The Auron MacIntyre Show - Trump Strikes Venezuela ... What Comes Next？｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸5⧸26

00:00:00.200 Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.

00:00:06.700 We're back for the new year and the United States decided to start off the new year with a bang and actually several large explosions as we have apparently toppled the government of Venezuela.

00:00:18.560 Turns out that out of nowhere, the Trump administration decided to go and bomb Caracas.

00:00:25.000 Just blow up a few things like the tomb of Hugo Chavez. That one's pretty funny.

00:00:29.100 But they also managed to snag the leader of Venezuela, Maduro, and took him and his wife in the cover of night.

00:00:36.600 They are now in the United States. And it's been a few interesting days. The response has been mixed, to say, quite a bit.

00:00:45.640 So joining me today to talk about this is, of course, one of our favorite returning co-hosts, Mr. Prudentialist, now going by Matthew Williams. Thanks for coming, man.

00:00:54.280 Yeah, thanks for having me on, Oren. It's been a heck of a way to kick off the new year.

00:00:57.500 Yeah, I got to say, you know, we've been looking at the bombing or rather the capturing of the ships, the shooting of the drug boats from Venezuela.

00:01:08.240 And a lot of us said, look, OK, as long as you're keeping in international waters, keeping drugs from coming to my country, I don't know if I need a declaration of war for that. Fine.

00:01:17.260 I'll give you some leeway here. But if we start invading Venezuela, if we start, you know, regime changing Venezuela, then maybe, you know, we're crossing a line here.

00:01:26.440 And then we're kind of in territory that we thought we were kind of done with under the Trump administration.

00:01:32.180 And nonetheless, we have seen that the Trump administration pulled off what, you know, by all accounts is a very successful and very impressive raid into Venezuela and captured the leader of that country.

00:01:44.620 Obviously, there has been quite a bit of tension between the U.S. and Venezuela for quite a long time.

00:01:51.180 It's been clear that Trump had wanted to do something about that, but it seemed like perhaps the the kind of the drug boat is getting hit along with sanctions and other soft power mechanisms were being used to kind of leverage Maduro out of that position.

00:02:04.920 But we saw now, obviously, that they went with the strongest possible option to go ahead and remove him.

00:02:11.760 What do you think about the build up to this situation?

00:02:14.100 And were you surprised that ultimately this operation was initiated?

00:02:19.000 I didn't expect the kidnapping capture.

00:02:23.400 I mean, however you want to declare it.

00:02:25.820 I mean, he was captured in the middle of the night in but by all accounts, a very successful military operation, which seems to be after all of the build up since last fall has led to this.

00:02:37.520 I had thought that there was probably going to be more of military strikes similar to perhaps what the first Trump administration had done in Syria in 2018.

00:02:47.560 Not necessarily a capture of the head of state, however, everything that's been going on with the claim of narco terrorism has been very interesting to watch it be so focused on Venezuela, because while there is a very large network or cartel, sort of just the cartel of the sun, or I'm sure it has other names as well.

00:03:08.640 But it goes on to mainly traffic and move product, not so much as produce it.

00:03:14.960 I know that cocaine is often associated with Venezuela, although it is mainly the transit area in which it happens.

00:03:21.680 And I'm sure that there are plenty of individuals in the Venezuelan government that make money that way.

00:03:25.680 But also that a lot of the cocaine is produced in neighboring countries like Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia.

00:03:32.980 And at the same time, while I'm very glad to see that the concern over narco terrorism and narcotics is front and center for the American government, I'm reminded, of course, that fentanyl is the largest killer for overdose deaths in the United States, most of that coming through the southern border via Mexico, as well as some parts from Canada.

00:03:54.280 So I'm, you know, glad to see that there's been an emphasis on this, I'd like to see perhaps more being done, or more emphasis being put on when it comes to fentanyl trafficking and fentanyl coming into the country.

00:04:05.540 I know that that's a part, of course, with Venice, with the United States is ongoing conversations with the Chinese.

00:04:10.920 So to see all this happen, I was very much surprised.

00:04:13.400 This was one of those, you know, blink and you miss it memes where you go to bed, and then all of a sudden you wake up and the world had something finally happen, you know, as people like to joke and meme about.

00:04:22.180 So, so yeah, I mean, the head of state for Venezuela has been captured.

00:04:26.660 You had an interesting, about an hour long press conference from the administration, which I kind of thought it was very funny to me, not in the sense that what he wasn't, what was being discussed was actually deadly serious, but the way that in which they were going back and forth, everyone looked exhausted, you know, Marco Rubio had a five o'clock shadow, Trump looked, you know, like he had been up all night, which of course they were, they were in the situation room.

00:04:48.420 So I was genuinely surprised to see that Maduro was getting captured and moving to the United States for the Southern District of New York to be charged with various crimes.

00:04:58.000 He's now going to be in the same area in which other drug kingpins have been charged, which I think is done deliberately because there'll be little to no local law enforcement or local judges in the ability to get in the way of things politically.

00:05:11.640 So Mom Donnie can't really do anything about it.

00:05:13.940 So this is an interesting development, to say the least, a hell of a start for 2026, but there are a lot of second order consequences that remain to be seen.

00:05:22.700 And I think that it'll be kind of important to walk a very fine line between what we do know, what history tells us, and wild speculation.

00:05:30.400 Yeah, it's, the nothing other happens bros really are in life support on, after that one, it was one of the scenarios where, you know, I got to bed at a decent hour, got myself a nice, you know, good night's sleep and woke up and apparently, you know, Venezuela no longer had a governing official anymore.

00:05:49.720 So that was a very interesting development to discover when you woke up in the morning.

00:05:54.440 It is, as you point out, for a lot of people, a strange emphasis.

00:05:59.100 Again, we both like the fact that the administration is taking the problem of very dangerous and highly addictive drugs being leveraged into the country by foreign governments and cartels.

00:06:10.180 Seriously, that's something that, you know, we all encourage and it makes it easy to sell these type of operations.

00:06:15.460 I'm sympathetic to that explanation myself.

00:06:18.140 However, as you point out, there are other countries that come to mind that are probably higher up on the list when you think about the countries that are bringing this kind of thing in.

00:06:28.720 Now, J.D. Vance, I think on Twitter, defended this by saying, look, yes, we understand fentanyl is the largest killer, but obviously cocaine is also a very serious problem that comes in heavily from Venezuela.

00:06:39.700 Another thing that they really took emphasis with was the fact that ultimately Venezuela had seized different U.S. assets when it came to its oil production.

00:06:50.340 And that's why they felt that it was reasonable to go after the oil tankers as they had previously.

00:06:56.980 And now the, you know, the action against the whole country that Maduro had been accused of these crimes in American courts.

00:07:04.460 So this was a, they're kind of selling this as a criminal prosecution.

00:07:08.540 It's more of a police action, grabbing a drug dealer, you know, as if we would grab a Mexican cartel member, you know, in his hacienda somewhere, as opposed to taking on a head of state.

00:07:22.020 What do you think about those justifications?

00:07:24.720 Do you think ultimately those hold water?

00:07:26.460 I mean, America's relationship, both with Venezuela and as well as with the majority of the Caribbean states and Central and South America, has been a long one.

00:07:37.600 I mean, even prior to our entry in the First World War, all the way to our efforts in the Cold War, we have been involved either in some kind of filibuster action or trying to preserve American investments and interests in the region,

00:07:52.480 whether it be in Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, and countless other countries in the region.

00:07:58.480 So it's, when we hear, you know, a lot of the sort of Hugo Chavez or the Nicolas Maduro, you know, claims of Yankee imperialism, you know, America does have a long history in there.

00:08:08.100 Not that I am defending Maduro or any other claims about America's foreign policy in the region.

00:08:14.060 America is a hegemon.

00:08:15.000 It has its own interests to protect and preserve and to advance for its own national interests.

00:08:20.120 But when looking at these claims, especially over oil, this has been a 50-year ongoing battle about the nationalization of oil infrastructure inside Venezuela.

00:08:31.220 It started under 1976 with President Perez.

00:08:34.620 And then since the Chavez era in the early 2000s, you forced a lot of foreign firms into minority stakes with the Venezuelan Petroleum Company.

00:08:44.180 And then later on, this took even further because it required, you know, this company which nationalized to hold majority stake in all joint ventures, which led to ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil leaving.

00:08:58.000 And so while the president has said, and I think he's sort of echoing in the same way on the campaign trail when he criticized the Iraq war,

00:09:05.160 that had we just gone in and actually taken the oil, this would have actually been far better than the attempts at regime change and nation building.

00:09:13.780 However, you know, when I sat down, I because I put my phone down to go vote like in November to the Turkey thing because I thought it was just a fun meme.

00:09:23.120 And now I get all these text updates from the White House.

00:09:24.900 And I sat down and I listened to the press conference.

00:09:28.200 I listened for about an hour.

00:09:30.040 And it was very interesting to listen to say, like, listen, you know, we're effectively going to run the country in term.

00:09:36.320 We want American and other foreign oil interests to come in and to take advantage of the fact that there is infrastructure and technical know-how that you have that the Venezuelans don't.

00:09:46.580 And to recuperate lost assets or any sort of, you know, sunk costs that may be in this effort.

00:09:52.720 And so it's a bit, you know, I have a, I'm giving myself pause because this sounds like regime change.

00:10:01.180 There is a vice president who has now been sworn in.

00:10:03.800 I think Rodriguez is her last name.

00:10:05.800 And I know that the secretary of state has spoken with her.

00:10:08.760 I think that Trump has just recently at the time of us talking has said that, you know, if she doesn't play ball, like things will be worse.

00:10:16.920 And this was alluded to, of course, in the press conference just yesterday, that there was plans for a second wave or a second strike.

00:10:25.440 I'm sure we haven't really had any of our assets leave the area for obvious reasons.

00:10:29.260 So it seems like America has a long and sordid history of regime change in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

00:10:36.480 So it's a bit concerning.

00:10:38.260 And I think that Trump has to walk a fine line because historically non-interventionism has been a very deep political streak on both sides of the aisle politically.

00:10:49.400 Although it's easy to point out left-wing hypocrisy when just a few years ago, Maduro had lost a rigged election that was meant to be rigged in his favor by a large degree.

00:11:00.120 We were backing both under Biden and Trump won different opposition leaders.

00:11:05.580 Juan Guido was the gentleman last time, I believe, during the first Trump administration to replace Nicolas Maduro.

00:11:11.340 So it seems as if in the long run, this was probably going to be the pressure.

00:11:15.520 But now I think he has a very fine line to walk with building either coalitions with private oil interests as well as American oil interests in the area, but alongside the fact that this could potentially escalate.

00:11:29.460 And we do know that both Russia and China have been increasing their investments in South America.

00:11:34.820 The Venezuelans have had a large degree of success politically with other Central and South American nations when it comes to the organization of American states in the decades previously when America has tried to isolate Venezuela.

00:11:50.680 And under the previous Mexican president, now under President Scheinbaum of Mexico, there's been a renewed emphasis on CELAC, the community of Central American and Caribbean states.

00:12:01.120 And I think that when you look at that and their close ties to the Chinese, I see that the United States government has been pursuing a policy of probably sending a warning shot towards both the Chinese as well as the Russians and the investment in the area,

00:12:14.840 but also to deny potential mining, oil and mineral resources to a nation state that has been having first base trading partners being places like Cuba, Colombia, China and other nations that are not so favorable to the United States.

00:12:30.680 So on the grand scheme of things geopolitically, I think that there's a very difficult tightrope to walk because history proves to us, at least for right now, that things are very likely to go wrong.

00:12:44.000 But at the same time, with this administration focusing so much on immigration restrictionism, focusing on counterterror and counter narcotics operations, this may be a different course of events to go and only time will tell as this unfolds.

00:12:58.200 Yeah, it was kind of a bizarre development because, of course, everyone looked at what happened with the Iran strikes, right?

00:13:05.160 And the discussion around that at the time was, you know, a lot of us, I think both you and I included in this, were very concerned that those Iran strikes could turn into a larger on the ground regime change war.

00:13:17.880 It's clearly something that Israel was interested in. And we're worried that the United States would be pulled into that longer conflict.

00:13:25.840 Turned out, in that case, they did restrict themselves to a couple bombing runs for the most part before removing U.S. involvement in that conflict.

00:13:35.640 And the idea was kind of the narrative that was being built was like, OK, yes, Trump is the kind of guy who's going to do military strikes, but it's not going to be regime change wars, right?

00:13:45.780 These are going to be quick decapitation strikes. They're going to be tactical deployments of military force in very limited situations.

00:13:53.940 And that kind of calmed people down a little bit. OK, well, I guess, you know, yeah, we sometimes have to get involved, but at least we're not entering into protracted conflicts with no, you know, exit strategy, no long term goals.

00:14:08.440 We're not trying to spread liberal democracy around the world.

00:14:11.520 And when this strike initially happened, that was kind of the narrative that was coming a lot out of kind of, you know, administration defenders and that kind of thing.

00:14:20.600 Don't worry, guys. It's just like Iran. You know, they're going to get Maduro and then that's going to kind of be the end of it. 0.99

00:14:26.720 Well, then Trump just walked out during the press conference and said, no, we're running Venezuela.

00:14:30.360 Like, obviously, like we're we're going to be controlling the country top to bottom in the interim because we want to make sure there's the right transition and the person involved is going to be favorable to us.

00:14:40.580 It's like, OK, well, it's pretty hard to call this anything other than a regime change war then.

00:14:44.860 Right now, the good news, I guess, in theory, is that the war is supposed to already be over.

00:14:50.500 But this isn't quite the fate of complete, because, as you point out, they got Maduro, but like the rest of his government's all in power, like they're all still there.

00:14:59.200 Yeah, he was kind of a strong man in a sense.

00:15:01.880 He's a guy who had a lot of power concentrated in his presence there.

00:15:06.480 So the current government is kind of in disarray to a certain level.

00:15:10.120 Perhaps they're not really loyal to his ideology or the system.

00:15:14.020 They simply were taking orders and they'll just fall in behind whoever the U.S. kind of props up as the next guy.

00:15:20.000 But ultimately, it feels like you're in a kind of a precarious situation because you're kind of declaring victory without having full control of the situation on the ground.

00:15:29.400 And it feels like you can't have control of the full situation on the ground without being on the ground, which, again, sounds like we're placing ourselves pretty strongly in that regime change category.

00:15:40.180 Now, this is something that Trump has explicitly said multiple times he is not interested in doing.

00:15:45.640 Yeah, we're going to have strength.

00:15:46.720 We're going to have these kind of things.

00:15:47.740 If we need to do big, amazing American military strikes, then we'll do those. 1.00

00:15:52.280 And again, credit to where it's due to the operators who pulled this off, the soldiers pulled this off.

00:15:57.700 It does seem to be very impressive, you know, very, very easy to cheer on the excellence of the American military in this situation.

00:16:04.120 It's not like Maduro was a good guy.

00:16:06.180 So, you know, don't feel bad for him either.

00:16:08.920 However, you really are in the situation where it seems like a direct contradiction of a lot of the promises that were made about the foreign policy.

00:16:17.320 Now, I think you are someone who's probably more sympathetic to this problem than many others because you bring it up whenever someone talks about, you know, geopolitics.

00:16:27.120 Just because you don't want to be an empire anymore doesn't mean your enemies stop being empires, right?

00:16:31.820 Like if you pull away from the world scene, as you say, China, Russia, they're trying to establish these footholds for a reason.

00:16:39.580 They know that ultimately being positioned near the United States, having a foothold in these areas isn't just beneficial when it comes to economics or resources, oil, these kind of things.

00:16:51.160 It's also important because it gives you the possibility of influencing, you know, nations that are near one of your largest competitors that could possibly, you know, obviously everyone thinks of Cuba and the missile crisis.

00:17:02.320 You know, does Russia not put any missiles in Cuba if the United States is being very careful at that time with its expansion?

00:17:09.840 Maybe, maybe not, but it's entirely possible that they decide to do it just because it's good to have missiles next to a country that is that big and that much of a rival.

00:17:17.840 So can America ultimately even avoid having these kind of conflicts?

00:17:22.280 I mean, as we understand it, the Chinese delegation was actually in Venezuela while Maduro was being captured, which I bet is probably not some coincidence.

00:17:30.500 It probably meant to be sent a very powerful message.

00:17:33.520 So is this ultimately a promise that Trump simply cannot keep because of the geopolitical reality?

00:17:40.480 Or do you think there are other kind of machinations going on behind the scenes?

00:17:44.880 Well, again, this is we're talking about this, what, two days and some change after the events have unfolded.

00:17:52.620 I mean, there's plenty of machinations, I'm sure, that we as in the commentariat sphere are not going to get access to anytime soon, if at all.

00:18:01.580 And when things are announced accordingly, I mean, we'll have to provide our analysis on those very specific issues and go from there.

00:18:08.800 I mean, I mean, also in the long scheme of things, this the debate about, you know, empire or maintaining strategic areas of influence or denial of access to your enemies on a geopolitical front.

00:18:21.720 I mean, this is the historical reality.

00:18:24.360 You know, some individuals have called this, you know, the tragedy of great power politics.

00:18:28.520 I mean, this is I mean, Mearsheimer wrote that book, you know, 30 years ago.

00:18:32.100 He also discussed in that text that you do really need land forces, specifically bodies on the ground if you actually want to hold territory.

00:18:40.820 So, you know, it is something important.

00:18:43.280 And it's also been a longstanding debate inside American foreign policy circles and academia for, you know, both of our lifetimes put together.

00:18:51.240 You can look at the writings of George Kennan versus William Appelman Williams over the need of, you know, either denial or containment or this tragedy of American diplomacy as he looks at it as an empire, as a way of life.

00:19:04.500 Or at least William certainly does, citing that this has been the way going forward.

00:19:08.580 And when we look at those debates, there are a lot of internal contradictions to American foreign policy.

00:19:14.240 But for the first time, at least with this administration, I mean, we saw this as well with the first Trump administration, it seems at least that there has been a more actual nation-centered policy for the United States.

00:19:27.260 I mean, you know, he claims things are America first.

00:19:29.840 He's been trying to pursue that to the best of his ability, I think, in a large regard.

00:19:33.800 And also because we live in a media environment where the bad news sticks and it doesn't allow us to think or critically engage or research maybe the five or ten things that are actually going on that we can look up on the websites for the federal government and their respective branches that, you know, it makes it very difficult for us to, I think, maybe sometimes give the best take forward on these issues.

00:19:56.440 But I think when it comes to Venezuela, I know that we just earlier today, we had a White House reporter for the Associated Press who's been with The Washington Post.

00:20:06.540 This was Siong Kim.

00:20:09.360 You know, she writes here that the U.S. is not going to govern Venezuela, but will press changes through an oil blockade, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, clarifying Trump's claims about running the country.

00:20:20.540 So, I mean, we'll see what happens that way.

00:20:22.740 I mean, there are international and economic pressures to do so.

00:20:25.980 And I mean, after that sign and show of strength where no American service members have been lost, I think that maybe upwards to 80 is the current death toll or count for security forces or those that may have been killed in the operation that took place on the Venezuelan side.

00:20:43.760 I don't think that the sitting vice president or now acting president of Venezuela is going to have much of a choice.

00:20:49.220 And at the same time, the United States is currently trying to deal with the Russians over with the conflict in Ukraine.

00:20:56.020 Our biggest issue may have to be dealing with China, but China doesn't have the assets on the ground in that area for us to seriously contend with them, potentially in a strategic platform. 0.68

00:21:05.360 We'll see what happens diplomatically.

00:21:06.660 But overall, I mean, also Venezuela has been a sort of big part of the American fifth column when it comes to democratic socialists in the United States.

00:21:15.860 They had people like Ava Morales as well as Nicolas Maduro be these speakers or people that they could visit on these tours to Venezuela back in the early 2020s, as well as during the Obama administration era as well.

00:21:29.360 So, I mean, when we look at these things, it really does come to show that, one, the American government, I think, in a lot of ways is, I don't want to say retreading old ground because this isn't like Grenada or Panama or anything like that from the 80s, but it is something to look at and seriously consider that America's had a longstanding presence in the Middle East or not the Middle East.

00:21:49.040 Well, we've had to, but inside of the Caribbean and Latin American countries, and that if it's pursuant to whatever this government says is in the American interest, I have a feeling they're going to do it regardless of what we say.

00:22:01.040 But I think that these internal contradictions and debates about nation building and interventionism and governing the place or just using economic pressures to do so, there's a lot more machinations behind the scenes that I imagine will unfold in due time.

00:22:13.900 And I don't want to speculate wildly, but history does give us a pretty effective guide as to how these things have gone in the past.

00:22:21.080 Yeah, you have the situation where, of course, again, I've been very clear about my desire for the United States to withdraw from kind of its current obsession with global empire.

00:22:32.300 But there is, of course, a certain sphere of influence that all great powers are going to have.

00:22:37.640 And if you have to do military strike, at least this one's, you know, within a continent, you know, we're not we're not somewhere in the Middle East.

00:22:44.760 It feels like something that at least could have the possibility of having a direct interest for the United States.

00:22:51.440 And it's interesting to see how that develops.

00:22:54.120 I made the suggestion, and I'm certainly sticking by it, that, you know, if we have the scenario where we are now theoretically running Venezuela, although, as you say there, there's some clarification on ultimately what that means.

00:23:07.040 But, you know, if we're in a situation where, I guess, we can black bag the very next president in our sleep.

00:23:14.100 So if we're not directly running the country, we're functionally running the country.

00:23:18.120 If that's the scenario, it should be pretty easy to send, like, every illegal Venezuelan home, right? 1.00

00:23:23.240 Like, that was kind of the big barrier.

00:23:25.380 You know, we should have a pretty, pretty simple time.

00:23:27.840 They're going to take them all back or else.

00:23:29.900 So just go ahead and send them all.

00:23:31.880 You want the administration to seal this deal and just make everybody a supporter of this move.

00:23:37.100 Show me, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of Venezuelan illegals being loaded into planes and flying them over. 1.00

00:23:44.440 And, you know, I'm going to become a lot more amenable to the idea that ultimately we could have a regime change.

00:23:50.460 Just don't tell me that we can go in, snag Maduro, bomb everything, leave without a single guy getting hurt, but we can't deport people to the country.

00:23:59.120 Like, that's all I'm asking is, like, just don't insult me with that one.

00:24:01.780 You know, I know there's, there's, these are different avenues of power to some extent.

00:24:05.960 I understand that judiciary has a say over deportations that they don't have necessarily in, in strikes, military strikes, though they sure are trying on that one as well.

00:24:15.060 But, but it is one of those scenarios where show me a tangible, immediate benefit for the American people.

00:24:21.820 And I think that's going to go a long way to persuading people who are ultimately very concerned.

00:24:26.820 Now, one of the things that is interesting, and I think, again, there are reasons to be legitimately concerned with this action, so I'm not decrying anyone's concern here.

00:24:35.080 But we saw two narratives developing online.

00:24:37.400 The first is that Israel made America do this, that because Venezuela is not, I guess, super supportive of the state of Israel, that therefore, you know, Netanyahu wanted, you know, Trump to take out Maduro.

00:24:55.300 And that was the whole motivation.

00:24:57.940 I think that there are probably other reasons why the U.S. would be interested in this.

00:25:03.120 But can you speak to this idea that, you know, Israel basically ordered this hit through, you know, via the American military?

00:25:09.940 Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with, I think, two major issues.

00:25:14.240 I think that one of the opposition leaders that has received support or a lot of media attention in Western media had said that if she were to be in office, that she would move the her the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem, which, of course, was an action that this administration has done.

00:25:32.880 And while most countries have their embassy still in Tel Aviv.

00:25:38.460 So, I mean, there's that argument, I'm sure, that has been made and that Venezuela, like other countries like South Africa, have taken strong rhetorical and perhaps other political actions against Israel's actions in Gaza, as well as just claiming that it's an apartheid state or a puppet of some, you know, avatar of American imperialism.

00:25:58.440 There's that.

00:25:58.920 Also, that, you know, Mike Huckabee had opened his mouth and I don't know whether or not Mike Huckabee is the United States ambassador to Israel or Israel's ambassador to the United States.

00:26:08.760 I can never really tell when he talks.

00:26:10.840 But he he did say that, you know, the the toppling Maduro was good because apparently there's been Hezbollah training and other things like that.

00:26:18.400 I don't I can't substantiate these claims.

00:26:20.140 I haven't done enough research into them.

00:26:21.560 But I mean, it is been a very popular claim over the over the years online to, of course, you know, say because the Israeli government does have a substantial amount of influence in the United States, where everyone from Russell Kirk to more mainstream politicians nowadays who are alive have been canceled for criticizing that very issue.

00:26:40.400 That some would look at this as that Trump is merely, you know, whatever the American government does.

00:26:45.400 It really does it for that benefit.

00:26:46.880 And it raises questions about American sovereignty, which some of that is definitely worth a while to investigate.

00:26:51.980 But I think in this that there are other issues and perhaps more pressing ones to consider in the broader scheme of things for America's foreign policy.

00:27:01.740 I mean, the question over sovereignty becomes a big one.

00:27:04.680 That was a phrase that got used around a lot during the press conference immediately following the strike.

00:27:10.080 And I think that it is very important to consider that one, immigration is a national security issue.

00:27:15.180 It's not just illegal immigration, but it is legal.

00:27:17.200 Otherwise, we wouldn't have Korean visa holders, Chinese visa holders and Indian visa holders either strangling tech companies and deliberately systematically discriminating against white Americans or engaging in the biggest and rampant intellectual property theft to which allows India and China and other countries to take advantage of our pharmaceutical industry and our advanced technologies for the benefit of trying to imitate it and improve upon it back home, which they would not have been able to do. 0.77

00:27:43.900 Had we not had our visa system, whether it's in universities, tech, et cetera.

00:27:48.420 And so I think that when you're also seeing that this administration has clamped down the border, has ended temporary protective status, has capped the asylum slash refugee system to 7,500 people, the lowest it has ever been in modern history,

00:28:04.000 which has been really explicitly set aside for white South African refugees, an action that has been followed through on since they took in 69 South Africans of European origin to here in the United States.

00:28:17.560 I think that this is beginning to signal a shift that foreign policy does begin at home.

00:28:22.580 And this also means cleaning out your backyard and sending a message that we're not going to allow the what often has been called the servants entrance, i.e. the U.S. southern border to remain open.

00:28:34.240 And we're going to start really taking a crack at what makes cartels and other non-friendly entities or government officials their money.

00:28:44.720 So I think that, you know, whatever claims that there may be that there's an Israeli connection, I'm sure that there might be.

00:28:49.440 I don't know enough to substantiate it at the present moment.

00:28:51.620 But I think that at least from what has been said and what history has told us, there is a much greater, you know, interest for the United States to clean up its backyard.

00:29:02.240 Yeah, the need to kind of make it about Israel was a very, you know, online thing, I guess.

00:29:13.460 But the other discussion that really was coming from the left, but also from regime critics on the right or especially libertarians, that kind of thing, was that this was somehow this was an illegal strike like this.

00:29:27.360 This violated the Constitution. We saw, you know, Rand Paul and Thomas Massey running out, or at least Thomas Massey.

00:29:34.740 I don't know if I saw Rand Paul. I think I saw Ron Paul.

00:29:37.660 But, you know, they're running out saying, OK, this violates the Constitution and a lot of talk about international law.

00:29:43.640 And, you know, we kind of see this every time I think at this point an action is taken by the president.

00:29:48.700 But at some point, you know, it does become a little comical.

00:29:52.680 I appreciate Daryl Cooper coming out and saying this, even though he's obviously a guy who generally is pretty skeptical of American military intervention abroad.

00:30:01.580 But he said, look, you guys just look weak running out there and saying, oh, you violated international law.

00:30:06.200 You violated international law. International law is fake.

00:30:09.080 Like you you trying to, you know, somehow curtail the president's action with it is ridiculous. 0.80

00:30:15.180 He looks good in the successful military strike.

00:30:17.780 And obviously we haven't had a constitutional war since World War Two.

00:30:21.640 So is that like a problem? Sure. But it's been a problem forever.

00:30:24.500 And it's in no way unique to Donald Trump.

00:30:27.120 So suddenly running out and saying, oh, well, you know, this is somehow makes him this horrific war criminal.

00:30:32.100 It just kind of makes him another U.S. president at this point.

00:30:34.780 I think it's pretty obvious.

00:30:36.120 And so there's this kind of weak, impotent need to kind of run out there and to try to use these leftist arguments of it's international law and he's violated the Constitution, which obviously wouldn't work in any other context.

00:30:48.400 And it's kind of interesting to see a lot of these guys jump on this again.

00:30:52.020 Again, I'm as skeptical as anyone when it comes to the constant deployment of U.S. forces.

00:30:57.520 But I do think that there is just a lot of wisdom and not adopting these left wing talking points when you're attempting to make some kind of argument.

00:31:06.620 You need to appeal to something much more.

00:31:08.960 That's why, you know, my approach was like, look, however you feel about the strike, can we at least make this about American interests?

00:31:14.520 That that's my first desire is, you know, the strike has already occurred.

00:31:18.480 So how can Americans benefit from this or how are we going to benefit this?

00:31:21.980 But put this in a frame that I can immediately understand is beneficial for Americans.

00:31:25.840 And if you can't do that, then I start to ask questions as to why we're out there.

00:31:29.400 But this running around and just saying, oh, international law, I can't believe you're a war criminal.

00:31:33.560 Like, it is just kind of pathetic to see people try to throw this out, especially as a lot of people are still pumping their fists over the whole operation in the first place.

00:31:40.320 Yeah, I mean, international law really is enforced by the tip of the sword and the tip of the spear.

00:31:47.700 And I mean, this is why the United Nations Security Council consists of five permanent members of nuclear armed states, also because they are the winning, you know, nations of the Second World War.

00:31:59.960 I mean, we can't really forget the post-war, you know, international apparatus that really exists.

00:32:04.900 And we discuss international law and the treaties and charters therein.

00:32:07.940 But I mean, at the end of the day, international law is enforced by, you know, military force.

00:32:14.060 And it's the same reason why we have, and you've seen so many, decry the military operations and the war in Ukraine as a violation of international law.

00:32:22.880 But also to enforce the international law, as history proves this, when other nations try to enforce treaties or alliances and defense pacts,

00:32:30.940 that means getting yourself involved in armed war and conflict, which means really the, excuse me, the legal, you know, capacity to actually enforce any sort of international statute becomes null and void unless you have the force to back it up.

00:32:45.000 So it is very strange. But I mean, also, we see this every time with various politicians and administrations that, you know, Democratic war hawks will always come out of the woodwork when a Democrat's in office and the Democrats will become peacenics when the, you know, Republican is in office and vice versa.

00:33:01.440 And so, you know, we noticed that there is a lot of media attention when you see individuals like Thomas Massey or Rand Paul speak on these issues and appeal to international law and sort of, you know, doing things the right way.

00:33:14.040 And don't get me wrong. I think that there is the longstanding American tradition that isn't just exclusive to libertarians that, you know, the United States has not formally declared war since World War II.

00:33:23.960 Everything else has been really via executive action or through a, you know, authorized use of military force piece of legislation.

00:33:30.920 And so, I mean, there are reasonable ways to look at that. But when we also look at the history of American foreign policy since the Second World War and the advent of nuclear weapons,

00:33:40.840 the executive branch has rightfully taken more responsibility and role from Congress on the issue of war powers because you can't wait on Congress to deliberate declaring war when potentially bombs could drop in 30 minutes.

00:33:52.960 So I think historically, you know, this has been a change. But rhetorically, I get it. You're in a camp.

00:33:59.140 You have a certain media following and a certain way to campaign on issues and to fundraise. And I don't see that changing.

00:34:06.320 It's just part of this particular part of the Republican coalition that has been critical of Trump and Trump has been critical of them and vice versa.

00:34:13.080 I don't see either of those sides making peace. What I do see, however, is that we could easily look towards your concern.

00:34:20.540 And I think that that's a concern rightfully shared by everybody is how can we get immediate or short term benefits towards the American people?

00:34:29.220 Or what are the tangible, you know, tactile, what can I feel benefits out of this military action?

00:34:36.340 And so if this means that we're going to see a significant weakening of the cartel of the suns, great.

00:34:40.920 If we're going to see an increased, you know, or decreased amount of drugs trafficked out of Venezuela, even better.

00:34:47.720 And if this is going to be used in coordination with the big, beautiful bill and our increased budget of DHS, which is now several times the budget of the Venezuelan military,

00:34:57.740 then like I said, you know, there's a lot of machinations perhaps we don't know about or not privy to that could potentially be good for the United States.

00:35:04.660 But again, it's a very fine line to walk because America does not have the best history at all.

00:35:10.540 It's not a great batting average when it comes to intervention and regime change.

00:35:15.340 Yeah, again, I would prefer not to do the empire thing.

00:35:19.440 But if the empire thing is unavoidable, well, empire is a legitimate form of government.

00:35:24.100 It's one of the most common throughout history.

00:35:26.240 So not shocked to see that we might have to manifest some aspects of it here, but at least let us see the direct impact be positive for the American people.

00:35:35.820 I think that's what people want more than anything is that they want.

00:35:39.600 OK, I prefer to stay at a war, but if we're involved in military action, I want to see how it benefits me and mine right away.

00:35:46.120 Now how it lines someone else's pockets, now how it makes some other nation secure or spreads freedom of liberty.

00:35:51.840 Because we look at what's happening in the United States, we look at the death of Charlie Kirk.

00:35:57.420 And for months, we've heard that the Trump administration is getting ready, preparing these cases, and they're going to strike at these NGOs and take them out.

00:36:07.640 And they're going to punish them for funding Antifa and roll up these Antifa cells.

00:36:12.360 And we haven't seen any of it.

00:36:14.640 And not only have we not seen it, we saw a strike in Venezuela before we saw a single raid on an Antifa cell in the United States.

00:36:23.880 And I think it's fair to ask why that prioritization?

00:36:28.080 Why, you know, obviously we have a certain level of readiness always, but obviously you had to be preparing a strike like this for quite a while.

00:36:37.440 And how is it that we were able to pull that off before we were able to pull off police actions in the United States?

00:36:44.340 Why is it easier to pull off a police action to arrest Maduro than it is to pull off a police action to arrest some, you know, communists throwing firebombs in the Pacific Northwest?

00:36:56.200 Yeah. Now, one guy, you know, James Kirkpatrick, who's a great, great Twitter account, made a very good point, I think, which was, look, one of the reasons we saw this action taken is that ultimately Trump has more sovereignty in South America than he does in the United States.

00:37:13.220 That as the executive, he has more control over the deployment of the military and successful military operations than he does, even managing things inside his own country.

00:37:22.420 And so it literally is easier to go into another country, invade it and take its leader than it is to arrest a few communists somewhere in Chicago.

00:37:31.540 And I got to say, I don't think he's entirely wrong about that fact, which, you know, we as we pointed out many times, discussions on sovereignty came up quite a bit there.

00:37:41.240 One of the more interesting developments might be that Donald Trump has more sovereignty in South America than he does in New York or L.A.

00:37:49.440 Yeah. I mean, this was sort of the thing that I was thinking about watching the press conference.

00:37:55.080 He said that it was like a campaign of sovereignty or a campaign about sovereignty and peace.

00:38:00.320 And I mean, I looked at it and I did the whole, you know, like blink back, look back kind of, you know, reaction.

00:38:06.340 I was just really it was an interesting choice of phrase because the administration and I mean, he campaigned on I mean,

00:38:13.740 hell, the White House tweeted the words remigration with a photo of Donald Trump just a couple of days ago, which I mean, rhetorically is great.

00:38:21.280 We're now probably going to see more deportations emerge now that, you know, the DHS has the budget that it can to engage in these activities.

00:38:29.540 I think there's a lot more, obviously, that this administration could do.

00:38:33.100 And then Secretary Noem could easily do more and work with private entities to help house migrants and get them out of here, especially those that are here illegally. 1.00

00:38:41.580 It was good to see that Secretary Noem had basically eliminated temporary protective status for the Venezuelans that are here.

00:38:49.260 And I think that this is great rhetoric going forward to say that the administration has now given them the opportunity to go back to the nation that they love.

00:38:58.920 And if, you know, all of these videos and social media posts from Venezuelan, you know, expats that are living here or here under sort of visa status are celebrating that Maduro is gone.

00:39:10.580 And these like decades and lifetimes of socialist or left wing rule is over, then we should be doing everything to patriotically repatriate, you know, democratic or, you know, freedom loving Venezuelans back to their homeland, because that is what, you know, a good neighbor should do.

00:39:26.980 If we're going to have any kind of good neighbor policy of the 21st century, it's that we're against communism and that we want to repatriate you back to your home country to make it great again.

00:39:36.600 That would be a great messaging for the administration. And on the question of sovereignty, yeah, it's absolutely true, because in the midst of all this, I know the DHS has started doing some door to door arrests and investigations and have already arrested some and have begun putting people in through the court system when it comes to, say, the Somali daycare fraud, thanks to Nick Shirley and other investigative reporting.

00:39:57.260 But I mean, that's an easy layup to say that, listen, you know, we are concerned about sovereignty abroad.

00:40:04.400 We're also concerned about sovereignty here. And it's very hard to say that Tim Walls or anyone working in the state of Minnesota has sovereignty when you are beholden to a tiny ethnic minority that has managed to not only change the state's flag to reflect it being a colony of Somalia, 0.99

00:40:21.160 but has also allowed the mayor of Minneapolis to be speaking in their language and not English most of the time while eating their food as if he is being held hostage by actual Somali pirates.

00:40:33.280 And so while the state, while Minneapolis remains to be the Captain Phillips of America, it requires us now to seriously look at, OK, if we can take out Maduro,

00:40:41.780 the question now really remains to be how do we liberate those other places? And we've seen a lot of various conservative commentators make the same claim that, you know, they want regime change in New York.

00:40:51.760 They want regime change in Minneapolis. And I know that it's an entirely different ballgame because those are domestic operations.

00:40:57.840 There are the courts that have, I think, done a great job at hamstringing the administration.

00:41:02.700 But if, you know, the rhetoric out of the administration is to be true and they have a winning strategy.

00:41:07.860 We saw it the first three months of 2025, which is to do a million things at once at 99 miles an hour and do not give the left a second to react, organize or fundraise.

00:41:18.760 Because the more they have time to get on track with messaging or to create these ethnic solidarity blocks or basically to openly say that they will riot on racial reasons,

00:41:30.240 then all that that does is kind of prove the point that others have been making, which is that, you know, it's easier to question the sovereignty of a foreign power that we can target militarily than it is to question the open ethnic and, you know,

00:41:46.780 colonial mindset that is built on irredentist racial politics, whether it's with, you know, reclaiming the Southwest for Mexico or colonizing the rest of Minnesota

00:41:58.580 or doing things for our people or doing things for our people and doesn't just apply to those two specific examples, but applies to a lot more.

00:42:05.200 I think that, you know, this would be a great way to take the Venezuelan victory, if you want to call it that,

00:42:10.600 and use it to say we will help patriotically repatriate and humanitarian ways to remigrate you back home so your own country can be great.

00:42:19.920 Now, how effective or what line of attack they'll use remains to be seen, but I do agree with you is that, like, okay, we can easily commit an amazing military operation with no American casualties.

00:42:32.380 That's amazing. After months of planning and research and investigation and all the logistical support that goes into that, I think now with this, you know, big, beautiful bill budget,

00:42:42.120 I think that they can easily or they should be moving to do the same here in the United States.

00:42:47.620 Yeah, it would be nice if we went from invade the world, invite the world to invade the world and send them back.

00:42:53.340 You know, that would be...

00:42:54.260 I mean, that would be the best policy would be to, you know, if we're going to make the claim that we're liberators,

00:42:59.740 we're going to free the world and repatriate the world.

00:43:03.100 I think that that's a very great course of action that this administration could do.

00:43:06.720 It would solidify, you know, the American demographic situation in a way that, listen, you know, there are other places for you to go that don't have to be here.

00:43:15.400 And that at the same time, if we're already having net negative migration, which is great for the United States, 0.97

00:43:21.880 then there's a lot of opportunities going forward.

00:43:23.980 And like we said, you know, we're only a couple of days out since the strike.

00:43:27.180 We're only a few days into the new year.

00:43:29.700 And so God only really knows what this administration is going to do.

00:43:32.580 But I certainly hope it is to double its efforts on repatriating and remigrating those who shouldn't be here back to their home countries. 1.00

00:43:41.560 Now, Matthew, I've done...

00:43:43.680 Well, I've done some noticing.

00:43:45.920 And one of the things I noticed is that when our State Department was run by people whose ancestors were from Eastern Europe,

00:43:53.240 we went to war in Eastern Europe.

00:43:55.320 And then once we had people who were from Latin America or ancestors were from Latin America, run the State Department,

00:44:03.920 we fought wars in Latin America.

00:44:06.500 I don't know.

00:44:07.140 Maybe it's a coincidence, but it just seemed a little strange, a little connectivity there between, you know,

00:44:15.800 the histories of the people who are in charge of our State Department and where our forces get deployed.

00:44:23.880 I don't know.

00:44:24.300 I understand that, you know, this is not new for Marco Rubio.

00:44:28.380 Obviously, he has been a very aggressive opponent of Venezuela for years and wanted to be involved.

00:44:36.040 I think he was even involved in the original attempt to go ahead and topple the government previously.

00:44:44.100 So maybe this is just his hobby horse personally, but it seems to have some level of connection there.

00:44:51.000 Am I crazy for thinking this?

00:44:52.180 I mean, there's probably some truth to that as well.

00:44:56.220 I mean, who knows?

00:44:57.620 Maybe we'll finally get a Secretary of State with English origin and maybe we'll start, you know, doing things to France.

00:45:03.520 But I don't know how much we can base claim on those ancestry things.

00:45:08.620 But I mean, I mentioned earlier and I referenced William Appelman Williams.

00:45:12.640 He's definitely a new left scholar of the 60s and 70s.

00:45:15.740 The book is still worth reading, I think, in a lot of respects to contrast him with George Kennan and other American writers of foreign policy.

00:45:22.080 But I mean, when we look at the early 20th century, you know, in 1904, we were in Panama.

00:45:26.900 We were in Cuba in 1906 to 1909.

00:45:28.760 1907, Honduras, 1910, Nicaragua, 1911, Honduras again.

00:45:33.020 And throughout the 1910s and 20s, we were there quite often.

00:45:36.660 And so and once we add in our history in the Caribbean and Latin America with the Cold War, you know, there are things to echo there.

00:45:43.380 And I mean, I'm very happy to see Marco Rubio go from a gang of eight immigration reform supporter that potentially would have doomed the country demographically more so than the dire stakes that we are already in. 0.87

00:45:57.620 But now to see him tell Senator Tim Kaine, who might have been vice president, you know, some several years ago, had Hillary Clinton won, that he hates the Trump administration's refugee policy because he hates white people.

00:46:10.460 It's a good change of pace to see him go kind of in a 180 direction.

00:46:14.360 However, I know that Marco Rubio wears a lot of hats in the administration, and I certainly hope that whatever, you know, perhaps ancestral or ethnic concerns that he may have over the region, that he should prioritize that he serves the United States and the American people.

00:46:31.880 And it's the same question we have with all questions of immigration is dual loyalty.

00:46:35.920 I think that at least for Marco's case, you know, and the history of the United States is several decades and over a century of kind of, you know, being involved in South and Central America that we have to to look at this.

00:46:49.940 And I mean, even the debates over the Monroe Doctrine has a long and sordid history.

00:46:53.740 I have a lecture slash discussion with Mr. Christopher Sandbatch on my channel on that very issue discussing the history of the Monroe Doctrine.

00:47:01.280 I believe you mean the Don Roe?

00:47:03.380 Yeah, the Don Roe Doctrine. Yeah, what a great change of name.

00:47:06.380 I'll give it to Trump. However you feel about the strike, the man is a master.

00:47:09.240 Whatever you say, I will say this. Trump is the funniest president of my lifetime.

00:47:14.020 And he is the funniest president any of you will have in any of your lifetimes.

00:47:17.640 And that's very true.

00:47:18.740 But like, for instance, the first time that the Monroe Doctrine really gets debated in Congress is, I think it's under President Polk, and he wants to use it to defend white filibustering American settlers in the Yucatan Peninsula from being ethnically cleansed.

00:47:32.900 And so we have a long history of how that's been debated, whether it's to keep out European interests.

00:47:38.380 And of course, you have the Roosevelt Corollary. 0.54

00:47:40.360 It's things that we used to teach in American high schools, I'm sure, as you know, and now it doesn't get any attention at all whatsoever.

00:47:45.540 And I hope that this whole discussion over Venezuela and immigration in Central and South America renews American focus and history in this region, because it has been a long issue of debate since the Mexican-American War, the Texas Revolution.

00:48:00.040 John C. Calhoun, I think, has been very much vindicated on the issue when it comes to, say, refugees or immigration, because it's good to have spheres of influence and territory.

00:48:09.840 But we shouldn't allow individuals who have their own ethnic interests or their own political ideals for themselves to basically dictate what the rest of the country should be doing.

00:48:19.720 So I think that, like you said, it's important for us to consider who's running things, where we're being involved, but also at the same time, we need to maintain American sovereignty as much as we can so we can make other countries free from dictatorial rule so that they can go back home and make their countries great.

00:48:38.040 Right. And as you say, you know, Marco Rubio's development when it comes to things like immigration has been very good.

00:48:46.980 So definitely glad to see that the memes of Marco Rubio finding out he's about to be the president of Venezuela were pretty funny.

00:48:53.880 Those were consistently very good. But yeah, I think, again, it's early.

00:49:00.860 Everyone wants to declare how this is going to go or it's going to be a disaster.

00:49:05.720 It's an you know, it's a it's a total success and you don't need to worry about it.

00:49:11.640 And the answer is it's wait and see. Right.

00:49:13.920 We literally are monitoring the situation in this case.

00:49:16.920 It's hard to know what the end game totally was for the Trump administration.

00:49:21.800 How, as you say, they've already even walked back.

00:49:24.280 The we're running the country thing.

00:49:26.000 So it's one of those scenarios where we're just not sure the extent to which America will be involved on the ground going forward with the with the operation of the Venezuelan government, whether it's going to require additional strikes or direct military involvement and what the possible benefits could be.

00:49:45.080 What the long term plan is now that Maduro is no longer in power.

00:49:49.020 So these are all just questions that I mean, we could sit here and we can speculate.

00:49:52.780 There's plenty of that online.

00:49:54.220 Everyone's angry or celebrating.

00:49:56.740 But oh, and that's the last thing I actually want to ask you before we go.

00:50:01.600 Oh, by the way, guys, this is not live.

00:50:03.660 So we're not doing super chats.

00:50:05.440 I should have said that earlier.

00:50:06.340 I'll make sure to put that.

00:50:07.280 We'll take your money anyway.

00:50:08.640 Right. Right.

00:50:09.380 Yeah, definitely.

00:50:10.200 Definitely.

00:50:10.460 I'll put that in there so people know they're not just firing super chats into the void.

00:50:14.540 But last thing I want to say, this strike did seem pretty popular with the Republican base, despite the fact that, you know, certain new right elements didn't like the foreign policy and the left is going to yell at whatever Trump does.

00:50:29.640 It's very clear.

00:50:30.740 I mean, there's just it's a successful military operation.

00:50:33.300 It's a incredible deployment of prowess of the United States military demonstration of their ability to execute in very.

00:50:40.460 Impressive ways.

00:50:41.900 This is something that is always going to excite the American right.

00:50:45.100 We're not leftists like the end.

00:50:47.100 Like we like the fact that our military is good at their job and we crush our enemies if we need to.

00:50:51.280 So that that's going to always be a positive thing.

00:50:54.700 But is this just a demonstration that ultimately Americans want the empire?

00:50:59.080 I mean, you've said this to me before that America can't walk away from the empire.

00:51:03.040 America is the empire.

00:51:04.520 Or if it does walk away, it's going to lose a certain aspect of its identity.

00:51:07.980 Is this really just an indication that like you're going to be operating in this mode and this is what the American people ultimately want?

00:51:16.480 And so it's not it's not just the projection of our leaders, but it's actually the wish of our people.

00:51:21.580 Or is this ultimately just people trying to be supportive of the military, but ultimately they would like to see us walk away from this kind of thing?

00:51:28.660 I think that when we consider the claims of non-interventionism or isolationism, it never meant at any point in time that we were going to totally wall off and away from the world and effectively be North Korea or some far away place that no one ever hears about anymore.

00:51:48.100 America is and has been and while there are challengers to that title of the global hegemon or, you know, the superpower of the world or however you look at it, it means that America has to focus on itself.

00:52:00.160 And I mean, even prior to Trump being elected, many people in the foreign policy establishment, many people that you and I probably would not like at all, you know, former Council Foreign Relations President Richard Haas, who worked under George W. Bush, he wrote a book in 2014 called, you know, Foreign Policy Begins at Home.

00:52:14.780 And while his policy solutions to some of the issues he addressed, like our fiscal house or immigration or education in the sciences, some of them were probably not great.

00:52:26.120 Some of them probably could, you know, take a second look at.

00:52:29.320 But he was right that foreign policy begins at home.

00:52:32.620 We have to focus on ourselves.

00:52:34.580 And for a lot of Americans, that also means, you know, making sure that we're not getting screwed over by our neighbors.

00:52:40.360 And I think that the United States has seen quite clear as day, both from terrible immigration policy, but as well as the various fifth columns of support and political lobbying that, you know, we're not paying attention as much into our backyard as we used to.

00:52:57.820 We do not have the relationship with much of the Central and South America that we may have once had.

00:53:02.580 But also we've been so focused abroad that it is in time to look and retrench ourselves and show a foreign policy, as Barry Pozen described, a foreign policy of restraint that is focused on our immediate hemisphere.

00:53:14.340 Because there has been a great degree of influence and investment, especially from the Chinese in South America.

00:53:21.320 The Lithium Triangle has received a great deal of Chinese investment.

00:53:24.480 There has been, I think it's either Uruguay or Paraguay that has changed its position on the national recognition of Taiwan as a separate political entity because of Chinese investment over the last 15 years.

00:53:38.080 And so I think that, you know, taking this action and to see a lot of the Chinese react and be shocked that the Americans were going to even do something like this is part of it.

00:53:45.940 But I mean, Americans like to see a victory.

00:53:47.460 I mean, George Patton had said it best, you know, if losing is not something Americans like nor like to comprehend.

00:53:54.480 And so I think that despite how America has changed in the last 70 years demographically, that there is that American cultural proponent that's imprinted on everyone, which is that we like to see victory and we like to see winning.

00:54:07.300 But also at the same time, it's the same thing with like AI or nuclear weapons or other forms of technology.

00:54:12.580 Trying to be restrictive about it or to maybe take a step back and examine the social consequences, that's fine.

00:54:18.400 But they're not going to disappear.

00:54:20.100 We'll never see complete nuclear disarmament in our lifetimes because nuclear weapons are a surefire way to ensure national sovereignty because you now have a way to effectively end the world if you wanted to.

00:54:31.920 So I think that Americans want a country or an empire or superpower, whatever you want to call it.

00:54:37.920 They want it to serve them.

00:54:39.060 Everyone and their mother from Pat Buchanan to even people like Bronze Age Pervert have said time and time again that the United States runs an empire that extracts the wealth and the goodwill and the lifeblood of Americans for the benefit of everyone but Americans.

00:54:56.980 And if this administration is going to try and reverse that trend, then I certainly wish all the best to them and Godspeed because that would mean for the first time in my lifetime, America's foreign policy initiatives abroad are for seemingly the first time actually serving my interests.

00:55:14.060 And if that's something that they can pull off more power to them, and I think the American people will reward them for that.

00:55:18.780 Yeah, Hadrian was never going to end the Roman Empire, but he can at least make it more reasonable, right?

00:55:24.660 He can ultimately turn it around and make it something that is not expanding constantly and recognizes natural borders and what's perhaps more wise for the stability of the empire.

00:55:38.280 And perhaps Trump can do something similar for the American empire.

00:55:41.980 He can turn it, you know, it's going to continue to exist at some level.

00:55:46.980 That's just a geopolitical reality.

00:55:49.060 Perhaps, however, you can show a certain level of restraint, a focus on benefiting the American people rather than expanding the empire simply for the sake of expansion.

00:55:58.180 And as you say, you know, that could ultimately be the best option available.

00:56:02.660 All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap this one up here again.

00:56:05.080 Sorry, but we are not live, so we cannot answer any of your super chance chats, but it has been fantastic to return in 2026 now with Matthew.

00:56:14.920 Where can they find your great stuff, man?

00:56:16.760 Yeah, sure.

00:56:17.280 So you can usually find me anytime that you, you know, usually see the frog on my Twitter profile at Mr. Prudentialist.

00:56:23.000 I am on YouTube as well and on Substack, the Prudentialist.substack.com.

00:56:27.760 Maybe some things will change in the future, but those links are going to be easy for you to find all of the work that I do.

00:56:32.860 As for me, the only things I've got coming up is later this month, I will be reviewing a book on a show I call Do You Even Read?

00:56:40.580 We'll be reflecting on Georgia Sorrell's Reflections on Violence and our ongoing series of looking at various political works that everyone says you should read, but we actually take the time to do it.

00:56:51.760 So thank you so much, Oren, for having me on.

00:56:53.980 This was a great way to kick off 2026, and I look forward to being on again.

00:56:58.320 All right, guys.

00:56:59.260 Well, make sure you're checking out Matt's work.

00:57:00.780 And, of course, if it's your first time on this channel, you need to click subscribe on YouTube, the bell, the notifications, all that stuff, so you know when we go live.

00:57:07.820 If you want to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you need to subscribe to The Orman McIntyre Show on your favorite podcast network.

00:57:13.880 And when you do, leave a rating or review.

00:57:16.060 It helps with the algorithm magic.

00:57:18.000 Great talking to everyone.

00:57:19.040 Happy New Year, and I will see you next time.

00:57:21.840 Bye-bye.

00:57:25.520 Bye-bye.

00:57:26.800 Bye-bye.

00:57:29.440 Bye-bye.

00:57:30.000 Bye-bye.

00:57:30.760 Bye-bye.

00:57:33.220 Bye-bye.

00:57:33.780 Bye-bye.

00:57:37.180 Bye-bye.

00:57:38.740 Bye-bye.

00:57:40.780 Bye-bye.

00:57:42.680 Bye-bye.

00:57:43.000 Bye-bye.

00:57:43.980 Bye-bye.

00:57:45.440 Bye-bye.

00:57:48.200 Bye-bye.

00:57:48.920 Bye-bye.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - January 05, 2026

Trump Strikes Venezuela ... What Comes Next？｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸5⧸26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The Auron MacIntyre Show - January 05, 2026

Trump Strikes Venezuela ... What Comes Next？ ｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸5⧸26

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Trump Strikes Venezuela ... What Comes Next？｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸5⧸26