Trump's Top Venezuela Aide Turns Against Him on Invasion

0:01Are you stuck staring at your W-2? Are tax refund worries holding you back? You probably have FOMO, the fear of messing up. The fix? Using TurboTax on Intuit Credit Karma. They find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve. Or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app. Fox News is now streaming live on Fox One. When it matters most, turn to the voices you trust. We go beyond the headlines, bringing you the stories you won't hear anywhere else. Live coverage, sharp analysis, real perspective.

0:48At home or on the go, stay connected when it counts. Stream Fox News on Fox One. Download today.

1:28We'll be right back. I didn't think the pain from the shingles rash would affect simple everyday tasks like bathing, getting dressed, or even walking around. I was wrong. Though not everyone at risk will develop it, 99 % of people over the age of 50 already have the virus that causes shingles, and it could reactivate at any time. I developed it, and the blistering rash lasted for weeks. Don't learn the hard way, like I did. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist today. Sponsored by GSK. Hey there, it's me, John Stamos, in partnership with Cologuard. And a little birdie told me you're over 45. Listen, that's not old.

2:06It's really not. But it's an important age. If you're at average risk, that's when you start screening for colon cancer. And look, it's okay to be nervous, but it's not okay to ignore your own health. It's time to see if the Cologuard test can be an option for you to get screened. All right, I'm glad we had this little chat.

2:22Michael Popok:We know who's in charge of Venezuela. It is U.S. Big Oil who bought and paid for a president. And you don't have to take my word for it. Take the words from an interview of Donald Trump's last Venezuelan special envoy, Elliott Abrams, who's come out against the administration and Marco Rubio and said, look, we see it. This is about big oil and the Venezuelan plutocrats going to Mar-a-Lago and trying to get not a replacement regime, i.e. democracy, installed in Venezuela, but just a compliant regime with a decapitated Maduro off, but everybody else in his apparatus present, but have them be compliant and bend the knee, not to the Trump administration, to big oil.

3:10Michael Popok:And this is Marco Rubio's wet dream. He's been trying to take over as secretary of state places like his ancestral homeland, Cuba. There's a direct link between Marco Rubio, Cuba, Venezuela and Russia that I'm going to talk about. But what people who are independent minded, who are critics of the Trump administration are saying is the following equation. good on getting Maduro out, bad on leaving the regime apparatus in from top to bottom. And it's not just Delce Rodriguez. It's her brother who runs the national legislature. It's Díaz Dado Cabello, who's the interior minister that is likely Maduro's number two.

3:55Michael Popok:It's Vladimir Padrino López, who's the head of the military. And it's the Cuban government all supporting Venezuela as they always have. There's a reason that more than 40 Cubans died in the kidnapping of Maduro, because Maduro pays Cuba in oil for mercenaries from Cuba to guard him. Cuba is a puppet state of Russia, as is Venezuela. So we just picked a fight with a puppet state of Russia, basically threatening them to say, we're in charge of the Western Hemisphere. And by extension, by implication, ceding the Europe, Eastern and Western, to Russia and places like Ukraine and China, whatever it wants to do.

4:42Michael Popok:Just stay out of the Western Hemisphere. That appears to be the Dunro Doctrine that's been espoused by Donald Trump. Look, folks, this is what happens when you get a mentally declining president who every day is worse than the day before mentally. who's taken three dementia tests by his own admission in the last 11 months. This is what happens when you have no plan other than what's good for big oil. I'm Michael Popok. You're on the Midas Touch Network. Let's get to the reporting here and support legal AF both at home and abroad. Let's start with Elliott Abrams, the last special envoy for the Trump administration to Venezuela in the first term.

5:27Michael Popok:He went on CNN. He wrote an op-ed piece taking on the administration. Here's a clip from his CNN interview in which he says, where is the push for democracy? Where is the plan to reinstall the government in exile who are Democrats, who are democratic? Where is that plan? And have we just bent the need of big oil? Play the clip. First of all, the United States should be demanding the expulsion of Cuban and Iranian officials from Venezuela. We should be demanding the liberation of all political prisoners right now. And we should be supporting Edmundo Gonzalez, who won that election in 2024 with a 70 % landslide.

6:10I thought that was the worst point in the president's press conference yesterday. The insult really to Maria Corina Machado, who is the leader of democratic forces in Venezuela. That's what we should be supporting. The guy who won the election should be president. Yeah, the president said there was not broad support. There was not respect for Machado, which you're referring to right there. I'm wondering if you think the president also is leveling with the American public about just how difficult this will be to run a country like Venezuela. Yeah, you know, nobody else used that word run until he did.

6:51And my thought is that that didn't appear in some, you know, paper done through a long interagency process that it just came out of the president and that nobody else expected to run Venezuela. It would be extremely difficult. You know, it's a very big country. It's twice the size of California, 25 million people roughly. It's too complex for us to run. What we should be looking for is a popular government, a democratic elected government that can begin to rehabilitate the country with our support and the support of the other democracies that surround Venezuela. it. That's possible. But the notion that we're going to run it from Washington, I think, is implausible.

7:39And it's just not going to work.

7:40Michael Popok:Now, Marco Rubio making his rounds as Secretary of State on all the morning talk shows ended up with, you know, the wheels spun and landed on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan. And she asked him point blank about that Elliott Abrams interview and op-ed piece about the plutocrats going to Mar-a-Lago along with big oil to get what they want, a more compliant regime, not a democracy. That is a difference. Remember, we're supposed to be the leaders of the free world. So let's play Marco Rubio's half-hearted, feeble attempt to distract the questioning and not answer the question. Play the clip.

8:22The president used the word oil 20 times in his press conference. You talked about these tremendous oil assets that that venezuela have has um but the president's last envoy to venezuela uh elliot abrams is publicly arguing that you know better than the policy you're backing he said quote venezuelan plutocrats or u.s oil executives seem to be coming to mar-a-lago and whispering about how easy life would be if we just made a deal with the regime once maduro was gone. Is that what happened here?

8:57No, that's not what happened here. What happened here is that we arrested a narco trafficker who's now going to stand trial in the United States for the crimes he's committed against our people for 15 years. And the person who helped him, of course, his wife, who was co-located with him, so she was arrested as well. That's what happened here. As far as oil, look, oil is critical, not just to fueling economies all over the world. It's critical to Venezuela's future. Their oil industry is completely destroyed. It's destroyed all those oil fields that used to produce a lot and wealth for their country and their people.

9:26Those things are decrepit. They're bankrupt. They need to be reinvested in. It's obvious. They do not have the capability to bring up that industry. Again, they need investment from private companies who are only going to invest under certain guarantees and conditions. That has to go to the benefit of Venezuelan people. Right now, all of that wealth is stolen. It's stolen and it goes into the hands of oligarchs around the world and the oligarchs inside of Venezuela. A handful of people benefit from it. The people don't benefit from it. On top of that, it's very simple. Okay. In the 21st century under the Trump administration, we are not going to have a country like Venezuela in our own hemisphere, in the sphere of control and the crossroads for Hezbollah, for Iran, and for every other malign influence in the world.

10:09That's just not going to exist.

10:10Michael Popok:Now this, let's focus on Marco Rubio's wet dream for a minute, shall we, from my perch in Miami? Marco Rubio, his ancestral home is Cuba. He claims, although there's been some debate, that his family came as a result of the takeover by Fidel Castro. And in the Miami Cuban community, if you came before Castro or after Castro seems to matter in terms of your pedigree. And there's been a challenge within the Miami Cuban community about whether he did or didn't. His family did or he certainly tells everybody that his family were in exile after Castro. And he really cares about Venezuela and the oil, but he really cares about Cuba, his ancestral home.

10:56Michael Popok:This is a nothing more than a dress rehearsal for Marco Rubio before he runs for president to try to take over Cuba and change and do regime change there as well. His entire focus for most of his career has been on Cuba and not on Venezuela. The problem that most of us have is not that Maduro was kidnapped and lopped off the top of the regime. It's that the apparatus, not only was the apparatus left in place, it now appears to be an intentional decision by this administration to just have a more docile communist dictatorship that's in favor of big oil rather than install democracy. That's why Marco Rubio had to do his double talk to Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation about why he's no longer supporting and why they are strong arming and holding at arm's length the exile group of Edmundo Gonzalez and the Nobel Prize winner Maria Karina Machado?

12:06Michael Popok:Why aren't they being installed? Why aren't there any discussions with them? Because they don't want there to be any. Because they don't think they're going to be as willing to play ball with big oil in the U.S. as the existing apparatus scared out of his wits about a potential takeover. That's clear. Listen to the answer where he is reminded that at the top of the administration, they supported the legitimate installation of the government of Gonzalez and Machado. But now they seem to be walking away from it because the operation has changed. Play the clip. The opposition leader, Maria Karina Machado and Mundo Gonzalez, won that 2024 election by your own account.

12:46They were some of the first people you called when you were secretary of state. you said Edmundo Gonzalez is the rightful president of Venezuela is that still the US policy and if so are you working on a transition to have those elected leaders run the country well I think the couple things I have tremendous admiration for Maria Corina Machado I have admiration for Edmundo we have all those views about what the election that happened the last time and not only us but many other countries around the world there's that and there's an event but there's the mission we are on right now. We have been very clear from the beginning, because I still think that a lot of people analyze everything that happens in foreign policy through the lens of what happened from 2001 to 2015 or 2016.

13:29The whole foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya, everything is Iraq, everything is Afghanistan. This is not the Middle East. And our mission here is very different. This is the Western Hemisphere. Within the Western Hemisphere, we have a country, potentially a very rich country, that has cozied itself up under the control of this regime has cozied up to iran has cozied up to hezbollah has cozied has allowed narco trafficking gangs to operate with impunity from their own territory allows boats with drugs to traffic from their territory and we are addressing that and by the way for eight nine million people in the largest mass migration event in modern history have left that country since 2014 but that regime is still in place that is what we are addressing now when you spoke yesterday we're we're not just addressing the regime we are addressing the factors that are a threat to the national interest of the United States.

14:17Michael Popok:So we're not in the democracy making business any longer. We're in the whatever is good for big oil business. That's why regime change here, regime change in Iran 50 years ago and the rest. If Venezuela didn't have oil and wasn't a puppet state of Russia, you think we'd be going in? But it is the diabolical nature because there's only two choices. The Trump administration either has done no planning or their plan all along, which is what Elliott Abrams is saying, was to bend the need of big oil, which bought a president over half a billion dollars worth of fundraising investment in Trump at his request while he ran against Kamala Harris, where he sold off and auctioned off to the highest bidder his environmental and energy policy to big oil.

15:11Michael Popok:So that's, or those are the only two explanations. And the one that Elliott Abrams is saying is, the plutocrats of Venezuela and the oil companies seem to have the same idea. Don't disturb the status quo, just soften it up a little bit, calibrate it to our interest a little bit. And again, it puts a lie to the administration's position that all they're doing is not a war. It's not the Trump's war powers as commander in chief about imminent threats. All right. And clear and present danger. It's about regime change in favor of oil. They certainly are not. They didn't kidnap him and get in control of Venezuela in order to enforce an indictment in New York, which was the first thing they tried on on saturday hey this is just a department of justice by extension operation yeah where's pam bondy she wasn't even on the stage the attorney general where was jay clayton who indicted him in new york wasn't there it was all the spooks it was all the suits it was all the cia and the joint chiefs and marco rubio and pete hegseth you know who's marco rubio whose star has ascended.

16:31Michael Popok:J.D. Vance's, whose star has fallen off the table along with Pam Bondi. We're going to continue to follow it all right here. You're on Midas Touch. Come over to Legal AF and help us in 2026 continue to expand our reach. We're going global. We have to because Trump's going global with his Dunro doctrine. So we have to match it at the intersection of U.S. law, politics and international law you know it's not just following the indictment in new york of maduro it's about all of the international conventions and laws that have been or will be breached by donald trump so there's a way to do it come on to legal af substack and for we're running a sale 20 off help us grow and accomplish our international additional vertical goals for 2026.

17:20Michael Popok:So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak.

17:48Michael Popok:free versions of the podcast and hot takes where legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for$15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at MintMobile.com slash switch.

18:44shouldn't be complicated. Just two scoops of cachava's all-in-one nutrition shake, and you've got 25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, greens, and so much more. Whether you're craving that coffee taste to kickstart your morning ritual, or as a nutrient-packed reward to round out your afternoon, cachava keeps you fueled and satisfied wherever your day takes you. Plus, it actually tastes delicious. No fillers, no nonsense. Just the good stuff your body craves. And for the times you feel like switching it up, you've got seven flavors to choose from, all with the highest quality ingredients. Treat yourself to the flavor and nutrition your body craves.

19:21Go to cachava.com and use code NEWS. New customers get 15 % off their first order. That's K-A-C-H-A-V-A dot com, code NEWS.