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US CROSSED RED LINES': China, Russia To RETALIATE Against Trump's Maduro Abduction From Venezuela?
Times Of India
Jan 3, 2026

China has issued a sharp rebuke to the United States following Washington’s claim that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been captured by U.S. forces. Beijing described the operation as a “blatant use of force” and a violation of international law, warning that it threatens stability across Latin America and the Caribbean. China’s condemnation adds to mounting criticism from Russia and Iran, both of which accused Washington of armed aggression and illegal regime change. As visuals and statements released by Donald Trump continue to escalate tensions, major global powers are increasingly lining up against the U.S. move, turning a regional crisis into a widening international confrontation.



Transcript

[Music]
The capture of Venezuela's president is
no longer just a regional crisis. It has
triggered a global diplomatic
confrontation. Now China has broken its
silence after US forces captured
Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro.
Calling the move a blatant use of force,
China says Washington has crossed a
serious line.
China says it is deeply shocked. In a
sharply worded statement, Beijing
condemns the US military strike on
Venezuela and the capture of its
president. China's foreign ministry
calls the action a blatant violation of
international law, saying Venezuela's
sovereignty has been trampled. Beijing
accuses Washington of hegemonic
behavior, warning that the move
threatens peace and security across
Latin America and the Caribbean. China
says it firmly opposes the use of force
against a sovereign state and rejects
any justification offered by the United
States. Earlier, Iran and Russia
launched a scathing attack on US over
its Venezuela operation. Thrron's
foreign ministry issued a lengthy
condemnation, calling the attack a clear
breach of Venezuela's sovereignty and
international law. Iran describes the
operation as unlawful, warning that such
actions undermine global stability and
set a dangerous precedent. Russia also
responded swiftly and forcefully. In a
rare early morning statement, Moscow
accused the United States of committing
armed aggression. The Russian Foreign
Ministry rejects Washington's
justification outright, calling it
untenable.
Moscow says ideological hostility has
replaced diplomacy and warns that
escalation could spiral beyond control.
From Beijing to Thrron to Moscow, major
powers are lining up against
Washington's move.
[Music]
Donald Trump posted a Venezuela raid
video showing multiple blasts in Capitol
Caracus.
Minutes later, he follows up with a
photo he claims shows Nicholas Maduro in
US custody.
And then comes the statement, the
clearest signal yet of Washington's
intentions.
The first post is a video. A Venezuela
raid, multiple blasts, heavy fire, all
soundtracked to fortunate sun. Donald
Trump puts it online himself. The
footage spreads instantly. The timing
appears deliberate. No official
briefing, just the visuals, the music,
and the message.
Then comes the image. Trump posts a
photo on his truth social platform. A
blindfolded man seated. Trump identifies
him as Venezuelan leader Nicholas
Maduro. The caption reads, "Nicholas
Maduro on board the USS Euima. No
further details are provided."
Within hours, Trump escalates again,
this time with words. Trump announced US
is going to run Venezuela until a safe
transition of power can take place.
Late last night and early today,
at my direction, the United States armed
forces conducted an extraordinary
military operation in the capital of
Venezuela.
Overwhelming American military power,
air, land, and sea was used to launch a
spectacular assault.
And it was a an assault like people have
not seen since
World War II.
It was a force against a heavily
fortified military fortress in the heart
of Caracus
to bring outlaw dictator Nicholas Maduro
to justice.
This was one of the most stunning,
effective, and powerful displays of
American military might and competence
in American history.
And if you think about it, we've done
some other good ones like the
attack on Solomaini,
the attack on Albaghdaddy,
and the obliteration and decimation of
the Iran nuclear sites
just recently
in an operation known as Midnight
Hammer.
all perfectly executed and done. No
nation in the world could achieve what
America achieved yesterday or frankly in
just a short period of time.
All Venezuelan military capacities were
rendered perilous as the men and women
of our military working with US law
enforcement successfully captured Maduro
in the dead of night. It was dark. The
uh lights of Caracus were largely turned
off
due to a certain expertise that we have
and we are
ready to stage a second and much larger
attack if
we need to do so. So, we were prepared
to do a second wave
and we are
ready to stage a second and much larger
attack if
we need to do so. So, we were prepared
to do a second wave
if
we needed to do so. We actually assumed
that a second wave would be necessary,
but now it's probably not. The first
wave, if you'd like to call it that. The
first attack was so successful, we
probably don't have to do a second, but
we're prepared to do a second wave. A
much bigger wave. Actually,
this was pinpoint, but we have a much
bigger wave that
and the obliteration and decimation of
the Iran nuclear sites
just recently
in an operation known as Midnight
Hammer. America will never allow foreign
powers to rob our people or drive us
back into
and out of our own hemisphere. That's
what they did.
Furthermore, under the now deposed
dictator Maduro, Venezuela was
increasingly hosting foreign adversaries
in our region and acquiring menacing
offensive weapons that could threaten US
interest and lives. And they use those
weapons last night. They used those
weapons last night, potentially in
league with the cartels operating along
our border. All of these actions were in
gross violation of the core principles
of American foreign policy, dating back
more than two centuries.
And uh not anymore.
All the way back, it dated to the Monroe
doctrines.
And the Monroe Doctrine is a a big deal.
But we've superseded it by a lot, by a
real lot. They now call it the Donro
document. I don't know. It's uh Monroe
Doctrine. We sort of forgot about it. It
was very important, but we forgot about
it. We don't forget about it anymore.
Under our new national security
strategy, American dominance in the
Western Hemisphere will never be
questioned again. won't happen. Power,
precision, and competence.
You rarely see anything like it. You've
seen some raids in this country that
didn't go so well. They were an
embarrassment. Everyone's coming back to
us. The future will be determined by the
ability to protect commerce and
territory and resources that are core to
national security. These are core to n
our national security. Just like tariffs
are they've made our country rich and
they've made our national security
strong, stronger than ever before,
capacitated.
If you would have seen what I saw last
night, you would have been very
impressed. I'm not sure that you'll ever
get to see it, but it was an incredible
thing to see. This extremely successful
operation should serve as warning to
anyone who would threaten American
sovereignty or endanger American lives.
Very importantly, the embargo on all
Venezuelan oil remains in full effect.
The American
Armada remains poised in position and
the United States retains all military
options until United States demands have
been fully met and fully satisfied. All
political and military figures in
Venezuela should understand what
happened to Madura can happen to them
and it will happen to them if they
aren't just fair even to their people.
The dictator and terrorist Maduro
is finally gone and Venezuela people are
free. They're free again. It's been a
long time for them, but they're free.
America is a safer nation. this morning.
It's a prouder nation this morning
because it didn't allow this horrible
person and this country that was doing
very bad things to us. It didn't allow
it to happen. And the Western Hemisphere
is right now a much safer place to be.
So, I want to thank everybody for being
here. These highly trained warriors
operating in collaboration with US law
enforcement
caught them in a very ready position.
And they were waiting for us. They knew.
We had many ships out
in the sea just sort of waiting. They
knew we were coming. So they were in a
ready what's called a ready position.
But they were completely overwhelmed and
very quickly incapacitated.
If you would have seen what I saw last
night, you would have been very
impressed. I'm not sure that you'll ever
get to see it, but it was an incredible
thing to see. Not a single American
service member was killed and not a
single piece of American equipment was
lost.
We're going to run the country until
such time as we can do a safe, proper
and judicious
transition. So we don't want to be
involved with uh having somebody else
get in and we have the same situation
that we had for the last long period of
years. So, we are going to run the
country until such time as we can do a
safe, proper, and judicious
transition. And it has to be judicious
because that's what we're all about. We
want peace, liberty, and justice for the
great people of Venezuela.
And that includes many from Venezuela
that are now living in the United States
and want to go back to their country.
It's their homeland.
We can't take a chance at somebody else
takes over Venezuela that doesn't have
the good of the Venezuelan people in
mind.
We've had decades of that. We're not
going to let that happen.
We're there now. And what people don't
understand, but they understand as as I
say this, we're there now, but we're
going to stay until such time as the pro
proper transition can take place. So,
we're going to stay until such time as
we're going to run it essentially until
such time as a proper transition can
take place.
We're going to have our very large
United States oil companies, the biggest
anywhere in the world, go in, spend
billions of dollars, fix the badly
broken infrastructure, the oil
infrastructure,
and start making money for the country.
And we are
ready to stage a second and much larger
attack if
we need to do so. So, we were prepared
to do a second wave
if
we needed to do so. We actually assumed
that a second wave would be necessary,
but now it's probably not. The first
wave, if you'd like to call it that. The
first attack was so successful, we
probably don't have to do a second, but
we're prepared to do a second wave. A
much bigger wave, actually.
Hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Part 1 of 2

Venezuela HITS BACK, Trump's Oil War BACKFIRES w/ Diego Sequera [LIVE from Venezuela]
Danny Haiphong
#venezuela #trump #maduro

Trump and his US administration have claimed immediate victory in the wake of its illegal operation that kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro and saw the launching of airstrikes which took the lives of over 40 people. Venezuelan journalist Diego Sequera joins to reveal the truth on the ground in the aftermath of the operation.



Transcript

Welcome everyone. Welcome back to the show. It's your host Danny Haiphong. As you
can see, I am joined by Venezuelan journalist Diego Sica. First time on the
program. I want to welcome you. Thank you so much for joining me. I wish it were under better circumstances.
Welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. And I don't know, circumstances are just circumstances,
man. Anytime is good. Yeah. Well, this is a this is certainly a struggle. This is certainly a topic
that we have to cover because it is uh really earth shaking and important. So,
let's get to it, Diego. So, I wanted to ask you because there's a lot of contradictions right now uh swirling
around at following the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro by the United States, by
the Trump administration, the Army Delta Force. He's now in the MDC in Brooklyn being held. And in the aftermath of
this, it appears that there are various narratives about the United States
running the country. But it seems that the vice president of Venezuela, Deli
Rodriguez, who has been appointed now as the president of Venezuela, has a different idea and has hit back at this
notion that uh Donald Trump is the ruler now of Venezuela. Here's what she had to
say.

I'll just read it because it is in Spanish. Here we go. She said,

"Governments around the world, this is
her reaction, are simply shocked that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is
the victim and target of an attack of this nature, which undoubtedly has a
Zionist tinge," which I found very interesting that she said. She said it's truly shameful. She continues, "Our
father liberator said it in the Jamaica letter. The veil has been torn. We have
already seen the light and they want to drag us back into darkness. The chains
have been broken. We have already been free and our enemies intend to enslave us again.
If there is one thing that the Venezuelan people in this country are absolutely clear about is that we will
never again be slaves. All of Venezuela is mobilized and the decree has already
been signed by President Maduro, the only president of Venezuela. There's
only one president in this country and his name is Nicholas Maduro Moros.

Well, this contradicts Diego what Donald Trump
had to say in his press conference following the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro. This is what he told the press

to come back and be the opposition later in your Fox and Friends interview. And then you also mentioned the vice president of Venezuela. Are you gonna
work with the vice president of Venezuela or how do you foresee the relationship?

I understand she was just sworn in, but
she was, as you know, picked by Maduro. So Marco is working on that directly. Just had a conversation with her and
she's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela
great again. Very simple.

So Diego, you're on the ground in
Venezuela right now. You are very intimately connected to the country.
Please help our viewers understand what is going on here with what I just showed and anything else you want to talk
about in terms of the reality on the ground.

You know, well, first of all, it was an insane pressure that one yesterday from
Trump and especially what he was addressing and the way he was saying a lot of things that are just not true as
usual is the case now with Trump. And also I would like to add I've
been given some interviews to more mainstreamish media. They talk about a political vacuum also which is also just
quite ignorant if you ask me. I mean we have this is a state and a government
and we have laws and there's a constitution and by the constitution it was just interpreted by the supreme
court which basically says now under this current circumstances and based on
two articles from our constitution that for the time being deli Rodriguez
will be the interim president until Nicolas Maduro is back in Venezuela. So that's basically the the legal aspect of
this this legal rationale. It has nothing to do with any US picking, you know, any transition or whatever. I guess he's trying to like ride the wave, the tide, in order to make
sense in that in that order, but um it's clear now that it has nothing to do with it. just now I think it was I think like
half an hour ago he already threatened by our current president Desi Rodriguez
saying that if she doesn't comply there's going to she's going to get even worse than Nicolas Maduro had. So that
clearly show that yesterday president was a BS. Now
talking about the the mood in the country the vibes in the country and what's going on. I mean, I've been
traveling quite extensively, especially yesterday. I had a long road ahead of
me, which included small towns, by the way, rural small towns. And you can
see the mood is the same anywhere as in everything is calm. That's for one.
There's no unrest. There's no upheaval. There's no gathering of opposition
promina machalo forces or something that are looking for uh to take over or anything. Nothing of that sort is
happening. Actually, you're going to see the opposite. You're going to see people actually right now
currently right now there are demonstrations throughout the country in support,
and asking for the return of Nicolas Maduro beyond the chavista frame fray if you
will. People are, and this has been the case throughout all these months. I mean we've been here we've been here
like five months already. They basically don't support
this kind of quote unquote resolutions regardless if they support
or not the government. Actually in many cases they just don't like Maduro, but they like far less
for the US to be taking over especially after they bombed and we had this
nasty operation yesterday that according to some it took the toll of 40 dead people civilians and military. So
thinking that people feel liberated or enthusiastic
about what's going on, it's just a misrepresentation, and it's just spin. That's not the case right now,
regardless of the uncertainty. But overall, I say again like
it has been through the last four, five months with this pressure with all the extrajudicial killings that we saw
near our shores in the Caribbean which also included the Colombians and Trinidadians among others and of course
Venezuela's fishermen or whatever. We don't just don't know, because there's no evidence. The mood inside the country
has been the same, and even according to the New York Times it seems that Trump
was actually pissed on the fact that Maduro was appearing in public and showing in public dancing, and you know,
just you know just having a very Caracas kind of style,
and I think that that is something that disturbed them a lot, and the same way that this
calm, this defense of normalcy, seems also to actually upset them, and I've been saying this a lot of in a lot of occasions, but if you go through the think tank
literature regarding the recommendations of what to do military against Venezuela
and so on they all recommend long range attacks or this kind of
infiltrations and special forces operation we saw last night, but
no boots on the ground. But the ideal scenario in each and every of these
papers is basically some breaking point inside Venezuela. They rely basically on
us in order to do their bit. And I think that hasn't changed right now. And that's also why they had to do what they
did with Nicolas Maduro yesterday, because there hasn't been any social breakdown. There hasn't been
any unrest. No breaking point, no turning point in the sense of people taking to the streets in order to overthrow
the government. So that's basically where we are at right now. regardless of
uncertainty, regardless of concerns. I mean, people are worried, of course they are, but they're not crazy
about it. I mean, they're not losing it, you know. Yes, you can also find some Tik Tok post of
people celebrating. There is this minority, mostly a diaspora minority, by
the way, people who are not in Venezuela.

And within the diaspora, of course, there's also a segmentation, there's also class structure there. These are the people who are have access constantly to social media. If it was an
actual Venezuelan pro, a pleb working in Colombia, in Spain, or whatever, they
don't have time to post crap on social media. So that's something else you have to take into
account. Of course, it does work for the narrative. It works for spin, and it
works also to have some functional means of representing some sort of Venezuela that you know
fits the frame for them.

But that's not it. Venezuela, of course like any other country, it's far more
complex. It's far more rich than some middle to high-class
globally aspiring citizen. Yeah.

No, that's uh really appreciate
that, Diego. I guess I want to follow up then with this because from
the US perspective, right, sitting in the United States, it's quite obvious that there's a huge campaign to
psychologically demoralize the Venezuelan people, as well as people
watching what's going on. And so we have these very powerful words from Deli
Rodriguez, and we have this decree that has been set out. We have full mobilization she has called it under
the Venezuelan constitution. But there's also worries that my audience
has of is this the calm before the storm? Is there
something else going on here, where more is coming down the pike, and
you know what exactly do you see on the ground? What have you heard about
how Venezuela is responding to this, and how they are defending themselves,
because there's a lot of suspicion that this is all going to be given up soon. this is all going to
crumble now that Maduro has been taken and kidnapped.

Yeah. I think I already said it. I mean, they spin the idea that
there's some sort of power vacuum, which there isn't. I could expect because especially from
state from all what we we've listened so far from the from Marco Rubio from Trump
and others I could expect that this can be of course a calm before the storm.
They already said that the second wave of strikes is possible. We have Trump
already saying what he said regarding interim president Desi Rodriguez.
And yes, the psychological factor that you mentioned, I think this is
fundamental, because this has been exactly the key tool they've been trying to use all these months. And
that doesn't stop now. On the contrary, they're going to intensify this,
because it still is to this point and I insist they want us to do it. The same same rationale for Maria Korina Machado and other of the extremist factions of the
opposition, they really believe up to this point 26 years of Bolivian
revolution that humble working-class people, Chavistas,
are going to be willing to do their bit in order to allow them to get into office by violent means. Like shedding their blood for them. That's something that doesn't hold, because there's an awareness of
this. One more time, I insist, regardless if we're talking about a convinced Chavista, a disenfranchised Chavista from the last hard 10 years, or maybe some guy that votes for the opposition
but doesn't doesn't mean that he's going to be an extremist, and is going to be fully on board with Rubio. So Danny, these are uncharted waters. One more time Venezuelans, we always are facing the darkness in front of us, and this
is one of those moments again.

So it's hard to to see what's actually going to
happen for example tomorrow. Today nothing is actually happening yet. So in
that sense you can think that they will do something of course and especially
something cruel, something that could shock even more of the population, because yesterday was of course shock and awe,
and people reacted to it like what it is shock and awe, but today is a quite
different thing. In that sense, you could see yesterday
many throughout throughout this long road I took a lot of closed
businesses and so on, but people still was outside of their houses, you know, talking, or playing dominos, or
whatever, because these are still the New Year's days before we go back to work, and we and we have the economic hangover
and everything else which is the usual stuff here in Venezuela. So, Danny,
there's also a matter of timing here in order to create some sort of institutional crisis, because tomorrow,
January the 5th, by law, it's when the new national assembly, the new legislative
power, will assume the new legislative period. And I think they had to do it
before that, because you can hide anything. I don't know where I heard this, and I'm going to steal it
anyway, but you can hide anything but timing. And in this case, I think timing
was important, because they want to trigger that kind of crisis. Funny enough, the new parliament for the next
period for the next four years period is actually overwhelmingly PSUV
and allies. There is opposition there, and there are many including mainstream opposition like Enrique Capriles, who was
former candidate against Hugo Chavez in 2012. He was the moderate who can't
that they don't even talk to anymore, the United States at least

That's a very sensitive thing that you're talking there because
no one talks about the pressure the blackmailing, and the threats between
Maduro's crew against the moderate more legal democratic factions of the
opposition that don't support the government, but they recognize it they recognize the laws, and they
recognize the means to reach power, you know, as in fair play elections, so on,
regardless if they are a a minority.

Now, that also explains a lack of
vocal positions from their end. You know, Capri is like the the man from Europe, so it's
not in a good place now, but overall it shows you that
this is quite sensitive, because this is the way actually Marina Machado rose to be, according to the United States, the opposition figure. She bullied her way by threats , or by cash. And
also, by the way, he historically has been a Marco Rubio asset. So, the joke tells itself.

Yeah. Well, um, a Marco Rubio asset
that, uh, Diego appears to be left in the lurch or left hanging. I want to
show you um I'm sure you've seen all of the various videos of uh Trump and now
Rubio uh talking about Machado in a completely different way than they were just before this happened, just before
the regime change operation or the Maduro change operation, the kidnapping of Maduro uh occurred. Here is um here
he is talking about Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security
advisor, both positions in the US administrator. USA ID administrator.
Exactly. Here's what he said to Meet the Press. Oppose working with
uh It's not Oh, there we go. Okay, here we go. Why does the administration oppose
working with the opposition leader, Maria Karina Machado? She's the Nobel Peace Prize winner, of course, as well.
Her coalition has the support of 70% of Venezuelans. Why not work with her?
Well, a couple things. So, first of all, Maria Karina Machado is fantastic and she's someone I've known for a very long time and and she uh she whole movement
is. But here's the we are dealing with the immediate reality. The immediate reality is that unfortunately and sadly,
but unfortunately, the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside of Venezuela. We have short-term
things that have to be addressed right away. We all wish to see a bright future for Venezuela, a transition to
democracy. All of these things are great and we all want to see that. I've worked on that for 15 years on a personal level
both in the Senate and now as national security adviser and secretary of state. These are things I still care about. We
still care about. But what we're talking about is what happens over the next two three weeks, two three months and and
how that ties to the national interest of the United States. And so we expect to see more compliance and cooperation
than we were previously receiving. With Nicholas Maduro, you could not make a deal or an arrangement. Although he by
the way was given very generous offers. He could. So, I mean, it's going to get cut off there, uh, Diego, but your reaction to
this, I mean, all of what he said, but in particular, uh, this development of is it all talk, do you think, or is it
kind of a snake in the grass situation? I mean, what's your reaction to to this?
You know, I think what I think and it's I think there was some sort of internal bargaining there. I think at some point
someone said, "No, we're not going to use her because they know she doesn't have that 70% that the reporter was
talking about." She doesn't. Actually, that's one of the reasons I believe I have no proof, but I believe that one of
the reasons she was quote unquote awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize was precisely because she had bad numbers
back then and she needed a shock back. And of course, this is like the liberal complement to what the the Trump
misadventure or the new government in general, the neocons in in in office
right now. So, in that sense, it's pretty funny. I do think that he was probably pushing for her and he now
accepts that that he can't do that as easily. He can't just put her in in
Trump's eyes as easily until they prove something. Because if you know, if you jump back to Trump one, the first
administration, Trump felt duped according to the literature, according to Mark Esper's book, according to
Bolton, he felt he was conned by the opposition back then. He was conned by BUo and he
even got to conclude that Nicolas Maduro was actually the tough guy and Juan
Guaido back then was the wimp was the Betto or of Venezuela. That was his words according to Mark Esper. So that
show that proves that he never actually relied Trump I mean during this uh
during the during this first year on the Venezuelan opposition they relied as has
been also proven in on title 50 you know on covert operations and blackmail and
so on which has also been I think I mean I don't have the answer for why things went the way they went yesterday but
it's hard to not conclude that someone was bought off, you know, uh I don't
know whom I don't dare to say. I I have I have to wait for the
what the government has to say or probably our interior minister Jos Caveo could say. But this also proves
that they weren't relying on her or anyone else from the
that political sphere in order to do what they did. So I think this is important, and I also think it
shows the approach.

Now another thing you can see there, he
said it quite clearly, I've know her for a while; she's wonderful; I've been working with her for 15 years. We were saying
it, and she is a Marco Rubio asset from a long time ago.

And mind you, this is
important as well Danny, you know she created this NGO called Sumate, which was an electoral monitor,
and the classic NED-funded electoral monitor. She was
actually, in 2003, in a discrete meeting with Robert Helvey, you
know, the number two of the Albert Einstein Institution back then, and she was the one pushing for the Rico
referendum by back then which they lost miserably.

The Albert Einstein Institution: non-violence according to the CIA
by Thierry Meyssan
Voltaire Network
January 4, 2005

-- From Dictatorship to Democracy, by Gene Sharp

Non violence as a political action technique can be used for anything. During the 1980s, NATO drew its attention on its possible use to organize the Resistance in Europe after the invasion of the Red Army. It’s been 15 years since CIA began using it to overthrow inflexible governments without provoking international outrage, and its ideological façade is philosopher Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution. Voltaire Network reveals its amazing activity, from Lithuania to Serbia, Venezuela and Ukraine.

Unknown to the public, Gene Sharp formulated a theory on non violence as a political weapon. Also he first helped NATO and then CIA train the leaders of the soft coups of the last 15 years. Since the 50s, Gene Sharp studied Henry D. Thoreau and Mohandas K. Gandhi’s theory of civil disobedience. For these authors, obedience and disobedience were religious and moral matters, not political ones. However, to preach had political consequences; what could be considered an aim could be perceived as a mean. Civil disobedience can be considered then as a political, even military, action technique.

In 1983, Sharp designed the Non Violent Sanctions Program in the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University where he did some social sciences studies on the possible use of civil disobedience by Western Europe population in case of a military invasion carried out by the troops of the Warsaw Pact. At the same time, he founded in Boston the Albert Einstein Institution with the double purpose of financing his own researches and applying his own models to specific situations. In 1985, he published a book titled "Making Europe Unconquerable " [1] whose second edition included a preface by George Kennan, the Father of the Cold War. In 1987, the association was funded by the U.S. Institute for Peace and hosted seminars to instruct its allies on defense based on civil disobedience. General Fricaud-Chagnaud, on his part, introduced his "civil deterrence" concept at the Foundation of National Defense Studies. [2]

General Edward B Atkeson, seconded by the US Army to the Director of the CIA, [3] integrates the institute into the apparatus of the US stay-behind network interfering in the affairs of allied states. Focusing on the morality of the means of action avoids debate on the legitimacy of the action. Non-violence, accepted as good in itself and an integral part of democracy, facilitates whitewashing of covert actions which are intrinsically non-democratic.


Gene Sharp

In 1989, when the Albert Institution became well known, Gene Sharp began to advise anticommunist movements. He participated in the establishment of Burma’s Democratic Alliance -- a coalition of notable anticommunists that quickly joined the military government -- and Taiwan’s Progressive Democratic Party -- which favored the independence of the island from communist China, something U.S. officially opposed. He also unified the Tibetan opposition under Dalai Lama and tried to form a dissident group within PLO so that Palestinian nationalists would stop terrorism [4] (he made the necessary arrangements with Colonel Reuven Gal, [5] director of the Psychological Action division of the Israeli armed forces, to train them secretly in the American Embassy in Tel Aviv).

When CIA realized how useful could the Albert Einstein Institution be, it brought Colonel Robert Helvey into play. An expert in clandestine actions and former dean of the Embassies’s Military Attachés Training School, "Bob" took Gene Sharp to Burma to educate the opposition on the non violent strategy for criticizing the cruelest military junta of the world without questioning the system. By doing this, Helvey could identify the "good" and the "bad" opponents in a critical moment for Washington: the true opposition, led by Mrs. Suu Kyi, was labeled as a threat to the pro-American regimen.

"Bob’s" job was easily done. Since he was military attaché in Rangoon from 1983 to 1985 and helped to structure the dictatorship, he knew everybody. By playing a double game, Colonel Helvey simultaneously directed a classical action of military support to Karen resistance: by providing weapons and controlling a limited guerrilla, Washington wished, indeed, to maintain the military junta under pressure.

Since that moment, Sharp has always been present everywhere American interests are put at risk. In June 1989, he and his assistant, Bruce Jenkins, went to Beijing, two weeks before Tiananmen events. They were both expelled by Chinese authorities. In February 1990, the Albert Einstein Institution hosted a Conference on Non Violent Sanctions that brought together 185 experts of 16 countries under Colonels Robert Helvey and Reuven Gal. This marked the beginning of an international anticommunist crusade to involve peoples in non violent action.

Professor Thomas Schelling, [6] well known economist and CIA consultant, joined the Administrative Council of the Institution whose official budget was still stable though it was also funded by the International Republican Institute (IRI), one of the four branches of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED/CIA). [7]

At the same time, Baltic countries proclaimed their independence but, after a test of endurance with Mijail Gorbatchov [Mikhail Gorbachev], they postponed their decision for 2 or 3 years to negotiate their terms. In October 1990, Gene Sharp and his team traveled to Sweden and trained several Lithuanian politicians in the organization of a popular resistance against the Red Army. Months later, in May 1991, when the crisis broke out and Gorbatchov deployed his special forces; Gene Sharp was the adviser of Sajudis separatist party (Perestroika Initiative Group) and remained close to Vytautas Landsbergis. In June 1992, independent Lithuania Minister of Defense, Audrius Butkevicius, hosted a symposium to thank Albert Einstein Institution’s key role during the independence process of the Baltic countries.


Srdja Popovic (left), Serbian leader of the Otpor movement, Gene Sharp (center) and Robert Helvey

When the U.S began its rearmament in 1998, [8] the Albert Einstein Institution became part of an expansionist strategy. It provided ideology and technique to Otpor ("Resistance"), a group of Slobodan Milosevic’s young opponents. Simultaneously, it intervened in Kosovo province to train Ibrahim Rugova’s LDK, but it turned useless for Washington during the Kosovo war. Then, Otpor quickly became a choice to overthrow Milosevic who was very popular for resisting NATO. Colonel Helvey trained Otpor’s leaders through seminars hosted at Hilton Hotel in Budapest. Money was not a problem to overthrow Europe’s last communist government. The person in charge of commanding the operation was agent Paul B. McCarthy, discreetly settled at Moskva hotel in Belgrade until Milosevic’s resignation in October 2000.

In September 2002, Gene Sharp went to The Hague to train the members of the Iraqi National Council who were preparing themselves to return to Iraq, along with the American army.

In September 2003, it was also the Albert Einstein Institution who advised the opposition to question the electoral results and go on demonstrations to force Eduard Shevardnadze’s resignation [9] during the "revolution" of the roses in Georgia.

When the CIA-organized-coup against Venezuela failed in April 2002, the State Department counted again on the Albert Einstein Institution which advised the owners of enterprises during the organization of the revocatory referendum against President Hugo Chávez. Gene Sharp and his team led the leaders of Súmate during the demonstrations of August 2004. As done before, the only thing they had to do was questioning the electoral results and demanding the resignation of the president. They managed to get the bourgeoisie out in the street but Chavez’s popular government was too strong. All in all, international observers had no other choice but to recognize Hugo Chávez’s victory.

Gene Sharp failed in Belarus and Zimbabwe for he could not recruit and train in the proper time the necessary amount of demonstrators. During the orange "revolution" in November 2004, [10] we met again with Colonel Robert Helvey in Kiev. Finally, we must point out that the Albert Einstein Institution has begun to train Iranian agitators.

But, why Albert Einstein? It is an unsuspicious name. Gene Sharp’s first book on Gandhi’s methods began with a preface signed by Albert Einstein, though the book was written in 1960, five years after the genius’s death. Therefore, Albert Einstein did not write anything for Sharp’s work. All that Sharp did was reproducing an article on non violence written by the scientist.

But Sumate was created by her and a guy
named Alejandro Plas, who was a Mckinsey executive, and one of Marina
Machado's sons, who is a McKinsey executive right now. And
they're all safe by the way. None of her children are in Venezuela. They're not facing any risk of course. But I think that's important. I mean she's just an extension of corporate US now, and also Zionism,
that inter president Bessie was talking about, because of course they
are also behind this in many ways.

CIA pays McKinsey 10 million in fees for reorganisation
by Consultancy.uk
11 August 2015

And of course, because there's another problem, Venezuela's alliance with Iran, but also Venezuela's
recognition of the Palestine national cause I mean this is an off the record comment I listened to several years ago, some foreign diplomats telling the
Venezuelan people, "Look, you should talk to the Israelis and that will clear things up for
you. That really happened. And of course that explains precisely how this is breaking down the way it is, especially because
we haven't exploited enough the role of the AI tycoons behind Musk,
which is obvious you know and in this capital reshaping in which you have this
new oligarchy, these new robber baron that are now ruling us.
And for example, Operation Southern Spear, if you actually go through the document, it clearly shows how many
unmanned vehicles, aerial or maritime, are being used to screen and surveil
the Caribbean the same way, by the way, they have been doing in Gaza, because
this is an extension of Gaza in that sense. I hope to God that it doesn't get
to that point. But it's important to take this into account.

This is fundamental here, you know, because that's a new way of war which is like a privatized package, which includes
all this AI stuff, and also mercenaries,
and a state effort that absorbed executives from Meta, from Oracle, and from
Palantir, if I'm not mistaken, that were absorbed by the US army, and are now lieutenant colonels, who actually
were AI executives. This explains the merge that is operating here
right now, and also maybe how the President was actually surveilled, regardless of all
the spin they've been saying, all this pattern recognition, and the daily routine and so on.
I mean they just bite the crap out of someone in order to do this. It's no rocket science from my point of
view.

But the technological support yes it's definitely these guys, and also AI, it's
energy demanding, it's intensive. So that also explains a lot of the resources and Venezuelan oil reserves, and whatnot, because of course this is one of the
core reasons this is all happening, not the only one.

Yeah. No, I mean those are are great
points, Diego. And I want to return to the larger
geopolitical and economic roots of all of this. Let's get back to that. Because you were bringing up something about waiting for
the government, the ministry of interior, to talk about possible
internal issues that might have led to the success quote unquote, if we want
to call it that, the operation so-called absolute resolve. So I want to ask you a sensitive question that the
audience has been asking me quite a bit. When it comes to what has
happened to Nicholas Maduro, how would you
relay to an American audience, or to a western audience, the
exactly what happened in this situation, and how we should look
at it, given that there is so much speculation right now that there's internal problems, that ended up
giving up Maduro, where you had maybe people close to him giving him up, which many are seeing as a possible bad omen toward what's to come.
How would you communicate to people, you know, who aren't living in Venezuela,
and who aren't witnessing this firsthand?

Well, first of all, I have to clearly state, I don't have any privileged information regarding this. I don't have any insider information to share, or to
use in this case. I don't know that. Because I was as shocked as anyone else.
So I have to tread carefully here, because I think there are still have some loose threads, right? That's why
I'm heavily relying on what could have happened.

Now if you see the
footage, there is no logical explanation for this low-flying helicopters to just
hover over Caracas that easily. So that brings
the question of who actually would allow that. But it's important that
they were jammed also. This was similar, in a way, to the first day of
the Israeli attack on Iran back in June, and last year the 13th of June. So
it probably follows that pattern as well. So I my guess it's a combination of
all these things ,as in electronic warfare especially with all the hardware
that was right near our shores. I mean you have all these
boats and and airplanes. I don't know the technicalities. I always forget the names. I've read them several times, but I always lose those names, because
they're just complicated. But they're specialized precisely in electronic warfare. And that was
obviously for a reason. I mean, with all this huge buildup Armada in the
Caribbean. So, they definitely use those military assets and hardware for this
operation. But I think, and now I'm falling into the speculative
area. Some sort of inside job was happening. I don't believe the spin
that the New York Times published yesterday, and also what Rubio and Trump has been
saying about a sophisticated infiltration operation and whatnot.
I would guess it would be even more petty than that. So that's my
guess right now. I cannot conclude anything yet. I think there's still information missing, but it was also to
some extent because if it was if it was a crack within the security structures
in the military, something else would have would be happening today. And so far, it's not the case. So far, as far as I know, I'm not sure what's going on at this exact moment in the rest of the country, but
that's basically my guess. If it was a significant one, maybe
something else would have been happening today, and that's not happening. So maybe it was to some extent, maybe it was
stopped, maybe it was detected, I don't know. But also it involved
they say 40 dead just yesterday.

By the way, also there are
testimonies of young Venezuelan sergeants wounded that are alive, that actually defended their own battalion
back then. So it's not as clearcut as they say. I'm going to send them to you afterwards so you
can do whatever you want with them. But these are at least two or three testimonies. There are actually Tlesur
is running them of these young Venezuelan soldiers, sergeants that are
basically telling their their version of what they saw and what they did yesterday. And I
think this is also important because this also goes through the narrative of a clearcut sophisticated operation. But
we still have to wait a bit more. I mean a couple of days, I'm not saying weeks, to see what else reaches the surface, and
helps us get a decent frame of what actually happened,
at least a closer picture to the reality of this all. And also if that penetration, if
that infiltration was that extensive, we wouldn't have the we would have had I
think an actual power vacuum, an institutional crisis, and that's not the case so far.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's very important, Diego. Now, uh, let's get into the, um, maybe
the bigger reasons, maybe the I mean that usually they're the untold reasons,
but now under the Trump administration, they are the very much out there, outward reasons why uh, the Trump
administration has escalated to this degree against Venezuela, against your
country. Diego, I want to I want to pull up uh, more. Unfortunately, more Marco
Rubio. Uh, first here he is on the uh oil question because this is as Hugo
Chavez said it years and years ago, you know, oil is a major reason if not the
biggest reason for uh the US's desire to overthrow uh the Bolivarian government.
Here is Marco Rubio. Does the United States intend to secure the oil fields? Won't that take US troops?
Well, ultimately this is not about securing the oil fields. This is about ensuring that no sanctioned oil can come
in and out until they make changes to the governance of that entire industry because right now that industry is
non-existent in the traditional way. These oil fields basically are pirate operations. People literally steal the
oil from the ground. A handful of that's how they hold this regime together. A handful of cronies benefit from this
oil, specific oil wells. They're producing at like 18% capacity because the equipment is all decrepit. And they
basically pocket the money to their benefit. They sell the oil at a discount in global markets. You know, 40 cents on
the dollar, 50 cents on the dollar. But all that money goes to them. Those oil fields have not benefited the people of
Venezuela in over a decade. They have, but they have made multi-millionaires, billionaires out of just a handful of
people. And that's what's held this regime together. That's what needs to be addressed. The way to address it to the benefit of the Venezuelan people is to
get private companies that are not from Iran or somewhere else to go in invest in the equipment that that hasn't been
invested in in 20 years because none of the profits that have been made from the oil have been reinvested. It's all been
stolen. And that's going to take uh outside companies that come in and know how to do that. That that that that the
people who do this stuff will know how to do it. But it all begins with dramatic changes at the way the govern
on the way that the authorities that are in charge of that industry behave. And so uh Diego, they're going to um Marco
Rubio uh essentially wants private US companies to come in uh to uh process
and refine Venezuelan oil supposedly, but needs changes in the governance to
do so. It sounds very familiar but it's very much out there. Uh talk react to
this. Talk about you know Yeah. Yeah. What's going on here and what are the
implications and the impact because um Rubio and company are seeing this as a very smooth process that's you know over
and done with. How do you see it and done? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, first of all, what a sleazy,
disingenuous way to describe the what's going on with the Venezuelan oil
industry. Ever since in August the 24th of 2017, the oil industry was
sanctioned, which actually dropped the oil revenue back in 2020, if I'm not
mistaken, down to 99% loss. I mean, they did bring it over to collapse back then
and they didn't succeed, man. And I think that's important here. And also talking about the piracy and all that BS
that he says there. We basically Venezuela is a country that
has to circumvent and overcome so many unjust illegal restrictions under oil
industry and their in our oil trade in order to survive. So one of the main reasons then you can
a way to understand this better is to this explains the raids we saw on the tankers back then and they also realized
I guess they re realized also what a waste of resources and how hard it was especially when the bail one wasn't
actually uh intercepted I mean they did they weren't able to the US coastal got just didn't they didn't succeed I mean
their third attempt so maybe they realized it wasn't that successful but more even more so which is more
important One of the reason, one of the pressing reasons all of this happened is precisely because Venezuela first of all
last last month it it closed with a,200,000
barrels production which it's not topnotch but it also explains the
recovery. Venezuela has not collapsed economically because it was able to diversify in a
very very very strongly withations
in order to not rely exclusively so heavily rely so heavily on oil revenue because that was the Venezuela's history
and uh it shows which is more sensitive and important that the sanctions program
basically failed and that there is what they call a shadow fleet of sorts.
moving around the globe held operated by yes Venezuela, Iran, Russia, whatever
that shows that they are able to keep trading their oil. Yes, of course this brings opacity and of course this also
brings corruption but I can't cannot think of a more corrupt thing than
sanctions themselves which is a massive grift by itself already. So in if you
want to have of course not the case but if you want to have a natural discussion about those problems
you should start with where where the the focal point is but there was a hurry
to fracture this precisely because sanctions are not succeeding.

Part 2 of 2

According to the Latin American
economic commission of the UN, Venezuela this year closed as the fastest growing
economy in the hemisphere. And this of course is macroeconomics,
you know, which is of course that doesn't imply it's going to have a direct exclusive manifestation on a
microeconomic level. But still the numbers are actually there, and it's not precisely a Chavista institution that's
saying this. So that also shows that this is one of the reasons and there are many Freudian slips regarding
this of any of these speakers when they talk about Venezuela because this basically proves that sanctions failed
and that is important that is fundamental and and it complements the obvious reasons of you know taking a
hold of the largest oil reserves in the world which is like the most obvious of them all you know but it's not the only
one. It's not it's not as single as that one. That's so that's basically
uh my reaction to Ruyo and then one more thing as important as the rest.
He talks about oil, US oil industries and oil companies and whatnot. But he was the one who didn't allow Balero
to buy crude to take it to this oil oil refining system in southern US in
Louisiana and Illinois and and and everywhere else who actually relies on
Venezuelan heavy crude. It cannot be replaced by Canadian tar sands or anything else. So, and also Chevron has
been operating in Venezuela up to this day. So, what is he actually talking about?
He's talking about Exxon, man. Exxon is part is one of the main funders of his pack. Uh, Exxon has a big quarrel with
Venezuela since 2007 when they left the country and sued Venezuela when
Venezuela reationalized all the upstream, downstream and and and
interconnected services of the oil industry and um and they just didn't
accept the new Venezuelan terms. Now, let's see it for a moment from an exon
perspective, including of course the risk of this massive takeover. displacing by the way Chevron that
Chevron was the one who paid for the inaug for the Trump's inauguration by the way erh in order to what what's next
to us it's Guana and what and the and the sweet oil they are extracting now in
dis in disputed waters with Venezuela the wholeair
h just imagine you being an exon exec
and just imagining to have all that new oil from Guana and also all the
Venezuelan uh oil reserves at the same time. That turns you into a massive
massive powerhouse and you will also order you will also able to drop down the oil prices to a level that's going
to harm deeply other oil reliant economies like Russia or Iran. So there
so the geopolitical aspect here operates in that sense among any others and I
think that's also important to take into account this that's one of the manifestations and if you actually
check the energy market players at least from 2000 yeah 2024 up to now there was
I mean this this is I'm quoting from a worse Wall Street Journal piece that was like eight days before the elections uh
the presidential elections back in 2024 in which they say they prefer Nicolas Maduro regardless if they don't like
them because he was the guaranter of stability and with Marorina Machado or
his elderly abused proxy would have reached power it would have be problematic for the energy markets. So
this also explains the gap that actually operates operates within the energy markets in which it's divided between
pragmatics and ideologues and of course it's an idol by far.
Yeah. Yeah. No for sure. And um you know
uh you what's I think when it comes to this question of uh of of oil we have uh
what you just said with Exxon Mobile I think is is very important because right after we see here um
right after Nicholas Maduro was kidnapped uh we had Wall Street Journal reporting that 20 business leaders
including some from the Top hedge funds and asset managers are preparing to go on a March trip to Venezuela to look at
investment opportunities they are including in energy and infra Oh, hold on one second. This always happens. Um,
it's the wrong video. All right, let me start this again. So, uh, the Wall Street Journal
is reporting that, uh, we have investment opportunities being looked at by 20 business leaders of the top hedge
fund and asset managers who are preparing to go to Venezuela in March, Diego, to look at investment
opportunities, including in energy and infrastructure. And this gets to what you were talking about with regard to
Exxon Mobile. Um that's quite the presumption. Uh saying that they're
going in March appears to indicate that uh regime change is not only in order
but it's already finished and that by March they will be waltzing in looking
to do exactly as you said Exxon Mobile wants to do. Yeah. You you one more time. You cannot
hide timing. There you go. I mean that reveals they their their planning their their quote
unquote strategic planning or tactical at this level but that proves that they actually are stating that it is a given
that by March everything will be under their control and I don't think and I think that's quite crazy and I think
it's quite neoconish by the way to think that you're going to shape up reality as easily to predict from this point up to
that point without taking a lot of variance in consideration. So that that's quite descriptive and mind you
it's not only the oil we have the fourth largest gold reserves in the world we have also iron ore we have a rare earths
we have gas the largest gas reserves in the hemisphere so it's it's about
resources of course but you have to add the rest to this which is of course first uh it's also about punishing a
population it's also about punishing the and domestic ating the options. Uh uh us
decided in the path we decided to go forward in because uh it goes against
precisely this egemony rationale because
back until I think 2012 I think the first oil buyer of Venezuela was the
United States. It wasn't anyone else. But they have to overthrow and they have to do what they did and has to do what
he did in order to find the moment in which they have the unrestricted access
assess sorry to the resources because it's not about under Venezuelan terms
under Venezuelan sovereign terms which of course brings us to the ahistorical
ignoramous stupid counterfactual erh justification they're saying about
uh Venezuelan taking their oil and their assets and whatnot. This is just stupid.
And of course this level of stupidity and ignorance, it's stiffened Miller's bit who's also a very active operator
here saying all that BS because Venezuela went through a first
nationalization in 1976 and it was Venezuelan labor who actually built all
this regardless of capital and everyone was really happy with that nationalization because it was in their
own terms and it would and it also guaranteed that Venezuela would always be
following the line, towing the line. Actually during the '9s then the whole
privatization spree, reprivatization spree started. They were trying just to
uh well yeah just you know the '9s mood to try to dismantle any any t
of sovereignty of of public control resources and goods. So then came in
2007 the reationalization by Elcomante Chaveis but all the countries that
didn't accept it either they sued Venezuela or they get
very well very good compensations. So this is completely you know
counterfactual. It's just I mean this goes beyond post-truth. This is just, you know, this is
this is [ __ ] you reality basically, you know. It just just doesn't matter. Truth doesn't matter. Lies doesn't matter. It
just, you know, and it and it's so clear now and so candid. The world has to thank Trump for what he's doing like
crushing the imperial oma up to this point. Sadly, of a very human cost, you
know, the Omra, the mafia silence, the mythical mafia silence. Erh, and yeah,
just worked as a as a mobster, as a real estate New York mobster. And that's
what's what we're seeing. So, in that sense, it's quite candid. So, we can forget now about all the drug story
about the fentan like a friend of mine always says, I mean, if Venezuela was actually a narco state, it would be
partner with the US. So, that's not the case. No, no, definitely not the case. Uh,
Diego. And now, um, you know, I'd like to get to for a few minutes at least,
um, what no one will talk about, which is how Venezuela is already resisting and
how it will continue to resist. Because when this happens, when this kind kind
of event happens, um, it's very easy for people in the United States and the Western world to look at it and say, "Oh
my gosh, you know, it's happening again." um uh you know, regime change, uh it's
over, you know, game over Venezuela, all of this. Uh but I wanted to play I'm not
gonna I'm going to play it as you talk. I'm not going to read it or anything, but Sure. No problem. You know, there is a um there is a uh a
national militia uh in Venezuela that has been under the army mobilized. uh
they put out a message that I'll play in the background as you are uh people can read the translation if they'd like. Um
but I'd want you to react to how Venezuela is resisting already. There was a national decree um that President
Maduro signed before he was kidnapped. So obviously there there's some
obviously for knowledge of uh something was going to happen. um don't know how
how of course we don't have information exactly how much was known before it happened but um your thoughts on this
question well the first is I mean I think this kind of precautions are just common you
know in the case of in this kind of situations I mean you
if you feel this is metaphorical and maybe not maybe not that
metaphorical but if you feel if you're a private citizen and you death approach. You're going to write your will before
anything happens. No. So, let's take that into the political precaution state level and see well this is one of the
probable scenarios. Maybe not definitive but uh we have to keep the stability
state stability and the continuity of government operating at at the level it
needs. So these are yeah cautionary measures I think and yes
I can about resistance which is very interesting because
there should be a more explicit talk about the definitions of resistance because a lot of people
especially on the left likes to sexy up this and you know and and take even more
from poor che and and and everything has to be a Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. The the whole Gerieros thing which of course it's it's romantic and it was and is valuable. No one talks about
cheek about as a public official but that's another discussion. Of course it's a provocation of mine I'm doing right now. But um resistance is not sexy
man. It's hard. It's a and it's a daily thing. And uh but the most important
part of this which is not so easily to see under the radar it's also it is
creation. It's you know it's the possibility to create instances to keep up keep on living
because there's resistance is also to live. I'm not much into the
western hemisphere interpretations of martyrdom. I respect far more the Shia ones but that's another discussion as
well. But the thing is that um it's about life. It's about keep on living
and making sure that yours and your children are still able to live. So you
have two levels here of resistance I think. One of them of course is on a
state level on a military level and as you might you probably know this of course uh Venezuela's approach to this
is the civil military alliance civil militarian policial police alliance uh
in which the approach to defense and security it's integral it's not an I
mean of course there are exclusive areas for the military or for the police or for the civilians but on you have an
integrated approach to this. It's different. I mean, it's a it's a whole of society approach to national defense.
And when I say this, of course, the most visible aspect of this is the militia,
but you have to take into account that wars and resistance is also logistics and it's also feeding people, feeding
your army and feeding your rear, your civilians, the ones that are actually doing this, the campinos, and anyone
else who's actually producing food. Because it's not only er you know small
patches of land small scale agriculture but it is of course and this actually
was decisive during the hard years of 2016 17 18 19 and 20 but it also
includes far more than this and that's like the first level of resistance which is state resistance a state in
resistance erh and with all these manifestations especially the military ones and so on. And then you have the
other one which is the battle for normaly which is basically what we've what we've
we've seen. I mean this is not the and I'm repeating myself from many other interviews but this is not the first
time we're facing this kind of you know massive threats to our daily livelihood.
This is not the first time we are under severe pressure tensing up the state
structures or trying to fracture the society as a whole erh in order to make
it far easier, you know, to get the the rule and divide classic in order to make it far easier for the usual suspects to
take over and to realign Venezuela into US corporate strategic interest. So
the fact that all this months again I have to say one more time and I don't
mind stressing out this again that the Venezuelan society didn't collapse as
many like them to see collapsing or like many academics try to sell because
they're grifting their own you know cognitive capital uh market h this is
not the case. So what is resistance for example? Resistance is not to just go
crazy and focus on December to get the money that you can get in order to give
your kids new toys and new clothing for the 31st. That's resistance. That's not
sexy resistance. Of course, this is daily stuff. Daily humble simple stuff. That's actually how life operates. And
this is something common that not only for Venezuela. I've been to to Iran. I was in Iran twice this year and I saw
the same feats regardless of you know complaining disgruntlement frustrations
sometimes yes which is which which comes with this this whole thing lack of horizon and and and very uninspiring
moments but when push comes to shove when we're under intense pressure things change so maybe we suck at organizing to
to to some extent but I think we're it's hard to compete with us when we're
working like we say in Spanish in Caliente, you know, and I think that's
one of the most important definitions of resistance and also audacity.
Many ways of audacity, which by the way, Nicolas Maduro, let let's talk about that for a moment. Have you seen the
footage, the recent footage we saw of Nicolas, I mean, he was smiling and he said good
night, happy new year. I mean that's a very I mean I felt proud of him. I mean
that's that's dignity man. I know some people maybe don't understand this but that's not my problem. That's their own
spiritual pettiness. I saw a big grand I see big graceful guy just smiling
against the worst odds imaginable and talking to his wife and asking is it he
actually asked her is it good night that we in English you know in she said it's see good night. So he said
good night and happy new year. I mean talk about ways of defying that are not sexy enough
for some audiences. You know you know before I'm glad you brought that up before we
get to the last uh segment I wanted to cover with you Diego. What do you make of those who are saying that Maduro uh
cut a deal? Because uh that's what some are saying. Of course the Trump administration isn't saying this. Trump
administration is saying the opposite. But there are those who are suspicious of this. But at the same time, you know,
we just had, as you said, we had him paraded about Maduro and his wife. You know, there was the footage. I don't
like to show that footage actually because there's um the humiliation element of it. People can find it.
Yeah, I definitely get the dignified element from Maduro, but there but it's obvious they were trying to humiliate
him. So, what do you make of these claims then? Because some people are claiming that Maduro cut a deal.
Look, uh, if they would would have cut a deal, it would be far more easy. I mean, he would
just taken a plane and fly to the United States if that was the case. And by the way, throughout this month,
right? I said, didn't they say Turkey? Rubio said, uh, we offered him a flight to Turkey. He resists. He said no.
Exactly. But there's another way of resisting. I mean, L admitting that he wasn't, they weren't able to bribe him.
I mean, that's a proof of that. So, what kind of deal it could make? I mean, I do
I'm just plain to be inside Nicolas Maduro's mind for just a moment.
I mean, if this would actually mean I don't know, the end of sanctions and a
lot of things maybe he could ponder and say, "Yes, I will sacrifice. I will emulate myself in order to protect my
country." But this is this is not the case. I mean, 40 people dead, a shock
and no moment, all the humiliation and and so on. Of course, what kind of
agreement you can make with the United States. There's a Russian word for this, not agreement capable. I It's a very
long word, so my Russian is quite limited to say it, but it's a non-aggreement capable schisoid
government that has many different voices talking at the same time. So, actually, who are you going to do an
agreement with? And what are the guarantees that anyone is going to comply to deliver them? Of course,
they're not they're not there isn't there. It doesn't exist. So this
basically I think it just spells I mean dispels
the idea of an agreement. I don't think it was an agreement and which doesn't make it less painful to see or to
experience what we're experiencing right now. But um yeah, I don't I don't buy it
personally, at least at this point until something some evidence shows the way, but I don't think we're going to see
that. I don't believe and also and yeah, I mean, Muro has been unrelating all
these years. I mean, he hasn't he has been there all these years. Why now then? That doesn't make sense. That
doesn't add up. Yeah. I mean, honestly, Marco Rubio is um he was livid about he was very
indignant. um when talking about Maduro rejecting all these deals um and but
also saying that he wanted to play big boy u he's just I mean he was just making Maduro look like who he was which
was actually a dignified leader who was not selling out his country this is this
is actually the message that Maduro uh that sorry not Maduro that Rubio was communicating to everybody to the whole
world but even US audiences which you know very very Trump um very
Trump-like, very Trump administration um on brand there. But I wanted to talk to
you now Diego um in the final segment here about the you know we talked about the economic roots but very close to the
economic roots are the geopolitical or the global um uh balance of forces
relationships that are developing. And of course, Venezuela was very much in the center of this and Marco Rubio um
has made very clear, we were talking before the show about how, you know, Marco Rubio is the driving force of this
entire regime change operation, but he and he's also made very clear that a big
reason why he wants to see Venezuela overthrown is not just because Venezuela's government is not a
government that he wants uh in power, but it's because of the other states,
the other nations in this u growing alternative to US hijgemony, Russia,
China, Iran that are also spurring this um operation. Here is Marco Rubio on
Meet the Press. Need to take again. I did this again.
I just cannot stand this new format. Here we go. I think it'll work now. The Venezuelan oil industry.
Okay. Need to take over the Venezuelan oil industry.
Well, we don't need to. The first of all, let me go back up. We don't need Venezuela's oil. We have plenty of oil in the United States. What we're not
going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States. You
have to understand, why does China need their oil? Why does Russia need their oil? Why does Iran need their oil?
They're they're not even in this continent. This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live. And we're not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for
adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States. Have specific oil companies. We also want to see that oil and the
proceeds from it. Hold on. We want to see the oil proceeds of that country benefit the people of Venezuela. Why have 8 million people
left Venezuela? 8 million. The single largest mass migration probably in modern history left Venezuela since
2014. Because all the wealth of that country was stolen to the benefit of Maduro and his cronies and the regime,
but not to the benefit of people of Venezuela. Do you know how destabilizing 8 million migrants uh is? Do you The
number one fear that Brazil has, that Colombia has, that all these countries in the region have about what's happening in Venezuela and our
involvement is they're afraid of another mass migration event. That's what they fear. This is deeply destabilizing
stuff. So, uh, Diego, some would say, um, you know, Marco Rubio and, uh, people in his
circle, those who back him are the reasons why so many people migrated out of Venezuela, or at least, uh, created
the economic conditions for some of that migration. But I wanted to ask your um,
you know, some people have said, "Oh, well, he's just fear-mongering about Russia, China, Iran um, in order to
justify the regime change in Venezuela." Is it just that or is this bigger? what's your take uh and what is what is
uh the the view from Venezuela about its role in you know these relationships
with uh what Marco Rubio calls US adversaries you know they they always try to stress
like Venezuela it's not that relevant or the Venezuela's just not that serious or whatever and but it's proven one more
time that Venezuela is actually defining the foreign policy in the hemisphere so that's as sensitive as it gets in that
sense you know the other the other things are just sio kind of content and um I was before joining you here on your
show, I was on a on a very annoying EUA channel with a very unacceptable
ignoramist from the think tank world or the academ US academia from Florida that was saying that Venezuela was a gateway
to the region and which is true actually it is and not only the gateway Venez as
well as the bull work also and also has the most proactive country here in on the political sense
of being you know audacious enough to create and to contribute to the new
system the new possibilities that are happening in the world as with a big
Eurasian players and also while they I hate the the I think it's a misnomer to
call it the pink tide but whatever we can use it now because your audience is mostly from the US so they can understand it easily Uh but Venezuela
was the one that prevailed including K and Nicaragua. By the way, not nothing
sexy enough for that, you know, that Gorch de Vander that's that that uh you
know that left that that actually ruled out anything that's not up to their
expectations. And I think that's the case here also. And if you see the national security the new national
security strategy, I think it's clear enough also. I mean the whole which is also quite frivolous the whole Trump
corollary that basically states that and I say retroactively to what was going on
in Venezuela already um that states that neither resources assets or choke points
uh can be run by external extra hemispherical players without naming
them of course and this is also like stage one on this tactic on this detour
in order to muster enough strength controlling the resources, assets, and choke points of the region in order to
be able to face China in five years or so in which they are being they're going
to be able to be or above or peer competitors with China in order to to
confront it. This is Elbridge Colby rational that's clearly behind the document we're talking about the
national security strategy. So that also explains that level of things that also explains the geopolitics here and that's
also yeah the one of the of the political geopolitical dimensions of of this all people need to be aware that
even a very I worked with rural areas for a long while a couple of years ago
and there's no place at that extreme local level in which you can see so
clearly the forces the the creative destructive forces of capitalism oper operating. So what I'm trying to say
here is that every small thing, every individual has a significant place here
and they should be cognizant enough of this. You don't have to reach the this
point in which they you are you know at the at the edge to realize this. you to
do that before in order to create what needs to be created with dignity and
security and safety and happiness. And we had the four of them before sanctions
by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how how does Venezuela Venezuelans I mean that that
you know that uh um how do they view this idea that um the Trump
administration through you know the leadership of Marco Rubio are see uh are
trying to conduct regime change because Venezuela is close to Russia, China and
Iran because it has relationships and partnerships with all these countries which is true but at the same time what
does what do you and and others uh how do they view this? Because um it seems like
the US is saying it's uh its right to tell uh Venezuelans uh in the Venezuelan
government who it can do business with, who it can have a relationship with. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a discussion
about sovereignty and people are not aware of sovereignty that easily especially on the global north. But it's
a fundamental tenant. Once they take a lot of from you, you your struggle becomes basically to defend independent
sovereignty and dignity. You know, everything every other ideological nook and cranny, every other identitarian
kind of BS, be it from the right or the left are just irrelevant and that's just, you know,
psychological fragmentation. It's just mental balconization of knowledge. So
once you are actually in a very clear candid way of struggling for your life
this this becomes quite clear and you don't have the time or the privilege to
you know to ponder that kind of small stuff single topic campaigns this is
bigger than that this is about survival and this is about survival as free
people not as slaves. Yeah. And how has then how have these countries contributed to that? Because
obviously um there's a reason why Venezuela, you know, the often times the
reason why Venezuela has relationships with these countries, it's because it's oh, they're all authoritarian and they're all uh you know, part of this
access that gets pretty at the same time. Um it appear you know
China I believe Chinese envoy to Xinping was in Venezuela just hours before this
operation uh was conducted which was reminiscent to me of the uh Serbia um
bombing uh 1999 where Chinese journalists at the embassy
were killed in that bombing campaign. So um you know how has how have these
countries how how do these countries contribute to Venezuela actually uh are they nefarious actors seeking a sphere
of influence or are um is the relationship different? Well, it's based on common interests. I
mean it's as rational as simple as that. These are simple alliances in that sense. I mean there there's no there's
no weird you know super evil logics be behind this. I mean there's interest
Venezuela has all this resources has also this proactivity regarding other players
espec especially because the US refused to be a rational actor and um we have a
comprehensive strategic agreements with Venezuela, Iran and Russia all of them
that but a massive scope that goes to healthare up to yeah in the case of
Russia and Iran technical military cooperation But it's a whole I mean it's it's it's a
lot of areas and it's also part of something that the many people detest in
the west which is cooperation. Simple, coherent,
reasonable and mut mutually beneficial cooperation.
It's as simple as that. Now there of course there are implications here because we have shared the idea of a
possible new view of all these things. But it's that's and also supporting well
a a different kind of order and not a zero sum situation which is basically what the US and Europe does up to this
point and now it's even worse because this comes with the only what seems to
be the political economy of against multipolarity which is basically genocide as Gaza has been showing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you mentioned Europe. Uh I covered this
earlier. uh the way that Europe has reacted uh to this has been absolutely
lap dogish to the United States with no not only no push back but enthusiastic
support. But I wanted to to that um to that point of um
you know of these uh the rationality here. I wanted to actually bring up um
let me see if I can find it. uh here it is you know when it comes to uh the Israel question
there's a lot of people who are seeing what's happening what's happening in
Latin America there's a broad I think push to install compliant regimes to the
United States um and Venezuela is now the biggest target uh here is General
Jack Keane talking he made a little bit of a fraudian slip with regard to Israel And I know you've been looking at this
and Deli Rodriguez said this operation has a Zionist tinge to it. So here is General Jack Keen on uh Fox News with
the Freudian slip. The implications here uh are really great for the
Hold on. Um I don't know what is going on with Streamyard, but uh here we go.
The the implications here uh are really great for the Isra uh the the Venezuelan
people. What? What? Where did the video go? Okay, so the video didn't download all
the way. It seems like Yeah, but but yeah, but I get it. I mean, I don't know if you're aware now
of the Isak Accords. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Continue, please.
Well, yeah. It's about this. It's to expand the global censorship and also the protection of the entity throughout
the hemisphere and already Argentina I think Costa Rica, Bolivia, I think the
new Bolivia and others already in Panama already subscribed this which is basically a replication stupid one lame
one from the Abraham Accords and it's just the same initiative because of the same reasons because once Israel is a
narrative reliant entity and once the narrative is compromised. This is what you get. And the and funny enough,
because there's no way to go back and act as act differently, uh censorship,
AI censorship, social media censorship is the way to go. And of course, security operations and security
cooperation and so forth. I mean, the Israelis were very important uh for example in communications, logistics
during the Condor operation. This was revealed like 10 years ago. and also the
the kind of grip they have um on the region and because of the same reasons resources, power projection and control
and um that's not different here you know based on their own interest it sometimes as you well as you are very
well aware of uh uh goes against the United States itself. So I think that uh
and also mind you there's no diplomatic relationship
between Israel and Venezuela since 2009 since operation cast lead. So that's
also they have also their own scores there to settle just like Exxon from the
same time by the way. Yeah know those are those are great points. I mean uh uh I I believe Israeli
media interviewed Marina Karina Machado. Um Oh yes. And she said she said they were
going to move the the Venezuelan embassy into Jerusalem. And then in 2018 she walked she asked for cooperation
military cooperation included with the Liood party with directly written directly to Netanyahu.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean this is uh you know this is kind of an untold story, right?
uh uh uh for all the right reasons. Yeah. Not enough to
at least for all the right reasons. In the last couple years, because of the genocide in Gaza, all eyes have been on Palestine. Um
Yeah. But uh I think it's underestimated and um you know at times even
exaggerated uh that uh there's there's hardly ever this middle ground where we
see actually Israel and the United States having very similar interests in this regard despite maybe having
contrary interests in other regards but in this regard uh there is a pretty big
alignment. Uh oh you say to this Yeah, it's imperial schizophrenia basically
and we don't know exactly when and within of course a very welloiled blackmail scheme that I'm not we don't
have to jump into that your audience are are probably know far more than I do regarding this but it's as obvious as it
gets and also I mean it's funny how there's also like the legacy of previous
empires operating like for example with Israel said Israel was a tool for the Brits and
then the US got that tool for them in order to have what they have the outpost
they need in the Arab and world and western nation where the resources are
there and basically we know the meddling already and we know have successfully they've been even the mindset of some of
the Arab countries or the rulers around those places so it has to do with that
you know by the way I that I have the other commitment soon enough so
okay okay so you you've got it going. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh we can definitely uh wrap up here. Do you have
any um final thoughts uh for the audience maybe on Venezuela's foreign policy or maybe just on what you believe
is the most important um aspects to understand as developments unfold because we are still very much in
an early phase of an intensification of the US's war on Venezuela.
First of all, don't fall for the spin. That's the more the usual one. I mean, and Venezuela is steadfast enough and
has been able to overcome this ever since its foundation as a republic more
than 200 years ago. That's one of the most thing and also don't allow them to
take away our humanity out of this. This is a massive character assassination
that repres Okay, it's focused on Nikol Maduro or any other government official,
but it goes beyond that. It's about all of us. which includes our children by the way
and um so and don't allow that world to take more grip off the rest of us
because there if Venezuela falls there's no going back for anyone else it will
become the president and the template. [Music] Yeah. Well said. Diego. Is there
anywhere people can find your work uh that I can share? Sure. Sure. Yeah.
Not only my work, I'm actually the bomb from the team, but mad ma truth mission in in Spanish. We
mostly do Spanish work. I also contribute with the gray zone, sometimes press TV. It depends, but mostly on on
the and on social media, you can look for my name, Diego Sec, and you'll find me easily also. And mat,
I think it's not hard to understand.com. That's the go-to place. That's where it works. Like I'm saying, they're they are
the one doing the hard work. I'm the bum. And also Telegram channel also is very good. Matad in Spanish, of course.
I think those are the I will put uh right now what I'll do is I'll put your ex account because I
believe your ex account has all the links um to that. No, but I will put them after this. I'll
commit myself to that. Sorry for that. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Put that I'll put them all in the description after uh we end here. Uh without further ado,
everybody uh please do hit the like button. that will help get this conversation which was very well viewed.
It was one of the biggest streams in a long time. Um I I think a lot of people
were able to hear uh you Diego and I I'm very glad to hear that. Um and I'm glad
to see that. So hit the like button so that continues. I want to thank everyone who gave super chats. That's really
appreciative as uh you support independent media. I'll just put them up here. Uh without further ado, everybody
um uh I will be back again soon. I will let you know when I am. And uh thank you
so much, Diego, for your time. We'll head out together again. Thank you. Like button. Uh Diego's social media
will be in the video description. And uh all the places support this channel there, too. Bye-bye.

Venezuelan Journalist DESTROYS Anti Maduro Propaganda
Katie Halper
Jan 4, 2026 #venezuela #politics #war

Andreína Chávez discusses what just happened in Venezuela, why it happened and what comes next.



Transcript

We knew this would happen, and now we
want President Maduro back, and now we
want to affirm that even though you
kidnapped President Maduro, it doesn't
mean that the Bolivarian revolution is
over.

Tell us about what is happening, because
obviously as I just mentioned earlier,
you know, Western media is not very
reliable in general. It certainly isn't
reliable when it comes to uh Venezuela.
So uh what is happening like uh what
happened during the uh attack? How did
you experience it? Did you wake up to
it?

So, yes. So, just to give you like a
timeline of the things that happened.
Basically, at around 2:00 a.m. in the
morning, I woke up with the sound
with this tremendous loud explosion
sound. Uh, of course, I have no idea
what was happening. I It felt like an
earth girl, like maybe the sky was
falling down. I immediately got up. Uh,
immediately went to the window. I could
hear the explosions. I could hear the
planes flying, but I couldn't actually
see them. Uh, but I knew they were
closed and I knew that something bad was
happening because the sound was like
something like I've never heard before.
Uh, immediately friends and family began
calling me. We began exchanging messages
and phone calls just trying to
understand what was happening. We all
knew that this was something bad. Uh,
there was a part of me that already knew
that this was most likely a US military
aggression, but of course we needed to
remain calm. So I just tried to wait
until there was absolute confirmation.
In the meanwhile, I was seeing videos
and photos on social media of people
like me who woke up to these loud sounds
and they looked out the window and they
saw that there were explosions around
where they lived. And so in total there
were like six places in Karakas that
were hit by US strikes. Uh not only
military complex places because the US
is saying that they only hit these
military sites and that's not true. They
they actually also hit civilian areas,
urban areas, civilian populations. Uh
for example, they mentioned Fortuna,
which is a military complex, but Fortuna
is not just a military complex. It has a
lot of residential areas around it. So
uh the strikes were actually u quite uh
tremendous and they are actually they
actually cause some civilian casualties
which we will have a balance about it uh
soon enough from the Venezuelan
government. So that's what happened
A criminal imperialist aggression: Venezuelans were told to get ready to defend themselves
around 3:00 a.m. in the morning. We got
like the first confirmation from the
Venezuelan government that indeed we
were under military attack. Uh the mil
the community said that it called the
people to just remain calm but at the
same time was saying this is the moment
to resist. This is the moment to fight.
Everybody has to be in high alert.
Everybody has to be ready to defend the
the patriot to defend the sovereignty.
So we waited. We was just like, "Okay,
so we're just going to continue to wait
for more confirmation from the
government." So after the defense
minister, Vladimir Parino Lopez, he went
on television. And he said the same
thing. He said, "Yes, we are being
attacked by the United States. This is a
criminal imperialist aggression. This is
illegal. This is of course something
that the Venezuelan army is going to
face with our heads holding high." He
said that the military was already in
the streets. they were already trying to
take uh control of the situation and he
called the Venezuelan people to of
course trust in the military, trust in
the militia, trust in this civilian
military union and to remain calm inside
their houses. Uh soon after that we got
the most uh devastated statement from
the Venezuelan government which was Vice
President Del Rodriguez saying that
President Maduro was KIDNAPPED but captured or arrested
indeed President Maduro had been
kidnapped alongside his wife Silia
Flores and I think it's very important
that we emphasize this part. President
Nicolas Maduro an elected constitutional
president was kidnapped by US forces. He
was not captured. He was not arrested.
No he was moved.
Exactly. None of that. None of that. We
The false narrative that the Venezuelan government is behind narco-terrorism drug trafficking
all know that the United States has
built this fantasy narrative that the
Venezuelan government is somehow behind
this huge narot trafficking uh
organization
with absolutely no proof about that, no
evidence about that. They have been
using that narrative to kill civilian
people on small boats in the Caribbea
for four months. And now they're using
the same narrative to kidnap a elected
president and to bomb civilia
populations in Venezuela. Karagas wasn't
the only place that was attacked. There
were also strikes in different states.
Miranda, Ara, Laara. We have been seeing
videos and images on social media of
people who witnessed these attacks. So
we know that there were actually some
really
uh harm to the civilian population. Uh
after all of that, when we had
confirmation that we were on the US
military attack, when we had
confirmation that President Maduro had
been kidnapped, uh of course the next
stage was we need to go to the streets.
We took to the streets of Venezuela
So that's what we did right in the
morning when around 9:00 a.m. we started
sort of exchanging messages. Okay, so
where do we go? Of course, we have to go
to Mira Flores. We have to go to the
presidential palace. And that's what we
did. We went there. Of course, the city
was very militarized.
Um there was a lot of people who were
just kind of uh looking for essentials,
people looking for water, looking for
food, trying to you know say find all of
the supplies because we don't know
what's going to happen in the next
following days. But there were also
people near Miraaf Flores who were just
gathering there in solidarity who were
just uh taking turns to speak on the
microphone and speak their mind denounce
that the US had violated Venezuela.
sovereignty that the US had uh engaged
in this criminal bombing against
Venezuela. Uh demanding that President
Maduro is return to Venezuela, demanding
proof of life of President Maduro and
his wife Flores and of course denouncing
USA admitted they wanted to take the oil
that behind this whole military
operation was change which is what
Venezuela has been denouncing forever.
We have we've been saying that
everything that the US has been doing,
the narrative of drug trafficking, the
militarization of the Caribbean, these
accusations against President Maduro of
narco terrorism. We know that all of
behind all of that is just the intention
to take control of Venezuela, to take
control of Venezuelan resources. And
that's exactly what Trump admitted when
he gave that press conference saying
that Maduro had been captured, which is
actually kidnapped.
He said that from now on the US is going
to run Venezuela. he's going to take
control of Venezuela and they're going
to take control of Venezuelan oil. So
that's exactly what they wanted and they
say they just they use the narrative but
they also make the truth at some point.
Right?
So that's basically what has been going
on here. So these are two people that
Photos from the response to the invasion
were they were in the streets. They were
just uh these signs were something that
happened very sporadically in the
moment. People decided okay we need to
make signs. We need to write something
down. So people were handing around
these cartelas. Yeah. spons
and they were just making these messages
basically saying uh we want President
Madro back. President Maduro is
continues to be our president. The
revolution hasn't died. The revolution
continues. Uh just affirming this uh
sending these messages out there saying
that we we're not giving up. We're not
Venezuela has experienced coups and sanctions, but nothing like this
giving up. Moments like this, we have to
understand that this is such a uh new
experience. We have never been through
something like this. Venezuela has been
through so many terrible circumstances.
We have been under US sanctions for a
decade. We have uh been through
devastating con humanitarian
consequences because of US sanctions. We
have persisted so much. We have faced so
many coups so many coupens
attempts of mercenary invasions. But
this is something that of course we
haven't experienced so far. We have been
denouncing that this was going to
happen. There was a a UN emergency
meeting that Venezuela called and not so
recently in which the Venezuelan
ambassador Samuel Monada, he said it
like that in front of all of these
countries. He said the US is preparing
to invade Venezuela. The United States
is preparing to do something against
President Maduro, a decapitation strike,
something. And we have been announcing
this and nobody did anything. Nobody did
anything. So that this is why right now
when you go to the streets and you see
Venezuelans protesting, it is basically
people saying we've been saying this and
we've been saying that we are we were
going to be attacked. We knew this would
happen and now we want President Maduro
back and now we want to affirm that uh
even though you kidnapped President
Maduro, it doesn't mean that the
Bolivarian revolution is over. It
doesn't mean that this is that we and
and are going to continue fighting. Of
course not. So these are all people who
just spontaneously got there. They just
gathered there and there was a stage and
a microphone and anybody who wanted to
speak they could do it. So everybody
would just go up to the stage and they
will just start speaking about their own
experiences with the Venezuelan
revolution. There was a man who was
saying, "Oh, I am Colombian and I came
to Venezuela and I immediately fell in
love with the body revolution because it
was a a process that made me feel like
human dignity was actually something
that was achievable, you know, like this
is a government that cares about its
people, about education, about
healthcare, about uh and the dignity of
just being a people with sovereignty and
self-determination, not being the back
of the United States, not being just is
not having puppet governments that just
do anything that the United States
wants. So he was talking about their
experience and like him many people will
do the same and like they will say I am
a worker. I support President Maduro the
same way I support President Chavez. I
and there were people who had like this
absolute clarity which is something that
I admire so much about the Venezuelan
people in general. There there's so much
political consciousness. There was
someone explaining Venezuela
nationalizes
because it is our natural resources and
we needed those those we needed to
nationalizes so we could actually
provide for our people so we could give
free healthcare and free education to
our people. So the oil belongs to
Venezuelan not to President Donald
Anti-Maduro Venezuelans: responding to people in the comments who support Trump and US Imperialism
Trump. I want to to read uh or to ask
you to respond to some comments that in
in the chat and that you know this is
such a common talking point which is
that people will say no my family is in
Venezuela and they're so happy about
what's happening or no I have a friend
who's in Venezuela and they're happy and
you're bring on Andreina and she's
biased and Katie you're biased and you
just love Maduro and you're not showing
the real uh truth. So what is your
response to that argument? So listen,
since the whole bombing happened, there
hasn't been any single people in the
streets, any single kind of celebration
protest in the streets. That is not the
Venezuelan people in general. The
Venezuelan people, they do not want war.
They don't want military intervention.
So no, that that is not happening. There
is no such thing as
the country is just calm. the country is
just quietly waiting to uh trusting that
the Venezuelan authorities are handling
the situation, trusting that uh we are
going to resist the situation. We're
going to fight back. We're going to
somehow overcome what is happening right
now. I also have friends and family from
all the the political spectrum that we
have in Venezuela. So I also have this
perspective that I know that many people
who may not support uh the Venezuelan
government, they also do not support the
intervention of the US military. They do
not support this colonialist kind of
mentality. Uh I think people confuse
this with the the small sector that
María Corina Machado and the Venezuelan Right Wing
represents Maria Korina Machado who we
all know is a is someone who openly
welcomes US military intervention.
Someone who has been asking for in an
invasion someone who has been selling
Venezuela like Venezuela is just
something that she can sell. She has
been saying that Venezuela is a sexy
woman that you can just give her up. You
know we have all this oil. We're so so
attractive. you can come and and take
anything you want once we get rid of
Maduro and everybody else. So there's a
small section, a small radical section
like Marado that supports this, but
that's not the majority of the
Venezuelan people. And you we're not
seeing any I mean I've been I've been in
the streets. I've been walking around.
I've seen people so I know for a fact
that that is not happening.
Yeah. And also um of course poor Oina
Machado. She's uh Trump does not have a
lot of confidence in her. So that that
must have been awkward for her to watch
that uh press conference.
We still have a Venezuelan government
We still have a Venezuelan government.
Vice President Deli Rodriguez is in
power right now. She gave a press
conference earlier today. She was
alongside the entire military uh
officers and other Venezuelan officials.
And she was saying that uh we are still
here. We are resisting. We are
maintaining operations. We are declaring
a a state of commotion in Venezuela. we
are going to give a balance very soon
about the casualties of the US bombings.
So there's no uh vacuum of power.
There's no such thing. The US has been
claiming that they are negotiating with
Rodriguez. They they first said that she
had already fled to Russia. Then they
said that they were negotiating with her
and she very clearly stated and
negotiated with anybody. I am here. I am
with the Venezuelan people. We are
calling the Venezuelan people to resist
and we are asking demanding that
President Maduro is returned back safe
and safe.

Internet ERUPTS After Trump Goes OFF THE RAILS
Really American
Jan 4, 2026

Really American host Tony Hinderman breaks down the internet roasting Trump for his ridiculous invasion and the weird logic MAGA is using to justify it!



Transcript

MAGA isn't exactly known for their
mental fortitude.
Smart people don't like me, you know.
But the logic that Trump and MAGA are
using to defend the United States
literally taking control of Venezuela is
so batshit insane that the entire
internet is mocking them.
Uh, I haven't liked what he's been doing
over there for a while now, so I've
decided to run his house myself. And to
make matters worse, they're using fake
AI videos to justify this invasion in
order to claim that the Venezuelan
people are celebrating their liberation.
But the truth is much darker than that,
of course. And the real reason that
Trump hit the big red button on Maduro,
well, that folks is almost too petty,
too small, too Trumpian to believe.
Double check that you're subscribed to
Really American and let's just jump
right into it. The idea that America has
the right to serve as the world police
is already insane on its face. But the
logic that domestic indictments would
give a country the right to bomb and
kidnap another country's president is so
ridiculous that the entire internet is
already flooded with folks making jokes
like this.4

In a stunning late night
operation, I had some friends of mine
execute a raid on my neighbor Tom's
house. He put up quite a fight, but uh
we got through and he's in custody. Uh I
haven't liked what he's been doing over
there for a while now, so I've decided
to run his house myself. He leaves
his Christmas lights up too long. He
never trims his avocado tree that hangs
over my fence. And I believe he's
running fentanyl out of there. I can't
prove the last one, but it makes
sense. I've seen him speak Spanish.
I got rid of the wife as well. I didn't
really have a problem with her, but we
did do a Fourth of July block party, and
she brought empanadas, so better safe
than sorry. I've got them at a residence
in a couple towns over. I've been using
his home as my own little man cave.
Pretty great. It turns out he has a
fantastic wine cellar that I have tapped
into extensively.

Anyway, I'll be running his home until a
time when I can have a a safe, proper,
and judicious turnover to some other
guy, which probably won't be
happening soon. And just a heads up,
I plan to take over some other neighbors
homes as well. Phil across the street
has a pretty cool car I'd like to be in
charge of. And Alex, who lives caddy
corner from me, has a wife who's a yoga
instructor. Be taking that one soon. Again, doing it
for the good of the neighborhood. So
stay tuned.

Trump and his stooges are
releasing all of these clearly staged
photos trying to look badass when really
folks can see that they had Twitter
pulled up on the screen while ordering
bomb strikes on innocent civilians. And
this operation is being done in Mar-a-Lago with black curtains put up.
For all
we know, the buffet is right behind
Trump so that he has easy access.

That [ __ ] with Maduro. That was pretty
crazy, huh?
Yeah, it's not good. You see Pete Hegseth was like,
"Fuck around and find out."
Okay, "Yeah, you're the Secretary of
Defense. How stupid are people?"
This is like a pretty big deal.
Can you imagine if Truman after nuking
Japan was like, "Fucking play stupid
games, win stupid prizes, you know?"
Oh, you're sad? Cope.
Hold this L, Nagasaki.

We have gotten to the point where these
evil thugs don't even have to pretend to
be professional anymore, let alone come
up with a legitimate reason to do this
act of war. All justifications seem to
be about Venezuelans responding to
Maduro getting arrested like this.

Venezuelans are still brought to tears
celebrating in Caracas for Donald Trump
arresting Maduro.

You can see this video
where this guy is saying that he never
thought this would happen with fireworks
going off in the background. The only
problem is this video is fake. Here is
another fake AI video claiming to be
footage of Venezuelans in the country
taking to the streets to thank the
United States for our invasion. Because
US imposed regime change has always gone
over well. Like historically. They got
hit with a fact check here. "This video
is AI generated, and is currently being
presented as a factual statement
intended to mislead people." Yet, this
still has 4.3 million views.

It turns out that most of these videos claiming
to be showing dancing Venezuelans are
either AI, old footage from like the
World Cup or other celebrations, or and
this might be the most insidious,
Venezuelan Americans in America who
claim to be speaking for their home
country when they say that they love
that US oil change special. This user,
Turnbull, is asking the real questions
here.

None of that footage is current
and has all been debunked. Why is it
necessary to post old footage? And why
aren't we seeing mass celebrations from
within Venezuela?

Because if you look at
the social media of people who actually
live there, you'll see that the streets
are filled with marches of people saying
that they want their president back. You
can tell that this footage is real
because it's dated. Also, because
they're saying, "We want Maduro back."
So, it's pretty obvious this is post-
kidnapping, and they don't want American
intervention.

This next clip that I'm
about to show you is from somebody on
the streets in Venezuela, but it's in
Spanish. There are subtitles and it's
short, but I think it's important
because it's straight from the streets
of Venezuela.

[x]

But if you listened to CBS, which now
stands for Conservative Broadcasting
Service, this is a welcome change for
the Venezuelans, because Maduro was a
corrupt dictator. "

This feels like a
breath of fresh air.

They report
Venezuelans in South Florida pouring
into the streets early on Saturday to
celebrate the United States military
action. They report that this is the
mood of the Venezuelan people. But it's
times like these that I feel like I have
to remind everyone of the 2010
DreamWorks cult classic film Megamind.

Titan has freed us.

Oh, I wouldn't say free. more like under
new management.

Seriously, have we learned nothing from
Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, literally
any of the regime changes that we've
ever done? When has the US ever actually
brought peace to a resourcerich nation
that just so happens to be ruled by a
dictator? I mean, don't take it from me.
Here is an Iraqi Australian woman who
lived through this firsthand, and has a
warning for all of these Venezuelans who
think they're being freed.

My mother celebrated the day that we got
invaded in Iraq by the American
government. She loved George W. Bush.
She loved Tony Blair because they got
rid of Saddam Hussein. Because he was
annihilating the Kurds and so many
minorities. But she didn't celebrate
when she had to drag the body of her
dead brother from my grandparents'
driveway because the neighborhood got
air struck. A neighborhood that was
never going to be airirst struck.
They're so wealthy. They're so
protected. They're protected by the
Americans, cuz they've got ties with the
Americans, they got struck. She definitely
did not celebrate when we finally
arrived to Australia to a western
country and she faced Islamophobia and
discrimination and bigotry and
oppression like she's never seen before.
So, no, the invasion of Venezuela is not
to be celebrated, because it's the next
Iraq.

Regime change is a destabilizing and
colonial effort that only serves to
further entrench American capital
interests into the infrastructure of the
region, allowing for the United States
government, and private companies, to
extract those resources for next to
nothing. It is a inhuman, immoral, and
evil, greedy practice. But don't take
that from me. Take it from Trump
himself.

We're going to run the country until
such time as we can do a safe, proper,
and judicious transition....

Our current strategy of nation building
and regime change is a proven absolute
failure.

We will break the cycle of regime
change. We must abandon the failed
policy of nation building and regime
change that Hillary Clinton pushed in
Iraq, in Libya, in Egypt, and in Syria.

So why now? Why did Trump decide now
would be the time to take Maduro into
custody as opposed to continue to starve
and cripple a country through sanctions?
Well, because he's a petty, petty man
who can't stand to be outdone. According
to the New York Times, this video right
here of Maduro dancing on stage to a
song saying, "No crazy war. Yes, peace,
peace, peace." Yeah, this pissed off
Trump so bad that he called in the
operation. I guess Trump was jealous
that another more popular tyrant, who is
actually 6'3" and handsome, is also a
better dancer. Here's from the New York
Times reporting

Mr. Maduro's regular
public dancing and other displays of
nonchalance in recent weeks helped
persuade some of the Trump team that the
Venezuelan president was mocking them,
and trying to call what he believed to
be a bluff, according to two of the
people who spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not
authorized to talk about the
confidential discussions.

There's even leaks when it came to this thing. I
mean, apparently the New York Times and
the Washington Post already knew about
the strikes because it was, of course,
leaked, but they decided not to say
anything. And as a result, reportedly 40
Venezuelans were killed because of one
man's petty thirst for crude oil.

The first confirmed casualty was an
80-year-old woman who was killed in the
middle of the night by an American bomb.
This is why elections have consequences.
Every ballot with Trump's name checked
off of it was a signature on this
woman's death certificate.

Meanwhile, Trump is parading Maduro through the
streets of New York like Julius Caesar
did the leader of the Gauls. Literally
showing him off by having the doors of
the van wide open for all to see while
they're driving down the street. Come
look at the kidnapped president,
everybody, like it's a massive
spectacle.

[Applause]
Good job. Good job.
[Music]

Folks, this is almost too insane to
believe. The last couple of days have
been a whirlwind. But you know what they
say, pride comes before the fall. Take
care of yourselves and each other. And
make sure you're subscribed to Really
American for the news that you won't
find on CBS.

I'm Tony Hinderman and I'll
catch you next time.

Trump PANICS as MADURO Arrest INSTANTLY IMPLODES
Katie Phang
Jan 5, 2026

There was a period of time, from 2013 to 2019, when Maduro was recognized by the United States, by both the Obama administration and the Trump administration as the legitimate, duly-elected, lawful head of state in Venezuela. It was only after the 2018 elections, about which there were serious legitimacy and integrity questions, that the United States and a series of other countries stopped recognizing Maduro. So right off the bat, we have someone who at least for a time was unquestionably recognized as the legitimate head of state of Venezuela.

There are lots of questions swirling about the legality, under both domestic and international law, of Trump’s capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Venezuela. Law professor and scholar Steve Vladeck joins Katie Phang to break it all down, including the impacts from this weekend on the pending SDNY criminal indictment and the Alien Enemies Act.



Transcript

Just a couple of days into 2026 and
Donald Trump decided to bomb Caracus to
be able to take Nicholas Maduro and his
wife back to the United States to face a
federal indictment out of the Southern
District of New York. There are so many
questions swirling about the legalities
under domestic and international law as
to what just happened over the weekend.
What's going to happen moving forward
with that federal indictment against
Maduro and his wife? And does this have
any kind of collateral in consequential
consequential, excuse me, kind of
impacts or effects on things like the
Alien Enemies Act? To answer all of my
questions, I called on my good friend
and colleague, Georgetown Law Professor
Steve Vladic to be able to explain it
all. So, here it goes. and what I need
things explained to me in ways that I
will understand so that I am empowered
because as I like to say, knowledge is
power here at the Katy Fang News
Channel. I call on my good friend and
brilliant Georgetown law professor.
Although that sounds like I'm also a
Georgetown law professor, which I am not
because I'm not as great as Steve.
I would How can we make that happen?
I don't know. I don't know. I don't
know. They they might freak out a little
bit with my unorthodox ways. But Steve,
man, uh listen and and Steve Vladic,
folks, if you do not follow and
subscribe to One First, his newsletter
that also tackles, uh critical Supreme
Court issues, then you are missing out.
But Steve, man, look, let's just start
straight out of the gate with did what
we just witnessed in Venezuela, is that
legal domestically or internationally?
Uh no. Good to see you, Katie. Talk to
you next.
It was good to see you, man. Peace out.
Thanks for coming to our tech talk,
people. It was good to see you. Okay.
So, let's start let's start with the I
let's just you just go. Yeah. You know
what? Just go just explain what the hell
is going on.
So, so let's I mean the it might be
helpful to break apart the domestic
international law question.
So, the international law questions
actually in any in some respects the
easier one because there's just no there
there. So, um article two of the UN
charter um which is not just some you
know fancy pancy international treaty.
It is a treaty that the United States
has ratified. It is therefore the law of
the United States um has a rather
categorical ban on one nation violating
on the sovereignty of another um with
maybe Katie a small exception in article
51 for self-defense, but there's no
self-defense argument here.
Exactly. And so the only real argument
that could possibly be advanced as a
matter of international law for why this
was legal is if the duly-elected leaders of
Venezuela asked us to do this, right? If
the legitimate government of Venezuela
requested our help. But take a pause. But who gets to define
and by the way, let's just get this out
of the out of the way because I'm a
little annoyed that I'm hearing the
criticism of this. I am not a fan of
Nicholas Maduro, nor are you Steve
Vladic. We are not proponents of
Nicholas Maduro.
I have not had to put away my, you know,
Nicolas Maduro, you know,
fan. Okay, that It does. That's
not that's not the case. So, I want to
know who would who gets to be the person
or the arbiter then in the international
law space, Steve, of who's the quote
democratically or recognized leader of
Venezuela.
The recognition question is messy six
ways from Sunday. And it's messy because
you have both the question of sort of
the international level and you have
different countries which might have
different answers to whether they
recognize a particular person as head of
state. Let's start at the bottom.

There was a period of time, from 2013 to
2019, when Maduro was recognized by the
United States, by both the Obama
administration and the Trump
administration as the legitimate,
duly-elected, lawful head of state in
Venezuela. It was only after the 2018
elections, about which there were serious
legitimacy and integrity questions, that
the United States and a series of other
countries stopped recognizing Maduro. So
right off the bat, we have someone who at
least for a time was unquestionably
recognized as the legitimate head of
state of Venezuela.

It would get messier, Katie, if there was someone
standing up and saying, "Actually, I'm
the duly-elected head of state, and I
consent to this." Then it would get
messier, right? Then there'd at least be
the patina of argument that what the
United States has done Friday night was
consistent with international law. No
one is saying that, right? And so what
would be Katie perhaps the best possible
defense as a matter of international law
just you know we don't even have to get
to the question of who counts because no
one in a position to make that claim has
made that claim
and especially that then this is the
perfect segue to the domestic analysis
right because what we've heard so far
and of course this is you know take it
with not even a grain of salt, with
like a dump truck of salt,
where we were told by the Trump
administration, and let's move back for just a hot
second, too. The Trump administration,
via Secretary of State Marco Rubio, made
affirmative representations to members
of Congress who have not declared,
"We're not at war with Venezuela." I just
want to make sure this is clear. There's
no congressional authorization of war
with Venezuela." But Marco Rubio
affirmatively stated to members of
Congress that this is not a regime
change. We are not seeking a regime
change in Venezuela. We are not seeking
to replace Maduro as head of state or
unrecognized head of state with someone
else. In fact, the only excuse we were
given, although Trump did spend a
shitload of time on Saturday doing that
pressure talking about oil, we were told
that the United States law enforcement
facilitated the involuntary extradition
of Nicholas Maduro to the United States
to face an indictment out of the
Southern District of --

I just if we want to be really
technical, I think the correct legal
term is rendition.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Touche. So,
rendition occurred on Friday. Yes.
Rendition definitely being an
involuntary act of Nicholas Maduro,
to the United States, to face a
multi-count federal indictment out of
the Southern District of New York. So,
this is a law enforcement function.
Correct.

So, let's back up. You said something that I
don't want to gloss over, which is there
has been no consistent explanation
for any of this from the Trump
administration. There was the
president's bumbling press conference on
Saturday. There are things that Marco
Rubio says he's told people. There are
things that like Mike Lee has said Marco
Rubio told him. But Katie, the best we
can piece together is that what you said
is right. We still think Delcy Rodriguez,
who was Maduro's vice president, is
actually the current, at least de facto,
head of state in Venezuela. And the
real argument appears to be sort of a
classic tail wagging the dog where it
wasn't a military operation. It was an
arrest operation. And the military was
just there to protect those poor FBI
guys who we sent into Venezuela in a
naked violation of Venezuelan
sovereignty from the possibility that
Venezuela might shoot at them.

So, how do we send American FBI agents onto
foreign soil, surrounded and protected by
United States American military?
What the Trump administration
appears to be doing, and I want to
stress "appears," because we haven't seen
any formal legal rationale, is mushing
together two different lines of
argument that have been made by the
Justice Department in the past, Katie,
but never embraced by courts. So the
first line is the FBI line. And
there's this deeply
controversial OLC memorandum,
Office of Legal Counsel, that was written
by then OLC Assistant Attorney General
Bill Barr. Yes, the same Bill Barr in
1989 that concludes that the president
has inherent constitutional power under
article 2 to send FBI agents onto
foreign soil to effectuate arrests for
violating the US criminal statutes. So
Katie, you know this from your time as a
prosecutor, there are a whole bunch of
federal statutes that do have extra-
territorial application, meaning that
you can violate the law even if you're
outside the US. So here's Barr saying that
beyond the normal extradition process,
the FBI even could go into a country,
without their permission, to arrest
someone if there's a valid indictment in
a US civilian federal court. And even
more crazy Barr says the president has
inherent constitutional authority, not
just statutory authority, to send FBI
agents to do that. So that's the first
piece.

The second piece is the notion
that in general the president has
article 2 power to protect federal
personnel from violent attack. So
you can put troops in front of
a federal courthouse cadence.
I was going to say like isn't this kind
of what we were seeing with the
federalization of the national guard in
these cities under this quote unquote
theory or premise
of protective power?

Yeah. Protective powers. Yeah.
And so the basically the protective
power and the Barr memo had a baby. And
the Barr memo is the putative
justification for sending the FBI into
Venezuela without Venezuela's consent.
And then the protective power is, "Oh,
our poor FBI guys might get shot at if
we send them into Venezuela. We better
send troops to protect them." And if
that's not bootstrapping, and the tail
wagging the dog to a degree that
you've never seen before, I'm not sure
what is, but that appears to be
how we got there.

You know, Steve, I want to just take a
slight tiny little footnote detour right
now about OLC, because OLC memos keep on
getting invoked over time. But
they're not law. OLC memos are not
federal statutes. They're not law. They
are by definition a memorandum.
At strongest, a legal analysis
suggesting a course of conduct. So the
fact that you've said that these
theories have yet to be tested or
yet to be court approved, does
it mean they haven't been tested yet in
courts at the same time or what?

Yes. So as you might imagine,
we haven't done a lot of these kinds of
militarized extra-territorial arrest
operations in our history.
Understandably so. And I know we'll talk
about Noriega, but the
short version of all of this is that
I think even though those two threads
both come from OLC, one is a lot more
controversial. Like there is at least
some acceptance Katie, not just in the
Justice Department, but out in the world
of law professors and experts, that the
protective power makes at least some
sense. That FDR
did not need an act of Congress to
shoot down Japanese planes over Pearl
Harbor on the morning of December 7th,
1941, right? Like that's that seems not
insane. The memo is insane.
And the Barr memo is not just insane,
it has been soundly debunked by
everybody over the 37 years
that it's been on the books. Barr never
even considers the fact that the
UN charter is actually ratified by the
Senate, and is therefore US law, right?
He never considers the war
powers problem, that the memo is
basically saying the president can send
troops into a foreign country without
Congress saying anything, right?
So OLC memos,
we did this whole song and dance
during the George W. Bush administration
with the torture memos, right? Like
these memos are very important from the
perspective of providing internal legal
rationalizations for what the executive
branch is doing. But they don't in any way
establish legality. Writing something that says this is
legal 10 times does not make it so.
So part of the
problem here is that we have a framework
that is based on a highly controversial
memorandum that has been
soundly discredited for 37 years, only to
have the Trump administration dust it off, because no one else is going to hold him
to account.

And you mentioned
something a couple of minutes ago,
Steve, um that we are going to assume uh
what's happening here because we have
yet to actually read or hear formal
legal rationale set forth by the Trump
administration. I would say reasonably
we can anticipate that in a legal
filing. Correct. like, you know, let's
just say there's a motion to dismiss,
and I'm getting a little bit ahead of
ourselves a little bit, but say there's
a motion to dismiss filed by Maduro and
his wife to get rid of that indictment,
and then the the government has to
respond as to how it was legal that they
were able to obtain him. And we'll get
into Car Frisbee in a second, but let's
talk about Panama and let's talk about
Manuel Noriega because that one,
ironically, you know, it was the
anniversary of that too, right? Like
over the weekend, which was crazy. But
that that keeps on kind of getting
interjected and I say it's like the
resurrection, the ghost of Manuel
Noriega coming back.
I think it's a good good episode title,
the ghost of Manuel Noriega.
I think it's fantastic. So So talk about
why Panama and Emanuel Noriega. Why
Trump can't rely on that as being on all
fours as with what just happened this
weekend with Maduro and Venezuela.
Sure. So the first thing to say is, you
know, there was never any kind of
conclusive legal analysis that upheld
what President George HW Bush did in
Panama. So right, it's a at most it is a
historical precedent, not a legal
precedent. There's also Katie, one
critical difference. So let's back up
for a second. So in 1989, late 1989,
President George HW Bush sends, I think
it's 25,000 troops into Panama, part of
what was called Operation Just Cause
with the goal of deposing and then
ultimately arresting General Manuel
Noriega, who had been the de facto but
not dejour ruler of Panama since 1983.
And when you say de facto not dare, what
do you mean? So um Nicholas Maduro,
whatever you think of the elections in
2018 and 2024, he was the elected
president of Venezuela. So as a matter
of Venezuelan law, he was the dejour
head of state. Um much like President
Trump is our deour head of state. Manuel
Noriego was never elected, right? There
had been a military coup. Um and he was
the I think the second person to come to
power after the coup um right in 1983.
And so he never had any claim to
legitimate election to legitimate
selection under Panameanian law. He was
ruling by force um not by right.
Um okay that's going to come back to
matter when we get to recognition. But
before we even get there
so President George W. Bush sends in
25,000 troops. Katie, two critical
factual differences between what
happened in Panama, what happened in
Venezuela. In Panama, before President
Bush ever sent troops into Panama, the
Panameanian General Assembly had
declared war against the United States.
There was a war, at least from the
perspective of the Panameanian
government. And then second, not only
was there a war on paper, but there had
been attacks against US personnel who
were already stationed in Panama,
including the murder of one Marine. Um,
so you know, I don't know that I'm sort
of comfortable comfortable saying that
therefore President George W. Bush was
totally legally justified in what he
did, but at the very least there was a
provocation. Um, there was a declaration
of war by the foreign nation before we
ever did anything.
Did the United States declare war
against by Congress?
No, we didn't, which is part of the
problem. And so I, you know, I I think
you could still make a pretty good
argument that as a matter of domestic
law, um, actually what we did in Panama
was unlawful, but the international law
question is much harder for those
reasons, right? Because the Panameanian
legislature had declared war because
there had already been an act of armed
aggression against US personnel. Now you
have more of a self-defense argument um,
under the UN charter. So that's you know
the Panama scenario I think both is not
a legal precedent and also I think can
be distinguished. The other piece of
this also is that
again unlike in Panama here what you
know we may think that the 2018 and 2024
Venezuelan elections were illegitimate
Maduro was still you know at least
nominally elected by the people of
Venezuela in a way that Norie never was.
And I think that's relevant politically
and I think it's also going to be
relevant as we turn toward what happens
to Maduro himself in this in this
criminal prosecution. So, I know that
Manuel Noriega raised several defenses
even though he quote surrendered to US
forces and then he was brought back to
the United States, specifically to
Miami, by the way, right here in the
Southern District of Florida to face his
um indictment, which which also
hauntingly mirrors a lot of the
allegations against Nicholas Maduro when
it comes to narot trafficking, weapons
offenses, etc. But Noriego raised
several legal defenses about the way
within which he was deposed and brought
to the United States to face these
charges.
Can can Maduro raise these same defenses
and if they are they dead on arrival?
So um I think there are two buckets here
and I think one of them has no chance
and one of them I think is actually
going to be where all much of the action
is. So the first bucket is can Maduro
challenge his prosecution based on the
means by which his presence in the
United States was secured. Right? Based
upon the rendition
aka we call this in the law personal
jurisdiction. How does the how does a
court in the United States get
jurisdiction over the person of that
party the defendant etc.
Right? And so normally in normal
personal jurisdiction land, you cannot
forcibly compel a defendant into you
cannot like kidnap someone and bring
them into the court and therefore
establish personal jurisdiction over
them. Um, well, the US Supreme Court has
a different view about this in criminal
cases. And so that you you already
mentioned the Kerr Frisbee doctrine,
named after cases shockingly known as
Kerr and Frisbee, um, which stands for
the proposition that a federal criminal
court in the United States is not
divested of personal jurisdiction over a
defendant, no matter how the defendant's
presence was secured. Even Katie in
cases in which the US government
forcibly abducted the defendant from
foreign soil which was the facts of a
1992 case called the United States
versus Alvarez machine. So that's not
going to be a great line of argument
from Maduro
even though maybe it should be
well so so what could see some action
then you said
so the real question that I think is
going to circle a lot around what's
known uh colloquially as head of state
immunity. Um, so right this is where
things get really fun and crazy. Um,
there's something called foreign
sovereign immunity which is recognized
by statute. We have a whole statute
called the foreign sovereign immunities
act. Head of state immunity is
different. Head of state immunity is a
common law immunity that the United
States has recognized all the way back
to a John Marshall opinion from 1812.
Um and it stands for the proposition
that the United States cannot prosecute,
cannot even civily try, right? Um
official acts of a foreign head of state
who has been recognized as such by the
United States. And that's the that's the
sticky wicket, right? The recognition
piece is where this gets very messy. So,
and does that does that turn heavily on
the facts of the recognition? Meaning,
how has the United States interacted
with Maduro to date? Have they chosen
his vice president for example to
negotiate with versus Maduro directly?
So it becomes a very fact-intensive
analysis
with with historically Katie at least a
lot of difference to the executive
branch. Um right which you know yay. Um
in Nora's case that made the issue
fairly open and shut for the 11th
circuit for the federal appeals court
that has jurisdiction over Miami. The 11
Circuit said even if we weren't going to
defer to the Bush administration's claim
that that they're not that that they
don't recognize Noriega, the reality is
he was never the Dejour head of state.
Um and so he's not entitled to head of
state immunity at the very least because
he was never really the head of state.
That's not true in Maduro's case. I
mean, again, this goes back to something
we we talked about a few minutes ago.
from at least 2013 to 2019, the United
States did recognize Maduro as the
legitimate dulyeleed head of state of
Venezuela. Um, if you look at the
indictment, some of the offenses charged
in the indictment overlap with the time
period during which we recognized him as
the head of state of Venezuela. And so,
and we got to remind people though,
Steve, that indictment that was just
unsealed over the weekend and kind of
touted around like some, you know,
prized calf by Pamela Joe at the DOJ.
That's a superseding indictment. So,
there was an original indictment
actually against Maduro. And again,
Maduro, we are not supporting him. We're
not fans. He's no angel. But, I'm just
saying there was an original indictment
that he was facing years ago, and this
indictment supersedes, meaning it
replaces that older indictment. And we
don't we don't I don't I think we don't
know the dates of either indictment. Um
what seems to be different about the
second indictment among other things is
that it adds Maduro's wife Celia. Um
that's right. Right. Who was not a party
to the earlier indictment. And so when
when Pam Bondi says you know these guys
have been fugitives from the law. Um not
sure how you can be a fugitive from an
indictment you didn't know about. But
that's you know why should logic stop
us.
But but there's a thread to pull from
there though. um which is why and
Margaret Brennan actually asked this
question of Margaret Rubio yesterday on
the Sunday shows if you have warrants
for the other people that are in the
Maduro administration
um and I guess maybe this is their um
this is their plausible excuse if you're
Trump right I wasn't doing regime change
that's why I didn't depose all of the
members of the Maduro administration
that has to be the argument right
right so I didn't touch them I only
touched Maduro and his wife but if you
have arrest warrants bounties on the
heads of several of these kind of top
top top members of the administration.
Um, and by the way, the VP in Venezuela,
it's not like anybody's made allegations
that her hands are clean either. Let's
be very clear. Like, why would you not
also facilitate the arrest of those
people? Is it because they weren't
facing an indictment in the US? So we're
we're back to so we're back to the
problem of the sort of complete lack of
coherence coming out of the the Trump
administration about what this is about
because it's a day ending and why
you know some some days it's about you
know in in
one hour it's about arresting Maduro the
next hour it's about regime change the
next hour it's about oil um right and
like these are very very different
arguments that would have very different
consequences I will say like that we
didn't arrest other people is probably a
political obstacle more than a legal
one. Right? The real question that's
going to come up in the Maduro
prosecution is how can we prosecute
someone who for at least much of the
indictment period we viewed as the
legitimate head of state of a foreign
sovereign and
even if they're committing criminal
activity
that so historical that doesn't matter.
I mean, part of, you know, Katie, part
of why there was a movement after World
War II to create meaningful
international criminal responsibility
even for heads of state is because it
was understood that domestic legal
systems usually lacked the capacity to
hold foreign heads of state criminally
liable. Um, right? That usually that
this is why you needed the the Nuremberg
War Crimes Tribunal, the Tokyo War
Crimes Tribunal, the International
Criminal Court. So, you know, unless
we're going to sort of turn tails on
this entire doctrine, a lot of the
Maduro case is going to turn on which
acts he's being prosecuted for that
postdate his drecognition and whether
drecognition even matters. I mean, there
hasn't been a case like this where you
had someone who was for top for period
number one a recognized head of state
and then for period number two a
non-recognized head of state. That's
that's a novelty that's going to cause a
lot of I think um uncertainty and
mischief in the pre-trial proceedings in
this case.
Okay. I I mean I don't want to be
totally weird about this, but it also
kind of reminds me it smacks a little
bit about the presidential immunity
analysis, too, right? Does it fall
within the perimeter of the conduct that
you're doing as president? Does it not?
I mean, part of that was just are you
president? Are you not? But um Okay. So,
so, so let's take a little bit uh le
let's let's pull out another question.
Wait, can I can I just say one thing
about that, Katie? I mean, I think
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that weird that I
brought that up?
It is worth not sleeping on the
possibility that now a defendant like
Maduro can point to John Roberts
majority opinion in the Trump case
and say you get immunity as president,
right?
And for even more immunity than we had
recognized before last, you know, or
July 2024.
Can you imagine? I mean, yes. I mean, I
guess I could imagine. Um, quickly um
can you imagine as a question has become
much more loaded in in the last 11
months
just 4 days or 5 days into 2026. Um,
let's talk about the Alien Enemies Act,
shall we, for just a little bit because
I want to kind of kind of push this
along. For many months, I was saying
that the provocation and the hostilities
with Venezuela was a way for the Trump
administration to bootstrap the
executive order that was done and the
declaration and the invocation of the
Alien Enemies Act to justify a lot of
the horrific conduct we've seen from the
Trump administration when it comes to
immigration enforcement when it's come
to the illegal and unconstitutional lack
of due process removal of people like
Kilmar Obago Garcia to SECOT. Um, and
now we have still no declaration of war.
We still have yet to see evidence of
trend de Ara with these people that have
been deported illegally. But we now have
a uh deposed, I'll use that adjective,
deposed leader of Venezuela, now in
custody in the United States for his
role as a quote alleged narot
trafficker. Does this all kind of feed
um kind of into the DOJ machine of
bolstering the argument that it is okay
then to do this um under the opaces
of the AEA?
So, you know, a couple of folks have
raised this concern um publicly and and
I I get where it's coming from. Let me
say I can I think there are two reasons
why I'm not too worried about that.
Um so, reason number one, you know, the
alien enemies act question whether the
president can lawfully invoke the
statute in the first place turns on
whether we have a declared war. We
don't,
which we don't,
an invasion. We don't,
which we don't,
right? Or a predatory incursion by a
foreign government into the United
States. And so going over there and
bombing Karacus, I think doesn't get you
there if we weren't there already. So I
don't know that that really changes that
analysis meaningfully. Um, but in any
event, I mean, Katie, most of the
litigation to date about President
Trump's March what 15, 2025 proclamation
has not been about its underlying
validity, but about the process that
individual detainees are due before they
can be removed from the country.
Yeah. Not notice and the opportunity to
be heard. Yes.
Right. And so the you know the Supreme
Court back in April of last year um even
though they said you've got to bring
these cases as habius petitions it also
said unanimously all of these detainees
are entitled to notice and an
opportunity to challenge their you know
basis for removal before they can be
removed. That was really I mean more
than anything else Katie that was the
move that put the kibash on the Alien
Enemies Act because the whole reason why
the Trump administration wanted to use
it was because it thought that it could
use this statute for mass summary
removals. Um and even if right even if
the courts do ultimately say oh well
that's close enough with Venezuela. um
you still have this requirement of
individualized process which is going to
defeat and thwart right the utility of
the statute as a mass summary removal
device. That's why I think this doesn't
move the needle that much. That said,
you know, the fifth circuit, the onbanc
fifth circuit um is set to hear oral
arguments on all of this Mishagas on
January 22nd, so two weeks from I guess
this Thursday. And so, you know, we'll
see. But I just I I think that there's
lots of other bigger stuff that is
problematic about what happened Friday
before we get to its implications on
litigation where I really do think the
big move has already happened.
Well, um, as always, I, you know, thank
you seems to be insufficient for you and
your time, your scholarly, you know,
insight and just frankly just the way
you're able to explain things in way
that I can understand and I know
everybody who's tuning in can
understand. Thank you, Steve Vladic.
Again, if you're not following and
subscribing, his newsletter is called
One First. And make sure you're
following him, not only um at Substack,
but also on social media. He's
definitely Oh, and Tik Tok, by the way,
he has ventured into the land of Tik
Tok. Um,
you got to bring it to the masses. You
got to bring it to the masses.
It is entirely Karen's fault. I just
want to say that
Karen is the brains in this operation. I
will tell you that. Professor Steve
Vladic, thank you for your time as
always. I appreciate you.
Thanks, Katie. Great to see you.
Good to see you. Katie Fang here. We
launched the Katie Fang News Channel in
partnership with the Midas Touch Network
so we could bring you the latest in
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can build a high information America

Trump BLINDSIDED By Greenland!
Really American
Jan 5, 2026

Really American host Tony Hinderman breaks down Greenland and Denmark hitting back hard at Trump and MAGA for suggesting Greenland is next on the chopping block!



Transcript

As the world recoils in disgust to
frumpy Trump's latest imperial conquest,
one nation is uniquely concerned that
they might be next. Our other neighbors
to the north, Greenland, and they have
good reason to be alarmed. Katie Miller,
Steven Miller's perfectly evil soulmate,
posted a picture of Greenland with the
American flag over it and the word soon.
Before the dust has even settled and the
bodies counted in Caracus, Trump's goons
have already turned their eyes to the
other resourcerich nation that just so
happens to be closest to our borders and
is just itching for liberation from
their oppressors that they didn't even
know they had. Folks, the narrative is
already forming. The plan is in motion
and the people of Greenland are not
going to sit back and let it happen.
Their premier came out with a
fullthroated warning to Trump to knock
it the [ __ ] off, which we all know he
will not. I fear we may have entered
interesting times, guys. So, strap in,
make sure to hit the sub button, and
let's get right into it. Now, this all
started with Katie Miller, or really, it
started back in January when Trump
randomly floated the idea of annexing
Greenland. But yesterday, while everyone
in the world was focused on Venezuela,
Katie Miller had her eyes set on
Greenland. And she isn't the only one.
If the loudmouth idiot Miller is saying
this, that means that she's hearing it
from her husband. You know, the sexual
matador who looks like a bald droopy.
But it's not like she needed any insider
information. Anyone could just listen to
Trump and tell that Greenland is in
danger.
We need Greenland for national security,
not for minerals. We had so we have so
many sites for minerals and oil and
everything. We have more oil than any
other country in the world. We need
Greenland for national security. And if
you take a look at Greenland, you look
up and down the coast, you have Russian
and Chinese ships all over the place.
It's so obvious that we took over
Venezuela for their crude oil and that
we want to take over Greenland for their
rare earth minerals. The United States
has made a bet on two things: fossil
fuels and AI. Venezuela takes care of
the fossil fuel problem, but AI is going
to require microchips. And microchips
require rare earth minerals.
Historically, China has been the source
of these minerals for the United States.
However, China has placed their bets in
renewable resources and AI, and rare
earth minerals are needed for EV
batteries as well as AI and multiple
multiple technologies, including
military ones. So, China has been
restricting their exports to the US. And
Greenland could change all of that. This
is from Environmental Health News.
Here's the headline. Greenland's rare
earth minerals could reshape global
power and climate strategy. Greenland
holds 18% of the world's reserves of key
rare earth elements, including
neodyinium and dprosium, crucial for
technologies from electric vehicles to
military hardware. Mining operations in
Greenland face logistical, labor, and
environmental challenges, including
risks to local communities, perafrost
instability, and pollution from dust and
black carbon. Oh, well, don't worry,
Greenland. America has no problem
displacing local communities, melting
perafrost with climate change, and
polluting all kinds of environments.
We'll do it for you. And it seems like
the MAGA influencers have already
received the PR packet for this one,
too. This guy Sheay Bose, who's a large
account on Twitter, apppropo of nothing,
posted this long propaganda piece
detailing the Danes historic abuse of
the Greenlandic people. No doubt that
the colonial past of Greenland was rife
with tragedy and abuse, but independence
is an internal affair. And as this user
Morgoth puts it, the term dark past is
always followed by, "And therefore you
have no identity. Prepare to be
assimilated." And the government of
Greenland is sick of the disrespect. And
at this point, viable threats against
their sovereignty. First, the premier
made a statement directed at Katie
Miller. He said, "Let me state this
calmly and clearly from the outset.
There is neither reason for panic nor
for concern." The image shared by Katie
Miller depicting Greenland wrapped in an
American flag changes nothing
whatsoever. Our country is not for sale
and our future is not decided by social
media posts. That said, the image is
disrespectful. Relations between nations
and people are built on mutual respect
and international law, not on symbolic
gestures that disregard our status and
our rights. Now, to me, this seems like
a very cordial, cut that [ __ ] out right
now. But over the course of the day, I
think he started to pick up on the fact
that MAGA was not playing around. So, he
took it directly to Tiny Fingers
himself, calling Trump out for the
blatant disrespect and giving the firm
warning that these threats will not go
unchecked. He said, "We have been a
close and loyal friend of the United
States for generations. We have stood
shouldertosh shoulder in difficult
times. We have taken responsibility for
security in the North Atlantic and not
least for North America. This is what
true friends do. Precisely for that
reason, the current and repeated
rhetoric coming from the United States
is entirely unacceptable. When the
president of the United States speaks of
needing Greenland and links us to
Venezuela and military intervention, it
is not only wrong, it is disrespectful.
Our country is not an object in great
power rhetoric. We are a people, a
country, a democracy that must be
respected, especially by close and loyal
friends. We are a part of NATO and we
are fully aware of our country's
strategic location. We also understand
that our security depends on good
friends and strong alliances. In that
context, a respectful and loyal
relationship with the United States is
very important. That has been the case
for decades. But alliances are built on
trust, and trust requires respect.
Threats, pressure, and talk of
annexation have no place between
friends. That is not how one speaks to a
people who have repeatedly demonstrated
responsibility, stability, and loyalty.
Enough is enough. No more pressure, no
more insinuations, no more fantasies of
annexation. We are open to dialogue. We
are open to conversations, but they must
take place through the proper channels
and in full respect of international
law. and the proper channels are not
random and disrespectful posts on social
media. Greenland is our home and our
territory and it will remain so. Okay,
you can tell when something is this
well-written that they mean business.
And the prime minister of Denmark, the
current colonial owner of Greenland,
also told Trump to knock it the [ __ ]
off. Here's their statement. It makes
absolutely no sense to speak of any
necessity for the United States to take
over Greenland. The United States has no
legal basis to annex one of the three
countries of the Kingdom of Denmark. The
Kingdom of Denmark and thus Greenland is
a member of NATO and is therefore
covered by the alliance's collective
security guarantee. We already have a
defense agreement between the Kingdom of
Denmark and the United States that
grants the US broad access to Greenland.
In addition, the kingdom has made
significant investments in security in
the Arctic. I therefore strongly urge
the United States to cease its threats
against a historically close ally and
against another country and another
people who have stated very clearly that
they are not for sale. Well, we all know
that saying no to Trump doesn't usually
work. Chances are with the stunning
success of their capture of Maduro,
Trump is going to be more bold than
ever. And these threats are falling on
deaf ears. Or rather, Trump's fallen
asleep, so he just literally can't hear
you. But we all see what's going to
happen. And as the prime minister of
Denmark pointed out, the US has no legal
right to be doing this. And if they do,
it will be a clear-cut violation of NATO
and international laws, which are all
but completely meaningless at this
point. If every European leader is just
going to turn a blind eye to clear
crime, then what's the point? As Owen
Jones here puts it, Donald Trump is so
obviously going to annex Greenland, and
European leaders will respond with
unparalleled levels of monitoring the
situation. Would you urge the United
States government not to abduct any
other foreign leaders?
Look, I'm not going to answer
hypothetical questions.
You won't urge the United States
government not to abduct other foreign
leaders.
We think the rules-based order matters
and that people should comply with
international law when an operation like
this.
You're not making an assessment as to
whether or not you think it has complied
with international law
because it's for the Americans to set up
the basis of the legal basis on which
they did the operation and then for
international courts or the UN Security
Council to take a view. I'm not trying
to dodge the question. All I'm saying is
this this is the way the rules-based
order works. It's not for an individual
state to judge international law. It's
for the international order based order
to work. Surely it's important on those
who believe in the rules-based order to
point to people who break the
rules-based order and say you've broken
it. Not just to dodge it because they're
friends of ours.
For sure. Uh but we're not the
international court. We're the UK
government. The international court.
We're supposed to be an important
country.
Yeah, we are. And we're
You don't sound like an important
country. You don't sound like you're
speaking for an important country, Chief
Secretary. You sound like you're
speaking on behalf of a supplicant
country who's afraid of a bigger
country.
I disagree with that assessment. We are
following the proper process that any
government, if
this were Russia, if this were China, if
this was anywhere else in the world, we
would be the first out the traps, first
out the gate saying this is disgraceful.
We condemn it. You know that. I know
that.
As I say, we need to see the legal basis
for the operation that was undertaken.
That was Darren Jones, the foreign
relations minister of the UK. But if his
refusal to condemn this kidnapping by
Donald Trump wasn't enough, even Kier
Starmer just can't take Trump's member
out of his mouth for long enough to tell
him off.
And you've been incredibly clear always
that Vladimir Putin's attack on a
sovereign country of Ukraine was wrong
and ought to be condemned.
What about President Trump's attack on a
sovereign country of Venezuela? There
are all sorts of
horrors that we know about President
Maduro's government,
but for America to strike that country
and then capture its leader,
that's an action against the sovereign
state that surely flies in the face of
international law.
Well, at the moment, it's a fastmoving
situation.
We know those facts. President Trump,
the White House has said that they
captured Maduro and they struck his
country. So, there's a lot we don't
know, but we do know that. So will you
condemn that action against the
sovereign state?
Well, I want to get all the material
facts together and we simply haven't got
the full picture uh at the moment. It's
fast moving um and we need to piece that
together. I can be really clear with you
that there was no UK involvement in this
operation and obviously we're working um
in relation to British citizens and
nationals who are there with our
embassy. But we need to establish full
um picture. I then need to speak to
President Trump. I need to speak to our
allies. Um, but I don't shy away from
this. I've been um a lifelong advocate
of international law and the importance
of compliance with international um law,
but um I want to ensure that I've got
all the facts at my disposal. Um and we
haven't got that at the moment. Um and
we need to get that before we um come to
a decision about um the consequences uh
in relation to uh the actions that have
been taken. Trump has just decided that
this quadrant of the world simply
belongs to the United States and no
other so-called first world civilized
nation is going to stop them. And that's
why it's up to us to put an end to this
from the inside. Reach out to your
representatives and tell them that
enough is enough. No more letters, no
more strongly worded tweets, no more
concern. It's time for impeachment. It's
time for removal. It's time for criminal
trials, or else I fear that the blowback
from all of this will be far worse than
any of us can imagine. You can help us
out here at Really American by
subscribing and sharing with your
friends and family. Take care of each
other. I'm Tony Hinderman and I'll see
you next

Russia & China Shocks the World, HUMILIATES U.S LIVE at UN !
WLA
Jan 5, 2026

Courtesy: UNTV



Transcript

Mr. President, the beginning of this new
year shocked all of those
throughout the world who cherish the
hope that respect for international law
and non-intervention in domestic affairs
of other states as well as a reliance
upon diplomacy and seeking of compromise
became key principles in the work of the
new US administration.
The assault against the leader of
Venezuela, compounded by the deaths of
dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban citizens,
in the eyes of many, has become a
harbinger of a turn back to the era of
lawlessness and US domination by force,
chaos and lawlessness,
which continues to afflict dozens of
states in various regions of the world.
There is no and can be no justification
for the crimes cynically perpetrated by
the United States in Kacus. We firmly
condemn the US act of armed aggression
against Venezuela in breach of all
international legal norms in connection
with the confirmed reports about the
presence of the abducted president of
Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, and his
spouse in the United States. Uh today,
as we are aware, they're in New York. We
propose,
we call upon, correct, s speaker, the US
leadership to immediately release the
legitimately elected president of an
independent state and his spouse
any
problems existing or conflict between
the United States and Venezuela need to
be resolved through dialogue. And this
is precisely what is enshrined in the UN
charter for purposes and the principles
of which a number of states in recent
years have begun to apply selectively
depending upon the political landscape.
Today we are reaping the consequences of
their recklessness and selectivity in
matters related to respect for the norms
of international law which are which
were linked
to the
so-called
rules-based world order. Here is your
world's ba rules-based world order in
all of its glory which is horrifying
even the staunchest Atlanticists.
Mr. President, we extend our firm
solidarity with the people of Venezuela
in the face of the external aggression.
We firmly support and completely support
the policy of the Bolivarian government
which is geared towards protection of
their national national interests and
the sovereignty of the country.
Washington's aggressive acts have
already been condemned by many states
and multilateral associations including
the non-aligned movement, the African
Union as well as a group of friends in
defense of the chart of the United
Nations. We hope that the international
bandry will immediately be met with
objective and comprehensive assessment
at the international legal level with
United Nations universal mechanisms and
other multilateral formats being brought
to bear.
This process must not be impacted by the
recognition or non-recognition by any
given states or groups of states of the
legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro.
For this reason, unintelligible
murmurings and attempts to avoid
principled assessments by those who in
other circumstances froth at the mouth
and demand that others respect the UN
charter today seem particularly
hypocritical and unseemly. We hope you
will recognize this and we hope that you
will abandon double standards and that
you will not attempt to justify such an
egregious act of aggression due to a
fear of angering
the American global jean which is
attempting to once again rear its head.
We are particularly appalled by the
unparalleled cynicism which Washington
with which uh Washington did not even
attempt to conceal the true aims of its
criminal operation, namely the
establishment of unbridled control over
Venezuela's natural resources and the
assertion of their hegemonical ambitions
in Latin America. In this way,
Washington is generating fresh momentum
for neoc colonialism and for imperialism
which were repeatedly decisively
condemned and repudiated by the peoples
of this region and in the and by the
global south as a whole. Distinguished
colleagues, under these circumstances,
it is exceedingly important for the
entire international community to unite
and to definitively reject the uh
methods and tools
uh of uh the methods and tools of US
military foreign policy which have been
demonstrated with in the case of
Venezuela. This is the only way it is
possible to compel Washington to revisit
and to abandon their dangerous
misconceptions. As we stated during
previous meetings on Venezuela, the bell
now tolls across the region ringing for
every country of the Western Hemisphere.
The bell is ringing for all UN member
states and for the future of the
organization itself. Failing to hear
this call today is tantamount to
projecting cowardice and the lack of
principle essentially blessing ongoing
encroachments of international law and
rejecting civilized international
conduct as a whole. We cannot allow the
United States to proclaim itself as some
kind of a supreme judge
which alone bears the right to invade
any country to label culprits to hand
down and to enforce punishments
irrespective of notions of international
law, sovereignty and non-intervention.
Is this the world we sought to attain as
we marked the 80th anniversary of the
adoption of the charter of the United
Nations when we all signed on to the
relevant security council presidential
statement? Is this
the aim of United Nations reform which
we all advocate
or has the United Nations and Security
Council thereof do they no longer exist
and is there need now to seek from
Washington a patent to rule? so to speak
and is the the self-determination of
every person's and their right to
determine their future
worthless? These are the questions that
we all must address today. And if this
response is sincere, if it is
principled, then perhaps the US
leadership too, which openly uh has uh
asserting intention to run another
country for the benefit of the United
States, they will perhaps glance at
their own constitution, their
constitution of the United States, which
begins with the words, we the people of
the United States, and will begin in
fact to recognize the sovereignty of
other states rather than deposing
inconvenient regimes. Thank you.
I thank the represent representative of
Russian Federation and now give the
floor to the representative of China.
President, China supports the security
council holding an emergency meeting
regarding the United States military
strikes on Venezuela
and thanks USG D Caro for reading out
the briefing of the Secretary General
Guter. I have listened carefully to the
statements of the briefers and we
welcome to this meeting the permanent
representative of Venezuela and
representatives of other countries. On
January the 3rd, the United States
blatantly launched large-scale military
strikes against Venezuela, forcefully
seized Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro and his wife and took them out of
the country. It claimed that it will run
Venezuela and even didn't rule out
launching a second round of military
operations on an even larger scale.
China is deeply shocked by and strongly
condemns the unilateral, illegal, and
bullying acts of the US. For some time
now, the international community has
repeatedly expressed grave concern over
the US sanctions, blockade, and threats
of force against Venezuela. The council
convened two emergency meetings during
which Secretary General Gueresh many
council members and countries in the
region and beyond unanimously called for
abiding by the UN charter and the
international law maintaining calm and
restraint resolving disputes peacefully
deescalating tensions and safeguarding
regional stability. However, as a
permanent member of the council, the US
has disregarded the grave concerns of
the international community, wantingly
trampled upon Venezuela's sovereignty,
security, and legitimate rights and
interests, and seriously violated the
principles of sovereign equality,
non-interference in internal affairs,
peaceful settlement of international
disputes, and the prohibition of the use
of force in international relations.
These principles constitute the
fundamental tenants of the UN charter
and form the cornerstone of maintaining
international peace and security. The US
has placed its own power above
multilateralism
and military action above diplomatic
efforts
posing a grave threat to peace and
security in Latin America and the
Caribbean and indeed internationally.
China firmly opposes this and the
international community has also
expressed widespread grave concern and
strong condemnation.
We urge the US to heed the overwhelming
voice of the international community.
Abide by international law and the
purposes and principles of the UN
charter. Case infringing upon the
sovereignty and security of other
countries. Stop toppling the government
of Venezuela. and return to the path of
political solutions through dialogue and
negotiations. We call on the US to
ensure the personal safety of President
Maduro and his wife and to release them
at once. We support the council in
fulfilling its primary responsibility to
maintain international peace and
security and we support all efforts by
the UN Secretary General, regional
countries and organizations that
contribute to promoting dialogue and
deescalating the situation. President,
the lessons of history are a stark
warning. Military means are not the
solution to problems, and the
indiscriminate use of force will only
lead to greater crisis. The US bypassed
the council to launch military
operations against Iraq, blatantly
attacked Iran's nuclear facilities, and
imposed economic sanctions, military
strikes, and even armed occupations on
multiple countries in Latin America and
the Caribbean. These actions have caused
persistent conflict instability and
immersed suffering for the ordinary
people. Did these actions bring peace
and stability? Did they bring
development and prosperity? The
international community sees this
clearly. Venezuela is an independent
sovereign state with every right to
defend its sovereignty and national
dignity. Countries in Latin America and
the Caribbean are important forces in
maintaining world peace and stability
and promoting global development and
prosperity. And they have every right to
independently choose their development
paths and partners. No country can act
as the world's police, nor can any state
presume to be the international judge.
China firmly supports the government and
people of Venezuela in safeguarding
their sovereignty, security, and
legitimate rights and interests. We
firmly support the regional countries in
upholding the status of Latin America
and the Caribbean as a zone of peace. We
demand that the United States change its
course, cease its bullying and coercive
practices, and develop relations and
cooperation with regional countries on
the basis of mutual respect, equality,
and non-interference in international
affairs. China stands ready to work with
the regional countries and the
international community to strengthen
solidarity and cooperation, uphold
fairness and justice, and jointly
safeguard peace and stability in Latin
America and the Caribbean. I thank you,
President.

Trump has US isolated at UN, Venezuela opposition members rally behind Maduro | Janta Ka Reporter,
Janta Ka Reporter
Jan 5, 2026

Donald Trump’s decision to invade Venezuela has caused global embarrassment for the US as it faced opposition from countries around the world at the UN Security Council. In another remarkable development, even Nicolas Maduro’s political rivals took to streets in Caracas demanding his release from US captivity. Meanwhile, the UK government was a cured of moral cowardice as it refused to criticise the US invasion of a sovereign country. Rifat Jawaid says that Trump has done what even Maduro couldn’t pull off- unite Venezuela.



Transcript

The United Nations Security Council has
just concluded its special session on
the illegal attack on Venezuela's
sovereignty by the rogue regime of
Donald Trump. As I said, the American
invasion of Venezuela has conclusively
confirmed the demise of the United
Nations. The body which came into being
or which was established to ensure that
no rogue nation could ever endanger the
sovereignty of another nation after the
second world war has become a
laughingstock now. We saw his
disgraceful inaction during the Gaza
holocaust and we are now seeing its
total irrelevance in the wake of the
attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping
of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife
Selia Flores. But even at the United
Nations Security Council today, the US
found itself completely isolated. This
clearly rattled the representative from
the rogue regime of Donald Trump. So
much so that the American ambassador
ended up repeating the ugly truth right
in front of everyone else. He said that
the primary objective was to illegally
usurp the vast natural resources,
primarily the oil reserves of Venezuela.
This is the Western Hemisphere. This is
where we live. And we're not going to
allow the Western Hemisphere to be used
as a base of operation for our nation's
adversaries and competitors and rivals
of the United States. You can't turn
Venezuela into the operating hub for
Iran, for Hezbollah, for gangs, for
Cuban intelligence agents and other
malign actors that control that country.
You cannot continue to have the largest
energy reserves in the world under the
control of adversaries of the United
States under the control of illegitimate
leaders. The Venezuelan representative
also spoke on the occasion. He told the
world that it was the greed of criminals
running the US regime that was
responsible for the utter disdain for
rulebased world order. In 2004, the
International Court of Justice affirmed
that occupation exists when a state
exercises effective control even without
formal annexation or the continuous
presence of troops.
Security Council resolution 242
for its part emphasizes that the
acquisition of territory by force is
inadmissible.
While General Assembly Resolution 2625
establishes that the territory of a
state shall not be subject to military
occupation as a result of the use of
force in controvention of the UN
charter.
Allowing such acts to go without an
effective answer would amount to
normalizing the replacement of law by
might while eroding the very foundations
of the collective security system.
Today, it is not only Venezuela's
sovereignty that is at stake, the
credibility of international law, the
authority of this organization, and the
validity of the principle that no state
can set itself up as a judge, party, and
executive of the world order are also at
stake. Mr. President, we cannot ignore a
central element of this US aggression.
Venezuela is the victim of these attacks
because of its natural resources. Our
country's oil, energy, strategic
resources, and geopolitical position
have historically been factors of greed
and external pressure.
American expert Jeffrey Saxs, who has
been vocal against the US support for
the Gaza Holocaust, too, was invited to
share his thoughts. You have to watch
what he said and how he exposed the
imperialist agenda of the US government.
I will post his full speech separately,
but you should watch a short clip here.
Since 1947, the United States foreign
policy has repeatedly employed force,
covert action, and political
manipulation to bring about regime
change in other countries. This is a
matter of carefully documented
historical record. In her book, Covert
Regime Change, political scientist
Lindseay Oor documents 70 attempted US
regime change operations between 1947
and 1989 alone.
These practices did not end with the
Cold War. Since 1989, major United
States regime change operations
undertaken without authorization by the
Security Council have included, among
the most consequential, Iraq 2003, Libya
2011, Syria beginning in 2011, Honduras
2009, Ukraine 2014, and Venezuela from
2002 onward. The methods employed are
well established and well documented.
They include open warfare, covert
intelligence operations, instigation of
unrest, support for armed groups,
manipulation of mass and social media,
bribery of military and civilian
officials, targeted assassinations,
false flag operations, and economic
warfare. These measures are illegal
under the UN charter and they typically
result in ongoing violence, lethal
conflict, political instability, and
deep suffering of the civilian
population.
The recent US record with respect to
Venezuela is also clear. In April 2002,
the US knew of and approved an attempted
coup against the government. In the
2010s, the United States funded civil
society groups actively engaged in
anti-government protests. When the
government cracked down on the protest,
the US followed with a series of
sanctions. In 2015, President Barack
Obama declared Venezuela to be, and I
quote, an unusual and extraordinary
threat to the national security and
foreign policy of the United States.
This comes just hours after it became
clear that Trump had seriously
miscalculated his military adventurism
in Venezuela. Surely this criminal's
military might allows him to act as a
bully and kidnap a head of state and his
wife. But that doesn't mean people on
the ground should also accept his
criminal action as a virtuous attempt to
liberate them. No wonder Trump was
condemned by everyone in the Venezuelan
government. And then today we learned
that even those who opposed Nicholas
Maduro politically have now joined the
protest against the American invasion.
This is a real achievement of Trump. He
has done what even Maduro couldn't pull
off politically.
We're in downtown Karaka. A huge march
stretched through the city today full of
people
who support Nicolas Maduro, who support
the government, but also many people who
don't who never supported Nicolas
Maduro. But what unite all of them is
that what happened they find
unacceptable. They simply cannot accept
that America came. They bombed Karaka
their capital. They kidnapped Nicholas
Maduro and they thought that they could
dominate Venezuela. What people here
want to show is that they remain
unbroken. that bombs and guns and jets
won't break them and that if the United
States returns with uh the threatened
military operation that these people
they will resist that the woman uh the
women the men even the children they say
will continue to resist and they won't
give up their homeland they won't give
up their minerals their oil to Donald
Trump.
Trump of course found support from his
criminal mates across Europe. What do
you expect from racist who cheered the
slaughtering of hundreds of thousands of
unarmed and defenseless Palestinians in
Gaza for more than 2 years? These
comebacks have no shame. They continue
to shame themselves and humanity in
general. At least the world now knows
what they mean when they talk about the
Western civilization. Western
civilization now effectively means
support for a genocide and disdain for
international law. It also means the
laws of the jungle where the powerful
call the shots and these racist clowns
still want people to be sympathetic to
the situation in Ukraine. If the Russian
attack on Ukraine was illegal according
to them, why the hell are they refusing
to condemn the US attack on Venezuela?
This is who they are. genocide loving
racist hypocrites. Just watch UK Prime
Minister Kamar. I had played a clip of
his in my earlier video in which he was
refusing to comment on the US invasion
of Venezuela. You can watch that video
here. This was on the day the invasion
and kidnapping had taken place. He
wanted to wait for Trump's press
conference. Stmer later tweeted
justifying the illegal invasion of
Venezuela and kidnapping of his
president and his wife. This guy
continues to stoop to a new low every
single day and we thought he had reached
the lowest of the low during the Gaza
genocide.
He is now been interviewed by several UK
media outlets and his comments are for
the history books. Starmer must be
taught to children from the coming
generations around the world as a case
study on why even good education is no
guarantee of someone's good character
and moral values. Just watch him and his
refusal to call the US invasion of
Venezuela a breach of international law.
Has US action in Venezuela violated
international law? Well, the most
important thing in Venezuela is a
transition to democracy, a peaceful
transition. Now, that was our position
before the weekend. It remains our
position, and in relation to the
illegitimate president of Venezuela, um
there aren't going to be many tears
shed. I do think the framework uh the
anchor has to be international law, as
you'd expect me uh to say. The situation
is complicated. Um it's even complicated
today. Um and obviously the US will want
to justify it.
But has it violated international law?
Well, the framework has to be
international law. It's a complicated
situation. The most important thing at
the moment is that peaceful transition
to democracy.
PM France, Spain, Canada, Germany as
well as the UN Secretary General have
all said that the US has violated
international law. Has the US violated
international law?
Well, international law is really
important. It's the framework and it's
for the US to set out its justifications
for the actions that it's taken. But it
is a complicated situation. It remains a
complicated situation. Say whether you
think the most important thing most
important thing is stability and that
peaceful transition to democracy. That's
what matters to Venezuela above all
else. And that was the position we took
before the weekend. It's still our
position.
So you're not going to say whether you
think they have or haven't. Just to be
clear,
I'm going to be clear that I believe in
international law. I've long been an
advocate for international law. I'm
absolutely clear that is the framework
that applies. Obviously, it'll be for
the US to set out their justification in
relation to the action that they have
taken.
You don't want to call it out. And this
man has built his career claiming to be
a defender of international law. His
minions too made a fool of themselves as
they appeared on various media outlets.
Would you urge the United States
government not to abduct any other
foreign leaders?
Look, I'm not going to answer
hypothetical questions.
You won't urge the United States
government not to abduct other foreign
leaders.
We think the rules-based order matters
and that people should comply with
international law when an operation like
this.
You're not making an assessment as to
whether or not you think it has complied
with international law
because it's for the Americans to set up
the basis of the legal uh basis on which
they did the operation and then for
international courts or the UN Security
Council to take a view. Let's look at
Greenland for example, right? We've had
the Danish prime minister calling on the
United States to stop the threats
against a historically close ally and
against another country and another
people who have very clearly said they
are not for sale. If Donald Trump's
moves against Greenland or against, you
know, Denmark, is that a different
matter? Will the UK take UK government
condemn that? First, it be really clear
that allies do matter, which is why
these careful diplomatic conversations
behind the scenes are ongoing with the
United States and with our European
allies and five eyes partners. And we're
not going to give a running commentary.
What about Greenland?
When it comes to Greenland, Denmark and
the United States, these are both NATO
members. And I'm really proud that NATO
has used discussion over division to
ensure that these problems. Can you at
least just say Donald Trump should not,
you know, do the same in Greenland?
What I can say really clearly is I can't
see this being any different to any
previous conversations that need to be
had between NATO members. And I find it
extraordinary that you can't just say
flat out that Donald Trump needs to
and I think the Venezuelan issue
intervene on Greenland.
The Venezuelan issue is obviously
different to the Greenland issue, but
that's for them to have those
discussions. It's for NATO to to to have
that solid anchor to ensure that there
is no uh division here.
So you don't have you don't have an
opinion on whether or not Donald Trump
should go into Greenland.
Well, look, this isn't for for me to sit
here and talk about hypotheticals. We
could go on forever.
This is the danger minister is talking
about this. She's asked the US to step
the threat. This is not a hypothetical
and that's why it's really important
that allies stand firm and ensure that
discussions and that's because we're not
giving a running commentary on that.
There'll be more in the House today in
general, but of course
you can't say agreement. Diplomacy is
delicate, which means we're not here to
give a running commentary in the news,
unfortunately, as much as that would be
fantastic for for viewers and on
Twitter, but it's the end results that
matter and working together with our
allies and sticking to international
laws is what we stand for as a country.
You must have a view about, for example,
whether this was lawful.
uh is for the Americans to set out the
legal basis for their operation. This
was their operation, not NATO, not ours
in any way. I don't think the Americans
have done that yet. I'm sure they will
do in due course. I wonder if they ever
look back at these broadcasts. Does it
never occur to them how they are causing
embarrassment to their children and
families with such shameful
performances?
How do they appraise themselves if at
all they do when they go home after such
horrible utterances?
I suppose they know that the only way to
climb the ladder in the government is by
blindly following another blind person
who is kama in this case. First Gaza and
now Venezuela will forever remain a
moral stain on western countries. The
root cause of western countries
producing so many human devils lies in a
deeply corrupted electoral system which
is designed to promote greed and pure
savagery. Don't be surprised if someday
it emerges that Trump was actually
manipulated and blackmailed into
attacking Venezuela by the same Zionist
lobby which makes him sponsor the
genocide in Gaza. the same force that
makes him hold a chair for a convicted
war criminal and applaud baby killers
both on the US soil and in the illegal
settler colony. I'm saying this because
Trump doesn't read from scripts but that
night he was reading from a script.
Clearly his masters wanted him to stick
to the words that they had written for
him. Now you may understand why I call
the US an occupied territory of another
settler colony called Israel. That's it
from me. Thank you very much for your
support of this platform and our
journalism. If you haven't subscribed to
my channel, please do so because that's
one of the many ways you can support
independent journalism. God bless you
all.

Trump Just Pissed Off His OWN VOTERS... THEY'RE DONE!
Rebel HQ
Jan 5, 2026 #RichardOjeda #RebelHQ #Politics

Marjorie Taylor Greene lashed out at Donald Trump over his decision to carry out a strike against Venezuela as she winds down her final days in Congress. The rare break highlights growing fractures on the right as Trump’s foreign policy choices spark backlash even from his usual allies. Richard Ojeda breaks it down on Rebel HQ.



Transcript

... me how to fight other things.
When I'm back in the White House, we
will expel the war mongers, the
propheteers, and take over our
government, and we will restore world
peace.
Most Republicans have backed the
Venezuela operation, but now Trump's
changing definition of America first
before our eyes threatens to widen a
rift with his MAGA base. Former ally
Marjorie Taylor Green said bluntly on
social media, "This is what many in MAGA
thought they voted to end. Boy, we were
wrong.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wilds
conceded that attacking targets on
Venezuela's mainland would force Trump
to get congressional approval. If he
were to authorize some activity on land,
she said, then it's war. Then we'd need
Congress. Again, that was Donald Trump's
own White House chief of staff in a
piece that came out just last month.
Alex, this is insane. What are we doing?
I mean, this is absolutely ridiculous.
Have we not learned the lessons of the
last 20 years of forever wars?
What's up everybody? Major retired
Richard Ojetta here. And Donald Trump
promised no new wars. He promised
America first. He promised an end to
regime change and blood for oil. And his
strike on Venezuela has already blown
that lie out of the water. It's not just
Democrats saying it either. It's also
Republicans.
I think it is essential that we cheer
for democracy to succeed in Venezuela.
The reason I wanted to give an update is
because where I became a little more
concerned, significantly more concerned
is when the president earlier today did
a press conference and in that he talked
a lot about oil, didn't talk much about
drugs, didn't talk much about democracy,
talked a lot about oil, but the
president has basically taken every
negative, I guess, stereotype or thought
about US intervention in the Western
Hemisphere and basically said out loud,
"Yeah, that's what we're doing." That is
very frightening to me and very
damaging. But you have to trust the
administration and the people that are
executing this. And unfortunately, I
don't. Adam Kinzinger is warning this
move could backfire badly. Republicans
on Fox News are admitting their voters
don't want boots on the ground. Even
Marjgerie Taylor Green is breaking
ranks, saying MAGA voters thought they
were voting to end exactly this kind of
intervention.
Now, I am not defending Maduro. And of
course, I'm happy for the people of
Venezuela to be liberated, but Americans
celebrated the liberation of the Iraqi
people after Saddam Hussein. They
celebrated the the liberation of the
Libyan people after Gaddafi. And this is
the same Washington playbook that we are
so sick and tired of that doesn't serve
the American people that act but
actually serves the big corporations,
the banks and the oil executives. We
don't consider Venezuela our
neighborhood. Our neighborhood is right
here in the 50 United States, not in the
Southern Hemisphere.
And while all of that is happening,
reporting cited by the New York Times
shows civilians were killed in the
strikes. No new wars, America first, no
blood for oil. Once again, it's business
as usual for Donald Trump. Just dressed
up in louder slogans and bigger lies.
One of the things that I know that you
know the president's supporters
absolutely love is that he has been
arguing since he first ran 10 years ago
that he's going to end forever wars and
put America first.
Yeah.
Uh now he says he's running Venezuela.
He's totally open to putting boots back
on the ground there. And he's signaling
that Cuba and Colombia could be next.
How is that America first?
Yeah, the United States has accused
Maduro of corruption and drug
trafficking for years. Yeah, there's
been a bounty on him. But let's be clear
about what just happened. Maduro wasn't
a fugitive on the run. He was the
president of a sovereign country,
guarded, entrenched, politically
protected, and now he's gone. That's a
new level of American power and it's a
dangerous one because once you normalize
abducting foreign leaders, you tell
every country on Earth that
international law is optional as long as
you're strong enough. And when and what
happens next? Total uncertainty. There's
no clear successor, no transition plan,
no guarantee Venezuela doesn't spiral
into chaos, collapse, or civil conflict.
Trump may call this a win, but chaos
after Maduro would be a global loss. And
here's where even Republicans are
starting to panic. On Fox News, a
Republican congresswoman straight up
admitted her voters do not want boots on
the ground. As I said, as a 24-year uh
military veteran, this operation, joint
military, law enforcement, and
intelligence uh that was uh on the
ground, I'm sure, in Venezuela was done
uh with surgical precision. It was
executed brilliantly and I commend our
troops. I commend President Trump. None
of us want nation building. Now, I can
tell you Ians do not want uh troops on
the ground in Venezuela. They don't want
nation building. They don't want
American troops sent into Venezuela to
run the country. Even while praising the
operation, she had to acknowledge the
truth that Trump keeps ignoring.
Republican voters are done with this
kind of playbook. And then Marjorie
Taylor Green comes out and says the
quiet part out loud. MAGA voters thought
they were voting to end this kind of
thing. Boy, were we wrong. Yeah, this is
really, really bad. And I guarantee you
the rest of the world is still in shock
that Donald Trump followed through with
this. Maduro was a bad guy. Nobody's
disputing that. But here's the problem.
Now, Donald Trump is pointing at Marco
Rubio and people like that and saying,
"Well, maybe they're going to go down
there and be in charge of everything.
Maybe we're going to have to put boots
on the ground. Maybe we're going to have
to put soldiers on the ground to rebuild
their oil infrastructure because now
they don't have a leader. We've got to
figure out what we're going to do." And
if you think Donald Trump is looking for
somebody honorable to put in charge, you
are not paying attention. Donald Trump
is going to look for anybody who says,
"I'm willing to cut you in, Donald. I'm
willing to make sure you get a piece of
everything that we do." Make no mistake
about it. When somebody put gets put in
charge of Venezuela with Trump's
blessing, I guarantee you that when all
of this is said and done, we're going to
find out Trump put somebody in power who
was funneling money, even if it's
secretly, back to him and his family.
This is the most corrupt family to ever
be in Washington DC. Don Jr., Ivanka,
Jared Kushner, Eric Trump, Laura Trump,
all of them. They don't build anything.
They don't govern. They don't fix
anything. They spew and cash
checks. Here's the reality. Donald Trump
consistently does things that benefit
Vladimir Putin. Chaos helps Putin. A
distracted United States helps Putin. A
world where international law gets
rewritten by force helps Putin. And then
we get to the most damning question of
all. If Trump is liberating Venezuela,
then why are Venezuelans being rounded
up here in the United States accused of
being criminals? There is no answer for
that. None. If Trump cared about the
Venezuelan people, he wouldn't be
snatching Venezuelans off of the streets
here and sending them to El Salvador. He
wouldn't be denying due process. He
wouldn't be shipping people off to
foreign goologs while pretending to be
some humanitarian hero abroad. That is
all Trump says it's about the
drugs, then he openly admits it's about
the oil. And the truth is, it's because
it doesn't matter. It was never about
the people and always about the oil.
Trump admitted it himself. He said the
United States would get the oil flowing.
He said America would run Venezuela. And
according to reporting cited by the New
York Times, at least 40 people,
including civilians, were killed in
those strikes. That's the cost of this
so-called liberation. And the timing of
all of this, don't pretend it's random.
This is what flooding the zone looks
like. Shock and all headlines, chaos,
distraction, anything to keep people
from focusing on what they don't want
you looking at. The Epstein files. But
distraction doesn't erase truth. It
doesn't erase accountability. And it
doesn't erase the fact that civilians
are dead. And even Trump's own voters
are saying this is not what they signed
up for. At least Marco Rubio can relax
for now. At this rate, he might wake up
tomorrow and find that he's been
appointed the new president of
Venezuela. He's always wanted to be
president. And if that's what it takes
to get him out of American politics for
a while, some people might be willing to
make that trade. So, here's where this
actually leaves all of us. Donald Trump
didn't just attack a sovereign nation
without congressional approval. He
committed a crime. The illusion that
this was ever about restraint or peace
or putting America first didn't survive
contact with reality. And it didn't take
Democrats to say it. It took
Republicans. It took voters. It took
people who are usually willing to go
along until they couldn't anymore. When
members of Trump's own party are warning
this will backfire. When Fox News
Republicans are admitting their votes
don't want another open-ended military
entanglement. When even the loudest MAGA
voices are saying, "This is not what we
voted for." That's not just noise.
That's a signal. And while politicians
argue, the cost is already real.
Civilians are dead. Families are gone. A
country has been shoved into uncertainty
with no plan for what comes next except
talk about oil control and who gets put
in charge. That's the part Trump can't
talk his way out of. Because once you
peel back the branding, this wasn't
restraint. It wasn't strategy. It was
the same impulse we've seen over and
over again. Act first, dominate the
headlines, and worry about the
consequences later. And this time, even
the people who helped sell the lie are
starting to admit it. That's not
strength. That's exposure. And that is
an absolute fact. Sappers. Clear the
way. Airborne all the way.