The Ben Shapiro Show - 2026 SHOCK: Trump DEPOSES Maduro!

00:00:00.000 The Trump administration deposes Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in a shocking and astonishing mission by the United States military.

00:00:07.000 Plus, is the Iranian regime going to fall?

00:00:10.000 And governor of Minnesota Tim Walz announces he is not running for re-election in the wake of gigantic fraud allegations.

00:00:16.000 First, we are only five days into the year.

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00:00:32.000 This is why the Daily Wire exists.

00:00:34.000 You get serious investigative journalism uncovering domestic issues like fraud in Minneapolis, real reporting on major international developments like the U.S. operation in Venezuela.

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00:00:55.000 Well, folks, we are here, 2026, and it's going to be a huge year as this year develops.

00:01:00.000 You're going to hear about all the exciting things that we have planned here for you at Daily Wire.

00:01:04.000 It's more than we have ever done before by a very, very long shot.

00:01:09.000 But I want to start this year by talking about some big predictions for 2026.

00:01:12.000 2026 is the year of clarity.

00:01:15.000 All the veils are going to fall.

00:01:17.000 People are going to show you who they are.

00:01:20.000 Now, that can be scary.

00:01:21.000 Sometimes it's difficult to deal with the realities of life, the realities of people you once trusted showing themselves to be something else.

00:01:27.000 It can also be surprising and heartening because sometimes people show themselves to be a lot better than you thought they were.

00:01:32.000 But this year, events in the United States and the world more broadly are going to unmask nearly everyone.

00:01:38.000 Why?

00:01:38.000 Well, because I think we are on the precipice of something pretty big.

00:01:41.000 And when big things happen, when the world becomes more chaotic, people reveal themselves.

00:01:46.000 Adversity reveals character.

00:01:48.000 And we're about to experience some adversity as Americans.

00:01:50.000 Where will that adversity come from?

00:01:52.000 Well, it could come from the international sphere.

00:01:55.000 Adversity may spring from China's authoritarian ambitions against Taiwan or its global desire to expand power bases from Africa to Latin America.

00:02:02.000 Already, we've seen some politicians and commentators shying away from revealing the realities about China, fearful that doing so could undercut their delusional vision of a world in which America in retreat is somehow good rather than harmful.

00:02:16.000 Adversity could arise from the continued conflict between Russia and Ukraine or from Russia's growing ambitions in the region and globally.

00:02:22.000 Many figures are already revealing themselves in their views of Russia, often evidencing shocking blindness toward what Russia is, what Russia wants, up to and including full-scale propagandizing on behalf of a tyrannical regime steeped in hatred of the values of the United States.

00:02:36.000 Adversity could come from Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and international terrorism, or its desperate desire to stave off internal regime change, or from its propaganda arms in Qatar and elsewhere, pushing anti-Western, anti-American bull.

00:02:49.000 Many politicians and commentators are already showing themselves willing to do anything and everything on behalf of such regimes, up to and including flying cover for radical Islam. 0.70

00:02:59.000 Adversity might emanate from chaos in our southern hemisphere, where rogue states like Venezuela were pursuing deeper relations with our enemies until President Trump acted, as we'll get to in a moment, or from Europe, where unchecked immigration, combined with regulatory overreach, threatens to doom an entire continent to stagnation and disarray.

00:03:15.000 Could come from any other variety of sources on the foreign front.

00:03:19.000 The world is a chaotic place.

00:03:20.000 It's a more chaotic place when America is weak, as many on the left and the right wish to make her. 1.00

00:03:25.000 Adversity will arise domestically too.

00:03:28.000 Adversity may come in the form of economic turmoil.

00:03:30.000 While the economy right now appears to be in pretty good shape, nobody knows how the current AI investment cycle will play out in the short term.

00:03:37.000 And economic turmoil brings with it political vultures.

00:03:40.000 Already, we've seen some conservatives turning away from defense of free markets in favor of statism that seems more familiar from the left.

00:03:47.000 And we've seen leftists embracing the most extreme versions of wealth seizure and collectivist centralization.

00:03:54.000 Adversity will certainly originate in the size and scope of our massive and bureaucratic government, which provides extraordinary obstacles to American achievement and overwhelming support to people who are willing to steal from their fellow Americans.

00:04:05.000 Adversity will certainly come too in the form of reactionary posturing.

00:04:08.000 Lies told by the left will be mirrored in lies told by the right, and vice versa, resulting in a continued spiral of conspiratorial polarization totally disconnected from the actual lives of most Americans.

00:04:20.000 Already, we've seen cynical politicians and morally corrupt commentators spew untruths in pursuit of algorithmic momentum, and that is definitely going to accelerate this year.

00:04:30.000 Politicians and commentators reveal themselves in how they react to adversity.

00:04:34.000 So, do they react by telling you the truth, no matter how much their audience might dislike it?

00:04:39.000 Or do they lie to you by telling you the things they think you want to hear?

00:04:42.000 Do they react out of principle or out of convenience?

00:04:44.000 Do they recommend coalitional solidarity at the expense of basic decency and integrity and truth?

00:04:50.000 In other words, do they treat you like a sucker or do they treat you like a citizen?

00:04:54.000 Of course, it's an election year, and that means that we're going to be swamped by lies and prevarications, by a lot of politicians who promise the moon and deliver nothing.

00:05:02.000 We'll be swamped too by commentators who suggest that political failure results generally from a lack of Nietzschean will rather than the complicated give and take of normal day-to-day politics, and who say that if you get more outraged, conspiratorial, and angry, somehow our politics will improve.

00:05:20.000 How will we, Americans, react to that adversity, that onslaught of cultivated resentment and Machiavellian manipulation?

00:05:27.000 The American Republic is founded on the one hand in a fundamental supposition that human beings are capable of discernment, of acting morally when faced with adversity, of preferring truth to comforting falsehood, of recognizing our own fallibility.

00:05:40.000 And the American Republic is founded on the other hand on the reality of human nature's darker side, our tribalism, our vanality, our selfishness.

00:05:48.000 All of which, when put together, is why our founders preferred a republic of checks and balances rather than a Francoist dictatorship or a pure democracy.

00:05:56.000 It's why James Madison wrote in Federalist 51: Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

00:06:01.000 The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.

00:06:05.000 It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.

00:06:11.000 But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

00:06:14.000 If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

00:06:17.000 If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

00:06:22.000 In framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this.

00:06:27.000 You must first enable the government to control the governed and, in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

00:06:32.000 So, in the end, it's up to us.

00:06:35.000 We have to become better at discernment.

00:06:37.000 We have to act with humility.

00:06:39.000 We, the American people, must discern who is telling us the truth, even when we don't want to hear it, and who is lying to us out of audience capture or political expediency or sycophancy.

00:06:50.000 We have to work to preserve the checks and balances of our system, even checks and balances that might seem to deprive us of temporary power.

00:06:57.000 If we don't, we risk an authoritarian centralization that turns against basic freedom.

00:07:02.000 What's more, we risk an arrogance about our own nature that surely turns to disaster, even if our side seems to have that temporary upper hand.

00:07:10.000 Most of all, we have to remember this: people who promise utopia, an end to adversity, an end to the chaos and turmoil of life, so long as you give them your trust and your power, are providing you a Faustian bargain in which you receive neither utopia nor freedom.

00:07:25.000 Those who tell you that your future is not in your hands and who encourage you to surrender whatever is left of that future to a demoralizing conspiracism, those people are lying to you and they are lying to you for their own gain.

00:07:37.000 And you deserve better than that, and we all deserve better than that.

00:07:40.000 So, let 2026 be a year of clarity.

00:07:43.000 Let people reveal themselves for who they are and believe them when they show you.

00:07:46.000 And may we all approach the adversities of whatever comes our way with the courage, conviction, and decency that make America truly great.

00:07:54.000 We'll get to everything that just went down in Venezuela in a moment.

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00:10:10.000 Okay, now on to the news of the day, which is the news of the year, which is not saying a lot since we are only a few days into the year, but my goodness, the president of the United States has begun 2026 with a bang, literally a bang, because over the course of the last couple of days, the United States deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro by sending in American troops to essentially extradite him to the United States.

00:10:38.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, by the time the sun rose in Caracas, this would have been Saturday morning, Nicholas Maduro's nearly 13-year grip on power had ended.

00:10:47.000 In handcuffs, blindfolded, wearing a gray sweatsuit, he was on a U.S. warship on his way to New York City to face narco-terrorism charges following a five-hour operation.

00:10:56.000 What happens next isn't clear.

00:10:57.000 We'll get to that in a moment.

00:10:59.000 The mission, apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, was the culmination of months of secretive planning and a series of mixed signals that allowed the United States to preserve the element of surprise, even though the incursion at times seemed inevitable.

00:11:11.000 Starting late this past summer, intelligence personnel began tracking what Maduro ate and wore, where he lived and traveled.

00:11:17.000 And they were helped apparently by an asset within the Venezuelan leader's inner circle, according to administration officials and others familiar with the operation.

00:11:24.000 We'll get back to who that source was, who they were likely working for, because that has implications for what happens next.

00:11:30.000 Meanwhile, U.S. Special Operations rehearsed and rehearsed, practicing how to extract the Venezuelan president inside a replica of his fortified compound.

00:11:39.000 Apparently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller met regularly to discuss the mission.

00:11:48.000 Trump's advisors were torn about the wisdom of a military operation, and they offered conflicting statements publicly.

00:11:55.000 Military officials told Trump any mistake could result in embarrassing failure.

00:11:59.000 And they warned that some members of the conservative base would be outraged, even if it was successful, which we'll get to again in a moment, because there are some pseudo-conservatives who are spending today fulminating about the great evil of the United States taking out one of the worst dictators on planet Earth and certainly the worst dictator in the Western hemisphere.

00:12:19.000 President Trump ultimately concluded that Maduro, indicted in the United States, needed to face justice and that his supporters would still back his decision, which, by the way, is true.

00:12:28.000 Apparently, there was a plan in place by late December.

00:12:32.000 Trump tried to pressure Maduro to basically go into exile on his own.

00:12:35.000 He refused.

00:12:37.000 The U.S. thought about doing this on Christmas and also on New Year's Day, but the weather prevented it.

00:12:41.000 And then finally, at 10:46 p.m. on Friday, Operation Absolute Resolve was a go.

00:12:47.000 Here is General Dan Raisin Kane detailing the operational details for Absolute Resolve.

00:12:54.000 Last night, on the order of the President of the United States and in support of a request from the Department of Justice, as the President said, the United States military conducted an apprehension mission in Caracas, Venezuela to bring to justice two indicted persons, Nicholas and Cecile Maduro.

00:13:11.000 This operation, known as Operation Absolute Resolve, was discreet, precise, and conducted during the darkest hours of January 2nd and was the culmination of months of planning and rehearsal, an operation that, frankly, only the United States military could undertake.

00:13:30.000 Our interagency work began months ago and built on decades of experience of integrating complex air, ground, space, and maritime operations.

00:13:40.000 While the past two decades have honed the skills of our special operations forces, this particular mission required every component of our joint force with soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians working in unison with our intelligence agency partners and law enforcement teammates in an unprecedented operation.

00:14:04.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States sent overwhelming air power for the operation that included F-18s, F-22s, F-35s, EA-18 Growlers, E-2 Hawkeye Command and Control Aircraft, B-1 bombers.

00:14:15.000 They were tasked with dismantling and disabling Venezuela's air defense systems, which they did highly successfully.

00:14:20.000 Again, Russian defenses were being used by the Venezuelans.

00:14:23.000 Apparently, the Praetorian Guard from Maduro was Cuban.

00:14:26.000 He is propped up by outside regimes or was.

00:14:29.000 The helicopters, which carried an extraction force and law enforcement officers, at some points flew only 100 feet above the water during the flights into Venezuela, which is astonishing.

00:14:38.000 One U.S. aircraft was hit during the operation.

00:14:40.000 It remained flyable.

00:14:41.000 It returned home safely.

00:14:42.000 U.S. forces sustained some injuries.

00:14:44.000 No Americans were killed, according to President Trump.

00:14:46.000 At 2:01 local time, according to General Raisin Kane, a U.S. Delta force team arrived at Maduro's compound.

00:14:52.000 As they approached, the U.S. helicopters came under fire, and American forces then responded with overwhelming force and self-defense.

00:14:59.000 U.S. special forces arrived inside Maduro's compound.

00:15:02.000 They exchanged gunfire with Venezuelan personnel.

00:15:04.000 Probably some of those people were Cuban.

00:15:05.000 Maduro and his wife attempted to flee into a steel-reinforced safe room.

00:15:09.000 They were unable to close the door in time.

00:15:11.000 They gave up and they were taken into custody by the Justice Department.

00:15:15.000 President Trump announced the strike at 4:21 a.m. via Truth Social.

00:15:20.000 He said, Quote, the United States has successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country.

00:15:29.000 This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. law enforcement details to follow.

00:15:32.000 There will be a news conference at 11 a.m. at Mar-a-Lago.

00:15:35.000 Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.

00:15:38.000 Unbelievable.

00:15:39.000 Here are some of the images from the makeshift situation room that was set up at Mar-a-Lago.

00:15:45.000 As you can see, it's Pete Hegseth.

00:15:47.000 That'd be the CIA director John Ratcliffe and the president of the United States who are sitting in this makeshift operations room watching this thing play out.

00:15:57.000 Another picture, of course, of the president of the United States looking on as the operation takes place.

00:16:03.000 And then you have the president flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe, the leader of the CIA.

00:16:09.000 An excellent top team here for the president of the United States, as the success of the mission would seem to suggest.

00:16:16.000 Maduro was then brought aboard the USS Iwo Jima, wearing a Nike tracksuit.

00:16:22.000 And of course, they have the ear and eye blackout on him, so he doesn't know quite where he is.

00:16:30.000 There is tape of him being escorted by a swarm of agents in New York onto the tarmac.

00:16:35.000 Any attempt by New York Mayor Zorhan Mamdani to prevent all of this was unsuccessful.

00:16:39.000 Here was Nicolas Maduro being escorted onto American soil.

00:16:45.000 In what looks like a maybe a gray or blue sweatshirt.

00:16:49.000 We saw him a little bit earlier on the image that the president posted, blindfolded and handcuffed.

00:16:54.000 And it appears maybe he's still blindfolded in a gray sweatshirt, which would likely come off as blue given the daylight scenario, the lack of daylight.

00:17:07.000 Maduro has been transferred to a Manhattan federal courthouse early on Monday, where he is set to appear on charges related to cocaine trafficking.

00:17:15.000 Here is the tape of his perp walk at the DEA New York City headquarters.

00:17:24.000 As you can see, here he is being walked through.

00:17:29.000 It's an astonishing thing what the president of the United States and the U.S. military just pulled off.

00:17:34.000 And first of all, let's just be clear: the U.S. military is so badass, it's astonishing.

00:17:38.000 I mean, truly amazing, truly, truly amazing.

00:17:41.000 As the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said, F-A-F-O, Nicholas Maduro had been taunting the United States for a very long time, and it turns out that President Trump is not one to be taunted.

00:17:51.000 Here is the Secretary of Defense.

00:17:55.000 Nicholas Maduro had his chance, just like Iran had their chance, until they didn't and until he didn't. 0.82

00:18:04.000 He effed around and he found out.

00:18:08.000 Well, fair enough.

00:18:09.000 Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed that idea.

00:18:11.000 He said, listen, when President Trump says a thing, he means he is going to do the thing.

00:18:16.000 But I want to be clear about one thing.

00:18:17.000 Nicolas Maduro had multiple opportunities to avoid this.

00:18:21.000 He was provided multiple very, very, very generous offers and chose instead to act like a wild man, chose instead to play around.

00:18:29.000 And the result is what we saw tonight.

00:18:31.000 The other message here is the following.

00:18:33.000 You have a guy, like many people around the world, they like to play games.

00:18:36.000 You have a guy who decides he's going to invite Iran into his country, is going to do the confiscation of American oil companies, is going to flood our country with gang members, is going to take Americans prisoner and try to hold them for hostage and trade them like he was able to do with the Biden administration.

00:18:52.000 Basically likes to play games all this time and thinks nothing's going to happen.

00:18:56.000 And I hope what people now understand is that we have a president.

00:18:58.000 The 47th president of the United States is not a game player.

00:19:02.000 When he tells you that he's going to do something, when he tells you he's going to address a problem, he means it.

00:19:08.000 This does have major implications for America's pursuit of its own political interests around the world, because what it means, the president is not one to bluff.

00:19:16.000 This is the second major military operation pursued by the Trump administration that involved essentially a few hours of American force, resulting in catastrophic consequences for America's enemies.

00:19:27.000 The first, of course, was last year when the president authorized that B-2 bomber flight into Iran to take out the Fordo nuclear facility, totally upending geopolitics in the region with one airstrike.

00:19:38.000 And now what he's done with Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

00:19:42.000 President Trump explained exactly what he is doing.

00:19:44.000 And again, I have been saying for a very long time that President Trump's foreign policy is not isolationism.

00:19:50.000 Anyone who has been telling you that it is isolationism is lying to you, lying to you.

00:19:55.000 By the way, their view of foreign policy also happens to be wrong about the world, just as a matter of reality, which we'll get to in a little while here.

00:20:04.000 The president was on this program before the election, explaining that his foreign policy is peace through strength, that he pursues America's interests in muscular, realist fashion.

00:20:13.000 He's not interested in long-term hundreds of thousands of troops occupying place.

00:20:17.000 He's not interested in Iraq-style occupations, but he is interested in pursuing America's real hard interests in the world because that does put Americans first.

00:20:27.000 He has always been clear about this.

00:20:28.000 Anybody who, again, has been lying to you about this was doing just that lying to you.

00:20:32.000 Well, here's President Trump explaining why he just did what he did.

00:20:36.000 Why is running a country in South America, America first?

00:20:40.000 Well, I think it is because we want to surround ourselves with good neighbors.

00:20:43.000 We want to surround ourselves with stability.

00:20:47.000 We want to surround ourselves with energy.

00:20:49.000 We have tremendous energy in that country.

00:20:51.000 It's very important that we protect it.

00:20:53.000 We need that for ourselves.

00:20:54.000 We need that for the world.

00:20:55.000 And we want to make sure we can protect it.

00:20:59.000 Why, I mean, it's almost as though the president understands that the United States exists on a globe.

00:21:05.000 And on that globe are many other countries.

00:21:06.000 And we have interests in what happens in those other countries, including in places like Venezuela, or, for example, in Iran, or for example, in Taiwan, or maybe even, for example, in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

00:21:18.000 It turns out that the United States is the world's dominant hegemon, has interests in a lot of different areas.

00:21:23.000 That doesn't mean that we should, of course, be in full-scale occupational war mode in all or any of those areas.

00:21:29.000 It does mean that pretending that an America in retreat, that retreats inside its own borders, makes Americans safer and more prosperous, that is a lie.

00:21:36.000 And that's something the president of the United States understands.

00:21:39.000 Here is the president also explaining over the course of the last 48 hours that, as opposed to Afghanistan, we are no longer a laughingstock, that Joe Biden made us a laughing stock, that Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan likely led to the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin.

00:21:53.000 And President Trump says, listen, if our policy is indeed, as the Secretary of War says, FAFO, then fewer people are likely to FA.

00:22:03.000 Compare this to Afghanistan, where we were a laughing stock all over the world.

00:22:08.000 We're not a laughingstock anymore.

00:22:09.000 No, we have the greatest military in the world by far.

00:22:12.000 We have the greatest equipment, military equipment in the world by far.

00:22:18.000 He is not wrong, of course.

00:22:20.000 Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on pretty much all of the Sunday shows and was grilled by a wide variety of reporters, many of whom were very critical of President Trump for not doing anything about Maduro during his first term.

00:22:30.000 Watching everybody flip and suddenly become Maduro defender.

00:22:33.000 This is President Trump's magical gift politically.

00:22:36.000 Whatever he does, a bunch of people always have to come out in opposition to it.

00:22:40.000 It doesn't matter if he deposes a murderous dictator like Nicolas Maduro.

00:22:40.000 Always.

00:22:44.000 Some people still have to be upset about it.

00:22:46.000 Well, here was the Secretary of State explaining that actually this is in the national interest of the United States.

00:22:53.000 So now there are other people in charge of the military and police apparatus there.

00:22:58.000 They're going to have to decide now what direction they want to go.

00:23:01.000 And we hope they will choose a different direction than the one Nicolas Maduro picked.

00:23:05.000 Ultimately, we hope this leads to a holistic transition all the way around in Venezuela, societal, political, all of that.

00:23:11.000 We're in favor of all of that.

00:23:13.000 But right now, we have to take the first steps.

00:23:15.000 And the first steps are securing what's in the national interest of the United States and also beneficial to the people of Venezuela.

00:23:21.000 And those are the things that we're focused on right now.

00:23:23.000 No more drug trafficking.

00:23:24.000 No more Iran has beloved presence there and no more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world and not benefiting the people of Venezuela or frankly, benefiting the United States and the region. 0.82

00:23:39.000 President Trump has called this the Don Rowe doctrine as opposed to the Monroe Doctrine.

00:23:44.000 I got to say, I kind of love.

00:23:46.000 Here's the president of the United States.

00:23:49.000 All of these actions were in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy, dating back more than two centuries and not anymore.

00:24:02.000 All the way back, it dated to the Monroe doctrines.

00:24:07.000 And the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we've superseded it by a lot.

00:24:14.000 By a real lot.

00:24:16.000 They now call it the Donroe Document.

00:24:18.000 I don't know.

00:24:23.000 Everything's branded.

00:24:24.000 Everything's branded.

00:24:25.000 It's pretty hysterical.

00:24:26.000 Okay, so to go back for a moment so people even understand what the hell is going on.

00:24:30.000 Who is Nicolas Maduro?

00:24:31.000 Why does any of this matter?

00:24:32.000 So Nicolas Maduro took over for the strongman, Hugo Chavez, who had transitioned Venezuela from an oil-rich democratic state into a socialist dictatorship, totally oppositional to the interests of the United States in 1999.

00:24:46.000 Hugo Chavez died in 2013, and Nicolas Maduro took over as his successor.

00:24:52.000 There has not been a real election in Venezuela for a quarter century because of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

00:24:59.000 He was responsible for tens of thousands of extrajudicial executions, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

00:25:05.000 Typically, I don't cite the UN as a source.

00:25:07.000 But when the UN is critical of left-wing dictators, it's probably true because the UN is, in fact, run by people who are friendly to left-wing dictators as a general rule.

00:25:16.000 Health and hunger crises have likely cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

00:25:19.000 Infant mortality skyrocketed under the Chavez and then under the Maduro regimes.

00:25:25.000 Between 2013 and 2021, when Maduro was already in charge, GDP per capita in Venezuela dropped by 75%.

00:25:34.000 75%.

00:25:35.000 In 1999, GDP per capita in Venezuela, this is just before Chavez took over, was about $4,000 per year.

00:25:42.000 By 2021, it was $1,500 per year.

00:25:47.000 Today, it is still under $3,000 per capita.

00:25:51.000 And there's no excuse for this because, of course, Venezuela is one of the most resource-rich nations on earth, rich in gold, rich in oil.

00:25:58.000 Oil production dropped from 3.2 million barrels of oil per day in 1999 to 850,000 barrels of oil per day.

00:26:06.000 Again, that is a 75% drop in oil production.

00:26:09.000 Why?

00:26:10.000 Because they nationalized the oil industry.

00:26:11.000 They barred American companies from trafficking in oil, from drilling, from ownership in the oil industry, which meant less production.

00:26:21.000 Because when you nationalize things and then you hand over all the proceeds to your cronies, it turns out things become wildly less productive.

00:26:27.000 Hyperinflation then set in because the government didn't have enough money to pay for all of the services it had promised.

00:26:32.000 So it just started printing money.

00:26:34.000 Over the course of the Chavez and then Maduro regimes, nearly 8 million people, it's like 25% of the entire population fled Venezuela.

00:26:44.000 In terms of international geopolitics, Maduro was an ally of all of America's enemies.

00:26:48.000 He made common cause with Russia.

00:26:50.000 It was Russian weapons that were supposed to provide air cover for Maduro.

00:26:54.000 Obviously, that failed.

00:26:56.000 They had shipped the Russians into Venezuela systems, including the S-300 VM and Buk M2 missiles, none of which did any good against American forces.

00:27:05.000 China, of course, is a major patron state of Venezuela.

00:27:08.000 They lent them some $50 billion repaid in crude oil.

00:27:11.000 China has some natural resources, but not a lot of oil.

00:27:14.000 They get a lot of it from Venezuela and a lot of it from Iran.

00:27:16.000 70% of all Venezuelan oil exports went to China.

00:27:21.000 Obviously, the Iran, China, Russia, Axis is very involved in Venezuela as well.

00:27:28.000 Not only, as you heard the Secretary of State mention, does Iran actually have fighters in Venezuela?

00:27:34.000 Hezbollah actually does work in Venezuela, but Iran sent Dilowins to process its heavy crude, and Venezuela paid in gold.

00:27:42.000 Iran manufactures suicide drones in Venezuela as well.

00:27:46.000 Okay, so those are all reasons why the United States has an interest.

00:27:49.000 And that's leaving aside the massive drug trafficking into the United States, the massive migration north that has happened because of misgovernance in Venezuela, the fact that Venezuela is a sponsor state of Cuba, which of course exists very short distance from the United States.

00:28:04.000 So what comes next?

00:28:06.000 Well, first we have to sort of determine what happened here.

00:28:08.000 So there are a couple of models for changing regimes in Latin and South America.

00:28:12.000 One model is what I think we just saw in Venezuela.

00:28:15.000 The other model is what we saw in Panama.

00:28:17.000 So a lot of people are likening what we saw in Venezuela over the weekend to what happened in Panama under George H.W. Bush.

00:28:25.000 So there was an invasion of Panama that happened under George H.W. Bush, in which Manuel Noriega, who was the dictator of Panama, was arrested, brought to the United States, charged.

00:28:39.000 And then the regime in Panama was essentially overthrown.

00:28:43.000 Noriega ended up being tried and convicted in the United States on charges of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering and served 20 years in the U.S. and then was extradited to France.

00:28:53.000 The basis for invading Panama at that time was that Noriega had declared a state of war and the U.S. had declared a response to an imminent threat.

00:29:00.000 There were about 35,000 Americans living in the canal zone.

00:29:04.000 And so the United States took significant action.

00:29:07.000 We had 13,000 troops in the Panama Canal Zone in the first place because we built it.

00:29:12.000 And we added another 14,000 troops.

00:29:14.000 And then we didn't just depose Noriega.

00:29:16.000 We swore in Guillermo Andara, who was the winner of the 1989 election as president and dismantled the entire Panamanian defense forces and replaced them with the Panamanian public forces.

00:29:26.000 So that is not what happened here.

00:29:28.000 What happened here is a large-scale airstrike in Caracas, the use of special forces in order to extradite Maduro and the vice president, who is, in fact, a hard-nosed socialist Machiavellian player named Delsi Rodriguez, who is as bad as Maduro in nearly every way, except that may see reality, maybe more pragmatic than Maduro.

00:29:51.000 She was immediately sworn in and is apparently expressing willingness to cooperate with the United States transition.

00:29:57.000 So what this looks more like is a palace coup.

00:29:59.000 And that brings us back to that statement in the Wall Street Journal that there were sources who were close to Maduro who were giving the United States information.

00:30:05.000 Would not be a surprise at all at all if those sources were very close to Del City Rodriguez, the vice president of Venezuela.

00:30:12.000 Now, if Rodriguez remains in power for a long period of time without granting America her interests in Venezuela, then that's the way you can judge whether this is a success or a failure.

00:30:22.000 Do things change in Venezuela?

00:30:25.000 Now, President Trump surprised a lot of people by saying that, for example, the opposition leader in Venezuela, who just won the Nobel Peace Prize, would not be the new leader of Venezuela, at least in the short term, Maria Machado.

00:30:42.000 So President Trump was asked about Machado.

00:30:44.000 He said she's nice, but she doesn't have the support.

00:30:48.000 Oh, I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader.

00:30:50.000 She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country.

00:30:53.000 She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect. 0.96

00:30:58.000 Okay, so what does he mean by that?

00:30:59.000 He doesn't mean that she doesn't actually have the quote-unquote respect.

00:31:02.000 What he actually means is that she does not have control of the military apparatus.

00:31:06.000 And absent the United States inserting tens of thousands of troops to overthrow the Venezuelan military, the United States instead is going to put extraordinary external pressure on Del Codriguez to initiate change.

00:31:19.000 If he had immediately come out, for example, and said we're going to put Machado in place, that might have started a civil war in Venezuela.

00:31:26.000 It may have required massive American interventionism on the ground.

00:31:30.000 So right now, the Trump administration is going to try and work with Del Codriguez to effectuate that change.

00:31:36.000 Rodriguez, for her part, is already virtue signaling to all of her socialist friends.

00:31:40.000 She's saying the Zionists did this.

00:31:42.000 What can't the Zionists do? 1.00

00:31:43.000 My goodness.

00:31:44.000 I mean, really, pretty incredible at everything, apparently.

00:31:46.000 But she's doing that. 0.93

00:31:48.000 She's, of course, saying it's terrible that the United States took Maduro out.

00:31:51.000 Wink, wink, nod, nod.

00:31:54.000 In reality, it seems as though the Trump administration is going to use external pressure to get Del Codriguez to open up the oil industry, to maybe make some democratic changes, to transition toward a more orderly system.

00:32:05.000 Here is President Trump suggesting the United States is running Venezuela.

00:32:08.000 And again, people are taking this at face value.

00:32:11.000 People are suggesting this means that Marco Rubio is now dictator of Venezuela.

00:32:15.000 What President Trump, I believe, means that the United States' external pressure on Venezuela will cause the new regime leadership to work with us.

00:32:24.000 And if they don't, there's more where that came from.

00:32:28.000 So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.

00:32:36.000 And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about.

00:32:42.000 We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela.

00:32:47.000 And that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country.

00:32:56.000 It's their homeland.

00:32:58.000 We can't take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.

00:33:07.000 And so what he means there is we're going to keep our boot on the throat of Del Codriguez and the administration there.

00:33:13.000 And again, he's warning her.

00:33:14.000 He says, listen, if you don't do what we want you to do, then maybe we'll do it again, right?

00:33:18.000 We're not, we don't want boots on the ground there, but if you don't do what we want you to do, then there might be boots on the ground.

00:33:22.000 We're not going to telegraph what we're doing.

00:33:26.000 Does the U.S. running the country mean that U.S. troops will be on the ground?

00:33:30.000 How will that work?

00:33:31.000 Well, you know, they always say boots on the ground.

00:33:33.000 Oh, so we're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have.

00:33:36.000 We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level, actually.

00:33:40.000 We're not afraid of it.

00:33:42.000 We don't mind saying it.

00:33:45.000 Again, that is him saying F around and find out.

00:33:47.000 Marco Rubio was asked by Kristen Welker over at NBC about President Trump's comments on quote-unquote running Venezuela.

00:33:52.000 And here's what the Secretary of State had to say.

00:33:55.000 Concerning policy, the policy with regards to this.

00:33:58.000 We want Venezuela to move in a certain direction because not only do we think it's good for the people of Venezuela, it's in our national interest.

00:34:04.000 It either touches on something that's a threat to our national security or touches on something that's either beneficial or harmful.

00:34:09.000 And are you involved in that transition?

00:34:11.000 So obviously I'm very involved in this.

00:34:13.000 Well, of course, I mean, I think everyone knows I'm pretty involved on politics in this hemisphere.

00:34:17.000 Obviously, a Secretary of State, a national security advisor, very involved in all these elements.

00:34:22.000 The Department of War plays a very important role here, along with the Department of Justice, for example, because they're the ones that have to go to court.

00:34:28.000 So this is a team effort by the entire national security apparatus of our country, but it is running this policy.

00:34:36.000 Okay, so again, Secretary of State Rubio, by the way, coming off amazingly well in all of this.

00:34:41.000 I have to say, this is a huge moment for Secretary of State Rubio.

00:34:44.000 President Trump suggested that, yes, there are some hard American interests at stake here, including oil.

00:34:50.000 It is pretty amazing that President Trump just says all the quiet parts out loud.

00:34:53.000 And frankly, I think it's good.

00:34:55.000 Yes, America has an interest in Venezuelan oil that we opened up in the first place.

00:34:59.000 Let us be clear, it was American companies that opened the Venezuelan oil industry.

00:35:03.000 Here's President Trump saying this.

00:35:06.000 In addition, Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets, and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars.

00:35:20.000 They did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it.

00:35:24.000 They took all of our property.

00:35:26.000 It was our property.

00:35:28.000 We built it.

00:35:30.000 Okay, he's right about that.

00:35:32.000 He says that it is a priority for the United States to rebuild Venezuela's energy infrastructure, and that will create gains in the economy for Venezuelans, which, of course, is true.

00:35:39.000 President Trump was also asked what happens next.

00:35:42.000 And he said, listen, it's not just Venezuela.

00:35:44.000 Countries had better start doing what is in America's interest, or there might be changes there as well.

00:35:49.000 He was asked about the country of Colombia, and he had these comments.

00:35:55.000 Colombia is very sick, too.

00:35:56.000 Run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.

00:36:02.000 And he's not going to be doing it very long.

00:36:04.000 What does that mean?

00:36:10.000 and cocaine factories.

00:36:14.000 I think you've asked them.

00:36:15.000 It sounds good to me.

00:36:16.000 See if you're reviewing it.

00:36:18.000 You know why because they killed a lot of people?

00:36:22.000 He is right about that.

00:36:23.000 He also says that Cuba is on shaky footing, which, of course, it is.

00:36:26.000 They required a lot of Venezuelan money in order to prop up that regime as well.

00:36:30.000 Are you considering U.S. action in Cuba?

00:36:33.000 I think it's just going to fall.

00:36:35.000 I don't think we need any action.

00:36:37.000 It looks like it's going down.

00:36:38.000 It's going down for the count.

00:36:39.000 You ever watch a fight?

00:36:42.000 They go down for the count.

00:36:44.000 And Cuba looks like it's going down.

00:36:48.000 Okay, so, you know, again, fascinating to watch all this play out.

00:36:51.000 Now, there are some people who have asked the legal question.

00:36:53.000 What is the legal basis for this?

00:36:54.000 So let's be clear.

00:36:55.000 When people say there is a violation of international law, no one cares.

00:36:59.000 There is no such thing as international law.

00:37:00.000 It is nonsense.

00:37:01.000 It is nonsense because there is no enforcement mechanism.

00:37:04.000 You know what international law really is?

00:37:06.000 The law of the jungle.

00:37:07.000 The reality is that the strong do what they will and the weak do what they must.

00:37:11.000 That is the law of international relations.

00:37:13.000 There is no alternative to it.

00:37:15.000 All attempts to establish some alternative to it have failed, which is why self-defense is necessary and why a strong military is necessary for powerful Western states and why a stronger America in the world is better for the world.

00:37:27.000 I saw a hilarious post by somebody who said, well, now that we've done this, what's to stop China from morally attempting to take Taiwan?

00:37:33.000 I wasn't aware that China was balanced by our moral strictures.

00:37:37.000 If they were, I don't think that they would be China, actually.

00:37:39.000 I don't think Russia is waiting around for our opinions.

00:37:42.000 They're just doing what they want.

00:37:43.000 And the thing that stops them is us, not our moral suasion.

00:37:48.000 On a moral level, by the way, taking out a communist dictator who has impoverished his people and destroyed his country is, in fact, morally superior to taking out, say, a democratic leader in another country who is not doing any of those things.

00:38:03.000 Sort of bizarre moral relativism that has set in on both the horseshoe left and the isolationist right is pretty astonishing to watch.

00:38:09.000 There's the question of American domestic law, like on what basis was the United States supposed to do this domestically?

00:38:17.000 Should Congress have been notified?

00:38:18.000 So the Secretary of State says we couldn't notify Congress without endangering the mission, which of course is true. 0.98

00:38:23.000 And it is a short-term mission.

00:38:24.000 And the War Powers Act, Congress has 60 days once notified about some sort of war action to sign off on the war or defund the war.

00:38:35.000 This is a military intervention, but it is not, in fact, a full-scale invasion or a complete quote-unquote war on Venezuela.

00:38:43.000 It is a mission that was successful, and now we'll see where it goes.

00:38:46.000 Here's Marco Rubio explaining.

00:38:49.000 We call members of Congress immediately after this.

00:38:51.000 It was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on.

00:38:54.000 It was a trigger-based mission in which conditions had to be met night after night.

00:38:57.000 We watched and monitored that for a number of days.

00:38:59.000 So it's just simply not the kind of mission you can call people and say, hey, we may do this at some point in the next 15 days.

00:39:05.000 But it's largely a law enforcement function.

00:39:07.000 Remember, at the end of the day, at its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice, and the Department of War supported the Department of Justice in that job.

00:39:16.000 Now, there are broader policy implications here, but it's just not the kind of mission that you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission.

00:39:24.000 Secretary of State Rubio also put up a statement on Twitter saying that Maduro is not, in fact, a legitimate government.

00:39:31.000 He is not the president of Venezuela.

00:39:32.000 His regime is not the legitimate government.

00:39:34.000 Maduro is the head of the Cartel de la Solas, a narco-terror organization which has taken over possession of a country.

00:39:39.000 He's under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States.

00:39:42.000 Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, put out a similar statement saying that Maduro is going to face the full wrath of American justice, that he has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.

00:40:00.000 They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts, according to Pambondi.

00:40:07.000 According to the Barr memo, which is a very famous memo written by William Barr about the Panamanian change of regime in 1989, the argument was that the president can order the FBI to investigate and arrest individuals in foreign countries, that the UN Charter is a non-binding advisory document that is secondary to domestic law, and that there are no Fourth Amendment protections to apply to foreign citizens abroad.

00:40:29.000 Jonathan Turley has a good piece over at Fox News explaining why this doesn't run up against legal guardrails.

00:40:37.000 Democrats, of course, are whining about all of this.

00:40:39.000 You know, after Barack Obama bombed Libya, after Joe Biden got us involved in funding Ukraine, like there are a lot of things that have happened here that would amount to warlike action under various Democratic presidents that did not end with congressional authorization.

00:40:58.000 So the shoe is on the other foot.

00:41:00.000 Let's be real about this.

00:41:02.000 The idea that Congress is the war-declaring body at this point in American history is just not true on an effectual level.

00:41:09.000 And it hasn't been true for decades, really since World War II.

00:41:13.000 So as Jonathan Turley points out, Noriega does not have any sort of diplomatic immunity.

00:41:21.000 He says legally, Trump has the upper hand in this case.

00:41:24.000 Maduro will replay arguments from the Noriega case, but he has very little actual basis for that in law in terms of his legal extradition.

00:41:33.000 Well, the international reaction is predictable.

00:41:36.000 All the countries that love Maduro are very upset, and everybody else is pretty happy that Maduro is gone.

00:41:41.000 Venezuelans around the world are very happy he's gone.

00:41:43.000 some footage of Venezuelans celebrating from around the world.

00:41:57.000 Now, again, you have the huge crowds, not a giant shock.

00:42:01.000 Venezuelans everywhere despise Nicolas Maduro and Ugo Chavez for having destroyed their country.

00:42:06.000 Hilariously, there was a Chinese delegation there to meet with Maduro on Friday morning, and they were stuck in the country while all of this was going on.

00:42:15.000 Whoopsie, it didn't go amazing for them.

00:42:19.000 Meanwhile, the EU president Ursula Vonderlaine put out a statement saying that they stand by the people of Venezuela, quote, following very closely the situation in Venezuela.

00:42:27.000 We stand by the people of Venezuela and support a peaceful and democratic transition.

00:42:30.000 Any solution must respect international law and the UN charter, yada, yada, yada.

00:42:35.000 Well, you didn't do anything.

00:42:36.000 So between international law and the UN Charter and five bucks, you could buy a cup of coffee, or you could wait for the United States military to do the thing that all of you have been too spineless to do for a full generation of humans.

00:42:49.000 Kiera Starmer, the socialist prime minister of the UK, he emphasized that the UK had no involvement in any of this.

00:42:58.000 What I can say is that the UK was not involved in any way in this operation.

00:43:04.000 And as you'd expect, we're focusing on British nationals in Venezuela and working very closely with our embassy.

00:43:10.000 And so we will want to talk to the president.

00:43:13.000 I will want to talk to allies.

00:43:15.000 But at the moment, I think we need to establish the facts.

00:43:20.000 Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is very upset because there is not a dictatorship on earth that is antithetical to American interests the Russians do not support.

00:43:28.000 They put out a statement, quote, in view of the confirmed reports about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his spouse being in the United States, we strongly urge the United States leadership to reconsider their position and release the legitimately elected president of a sovereign country and his spouse.

00:43:41.000 He is not legitimately elected.

00:43:42.000 He is, in fact, a narco-terrorist criminal.

00:43:45.000 He is a dictator of a country who has ruined his country.

00:43:47.000 And listening to the Russians jabber on about the legitimacy of elections in Venezuela is like O.J. Simpson talking about spousal love.

00:43:56.000 Meanwhile, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs put out a condemnation as well when they weren't apparently watching out the windows of their hotel as America just took Maduro out.

00:44:06.000 Quote, China is deeply shocked and strongly condemns the U.S.'s blatant use of force against a sovereign state in action against its president.

00:44:12.000 Man, somebody should talk to Hong Kong.

00:44:14.000 Such hegemonic acts of the U.S. seriously violate international law.

00:44:17.000 Oh, the Chinese invoking international law. 1.00

00:44:21.000 Well, you know, chaining up the Uyghurs and threatening Taiwan. 1.00

00:44:24.000 And they threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region. 0.96

00:44:27.000 China firmly opposes it.

00:44:28.000 Yes.

00:44:29.000 China, which has spread chaos all over the planet throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. 1.00

00:44:35.000 We call on the U.S. to abide by international law.

00:44:37.000 This, by the way, should, for those who care, be a good and informational point about the uselessness of international law.

00:44:45.000 If Russia and China can invoke it to their own benefit, it is not worth the paper that it is printed on.

00:44:51.000 Meanwhile, Mexico's president, Claudia Scheinbaum, condemned all of this.

00:44:55.000 The Mexican government put out a statement, again, calling on the United States to, quote-unquote, respect international law.

00:45:01.000 Listen, any international law that says that Nicolas Maduro must remain as the dictator of Venezuela, forcing his people to eat dog in the streets.

00:45:09.000 I think that's bad.

00:45:10.000 I'll put it out there.

00:45:11.000 I don't think that that's law that is worth its salt.

00:45:15.000 And then, of course, Mexico's Claudia Scheinbaum urged the United Nations to act to help de-escalate the situation.

00:45:21.000 President Trump did respond to this.

00:45:22.000 He said, you know, she's a nice lady, but the cartels run Mexico, so she can sit down. 1.00

00:45:28.000 Well, it wasn't meant to be, and we're very friendly with her.

00:45:30.000 She's a good woman, but the cartels are running Mexico. 1.00

00:45:33.000 She's not running Mexico.

00:45:34.000 The cartels are running Mexico.

00:45:37.000 And we could be politically correct and be nice and say, oh, yes, she is. 0.97

00:45:40.000 No, no, she's very, you know, she's very frightened of the cartels.

00:45:46.000 They're running Mexico. 0.94

00:45:47.000 And I've asked her numerous times, would you like us to take out the cartels?

00:45:51.000 No, no, no, Mr. President.

00:45:53.000 No, no, no, please.

00:45:57.000 Well, I mean, again, he ain't wrong.

00:45:59.000 And putting America's enemies on notice is a great way of making them do the things that are in American citizens' interests.

00:46:05.000 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Qatar, which is effectively the press agency for Iran, expressed its own deep concern when not stuffing its money into the pockets of a wide variety of political figures.

00:46:16.000 Quote, the state of Qatar expresses its deep concern over the current developments in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, calling in this context for restraint, de-escalation, and the adoption of dialogue as the appropriate means to address all outstanding issues.

00:46:28.000 Well, part of that is because, of course, Qatar has tried to act as a go-between.

00:46:31.000 As always, they insert themselves as a go-between between notorious regimes in the United States and then pretend they're useful, which they typically are not.

00:46:39.000 And then they say that they are ready to contribute to any international effort aimed at achieving an immediate, peaceful solution.

00:46:45.000 Oh, isn't that nice?

00:46:46.000 Isn't that nice?

00:46:48.000 That's just delightful.

00:46:49.000 Meanwhile, domestically, the horseshoe reaction has begun.

00:46:52.000 AOC and MTG linking up hands.

00:46:55.000 Those of the acronyms, linking up hands, quote, is Alexander Ocasio-Cortez.

00:47:00.000 It's not about drugs.

00:47:01.000 If it was, Trump wouldn't have pardoned one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world last month. 0.93

00:47:05.000 It's about oil and regime change.

00:47:06.000 And they need a trial now to pretend that it isn't, especially to distract from Epstein and skyrocketing healthcare.

00:47:11.000 Okay, so her theory is that this is a gigantic wag the dog, which of course it is not, and is not going to, quote unquote, distract from things like healthcare costs.

00:47:19.000 That's silly.

00:47:21.000 Hey, I'm unaware.

00:47:23.000 I mean, I understand she likes socialism, like really, really likes socialism.

00:47:27.000 But if you were smart, if you're on the left and you were smart, you would say, yeah, it's actually quite good that Nicolas Maduro is gone.

00:47:33.000 I've been reliably informed by all of our Democratic socialist friends that Venezuela is a bad example of a socialist republic, that really they want Norway or Denmark.

00:47:41.000 And yet, so many of them are out there defending Nicolas Maduro today.

00:47:44.000 It's so weird.

00:47:45.000 Meanwhile, isolationists like Marjorie Taylor Greene are out there trying to make hay. 0.73

00:47:51.000 Marjorie Taylor Greene, again, it is amazing that all you have to do to earn strange respect from the press, you can be the dumbest member of Congress, which Marjorie Taylor Greene assuredly was.

00:48:02.000 Truly a dumb human.

00:48:04.000 And the media will treat you as that until precisely the moment at which you yell at President Trump, at which point you become a worthy guest on Meet the Press to discuss foreign affairs.

00:48:13.000 Quick, Marjorie, name five countries in South America.

00:48:16.000 Go.

00:48:18.000 Here's Marjorie Taylor Greene on Meet the Press.

00:48:22.000 And, you know, you want to know something?

00:48:24.000 After this regime change in Venezuela, I fear that we're going to see jobs just move south because we're already hearing about big corporations lining up their trips to Venezuela for the next big business opportunity that exists while Americans sit here with no options that are going to provide them with good paying jobs and affordable health care.

00:48:45.000 So her economic theory is that by opening up the oil fields of Venezuela to American development, we're going to lose American jobs.

00:48:52.000 This is her stupid idea.

00:48:54.000 This one?

00:48:56.000 She also put out a statement, by the way, and I only point this out because she is indicative of a strain of pseudo-Republican thought that really is just a chaos agent inside the Republican Party, mocking President Trump.

00:49:10.000 She says, quote, we are running Venezuela now.

00:49:12.000 And then she put up the hand-to-face emoji, America first, you know, sarcasm.

00:49:17.000 And then she put out a statement suggesting, quote, in 2024, we voted for America to stop being the world's police funding foreign wars and murdering innocent people and funding fraud scams and foreigners brought let in America.

00:49:30.000 We voted against America last, so it's America last now to actually secure America's oil interests in Venezuela or to relieve the pressure on Venezuela so that, you know, millions of Venezuelans living in the United States might be able to go back to their home country.

00:49:45.000 So, you know, I suppose that if this is the direction that they want to move, they can.

00:49:53.000 Marjorie Taylor Green linking up with AOC, not a shock.

00:49:56.000 Here's the horseshoe.

00:49:57.000 Meanwhile, Rashida Tlaib is yelling at President Trump, suggesting it's a war for oil.

00:50:02.000 Here's the thing: that doesn't work when the president of the United States just says, yes, actually, oil is in our interest.

00:50:10.000 All right.

00:50:14.000 Another American regime change war.

00:50:17.000 And what's more disgusting about this is they're not even hiding it anymore.

00:50:22.000 It is about oil.

00:50:23.000 And most likely, Trump and many of his donor base are going to benefit personally from this.

00:50:29.000 And even more shameful is the fact that I work with colleagues now being a member of Congress.

00:50:33.000 I see it firsthand.

00:50:34.000 Colleagues are going to be very silent or pretend they're against us or won't even support the war powers resolution before them, primarily because they benefit personally, not only through stock ownership, through war manufacturing and private defense contractors, but many of them get direct donations from these oil companies.

00:50:58.000 My goodness, what terrible dictatorship will she not uphold? 1.00

00:51:00.000 Truly, it's incredible.

00:51:02.000 Meanwhile, Zorhan Mamdani, the mayor of New York, put out his own statement.

00:51:06.000 Quote, I was briefed this morning on the U.S. military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

00:51:11.000 No, you weren't, doof. 1.00

00:51:13.000 No, you went, I was briefed.

00:51:15.000 You went on Twitter like everybody else.

00:51:16.000 Yeah, I'm sure that the Trump administration called up Zorhan Mamdani and they're like, Zoron, we need to tell you about what's going down in Venezuela right now.

00:51:23.000 And then he said, unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of war and a violation of federal and international law.

00:51:29.000 Man, somebody should tell him about what Hamas did on October 7th. 0.61

00:51:32.000 This blatant pursuit of regime change doesn't just affect those abroad.

00:51:35.000 It directly impacts New Yorkers, including tens of thousands of Venezuelans who call the city home.

00:51:42.000 Okay, so Mamdani is claiming this is bad for Venezuelans.

00:51:46.000 I suggest you take a poll of Venezuelans in New York and see how they feel about all of this.

00:51:50.000 Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer demonstrating his own hypocrisy, the Senate minority leader, here was Chuck Schumer in 2020, chiding President Trump for not being harsh enough on Maduro.

00:52:01.000 And then here he was yesterday chiding the president for taking out Maduro.

00:52:06.000 And the president brags about his Venezuela policy?

00:52:10.000 Give us a break.

00:52:12.000 He hasn't brought an end to the Maduro regime.

00:52:15.000 The Maduro regime is more powerful today and more entrenched today than it was when the president began.

00:52:21.000 It was reckless.

00:52:22.000 It was dangerous.

00:52:24.000 And looking at the president's demeanor, he didn't even seem to be aware of how dangerous and reckless it is.

00:52:30.000 Let me be clear.

00:52:31.000 Maduro is an illegitimate dictator, but launching military action without congressional authorization, without a credible plan for what comes next is reckless.

00:52:44.000 I don't know, just call it a drone strike from Barack Obama, and he's fine with it.

00:52:48.000 These people are pathetic, truly.

00:52:49.000 Bernie Sanders, who again has never met a socialist dictator he does not adore, put out a long statement that I will not read the entirety of because it's boring.

00:52:57.000 Quote, Donald Trump has once again shown his contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.

00:53:00.000 This guy does not get to talk about the Constitution.

00:53:03.000 There is no one with more contempt for the Constitution than Senator socialist Bernie Sanders.

00:53:07.000 The president of the United States does not have the right to unilaterally take this country to war, even against a corrupt and brutal dictator like Maduro.

00:53:14.000 The United States does not have the right, as Trump stated this morning, to run Venezuela.

00:53:17.000 Congress must immediately pass a war powers resolution to end this illegal military operation and reassert its constitutional responsibility.

00:53:23.000 Well, cool.

00:53:24.000 The operation's over.

00:53:26.000 I mean, that's fine.

00:53:28.000 Trump's attack on Venezuela will make the United States and the world less safe.

00:53:32.000 Less safe.

00:53:34.000 Explain.

00:53:35.000 Truly.

00:53:36.000 So Bernie Sanders goes on.

00:53:37.000 This brains are in violation of international law.

00:53:39.000 He's a green light to any nation that may wish to attack another country to seize their resources or change the governments.

00:53:46.000 Again, this is the idiot logic.

00:53:48.000 So I noticed that Russia attacked Ukraine without us doing anything about Venezuela.

00:53:52.000 And that, in fact, us withdrawing from Afghanistan contributed to that.

00:53:56.000 I noticed China making some pretty bold moves around Taiwan, and they weren't waiting for us to do anything about Venezuela.

00:54:03.000 Idiot logic from idiots.

00:54:05.000 Truly, truly amazing.

00:54:06.000 And of course, not restricted to people on the left.

00:54:09.000 I offer you the genius of foreign policy analyst John Mearsheimer in November of 2025, somebody brought forth consistently by Tucker Carlson as an expert on foreign relations, who says that the United States is incapable of toppling Maduro.

00:54:24.000 I argue in my book that, you know, land power is usually the way you have to go when you go to war against a country.

00:54:34.000 And I think that's true here.

00:54:35.000 I think, you know, we got rid of Saddam Hussein.

00:54:37.000 How did we do it?

00:54:38.000 We had to invade Iraq. 0.83

00:54:40.000 And then we had to search around the country, find the guy and kill him, and then do social engineering.

00:54:47.000 Do you want to do that in Venezuela?

00:54:50.000 I don't think so.

00:54:51.000 And I don't think Trump wants to do it.

00:54:53.000 It's not what his base wants to do.

00:54:56.000 So all this is a long way of saying, I find it hard to believe that he's going to do anything substantial from a military point of view against Venezuela.

00:55:09.000 I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to work out a deal with Maduro because just, you know, a pinprick type attack is not going to buy him very much.

00:55:20.000 And people will point that out to him.

00:55:22.000 And therefore, it just makes more sense to back off, cut a deal.

00:55:28.000 Probably should keep listening to the schmuck, who hasn't been right for, you know, 20 years or so. 0.97

00:55:33.000 Or maybe we should listen to the guy who said in October that the only people who want regime change in Venezuela are Globo Homo.

00:55:42.000 Oh, yes, here we go.

00:55:45.000 Nicolas Maduro and his government are very left-wing on economics, not on social policy, by the way, which is kind of interesting.

00:55:52.000 In Venezuela, gay marriage is banned.

00:55:55.000 Abortion is banned.

00:55:57.000 Sex changes for transgenderism are banned.

00:56:01.000 It's one of the very few countries in the entire hemisphere with those policies.

00:56:04.000 It is on social policy, not defending the regime, just saying one of the most conservative countries in North or South or Central America.

00:56:16.000 Only El Salvador really comes close, which is much smaller, of course.

00:56:20.000 And by the way, the U.S.-backed opposition leader who would take Maduro's place if he were taken out is, of course, pretty eager to get gay marriage in Venezuela.

00:56:31.000 So to those of you who thought this whole project was Globo Homo, not crazy, actually.

00:56:38.000 So apparently Donald Trump, JD Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, Pete Hegseth, new additions to Globo Homo happening every day.

00:56:48.000 Yeah, by the way, the reason that Venezuela is socially conservative is because it is Catholic and abortion has been banned in Venezuela since 1926.

00:56:56.000 So yeah, that was not because of Nicolas Maduro and his wonderful social conservatism.

00:57:01.000 Some of us were saying, who gives a sh about that particular point, you know, a few weeks ago when referring to Nicolas Maduro, one of the worst dictators in the Western hemisphere.

00:57:11.000 Joining me on the line is Daniel D. Martino, born and raised in Venezuela.

00:57:15.000 He has lived through the consequences of Maduro socialism firsthand.

00:57:18.000 He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a PhD candidate in economics at Columbia University.

00:57:22.000 Daniel, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:57:24.000 I really appreciate it.

00:57:25.000 Thanks for having me, man.

00:57:28.000 So why don't we begin with what people should know about the rule of Nicolas Maduro?

00:57:33.000 What was Venezuela like being in Venezuela?

00:57:36.000 You're from Venezuela, obviously.

00:57:37.000 What was life like under Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro?

00:57:40.000 Well, it was a slow but very obvious transition away from being really almost a first world country to being a third world country. 0.65

00:57:50.000 From you, you know, can purchase everything you need to having to line up and then from having to put your fingerprint in a government scanning machine at the grocery store so that the cashier could tell you what you're allowed to purchase based on your government quota.

00:58:06.000 It's, you know, I call it high-tech communism because at least we had fingerprint scanning machines unlike the Cubans. 1.00

00:58:12.000 They only had pieces of paper.

00:58:14.000 So, you know, things like that, no water, no electricity, the internet becoming rarer and rarer.

00:58:22.000 And then ultimately, just extreme poverty.

00:58:26.000 You know, my family went from making $2,000, $3,000 a month to $100,000.

00:58:33.000 So when you look at what the Trump administration just did, obviously the taking of Nicolas Maduro back to the United States, the deposing of him, but the leaving in place of his vice president for the moment.

00:58:45.000 What do you think the future looks like there?

00:58:46.000 I mean, there's a lot of questions about the fact that the opposition leader Machado was not put in place.

00:58:51.000 It doesn't seem as though she had the level of support in the military that would have allowed for that.

00:58:56.000 My supposition right now is that the United States is working with the vice president of Venezuela, who is a socialist dictator herself, would be dictator herself.

00:59:05.000 Her brother runs the Venezuelan Assembly.

00:59:08.000 They're both pretty dire characters, but it seems to me that what the United States is basically doing is ratcheting up the pressure on the number two and saying, if you don't do what we want, then we'll do the same thing to you that we just did to Nicolas Maduro.

00:59:18.000 You have to moderate.

00:59:19.000 You have to allow the United States to pursue oil interests, allow American companies to work in Venezuela and then transition toward democracy.

00:59:25.000 Is that your read on the situation?

00:59:28.000 Yes, but it's important that the transition to democracy happen very quickly.

00:59:34.000 Because if it doesn't, what is Del C's goal?

00:59:37.000 Del C's goal is to lengthen this process until Trump leaves.

00:59:41.000 And then why would an oil company invest in Venezuela so that when Trump leaves, Del Crisis?

00:59:47.000 And it's important to give some background on who Del Can Jorge are.

00:59:51.000 Del C's father, Jorge Rodriguez Sr., was a terrorist, a Marxist terrorist who kidnapped an American CEO for three years.

01:00:01.000 And that's why he died.

01:00:03.000 So Del Can more than Maduro has been brainwashed since he was born into this evil.

01:00:10.000 And so, but what I do trust, I gotta say, I do trust Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

01:00:14.000 He knows this issue very well.

01:00:16.000 Trump gave him charge of this whole situation.

01:00:20.000 He knows who Del Codriguez is.

01:00:22.000 He knows their tactics.

01:00:24.000 The question is: will Del C and the rest of the regime do the right thing?

01:00:29.000 Will they leave peacefully and hold new elections or give power to Maria Corina and her team in the next couple of months? 0.99

01:00:38.000 Or will there need to be a second strike?

01:00:42.000 So, when you look at what the United States just said, obviously, Maduro being gone makes an enormous difference.

01:00:47.000 You're seeing celebration in the streets.

01:00:48.000 The assumption seems to be on the part of Venezuelans that there will be this sort of transition.

01:00:53.000 But as you say, the next step matters an awful lot.

01:00:55.000 The president of the United States doesn't have the desire, presumably, to put hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of troops into Venezuela.

01:01:01.000 What do you think the prospects are of the kind of change coming from the Rodriguez regime that the United States was unable to achieve from the Maduro regime?

01:01:10.000 Well, I think that they thought at the beginning, to be honest, that Trump was bluffing.

01:01:15.000 They didn't think he was going to do this.

01:01:17.000 They didn't think he was going to be successful.

01:01:19.000 You know, many presidents have threatened this.

01:01:21.000 Maduro just had nothing to lose.

01:01:24.000 He was protected by Cubans, as we saw. 0.99

01:01:26.000 Most of the people who died were Cuban, were not even Venezuelan.

01:01:29.000 They were Cuban security guards, which is exactly what we had been worrying about for so long.

01:01:35.000 And so now the question is: Del C understands there's a credible threat on her life and on those around her.

01:01:43.000 Will she take all her riches and go to Russia? 0.77

01:01:46.000 Which country will welcome them?

01:01:48.000 Maybe Russia won't, right?

01:01:49.000 Maybe they're afraid to go to Russia.

01:01:51.000 Maybe we'll be Qatar, their pal. 0.98

01:01:53.000 Maybe it'll be some other place.

01:01:55.000 I think it would be very useful for the Department of State to negotiate with a foreign dictatorship other than Venezuela to give safe haven to these people.

01:02:04.000 Take all the money, really.

01:02:06.000 Look, as a Venezuelan ben, they can take everything, all the money. 1.00

01:02:10.000 A country does not become rich because of its natural resources, even though obviously it helps.

01:02:15.000 It becomes rich because of its freedom.

01:02:17.000 And that's what we need to achieve.

01:02:18.000 So I'm happy to let them get amnesty, but they need to leave and transition orderly.

01:02:24.000 And if not, I absolutely would support, of course, a second strike.

01:02:29.000 So I was speaking with Daniel DiMartino.

01:02:30.000 He has a great piece over at Daily Wire called Why Venezuelans Are Dancing in the Streets.

01:02:35.000 And he is from Venezuela originally.

01:02:37.000 Again, this is a pretty amazing piece of news to come out over the course of the last couple of weeks.

01:02:42.000 And we all have hope that the Trump administration is going to follow through and ensure that the first sprigs of freedom actually turn into a forest here as opposed to being eviscerated by the current regime.

01:02:52.000 Daniel, thanks so much for the time.

01:02:53.000 Really appreciate it.

01:02:54.000 Thank you, man.

01:02:56.000 And meanwhile, is this having an impact in other places on earth?

01:02:59.000 Absolutely.

01:03:01.000 So there's a lot of roiling in Iran right now. 1.00

01:03:04.000 Protests have been ongoing for the last week and a half.

01:03:07.000 There's basically no water.

01:03:08.000 There's no electricity.

01:03:10.000 People do not have the basic necessities of life because the Ayatollah regime is a terrible regime. 0.81

01:03:15.000 And so riots have begun once again.

01:03:17.000 Apparently, some 41 people have been killed in these riots so far.

01:03:21.000 The president of the United States said if Iran goes around killing protesters the way that it has in the past, there will be consequences for that.

01:03:27.000 And again, do I think that the president means hundreds of thousands of people from the U.S. military occupying Tehran?

01:03:33.000 No, I don't because I'm not a moron.

01:03:35.000 And people who tell you that that's what the president means are once again lying to you.

01:03:39.000 But if the Ayatollahs feel as though they cannot crack down on the protesters because there might be an F-35 that takes out an IRGC facility, well, then maybe that regime has some troubles as well.

01:03:52.000 We're watching it very closely.

01:03:54.000 If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they're going to get hit very hard by the U.S.

01:04:02.000 Well, that seems to me, again, a good piece of American foreign policy, assuring America's interests in the Middle East.

01:04:09.000 Apparently, according to the Times of the UK, Iran's Ayatollah, Ali Khomeini, has a backup plan to flee the country if his security force failed to suppress protests or desert, according to an intelligence report shared with the Times.

01:04:21.000 Khomeini, by the way, is 86.

01:04:23.000 My guess is that there is a lot of searching going on by Western powers for some sort of number two or number three in the IRGC to depose Khomeini and move to some sort of transitional regime in Iran.

01:04:35.000 That would not be a surprise at all.

01:04:38.000 Meanwhile, in the other big news of the day, Tim Walz is dropping out of the gubernatorial race.

01:04:43.000 Man, what a fall he has had.

01:04:45.000 So he went from the hot new thing selected by Kamala Harris as her VP candidate to making a goof of himself on the national stage to going back to Minnesota, where it turns out that actually people are upset with him because he has presided over the mass defrauding of the Minnesota taxpayer.

01:05:05.000 So Tim Walz today announced that he would not be running for reelection in Minnesota.

01:05:13.000 The Calci markets, Calci is a sponsor of the program.

01:05:15.000 The Calci markets suggest that Amy Klobuchar is the likeliest next nominee for Minnesota governor by the Democratic Party, with Keith Ellison running a distant second.

01:05:24.000 That makes some sense.

01:05:25.000 Amy Klobuchar is well-liked in the state of Minnesota.

01:05:29.000 Tim Walz announced he was ending his campaign for re-election.

01:05:32.000 According to Axios, he had announced in September that he would run for an unprecedented third term, but he has bad approval ratings and a lot of intensified scrutiny into fraud in statewide programs.

01:05:45.000 House Speaker Lisa Demuth on the Republican side of the aisle was looking at possibly running there because of that weakness. 0.99

01:05:53.000 Again, all of that followed on a video from an internet personality named Nick Shirley.

01:06:00.000 He basically drove around Minneapolis looking for child and daycare facilities that were being funded by government money, trying to find out whether there are actually any kids there.

01:06:09.000 Now, there's not actually anything new there per se.

01:06:12.000 I mean, he went around and the video is pretty evocative.

01:06:14.000 It's unclear exactly how many of these facilities have children.

01:06:18.000 Some of them presumably do.

01:06:21.000 There have been reports from places like the Minneapolis Star Tribune that some of the facilities, in fact, do have kids there, that he went during off hours, that they didn't let him in because he was a stranger.

01:06:34.000 You don't let kids in, you don't let strangers in the daycare facilities. 1.00

01:06:38.000 Apparently, some of the 10 daycares, the YouTube content creator blasted for having no children, invited reporters in to see for themselves.

01:06:43.000 That does not end, however, the gigantic scandal that is the amount defrauded from the Minnesota taxpayers.

01:06:49.000 However, the Minneapolis Star Tribune did say that seven of the facilities that Nick Shirley visited had been cited for safety and administrative violations within the past four years, some of them dozens of times.

01:06:59.000 One of them that featured in Nick Shirley's video was a place called Quality Learning Center.

01:07:03.000 Hilariously, the sign was misspelled, said Quality Learing Center.

01:07:07.000 It had received 121 violations in the past three years alone.

01:07:11.000 Five of the facilities that Shirley visited were meal sites for feeding our future, which was, of course, the pandemic fraud scandal that resulted in 50 convictions.

01:07:20.000 The manager of Quality Vearing Center then tried to claim that Shirley came outside of operating hours.

01:07:27.000 They've been operating for eight and a half years.

01:07:30.000 And I think most hilariously, one of the members of a Somali-run daycare facility came out and said their documents had actually been stolen.

01:07:38.000 Whoopsie, somebody broke in and stole the exact documents necessary in order to prove that they weren't defrauding the federal government.

01:07:44.000 Bottom line here is that the amount of fraud in Minnesota based on these gigantic state programs has resulted in a pause on a funding stream that provides $185 million in annual aid to the state's daycare centers because of federal investigations into Somali-led fraud in the state of Minnesota.

01:08:02.000 According to the New York Times, more than a dozen schemes have come to light in Minnesota in recent years, many of them involving people of Somali origin.

01:08:08.000 Prosecutors say the schemes have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

01:08:12.000 The scandal has rattled Minnesota politics and drawn the ire of the White House.

01:08:17.000 And again, Shirley's video brought attention to a thing.

01:08:22.000 Some of the claims made are so far unsubstantiated.

01:08:26.000 Some of them, however, have led to further substantiation of the fact that many of these daycare facilities are at the very least poorly run bleep shows that should not be on government funding.

01:08:38.000 And to be fair, in a sentence I will rarely say, to be fair to legacy media, all the way back in October 2024, there was a piece from CNN titled, As Fraud Scandals Erupt in Minnesota on Governor Tim Walz's watch, Accountability is in short supply.

01:08:53.000 Quote, when confronted with troubling examples of waste, fraud, and abuse, some state agencies working under the administration of Democratic Governor Tim Walz repeatedly minimized or dismissed the allegations, according to the state's nonpartisan auditor, Judy Randall.

01:09:07.000 So Walls has presided over extraordinary fraud in the system.

01:09:11.000 And now Tim Walz is not running for re-election, which is in fact one of the proper solutions politically to truly running this thing like a bleep show.

01:09:21.000 Alrighty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.

01:09:24.000 Much more to get to, including, is there going to be another government shutdown at the end of this month?

01:09:28.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

01:09:29.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

01:09:30.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

01:09:33.000 Click that link in the description and join us.

01:09:37.000 What was it like, Marlon, to be alone with God?

01:09:46.000 Is that who you think I was alone with?

01:09:52.000 Marathon, I knew your father.

01:09:54.000 I am yet convinced that he was not of this world.

01:09:59.000 All men know of the great Taliesi.

01:10:03.000 You are my father.

01:10:04.000 The gods should war for my soul.

01:10:07.000 Princess Garris, savior of our people.

01:10:13.000 I know the bull got offered you.

01:10:15.000 I was offered the same.

01:10:17.000 And there is a new part at work in the world.

01:10:20.000 I've seen it.

01:10:23.000 A god who sacrifices what he loves for us.

01:10:25.000 We are each given only one life, singer.

01:10:28.000 No, we're given another.

01:10:33.000 I learned of Yezu the Christ, and I have become his follower.

01:10:37.000 He's waiting on a miracle, and I think you can give him one.

01:10:41.000 Trust in Yezu. 0.87

01:10:42.000 He is the only hope for men like us.

01:10:45.000 Fate of Britain never rests in the hands of the Great Light.

01:10:48.000 Great Light, Great Darkness.

01:10:51.000 Such things mattered to me then.

01:10:53.000 What matters to you now, Mistress of Lies?

01:10:57.000 You, nephew.

01:11:02.000 The sword of the High King.

01:11:06.000 How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you were born to wield?

01:11:13.000 Still clinging to the promises of a god who has abandoned you.

01:11:17.000 I cannot take up that sword again.

01:11:20.000 You know what you must do.

01:11:23.000 Great Light, forgive me.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 05, 2026

2026 SHOCK: Trump DEPOSES Maduro!

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