Bulwark Takes - LIVE: Trump Addresses Nation on Venezuela Regime Change Operation

Episode Date: January 3, 2026

Sam Stein, Mark Hertling, Sarah Longwell, Ben Parker and Joe Perticone cover the breaking news about the Venezuela regime change operation and react to the Trump administration’s press event.

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. All right. We are officially live. Hello, everybody. It's Saturday morning. It feels like a Sunday, and it's felt like a Sunday for several days now. But we woke up this morning to pretty remarkable news. The United States has carried out an operation, essentially removing Venezuela President Nicholas Maduro and his wife, capturing them from their home overnight. A large-scale strike on the capital city of Caracas, Venezuela and President. Maduro is now en route to New York where he's facing criminal charges, I believe. I haven't actually read the indictment. A remarkable thing to wake up to, and we want to break it down with our experts. Sarah's going to join us in a little bit, but right now we have General Mark Hurtling and Ben Parker. We're going to be taking a quick break when Trump does speak to the nation at 11 a.m. That's when he's supposed to speak. And then we'll continue talking on the other side of a speech for

some analysis about what he has to say. But Mark, let's start. with you. I mean, what did you, you've been digesting this for several hours and talking about it on MSN for several hours now, too. But what do you make of what happened overnight and what should people take from the operation? Well, first I'd start off by saying it was probably pretty present that Ben edited a copy of mine that was printed yesterday about regime change and the challenges associated with it. And what I said in that article was primarily that, you know, the military operations are usually very short, and in case when the United States does it, they're very good, and they have been so far this morning. But then it's what comes

after that. What I've been watching this morning and been commenting on is the effectiveness and efficiency of the special operations forces. The first piece of film I saw had a couple of Chinook helicopters, which are normally associated with some of the special operations forces, is flying very freely across the skyline of Caracas with explosions having occurred in the background before that. The president gets on a couple hours later, on to Fox News, and says how great the military operations was and how surprisingly he also said, we had a couple of guys hurt, but I think they're okay.

Nobody was killed. Well, even that announcement of casualties is pretty significant and is something that's not usually done. But now during that presidential address on Fox News before the true address at 11 o'clock that he promised, we also hear when he was asked by one of the hosts, what's going to happen next? And he basically said, well, I'm not sure, we'll see. It's the typical answer of we'll see what comes next. That's pretty troubling because that's what I addressed in the article I wrote is what does come next. When you're talking about the head of of a government being decapitated and brought onto a ship

that Iwo Jima, don't know what's happening there. Is he being questioned or just being detained until they can get them off there? That has to do with, is he being treated like a prisoner? Or is he being treated like a prisoner of war where he could be interrogated? These are all the things that are coming to mind. But then, again, what I think is gonna be interesting

when the president speaks is, what is going to happen next? What kind of State Department actions are we're going to see? What comes after the military withdrawals? Venezuela is a huge country, I think it's about 90 million people. It's a pretty large country. It's got a coastline that's 1,700 miles long, or the equivalent of going from Boston to Key West. So you're talking about a really large country with a huge population,

and they have not been in very good shape recently. If you've tracked on this way over the last couple of years, they are in a little bit of chaos and dysfunction. A lot of immigrants coming out of there to escape the bad economic situations and the government itself. So really it's what happens after that decapitation occurs. It's going to be important to watch. And this is where we as a nation always get in trouble when we conduct something that would be the equivalent of regime change. Right. Well, let me just pick up on that.

And then Sarah, welcome to the show. Appreciate you joining. Trump did go on Fox News, as he talked about. He called in to talk about the operation. And to your question of what comes next, he offered a few little chestnuts here and there. So with respect to who will take over in Venezuela, this is his quote,

we can't take a chance of letting someone run it and just take over where he, Maduro, left off. That will be involved in it very much. So that, to me, suggests we will be intimately involved with choosing who will run the country, that it's not necessarily going to be purely democratic with a lowercase D. And then there's one other thing that he said, where we were talking about Mexico and he argued that the cartels are running Mexico. He says, we have to do something. Something's going to have to be done with Mexico.

And it will raise the specter to me and Sarah, pick up when I, when I stop here, are we, is this going to be something that we, a playbook that we duplicate for other countries already. We're seeing people talk, senators talk about something similar happening in Colombia, Trump talking openly about Mexico. Are we at this place now where we're just going to start picking off leaders that we don't like in Latin America and saying, you know what, we're going to install people that we do? Well, Sam, this is where having a coherent foreign policy that is stated is incredibly helpful. The reason you're asking the question is because we sit here without a clear understanding of this administration's foreign policy goals and aims. And in fact, because Trump ran as an entirely different type of person, right? This is the opposite of what he ran on. Now, we don't know, is this a forever war in there? But the idea that we would be intimately involved in regime. not just in Venezuela, but with people who were friendlier with, like Mexico. That would be the kind of thing that a normal administration would lay out as a matter of foreign policy. This is what America's aims are. This is why it's good for America. This is what we do. But it is, this is the exact opposite of what Trump told us. And so we've got nothing to go on,

but Trump's weird call-ins to Fox News. I mean, not to state the obvious, but that's no way to run a country. It's no way for a world superpower to behave where we have to sit on the couch with these Fox News hosts to figure out what is America doing? Ben, what are you, when you're like digesting all the news bits around this, there's a bunch of things we just don't know, right? And I think that filling in those blanks as Sarah is talking about is going to be critical to just basically having a better understanding and a better opinion, a more founded opinion about this. So what are the things that you're waiting to see in here? So a lot of the questions we're going to be hearing are very important legal questions about if this is legal under American law, if it's legal under international law, what's the status of Maduro? Those are all really important. But the biggest question here, and Sarah alluded to this, is what problem are we trying to solve here? And we talked about this a little bit before we got on, whether or not this is regime change.

You know, it's hard to say at this point. Certainly Maduro is no longer in charge of Venezuela, right? He's on an American show. ship on his way to New York. But that doesn't mean the whole regime around him automatically collapses. There are reports that the vice president of Venezuela is currently in Russia. Those are, I think, not confirmed yet, but it could be true. Russia's denying that for what it's worth. Oh, then it's definitely true. Okay. But, you know, this is a regime that was started by Hugo Chavez, and it was able to survive him when he died. Nicholas Maduro took over. So it's not clear that we're actually going to do anything to change the regime in Venezuela beyond just getting this one guy. And if we are just getting this one guy and lobbying some bombs in Caracas,

how does that help us? Does that solve the drug issue? Does that solve the huge, like, 8 million people who have fled Venezuela into neighboring countries in the last years that solve the economic problems? Does it help us get the oil or whatever Trump wants us to do? It's the biggest question is, what are our goals here? And Trump has not done the work to bring Congress on board, to be the mayor people on board to support whatever it is going on. Just a brief program, you know, Trump is running a little late. We'll keep you guys surprised of, well, busy day. Mark, you and I were talking very briefly about the actual operation.

There's been a lot of people comparing it to what happened in Panama with Noriego. You made the case to me that you don't see the parallels. And I'm wondering if you could just sort of explain why. Yeah, Operation Just Cause started in December of 1980. rolled into January of 1990, there were about 27,000 soldiers involved in that, U.S. Army soldiers on the ground. But you got to remember, Panama, first of all, is one-tenth the size of Venezuela. We were talking about the size issue a little earlier.

It has a significantly smaller population. The Panamanian military at the time was corrupt and ineffective across the board. We had a real national interest in securing the Panama Canal against a dictator that actually was a well-known drug trafficker and was very involved in fraud and chaos in that country. And it was President H.W. Bush, who went to the gang of eight and told him what he was going to do. He did not ask for an authorization from Congress, but he at least did inform Congress and the American people in terms of what was happening. Very different from the Venezuelan situation, as Sarah said in a minute ago, we just don't know an end state. We don't know what is supposed to be happening.

And until you have an end state, you can't determine the ways and means that you're going to execute that strategy. We are seeing kind of the same type of attack that is just mind-boggling that we saw in February of 22 when Russia invaded a sovereign country. We have invaded, no matter what you think about, President Madero, he is a crook, he's a terrible individual, he's corrupt, he is linked to drugs, but this is a sovereign country with a lot of people involved, and not all of them support him, but they sometimes don't have another choice. And there are other ways to use elements of national power, diplomacy, information, more sanctions, some of which we've already placed on Venezuela, than just immediately using the military as a threat. first tool of choice. And again, it gets back again to what Ben said is that what are we doing. Because we don't know. I mean, the four of us are kind of scratching our head saying what should we talk about in terms of what's going to happen next. Unfortunately, that's the same thing that the U.S. Congress is doing who represents the American people who haven't voted for these kinds

of wars. We just got out of 20 years of these kinds of things. Yeah, Sam, can I just just jump at that like our job often, right, is to do sense-making for people. There's a bunch of people watching. We want to do sense-making. We're all trying to make sense of it. And I think in a lot of political situations, we have enough either inside, understanding or professional experience to be able to clearly talk about what it is we think is going on. This is extraordinarily difficult to evaluate right now.

Literally, no one has any information other than Trump was tweeting. at some point saying, yeah, we've been bombing the boats and wait till you see what we do on land. Like that was the president of the United States giving us a hint of information. Congress has no information. Newspapers have no information. The people who have the most information right now are the people who listen to Trump directly and watched Fox News and had him do it. So that's all anybody's got. And we are talking about an enormous jump in American foreign policy without. And I guess So we're going to listen to an address from Trump, which he is running late for. And the entire country is going to learn whatever we learn about American foreign policy from whatever stream of consciousness, Donald Trump, you know, chokes out during this.

But the idea that there's some coordinated theory about who we are right now in terms of our role in the world, we don't know what it is. And that is the astonishing part. That's the only sense we can make of it. Well, and then I'll just add to that. I mean, if this is ostensibly about cracking down on the drug trade, and of course, they've made this in the public utterances since last night they've said, while we got rid of a head of a narco state, I mean, sure, great, but then you can't pardon two weeks ago, Juan Orlando Hernandez, the ex-president of Honduras, who was a narco-traffic state head. There is no real coherence to that. It was something that J.D. Vance put in a tweet about this morning, about getting back our stolen oil. I wasn't really sure what to make of that.

Is there some logic to the idea that Venezuela has stolen our oil and then we have to retake it? I couldn't really follow that one. And again, I guess, Ben, to Sarah's point, it would be much more soothing, I suppose, to have some sort of coherent explanation from the administration, obviously to have the buy-in of Congress, but also to have just a common threadline. These pardons on one hand and then going after Maduro and the other just don't make any coherent sense to me. No, not at all. And, you know, I guess maybe Vance is referring to the fact that Venezuela nationalized its oil industry like 20 years ago, but still you've had an American company, one American company in particular, I think it's Chevron,

that still operates in Venezuela. And, you know, there's a long history of America dealing with countries that nationalize their natural resources. You can talk about Iran. You can talk about Egypt in the, you know, 50s, 60s, 70s. But how is this about that? How is getting rid of just Maduro going to help get the oil back? It makes no sense.

And also, is that what we want? It's the idea that American companies are going to be pumping Venezuela. Again, like this all could have been explained before they sent people into harm's way and started spending all this taxpayer money, but they haven't done that. Trump is the feeds up. Trump's not speaking yet. Why don't we put up the empty podium just so I can at least get a sense of when he's starting. We get some great shots of reporters texting on their phone there in a big old camera.

Sarah, before Trump starts, I want to talk a little bit about the politics of this. The polling data, I think, is obviously premature because this is all, it was all done sort of as a hypothetical about what would, you know, how the public would support action. But it was pretty clear that the public would not support action. So the CBS poll from November, so not so long ago, late November, U.S. taking military action in Venezuela, 30% would favor 70% would oppose. They also asked, has Trump administration clear explained U.S. position on military action in Venezuela? 24% said clearly explained. 76% said not done that yet. Again, this is, I just want to be honest, this is early.

We don't have anything since, obviously, since Trump announced the actual action. But what do you make of those numbers? Yeah. I mean, first of all, because we don't have any information, we ourselves cannot evaluate the rightness or wrongness of this action. Other than what feels wrong because we have so little information. But for the public, look, I said this. up front, and it remains true, that Donald Trump specifically ran against this type of foreign policy, not just this time, but the first time he ran. It was an express, in fact, it was that

break from, I would say, traditional Republican ways of showing leadership in the world that many people were attracted to and that kind of gave Trump this element of like, I transcend regular party politics because I don't hue to the kind of neoconservatism that seems to dominate the Republican Party. And that like express rejection of that, that express rejection of Bush era foreign policy is like central to Trump. And so and he has taught like this is the thing, he has taught Americans. He has taught Republicans to oppose exactly what he is doing. Like Tulsi Gabbard, Like the people who make up his administration, the whole Republican Party now has shifted on things like this. Now, are there going to be Trump deadenders who are always like, yeah, whatever Trump says, big strong man, getting rid of truck traffickers.

There will be people who like that. You're about to hear a lot of that from like the just, you know, people without the bottom eyes to sort of Trump defenders. But for a lot of the voters, especially the red-pilled voters who were brought into the Republican Party. it contra stuff like this because they opposed things like this and because Trump taught them like he's always talking about being a peacetime president like this is just the exact opposite of that and so whatever he is doing right now I'm seeing a lot of things in the chat like is a distraction from Epstein like is it you know to get us oil so we can make gas prices like who knows what the reasons are all I know is it's the opposite of everything he said that he stood for since he started running. Hey, Sarah, can I think of his advocate here? Wait, wait, wait. One quick second, because I wanted to get Mark in before Trump speaks. Because I have, there's a thing that, so there's why you see the White House press court down there. Those are all sort of White House reporters who are on what is considered a dead shift.

They get the vacation shift. They're down to Mar-a-Lago. This is no offense to them. They're not foreign policy reporters. Now, Mark, I want you to play the role of if you were in the press corps as a foreign policy whiz here, what would the questions you asked Trump be right now? Well, the first thing I will say what Trump will say, he will focus primarily on an operations update.

He'll talk about how good the military is. He'll talk about there was no resistance and they shut it down. And in fact, he used the term the special operators bum rushed Maduro in his apartment, which, you know, it's just contrary to what they really do. But then if the reporters are good, they're going to say a couple of things about what was the resistance? How come the TV station, the state TV is still playing in Caracas and people are still getting the news and they're confused there because usually that's what you shut down first in a military operation. Who is in charge of the Venezuelan government right now and who are you

talking to? What are the sanctions you're going to put on or when you said, you know, someone needs to take over? What exactly does that mean? What kind of government assistance are we giving? Where is Marco Rubio going to be in this whole thing? Who's taken over? Have you heard anything from Russia or China on this action's informal channels? What kind of alliances are commenting in South America and Latin America on what just happened? What kind of civil affairs forces are you going to put? These are all the kind of questions I would have because it gets back to what Sarah and

Ben were both saying a minute ago, we don't know what's going to happen next. And he said earlier this morning when asked about what is going to happen, he says, well, we're going to work through a plan. Well, Crimony, if you're working through a diplomatic and informational plan after you've conducted military operations, I've got to tell you, I've got a whole lot of scars from regime change operations in Iraq. This is exactly the same playbook we use there where we first had Garner and then had Gremor. And it was a disaster because both of them went in without. really any kind of plan or a support for a plan, which really occurs after you take out the head of government. Ben, I saw you shaking your head. Yeah, no, I think another question we should be

asking. It's not just who's his charge in Venezuela. Who's in charge in the United States? You know, General Hartling, you've been writing about this, but the commander of Southern Command, which includes Central and South America, the military commander for the United States, has only been in office a few months, I believe, because his predecessor resigned very soon into a multi-year tour. So we've got a guy, I mean, I'm sure these plans or plans or something like this have been floating around Socom and the Pentagon for a long time. They've recently been updated. But you've got a guy who is very new in his job overseeing this operation, we assume. Are we going to hear from the Secretary of State? Are we going to hear from the Secretary of

Defense? Are, is it just the president spouting off and saying, you know, here, I decided to do this unilaterally? That's, you know, one thing I'd like to see is maybe some hint at organization for this administration. But this is what I wanted to say earlier is a, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, Ben, it's a great point because you and I have talked a lot about why Hullby resigned or why he agreed to early retirement. Could it have been the boat strike or could it have been because he knew this plan was on the table?

And he's the guy in charge of all of the South American countries and Latin American countries. And he's probably saying, this is not a good idea, fellas. You're going to get yourself into another Iraq war. So that could be a rationale. And that's, you know, it's kind of speculation, but it could be true. I'm sorry, Ben, for an interrupt. No, I would be interested to hear from him about that. And I was going to make this point earlier just as a little sort of devil's advocate to Sarah.

But it is possible, I think, that if this is really it, if we just went in, bombed a bunch of stuff, snatched Maduro left, that maybe politically this redounds to Trump's benefit. And he's able to say, sort of like he did after the Abu Bakker. a Baghdaddy raid at his first term, you know, we went in. It was so impressive. I did it myself. He died like a dog, whatever. And that, you know, the Republican Party, the rank and file voters might say like, oh, that was great. That wasn't a 20-year-for-ever war. That was a quick snatch of and then ignore all the downstream consequences that definitely will affect us for decades to come. I'll just add on to that, that, and I'm stealing from Michael Weiss here, the foreign policy reporter, but there are, there's enough evidence now that Trump likes acts of war, but not war,

that little operations here and there that, not little, big operations here or there, but that don't last very long, that he can then point to and say, I did it swiftly and I did it while keeping our hands relatively clean, are things he likes. In fact, he was talking about watching this operation unfold and how thrilling it was for him to see. So I get what Ben is saying. I think that's where we're probably heading, judging by history, is that. that Trump will have done this and then whatever the consequences are. The only flip side, of course, is that if this descends into chaos, right? That's a real problem.

That's the thing, right? It's like, these things can get away from one awfully quickly. And so that might be his plan. And maybe that does work. But the one thing I would just say, and this is why it's so important to understand what is our stated objective is, are we in the business then of taking out people that we say are narco-terrorists as heads of state, because there are a lot more of those. And so if that is what we're doing, then we may find ourselves being, it can get out of,

it can get out of his hands in a bunch of weights. It can get out of his hands specifically in Venezuela, and it can get out of his hands as a pattern of things that he has now committed himself to doing as part of American foreign policy. And then on top of that, Mark, there's the chance, there's, of course, the single sense to China. in Russia, which is, hey, you can do the same. Yeah, exactly. We have no world authority to say no. That's what I was going to say.

That's exactly right. We were showing the example of what Wright looks like. We've taken out a dictator, you know. You could apply the same thing to Putin against Zelensky in 2022. That's who he wanted to destroy. He tried to kidnap him a couple of times. So, and is China going into Taipei to do the same thing? Is North Korea going to go into South Korea?

I mean, the possibilities are. endless as soon as you bless it by the most allegedly the most democratic country in the world with the biggest amount of military strength and superpower. Yeah. We're still waiting here for Donald Trump. This is Mar-a-Lago where he's been. There is something I don't think unsettling or anything because he basically lives in Mar-a-Lago, but it is a little bit weird that he's in his palatial country club, having just dined on caviar and we're doing regime change war a couple days after the fact.

We'll note. As we're sitting here and just waiting for him, the Democratic response to this, just in my inbox, Ken Martin, DNC chair sends a fundraising appeal saying, another day, another unconstitutional war for Trump who thinks the Constitution is a suggestion. Congress has war powers for Republican cowards are hiding under their desks while Trump orders an unauthorized attack against Venezuela. The preponderance of the Democratic response to this has been skepticism, with a caveat that some lawmakers in Florida with a fairly robust Venezuela populations have been supportive of this. It's an interesting thing because I just got to think back to, you know, the Bush era when Democrats felt incredibly vulnerable and scared about this type of stuff

and were supportive of the war by and large. I don't think the party's in that position now, and I don't think that's going to be the case. I think they're going to come down fairly hard on Trump for this, regardless of whether it turns out to be a success or not. But maybe my read is wrong. Ben, what do you think the Democratic response will be or should be? You know, basically everyone's a hypocrite here, you know, because General Hurtling did, you know, talk earlier about Operation Just Cause in which we did a sort of similar thing. So if you're worried about China and Russia, first of all, I don't think they actually care about legal justifications. They're going to do what they want to do. So I don't think they're

looking at this one way or another. I mean, of course they're looking at it. I don't think they're honestly changing their moral and legal calculations. As far as domestic politics, you know, it's going to be difficult if you're a Democrat to say, A, this is unconstitutional, but what we did in Libya under Obama was fine, to say, or for that matter, the raid to take on Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. It's going to be difficult if this ends up being successful and we get out with limited damage and Maduro successfully trying to convicted to criticize the way this was done without looking like a Maduro apologist. I think some Democrats are going to be able to do it, but it could be a, you know, as Trump

is waving the flag and, you know, Ra, Ra, the troops and all that, it could be a difficult line for Democrats to tow. But you know who it's not difficult for? Marjorie Taylor Green, who has tweeted the following. Let's just check in with MTG on what she said. She said she served on Homeland Security Committee for the past three years. once safe borders, she's against, you know, these narco-terrorists, but she says Mexican cartels are primarily and overwhelmingly responsible for killing Americans with deadly drugs. If U.S. military

action and regime change in Venezuela was really about saving American lives from deadly deadly drugs, then why hasn't the Trump administration taken action against Mexican cartels? That's a good point. And if prosecuting narco-terrorists is a high priority, then why did President Trump pardon the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted and sentenced for 45 years of trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into America. The next obvious observation is that by removing Maduro, this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran.

Anyway, she goes on regime change, funding foreign wars, American tax dollars being consistently funneled to foreign causes. She's against it. So anyway, the point is she could do it without being a hypocrite. There is, to the extent that she does lead or at least represent kind of a very specific American for America first kind of faction. Those those types I think are going to be mad about this because it was a one of their specific and stated reasons for supporting Trump. You're just like, I mean, JVL's heart is pumping right now. I know. I'm not usually,

I'm not usually one to pump up Marjorie Taylor Green as like the voice of reason the way some of our colleagues. No, but it's, but in this case, she is consistent. I mean, people are pulling up these old Tulsi tweets from 2019 where it's just like, never do no regime change war in Venezuela. And like it doesn't take much to dig into Trump or J.D. Vance saying, you know, we're not going to get, you know, engulfed in these adventures overseas. So there is hypocrisy there. That's where I guess I suppose I disagree with Ben a little bit, which is I don't know if Democrats have to really hold back. I mean, this is a case where Trump did promise a certain foreign policy and seems to be moving against it and operating without any congressional oversight whatsoever.

I mean, it seems pretty simple attack for me. I don't think, and obviously the polling shows that voters are a little bit skeptical of this. Yes, you don't want to look like an apologist for Maduro, and that's why you're getting a lot of throat clearing in these statements. But it does seem like Democrats feel fairly confident they can argue that Trump's not out of control, but swinging wildly on foreign policy. All right, there is a new video that the R&C has put out of the Caracas raid. They set it to, what is the band that they sent to?

Was it Leonard Skinner? Clear Credence, thank you very much. I appreciate it. We're going to try to play it. We have to play it muted. How did none of you old guys, no credence? I mean, come on. I haven't heard it.

I got a look at this. We're going to have to mute it because we're not allowed to play the song without copyright problems. But let's play the video. I want Mark to talk about what he's being here. Something that I guarantee you the Trump administration also doesn't have. They don't give, yeah, they don't care. Let's see if we can play this because it is the first sort of video we've gotten of what actually happened.

So Mark, just walk us through if you can see anything, what's going on here. Yeah, I can see right now there's two and then a follow-on couple of three ships of either TH47s, the big, what they call big Wendy's, the two bladed helicopters. and then you've probably got a couple of Apaches following them. At the same time, you're seeing explosions, simultaneous explosions in different locations, which means the helicopters are flying through a pathway where aircraft are probably striking.

These are, yeah, the initial ones were rocket burst. I don't know what the hell that was. That just looks like secondary explosions from something. But what they're hitting at this point, from what I understand, is one of the major Air Force bases inside the center of Caracas. There's a military base right in the center of the city. And you can see a lot of citizens are taking a lot of smoke, a lot of fire, a lot of explosions. So you're getting secondary explosions from initial blast. So that tells you that whoever is firing kinetic devices are hitting the mark and they're doing a pretty good job.

But it's also smack dab in the middle of the city at whatever time it was, 2.30 in the morning or whenever they struck. So, yeah, it's war porn is what it is. It's what soldiers call war porn. Just seeing people getting destroyed and killed and explosions going on. And can you talk a little bit in detail about what sort of goes into that operation, how much prep work, how it takes the plan? A lot of prep work.

If you're talking about getting a force on the ground of special operators, either Delta force or seal teams or rangers or anybody else you may have included. And the fact that they are using Delta for this, which is a pretty good force in terms of larger sizes, as opposed to seal teams, which are smaller units, that means that they were trying to cover down on a bunch of different areas. They were inserting them likely with helicopters. I don't think we had any airborne or parachute drops into this area. It was mostly probably aviation helicopter insertions. And while that was happened simultaneously, the aircraft, probably fighter jets of different types were knocking ground targets or striking ground targets.

And you probably had something called an AC130, which is a large C-130 aircraft that can shoot cannons out the side. door and they are extremely accurate they've been using those against boats in the in the western pacific you can tell by the explosions around the boats that are different from the one blast that destroys the boats which we see in the caribbean so yeah the first of all the just the very synchronization of firepower is really difficult to do but these guys practice it all the time But when you synchronize the firepower of striking ground targets and destroying air defense so other helicopters can't be shot down with the insertion of special operators, either seal teams or Delta forces with potentially a lot of rangers on board too. I mean, it's a complex operation for sure, but that's what they train to do. They train 24 hours a day for that kind of operation.

Are you surprised, and sorry, I'm just peppering Mark with questions you, but are you surprised that they didn't encounter more resistance? No, I wasn't because usually what preludes an attack like this is jamming or some type of cyber activity where you can't communicate. The other thing, it was 2 o'clock on a, I think it was around 2. a.m. on a Saturday morning. So that's usually when most forces aren't all that alert. That's the witching hour for military. That's when you want to attack because even if you are on guard during that period, you're getting sleepy between two and three in the morning. You're really kind of

starting to nod off saying, hey, nothing's going on, so I'm going to relax a little bit. But you've got to imagine that it is the aircraft who have been reported who have turned their transponders off and they have stealthy configurations where they can get in under radar and not be seen. They're capable of doing these kind of things. And they've cleared the airspace from all other aircraft by putting out the no-cams for commercial airliners. So you've got nothing but military aircraft with transponders turned it off. And most of them are pretty stealthy in terms of what they do.

I'm going to pull up a picture now that Trump posted. This is Maduro on the U.S. Iwo Jima, a bottle of water in hand, looks like, yeah. Yeah, so he, they're, they're depriving him of all senses, so they've got him looks like handcuffed, they've got a dark, you know, you can't see through those glasses he's wearing and they've got headphones on him so he can't hear either. And they've, I don't know if those are the, his pajamas or a sweatsuit they would issue. I would think it's the ladder.

Okay. Okay. Why would they deprive him of all senses? Well, first of all, because they really don't know where, they don't want him to know where he is. He knows he's on a ship somewhere. But if they took him to the Iwo Jima and it even says that on board, Iwojima is a Navy ship, but it's also the one that carries Marines. So that's one of the ships that will carry a marine expeditionary force or a marine expeditionary unit, a MEP or a Mew. It will also have a whole bunch of helicopters.

It will have a landing dock behind the ship. So it's smaller than an aircraft carrier with a little bit of different mission, but it does have a landing deck. And there's a whole boatload of troops on this thing. There's probably, I would guess probably a normal contingent of about 2,500 Marines on board this ship. Gotcha. We're bouncing around a little bit because we're still waiting for Donald Trump, now 30 minutes late.

but one of the things he said in his Fox interview and Sarah, I'm going to kick this one to you because it does get to sort of motivations and there's the question of, you know, obviously is it the oil, is it the drugs? What is it? He did notably compare Maduro's election to his own 2020 election loss. He said the election Maduro was a disgrace, just like my election loss was a disgrace, 2020 was a disgrace. 2024 was too big to rig. Frankly, Maduro's election wasn't a hell of a lot, wasn't a hell of a lot worse than what they did to us in 2020.

There's also, and it seems wild, but it, you know, Will Sumner, our expert on the conspiracy out of the right, says he believes it's not appreciated enough. There's been a longstanding election conspiracy in MAGA circle. that Venezuela was involved in rigging the voting machines in 2020. And that might have factored into Trump's animus towards Maduro. It's crazy. It's disproven.

But Will at least thinks maybe this is a motivating reason or one of them. Could it be? I mean, are we at that place? I don't know if there's a way to definitively say yes or no. but clearly Trump has his own election or election loss in 2020 on his mind. Yeah, I mean, first of all, the 2024 election of Maduro is widely thought by the international community to have been fraudulent. And he like, I am not an expert on this, but, and actually Ben and Mark should correct me if I'm wrong, but part of what he did was shut out his opposition,

right, to keep them from being able to run. And even though they had like initially invited the UN in, like they had invited the international community and like that they were going to be transparent. And then they they like forwent all of that, blocked his opponents. And so like it was fraudulent. There is no. And it is funny how much sort of the Hugo Chavez's ghost was switching, you know, the votes in the machines. Like there is like an insane Chavez related Venezuelan related conspiracy theory on the right around Trump's election. But Trump, of course, none of that is true.

Like, and this is where if that, if that is part of Trump's calculus, that is Trump's addled, insane conspiracy mind making it up. Like there's no way that. And if, if Trump's election lies, not only, it's funny because it is January 3rd, we are up on the anniversary of the January 6th attacks, which were the result of Trump telling that lie and really shutting. that particular election conspiracy theory, you know, both to his fervent supporters as well as more broadly the Republican Party, which refused to challenge him on it, which is like one of the most insane

things to happen in American politics. If that is part of it, that is even a scarier reason for us to be doing this. Because if you look, it would make some sense to if you think, well, Trump is neither offering a consistent position, meaning that he is going to look at other dictators who are narco-terrorists and take them out, nor is there a direct American benefit from this, then you basically, what you have left is Trump's weird grievance over Venezuela, his belief that they interfered in the election, plus the cosplay that he likes to do around looking like a tough guy in these, just on the international stage in some way. So that would be wild if that was true.

But I don't know. Who didn't make sense of what's going on in Trump's head? I mean, he did bring it up. That's the thing. It's he brought it up. Like I wouldn't normally I'd be sitting here being like, this is crazy. I don't even feel comfortable talking about it. There's no way that this is a motivating factor from him.

But he brought it up while he was on Fox saying, oh, yeah, my election was raped. clearly it's in his head. Ben, did Sarah get her facts right? I know I'm putting you on the spot to, you know, fact check your boss, but whatever. No, yeah, my understanding is that the leader of the opposition in Venezuela is Maria Karina Machado, who was the most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner. She was prevented from running for president.

So there was another candidate who was one of her allies, sort of a stand-in. I shouldn't say a stand-in. There was another candidate who was presented. He won. He won the election. They made the opposition. basically proved it, and the vote was entirely rigged. I have no evidence of this. I've not even seen it reported, but it would not shock me. We should not rule out the possibility

that Maria Karina Machado and her people, who just said that she wanted to dedicate her Nobel prize to Trump, has been whispering in Trump's ear about how her election was just like his stolen election. And that's very smart, right? On her part, to do everything she can, to get his support to overthrow the Maduro regime, and it's so easy to tell what pushes Trump's buttons. It's the same reason Vladimir Putin is talking to Donald Trump about how, hey, you know, Zelensky hasn't had an election, and it's kind of rigged over there too.

And we've seen, you know, in good ways and bad, you've seen how easy it is for foreign leaders to figure out how to press Trump's personal buttons to change American policy rather than appeal to what's actually in America's interests. And so, who knows? Maybe we'll find out in a year or last, that this whole operation wasn't actually about helping America do anything

or solving a drug problem or solving a security problem or solving humanitarian problem. It was actually just about Trump being angry about his election loss and taking it out on Maduro. I'll just read, Machado has put out a statement on social media. I'll read it as it is, quote, given his refusal to accept a negotiated exit, the government of the United States is fulfilled. It's promised to enforce the law we have struggled for years. We have given it our all. and it has been worth it. What had to happen is happening.

Machado added that Edmundo Gonzalez, who the U.S. has recognized as Venezuela's president-elect, must, quote, immediately take office and be recognized as the country's commander of armed forces. But this mark brings us to the what next element here, which is who is going to take over? Is this going to – and even if – even if Gonzalez does take over, it's no guarantee that elements of the Maduro regime comply. And how do we administer that? And who administers it? Well, and while you were both talking,

I was thinking back to my long past and a guy named Ahmed Chalaby who convinced Bush that he needed to be the next president. And I was once told, always be fearful of those from foreign countries who speak English and are trying to persuade you to get them enthralled on the shrine. And that's exactly what I think we're seeing

to a degree here. But to your question, Sam, you know, there are, let me quote some numbers for you again because they're important comparing this again to the relatively small Panamanian army and security forces. It's Venezuela has an estimated between their active military and their militias, about 300,000 soldiers. So that's a pretty big chunk. of whether or not you say they're effective or not. They're supplied by Russia and Iran. They've got some good equipment. They're a viable military.

And it backs up the fact if Trump is true in saying that a couple of our guys were hit during the strike that they conducted, it tells me that somebody was at least fighting back. But it's not just the military that's part of a security force. What we found in Iraq, again, some additional scar tissue, is when you decapitate a government and you tell people they're not going to get paid or you put everybody on furlough, you have no longer a police force.

So a chaotic situation which already exists in Venezuela, and it existed before that because of immigration and economies and food, is only going to get more chaotic. And when you combine that with a lack of security force, not just the military, but also the police, you're asking for dysfunction within your government. So we just brought in Joe, Perticoan, our congressional reporter. We did so because, frankly, we're tired. It's 45 minutes of talking. We need some fresh blood here.

Donald Trump is 40 minutes late. And so we're going to keep going for a bit. Hopefully he comes on at some point. But Joe's been monitoring the health on. Here we go. So let's go to Trump, and then we'll get reaction on the other side. Okay, thank you very much. This is big stuff. Appreciate you being here.

Late last night and early today, at my direction, the United States Armed Forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela. Overwhelming American military power, Air Land and Sea was used to launch a spectacular assault. And it was an assault like people have not seen since World War II. It was a force against a heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas. To bring outlaw dictator Nicholas Maduro to justice. This was one of the most stunning, effective, and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history.

And if you think about it, we've done some other good ones like the attack on Soleimani, the attack on al-Baghdadi, and the obliteration and decimation. of the Iran nuclear sites just recently in an operation known as Midnight Hammer, all perfectly executed and done. No nation in the world could achieve what America achieved yesterday or frankly in just a short period of time. All Venezuelan military capacities were rendered powerless, as the men and women of our military working with U.S. law enforcement successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night. It was dark.

The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have. It was dark and it was deadly. But captured along with his wife, his wife, Celia Flores, both of whom now face American justice. Maduro and Flores have been indicted in the Southern District of New York, it's Jay Clayton, for their campaign of deadly narco-terrorism against the United States and its citizens. I want to thank the men and women of our military who achieved such an extraordinary success overnight with breath-taking speed,

power, precision, and competence. You rarely see anything like it. You've seen some raids in this country that didn't go so well. They were an embarrassment. If you look back to Afghanistan or if you look back to the Jimmy Carter days, they were different days. We're a respected country again like maybe like never before these highly trained warriors operating in collaboration with U.S. law enforcement caught them in a very ready position they were waiting for us they knew we had many ships out in the sea just sort of waiting they knew we were coming so they were in a ready what's called a ready position but they were completely overwhelmed and very quickly incapacized If you would have seen what I saw last night, you would have been very impressed.

I'm not sure that you'll ever get to see it, but it was an incredible thing to see. Not a single American service member was killed, and not a single piece of American equipment was lost. We had many helicopters, many planes, many, many people involved in that fight. But think of that, not one piece of military equipment was lost, not one service member was more importantly killed. The United States military is the strongest and most fearsome military on the planet by far. With capabilities and skills, our enemies can scarcely begin to imagine we have the best equipment anywhere in the world. There's no

equipment like what we have. And you see that even if you just look at the boats, you know, we've knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by sea. 90%. Each boat kills 25, on average, 25,000 people. We knocked out 97%. And those drugs mostly come from a place called Venezuela. We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. So we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country

until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about. We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela. And that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States, and want to go back to their country. It's their homeland.

We can't take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. We've had decades of that. We're not going to let that happen. We're there now, and what people don't understand, but they understand, as I say this, we're there now, but we're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place so we're going to stay until such time is we're going to run it essentially until such time as a proper transition can take place as everyone knows the oil business in venezuela has been a bust a total bust for a long period

of time they were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place. We're going to have our very large United States oil companies the biggest anywhere in the world go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.

And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave if we needed to do so. We actually assumed that a second wave would be necessary, but now it's probably not. The first wave, if you'd like to call it that, the first attack was so successful. We probably don't have to do a second, but we're prepared to do a second wave, a much bigger wave, actually. This was pinpoint, but we have a much bigger wave that probably won't have to do. This partnership of Venezuela with the United States of America,

a country that everybody wants to be involved with because of what we were able to do and accomplish, will make the people of Venezuela rich, independent, and safe. And it will also make the many, many people from Venezuela that are living in the United States extremely happy. They suffered. They suffered. So much was taken from them.

They're not going to suffer anymore. The illegitimate dictator Maduro was the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking, colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States. As alleged in the indictment, he personally oversaw the vicious cartel known as Cartel de la Solis, which flooded our nation with lethal poison, responsible for the deaths of countless Americans, the many, many Americans, hundreds of thousands over the years of Americans died because of him. Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice and stand trial on American soil. Right now, they're on a ship they'll be heading

to ultimately New York, and then a decision will be made, I assume, between New York and Miami or Florida but we have people where the overwhelming evidence of their crimes will be presented in a court of law and I've seen it I've seen what we have it's it's both horrible and breathtaking that something like this could have been allowed to take place for many years after his term as president of Venezuela expired Maduro, remained in power and waged a ceaseless campaign of violence, terror, and subversion against the United States of America, threatening not only our people, but the stability of the entire region. And you all saw it, in addition to traffic in gigantic

amounts of illegal drugs that inflicted untold suffering and human destruction all over the country, all over in particular the United States, Maduro sent savage and murderous gangs, including the bloodthirsty prison gang, Trend de Aragua, to terrorize American communities nationwide. And he did indeed. They were in Colorado. They took over apartment complexes. They cut the fingers of people if they call police. They were brutal, but they're not so brutal now. And I just have to congratulate our military, Pete and everybody in our National Guard, because the job that they've done, whether it's in Washington, D.C., where we have a totally safe city where it was one of the most unsafe cities anywhere in the world, frankly. And now we have no crime in Washington, D.C. We haven't had a killing. We had the terrorist attack a few weeks ago.

A little bit of a different kind of a threat. But we haven't had a killing. a long period of time, six, seven months. We used to have two, on average, two a week in Washington, our capital. We don't have that anymore. The restaurants are opening. Everyone's happy. They're going, they're walking their daughters. They're walking their children, their wives. They walk to restaurants, restaurants are opening all over Washington, D.C. So I want to thank the National Guard. I want to thank our military. And I want to thank law enforcement. It's been amazing. And they should do it with more cities. We're doing it, as you know, and we're doing it in Memphis, Tennessee, right now.

And crime is down. We just sort of started a few weeks ago, but crime is down now 77%. And the governor of Louisiana called, a great person, and he wanted us to help him, as you know, and a certain very nice part of Louisiana. And we have done that. And it's a rough, it was a rough, rough section, and we have crime down. I understand it's down to almost nothing already after two and a half weeks. New Orleans, it's down to almost nothing, and we've only been there for two and a half weeks.

Can't imagine why governors wouldn't want us to help. We also helped, as you know, in Chicago, and crime went down a little bit there. We did a very small help because we had no, no, we had no working ability with the governor the governor was a disaster and the mayor was a disaster but it knocked down crime but we're pulling out of there when when they need us we'll know you'll know you'll be writing about it and likewise los angeles where we saved los angeles early on where the head of the police department made a statement that if the federal government didn't come in we would have lost los angeles that's after long after the fires that's when they had the riots in los ang we did a great job got no credit for it

whatsoever, but that's okay. It doesn't matter. We don't need the credit. But we'll be pulling out when they need us. They'll call, or we'll go back if we have to. We'll go back. But we did a great job in various cities. But the thing, the place that we're very proud of is Washington, D.C., because it's our nation's capital. We took it from being a crime-ridden mess to being one of the safest cities in the country. But the gangs that they sent, raped, tortured, and murdered American women and children. They were in all of the cities I mentioned, Trend de Aragua. And they were sent by Maduro to terrorize our people. And now Maduro will never again be able to threaten an American citizen or anybody from Venezuela. There will no longer be threats. For years, I've highlighted the

stories of those innocent American whose lives were so heartlessly robbed by this Venezuelan, terrorist organization, really one of the worst. One of the worst, they say the worst. Americans like 12-year-old, Jocelyn Nungary from Houston, beautiful Jocelyn, Nungary, what happened to her? They, as you know, they kidnapped, assaulted, and murdered by Trend de Aragua animals. They murdered Jocelyn and left her dead under the bridge. There was a bridge, a bridge that will never be the same to so many people after seeing what happened. As I've said, many times the Maduro regime emptied out their prisons, sent their worst and most violent monsters into the United States to steal American lives. And they came from mental institutions and insane asylums. They came

from prisons and jails the reason I say both they sound similar actually prisons a little bit more a little bit more hostile a little bit tougher a mental institution isn't as tough as an insane asylum but we got them both they sent from their mental institutions they sent from their jails prisons they were drug dealers they were drug kingpins they sent everybody bad into the United States, but no longer. And we have now a border where nobody gets through. In addition, Venezuela, unilaterally seized and stole American oil, American assets and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars. They did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it. They took all of our property, it was our property. We

built it. And we never had a president that decided to do anything about it. Instead, they fought wars that were 10,000 miles away. We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive, and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations, and they stole it through force. This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country, considered the largest theft of property in the history of our country. Massive oil infrastructure was taken like we were babies, so we didn't do anything about it. I would have done something about it. America will never allow foreign powers to rob our people to drive us back into and out of our own hemisphere. That's what

they did. Furthermore, under the now-deposed dictator Maduro, Venezuela was increasingly hosting foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten U.S. interests and lives. And they used those weapons last night. They use those weapons last night, potentially in league with the cartels operating along our border. All of these actions were in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy, dating back more than two centuries. And not anymore. All the way back, It dated to the Monroe Doctrines, and the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donro Doctrine. I don't know. It's Monroe Doctrine. We sort of forgot about it.

It was very important, but we forgot about it. We don't forget about it anymore. Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the West. hemisphere will never be questioned again. Won't happen. So just in concluding for decades, other administrations have neglected or even contributed to these growing security threats in the Western Hemisphere. Under the Trump administration, we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region. And our home region is very different than it was just a short while ago. The future will be, and we did this in my first term. We had great dominance in my first term, and we have far greater dominance right now. Everyone's coming back to us. The future will be

determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security. These are core to our national security. Just like tariffs are, they've made our country rich, They've made our national security strong, stronger than ever before. But these are the iron laws that have always determined global power. And we're going to keep it that way. We will secure our borders. We will stop the terrorists. We will crash the cartels.

And we will defend our citizens against all threats, foreign and domestic. Other presidents may have lacked the courage or whatever to defend America. but I will never allow terrorists and criminals to operate with impunity against the United States. This extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives. Very importantly, the embargo in all Venezuela and oil remains in full effect. The American Armada remains poised in position, and the United States retains all military options until United States.

United States' demands have been fully met and fully satisfied. All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they aren't just fair, even to their people. The dictator and terrorist, Maduro, is finally gone in Venezuela. People are free. They're free again. It's been a long time for them, but they're free. America is a safer nation this morning. It's a prouder nation this morning because it didn't allow this horrible person and this country that was doing very bad things to us. It didn't allow it to happen. And the Western Hemisphere is right now a much safer place to be. So I want to thank everybody for being here. I want to thank General

Raisin-Kane. He's fantastic man. I've worked with a lot of generals. I worked with some I didn't like. I worked with some I didn't respect. I worked with some they just weren't good. But this guy is fantastic. I watched last night one of the most precise attacks on sovereignty. I mean, it was an attack for justice.

And I'm very proud of him. And I'm very proud of our Secretary of War, Pete Heggseth, who I'm going to ask to say a few words. Thank you very much. explain how the U.S. will run Venezuela? Well, thank you, Mr. President. Finally, a commander-in-chief, the world respects and the American people deserve.

And as the President said, words can barely capture the bravery and the power and the precision of this historic operation. A massive joint military and law enforcement raid flawlessly executed by the greatest Americans our country has to offer. American warriors are second to none. The best in the world and the best and the best of our country. What I, what all of us witnessed last night

was sheer guts and grit, gallantry, and glory of the American warrior. I'm simply humbled by such man, such a man. And I tip my hat to our chairman, Dan Raisin Cain, and all those Americans who stood watch last night. Our warriors are the elite of America. And again, President Trump has your back. No other country on planet,

at earth, and it's not even close, could pull this kind of operation off. And no other president has ever shown this kind of leadership, courage, and resolve. The most powerful combination the world has ever seen. As the president said, our adversaries remain on notice. America can project our will anywhere, any time. The coordination, the stealth, the lethality, the precision, the very long arm of American justice, all on full display in the middle of the night. Nicholas Maduro had his chance, just like Iran had their chance, until they didn't and until he didn't. He hefted around and he found out. President Trump is deadly serious about stopping the flow of gangs and violence to our country, deadly serious about stopping the flow of

drugs and poison to our people, deadly serious about getting back the oil that was stolen from us and deadly serious about reestablishing American deterrence and dominance in the Western Hemisphere. This is about the safety, security, freedom, and prosperity of the American people. This is America First. This is peace through strength. And the United States war department is proud to help deliver it welcome to 2026 and under president trump america is back i'd like to welcome now our chairman chairman raisin kane to give a few more details about the operation mr chairman thank you uh thank you mr secretary thank you uh mr president and good morning last night on the order of the president of the united states and in support of a

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 Cecilia Maduro. This operation, known as Operation Absolute Resolve, was discreet, precise, and conducted during the darkest hours of January 2nd, and was in the culmination of months of planning and rehearsal, an operation that, frankly, only the United States military, could undertake. What I'd like to do this morning is talk to you through some of the preparation and the details without compromising any of our tactics, techniques, and procedures. There is always a chance that we'll be tasked to do this type of mission again. Our interagency work began months ago and built on decades of experience of integrating complex air, ground, space, and maritime operations. 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. We leveraged our unmatched intelligence capabilities and our years of experience in hunting terrorists. And we could not have done this mission without the incredible work by various intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA, and NGA. We watched, we waited, we prepared, we remained patient and professional. This mission was meticulously planned, drawing lessons from decades of missions over the last many years. Decades of many missions over these last many years.

This was an audacious operation. that only the United States could do. It required the utmost of precision and integration within our joint force. And the word integration does not explain the sheer complexity of such a mission. An extraction so precise, it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western Hemisphere in close coordination, all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single purpose to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas

while maintaining the element of tactical surprise. Failure of one component of this well-oiled machine would have endangered the entire mission and failure is never an option for America's joint force. Those in the air over Caracas last night were willing to give their lives for those on the ground. ground and in the helicopters. Let me talk a little bit about the preparation.

After months of work by our intelligence teammates to find Maduro and understand how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets. In early December, our force was set pending a series of aligned events. He was choosing the right day to minimize the potential. for civilian harm and maximize the element of surprise and minimize the harm to the indicted personnel so as the president said, they could be brought to justice. And as the president said earlier today, weather in Venezuela is always a factor this time of the year. And over the weeks through Christmas and New Year's, the men and women of the United States military sat ready,

patiently waiting for the right triggers to be met and the president to order us into action. Last night, the weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could maneuver through, ocean, mountain, low cloud, ceilings. But when tasked with a mission, this organization does not quit. At 10.46 p.m. Eastern time, last night, the president, ordered the United States military to move forward with this mission. He said to us and we appreciated it, Mr. President, good luck and Godspeed. And those words were transmitted to the entire joint force. Over the course of the night, aircraft began launching from 20 different

bases on land and sea across the Western Hemisphere. In total, more than 150 aircraft, bombers, fighters, intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, rotary wing were in the airline. last night. Thousands and thousands of hours of experience were airborne. Our youngest crew member was 20 and our oldest crew member was 49 and there's simply no match for American military might. As the night began, the helicopters took off with the extraction force, which included law enforcement officers and began their flight into Venezuela at 100 feet above the water. As they approached Venezuelan shores, the United States began layering different effects provided by space com, cybercom, and other members of the interagency to create a pathway.

Overhead, those forces were protected from aircraft, were protected by aircraft from the United States Marines, the United States Navy, the United States Air Force, and the Air National Guard. The force included F-22s, F-35s, F-18s, E-2s, B-1 bombers, and other support aircraft, as well as numerous remotely piloted drones. As the force began to approach Caracas, the joint air component began dismantling and disabling the air defense systems in Venezuela, employing weapons to ensure the safe passage of the helicopters into the target area. The goal of our air component is, was, and always will be, to protect the helicopters and the ground force and get them to the target and get them home.

As the force crossed the last point of high terrain where they'd been hiding in the clutter, we assessed that we had maintained totally the element of surprise. As the helicopter force ingress towards the objective at low level, we arrived at Maduro's compound at 1.01 a.m. Eastern Standard time or 201 a.m. Caracas local time. and the apprehension force descended into Maduro's compound and moved with speed, precision, and discipline towards their objective, and isolated the area to ensure the safety and security of the ground force while apprehending the indicted persons. On arrival into the target area, the helicopters came under fire, and they replied with that fire with overwhelming force and self-defense.

One of our aircraft was hit but remained flyable, and as the president, said earlier today, all of our aircraft came home, and that aircraft remained flyable during the rest of the mission. As the operation unfolded at the compound, our air and ground intelligence teams provided real-time updates to the ground force, ensuring those forces could safely navigate the complex environment without unnecessary risk. The force remained protected by overhead tactical aviation. Maduro and his wife, both indicted, gave up and were to taken into custody by the Department of Justice, assisted by our incredible U.S. military with professionalism and precision, with no loss of U.S. life.

After securing the indicted persons, the force began to prep for departure. Helicopters were called in to exfiltrate the extraction force while fighter aircraft and remotely piloted aircraft provided overhead coverage and suppressive fire. There were multiple self-defense engagements as the force began to withdraw out of Venezuela. The force successfully exfiltrated and returned to their afloat launch bases, and the force was over the water at 3.29 a.m. Eastern Standard Time with indicted persons on board. And both Maduro and his wife were embarked aboard the USS Uuajima. In closing, what we've witnessed today is a powerful demonstration of America's Joint Force. We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse, and again,

not to get it right, but to ensure that we cannot get it wrong. Our jobs are to integrate combat power, so when the order comes, we can deliver overwhelming force at the time and the place of our choosing against any foe anywhere in the world. I am immensely proud today of our joint force and filled with gratitude to represent them here today. There is simply no mission too difficult for these incredible professionals and the families that stand by them and support them. As we stand here this morning, our forces remain in the region at a high state of readiness, prepared to project power, defend themselves, and our interests in the region. This operation is a testament to the dedication and unwavering commitment

to justice and our resolve to hold accountable those who threaten peace and stability. In closing, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the brave men and women who executed this mission. Their courage and tireless commitment to our nation are what makes us strong. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and thank you, Mr. President. Well, I don't have much to add to what you've heard now other than the following points. Nicholas Maduro was indicted in 2020 in the United States. He is not the legitimate president of Venezuela. That's not just us saying it. The first Trump administration, the Biden administration, the second Trump administration, none of those three recognize them. He's not recognized by,

the European Union and multiple countries around the world. He is a fugitive of American justice with a $50 million reward, which I guess we save $50 million. And uh, I sure. Yeah, exactly, but don't let anybody claim it. Nobody deserves it for us. But I want to be clear about one thing. Nicholas Maduro had multiple opportunities to avoid this. He was provided multiple very, very, very generous offers and chose instead to act like a wild man, chose instead to play around. And the result is what we saw tonight. The other message here is the following.

You have a guy, like many people around the world, they like to play games. 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 him like he was able to do with the Biden administration,

basically likes to play games all this time and thinks nothing's going to happen. And I hope what people now, understand is we have a president the 47th president of the united states is not a game player when he tells you that he's going to do something when he's good tells you he's going to address a problem he means it he actions it i i can tell you i've watched this process now for 14 15 years been around it everybody talks i'm going to do this i'm going to do that when i get there we're going to do this we're going to say this is a president of action like i don't understand yet how they

haven't figured this out and now if you don't know now you know because this is the way it's going to play out and i think people need to understand that this is not a president that just talks and does letters and press conferences and you know if he says he's serious about something he means it and and this is something that was a direct threat to the national interest of the United States and the president addressed it there's a president of peace by the way I told you what I just said earlier this guy had multiple opportunities to find his way somewhere else and figure out another he could have been living somewhere else right now very happy but instead he wanted to play big boy and so now you know he's got other sets of problems on his hands and but I think

the message here should be for the world but the president the doesn't go out looking for people to pick fights with he's not generally wants to get along with everybody we'll talk and meet with anybody but don't play games don't play games with this president's in office because it's not going to turn out well and so i hope that uh you know um you know i guess uh that lesson was learned last night and and we hope it'll be instructive moving forward mr president mr president mr president you said that the us is going to run Venezuela. So who's in power right now? Well, we're going to be running it with a group, and we're going to make sure it's run properly.

We're going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which will cost billions of dollars. It'll be paid for by the oil companies directly. They will be reimbursed for what they're doing, but that's going to be paid. And we're going to get the oil flowing the way it should be, as you know, it was just a minor flow. It was actually a minor flow for what they have. But we're going to run it properly, and we're going to make sure the people of Venezuela are taking. We're going to make sure the people that were forced out of Venezuela by this thug are also taken care of. Mr. President, does the U.S. running the country mean that U.S. troops will be on the ground?

How will that work? Well, you know, they always say boots on the ground, oh, so we're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have. We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level, actually. We're not afraid of it. We don't mind saying it. But we're going to make sure that that country has run properly. We're not doing this in vain. This is not, this is a very dangerous attack. This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly.

Could have gotten very badly. We could have lost a lot of people last night. We could have lost a lot of dignity. We could have lost a lot of equipment. The equipment is less important. But we could have lost a lot. And we're going to make sure that this is proper. We're there now.

We're ready to go again if we have to. We're going to run the country right. It's going to be run very judiciously, very fairly. It's going to make a lot of money. We're going to give money to the people. We're going to reimburse people that were taking advantage of. We're going to take care of everybody. It's very important.

We couldn't let them get away with it. You know, they stole our oil. We built that whole industry there. And they just took it over like we were nothing. And we had a president that decided not to do anything about it. So we did something about it. We're late, but we did something about it, yep, Liz. Can you explain the exact mechanism by which you're going to run the country?

Are you going to designate a U.S. official to coordinate? It's all being done right now. We're designating people. We're talking to people. We're designating various people, and we're going to let you know who those people are. That would run Venezuela. Well, it's largely going to be for a period of time, the people that are standing right behind me. We're going to be running it.

We're going to be bringing it back. It's a dead. You know, I talk about a dead country. A year and a half ago, we were a dead country. Now, we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're a country doing better than any country anywhere in the world. And it required leadership. Venezuela has a lot of bad people in there, a lot of bad people that shouldn't be leading. We're not going to take a chance that one of those people take over for Maduro. So you can look at, and others, we have fantastic people, including people in the military. So we're going to have a group of people running it until such time as it can be put back on track, make a lot of money for the people, and give people a great way of life, and also reimbursement for people in our country that were forced out of Venezuela. You said earlier today that you weren't going to back Machado to come back and be the opposition later in your Fox and Friends interview. And then you also mentioned the vice president of Venezuela.

Are you going to work with the vice president of Venezuela, or how do you foresee the relationship going? I understand she was just sworn in, but she was, as you know, picked by Maduro. So Marco's working on that directly. He just had a conversation with her, and she's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again. Very simple. Mr. President, so Colombian President Gustavo Petro, you know, a couple weeks ago, you said he's got to watch his ass. And today, he said he's not concerned about anything happening to him in the aftermath of this operation. So just what your message is about that?

Well, he has cocaine mills. He has factories where he makes cocaine. And, yeah, I think I stick by my first statement. He's making cocaine. They're sending it into the United States. So he does have to watch his ass. Did you notify any members of Congress in advance? Marka, do you want to talk about that?

Because you were involved. We call members of Congress immediately after this was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on. It was a trigger-based mission in which conditions had been. to be met night after night. We watched and monitored that for a number of days. 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. But it's largely a law enforcement function. Remember, at the end of 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. 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. Plus, if I can add one thing to that, Congress has a tendency to leak. This would not be good. If they leaked, General, I think it would have been maybe a very different result. But I have to say, they knew we were coming at some point, you know. A lot of ships out there, they sort of knew we were coming. But Congress will leak, and we don't want leakers.

You were one of the only people to watch this all play out live. What was Maduro doing when the U.S. forces entered, what I assume would be his home? And also, was there any point where the U.S. was considering if Maduro pushed back or resisted killing Maduro? It could have happened. It could have happened. He was trying to get into a safe place. You know, the safe place is all steel. And he wasn't able to make it to the door because our guys were so fast. They went through the opposition so fast.

And there was a lot of opposition. You know, people were wondering, do we get them by surprise? sort of surprised but they were waiting for something it was a lot of opposition there was a lot of gunfire you saw some of it today but he was trying to get to a safe place which wasn't safe because we would have had the door blown up in about 47 i think 47 seconds they say on average regardless of how thick the seal was it was a very thick doors a very heavy door but he was unable to get to that door he made it to the door he was unable to close it Where is Maduro going to be in the time being right now?

Do you know his exactly... Well, eventually, ultimately, in the near future, he's going to be brought to New York. And where is he going to be held in New York? That's going to be up to the officials that do these things. Mr. President, Mr. President, the U.S. has something of a mixed track record of ousting dictators without necessarily a plan for what comes afterwards. Did that weigh on your decision? Well, that's when we had different presidents, but with me, that's not true.

With me, we've had a perfect track record of winning. We win a lot, and we win. If you look at Soleimani, you look at al-Baghdadi, you look at the Midnight Hammer. Midnight Hammer was incredible. Right now, you wouldn't have peace in the Middle East. Essentially, peace in the Middle East because of that. If we weren't successful with Midnight Hammer, you wouldn't have peace in the Middle East. So with me, you've had a lot of victory.

You've had only victories. you've had no losses yeah how long do you expect the u.s to run venezuela and how soon do you want Venezuelan people so i'd like to do it quickly but it takes a period of time you know we're rebuilding we have to rebuild their whole infrastructure the infrastructure is rotted it's actually very dangerous it's a you know blow-up territory oil is very dangerous it's a very dangerous thing to take out of the ground can kill a lot of people it has killed a lot of people doing just that structure is old, it's rotted. Much of it is stuff that we put there 25 years ago, and we're going to be replacing it. And we're going to take a lot of money out so that we can take care of

the country. Are you saying that, Secretary Rubio and... Mr. President, China, Russia, and Iran have interests in Venezuela. How does this operation affect your relationships with them when it comes to the oil and drugs? Well, in terms of China and Russia, well, Russia, when we get things straightened out. But in terms of other countries that want oil, we're in the oil business. We're going to sell it to them. We're not going to say we're not going to go to it. In other words, we'll be selling oil probably in much larger doses because they couldn't produce very much because their infrastructure was so bad. So we'll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries, many of whom are using it now, but I would say many more will come.

Are you saying that, Mr. President, are you saying that, oh. Mr. President, thank you. What is your message to the people of Venezuela today? Of course, the civilian population specifically, they have a lot of questions. What is your message to the people of Venezuela? You're going to have peace, justice. You're going to have some of the riches that you should have had for a long period of time. It was stolen from you.

But you're going to have peace and you're going to have safety. You're going to have justice. You're going to have a country. You're going to have a real country. You're going to have potentially a great country. You know, if you go back 20 years, maybe even a little longer ago, that was a great country. And they destroyed it. Remember I said that if we lose this election, the United States will be Venezuela on steroids. That's what would have happened. Had we lost the election, the 2024 election, we suffered so badly when you look at the border from 2020. What they did, what Joe Biden administration did to our country should never be forgotten. But if we had to go through another year of that, we wouldn't have. We would be exactly where Venezuela was. in terms, I used to say, if they win, we're going to be Venezuela on steroids, and that's

what would have happened. President, thank you. Are you saying that Secretary Heggseth and Rubio are going to be running Venezuela, and will you be sending a U.S. military troops to provide? They're going to be a team that's working with the people of Venezuela to make sure that we have Venezuela right. Because for us to just leave, who's going to take over? I mean, there is nobody to take over.

You have a vice president who's been appointed by Maduro, and right now she's the vice president. president, and she's, I guess, the president. She was sworn as his president just a little while ago. She had a long conversation with Marco, and she said, we'll do whatever you need. I think she was quite gracious, but she really doesn't have a choice. We're going to have this done right. We're not going to just do this with Madura, then leave, like everybody else, leave and say, you know, let it go to hell. If we just left, it has zero chance of ever coming back. We'll run it properly, we'll run it professionally, we'll have the greatest oil companies in the world going and invest billions and billions of dollars and take out money, use that money in Venezuela.

And the biggest beneficiary are going to be the people of Venezuela. And also, I can't stress this strongly enough, the people that got thrown out of Venezuela that are now in the United States, and frankly, some want to stay and some probably want to go back. Yeah. Well, right now, they're very protected because nobody's going to mess with us. They're very protected. The people of them, and we let them know that, you better not touch one of them. Are you concerned that bad elements of the Maduro regime will remain in place? Well, we know who they are.

We're on them, and they're acting much differently now than they would have acted two days ago. Okay, wait. Behind you, please. Mr. President, why is running a country in South America first? Well, I think it is because we want to surround our circumstances. with good neighbors we want to surround ourselves with stability we want to surround ourselves with energy we have tremendous energy in that country it's very important that we protect it we need that for ourselves we need that for the

world and we want to make sure we can protect it yes sir please go ahead is your message you for Cuba and Diaz Canal well Cuba is an interesting case Cuba is you know not doing very well right now it that system has not been a very good one for Cuba the people there have suffered for many many years And I think Cuba is going to be something we'll end up talking about because Cuba is a failing nation right now, very badly failing nation. And we want to help the people. It's very similar in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we want to also help the people that were forced out of Cuba and living in this country. Do you want to say something about that, Marco, please?

Well, I mean, I just gave you a statement a few minutes ago about, you know, when the president speaks, you should take them seriously. So suffice it to say, you know, Cuba is a disaster. It's run by incompetent, senile men, and in some cases, not senile, but incompetent, nonetheless. It has no economy. It's in total collapse. And by the way, you know, they were, you know, all of the guards that helped protect Maduro, this is well known. Their whole spy agency, all that were full of Cubans. I mean, they basically, it's amazing.

This poor island took over Venezuela in some cases. One of the biggest problems of Venezuelans have is they have to declare independence from Cuba that tried to basically colonize it from a security standpoint. So, yeah, look, I lived in Havana and I was in the ground. government might be concerned at least a little bit well the president already announced a week ago that anything that's sanctioned it's sanctioned oil it's not going to be allowed to get there so that that's an existing the answer is the answer is yes yes is aware of the location of opposition leader machado and have you been in contact

with her no we have it really we have it mr president Mr. President, on Monday, I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect to be. Is it possible if the U.S. ends up administrating Venezuela for years? Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial. So it's not going to cost us anything. We will.

Well, we want safety there. We want to be surrounded by countries that aren't housing, all of our enemies. all over the world. That's what was happening. And you don't want to have that. But we're going to be rebuilding. And we're not spending money. The oil companies are going to go in. They're going to spend money. We're going to take back the oil that, frankly, we should have taken back a long time ago. A lot of money is coming out of the ground. We're going to get reimbursed for all of that. We're going to get reimbursed for everything that we spend. So it's going to be a very important. It's going to be a very important. This is a very big evening.

that took place last night. We have to be surrounded by safe, secure countries. And we also have to have energy, very important. We have to have energy that's real energy, not where they're getting 4% and 5% of the energy out of the ground. You take a look, it was such a disaster. So what's going to happen with Venezuela, I think over the next period of a year, is going to be a great thing. And the people of Venezuela will be the biggest beneficiaries. military what did you last speak to Maduro about when you spoke and is the well i don't want to get into the conversations but i did have conversations with him and i said you got to surrender and i actually thought he was pretty close to doing so but now he wished he

did yeah you said that the juror is responsible for drug trafficking you recently pardoned the former president of honduras who was convicted of many junk Can you explain how these two situations are different? Well, I endorsed, as you know, the winning president, the man who won in Honduras. I endorsed the man who won in Chile. I endorsed the man who won in Argentina. And we are doing very well with that whole group. What the man that I pardoned was, if you could equate it to us, he was treated like the Biden administration treated a man named Trump.

That didn't work out too well for them. This was a man who was persecuted very unfairly. He was the head of the country. He was persecuted very unfairly. And there are a number of them. And we felt that it was a very unfair situation that happened to him. He's also a party member of the man who won. So obviously the people liked what I did.

And one of the reasons that was done is because of the fact that the party in power felt very strongly that that man was treated very badly. I started it very quickly. And then I studied it in great detail. I went to a lot of the people standing behind me, and they felt that that man was persecuted and treated very badly. That's why I gave him a pardon. Do you reference boots on the ground earlier? Can you just sort of button this up?

Do you envision the U.S. military having a presence in Venezuela as the U.S. runs that country? Well, no, we're going to have a presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil, because we have to have. We're sending our expertise in. So you may need something, not very much. But, no, we're going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground, and that wealth is going to the people of Venezuela and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela. And it goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country. So I want to thank you all very much. Thank you. Do you have one? Yes, please.

You were so nice before. I'm going to give you the final question. Thank you, Mr. President. Unless it's a bad question, in which case I'll go one word. It's about who? It's about Putin. It's always nice to talk about Putin. You had a phone call with him on Monday. Did he talk at all about Maduro? Did you talk about this?

No, we never spoke about Maduro. Are you mad at him right now? I mean, there's this intelligence. I'm not thrilled with Putin. I'm not thrilled with Putin. He's killing too many people. I thought that would be. So I settled eight and one quarter war.

You know what the one quarter was? Thailand and Cambodia, I did it again. did it again. They broke out, and I did it in about five hours, and I settled it. I'm giving myself one quarter, so I'm up to now eight and one quarter. In other words, I settled the war, but then they broke out. They had a pretty bad breakout over the last four days. I got them to go back to peace, so I only give one quarter. I thought the easiest one would be, one of the easier ones would be Russia, Ukraine. It's not. And they both have done some pretty bad things. And look, that's Biden's war. That's not my war. But I want to stop the lives. Did you see

where last month 30,000, this last was 27, 27,000 the month before. 30,000 mostly soldiers were killed this last month. 30,000. I want to stop that. You know, I got NATO to pay 5% instead of the 2% that they weren't paying. They weren't paying too. Now they pay five. And we send them a lot of munitions. We send them a lot of things, missiles and various other things, a lot. And they pay. The United States is not losing money. We're probably making money on that.

It's the last thing I care about. I just want to stop all those people. We're losing 25, 30,000 human beings that come from two places that are very far away. But if I can stop, because it's something I've been pretty good at doing, deals, I guess. It's all a deal. Life is a big deal. But if I can stop that war and stop 30,000 young people, in addition to the fact that people are being killed in Kiev, people have been killed in other cities throughout, you know, a much smaller number, but they're being killed, viciously killed. So I'm not happy about it.

I thought that would be something that would get solved. We have Mr. Whitkoff here. I think that we're making progress. But that's a war that should have never happened. If I were president, it would have never happened. Putin says it. Everybody says it. If I were president, that would have never happened. But I inherited that war. That was Joe Biden, Zelensky, and Putin. I came into the situation, and it's a mess. And I will say this. I watched an operation last night that was so precise, that was so brilliant. I mean, it was incredible. If we had our people like this general and our people involved, that war would not have gone on very long, that I can tell you. That war, to use an old term, that war has become a bloodbath, and we want it to get some.

Thank you very much. Okay, well, we can turn the volume down on Trump, and we can start talking about that, getting a lot to impact here. I'm just going to go through some of the top lines, and then Sarah, I want you to start to pick up with your observations. Obviously, the biggest news is we are now going to run a foreign state. We will be administering it. It's unclear who will be administering it, just that some Trump administration officials, along with someone from Venezuela or some groups from Venezuela, notably not Maria

Karina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Trump said she doesn't have the support to run Venezuela. I thought that was interesting. And then, of course, we will have. boots on the ground. Trump's not ruling it out, saying that we should not be afraid of boots on the ground. Wouldn't say how many, when, for how long, suggested potentially that it would be to protect oil interests. As for the oil interests, we are going to be drilling oil. We're going to be reconstituting Venezuela's infrastructure, and some of that oil revenue

will go in part to us for repayment for them nationalizing the oil industry there. So a lot to unpack. I'm actually shocked about all that. But Sarah, go ahead first. It is genuinely shocking. Because in part, we got a ton of information, but that begs questions for an enormous amount of additional information. One of the things, you guys can all go dust off your no war for oil bumper stickers, because we are back in the, part of what is astonishing is how upfront they all were about the fact that this is, in large part, a war for oil, although also it's a war against a dictator who was illegitimately there. And also it is about drug deals. So it's about all the reasons, but Trump is very clear. I mean, they are talking about boots on the ground. They're talking about

there's a group that's going to be running it that's going to include Heggseth and Rubio, because Rubio doesn't have enough jobs that he's doing, but that we are going to stay in the country and rebuild their infrastructure. Like, that is madness. And I got to say, one of the striking things as Trump was talking that he was doing is he was both obviously being, you know, I'm a big swinging dick about how we're going to walk into Venezuela,

but also how we are walking into American cities. Like he was conflating going into Venezuela with like what we're doing here in America and he goes on this whole thing about crime. and how, why don't they want, like, look, I am on some level still an unrepent neocon. I think that Maduro is an evil person. I am not sorry for whatever happens to him. He is a murderous dictator.

But what we just witness is America at its most feckless and irresponsible with, to just say to all of us, as we are unpacking this, who's going to run it? a group of people and we're going to stay there and we're going to rebuild the infrastructure and maybe we'll send troops in like that is that is that is it is information but it is insane information i'll stop and let other people go there's a lot more to talk about it did it did give me i know they're not totally comparable but gave me real flashbacks to 2002 mark um you're i was going to pay for itself and the reconstruction we're going to be greeted as liberators by the people there. It will be very easy to prop up a government in a foreign country, and we can administer

it for a period of time. All those are echoes of the arguments pre-Iraq. And all turned out to not be true. Again, big differences, different hemispheres. But I was left, and I don't know about you, with real concerns about the lack of thought that appears to have gone into the post-operation realities. Yeah, I'll start off by saying even Rumsfeld didn't have this kind of arrogance and hubris, and he was pretty bad. And I was in the Pentagon when the war on Iraq started my only time in the Pentagon. There were so many things in this.

I mean, I was scribbling along. First of all, I have to say, first off, that the Hegg-Seth remarks after the Cain, very long description of the operation with a whole lot of hyperbole was just something that, to me personally, is a huge turnoff. You know, it is a guy who's bragging and at the same time being a sycophant. But when he turned, the most shocking moment to me was when Pegseth turned to Rubio and Secretary Rubio said, I don't have anything to add. This is his ballgame now. As we said before this speech started, you know, the military part, the initial operation that, that caused, causes to happen is over. Now it's, how do you fix it?

And Rubio, as the Secretary of State National Security Advisor and I guess other things now, for him to say, I don't have anything to add is just shockingly, well, it's just shocking, running by a group. US troops are not afraid of boots on the ground. No, we will go places where we're sent, but this is going to be an extremely difficult

mission, especially if it's geared toward oil supplies. The other thing that, you know, to make Venezuela great again was just a seminal moment. But then when Rubio said, this is not the kind of mission you can call Congress about, you can't pre-notify them, is just elimination of the three forms of government that we're supposed to have as a democracy. But then when it got into the number of years

and how we want to surround ourselves with good people in the Western Hemisphere, and when the question was asked, what if we're there for years? And he says, well, it won't cost us anything. That just tells me he's prepared to commit war crimes, taking another nation's natural resources. Now, we may have built oil facilities in Venezuela

a few decades ago, but that is not a prerequisite for getting whatever they mine or a strike in their field. I'm just, the best thing about this entire presentation was one of the last things that he said was, I'm not thrilled with Putin because he's killing too many people. I wonder who gave him the alert on that because, you know, Putin has invaded a sovereign country, and that should be a look-in-the-mirror moment. Well, let me just pick up there because you reference Congress and Joe, I want to bring you in here because the reaction on the Hill has been, well, why don't you describe the reaction on the Hill and how it's gone down? So early morning, I started seeing the kind of like Florida moderate, I say that very lightly, Republicans like Maria Salazar, Carlos Jimenez, Mario Diaz-Balart saying, great, this is awesome, we love it. Ballard, in an interview, in a Spanish language interview, said that Cuba is next, which Rubio kind of and Trump both kind of hinted at as like, well, you better watch your ass. there's obviously that reaction there's some outspoken expected outspoken against it

Republicans like Thomas Massey Marjorie Taylor Green though she's not going to be a member of Congress in a matter of days the things that stuck out to me that I think are super important to watch is I was taking notes while Trump was talking boots on the ground obviously but him saying oil companies will be reimbursed ex-venuelans will be reimbursed those are things where Congress can't just sit on their hands because these are things that will require some kind of appropriation, which I don't know if there are enough votes for in a two-seat majority where that majority still includes Thomas Massey, maybe some others. So there are a lot of problems that we're going to have, Congress is going to have to address.

Sure, let me ask you, are they going to appropriate for this? I mean, or is this just going to come from some operation overseas account that they have? I mean, how do you go about funding this stuff? What's it going to cost? What kind of oversight is there going to be? Are the hearings going to be happening to get some answers? Because if we're going to put boots on the ground, if we're going to administer the government of a foreign country,

for fuck's sake, like I would like to know a few details. And I expect lawmakers who we elect to get those details. And these things have huge price tags, the things he's talking about. even if it's not a year's long thing facilitating security for these oil companies who are these oil companies the the unknowns here it's just it's massive what happens Ben what happens yeah Ben what happens if god forbid an American service member gets killed in Venezuela I mean that's that we are making real risks here when we're putting boots on the ground what's what's the reaction going to be why are we there yeah

I mean, it's not clear. And it didn't seem like even the Trump administration was on the same page. Rubio was saying this was just effectuating the arrest warrant for Maduro, basically, whereas Trump and Hague said to some degree made it sound like we now have a colony. You know, this is the – Sarah said this earlier, but this is the kind of thing where it's clearly not being thought through. And if you keep American service members in Venezuela long enough, eventually, one of them will die.

It will happen. It happened, by the way, in D.C. With Trump's National Guard deployments, he didn't mention this when he said there were no murders, but there was a murder of a national guard. He did reference that. Oh, he did. Okay, I understand.

But, I mean, if it can happen in D.C., it can certainly happen in Venezuela. And, you know, either you have to decide then that it's not worth it, and you pull out and you leave whatever Venezuela is, or you get a sort of Vietnam-style situation where you send more troops to project the troops you already put, and all of a sudden it's 20 years later,

you have no idea what you're there for. It's really astonishingly poorly thought through. I couldn't help but think of, there's no mission accomplished banner, but Mark's point, the braggadociousness was insane to me. Hexeth saying, fuck around and find out, basically.

And Rubio's saying, you want to play with the big boys, don't play games. It's like, these guys are setting themselves up for humiliation. Well, this is the, this is the,

we will be greeted as liberators moment, right? like the certainty of how this will all go down and and look the ability of first of all I want to go back to just this is everything Trump has run against the whole time and people will see it as a as a through line of Trump's strongman tendencies which of course it is but it is genuinely like this is bushism with less of a plan and it is it is like the Iraq and Afghanistan thing with of a plan, that Marco Rubio clearly didn't have written remarks, right? He got up there and spoke off the cuff, which was odd to me. And he was, first of all, let's just talk about the presentation that we were just given. Trump was slurring. He was going off on wild tangents at a critical

moment of information. As a result, like, as is always the case with Trump, we did get quite a bit information like we got some insights but then of course they couldn't give us anything further like they like trump gives this slurring kind of meandering thing and then you get heggseth who just is like a i'm sorry but like an ass kissing session on trump you know like and and and they all did that and then rubia wasn't even prepared to speak right he turns to ruby and ruby's like yeah i don't make anything to add to that but i guess what i'll say is everybody put your big boy pants on because don't trump means what he says and i'm like what is what is he mean? He just, he ran an entire, he ran for two terms of a presidency saying that this is the

exact thing that America wouldn't be doing. And they've made, and then when he answered the questions, right, they were, the reporters in the room asked pretty good questions, although I would have liked for somebody to really drill down on, who's the group running Venezuela? Like, Trump made it very clear, we are going to run Venezuela and then made no, there was no other illumination around what that looks like or what it means. That is an enormous thing to say. Like we're at war. Right? Aren't we? Aren't we at war? Well, Mark, and I know Mark, it sounds like you got to go after this and so I'm going to let you run. No, I'm good. I'm all right. Sure. But are we at war? I mean, is this? Yeah.

Yeah. No, beyond a doubt. And, you know, what I'll say, too, I've done this before, but I'm going to do it again to make to reinforce Ben's point I've got a box on my desk it looks like this and on the top of it it says make it matter when you open it up there are the pictures and the cards of 253 soldiers that were lost under commands that I had in Iraq 253 and this was a war that many people said as Ben just said they're going to welcome us as as liberators. They're going to allow us to come in and, you know, they want Saddam gone and everything's going to be fine. And this is also the same war that Trump said, why didn't we take their oil? And if I was in charge, in fact, I'm honored by the fact that I'm the first general

that Trump said he was smarter than because I told Anderson Cooper that we tried bringing the oil companies in and they wouldn't come in because the situation was so terrorized. So all of these things are coming together for me in a very visceral way because I've been there before. And as we said, as Ben helped me craft in the last article, I wrote, the tragedy wasn't that Iraq was hard. The tragedy is we acted as it would be, you know, that it would be really easy. That's the real tragedy. And that's what I'm hearing with this group of two between Hegsef and Rubio. And those are the last two people I would want. running a post-conflict operation in a country that's just been bombed.

Yeah, these guys aren't doing such a great job running one country. I'm not sure they could handle two. Fair enough. All right, we're coming on two hours of our live stream. We're going to go for a little bit longer. But Joe, who are you going to watch for on the Hill? Like, who is your person who's like, I want to see how they react to this, as this sort of bellwether for where the opinion is on this?

Definitely the Democrats and Republicans on armed services and Intel for obvious reasons. But in terms of Republicans who might be opposed to action, the expected ones Thomas Massey ran Paul, but you could potentially see others emerge. Maybe Josh Hawley, maybe some of these people who view, well, you know, who view the America First agenda. like the people who were trying to pull Trump towards this isolationism that he pretended to have, those could be potential voices either in pairing back these big plans or watching them fizzle out in certain ways. So there's a lot of what-ifs about this. And especially with the makeup of the majority, they have very little room for error to do

anything. And I just can't get over the fact that this is, I mean, there were open. embracing the idea that this could just be the first of several countries in which we do this, right? I mean, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico have all come up in this. But Rubio was acting as though, oh, yeah, no, we're thinking about Cuba. They were kind of like, this is the, what's is the whole thing about Rubio and his off-the-cuffness is he was kind of like, yeah, so much of senile old guys, like, they should be worried. Like, they're just, like, throwing this stuff out there. They want a safe neighborhood, so they're going to clean up the block. They're going to kick everybody out of

their houses on the block and make a safe neighborhood. He was calling it the Don Roe Doctrine. The Don Roe Doctrine. The absence of any sort of historical thought on this really is confounding. I mean, I get it. Someone probably got on Fox News

or whispered in his ear, you can do this much better than anyone else's tried before. You're smarter and more efficient and better at it and you can run these countries. But, boy, to have some sort of historical basis would be really nice now to know that we're stepping into some really problematic areas. Anyone can pick up on that one. I'm just like, I guess I'm just

sort of stunned by what we just witnessed. I was a little confused why Stephen Miller was standing there on the edge of the screen. So, oh, this is a good one. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, so the reporting has been that the Venezuela policy in this administration is driven mostly by Rubio and Stephen Miller. Rubio, because he wants to get rid of, or wanted, I guess to get rid of Maduro. It has always been hostile towards Cuba, and I'm very sympathetic to that. Cuba's terrible. The government. But you heard a lot of this is what Trump said. We haven't talked about it yet. Miller apparently wants to create conditions to send Venezuelan Americans or migrants from Venezuela back to Venezuela, which required getting rid of the Maduro regime. And, you know,

I'm not sure I trust this administration to stop at people who aren't American citizens. But yeah, that's the theory, that first you topple the government and then you send all the people back. And you heard Trump say again and again, all those people. of them enforced out of Venezuela. That's part of the goal, I guess, is to repatriate people who have left the country. Yeah, I did pick that up. It does seem like the idea here is dangle a little bit of Venezuelan oil wealth and get any Venezuelan who's in America to come back to Venezuela in exchange for, you know,

oil revenue or something like that. So the oil revenue is going to pay for the resettlement of all these Venezuelans, and it's going to pay for the war, and it's going to go under the Venezuelan coffers, and it's going to go to the oil companies. who are going to be reimbursed for all their investments and they're going to reimbursed. What the hell? Mexico is paying for the wall, too.

Yeah, sure. Did anybody, did you guys also, so he was asked specifically about the pardon? Yes. And his answer made no sense to me. Did it make sense to anybody else? No. I think what I divined from it was that

because the Honduran president's political party is currently in power, pardoning him was, okay. Maduro's party is in power. Well, he's not giving Maduro pardon. I don't know. You're trying to make me make sense of it all. He might have to praise Trump a little bit to get a pardon. We'll have to see on that one. I was thinking about that. I was thinking is Trump going to take the $50 million reward for Maduro's capture. I wouldn't rule it out. Did you see him say that?

You see him where he was like, don't let anybody else get that? Don't let anyone else claim it. But he didn't say I'm going to claim it myself. But it might go to the ballroom. Who knows? What about him saying that he talked to, what's her name, the opposition leader who got the Nobel priest prize, Machado. She's a nice lady, nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect. That was interesting, too. I don't know what to make of it other than maybe the theory that she was whispering in his ear about it. No, I think the easiest thing to make of that is that they have actual designs on who they want to administer the country.

and they want people who are not independent of them to be in charge of it, and that they want to put in a puppet, basically, someone who will just do what they want. And they can't lean on Machado in that sense. She's too independent. I know I'm the new guy, but can I ask, as the military guy, all you really smart people, a question? Sure. What's going to happen on Monday when Congress comes back in session? Because you've got this, you've got the Jack Smith testimony of the other.

night, you still have the Epstein files, you have the potential close down of the government and health care. Where are they going to focus their own? Joe. So it's going to be very chaotic to say the least. Okay, as an old soldier, I know that. That's why we pay Joe the big bucks. Yeah, I think there's going to be like so many members of Congress on the Democratic side trying to carve out their own lane, introducing a flurry of bills to condemn or pull back this that won't go anywhere. You might see some coalitions start to form and allies to figure out a compromise that won't go anywhere either. And this is a massive issue, obviously, but like the number one thing they have to deal with right now is health care. And it's, that is going to consume

their time more than anything. And so other than I think the early part of this week, I don't anticipate a heavy foreign policy debate right away in Congress because there's so many things they have to address that are more pressing and more dangerous for them politically than anything. I mean, that's crazy. What pressing than we just invaded a country and deposed its leader? Oh, in terms of how they, you know, at the ballot box, yeah, health care, health care is still the number one issue in politics and they are going to have to deal with that.

because they have not dealt with it. I think that is going to still take precedence. I think you're going to even see maybe some Democrats attempt to reorient and keep the focus on health care because they view it as politically valuable. So yeah, I don't think this has a lasting effect to the degree that some of the other issues before Congress do. I'm not totally unconvinced.

Healthcare people are about to rise, or are rising thousands. And they do have a draw. Am I right that the discharge petition is going to force a vote in the House on health care anyway? So it's going to come to the fore. Yeah. I don't know. There's so much shit to deal with right now. But this is an important political point, which is, and Joe, I do want to know whether people in Congress are mad at all about not being consulted about any of this.

Feels like they could be pissy about this. But do you want to answer that really quickly? There's been some reporting this morning. that the gang of eight was notified, which was surprising because they weren't for the boat strikes. Are you sure? It sounds like, did you, yeah, did you hear him saying like they're leaky? They leak. You cannot trust our own members. Maybe notified as it was happening, but definitely not beforehand, according to those times. No, Moni Raju reported that gang of eight was notified to advance. Okay. But gang of eight doesn't leak. Okay. So then just take, take, so if Congress has all of those

things to deal with. Premium's about to go up. We now are in a land war in Venezuela, which we are occupying and which we are nation building as best I can. Like to everybody's point here, the echoes of our most recent foreign policy failure, blunder, you know, I mean, these are, this is everything Trump ran against. He's going to be doing that. Like, there is nothing about this that is politically advantageous for Trump. The civil war, other than it's a distraction, from Epstein, I guess, or distraction from some of the other bad things he's doing. But I don't know. The civil war in the Republican Party that's already being torn apart by Israel, Palestine, who's

taking over for Charlie Kirk, this feels like it adds another dimension to sort of the America firsters versus some of the people who are, you know, Trump apologists or maybe old school Republicans who still believe in stuff like, I don't know. But what is going to happen now? This seems like politically it's bad for Trump. Oh, absolutely. I'd agree with that where there's this, like, and that's why I mentioned

Josh Hawley, maybe it's not him, maybe it's somebody else, but you could see America Firsters kind of break from this if they see it as a political advantage, the way that some have with the Epstein files or maybe they commit to it

the way like Bobert and Green and so on did. Well, guys, I'm going to take a point of personal privilege, I'm seeing privilege here. We're at two hours and ten minutes. I'm exhausted and my kid's birthday parties in a little bit. So I'm going to try to close us out with some final thoughts. Mark, look, I'm going to, where you and I are going to talk after this because I think you should do some pop-up podcasting here around what happens. But I'm just sort of

curious, what are you looking for? Like, what are the main things you're looking to see in the weeks ahead here? The first thing is who's going to be in charge? I mean, that's a critical piece all the time. What we've had over the last couple of months is special operators doing their thing. And now we've had a synchronized attack. But those are tactical battles. Those aren't even operational campaigns. Those are tactical battles. And now we're looking at what is the strategy?

What is going to happen? What is the United States really trying to do and how are they going to do it? what are the resources, the ways and the means they're going to use them to reach that end state? And what I tell you, Sam, it's just hard to do those kind of things. And if you haven't thought about how you're going to do that before you conduct a tactical strike like this, it's even harder and more chaotic. And that's what we're going to see because it depresses me a little bit what Joe just said about it. refocusing on health care.

I understand that, but as Sarah said, we're at war. You said it, we're at war right now. I mean, we've just attacked another country and it's not the top priority in this administration right now. That scares the bejesus out of me. Yeah. Okay, well, look, we're obviously gonna keep covering this.

It's a huge moment for our country, for the world, frankly. And it's gonna be, center to our coverage for sure guys thank god we got mark yeah thank god we at mark honestly uh sarah ben joe mark uh thank you for just diving in uh on this saturday morning i honestly cannot believe it's just saturday i felt like it's been sunday for four days now um we'll be following this story uh to the people who came on and watched us and followed us on YouTube. Thank you guys. Really appreciate it. Your support really helps us stand up operations like this. So become a bull of subscriber if you can. And we'll be talking to you

again throughout the year. Take care, guys. Have a great rest of your week.