideology and behavior.

49:44These are people who are have, I would say, very repressive instincts. She does will not accept any kind of dissent. They will go after anyone who they think would be betraying them. So I think it's a very volatile time in the country in that aspect that she's going to be with the help of her brother trying to exert some kind of control and power brokering amongst the groups to see how far can they advance under this immense pressure that they have. Trump's made clear. They'll just go in and do it again if they want to. And I mean, I think that it's true. We've seen that it's true that they can do that.

50:19And now I think they've placed all these, you know, CIA assets inside the country. So they could execute another rendition at any time if they wanted to. Right. Give us a sense of who Delce is, where she comes from, how she comes into this position as vice president to Maduro. Well, she's someone, again, her brother, Jorge, her older brother, is the more sort of behind the scenes powerful player here. He did always have a key position, not directly with Hugo Chavez when Chavez was president. Neither of them are from sort of the grassroots original movement that brought Chávez to power, nor were they close confidence of Chávez, whereas definitely Maduro was, his wife Celia was, Dios de Alcabella was, Padrino López was.

51:06I mean, those are more the core members that were part of the original movement. Delcy and Jorge were always on the outskirts but had powerful positions. Well, Jorge did. Jorge was head of Venezuela's National Electoral Council, so he oversaw the voting process for years in the country. He also was mayor of Caracas at a key moment. He pushed Delce into Chavez's government at one point. Chavez briefly took her on as his chief of staff. That was her first sort of foray into the government. that lasted not more than six months. Chavez fired her and ousted her entirely from the government and never wanted her back again, never brought her back again.

51:45It wasn't until after his death that she was brought back in along with her brother, Jorge, as part of this power sort of deal that they made with Maduro for him to maintain power. But she is someone who's educated internationally. She's a lawyer. She's very smart. These are very smart, calculated people. So they've been playing a long game here. They have wanted to take the presidency and to rise to that position. And she's done well for herself. She started as minister of communication with Maduro. She rose to foreign minister. That was the way she was sort of able to, you know, create her networks and get into the sort of role as being the pragmatic and the technocrat.

52:27And then she pushed her way into both the vice presidency and the head of the oil industry. I mean, you know, they have been playing the long game here. And I think that they have have done quite well for themselves to that she has been placed in this position now. And, you know, I think that they've been not to say that they were always sort of working to undermine Maduro. But I think that that was their that was the objective in the end was that Delcy could rise to the presidency and potentially her brother could be next in line. Ava, what's your general sense of like the modal outcome here?

52:58You know, we make some deal, They crush the opposition. Does that just end U.S. intervention? What does that look like inside of the country? Let's say the sanctions lift, all the groups get rich, everybody seems to be happy. What are the downsides to that for Venezuela? Yeah, I mean the groups are rich anyway already. But it's really more – there's other aspects here because there are the people of Venezuela. I mean there are movements there. They can't be disregarded. You know, there is still a powerful bastion of the original sort of Chavista movement. There's a lot that were not content with the situation with the current government and wanted change, but that didn't mean they wanted U.S.

53:39intervention or any kind of, you know, U.S. puppet regime in place. They weren't supporting the opposition either, but they wanted change. So I think there's a lot of factors that, you know, it's still volatile and delicate. Just because Delcy's getting support from Trump doesn't mean that she's going to have the support of the people. And there's a lot of, you know, psyops going on internally, people saying that it's not true, the betrayal, that there must be some other thing going on here. And I'm sure they're going to present it to the country as though this is what they have to do in order to maintain the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela.

54:12But in reality, it's to maintain their own power. But I do think that potentially over time, you know, grassroots movements will again begin to build up in opposition. And, you know, it could be anyone's game at some point. What I what I found really interesting, though, from Trump was that they did completely dismiss the opposition and Maria Corina Machal, who were waiting in the sidelines, who asked for this. So, I mean, I think that Delcy sold it really well to Rubio and Trump. And I think that she was right. You know, many outside of Venezuela and who had the sort of platforms in the media were saying that she, Maria Karina Machado, had all this support and could just ease back in if she was given the chance.

54:58But that's not really true. She doesn't command any of the military and security forces in the country. She doesn't have that level of, you know, political and security military support. support. So this was definitely sold to Trump as we are the ones who can maintain stability. We are the ones who can guarantee access to the oil, which is what Trump wants, and everything else in the country. If you try to come in and put these other people here, it will be civil unrest. And, you know, there will be a civil war, which could also be true. So I think that, you know, that's how it was explained. And I think that that was a very, you know, reasonable proposal to Trump.

55:40And I think that they believe it because it's actually true. And so, you know, it just depends how it's going to play out because this doesn't seem to be that it's a long term solution with Delcy at the forefront. But you really never know. I mean, these people are survivors. People thought that when Chavez died, the whole thing was dead. The whole revolution was over. And here we are. Look, it's now going to be 13 years since Chavez's death and they're still in power. Do you think it's possible that Maduro was also in on the deal and the whole thing was sort of like fake and staged? It's hard for me to imagine him going to trial here.

56:14I mean, just with a sort of cursory understanding of his showmanship, it would be quite a spectacle. I sort of have doubts in the ability of them to proffer enough evidence to actually fully convict him, at least on all of the charges that they've asserted. So is there a possibility that actually he and Delcey, that they were all in on some sort of a deal with the Trump administration. Trump gets his military spectacle. The revolution, the regime gets to stay in power and Maduro, maybe they quietly ship him off somewhere else after some period of time and decide not to go through with the trial.

56:52I don't think so. I mean, not in my opinion. I think that Maduro really thought that this wouldn't happen. And that's why he was sort of taunting Trump. But I mean, Maduro has always been trying to negotiate. Basically, everything Delcey is going to do now, Maduro essentially would have done. It's just that he wouldn't have done it in the same way. So no, I don't think that he was in on it. I don't think where he is right now, that's not a place where anyone would voluntarily go to. The case is real. They have some pretty star witnesses. It doesn't mean that all the evidence is going to hold up, but there is witness testimony.

57:32They have some key figures. They have the former head of military. Venezuelan military intelligence is in the same prison as Maduro, and he's already singing his song. And Diddy and Luigi Mangione all hanging out together in the same prison. Well, I mean, there are a lot of figures there. But in terms of this particular case, there's aspects of it that obviously are not going to hold up. some of the charges are ridiculous, but there are other things that they could try to make work. And I mean, there's no one possibly who could believe that Maduro is going to get a fair trial in the United States.

58:00So certainly his lawyers are going to try to get the charges dismissed, to get it thrown out because of the way that he was captured. Obviously, it was an illegal violation of international law. There's no question. However, if it played out that somehow there was an agreement that Delcy had sort of taken over and permitted this, then they could say that it was authorized by the government that they were recognizing in Venezuela. You know, we don't really know some of the issues behind the scenes that will come out in discovery if the case does proceed to trial. But I could see it actually happening.

58:35At some point further down the line, there could be a deal. There could certainly be a deal. I mean, they have his wife, too. It would be very sad. I'm just saying from a human perspective. Also, I know them. They would be in prison basically for the rest of their life. These are two people who've spent the past, you know, 30 plus years together every day. They are a team. You know, they're a very solid couple. They're going to be separated. I saw at least that, you know, as they go into trial, they're still together. But at some point in prison, they're going to be separated and they may never see each other again.

59:06So, you know, or there could be a negotiation further down the line that gets Celia at least released and sent somewhere. But it would be hard to imagine that this would have been some facade planned by all of them just to appease Trump and give him his victory. It seems more likely that Trump had a buildup in the military in the region that if he wasn't going to use it, he was going to look like a big loser. And Maduro would have come out extremely fortified and strengthened, and they would never have left. They would never have left. So at least this way, two sides get a victory. Trump gets his man, he gets his show, and the same regime stays in power in Venezuela.

59:44And so it's just a question of, you know, how long will this play out? And is Trump so emboldened now that he's going to go after Cuba, for example, which seems to be next on the list, at least from Rubio's perspective? Very possible. Ava, one last thing I wanted to get your reaction to, because you did know Hugo Chavez so well, wrote a book about him. This clip has been circulating. This is B4, guys, and we can put this up on the screen, where he effectively predicts exactly the chain of events that occurs. He says, years ago, someone told me they're going to end up accusing you of being a drug trafficker, you personally, you, Chavez, not just that the government supports it or permits it.

1:00:21No, they're going to try to apply the Noriega formula to you. And we have now heard a lot about the Noriega formula and, you know, Panama being held up as like the positive example of what is being done in Venezuela now. So just wanted to get your thoughts and reflections on that clip that is now making the rounds again. No, no doubt. I mean, Chavez knew what was in the works for, he knew the danger that it presented, the fact that, you know, he was, his movement and his ideology was about nationalism and sovereignty and that Venezuela sits atop the world's largest oil reserves. I mean, even as part of the research work that I did, because I investigated and, you know, unraveled the entire U.S.

1:01:06and CIA role in the coup de ta against Chavez in 2002, and subsequent destabilization and intervention attempts over the years until his death that, frankly, have continued to date. And we've now seen them play out explicitly. But there were invasion plans drawn up. Plan Balboa was drawn up and practiced as a war exercise against targeting Venezuela to take control of the oil reserves and to divide the movement internally and to take out and decapitate the leftist leader. I mean, this has been a scenario they have been planning now for over 25 years, essentially, when Chavez took not only one office, but refused to obey at that time George W.

1:01:48Bush's mandate that he would take him under his wing and ensure that the U.S. would continue all access into Venezuela's oil industry. So certainly that's what's going on here. I mean, I haven't seen all the evidence, but from experience, I could say that I would find it highly unlikely that Nicolas Maduro is a drug kingpin. Certainly, there is circumstantial evidence of drug shipments. Venezuela doesn't produce drugs, so it's not made in Venezuela. They're coming from Colombia, from Ecuador. They have been facilitated through the country. There's no question of that. There's plenty of evidence pointing to that.

1:02:28But pointing to Maduro himself running the show and the operation, that's just very hard to believe and highly unlikely. But nevertheless, being the leader of the country, they can try to pin it all on him, especially now that he's the one they've captured. Exactly right. If you can pin machine gun by somebody, you can pin it. What even is that? Yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean, I reported this. I was told directly by somebody who spoke with him. he said, I have all the oil and all the gold. What the F do I need to deal drugs for? That's apparently what he said. Maduro? Maduro said that apparently to US and the gold.

1:03:06Well, I mean, he's not dealing drugs, but it is true. I think another thing, just because a lot of people always talk about the oil, Venezuela has vast resources, huge amounts of gold. They have all kinds of heavy metals, aluminum. There's a massive industry in Venezuela of rare earths, It's everything that is desired, frankly, from the Trump administration. So it's really no surprise that this has been played out in this way. It's a very sad and tragic time, though, for Venezuelans. Nobody wanted this inside Venezuela amongst the Venezuelan people. And they're the ones who are going to pay the price.

1:03:42Yeah, you're right. Eva, thank you so much for your analysis. It's just been excellent. We hope you'll come back again. Yeah, great to meet you, Eva. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

1:03:56Black history lives in our stories, our culture, and the conversations we still have in today. This Black History Month, the podcast I Didn't Know, Maybe You Didn't Either, digs into the moments, perspectives, and experiences that don't always make the textbook. Let me tell you about Garrett Morgan. Bruh had to pretend he didn't even exist just to sell his own invention. Listen to I Didn't Know, Maybe You Didn't Either from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or simply wherever you get your podcasts.

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