Bulwark Takes - Sen. Mark Warner: Trump Owns Venezuela's Broken Government Now

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Senator Mark Warner joins Sam Stein to give his take on the Trump administration’s dramatic actions in Venezuela, congressional oversight, and what comes next. Warner warns that extracting a foreign leader, sidelining Congress, and talking openly about “running” other countries reflects an imperial mindset that America has spent decades trying to move away from.

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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. Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein. I am joined by Senator Mark Warner to discuss the situation that is currently unfolding in Venezuela. This is a video for Bullwark Takes. If you are not a member, subscribe. Mark Warner, thank you so much for doing this, Senator. I really appreciate it. Let's just dive right into this. When did you learn that we had undertaken this operation to essentially kidnap Maduro and bring him to the United States? Secretary Rubio did try to call me, but it was after the strike had started.

But so I was actually out west, a bit of vacation. And he tried my old number, but he did try to reach me after the strike had started. And there was already on the news that Maduro had been extracted. And what was your initial reaction to seeing the news? Well, first I thought, you know, remarkable job by the military. I mean, the idea that we'd heard all these stories about, you know, the Venezuela, military and then this almost Praetorian guards that were Cubans surrounding Maduro. I still got questions.

How did this get carried out so flawlessly? And second, you, I also, first to acknowledge, Maduro is a bad guy. And, you know, the Venezuelan people overwhelmingly voted him out in 2024. And I think the then Biden administration missed a huge opportunity to try to push him out at that point. But all that being said, you know, to extract a country's ruler and based upon simply a criminal charge. And again, even the kind of whole notion about doing that, I want to talk about that and what precedent it sets, but whole doing that we're somehow using that as a reason

to go in and get him. And he is a bad guy. But at the same time, you know, a week earlier or so, the president had pardoned the former Honduran president, Hernandez, for the exact same kind of crimes around Doug. And, you know, Hernandez had been convicted by an American court. So it was more than a little bit head scratching. And that even before we get to the, you know, the claim that they're going to run the country. Well, I want to get to the claim about running the country.

Actually, let's do that now. I think the scariest thing, we can debate the notification process and the legality, which are huge issues. But, you know, the precedence this sets, if we can go in and extract without talking to Congress or the American people, a leader, because we feel like they've broken our laws, you know, what right do we say to Vladimir Putin that you can't do the same thing to Zelensky? Well, he's tried. That we have to say to President Xi,

I mean, the Communist Party has said for 40 years that Taiwan is a rogue breakaway province. So does that give them green lights? And you could just look at this, you know, could India go after the leaders in Nepal? I mean, you can take this to absurd places. But if it all, it means, is a bigger, country can say its laws have been violated and that gives you the right to go in and grab somebody

as a leader of a smaller country around you. Boy, oh boy, where does that hit? Well, okay, so, okay, we'll get to running the country after this first question, which is the intelligence that the administration is probably operating off of, and I just say probably because we haven't really seen anything, is that Maduro was overseeing some sort of drug trafficking ring, is a terrorist, running a cartel of some sorts. And on top of that, that the nationalization of Venezuelan oil fields represented a plundering of American oil interests. Have you seen any intel to back up any of those assertions?

Do you believe there are some validity to those assertions? There is validity to the idea that Majora was a bad leader, oppressive to the Venezuelan people. But if you look early in last year, about I think March or April, there was a bad leader. a national intelligence report that said, for example, the gang that always President Trump's psych, Trendral Agua, was bad guys, but they said there was no direct tie between that gang and Maduro. And unfortunately, the intelligence professionals who reached that conclusion got fired for not bending the product. So I don't deny that Maduro is a bad guy. I'm not denying, but, you know, but the notion that somehow, and the president would kind of conflate cocaine with fentanyl.

For example, in the indictment of material, fentanyl's not even mentioned. Right. So this whole notion that we had this ironclad case, it does on the drug issue. We'll see in the court proceedings, but it became more and more obvious from the president's own words that this was much more about oil. Right. And, you know, yes, we're American companies had their oil expropriated dozens of years ago. Yes, I think it was Exxon, still had a legal claim. Chevron has continued to operate there.

But usually these things are settled in court or you try to make the case. I just don't believe that the American public, or for that matter, particularly the Trump supporters are going to want their sons and daughters in harm's way, boots on the ground in Venezuela to try to get that country's oil. Is it your expectation there will be boots on the ground? I'm only asking this because it's very difficult to get a read from the administration about what the actual next steps are here, where you have Trump saying, yeah, we'll run the place, but then you'll have Rubio saying, no, we're going to administer it from the standpoint of a blockade.

Are you expecting at some point that there will be American troops on the ground in Venezuela in a significant number? I have no idea. I have no idea. And that's one of the, you know, we're going to have a gang of eight. brief this afternoon. That's one of the questions I'm going to try to answer. But he doesn't take much for, you know, most of us all remember the same promises being made in the invasion of Iraq. Don't worry, we're going to be viewed as the good guy. Is the Iraqi oil is going to pay for

everything? Trump says the Venezuelan oil is going to pay for everything and it's going to help the Venezuelan people. And, you know, and again, if you were going to go back even more in history, And it was the CIA overthrowing the, at then point, elected Iranian government back in 1953, all on the need to try to protect the oil fields. So our history of going in and doing regime change to protect oil hadn't been very good. And I just don't think the American people are going to buy. What do you make of this new sort of imperialist win that Donald Trump is on where it's not just Venezuela, but he's talking about Colombia. he's talking about Mexico, he's talking about Cuba, and we'll get to Greenland in a second, but those, I mean, what do you make of this?

That was kind of a 1950s view of the world. We're going to have these spheres of influence. We'll have ours, Russians will have theirs, Chinese, and, you know, I think it's been pretty much bipartisan policy for the last 70 years that we wanted to change our relationship with Central and South America and view them as partners, not as us as the imperialists. It felt like that 70-year bipartisan theory of the case got thrown out on Saturday. And I just don't know how that is going to make America safer or, frankly, not just end up building up a lot more resentment in those countries against us. But I guess another way to look at it, and maybe we just misjudged him or misinterpreting what's happening now.

But Trump, for whatever reason, was consistently talking about the need to not conduct regime change to not meddle. overseas when you have your own problems at home. And yet, in the span of a couple weeks, we could potentially see multiple operations in multiple foreign countries. And I'm not sure I understand what the through line is or why he's doing this, but maybe you have some theories of the case or you have some insights that I don't have. Well, I don't mean, I'm not going to be an psychologist. There was a set up that I've ever heard. I wish I had the theory of the case. Yeah. And again, remember on some of these Maduro was not dofully elected. He was not elected in 24.

And you talked about Biden needing to have done more in 2024. But if he starts talking about Colombia or Mexico, those leaders were democratically elected by their people. Cuba, not so much. But Colombia and Mexico, and again, Colombia in particular, that was our shining example under President Bush, a planned Colombia and they were aligned and they did cut back on some of the drug trade. But the one thing about Donald Trump, as we all know, and I think even probably as a supporter, no subtlety here, no kind of like nuance on anything.

And again, where does this all lead in terms of precedence? Well, we're here now. We're at this place now. We can't deal with what happened in the past. We can look into it and gain some insights from it. But we're dealing with a situation in which we have a new interim government in Venezuela. It's the same as the Maduro government's the vice president. Going forward, what kind of steps would you take considering the circumstances that we now inherit?

The one opposition figure who seemed to have the support of most of the Venezuelan people was Ms. Machado, who again, Trump kind of dismissed and maybe he's jealous that she won the Nobel prize and he didn't. But to kind of casually dismiss her, I mean, what kind of message is that send to the Venezuelan people. On top of that, one of the questions we always had, those you got briefed on Venezuela, you know, kind of what next? You get rid of Maduro, who's next? Nobody had said in any briefs I've been in, well, this vice president lady Rodriguez, now she's, you know, a secret capitalist or a secret pro-America. But that seems to be the way that, again, I'm not saying Secretary Rubio, but at least President Trump has tried to represent her.

and this whole notion as you as you mentioned earlier that we're going to run the country from an armada offshore i don't have the foggiest idea how that that works i mean this goes back to like the when a colon pal who said you know you break it you own it well you kind of broke the government here but you own it now yeah well they would look i guess if i had to plead i was advocate they would say the lesson from iraq is don't do debatification keep the institutions in place and then use your pressure points to coerce them in ways that you want. Again, I don't think it works necessarily, but that would be their counterpoint to what you're saying. Yes, that would be.

And I can't think I'm a halfway decent student of history. I can't think of a time where by simply outside influence, again, the Armada off the coast can make the kind of dramatic change in a nation that is at this point so kind of broken down and mismanages Venezuela. And, you know, again, go back for this one quick second on the oil. I mean, Venezuela used to be, you know, produced 4 million barrels of oil a day. It's got the biggest set up oil reserves in the world, close to 20% of the unknown reserves. Everything I've read said to try to get that back operating where we could suddenly have America all our costs paid for and the Venezuelan people give what they deserve and need.

It would take two or three years to rebuild that infrastructure. And you can't really provide the security for American oil companies to go in there if you're just doing it from an armada. I want to just close on Greenland because I know for a while it's been sort of like a joke kind of in the background and then kind of serious, but not really now. Suddenly it's being talked about in very serious ways by the president who says we need it. We do need Greenland, absolutely. He has said, how seriously do you take the idea that he would take over Greenland in some military operation?

That's why our system was set up to say, you've got to have checks and balances. That's why, you know, the power to declare war or takeover a country is invested with Congress. Yeah, but he's not respected that. No, I know, but again, that goes back to, they set up the Constitution because we were tired of a one-man rule, King George. And the idea that he would, you know, I, I don't dismiss it, Sam, because as you said, you know, this guy can take, we'll take arbitrary actions. But two, two was thought response on that. One is, holy crap, what would that mean? Would NATO completely disintegrate? Would, you know, our kind of whole sense of Western alliance be destroyed?

And on top of that, it kind of begs the other question, which we're going to get a real view on this week, for all of the quiet conversations I've had with my Republican friends, and I've got a lot of Republican friends, are they going to actually speak up or keep rolling over? And again, kind of that may be the precedent setting and then the question of whether the norms will hold at all are the two biggest things that worry me. Yeah, it does strike me that green. And for some reason, I'm not sure why, but it does strike, well, I know why, an invasion of Greenland would be a line that I think a lot of people would raise their hands to say absolutely not. And yet here we are where we're talking about it in very serious ways. And I do think it might potentially destroy NATO, right? I mean, how could Denmark, how would Denmark respond to something like that? How would the EU?

Well, Denmark would rightfully have, you know, beyond the right to be pissed. And frankly, Denmark punches above its weight, the Danes and the Danes and the Danes. Dutch are really good partners on a lot of issues. But you know, what does France do? What does Germany do? I just, it seems so baffling to me. But as you said, what was viewed as a joke for a few months, to arbitrarily take that action would be crazy. But you can't take it off the table. If the checks and balances that were set up don't hold, then we're in a very different kind country. And I don't, you know, you got that hypothetical. But the other hypothetical is, you know, if next week one of the Russian services go in and extract Zelensky from Kiev, what are we going to

say? Are we going to say, well, you know, we're going to push back? Are we going to say, well, that's Russian law. He broke. Yeah. No, really challenging, weird world we're in. Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intel Committee. Thank you for doing this. Looking forward to hearing what happens with the gang of a briefing later this afternoon. Take care and I appreciate you coming on. Yes, sir.