143. Trump’s Venezuela Attack: Maduro Captured, What’s Next?

0:06Welcome to The Rest is Politics US and this emergency live stream of the podcast to talk about the dramatic news out of Venezuela, where American forces attacked the capital Caracas, managed to extract the president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. And they are both now on a US ship on their way to New York, where they've been indicted and will face trial in America. This is my understanding, Anthony, is that this is the biggest attack by the United States on anywhere in Central or Latin America since 1989. So this is a big deal. President Trump had been building up to this. You and I had said this.

0:49We thought that the Americans were going to go after Maduro himself a few weeks ago. I've been speaking this morning to one U.S. senator and a member of Congress about this, so I can fill you in on what they're thinking and a couple of people in the foreign policy world and the intelligence community. But it was a, however much this, we thought this might happen, it is still an incredibly dramatic assault that for the Americans to go in, having indicted a foreign leader on drug trafficking and machine gun charges and actually extracted the foreign leader illegitimately in power, though he may be, and brought him back to the United States to stand trial is a very dramatic moment in this presidency who had gone out and said he was going to be the America first presidency for a MAGA base that elected him thinking this was going to be an isolationist presidency.

1:40It certainly doesn't look like that today, does it? No, but let me put you on the spot, Cady. Is that OK? I'm going to put you on the spot. Go on. It's a good or bad thing, Cady. Look, I think there is nobody who is thinking that Nicolas Maduro was a good guy, that he was the legitimate leader of Venezuela. There were elections last year. He did not win them. He has oppressed his people. He is a narco trafficker. He runs a country where it's not just about drugs that I was reminded this morning, it's about illegal gold mining, it's about human trafficking. There is nobody in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party who is going to be sorry or say that they are sorry to see Nicolas Maduro go.

2:20But I think there are serious questions about what this means for other countries, other global powers, and what this means for Venezuela itself, America's track record of breaking things, breaking governments in the past, Whether it was a Democrat like Barack Obama, who thought he could get rid of a dictator in Libya, Gaddafi in Libya, and that would work out fine. I don't see Libya looking like a very safe option at the moment. So what is that? This is the questions I'm getting this morning from members of Congress and senators and foreign policy people is what does this mean long term for Venezuela?

2:54And what does this mean just as importantly for China? What does this mean for Russia? And what does this mean for Iran, for other countries around the world? So I don't know that it's as simple, Anthony, as saying to push back on your pushback. I don't know if it's as simple as saying, is this a good thing or a bad thing? No, I wasn't pushing back. I just wanted to put you on the spot and ask you if you thought it was a good or bad thing. And it's a mixed bag, really. So let's talk about the good first and then we'll talk about the bad. So the good, I think, is unquestionably, and just given what happened with the Nobel Peace Prize situation and Machado, unquestionably.

3:33I think the election results there were fraudulent and he was staying in power, probably illegitimately. So that's number two. I think it's been a nefarious three decades for the Venezuelan people. You and I had reported on this earlier, primarily because I have a lot of Venezuelan friends. And I said, hey, they're going to remove Maduro. They're going to strike them. They're going to blame it on narco terrorism. They hit the port. Trump said as much in front of netanyahu uh and it's pretty obvious that they probably got bribes into all of the military and they probably said okay listen uh leave us alone we're going to go in now in your reporting uh uh it's been suggested perhaps that there's one maybe more than one american soldier that's been hurt nobody no casualties thank god well it's just interesting because president trump we should just say this quickly anthony president trump is speaking while we're speaking and noticeably he said there were no americans killed he didn't say there were no americans injured yeah and so so if you said to me okay here's what's going to go down and here's the real politics of it there's a bad guy going to get removed uh you say okay that's good the bad part of it is it's a violation of international law and it's a violation of sovereign borders and you guys could chat gbt this i won't bore you with us, but the process of removing somebody like Noriega, who was in Panama, that was done with coordination from the UN.

5:03It was sort of adhering to the rules-based order of what was going on. And ironically, they both turned themselves in on January 3rd. Noriega, believe it or not, it's already 36 years ago. So you have a difference in strategy, right? Trump goes in, doesn't notify the Congress, doesn't tell anybody what he's doing, he flexes on everybody. And then at the same time that he's doing that, he's pardoning the Honduran president for drug trafficking and for the same sort of indictment that Maduro's under. So you're saying to yourself, okay, there's some arbitrariness, there's some capriciousness here.

5:42But again, because I like being fair on this podcast and objective, I believe this is very good for the uh venezuelan people long term and since you brought up the stuff that went wrong in libya and frankly went wrong in iraq let's provide some historical context here uh 1945 may eisenhower and marshall are faced with a decision that they let the ss police what is now vanquish germany do they let them police it they make a decision yes we're going to let them police it and so they effectively hire the SS to help them with law enforcement in Germany. Okay. Let's fast forward. It's 2003. Does Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney, uh, they're all given the decision.

6:30Okay. And Rumsfeld, uh, do you want to let the Republican guard police Iraq? Okay. Republican guard said a hundred million dollars. We can pay everybody and we'll police Iraq for you. they say no uh those guys convert mostly to isis they set up an oil and gas black market uh smuggling ring uh and they they wreak havoc on the u.s for 15 years in that area so so to me i don't think that's going to happen i think this is a pretty smart group of people at the state department and cia so a u.s senator that i spoke to this morning said Rubio and Hegseth both told him that this was all about drug trafficking.

7:13It was not about regime change. And this was just a few weeks ago. And he pushed back against that. And they said, no, no, no, this is not the Iraq model. And his takeaway was that this was the Panama model, the Noriega model. You snatch them. But President Trump, we should just say like literally a minute ago, has said on American television that the US is going to run Venezuela. That's his word, that the US is going to run Venezuela until it's safe to have some kind of a transition. Now, I think you're right that in the long term, this at least has the potential to be good for the Venezuelan people.

7:47And it's going to be interesting to see whether they bring back the two people who were democratically elected, Gonzalez from Madrid and Machado, who has just won the Nobel Peace Prize. And to the extent to which the Venezuelan military, and this is another thing that I've heard this morning is how much will the Venezuelan military side with the Americans, carry on letting the Americans do what they want to do? Will they stick with the current vice president who just happens to be in Russia at the moment? Venezuela's a client state almost of Russia's. So I think there are a lot of ifs around this.

8:26This could work. It could lead to a country that is more stable for the Venezuelan people, less corrupt for the Venezuelan people, gives them more opportunities and access to resources. But I think it would be remiss of anyone in America to not look at some of the recent past and think, okay, you have to have, you have to at least have the humility to realize if you go into a country and break the leadership and get rid of a dictator, then things are not totally in your control anymore. However much the president says we're going to run this country until there's a stable transition. I mean, maybe you can go in and have an operation like that.

9:11And that's what apparently I'm being told Republican senators are saying this morning. Phew, we got away with this. This was the right action. And it was undoubtedly an extraordinary projection of American power, which I'm sure the Chinese and the Russians are taking note of. But it has ripple effects. It has ripple effects in Venezuela and it has ripple effects. And one of the things that I'm wondering this morning is there are a lot of people making a lot of money in Venezuela out of nefarious businesses. Are they going to give up those resources now? Are they going to give up those sources of income now?

9:47And if they are going to, does that mean America has to stay? Does America now effectively have to police Venezuela now? They are going to use the Venezuelan military. They're going to pay the Venezuelan military to conjoin with the U.S. government and government agencies to effectively run the country. I'll make a prediction here. I'll be bold enough to say this, that the Venezuelan vice president will likely be the leader for an interim period of time. My guess is it'll be two to two and a half years after which they'll have a election. Whether or not Machado will be able to take power or not, it remains to be seen.

10:29I'm doubtful of that because I believe that the U.S. is coordinating with Russia right now on this situation. So it's interesting that she's there, right? She's there. And I think she was there knowing that this was going to happen. I also think the military knew this was going to happen because reports on the ground were, they're coming in. Bye-bye, guys. We're leaving. We've got our suitcase of cash from the Americans. They bought us off. And he told you to leave in November. You didn't listen to him. Your reporting was that he had opportunity to be in exile in Turkey. He didn't take that. That's sometimes what these people do.

11:05So now he's going to be indicted. He's on his way to New York right now to face US prosecution. So again, we can talk about the right or wrong of this. If you're saying to me, was this right, rules-based, post-World War II order, this was wrong. If you're telling me, could this be beneficial to the Venezuelan people and beneficial to their living standards, and could this be an opportunity to see a revitalized Venezuela? I think it's very fact-based to say that for 30 years under Chavez and Maduro, there's been plundering that's going on. This is one of the richest countries in the world, and they have some of the poorest living standards in the world.

11:46Last point, I just want to make it briefly. The president saying it the way he's saying it is going to piss off everybody in the international community. So this is the part about Trump. There's good parts of Trump and there's bad parts about Trump. But him saying it the way he's saying it and handling himself the way he's handling it, contrast that to George Herbert Walker Bush 36 years ago when there was a U.S. problem in Latin America in Panama. Yeah. And I'm going to be a full disclosure here. Anthony and I are good at many things. We are not able to talk to each other and listen to Trump at the same time.

12:26But our producers are listening to president speaking at the moment and they're sending us messages. So Trump has said that the U.S. is ready to stage a second, much larger assault if needed, but he said he probably don't think it will be needed. And he has just said that what happened to Maduro could happen to all military and political figures in Venezuela if they're not fair to their people. OK, a lot of you are sending in questions, questions about what what is really behind this, because the ostensible reason for this, the indictment that has just been issued, there was an indictment out from 2020.

13:01and there's another indictment, as far as I understand, that's just come out from the DOJ. And the one that's just come out is about machine guns and drug trafficking, which is exactly the same indictment, almost word for word, as was rendered against, as was given to Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, who was in prison on drug trafficking charges until about a couple of weeks ago and was released from prison. So the irony there doesn't escape anyone who's watching this. But again, let's play Trump for a second. Trump is trying to tell the dictatorships in Latin America, I'm a transactionalist.

13:40If you do exactly what I say, you're going to have my forces and me on your side. If you go against me, I'm going to flex on you. OK. Oh, by the way, we're going to have to talk about what that means for Russia and Ukraine and what it means for China and Taiwan. But I want to get to this phantom of many topics question, which is about Brazil and Argentina being scared to trade with China. Will they be scared to trade with China because Trump might accuse them of being drug lords? So I think it's very it's a very fair question. But I'm just back from a recent trip to Brazil. And I'm here to tell you that the Brazilians and the Argentinians are working very closely with the U.S.

14:20Sure, they're going to continue to trade with China, but they're not trading with China without a coordinated assent from the United States government, especially Argentina, after the$20 billion swap deal that they've gotten. So again, this is a Western hemispheric Monroe doctrine sort of flex. And I'm just wondering if there's a trade going on, Caddy, and what are your thoughts there, where he's saying, hey, China, back off. This is my backyard. Oh, by the way, in your backyard, I intend to be backing off as well. Or do you think he's not doing that? So look, there are several questions. 12 Gacha is asking who's next, Canada.

15:06What does this mean for anybody who's not aligned with Trump? Joe Albert, 1765, this is the US unlawfully entering into another country. Next up, Greenland and Canada. Why is there not more condemnation from the US media? Scary. Amy Davis, 4259, what are the implications for international law? Others of you are asking really, is this just all about oil? I've in my conversations this morning, a couple of things struck me. One is yes. I mean, this the phrase that's been going around Washington, I think I said this a few weeks ago, is that it's really Maduro out Chevron in that there is a big oil component to this.

15:45But also in Trump's frame of mind, it's part of a pattern of thinking that he can strike countries successfully, whether it's Nigeria or Iran, and that is his new model. it makes him look and be powerful. And he's not entirely wrong on that, that there is a projection of American power here. I mean, the fact that the Chinese envoy to Venezuela was in meetings with Maduro just hours before Maduro was snatched has to have the Chinese thinking, wow, we have a massive intelligence failure, if nothing else on our hands. Why didn't we know this was coming, but also has to make them think this is the new American model that you have your sphere of influence.

16:31The Americans are going to do what it takes to have this Western sphere of influence. We can have our sphere of influence. If I was in Taipei right now, I'd be pretty nervous. I think if I was in Finland or the Baltic states, I would be a little bit more nervous today than I was yesterday. And that there is this, what he said in that National Strategic Security Review that you and I did a podcast on a few weeks ago, has come into play that this is actually what he is doing. This is the Western Hemisphere. We're going to project power here. I just think it's worth pointing out that it's this kind of model of dramatic kinetic activity to extract a foreign leader or to do what he did in Iran or to do what he did in Nigeria.

17:17And if he's thinking of other places, and he just had that tweet out the other day, right? Iran warning the Iranians that Americans are locked and loaded. I mean, I don't even really know what that means, but it's not without big risks. This is a pretty high risk strategy. Because this is a live show, I want to respond to some of the people that are texting us, if you don't mind. Okay. So one person is saying that I'm rationalizing the unlawful actions. I'm not rationalizing the unlawful actions. I am just explaining them to you. I'm telling you the good and bad about this. Unfortunately, the world isn't black and white.

17:52It's a gray world. Would I have done that? I probably would not have done that. I don't think President Harris would have done that. Certainly in Obama or Biden would not have done that. President Obama did it in Libya. Okay. He did it in Libya. Okay. But I don't think he would have done it to Maduro because he had a chance to do it to Maduro. And so we do this. And if you guys don't like it, that's fine that you don't like it. I said it's unlawful. He's going to seek cover under Article 2 and say that he's fine with doing it. I'm just trying to explain to you what the ramifications are of him doing it.

18:29There's another person saying, I don't have any clue about whether or not it's going to help the Venezuelan people. My response to that is, hey, it's not going to get any worse for the Venezuelan people. You got to look at the power. This is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of their oil assets and their mineral resources. And this government has hijacked that country and has destroyed the living standard for those people. So when you say that, I don't know, I'm willing to bet as a trained economist and willing to bet as an investment manager for 40 years that this will likely end up well for them if the transition is handled well and you get some type of civilian authority reestablished that's democratic.

19:11I believe that it will end up well. Okay. So I want to push back on those. One second, Anthony. We're not attacking Greenland, just so for the people that are worried about that. Or Canada. Not going to happen. Okay. We're just not going to do that so we can pretend otherwise. But I do think if you're talking about is this flexing of the US military good or bad for the world, I think generally it's not good. I'm just going to say that. I think it could be very good for Venezuela and its people. But generally, it's going to cause things to happen in a daisy chain, Gaddy, in terms of our diplomatic relations around the world.

19:54I agree. That are not going to be good for the U.S. long term. It's very isolating for America. We're going to take a quick break and then talk about the domestic implications of this.

20:07So what's interesting from the members of Congress that I spoke to this morning and the senator I spoke to this morning is clearly there's quite a lot of disquiet. Not just from Democrats, but I think Republicans have been a little concerned recently, too. they are not there's there's questions about whether Donald Trump has the right to do this under the US Constitution you know this better than I do Anthony but apparently within 48 hours he has to brief both Democrats and Republicans he didn't go to the gang of eight which is the senior leadership of the Democratic Republican Party in the House and in the Senate he didn't go to them to brief them beforehand, which is unusual.

20:51They feel he should have done. He will probably try to say that this was a police, that's what they're saying, this was a police operation, and hence the indictment against him. But I think there's a lot of pushback against that because of the Hernandez release from prison. They don't buy that. They feel that they are being lied to. Democrats certainly feel they're being lied to in both the House and in the Senate. What do you think the implications of this are for Trump in domestic terms when it comes to the MAGA base? Because it's been interesting. Actually, one of the things that has struck me is how little outcry we've heard from MAGA against these strikes against the boats over the last few months.

21:38But also from the Democrats. You have to understand when US forces are in play and Americans that are in the military are in harm's way, if you're a political leader in the United States and you are denouncing that, it's going to make you look bad. Again, people can dislike me for all this stuff, don't care. Just want to explain to you how the world works. On the side of MAGA, we've already decided that this is a personality cult, and there's a good, strong 25 % of those people that are with Trump one way or another. We're not for forever wars. We're not for forever wars. We're going to bomb Iran.

22:15We're for it. Okay, now I'm for it. We're going to bomb and take out Maduro. We weren't for it, but now we're for it. Okay, so this is a - Because he literally can go down Fifth Avenue. I mean, he got it right in 2016. He can get away with anything when it comes to MAGA. This is a cult of personality. People have to understand that. And so, but there's a good question in the feed, which I like doing these live shows. Where is Vance right now? I don't know. Now, maybe Vance is on a separate vacation. Maybe he couldn't get to Mar-a-Lago. Certainly, he was clued in. I don't think he didn't know about the invasion.

22:50So the question is where is Vance and why is Vance not standing there alongside of Rubio and General Cain, etc.? I mean, the Rubio is interesting on this one because Rubio clearly, because of it. So Senator Rubio, family thrown out of Cuba, came to Florida. He has always been very hard line on Cuba in particular, but on communism and socialism generally. I think it's why partly he bought into Donald Trump, because when Donald Trump sided with Venezuela and Juan Guaido, who was the opposition leader then during the first Trump administration, Rubio really liked what he saw there. He has a lot of sympathy for all of those Venezuelans who are now exiled and have come to southern Florida.

23:40It's what's made southern Florida such a Republican bastion. And there's no secret here. He would like to get rid of Maduro. He would like to get regime change, I suspect, in Cuba as well. He'd certainly like to get the Cubans and the Russians out of Venezuela. And he's prepared to stake quite a lot on doing this. This is ideological for him. It's not, I don't think Venezuela is ideological for J.D. Vance. I don't, my read of J.D. Vance is that he doesn't really care that much about Venezuela. I'm not even sure that he would be in his heart of hearts fully supportive of this because he actually is much more of an America first isolationist type of guy than Marco Rubio is.

24:24Marco Rubio is an old school Republican hawk at heart. You talk to anyone in the Senate who knows him, I actually kind of respect him on the foreign policy front. He knows what he's talking about. But when it comes to this, he has an ideological position. I don't think J.D. Vance does, do you? I don't think he does. You know, we said on this program that this was going to happen. Again, I'm not praising that it happened. I'm just telling you that we said that this was going to happen three or four weeks ago, Gaddy. We laid out what was going to happen. We then said that they were going to hit the ports and say that it was a narco-terrorism reason to hit the ports.

25:02We did say that Maduro was going to be forced out of the country. And so let's stay on track with some more predictions. I believe the vice president, they're going to give her 30 months. There'll be a transition period. The Americans are going to go in there, again, whether people like this or not. And they're going to bring back some form of capitalism. And prior to 1994 in Venezuela, there was a form of capitalism. And I believe that that is coming back. Again, people can like that or not, but that's what's going to happen. Then there's going to be a democratically elected person. But I'm going to predict it's not going to be the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

25:42uh, because that'll be too controversial for Donald Trump. Uh, and so Maria Karina Mikado, if I have her name properly, she's not going to be elected, but I do think that she is going to be a figure, a political figure in that country. And, and by the way, for all of you guys that are denouncing it, and I understand why you're denouncing it because it is, it's off the rules-based thing. And I think it'll have some negative consequences for the U.S. And it saddens me that we've lost our moral authority in terms of who we are around the world. But she called it the hour of Venezuelan freedom. She called it that this morning after the successful raid and the capture of Maduro.

26:31So there's going to be a lot of people here that are going to say different things. For those of you that want a democratic election tomorrow, it's just not going to happen because of the mistakes that were made in Libya and some of the other things that have gone on around the world. They're going to do this gradually. And for those of you that don't like what I'm saying, very sorry, because I just want to tell you the truth. The Venezuelan military has likely been bought off by the US government, and they're going to run a process in Venezuela to settle down the country before there actually is an election.

27:06And so I'm not in love with what happened, okay? But I am saying this, that if I was Venezuelan and I was Maria Machado, I would be in love with what happened because they needed relief and they need to get these hegemonic dictators out of the way. And that is why, Anthony, you're not going to have. It sucks that it happened this way, but I mean, the flip side of it is it's better for the Venezuelan people that it happened. Look, I think I'm reading those comments, too. And when America does this, when America went into Iraq, when Trump threatens to take Greenland, even though we don't think he's going to take Greenland, but when he threatens to take Greenland, when Obama bombed Libya with a coalition of Western countries.