138. Has Trump’s War on Venezuela Already Begun?

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2:40Hello and welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kay, and joined by the very special friend of our show and friend of mine, the former Republican Lieutenant Governor of Maryland and RNC Chair and now co-host of The Weeknight and very able substitute for some guy called Anthony something on this program, Michael Steele. So good to have you back. I'm good. Hey, look, you know me. I'm always a fan of Crossing the Pond, baby. I'm good to be back with you. I'm excited. It's nothing to talk about. We can just talk about holiday recipes. Wow. Wouldn't that be nice? I'm longing for the week where news is boring and politics is boring and we decide, okay, we're going to talk about holiday recipes.

3:23Yeah. And it's just never lit. And then at the end of this week, we're going to get the Epstein files released. And that's not going to be boring either. Anyway, we're going to go global on this episode and talk about the tensions that are rising between the US and Venezuela, particularly since America seized a Venezuelan oil tanker last week. There was a little skirmish in the air, which could have ended very badly for a jet blue plane. And Trump is talking about the fact that they could be possibly even landing in Venezuela soon and that Colombia may be next. So what's going on? We're going to talk about Republican foreign policy and whether there is a chance.

4:00Michael, this is what I'd love to talk to you about in the second half. Can you see a world in which the Republican Party, you're still party, but you're in exile, gets back to foreign policy as Republicans knew it? So, let's start with Venezuela, though, because it's been a kind of interesting few days. You've had the Americans seizing this oil tanker on Wednesday and saying they're going to keep the oil, saying that this was one of those dark fleet ships that was busting sanctions and getting oil to Cuba, and it shouldn't have been allowed to do that under international law. So they said, OK, well, we can take it.

4:36They had those amazing pictures of the Marines going, are they Marines? You'd know that better than me. Going down the ropes from the helicopters anyway. It looked like something out of a fairly bad Tom Cruise movie. Well, that's all a part of the performance, yes. It's part of the show. Yeah, actually, that's a very good point, Michael, because they videoed the whole thing, right? They wanted us to see that. And they wanted, presumably, the Venezuelans to see that, too. Yeah, they wanted us to see that, but we can't somehow see the video of them killing two innocent individuals who have been stranded in the waters trying to survive after the first strike on their boat.

5:12Selective video releasing. Selective video releasing. I think it's very, very important for folks to understand that this effort of engagement that we have right now taking place is not only a threat to stability in this region, but potentially stability globally because of the relationships that Venezuela has beyond this hemisphere. Right. And and so its alliances that it has with Russia and others may come into play at some point if this goes too far. So the question is, what's too far? I think it's important also for people to understand that U.S. interdiction on the seas is not unusual. That's what our Coast Guard does, particularly if any vessel is suspected of engaging in illegal activity, whether it is shipping of oil to a country that should not be getting that oil or running drugs into the United States or any anywhere else that comes across territorial waters.

6:31So that side of it, the president has jurisdiction over, right? That's my understanding, too, that if he was seizing this oil tanker, even just if it was the Coast Guard stopping these drug carrying boats, that would all be fine and dandy. I mean, Congress would have to cede power to the president over that, right? They see power, but they still have an oversight responsibility. So the War Powers Act of the United States does give the president enormous preference, if you will, to engage in this activity. But he has to account for what he's doing. He has to inform Congress of the findings that his Justice Department or FBI or intelligence agencies have gathered that led him to engage in the activity.

7:23So, for example, the Venezuelan boat strikes would normally be carried out by our Coast Guard. They would not be strikes. They would apprehend the boat. They would stop it. They would board the boat. They would arrest the individuals on the boat. They would document what's on the boat, and then they would proceed to criminal proceedings to prosecute those individuals, either send them back to their country or put them in jail. And Mike, just let me ask you this. I like the way you're laying this out. So that is the process as it normally should happen. Is that a process that's written into statute?

8:07Is that a process that is in the constitution? Is that just one of those norms and traditions of democracy that so many of which have been flouted recently? It's written into statute, you know, the process. Now, some of it is based off of protocol and process. You know, an agency says, okay, this is how we will interdict a boat or ship on the waters, or this is what we will do if asked to engage on land somewhere. So, they have internal operational functions that they carry out, but that's driven by the federal code undergirded by statute that has been authorized by Congress. And again, I give you the War Powers Act, which covers a lot of this activity when it involves extra engagement by the United States under the direction of the President of the United States.

9:09So whether you're talking about the ships, land becomes a whole different ballgame. Which, by the way, the President said, right, on Friday, I think it was, he said, it's going to be starting on land soon. He also said, they've treated us badly, and I guess we're not treating them so good, too. That's kind of Trumpian way of saying he's not happy and he's doing this stuff. Well, he's not happy. No one really gives a damn whether or not he's happy, because that's not the standard by which one invades another country, whether or not the president is happy. Now, if Venezuela wants all this to go away, just create a little phony FIFA type award and send it over to him.

9:48And, you know, he'll go in the room and he'll slather all over that. And maybe, you know, things will lessen. But the reality of it is he wants regime change in Venezuela. Why? Why do you think it is, Michael? Because I think that's one of the big questions here. I think that's a very important question that folks here in Washington really don't have an answer to. Because first off, it is not the public policy of the United States to engage in regime change, number one. Number two, if there is an underlying policy of regime change, you're certainly not going to go about it this way. That puts too much emphasis and too much conversation in space about what's happening and what you're doing.

10:32Congress, again, would be engaged that in even the members of Congress of his own party don't have a clue what the end game is with Venezuela. You just cannot roll up on a country and start bombing their sites on their soil, particularly if you're talking about drugs. When did we get into the drug enforcement business in Venezuela? right and and so if you're trying to interdict drugs coming into the united states oh by the way so folks also know fentanyl from venezuela doesn't exist yeah doesn't come from there the fentanyl that's in this country largely comes from china these drugs were going to syrenham or something anyway and to the extent that it comes through mexico you know who brings it into the country?

11:24Americans. Americans are the largest transporter of fentanyl into the United States. So all of this is a ruse for a game that no one really fully understands what Trump is trying to achieve with Venezuela. Does he have a stick up his butt about Maduro? Possibly, but why? To what end? And I think you could say that about a whole lot of world leaders that Donald Trump engages with. So, Venezuela is a particularly ticklish problem for Republicans because the administration is acting without really giving them, since they're in the majority, a roadmap of why he's doing what he's doing. And the evidence and the facts don't align with his level of engagement.

12:12So, I had a good conversation just before we taped this with somebody who's a Venezuelan economist who's pretty close to the opposition and said that there are conversations going on now between the White House and Maduro about giving Maduro and people around Maduro safe passage out of the country via Qatar or via Belarus or somewhere, and that the conversations are back and forth about, you know, would it just be Maduro? Would it be Maduro plus 10 of his people around him, plus 20 of his people around him? Would it be which top military leaders would go with him? It's not clear that Maduro necessarily wants this.

12:44Apparently, Maduro initially suggested, okay, I'll step down. My vice president can take over and we'll have elections in a year's time, and the White House said, yeah, no thanks, we don't want that. But they are clearly very focused on getting rid of Maduro and of bringing Maria Cortina, who just got the Nobel Prize and did this dramatic escape to Norway. They want her to come back and she has a whole team. She's got economists, she's got people planning healthcare, she's got people planning education. I mean, there is a kind of government in waiting and she won last year's election. This question of why is so interesting.

13:16Are we just being naive? And is this really just about oil? But this seems risky, especially if he's talking about starting on land pretty soon, which was a very striking phrase to me that he used this weekend. Is he going to start bombing their telecoms communications or their other infrastructure? It's a high risk strategy to get Venezuela's oil production back on stream with the aim of what bringing up oil supplies so that American prices come down and inflation comes down in the United States. Is this the way he's hoping that he can bring down prices of groceries in America? I don't really know.

13:54That's the only logical thing. But God, this is a pretty high stakes way of doing that because our track record on regime change isn't the best. Yeah. I mean, we've had this issue going back to the first term with Venezuela. And Maduro, folks, as everybody knows, no saint. Man, the man stole an election. All right. So maybe he's just jealous because Maduro was successful and Trump wasn't. You know, who knows what these crazy ass people, both of them, the things that unite us in life, right? Yes. I mean, come on. Let's stop pretending that, you know, we're dealing with, you know, rational human beings here who have a lot of political power.

14:34Neither one of these men should be in the jobs they're in. And so the reality is, to your point, it presents a problem for a number of interests, not just those in the oil industry, not just those that have some economic potential gain from correcting the relationship between the United States and Venezuela when it comes to oil. OK, if that's if that's a thing. But it also has a very, very, I think, concerning narratives around the use of force to get your way in a situation like this and whether or not any country, let alone the United States, should be the bully the way we've been, as opposed to if you really want Maduro replaced, then work the ground.

15:30Work with, you know, groups that are in the democracy space trying to fix what is ailing their country right now. Putting in place, as you referenced, you know, you have a sort of government in waiting. How do you assist in that effort without direct interference? I mean, there are any number of ways to do it, but sit there and go, well, we're just going to start bombing on your land. and we're going to take out, you know, we're going to make up stories about drug runners and cartels coming out of Venezuela into the United States to justify killing over 80 people. There is no situation in which that is legitimate unless there is a declaration of war.

16:12The other risk for the Trump, you know, when you the pottery barn rule applies, you break it, you own it, right? I mean, I know that there are differences between Venezuela and Syria and Iraq. Venezuela's had a democracy. They had elections last year. Somebody was duly elected, okay, the elections were overturned by Maduro, but there's a much stronger tradition of democracy and you don't have the ethnic differences that you had in Iraq, for example. So I get that argument and I think it's a very valid argument. I think the problem is, is that if America owns this regime change, which it will do with these boat strikes, with the kind of pressure that it's putting on Maduro, especially if it starts targeting in any way things on land, even if it's not American boots on the ground.

16:51And then let's say you get the opposition comes into power and she has her people around her. But the narco terrorists, what are they going to do? Is this going to be a Columbia type situation where you have - They just go away? They're going to go away and give up this incredibly lucrative business and say, okay, fine. Right. We're going to go sell candy now. I mean, and I meant real candy, not that kind of candy. Why would they do that? They have everything to lose here. Exactly. And it tells you why you shouldn't do this the way it's being done. Yeah. And so I have a question for you, given your conversations with officials in London and in other parts of Europe.

17:30We're starting to see now our allies go, you know what? We're just going to check out on this whole Venezuela thing. We're just we're not sharing any information with you because y 'all don't know how to treat it. Number one, because we don't trust your intelligence because you got someone in the Department of Defense who just likes to talk on, you know, public chat lines. How are the European leaders looking at this situation and what is their what is the value to them to either lean in to try to move Trump off of some of the craziness that he's engaged in or step back and just kind of wait and see how it plays out?

18:11I mean, you're right about that everyone's worried about sensitive stuff ending up on group chats with journalists on them. I don't know why Pete Hegseth has not added me to a group chat yet, but that's super annoying if he'd like to. I'm happy to join a Signal chat with sensitive information on it, just so you know. That has not happened yet. But so you've got that concern. You've also got the concern that, hold on a second, if we do hand over sensitive information and a war crime is proven to have been committed. So I've heard reports that Europeans are nervous about the intelligence being used in a way that is not legal and to abet something that could be a war crime.

18:47That's obviously concerning to them. But beyond that, you have, you know, the Chancellor of Germany this weekend saying, guys, the Pax Americana is over. The party's done. Change of policy here. Wake up and smell the coffee. We have to go this alone or go this with somewhere else. Beijing, by the way, are you listening? So I think there's a lot of concerns about what the Americans are doing. And there's been some very I've read some great reporting on this, making even the Wall Street Journal has actually been very clear on this. There are rules of war for a reason. And it is a real test of democracy that you adhere to the rules of war.

19:23Now, we don't know if the rules of war have been broken in the case of the boat strikes, but we need some kind of investigation and we need transparency. We all need to see that second video of the two people, as you say, who look like they are on an upturned table, it sounds like, from the people who have seen it, pose absolutely no threat and then are blown out of the water. So I think we need a lot more transparency and everyone around the world who's watching this is going to be a lot more nervous. That last point, I think, is why we have not seen the tape and we likely won't see the tape.

19:54The imagery of that act will be more powerful than any image that has come before it. Trump loves posting, or at least at the time of, oh, yes, you know, you know, doing my yippee-ki-yay, you know, cowboy bullshit and just kind of like doing all this stuff and looking at look at how we're blowing up these these narco terrorists. Right. Video one. Video two is after you blew them up to survive and they're scrambling in the water and they're clinging on to debris to try to save their own lives. And then, as some have seen it, members of Congress that I've had on my show have said, you know, it looks like they're they're waiting for someone to rescue them and then they're blown up.

20:44And that imagery is one that this government cannot allow to be indelibly linked in the minds of the American people and the globe for that matter. that's going to create an enormous amount of pressure on this administration setting up going into next year's political cycle you won't believe how much that that piece linked with the epstein files plays a narrative in in american politics which we've already seen the results from right the special elections that have been lost by republicans the narrowed winds in a place like Tennessee, one of the red estates on the frigging planet, you know, narrowly electing a Republican member because of how these storylines are starting to eat at the American people.

21:37The overarching part of the question you asked at the beginning of why is he doing this is he doesn't care. Donald Trump is trying to amass as much cash as he can while he's in this job, whether it comes from the Saudis or Europe or Asia. He doesn't care. I mean, look at what they're doing with Ukraine. Where's the Secretary of State? Why do you have businessmen basically negotiating Ukraine? Oh, because you want to, there's a financial transaction on the back end with Russia. Yeah. I mean, people take your head out of your behinds and understand what's happening here. men and women are suffering here at home families are hurting economically internationally we're just shooting people indiscriminately out of the water meanwhile donald trump has this threat of doing deals all across that's the transactional line that's why the phrase going around washington at the moment is maduro out chevron in and that's basically the kind of white house policy remember that one maduro out chevron in okay we're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about whether the GOP will get back to what has been understood as American Republican foreign policy for the last 70 years.

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24:29Welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me, Katty Kaye and Michael Steele joining me. Okay, Michael Steele, you were chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2009 to 2011. That was the period in which, hey, look, look how well things went for you. You were the guy that gave Barack Obama a shellacking. You can gloat. It's OK. OK, you can take a little moment, a little victory. I mean, I know how to do much, but I know how to win elections. What can I say? You did the party proud. But that was the period, look, where you had Barack Obama go to the Middle East and give the big speech on Islam.

25:12You had the action in Libya. You had a kind of restoration. You had a pivot to Asia. You had him going around the world kind of trying to restore relations after the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. And to some extent, in those first two years, when you were, my memory is, there was actually quite a lot of Republican support for some of the foreign policy. Yes. That Barack Obama was enacting. Talk about how much you think the Republican Party has shifted from when you were chairman to what you see today when it comes to America's role on the world stage. It's 180 degrees from where it was. the the rule the rules-based order uh that was established after world war ii you know that's a drinking game right every time you say rules-based order we have to take a quick shot happy hour for me starts whenever happy hour needs to start that's that's how i roll uh and that's usually pretty pretty early in the day but that you know the this idea that we're going to govern ourselves in this new alliance that we're creating, that we're going to be a check on aggressive behavior from nation states.

26:33All right. So that was in response to Germany, and it would later be in response to Russia, as it is today in response to China. And, you know, but it's different with China because China is more economic, it's not military yet. A little thing called Taiwan sitting right over there, which could be a problem. But the reality is that this idea of order was important and it has sustained the alliance and has been a check on bad actors. Yes, 9-11 notwithstanding and other acts isolated. But in the main, the alliance has been very good about that. And how that's translated here in the United States is that from successive administrations, there has been sort of an overlap in foreign policy.

27:25The basics, if you will, that look to our role with NATO, look to our role with our other allies, certainly as we've developed in the last 10 years in the Pacific Rim, right? Particularly with countries like Australia leading the way in that region. So we've had these relationships that have sustained the global order. And so when you go and you look at it, the foreign policy of George Herbert Walker Bush. Hell, let's go back even further. The foreign policy of Richard Nixon. Oh, let's go back even further. The foreign policy of Harry Truman. Right. Is a thread that runs through each of those successive administrations.

28:19And there may be some tinkering here and there. But the main thing stays in place, and that is strengthening the alliance, right? Making sure to be the check on our adversaries and to populate democracy around the globe. Now, some may not have liked the way that last part has played out from time to time, but that's been a part of that narrative, not just for the United States, by the way. And so each successive administration, and you would hear this, particularly in the Trump first term, how people would say that, you know, I may have had disagreements with some of Obama's foreign policy, but in the main, he was part of the continuation of that order.