Why 2026 could be Trump's most volatile year yet

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0:30It always ends up hurting the United States. I left the briefing feeling that it would again. That is Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democrat minority Senate leader, expressing his dissatisfaction with the explanations about what happened in Venezuela and what happens next. And if he's worried that there might be further attempts at regime change elsewhere, it seems he has good ground to be concerned. Welcome to the News Agents USA.

1:05Marc Polymeropoulos:The News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis and John Sopel. We're now five days on from the military operation in Venezuela that saw US special forces capture Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Moments later, they're squirreled out of the country and then they're in New York in court and now in prison awaiting trial. It's hard to think of a more dizzying few days. The planning, the execution of the operation was impeccable. And Donald Trump is right to take a victory lap over the way the military conducted themselves in this operation. But the questions about what happens next and the role of U.S. intelligence services in the future in other operations are only magnifying as we see the scale of Donald Trump's global ambition, if you like.

2:07You know, we've heard about him talking about Colombia recently, Cuba, Greenland, threatening Iran. Previously, he's talked about Panama. Is that back in play? Previously, he has talked about Canada. We know he's not happy with Mexico and the drug cartels operating there and has told the president she needs to get a grip on what is happening in her country. So where does this go next? Are we any clearer five days on from the operation to remove the head of state of Venezuela and put him in a New York jail? Well, let's speak now to Mark Polymeropoulos, who is a former CIA intelligence service officer and co-host of the Crisis Room podcast.

2:55And Mark, I mean, we'll come to the operation itself, but how much strain does it put on CIA resources to have to plan for something like what we saw over the weekend? This extraordinary operation in Venezuela culminating in the lifting of the president and his wife with no U.S. servicemen or women's deaths. So, John, I guess you could say coup planning and an extraction operation are expensive. But ultimately, it's a very good question because, you know, while CIA, I think along with, of course, our colleagues across the pond in the UK, our intelligence community has incredible techniques, talents, abilities to do some really amazing things.

3:39there are finite resources. And so when we put our focus on the Western Hemisphere, which frankly is part of the U.S. national security strategy, this is not a surprise after all. But when we do that, we take our eye off the ball of what I think is the number one priority for the United States, and that's the long-term pacing threat from China. And of course, there's also issues of terrorism, there's the Middle East and the war in Ukraine. And so we can do some really amazing things sometimes, but there's no doubt that when we put all of our focus down south in our kind of hemisphere, then other parts of the world are neglected.

4:10Yeah, because in the operation itself, and I want to come on to the rest of the world, I suppose my central question is this. We've seen the most unbelievable operation, successful, brilliantly planned and executed in Venezuela. But can you kind of do multiple operations simultaneously? Because we hear Donald Trump talking about Colombia. We hear him talk about Cuba. We've heard him talking about Greenland. he's still got an interest in Canada, he's threatening Iran, and so it goes on. You know, there were some figures, and I might be getting this off just a bit, though, that one third of the deployed U.S.

4:44Navy was in the Western Hemisphere for this. You know, the U.S. government's most elite special operations forces, that's both Delta Force, that's from the U.S. Army, and the Navy SEALs from SEAL Team 6, that's the naval equivalent, were there as well. Task Force 160, that's the Army's special aviation regiment, with kind of the fancy tricked out helicopters that, you know, I think were made famous from, you know, from the Bin Laden raid. It goes on and on and on. There's also Air Force special operations, these Spectre gunships. So you put them all in this area. And then, of course, what happens when you need them in other places?

5:15And one, John, one of the things that's really interesting, and I think, you know, we're not done with this crisis. There's multiple crises. So what happens in Venezuela matters. But you also saw this really unique airlift over the last 48 hours of U.S. special operations capabilities to the U.K. And why is it? Because a Venezuelan tanker is now off the coast, you know, crossing into the Atlantic. It's near the U.K. And it's now they painted a Russian flag on it. And there's apparently Russian submarines now protecting it. So there's a question now of will the U.S. special operations community take another kind of crack at a risky operation?

5:47And that's boarding, in essence, a Russian flag ship off the coast of Europe. And so you did see that movement of special operations, you know, back across the Atlantic. And so, you know, that's what we have to do when we are kind of tasked with these multiple operations. But then it takes it away from what would need to be done if perhaps there's a round two in Venezuela. It's a huge test for Donald Trump. You know, you know, he talked very tough and acted very tough. In fact, you know, you know, remove extracting the leader of another country in a pretty daring operation, you know, whether you approve it or not is a bold move.

6:19And that's We can talk about the strategic part of this, too, in terms of what's going to happen in Venezuela afterwards. But going up against Venezuela and then going up against Russia, I think, are two entirely different balls of wax here. And so let's see how tough Trump is now when the Russians, Putin, is challenging him. And I think this is going to be fascinating to watch this play out. These are two nuclear armed competitors, in essence, and there's kind of going to be high drama on the high seas. And so let's see what happens. I think Europe is going to have a role in this, too. I mean, these forces, US Special Operations Forces are based in Europe.

6:51They're actually based out of the UK. So what does the British government have to say about this? And I think there's going to be a lot of nervousness now because this is not Venezuela. You know, it's not the Middle East. It's not going even after the Iranian nuclear program. This is, you know, the US and Russian militaries potentially facing off at a time when a lot of us are really questioning whether Trump has the resolve to take on Putin. He hasn't showed that yet. So let's see what happens now. Just going back to Venezuela, because I think this is instructive for what else might happen in other places.

7:20The criticism of Trump is that he's impetuous. There are decisions made. Right. Let's do this and do it quickly. What is clear about the Venezuela operation is that this was meticulously planned. It had to be meticulously planned, given the risk factors were so high. Yeah, the risk to force was enormous on this. And so, you know, the way I've kind of deconstructed it, you know, based on my kind of, understanding of the intelligence community and also my friends still in government is as follows. This was intelligence driven. The CIA, again, per multiple press reports, had teams on the ground in Caracas since August.

7:58That's pretty extraordinary. They also reportedly recruited a high level penetration of the Venezuelan inner circle around Maduro. And what does that mean, John? And what we perfected over the 20 years of the global war on terrorism is what we call manhunting. Now, we did it against Al Qaeda. It's a fine fix and finish mission. In this case, it's an extraction. But that means, you know, recruiting sources, having also technical means, signals intelligence to put someone on the X. That means we knew Maduro's pattern of life, where he went, where he slept, every single thing about him. The CIA feeding this into the Joint Special Operations Command, which then, of course, plans and executes the mission, knowing full well everything about the compound, the bodyguards, what kind of force they would come up against.

8:40And so I think that is a tremendous tactical success. And again, it's, you know, I was on the ground in Iraq with the infiltration. I went in with naval special warfare units. We did exactly this. I spent 20 years then with the special operations world growing up with them. So there's also personal ties and there's incredible trust between the CIA and the special operations, Joint Special Operations Command. And so I think, you know, that kind of the fruits of that really paid off here. Now, what doesn't seem to have happened is then the long term planning and this notion of keeping kind of the Maduro regime totally intact, almost taking extreme views of the lessons of Iraq, where we had de-bathification, fired the entire civil service and Iraqi military and insurgency started.

9:20In this case, I think we probably were too cautious and are leaving, you know, Maduro is gone, but leaving his vice president in charge, who actually is a tool of the Cubans. And so how the U.S. goes from here, I think we overlearned the lessons of Iraq. And so, you know, what comes next? Because regardless of what you think about this operation, I think it would be a little bit more palatable to the to the world if Donald Trump would not stop talking about oil and we would actually restore democracy to the Venezuelan people. And then you can make somewhat of a case of this. But right now, this sounds like the worst lecture of a Marxist professor that it's all about oil.

9:53And, you know, and a lot of people can claim that. And then Donald Trump actually says that. So it doesn't put the U.S. in a very positive look in the world. If we're kind of going for the kind of democracy promotion, and I know some people criticize that, but there would be joy in Venezuela. Right now, there's not. And so what happens next is, you know, can we kind of move the Venezuelans, the current regime to kind of give up power and the transition to democracy? That really remains to be seen. I'm not sure. Yeah, Mark, you vividly described just the buildup of US military assets in the Caribbean, around Venezuela, in advance of this operation.

10:29What you seem to be suggesting is, well, you can't just pull everyone out now because it's so uncertain what happens next. And they built that into the plan. So the plan is now to coerce the, you know, this, in effect, the Maduro regime. This wasn't regime change. This was just a decapitation of one individual. So now they want to, the Trump administration wants to coerce Venezuela down a path, whether it's oil or then to democracy. But by doing that, you need a threat of force. Well, that means leaving this, again, one third of the deployed U.S. Navy special operations forces, some of whom have actually been redeployed, as we just talked about.

11:04And so there's a question, how long, how sustainable is that to have, you know, the USS Ford, you know, one of the U.S.'s, you know, top aircraft carriers sitting there? Is this going to be for weeks or for months? And what if, frankly, the Venezuelans don't cooperate? Then what happens? One of the coercive means as well is putting this naval blockade against the Venezuelan tanker fleet. well, we're seeing them challenge this right now. It's not just one ship, by the way. I think five Venezuelan tankers have left port. And so now the US is going to have to enforce this blockade. And again, first test will be, frankly, off the coast of Europe.

11:37Fascinating. Just on the kind of other countries that are in the crosshairs now. And we've heard Donald Trump talking about Colombia. We've heard him talking about Cuba, obviously Greenland. How worried should the leaders of those countries be? Even Mexico, where, you know, he's talked about the fentanyl crisis coming from the drugs cartels in Mexico. How worried should these leaders be? John, I think they should be worried. And I'll tell you why. First of all, you know, there's always this notion that we have to separate the signal from the noise. That's kind of this phrase that's used in Washington a lot, and that a lot of times just bluster from Trump.

12:13But what we're seeing now is that he's actually going through on a lot of these promises. You know, on day 60 of his threat against the Iranians, he launched an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities. Same thing with Maduro now. You know, he launched an operation to remove Maduro. And so you also, frankly, don't have adults around him like you did in the first Trump administration. You know, General Mattis, the former Secretary of Defense, is not there. John Kelly, the chief of staff, another former general. Instead, you have the deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who, you know, in an interview he did a couple of days ago in the United States on CNN, caused a lot of concern because he sounded like a raving lunatic talking about American power.

12:51And so ultimately, I think, you know, countries have to take this seriously. Now, you do have the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, kind of in damage control constantly. So now he's telling the Europeans, well, we really don't want to invade Greenland, but we want to buy it, which, by the way, that headline is preposterous to begin with. And so I think, you know, countries should be concerned. You know, in particular, I also would note that Cuba, because it's a country now it's going to lose its lifeline for oil from Venezuela, you do have a big American armada there and you have Secretary of State Rubio and that is his baby.

13:20You know, he wants to see a regime change there. So I would take, you know, a lot of times in the past people would say, you know, they kind of ignore Trump on what he says. I think that time has changed now and you do have to take it seriously. And that should be of concern because there's no people around him saying, hey, hold on a second. You know, usually there's the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the CIA director is going to be like, we can't do that. And this is just kind of some bluster for negotiations. Seems like now you should take these things seriously. And just on Greenland, I read one report that said that, frankly, if the Americans wanted to take Greenland militarily, it would take five helicopters and the operation would take half an hour.

13:56D-Day, it's not. Maybe. That's even being overly... I mean, it would take one helicopter. I mean, and this is preposterous for so many reasons, because frankly, between Greenland and Denmark, a tremendous ally who, of course, fought with us in the global war on terrorism and lost soldiers at very high rates. So this is disgraceful how we're treating this and Greenland, of course, a member of NATO. But, you know, we're getting everything out of Greenland that we want anyhow. If we wanted to base more U.S. troops, if we wanted to do just about anything there, we probably could. So this is very kind of perplexing.

14:28And, you know, it's one of those things where you don't know who's kind of whispering in Trump's ear. He's on this kick about Greenland. But, you know, the problem with this on kind of the big picture at a time where NATO, you know, there is worry about NATO because of, you know, this comes up. And so you do wonder, is the United States ever going to have any friends and allies when inevitably we need them? Remember, the only time Article 5 has ever been invoked was after 9-11 and Europe and NATO came to our assistance. I don't see that happening now, particularly when we're, you know, we're treating our allies, we're bullying them and, you know, saying things that are rather preposterous.

15:03But, you know, that's where we are. And Trump doesn't seem to back down any time. Secretary of State Rubio might try to do damage control, but Trump then turns around and says, nope, I want it. It's mine. Extraordinary. Mark Polymerophilus, thank you very much indeed. Thanks, John. And in a moment, we will take you to frozen Minnesota on the Canadian border, but which is burning red hot at the moment for MAGA and their attempts to discredit the Democrats in that state.

15:41Marc Polymeropoulos:The News Agents USA. Here's the thing that I'm going to ask all of you is, Republicans want to tear this state down. Republicans want to tell you it's too dangerous to walk down the streets. Republicans want to tell you there's nothing good comes out of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Republicans want to tell you everybody with brown skin is stealing money or that they're not welcome here. They want to do nothing to improve this state. Their idea of improving this state is being a parrot for Donald Trump agreeing to everything that he agreed with. Well, here's what I'm going to tell you. It ain't happening.

16:14I'm not going anywhere. And you can make all your requests for me to resign over my dead body. Will that happen? I will fight this thing till the very end to make this state better. And the question that I think they need to decide is, is when did the guy in the White House resign? When does he take accountability for what he did? because it isn't going to happen here in terms of us shying away from making the state better. So if that voice sounds a little bit familiar, that is Tim Walls, who was Kamala Harris's running mate and had things worked out a little differently in November 2024. He could be the vice president now instead of J.D.

16:51Vance. And boy, has he got some problems now in Minnesota where he is the governor. He said he wouldn't resign, but he's just announced that he is a abandoning his attempts to be re-elected as the state's governor because of a fraud scandal that has absolutely engulfed the state. And at its extreme end, MAGA and Republicans are saying this is about Somali Americans who are utterly corrupt, who've come to this country, who've brought their third world ways with them, are not playing by the rules and they are defrauding the state of billions and billions of dollars. And there have been apologists on the other side of it, on the Democrat side of it, who are saying there's nothing much to see here.

17:40We've got a bit of a fraud problem, but it's nothing like the way you are depicting it. And it looks like the truth is somewhere in between the two, because there has certainly been fraud on an epic scale and it may well run into billions of dollars. Nearly all the indictments so far have been from the Somali community where there has been wrongdoing. And this has led one or two right-wing propagandists, agitators, to go to Minnesota to try to find out what they can. And it took a 23-year-old, a guy called Nick Shirley, to post something online for this all to suddenly catch fire like a wildfire on the most arid dry bush.

18:28This is a little bit of what he posted. Yeah, I would like to see if I can put my son Joey here.

18:32Marc Polymeropoulos:Who's your son, Joey? My son, Joey. Can I check out daycare centre? No! He's a liar. I'm the owner. Do you put your kid here in this daycare? No. There is one child in there. Yeah, I'd like to know if this is a legit business. Me, I'm scared of you too. How come I explain everything? You're scared of me? Because of my color you said you're scared of me because of my color does that make you a racist? Yeah, no, no, no, you said you're you said you're scared because of my color You you said you're scared of me because of my color that makes you a racist So right now they're all getting mad because he's showing the paperwork of this business being registered as a business 74 children no children.

19:12We saw one child when they opened up the door

19:15Marc Polymeropoulos:So now they're all getting mad That video has since had over 130 million impressions. People have watched it that many times. And it caught the attention of J.D. Vance, who is the current vice president rather than Tim Wolves, who liked it. And has since said that Nick Shirley deserves a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on what was happening. And what he was doing was he was going around to a number of daycare centres, which were taking funding from the state. to open. And the suggestion was they were just fronts. There were no children at these daycare centres. They were just pocketing the money and running off with it.

19:57That's the charge. And it's been seized on by everyone at the highest levels of MAGA. This is Kristi Nerm, the Homeland Security Secretary. We think that this is just the tip of the iceberg. So Minnesota is unbelievable what we've seen, but it is leading us to networks all over the country and overseas, and we're going to follow every single one of them. Homeland Security Investigations is an incredible team of individuals who go after human traffickers, sex traffickers, but the fraud that we have in our public programs that are tied to California, absolutely. We're going to come to you, Governor Newsom, and we're going to arrest every single individual that has ties to this kind of ceiling of taxpayer dollars, and we will hold them accountable.

20:41So there you have a taste of what is coming next, because the Republican Party is now turning its fire on what it alleges is massive fraud in California as well. Governor Newsom may be a more difficult nut to crack, and he has quite the capability of launching his own propaganda retorts when he is under fire. But let's consider what has happened in Minnesota. We're joined now by J. Patrick Kulikin, who is the editor in chief of the Minnesota Reformer. And I'm sure a lot of people think, why is Minnesota getting so many headlines right now when this is a state tucked away in the north of the United States on the border with Canada?

21:25It is a little surprising, but I think we have to remember that the 2024 vice presidential Democratic nominee was a man named Tim Walls, and he's the governor of Minnesota. The president of the United States has shown a real affinity for vengeance on those who have opposed him. And I think there was a there's a direct interest in taking down Governor Tim Walls here. So that's one dynamic going on. The other is that we have the largest population of Somali Americans here in the state of Minnesota. After the civil war there in the 90s, the United States began accepting refugees. The vast majority of them are citizens.

22:11Trump is maybe vaguely aware of that, but he certainly loathes our immigrant populations from what they euphemistically call countries of concern, but are essentially mostly Muslim countries. So that's another dynamic going on. And the reason why that's relevant is because it is the case that around 90 percent of the fraud charges have been brought against people with East African heritage. and the like all kind of propagandistic stories like this one is a little bit there is a grain of truth and that is that our very generous Scandinavian social safety net programs here really have been badly tarnished by fraud so let us try and disentangle those bits because that's a brilliant outline of where we are right now what are the allegations of fraud that have been made because I've seen the hysterical portrayal that some in Magalant have done it, that the Somalis, they're a bunch of crooks, they're on the make.

23:16It's pretty racist, the depiction of what is going on. But it's certainly true. Something pretty weird has been going on on childcare budgets, on things that are available as benefits to the community in Minnesota. And there has been massive fraud. Yes, that is. That's absolutely true. During the pandemic, there was a program that was intended to get food to children who would usually get a free meal or two meals at school. But because school was out because of the pandemic, they stood up this program rather quickly without many guardrails to allow various organizations, everybody from restaurants to nonprofit groups to churches or mosques to give out food to children.

24:01And it became a great opportunity for fraud because it was very little checking going on who was actually feeding children. Well, it turns out that most of the people were not feeding children. They were just taking reimbursement checks. That was known as feeding our future. That's sort of the the the original fraud scandal here. Then it turns out that many of the perpetrators of that, as my organization reported way back in 2023, had other state government contracts. So they were part of other social welfare programs, and often they were lightly regulated. So for instance, we have a rapidly growing program to help autistic children.