All Hell Breaks Loose After Trump Invades Venezuela

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0:23Ben Meiselas:All hell is breaking loose in Venezuela as the United States invaded and according to Donald Trump captured Maduro. The opposition party in Venezuela in exile is claiming that Maduro negotiated his exit with Donald Trump, but the vice president Delcy Rodriguez and the defense Minister of Venezuela seem to know nothing about any negotiated exit. They are demanding proof of life of Maduro and they are calling out the invasion by the Trump regime. Meanwhile, you have United States Senator Mike Lee saying he just got off the phone with Marco Rubio and Maduro is being transferred to the United States to be prosecuted here.

1:10Ben Meiselas:There's a lot of mass confusion taking place. Donald Trump made no statements prior to the invasion. The post he made prior was a fat shaming post of Governor Pritzker holding a hamburger. And then Donald Trump was doing tile shopping for marble and onyx for the Golden Ballroom. So this invasion was all of a sudden just started taking place in Venezuela. multiple sites were struck by the United States military. Fuerte Tijuana, the main military base in Caracas, La Carlota, the main air base in Caracas, El Vaucon, the main signal antenna, La Guaraport, the main port of Venezuela, Higuerte Airport, the air base in the state of Miranda, and also the mausoleum where Hugo Chavez's body is buried was also blown up as well.

2:04Ben Meiselas:We were covering it live here on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. Make sure you hit subscribe. By the way, you may think you're subscribed. Help us get to 6 million subscribers and support independent media. So Donald Trump made this post in the early hours of the morning. He says the United States of America 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.

2:38Ben Meiselas:at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. But at the same time, you have the Minister of Defense, who was part of the Maduro government, Vladimir Padrino Lopez. His home was targeted during the invasion by the United States, but he was not killed. He held a press conference and he spoke out about what he called the criminal military aggression of the United States. And then you had Delce Rodriguez, the vice president who, based on the Venezuelan constitution, would become the president. Let me be clear, Maduro is an illegitimate leader. I still don't think there should be an unlawful invasion of Venezuela without the authorization of the United States Congress.

3:19Ben Meiselas:So I believe this invasion was patently unlawful. But the Venezuelan vice president, Delcy Rodriguez. She held a call this morning, which was made public across Venezuela and the world, where she said she doesn't know the whereabout of Nicolas Maduro's wife. She's not aware of any negotiated settlement. She called for a proof of life to be given by the United States. You also had statements coming out from Colombia. Their leader, Gustavo Petro, put out a statement when the bombing was taking place, when the invasion was taking place by the United States. saying right now they are bombing Caracas, alert the whole world.

3:58Ben Meiselas:They've attacked Venezuela. They're bombing with missiles. The OAS and the UN must meet immediately. Then Gustavo Petro also wrote, we have just concluded the National Security Council meeting, which began at 3 a.m. Public forces are being deployed to the border and all available support forces will be deployed in the event of a massive influx of refugees from Venezuela. The Colombian embassy in Venezuela is active and responding to calls for assistance from Colombians and Venezuela as members of the United Nations Security Council. We seek to convene the council. The government of Colombia rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.

4:37Ben Meiselas:Internal conflicts between people are resolved by those same people. In peace, that is the principle of self-determination of people, which forms the foundation of the United Nations system. I invite the Venezuelan people to find paths of civil dialogue and their unity without sovereignty. There is no nation. Peace is the way in dialogue between people is fundamental for national unity. Dialogue and more dialogue is what is needed. We also know that there are definitely casualties and fatalities of Venezuelans. It left an unspecified number of Venezuelans dead and injured. Venezuelan officials said in a statement.

5:16Ben Meiselas:The number of those casualties is still being assessed according to the New York Times, Mike Lee, the MAGA Republican senator. I mean, again, there's so much conflicting information out there. I just want to give you everything that's out there as of now. He says, just got off the phone with Marco Rubio, Secretary of State. He informed me that Nicolas Maduro has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States and that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant. This action likely falls within the president's inherent authority under Article 2 of the Constitution to protect the U.S.

5:57Ben Meiselas:personnel from actual or imminent attack. I disagree. I think this is actually counter to the Constitution. I believe it was clearly an unlawful invasion that required Congress's approval. but MAGA bootlickers like Mike Lee are going to bootlick. Essentially, that's what they're going to do. Also, it should be noted that yesterday, before the strike took place, interestingly, there were Chinese officials, top special envoys from China, where they are meeting with Nicholas Maduro. You see the photos right here. Chinese officials are arriving in Venezuela for talks with Nicholas Maduro. And just a few hours ago, as Olga Nesterova writes, before the strikes took place by the United States, the Chinese special envoy was meeting Maduro for three hours in Caracas.

6:45Ben Meiselas:It's unclear if China knew what was going on. It's unclear if this was indeed a negotiated arrangement between Maduro and the Trump regime, and that these attacks were used as a smokescreen to get Maduro out of there, or if Maduro was actually captured and kidnapped as part of the broader invasion taking place. But as I mentioned before, it does not seem like the defense minister, Vladimir Pedrino Lopez, whose home was targeted, was aware of this. It does not seem like Delce Rodriguez was aware of it, the vice president. She seems not to have been aware of it. And she's coming out with very defiant statements as well.

7:28Ben Meiselas:Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego put out the following statement. Second unjustified war in my lifetime. This war is illegal. It's embarrassing that we went from the world cop to the world bully in less than one year. There is no reason for us to be at war with Venezuela. When I think about the United States invasion of Venezuela, I also think about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but I think about the recent attacks on Kharkiv. Now, look, it's different in the sense that Maduro is truly an illegitimate leader. Nonetheless, while Maduro is an illegitimate leader, I don't believe we should have invaded Venezuela without congressional authority.

8:05Ben Meiselas:And even then, I don't think we should be putting troops in Venezuela or invading Venezuela. My view is we should be focusing on getting Americans health care, making housing affordable in the United States. We should be focused on making things more affordable and generally improving people's lives here in the United States before engaging in or engaging at all in these imperial conquests. And Donald Trump's view of a Monroe Doctrine, we control the Western Hemisphere. But when you think about Donald Trump's view of the world and Marco Rubio's view of the world, multipolar, the US controls the Western Hemisphere, everything else they consider to be vassal states.

8:44Ben Meiselas:They want Russia to control all of Europe and China to control all of Asia. So by engaging in this invasion of Venezuela and capturing or negotiating the capture of or with Maduro, whatever actually finds that, you know, with Trump, there's always shadiness and lies. And so I want to be very careful how I phrase this, but think about it. If you're Vladimir Putin, you believe, you know, you now have a green light, right? That it's just the law of the strong. And if Trump can do this, Putin's going to say, well, why can't I kidnap my enemies? I want to kidnap anybody. And who's going to patrol the world when Donald Trump's out there engaging in these types of invasions.

9:28Ben Meiselas:So my invasion of Ukraine should be fine. And I want to kidnap Zelensky or what's stopping China from saying that they want to kidnap the president of Taiwan or China saying, look, the US is doing this. So we're going to do this. That's why the entire world order post-World War II has been destroyed by Donald Trump's despicable behavior and despicable actions. Now, as I mentioned, This comes on the same day when Donald Trump was what earlier this morning talking about acing cognitive exams. He goes, I have perfect health. I aced the cognitive exam for the third time. I'll show you these videos later, but we have videos of Donald Trump back in April saying he passed four cognitive exams.

10:10Ben Meiselas:And in this morning's post, he's saying I aced the third straight cognitive exam. And the doctors tell me that I have perfect health right now. And then he started posting more photos of windmills and he claimed there were bald eagles getting killed by these windmills in America. But just like the windmill he posted last week, which was in Israel and it was a falcon. Now he's posting windmills of Spain, 2010 and Taiwan, 2006. And he's saying these are bald eagles when they're not. And he's saying that these are windmills in the United States, which they're not. He's doing fat shaming AI images of Governor Pritzker.

10:48Ben Meiselas:And there was no notice to the American people before or during when this invasion was taking place. And so people were very confused. What the hell is even going on? This is what the United States is doing. And Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize while he's provoking so much war and chaos and hell across the world right now. So that's part of what the Trump regime is doing. You also have the Trump regime posting that America will be so beautiful. America after 100 million deportations. And then it's a photo of like a beach and the Homeland Security website goes, the social media handle goes, the peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world.

11:34Ben Meiselas:So anyway, we're going to keep you posted every step of the way. You've seen the photos of Maduro being captured by, you've seen the photos of Maduro. We'll show you as they arrive. We'll keep you posted every step of the way here on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. So hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million. And thanks so much for watching.

12:04Ben Meiselas:day.