Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - January 05, 2026


Operation Maduro： What Comes Next？


Episode Stats


Length

48 minutes

Words per minute

160.16

Word count

7,749

Sentence count

486

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is no longer in power, and a new leader is emerging to replace him. Is this a full-on regime change or is this just getting rid of one guy? And what role does Stephen Miller play in this?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:25.780 The Poso Daily Brief.
00:00:30.000 This is what happens when the fourth turning meets fifth-generation warfare.
00:00:39.160 A commentator, international social media sensation, and former Navy intelligence veteran.
00:00:45.960 This is Human Events with your host, Jack Posobiec.
00:00:48.980 Christ is King!
00:00:50.580 Hear me! I'm North Senator Sartre!
00:00:54.940 Nicolas Maduro had his chance just like Iran had their chance until they didn't
00:01:02.380 and until he didn't. He effed around and he found out. President Trump is deadly 0.89
00:01:09.640 serious about stopping the flow of gangs and violence to our country. Deadly
00:01:14.500 serious about stopping the flow of drugs and poison to our people. 0.95
00:01:19.000 Takeover of Venezuela's oil industry. President Trump is aiming to tap into
00:01:23.140 that country's vast oil reserves, the largest in the world.
00:01:26.540 With President Maduro out, President Trump wants American oil companies in,
00:01:31.100 saying the runway is now clear for U.S. corporations to revitalize a, quote,
00:01:36.120 badly broken oil industry they once dominated.
00:01:39.380 But tonight, some questioning if that plan is realistic.
00:01:42.560 The oil companies are going to go in. They're going to spend money.
00:01:45.020 We're going to take back the oil.
00:01:46.560 And just look at what we did this past year under President Trump's leadership.
00:01:49.840 We seized enough fentanyl to kill 175 million American citizens.
00:01:55.760 That is an increase in fentanyl seizures by over 30%. 0.99
00:01:59.620 Venezuela is very sick. 0.99
00:02:01.520 Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. 1.00
00:02:08.280 And he's not going to be doing it very long. 0.97
00:02:10.400 One of the things that is happening, I think you see it, you see it all the time.
00:02:15.340 Howard, you've seen it, that Cuba is ready to fall.
00:02:19.200 Cuba looks like it's ready to fall. I don't know if they're going to hold out.
00:02:24.520 But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela,
00:02:29.740 from the Venezuelan oil. They're not getting any of it.
00:02:32.680 And Cuba literally is ready to fall.
00:02:34.780 And you have a lot of great Cuban-Americans that are going to be very happy about this.
00:02:43.080 Good night. Happy New Year.
00:02:49.200 Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard today's edition of Human Events Daily.
00:02:53.840 Today is January 5th, 2026, Anno Domini, and we are back here.
00:03:01.080 First live show of the year, and of course, the first show after the stunning operation
00:03:07.220 the United States military took this weekend in Caracas, Venezuela.
00:03:13.840 the capture extraction and now putting on trial of nicolas maduro the former i suppose you could
00:03:24.140 say deposed president of venezuela what's this all really about what's going on here is this a full
00:03:31.400 on regime change i've been on war room a couple of times since then i've said look i don't think
00:03:37.640 this is full-on regime change. We just did the entire, we spent weeks working on this,
00:03:44.820 tales of regime change series down in human events. We put it up, the four parts, Iraq,
00:03:51.920 Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria. We dug down deep in all of them. But what we're seeing here is 1.00
00:03:58.940 interesting is, is this regime change or is it just getting rid of one guy? Because it seems
00:04:04.740 as though all of the other elements of the regime are still there.
00:04:09.560 The vice president, it now falls to her as the successor.
00:04:13.860 What do you call that? Regime alteration? 1.00
00:04:16.740 We will see. We will see what takes place.
00:04:19.620 Because the opposition wanted Machado to get in there.
00:04:23.140 But President Trump came up and said, cold water over all of that.
00:04:26.980 Very clear no to that.
00:04:29.500 Which means, essentially, you're going to have Rubio,
00:04:32.600 you're going to have Trump working directly with the regime that is currently in place.
00:04:38.540 Now, of course, we also heard that Stephen Miller playing a huge role in this as well,
00:04:43.600 and a lot of reporting out there that perhaps he may be stepping up.
00:04:46.800 And we know that Stephen Miller's main focus has always been immigration and these flows,
00:04:53.300 these flows of the migrants from South America, Latin America, up to the United States.
00:04:59.460 This has been the key singular focus for the administration since they took power all the way back in January.
00:05:07.200 So the question is, does this play a role in the overall flows of migration from South America, Latin America to the United States?
00:05:18.920 Is this perhaps going to be part of a move that is intended to shut down those flows?
00:05:26.440 And because, look, when you put Stephen Miller in the mix, we know that this is something that Stephen Miller thinks about constantly is his play to take a look at the migration and say, if we move this piece here and this piece here, take this piece off the board.
00:05:42.800 Does that stop flows coming up? We shall see. I'm not trying to argue that it's some 40 chess thing.
00:05:48.980 I'm just trying to explain what I think the strategy is here. My analysis, you can take it or leave it.
00:05:55.680 What do we also have? One of the most stunning operations of one of the most stunning operations of the United States military that we've seen in years.
00:06:09.320 Of course, we've got video footage of Maduro now. He was taken up to Guantanamo Bay where I got to spend some time.
00:06:15.880 I'll simply say this. When we had detainees at Guantanamo Bay, we did not, when we were moving them through the sally ports, when we were putting them in handcuffs and restraints, we did not, we weren't smiling and laughing and we certainly weren't setting it up like this.
00:06:33.520 So a lot of questions about that going through, but a lot of questions going forward as well.
00:06:37.780 We also have the email up. Question of the day. 1776 at humanevents.com. 1776 at humanevents.com.
00:06:45.920 I know there's a lot of opinions on this. I have a lot of opinions on this. A lot of thoughts.
00:06:49.700 Email us. We've already got a bunch coming in. Send us your messages. Send us what you think
00:06:55.440 about everything that's happened and everything that you think will come next. We're going to read
00:06:59.640 the best ones, the top emails, the top responses here on the show. Human Events daily. Lock in
00:07:06.760 2026 has begun is everyone enjoying the fourth turning yet
00:07:11.840 in our way in our golden age has just begun this is human events with jack
00:07:25.160 now it's time for everyone to understand what america first truly means welcome to the second
00:07:32.400 American Revolution.
00:07:37.520 Alright, Jack, here we are back.
00:07:39.540 Human Events, Daily Real America's Voice.
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00:09:21.020 slash Poso. That's C-O-V-E-P-U-R-E dot com slash Poso to start 2026. Right. All right, folks,
00:09:29.940 we're also now, by the way, I want to let you know, we're tracking and I mentioned about obviously
00:09:34.520 Venezuela, Maduro, all the stuff going on there. We're also tracking this report of an attempted
00:09:40.520 break in at J.D. Vance's house in Ohio. Now, it's also people saying, oh, the media say,
00:09:46.220 Oh, it's vandalism.
00:09:47.140 It's not vandalism.
00:09:48.780 The guy was up there with a hammer smashing windows, trying to get in.
00:09:53.740 Everybody knows that J.D. Vance is, that's J.D. Vance's house.
00:09:56.600 Everybody knows it.
00:09:57.780 You're not just driving by, throwing TP, throwing some eggs at the house.
00:10:01.940 No, this guy was up there with a weapon.
00:10:05.720 We know what the left is like.
00:10:07.120 We know what the left did to Charlie Kirk.
00:10:09.720 They murdered Charlie, and now they're testing J.D. Vance's defenses.
00:10:13.600 It's really as simple as this, and it will not stop until it is stopped.
00:10:17.380 And there is more and more information coming out on the perpetrator here, and we will bring
00:10:22.280 that to you at the appropriate time.
00:10:24.700 Want to bring in now, and by the way, so keep sending your emails in, 1776, humanevents.com,
00:10:29.480 1776 at humanevents.com.
00:10:31.820 All your thoughts, Trump, Venezuela, Maduro, all the rest of it.
00:10:35.340 Want to bring in now, my good friend, we were chatting over the weekend about all of this
00:10:39.580 because i was actually trying to unplug a little bit with my family you guys saw we had some social
00:10:45.320 media posts we're on a ski trip up to pennsylvania up through the poconos which we love so much and i
00:10:51.900 want to bring on now dan caldwell senior fell senior fellow for foreign policy at american
00:10:58.040 moment dan how are you i'm doing well thank you for having me on jack you gotta work on getting
00:11:03.420 your new title down i was like it's not it's not flowing yeah i'll get it there i'll get it there
00:11:06.840 Look, you and I talked a we laid out scenarios for Venezuela, for a potential military operation in Venezuela a couple of weeks ago, right here on the program.
00:11:18.180 Now it appears the president has made his choice, as the world can see.
00:11:21.680 One option has been chosen, the special operator insertion and extraction of the, well, the highest HVT, high value target in all of the country, President Maduro himself.
00:11:34.560 Before we get into all the geopolitics of it, just walk us through, in a basic sense, are there really people out there who thought the United States didn't have the cybersecurity, the cyber warfare capabilities, and the special operations force to be able to do this?
00:11:51.100 Yes. And, you know, I do have to be honest about something, is that when you look at the record of Americans' big military interventions over the last few years, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, is that in a broad sense, there's been a lot of strategic failure.
00:12:12.720 But at a tactical level, time and time again, our military demonstrated an ability to adapt
00:12:20.760 to changing conditions, to learn new tactics and integrate new technology rapidly into their
00:12:27.720 operations. And you saw again and again, enormous feats of bravery and tactical success. Look at
00:12:36.200 the Bin Laden raid, look at the Captain Phillips rescue. Again, just because we failed at a 0.86
00:12:41.700 strategic level doesn't mean that we don't have the ability to pull off these spectacular
00:12:46.860 operations. And I just have to note from a historical perspective, Jack, I heard you in
00:12:51.780 the intro say that this is one of the most spectacular special operations in American
00:12:58.960 history. I would say it's one of the most spectacular operations in global history.
00:13:03.680 I think it's up there with Israel's Entebbe raid. And even if we find out that there was a lot of
00:13:09.200 deals cut, and there are a lot of things that were done to ensure that our special operators
00:13:15.120 entered into Caracas and Venezuelan airspace safely, it is still very spectacular. And
00:13:21.200 regardless of what people think about the decision, we have to acknowledge that. And again,
00:13:25.960 one last thing I'd also point out, too, is that they did this on practically a full moon. So there
00:13:32.780 was very high levels of illumination, which made the operation even more risky. And it was still
00:13:39.260 100% successful. There were a few casualties. My understanding is, is that those operators
00:13:44.880 are going to recover, but it's still one of the most spectacular special forces operations
00:13:49.180 in world history. That's exactly right. I believe Entebbe is where Netanyahu lost his brother
00:13:55.800 in in that raid and his older brother and they're both in in the forces together and
00:14:03.800 no when you look at you look at the history of u.s special forces and you go back to like
00:14:08.580 operation eagle claw which really wasn't that long ago in just in terms of history it was 1980
00:14:15.320 and this spectacular unfortunate situation that happened with the attempted extraction the freeing
00:14:22.360 of the Iranian hostages, and now you fast forward, here we are just a couple decades later and able
00:14:28.140 to pull off something that I think to a lot of people seemed like it would be out of a movie.
00:14:33.200 Guess what? That's actually what the U.S. can do. And I really want to also point out
00:14:38.100 the cyber capabilities that were showcased here because the power structures, the Chinese radars,
00:14:45.560 so many of the things that went down, you and I talk about this all the time,
00:14:48.880 that that was not done kinetically. A lot of this was done through cyber warfare.
00:14:54.060 So really shows the Trump administration's full embrace of cyber capability.
00:14:59.880 Right. And I'm sure there's a lot of specifics that you and I don't know about and that we won't
00:15:07.180 learn about for years, if not decades. But this was clearly a full spectrum operation that
00:15:13.620 integrated all the capabilities of the United States military and the intelligence community
00:15:18.740 to pull this off. And again, you can't deny the fact that this is very spectacular.
00:15:26.140 And you brought up Operation Eagle Claw and Desert One. That was a disaster for Delta Force.
00:15:34.560 That was their first big mission. And even after that, the Delta Force and what eventually morphed
00:15:40.040 in the JSOC really struggled. Grenada, for example, there was a lot of failed operations
00:15:47.540 leading in Grenada. And it really took over a decade for Delta Force and the broader joint
00:15:55.080 special operations organization to really find its groove and to be able to start pulling off
00:16:01.020 operations. And it's really amazing how much they've matured and how capable they've become
00:16:06.980 over the last four and a half decades.
00:16:09.640 Since you mentioned Grenada, by the way,
00:16:11.300 I always have to throw this out
00:16:12.460 because a lot of people totally miss this one,
00:16:15.040 that one of the young platoon leaders
00:16:18.800 in the Grenada operation was a young,
00:16:23.140 not at the time, I think he was a,
00:16:25.260 I think he was maybe either a lieutenant or a captain,
00:16:28.500 General Flynn.
00:16:29.900 So General Michael Flynn served in Grenada
00:16:32.100 and famously jumped off a 40-foot cliff
00:16:35.500 at one point into the ocean and he's a he's a known surfer and he actually was able to rescue
00:16:41.700 two soldiers that were being swept away by rough currents so i mean you you look at some of the
00:16:46.660 people that we have you look at the capabilities that we have the american people the american
00:16:50.180 soldier it's it's stunning it's just absolutely stunning what these men are able to do even in
00:16:56.900 the worst conditions and so i i have i'm glad that you said that because you know we talk about
00:17:02.400 strategy. And believe me, we're going to talk about strategy here, but we do need to take a
00:17:06.020 moment to actually step back and say, hey, we need to be careful about this. And by the way,
00:17:10.140 perhaps it's General Flynn's history of being in operations like Grenada that has made him
00:17:15.940 somewhat skeptical of various types of operations going forward. And one of the reasons that he
00:17:22.200 began blowing the whistle on how Barack Obama was not really fighting ISIS all the way back in 2014,
00:17:28.440 2015. Right. And, you know, sorry to keep doing the history lesson. I know you love them, but
00:17:34.900 you brought up General Flynn. He played a key role in transforming JSOC into the organization
00:17:40.580 as today, completely revolutionized when he was in charge of the intelligence side of JSOC from
00:17:46.020 2004 to 2007 into the machine it has today. And a lot of the reforms he implemented probably led,
00:17:52.660 not probably, most likely enabled its success today. But yes, it is important, though, to note
00:17:59.440 that JSOC at a tactical level in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria was successful. But that
00:18:06.520 did not change the fact that those were still strategic failures because the broader strategy
00:18:12.060 didn't work and was not aligned with American interests. So that's going to be the key question
00:18:17.860 going forward, is what is our strategy and how does it connect back to American interests?
00:18:23.840 And you talked a little bit about this in your opening monologue. How are we going to deal with
00:18:29.180 the existing regime? And I do think the administration is off to a good start on
00:18:34.940 how they're approaching it. But they're getting a lot of pressure to pivot to a full-on regime
00:18:40.660 change operation where they dismantle the majoro chavez regime in venezuela and that's where things
00:18:48.240 could start to get dangerous and in a race really this this spectacular tactical success all right
00:18:55.720 we're going to get into that coming up next jack was so big dan caldwell human events daily continues
00:19:00.480 talk about influences these are influences and uh they're friends of mine jack or so like where's
00:19:15.960 jack he's done a great job all right jack we're back live human events daily and we're talking
00:19:26.220 all things Venezuela. We've got Dan Caldwell on. He's a senior fellow on foreign policy from
00:19:32.060 American Moment. Dan, when we look at this scenario, one of the things that that has come
00:19:38.620 up to my mind is Maduro is gone. And yet the regime is largely still in place. I mentioned
00:19:46.120 before how I don't know if that requires you to call this, you know, does it does it qualify then
00:19:51.180 as regime change or is it more of a regime alteration where you're just getting rid of
00:19:56.000 one guy. This isn't what we saw in Iraq. It's not what we saw in Afghanistan. So where do you come
00:20:01.440 down on that question and the fact and really your analysis on this idea that Trump poured cold
00:20:07.560 water on the idea on putting Machado in power? So I don't think you can call this a regime change
00:20:15.060 war or operation at this time. As we sit here today, you know, as we mentioned in the previous
00:20:21.040 segment, the Maduro and Chavez regime, its infrastructure still exists. And the security
00:20:28.320 forces are still in place, its key leaders are still in place, and they're still running the
00:20:32.340 country day to day. And the president and his administration, in my view, have made the right
00:20:38.680 decision to deal with the remnants of that regime. And I think that's the right decision for a number
00:20:45.480 of reasons. First, there isn't an opposition force in the country that can swoop in and take
00:20:53.960 over the Venezuelan government, replacing all the ex-Maduro and Chavez people that are either
00:21:00.460 pushed out, flee the country, imprisoned or killed. As the president alluded to, as Secretary
00:21:07.680 Rubio alluded to, they just are not in the country in enough force that they can effectively do that.
00:21:14.940 So in that case, the administration has really limited options.
00:21:21.020 They can either send in massive numbers of American troops, do we did in Iraq, and do 0.85
00:21:26.800 a de-Baathification effort where we remove the remnants of—like in Iraq, we remove
00:21:33.040 the supporters and the remnants of the Saddam Hussein's regime, which you get into in your
00:21:38.600 new podcast.
00:21:40.160 And that created a lot of chaos in the country.
00:21:42.880 We could try and attempt something similar in Venezuela. And yes, Venezuela and Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya are different, but there's a high risk you'd have the same result. You'd have a civil war regime collapse, and that would undermine what the president is trying to do.
00:22:00.340 It would make it harder to send illegal immigrants back to Venezuela.
00:22:03.380 It'd be harder to rehabilitate the Venezuelan oil industry.
00:22:06.920 It'd likely have spillover effects in the broader region.
00:22:10.200 It could lead to more Venezuelans trying to illegally immigrate to the United States.
00:22:14.240 So right now, the best option for it is to maintain a semblance of stability by working with the Maduro regime.
00:22:22.880 and then over time, potentially engaging in a transition that is not based on some desire to
00:22:30.820 impose liberalism and democracy on Venezuela, but is based on what is ultimately best for the
00:22:37.580 security and stability of Venezuela and the Western hemisphere. And that is what should
00:22:43.640 dictate it, not some desire to impose the Venezuelan opposition on the Venezuelan people.
00:22:50.700 and they may be elected in a future election at some point. But right now, the primary focus of
00:22:57.460 the administration seems to be ensuring that Venezuela does not collapse and that there is
00:23:03.480 stability. And I think that is the right approach, despite what you're starting to see some neocons
00:23:09.140 advocating, which is engaging in a full-on regime change in Venezuela. And they're not hiding from
00:23:14.120 that term. They're using that term, we should do a regime change in Venezuela. And fortunately,
00:23:19.760 right now, the Trump administration does not seem to be taking that advice.
00:23:25.640 That's right. And in fact, I remember saying this back during the summer about the regime change
00:23:31.940 being an upsell, this idea that going into Iran when they hit the Iran nuclear sites, that that
00:23:39.500 was a targeted operation, hit the nuclear sites and withdraw, whereas the neocons came in and said
00:23:44.920 they wanted full regime change. I said, well, that's the regime change upsell. They're trying
00:23:48.820 to upsell you on this regime change thing. Whereas President Trump said, no, limited operation.
00:23:53.540 What are we seeing now in Venezuela? Very similar situation. Targeted operation. Yes. Now it is the
00:23:59.540 leader. So I'm not going to sit here and say that it's not, you know, that it's not changing the
00:24:03.520 leadership of another country. Obviously it is. And there's no question, but it is not the same
00:24:08.340 thing. The regime that's in place, the Bolivar and regime, for lack of a better term, that's been
00:24:14.760 in place since Chavez took over in the 90s. This is still largely the infrastructure of Venezuela.
00:24:20.820 And I applaud the president for understanding that keeping it stable is much better than letting it 0.61
00:24:26.540 completely descend into the madness of another, you know, a rack in the tropics. We just don't
00:24:33.800 need it. We don't need an Iraq in the tropics. And one of the reasons, by the way, and I think 1.00
00:24:38.220 everybody knows this from the president on down, we talked about it before. What do we always say
00:24:42.180 here on Human Events Daily. If you want to understand world geopolitics, chercher la
00:24:48.240 petrol. The French have a phrase, chercher la femme, look for the girl. And over here, 1.00
00:24:52.300 we say chercher la petrol, look for the oil. And let's put up a chart break, ladies and
00:24:59.280 gentlemen, because crude oil reserves, Venezuela, some of the largest absolutely in the world,
00:25:07.320 303 billion barrels, larger than the Saudis, larger than Iran, larger than the Canadian oil
00:25:16.060 sands. Although there's some dispute about whether Canada has more larger than Iraq, UAE, Kuwait,
00:25:22.000 Russia, the United States, Libya, larger than all of them. This is one of the keys here. And yes,
00:25:29.320 the economics of extracting Venezuelan oil are kind of tricky because it's a heavy oil. It's a
00:25:35.460 dirty oil, the crude. So it requires much more refining. And what better refineries? And so,
00:25:41.820 of course, you're going to see the Texas oil barons looking down saying, well, what better
00:25:45.540 spot to refine that than right here in the Gulf of America? So clearly, there are economic interests
00:25:50.980 at play. And we're not going to sit here and say this isn't about that. But if you want that
00:25:55.600 to make sense, which, by the way, and Dan, just in the final minute here before the break,
00:26:00.220 we had a relationship with Venezuela for years prior to the current embargo.
00:26:06.120 Correct. And a military relationship. They are still flying American F-16s.
00:26:11.520 And if you look at some of the post-raid pictures from Maduro's compound, there were American
00:26:19.460 armored personnel carriers there. We had a very close relationship with the military
00:26:23.860 for years, up until the 2002 coup that was an attempt to overthrow Chavez, and it failed.
00:26:31.560 So we had a long economic and military relationship with Venezuela,
00:26:36.360 really until the election of Hugo Chavez in the late 1990s.
00:26:42.440 And so there it is, folks. The idea is, turn that on. Citgo going to be expanding in the U.S.
00:26:49.200 We will see, or Chevron, I should say, Chevron expanding in the U.S.
00:26:53.820 We'll see.
00:26:55.080 Coming back next, Human Events Daily.
00:27:19.200 don't we have an incredible thing we're always talking about the fake news and the bad but we
00:27:23.120 have guys and these are the guys should be getting policies all right jack posopic we are back live
00:27:33.040 human events daily getting some emails in now on these on our question of the day what do you think
00:27:38.840 of the u.s policy in venezuela uh some people first one in uh from jeff uh he says terrible
00:27:45.760 slippery slope to forever war then i'm also seeing people then we got another one in from mongoose
00:27:51.880 um well it's not okay for cuba a proxy for china russia to control venezuela but it was wrong for
00:27:58.740 the u.s to do but you think but people think it was wrong to do anything about it and let's go
00:28:04.600 back and forth here from from paul overthrow annex it as they like to say encourage our latin
00:28:12.180 population to go and establish a new american colony we're accused of it maybe we should
00:28:16.980 actually do it venezuelica uh jeff another jeff we should put a long straw straight into the ground 0.56
00:28:25.480 that sucks the oil right out of the ground and brings it straight to the u.s so it's a
00:28:29.240 reference to there will be blood um email from tony i think any war that lessens the likelihood
00:28:35.760 My kid will overdose on fentanyl is a fight worth fighting.
00:28:40.100 So talking about these, you know, the the fentanyl trafficking that was coming in from DN 25 years ago, the CIA would have done this as a covert action.
00:28:50.060 But that's not Trump style. I like that.
00:28:51.940 However, so long as the CIA is actively trafficking in drugs, I don't see how it changes anything.
00:28:57.400 Many countries are responsible for trafficking drugs into the U.S.
00:29:00.780 email from Schiff head. If we can get Maduro, why are Schiff and Pelosi walking around?
00:29:11.600 Another Jeff. That's like the third Jeff. What's up with all these Jeffs?
00:29:16.200 Venezuela, the new U.S. territory. Let them vote for statehood. Yeah, I'm totally against that.
00:29:20.580 I want to get Dan Caldwell back in here. So, Dan, we're hearing, you know, just just in my own,
00:29:25.820 you know, kind of like, you know, AB testing there. You know, it seems that it seems that
00:29:31.000 conservatives are somewhat divided on this. Some people saying they're totally for it. They like
00:29:36.700 it. They like the oil extraction. Other people saying that they like it because they believe
00:29:41.360 it's going to reduce fentanyl in the United States, stop the drug trafficking, or at least,
00:29:45.840 you know, partially. And others saying, of course, that, you know, that this is great,
00:29:50.940 shut down the strategic elements of China, of Russia coming into the area. Another person I'm
00:29:57.280 seeing mentioned, Laken Riley, of course, and others who have been affected by Trendy Aragua
00:30:02.900 and other illegal aliens and these gangs, cartels coming out of Venezuela. So when we look at all of
00:30:09.780 this, when we look at all of this, what's the big picture for the American people and American
00:30:15.000 interests in these operations? Look, I think what those emails lay out and what a lot of your
00:30:23.760 listeners and viewers are saying and working through is actually healthy. Because, look,
00:30:31.020 I think that it is good to be inherently skeptical at the outset of any type of offensive
00:30:38.720 military action, particularly considering the history of the last 30 years. However,
00:30:44.620 that doesn't mean that military action, military options should always be off the table.
00:30:50.800 And when we're talking about our own hemisphere, the stakes are fundamentally different, and I
00:30:58.020 would say higher than in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, Ukraine, is that
00:31:05.960 what matters here is absolutely critical to our safety and our prosperity. And so
00:31:14.320 what was going on in Venezuela when it comes to the degradation of the Venezuelan government 0.99
00:31:22.400 and the immiseration of the Venezuelan people and the refugee flows that that created and the
00:31:29.220 emergence of more and more drug organizations in Venezuela that had a negative impact on the
00:31:37.340 United States that needed to be acknowledged and ultimately in some way dealt with. And so
00:31:44.260 when you're looking at Venezuela, I would say is that absolutely immediately when you see a
00:31:49.920 military operation is first and foremost, you should pray for the safety of our troops in the
00:31:55.560 middle of that operation, but it is not a bad thing to be skeptical. However, it needs to be
00:32:01.780 acknowledged that not every part of the world means the same thing to the United States.
00:32:08.100 And when it comes to our own hemisphere, we have more interests at stake. And whether it's ensuring
00:32:15.080 that foreign powers can't use our own hemisphere to hurt American safety, to degrade our economic
00:32:24.100 prosperity or use it as a way to undermine our society through things like drugs or immigration
00:32:33.460 or other types of criminal enterprises. So when you're looking at the situation in Venezuela,
00:32:40.740 you should apply the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya, but there's not a perfect
00:32:46.300 apples to apples comparison. And you need to take each situation differently. And I just finally say
00:32:52.920 is that if you go back to our founding and really the first 150 years of our foreign policy,
00:32:59.960 almost the sole focus of our foreign policy up until World War I was what happened in our
00:33:06.820 Western Hemisphere, because our founding fathers knew that it was important that the United States
00:33:12.940 be the dominant power in our own hemisphere, and that it is not used by foreign powers or
00:33:19.340 ultimately non-state actors to undermine our security. So this is part of a long tradition
00:33:24.820 of American foreign policy. And it's really a return to the foreign policy that made
00:33:30.540 America successful and helped us become strong. So that's how I would encourage people to look
00:33:36.780 at it. Now, again, we don't know what the future holds for Venezuela. We should all hope that the
00:33:44.140 Trump administration is successful. Even if you disagreed with the operation, you should be rooting
00:33:49.000 for its success and talking about what the administration should be doing to be successful.
00:33:53.980 And there's a lot of mistakes that could be made. But we have to acknowledge that what happens here
00:34:01.120 in our own hemisphere is fundamentally important and should be looked at differently than other
00:34:08.300 parts of the world. I certainly agree. And that's why when people have talked about when President
00:34:15.720 Trump gave it one of his first speeches at the end of the campaign. So he wins the campaign,
00:34:21.500 flies out to Arizona, and he speaks on stage at Turning Point at the America Fest out there.
00:34:27.700 And he comes up and I'm sitting there, I don't know, probably like row two, row three. I've got
00:34:31.800 my family and I got producer Fos next to me. And for the first time all year in 2024, President
00:34:38.300 Trump starts talking about the Panama Canal. And I just got up out of my seat, put up to put up
00:34:45.160 two arms and started clapping and said, yes, that is our canal and it deserves, it is ours by right.
00:34:52.780 It is ours by right of creation. We are the ones who made it. It is ridiculous. It is a national
00:34:59.240 embarrassment that the United States does not maintain full control of the Panama Canal. And
00:35:05.800 as such, it should be ours. And I've said for years, just park an aircraft carrier,
00:35:10.920 one in the Atlantic, one in the Pacific, until it is turned back over.
00:35:14.920 It's really as simple as that.
00:35:16.180 In addition, Greenland.
00:35:17.940 Greenland is something that has now been talked about again.
00:35:20.500 These are key for our hemispheric defense.
00:35:25.180 So hemispheric defense does give us the direct control of our own safety and security.
00:35:31.200 By the way, the United States fought a massive war with the Spanish kingdom, the Spanish
00:35:37.120 empire, to kick them out of Cuba, kick them out of the Caribbean. This is what sort of bequeathed 0.94
00:35:43.780 us Guantanamo Bay, if you will, 1898, our longest, our oldest overseas-based, longest running
00:35:50.600 for since 1898 on the Philippines as well, which could have been a U.S. colony, but instead we
00:35:57.120 gave them their independence. Same with Cuba. Of course, we saw how that turned out. So when we
00:36:03.660 look at the history of the United States in this region, it does make direct sense for the U.S.
00:36:10.420 to be the great power of the Western Hemisphere. And as such, it must act like the great power of
00:36:16.100 the Western Hemisphere. We certainly see the Russians and the Chinese doing this. We certainly
00:36:21.380 see other countries acting in their own interests. There's no question that the United States should
00:36:26.100 do the same. Dan, last minute and a half to you. Give us your coordinates and then give us a wrap
00:36:30.840 up on just what do you think we'll see in the next coming, you know, the coming days and weeks?
00:36:36.600 So the best place to find my work is on X at Dan D. Caldwell and, of course, at AmericanMoment.org.
00:36:44.220 So I think the big question over the next coming weeks and months is how the president chooses to
00:36:51.940 proceed with the existing Venezuelan regime and how deferential they are to us. And then ultimately,
00:37:00.000 what the transition away from Maduro looks like. Are there going to be elections very rapidly?
00:37:06.240 I don't think so based on President Trump's remarks about the need to have law and order
00:37:10.560 and stability before that happens. Is there going to be an effort to ensure that the foreign actors 0.99
00:37:16.520 from adversarial countries like Iran and China and Russia, that they're removed from Venezuela
00:37:21.080 or they leave as part of a deal? I think those are things to be watching. I think finally is
00:37:26.380 how do other countries in the region respond?
00:37:32.540 Does tensions increase with countries like Colombia
00:37:35.660 that's been very vocally against what we did in Venezuela?
00:37:38.720 Or is there a lot of public, you know,
00:37:42.260 gnashing of the teeth and pounding of the table,
00:37:44.140 but is there a lot of stuff behind the scenes
00:37:46.020 that we don't see that is actually smoothing away
00:37:49.260 or smoothing the way to them actually supporting
00:37:53.220 what we do in Venezuela?
00:37:54.180 I wouldn't be surprised if that's already happening behind the scenes.
00:37:58.200 Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
00:37:59.280 Dan Caldwell, American Moment.
00:38:00.660 Give him a follow, folks.
00:38:01.480 We'll be right back.
00:38:02.380 Take you to the ground, New York City, where Maduro was on trial.
00:38:05.980 Jack is a great guy.
00:38:07.460 He's written a fantastic book.
00:38:09.200 Everybody's talking about it.
00:38:10.360 Go get it.
00:38:11.500 And he's been my friend right from the beginning of this whole beautiful event.
00:38:15.460 And we're going to turn it around and make our country great again.
00:38:18.600 Amen.
00:38:24.180 All right, folks, Jack Posobiec, we're back here, live human events daily.
00:38:27.220 I want to go now to the ground.
00:38:28.940 We've got David Zier, Rav Correspondent, who's there in Manhattan at the courthouse,
00:38:34.620 just outside the courthouse, where I'm told Maduro has just finished being processed,
00:38:39.920 was made his way back to the corrections facility.
00:38:42.700 David Zier, how are you?
00:38:45.420 Hi, good afternoon, Jack.
00:38:47.060 Yeah, an incredible day here, historic day in lower Manhattan.
00:38:51.260 And as you know, Maduro and his wife, Cecilia, were flown from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to the courthouse this morning, but left by convoy.
00:39:02.820 And I think they came by helicopter this morning to avoid logistics snares and rush hour traffic.
00:39:08.340 First day back from the New Year holiday, right, for workers here in New York City and other.
00:39:13.880 But he was taken by truck.
00:39:15.960 There was some drama in the courtroom at the end.
00:39:18.000 Now, I was in the overflow room next door because there was hundreds of media trying to get in there.
00:39:22.440 But we heard at the end, someone in the audience shouted out,
00:39:26.160 you're going to pay for what you've done.
00:39:27.640 I believe that person was escorted out, and on his way out, Maduro was saying,
00:39:32.140 you know, I'm a prisoner of war, and I could give you a little bit of the summary
00:39:36.440 of what happened in the arraignment, if you want, and other.
00:39:41.260 Well, sure, we do want to hear that because I think, in general,
00:39:45.100 People want to know what exactly are the charges that he is facing and what essentially the penalties will be if he's if he's convicted.
00:39:57.260 Yes. And Nicholas Maduro was flanked by Barry Pollack of Julian Assange.
00:40:03.200 You know, he represented him along with Marty Tankleff, who was accused of killing his parents in the 80s and high end lawyer.
00:40:09.800 And he said that Maduro was a victim of a military abduction during the arraignment.
00:40:19.120 And, you know, Judge Hellerstein is in there.
00:40:21.600 And he's the judge that denied Trump to move the trial from state to federal for the hush money.
00:40:26.820 He also blocked the Alien Enemies Act in 1798 to deport a legion of Trinidad Agua.
00:40:31.020 But this indictment has been going on for about 14, 15 years in New York City with the Southern District here.
00:40:39.100 And it's just something to note that the judge asked Nicholas Maduro and his wife if they wanted bail, and Maduro said no, not at this time.
00:40:51.740 They may put an application in writing for that.
00:40:54.920 Also, a lot of other things were discussed.
00:40:56.840 He was informed of his rights, that he should know he can talk to his consulate and others for communication purposes.
00:41:02.980 The prosecution agreed to that here.
00:41:05.320 But there's bigger issues here.
00:41:07.180 This is part of the 2011 Southern District case that Hellestein presided over.
00:41:13.480 They just convicted General Armando Caraval Barrios, right, from the Nones El Pollo, the chicken.
00:41:21.460 He worked with Hugo Chavez, and he was indicted.
00:41:25.100 And I don't know if he cut a deal or not, but he might get life in prison.
00:41:29.000 But his sentencing is going to be next week, and it's similar charges to Maduro.
00:41:33.220 Now, this was a superseding indictment to the original indictment for Maduro from 2020, which added charges, added people into this, including Maduro's son and known as Nicolás Cito and former Minister of Interior Justice Ramón Rodriguez-Chaquín and Hector Flores, who said that he was a leader of Chenda y Araguan.
00:41:54.220 And I guess they're trying to make the connection, the prosecution here between actual kidnappings and murder and human rights and all kinds of other stuff,
00:42:01.880 maybe even expanding the superseding indictment going forward.
00:42:05.840 I'm not sure, but they're trying to make that connection here.
00:42:10.780 And I remember that when the DNI put out their report a while back, Joe Kent,
00:42:15.440 And this became a huge point of contention in the media as to whether or not Maduro was directly operating and executing Trendy Aragua's missions.
00:42:27.280 Were they acting on behalf of the regime or were they acting with the support of the regime or simply with the blessing of the regime?
00:42:36.220 All of this, of course.
00:42:37.440 So we see the charges, narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, the weapons charges.
00:42:42.980 So whether or not they're able to provide the evidence on this will probably get back to the heart of what Joe Kent was saying back in that ODNI report to say that we do have this connection.
00:42:54.500 Now, the DOJ is going to have to put that together.
00:42:56.260 The Southern District of New York, of course, would be able to do that as well.
00:43:02.060 And, you know, and it certainly looks like he would be facing decades in prison at the very least should he be found guilty on all this.
00:43:11.500 David, do you know when is their next hearing, when is their next arraignment?
00:43:17.020 Yeah, they're going to reconvene on March 17th. There's about a 60-day reprieve here.
00:43:22.740 I think they're going to start the discovery process. We probably won't see a trial date for some time.
00:43:28.000 Within that time, he may ask for bail. I'm not sure.
00:43:31.180 And just to note, Jack, that corruption and violence, including selling of diplomatic passports to cartels
00:43:36.980 and ordering kidnappings and murders are part of this indictment.
00:43:40.580 like you said, now they got to prove it, but a dramatic day in court here, and Celia Flores 0.63
00:43:46.520 claiming she received injuries, and her lawyer saying she might have a fracture during the
00:43:51.780 arrest, and that he needs some help, Nicholas Maduro, he may have underlying medical conditions,
00:43:57.040 a lot going on inside the courthouse, Patrick Moynihan courthouse here, 500 Pearl Street in
00:44:02.040 Lower Manhattan. All right, David Zier, thank you very much for your intrepid reporting on a day
00:44:09.160 that I know is a little bit chilly up there in New York.
00:44:12.360 It's freezing.
00:44:14.020 Yeah.
00:44:14.880 I can see your rosy.
00:44:17.300 I know that Rob's sake wasn't paying the makeup department 0.82
00:44:19.660 to get those rosy cheeks on.
00:44:21.000 You know, that's the real thing, baby.
00:44:24.480 Thanks, David.
00:44:25.180 Appreciate it, man.
00:44:25.940 Really appreciate it.
00:44:27.360 So, folks, we have to look at where we're at.
00:44:31.900 We are in the middle of the fourth turning.
00:44:34.100 This is going on.
00:44:35.580 This is happening whether you like it or not.
00:44:38.340 The question is, there are a lot of people, and I see these emails, and I'm going to go back to them because I want to pull this up a little bit more.
00:44:47.160 People saying, here's another one from Leon.
00:44:50.700 I voted for Trump three times.
00:44:52.060 I want cheaper groceries, cheaper affordable housing, closed borders, deep state arrests, no new wars.
00:44:57.460 It's that simple.
00:44:58.680 So you're seeing this split.
00:45:01.920 You're seeing this disparity between people saying they like it, they're not against it,
00:45:07.000 But other people saying they don't know whether or not this is direct support in the direct support of the American people.
00:45:15.860 They want to know what do we get out of this?
00:45:18.620 How does this help me?
00:45:20.100 Now, by the way, one thing I can certainly point you to is that this is absolutely something that is going to lead to lower gas prices.
00:45:27.460 Should it all work or it should it all work out?
00:45:29.800 Should it all take place?
00:45:31.440 And my, that dude over at gas buddy who always loses his mind on me because he's such, he's
00:45:36.080 got such bad Trump derangement syndrome.
00:45:38.540 So the guy, I don't know if you guys know gas buddy, the site I've been in this like
00:45:41.960 Twitter war with this guy for like, like a year now because every time, because he went
00:45:48.020 full panic in over the tariffs and he said price increase alert and did gas buddy pinned
00:45:55.080 it to their site is all price increase alert.
00:45:57.460 You got to be careful.
00:45:58.300 The gas prices are going to go way, way up because the tariffs is about a year ago.
00:46:01.440 now. Right. Uh, I think it was, it was March. Okay. It was March of 2025. And, and I put out,
00:46:08.360 I said, I don't think the gas prices are going to rise. He said, Oh, you don't understand what
00:46:11.160 you're talking about because I, I'm the one who understands this. I'm the gas buddy. I'm the
00:46:16.000 leader of the gas price. I'm like, okay, we'll see what happens, man. And what happened? Gas
00:46:21.560 prices went down. Everyone who was panicking over the tariffs was proven completely wrong.
00:46:26.880 Gas prices are currently down, I believe, under $3 across the country nationwide average,
00:46:33.520 which, by the way, you can check on GasBuddy.
00:46:35.800 They'll do right now.
00:46:36.740 GasBuddy national average.
00:46:39.340 Let's do it.
00:46:40.260 Boom.
00:46:40.620 Let's just see GasBuddy national average.
00:46:43.360 And we are looking at $2.82.
00:46:51.040 And that's the highest.
00:46:52.000 $2.82, $2.77.
00:46:56.060 cents is the lowest average. So we've seen that just over the last couple of days is sort of
00:47:00.260 fluctuating. Folks, here's what happens. If that Venezuelan oil floods back onto the market,
00:47:06.360 you're going to see gas prices go down again. That'll help you directly. And that's going to
00:47:10.040 lead to lower groceries plus lower prices for housing, because anything that's carried,
00:47:16.120 transport, lumber, construction equipment, the building materials for houses, that's all going
00:47:22.960 to come down as well now none of this means that we should stop our focus on domestic policy and
00:47:29.340 be very clear about that main quest stay main quest clean up the united states get the illegals 0.57
00:47:36.840 out of here get the people that are here on that are paper americans on these ridiculous visas
00:47:42.840 get them out as well america will be made great again ladies and gentlemen as always 0.92
00:47:49.540 you have my permission to lay ashore
00:47:52.960 Thank you.