Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-01-06 Tuesday

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Democracy Now! Tuesday, January 6, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. 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. The oil, stupid. That's part of the title of a new piece. peace on Venezuela by Medi Hassan of Zateo. He'll join us to look at President Trump's public vow to take Venezuela's oil after U.S. forces attacked Venezuela and seized President

Nicolas Maduro. We'll also look at Trump's escalating threats against Mexico, Colombia, and Cuba, and what he's calling the Dunrow Doctrine. And the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal. But we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now go with the Donne Road document. Chevron stock surged yesterday. We'll speak to a Wall Street Journal reporter on why oil company stocks are going up, as well as how Trump family businesses have generated at least $4 billion since he was reelected. In December, Trump Media merged with a company aiming to build the world's first,

viable nuclear fusion plant to power AI projects. The move was announced shortly after Trump signed an executive order to bar states and local governments from enacting their own AI regulations. All that and more coming out. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, then as well as deposed president, Nicolas Maduro, appeared in federal court, Manhattan Monday, where he pleaded not guilty to four criminal counts, including narco-terrorism, conspiracy, cocaine importation and conspiracy in possession of machine guns and destructive devices. If convicted, each charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

During his arraignment, Maduro declared, I'm not guilty. I'm a decent man. I remain the president of my country, Maduro said, in charging document. prosecutors abandoned the Justice Department's prior claim that Maduro is head of a drug cartel called Cartel de Los Solis. In fact, no such organization exists. It's a Venezuelan slang term dating to the 1990s, referring to public officials who are corrupted by drug money. Meanwhile, Maduro's wife, Celia Flores, pleaded not guilty to the three criminal counts she faces. She appeared with bandages on her temple and forehead. Her lawyer says she suffered significant

injuries, including a possible rib fracture as she was abducted by a U.S. Army Delta Force team in a pre-dawn raid on the presidential residence in Caracas early Saturday. Venezuelan officials say the U.S. assault caused at least 80 deaths. In Caracas, Venezuela's Vice President Delsi Rodriguez was formally sworn in as interim president Monday. On Saturday, Rodriguez was initially defiant in her condemnation of the Trump administration's assault, calling it barbaric, and a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. But during cabinet meeting Monday, Rodriguez continued with a more conciliatory tone, saying her government would engage in some cooperation with the U.S. This comes after President Trump threatened her in an interview with the Atlantic Magazine saying, quote, if she doesn't do what's right, she's going to pay a very big price. probably bigger than Maduro, Trump said.

The United States face widespread condemnation from members of the United Nations Security Council who convened an emergency session in New York Monday to discuss the U.S. attack on Venezuela. UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez told ambassadors there must be respect for national sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity. After warning the U.S. had set a dangerous precedent

for the world order, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, defended the Trump administration's actions as a legitimate law enforcement operation, unquote. Condeming the attacks as a violation of the UN Charter were Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Eritrea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Spain. This is Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada. Allowing such acts to go without an effective answer would amount to normalizing the replacement of law by, while eroding the very foundations of the collective security system. Today, it is not only the sovereignty of Venezuela at stake. At stake is the credibility of international law,

as is the authority of this organization, as well as the principle that no state can appoint itself as judge an enforcer of the world order. Meanwhile, demonstrators rallied outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan, where Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Siliya Flores, were being arraigned on Monday protesting both for and against his detention by the United States. The protests were among dozens held around the U.S. since Maduro's abduction, and Michigan anti-war demonstrators took to the streets of downtown Grand Rapids Saturday afternoon.

Protest organizer, Jessica Plicta, spoke with local ABC affiliate WZZM. We want to stop war with Venezuela. We want to end all U.S. wars. We don't want boots on the ground in Venezuela. We don't want to fight Venezuela for oil. We don't want our friends and families to be sent to Venezuela and be killed for oil. As Plicta concluded her interview, two police officers appeared behind her on camera and arrested her. She's been charged with obstructing a roadway and failure to obey a lawful command from an officer during the protest.

President Trump tipped off oil executives roughly a month before the U.S. kidnapped Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro. that's according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. Speaking to reporters on Air Force one Sunday, President Trump said he'd spoken to oil executives before and after the U.S. attack on Venezuela, but he did not inform Congress. Paul Singer, a billionaire, who's a top donor to President Trump, is set to profit immensely since his investment firm purchased Citgo, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company,

for $5.9 billion, the Venezuelan government estimated. sit-go's value at $18 billion. Venezuela in opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, said Monday. She plans to return to Venezuela as soon as possible. She made the comment in an interview with Fox News as Sean Hannity, where she heap praise on President Trump offering to share her Nobel Peace Prize with him. Her comments came after Trump dismissed the idea of installing her as Venezuela's leader, saying, quote, she doesn't have the support within or respect within the country.

unquote. The Washington Post reports Trump's refusal to support Machado stem from her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. One source told the Washington Post, quote, if she turned it down and said, I can't accept it because it's Donald Trump, she'd be president of Venezuela today, unquote. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate is set to debate a war powers resolution Thursday that would bar U.S. military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization. Danish Prime Minister Meta Fredrickson warned that if the United States were to try to take over Greenland, it would spell the end of NATO. He told the Danish state broadcaster, quote, If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, unquote.

Her comments come as President Trump has repeatedly threatened to use military force to take over the autonomous Danish territory, telling reporters on Sunday, quote, we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security and Denmark is not going to be able to do it, unquote. Greenland's Prime Minister, Yens Friedrich Nielsen, post on social media, quote, Our country's not an object in the rhetoric of a superpower. We are a people, a country, a democracy.

That must be respected, especially by close and loyal friends, unquote. Speaking to CNN, U.S. homeland And security advisor, presidential advisor, Stephen Miller, asserted the U.S. has the right to take over Greenland. The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. There's no need to even think or talk about this in the context that you're asking of a military operation. Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. Israel launched air strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon, claiming to target. Hezbollah and Hamas infrastructure, Lebanon's health ministry, set a drone strike on a car in

the south of Lebanon Monday wounded two people. Israel's continued its attacks on Lebanon, despite a U.S. brokered ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel back in 2024. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli forces hit a tent, housing, displaced people in the El Mawesi area northwest of Han Yunus, killing a five-year-old girl and her uncle and wounding two other children. Israeli forces also shot a child in the head in Bethlehia in northern Gaza, close to the yellow line that separates Israeli-controlled areas from the rest of Gaza. The U.S. has dropped the number of vaccines. It recommends for every child going from 17 to 11 routine vaccines. Vaccines like flu, rhodovirus, hepatitis A and B, RSV, and some meningitis shots are no longer broadly recommended for all children. Instead,

those vaccines are only recommended for certain groups deemed high risk. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm of the Vaccine Integrity Project said, quote, abandoning recommendations for vaccines that prevent influenza, hepatitis, and rhodovirus, and changing the recommendation for HPV without a public process to weigh the risks and benefits will lead to more hospitalizations and preventable deaths among American children, he said. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who voted for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary, sharply criticized the new vaccine schedule, saying it's based, unquote, no scientific input, unquote. It comes as new U.S. flu cases surged over the holidays already surpassing the flu epidemic of last winter, which was one of the harshest in recent years. The CDC estimates at least 11 million flu illnesses. 120,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths this season.

Democratic lawmakers are demanding House Speaker Mike Johnson unveil a plaque honoring police officers who defended the Capitol against a violent mob seeking to overturn the 2020 election five years ago today, January 6, 2021. The plaque was commissioned by Congress in 2022 and was required by law to be installed by March 2023. But it remains in a capital basement utility room as Republican leaders continue to block its display. Ahead of today's anniversary, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released two new reports on the aftermath of the January 6th attack. They found at least 33 pardoned January 6 defendants have since been charged, arrested, or convicted of new crimes. Congressmember

Jamie Raskin said the pardons had created a, quote, private. militia of proven street fighters that represent a nightmare for American public safety, he said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has formerly censured Democratic Senator Navy veteran Mark Kelly over a video in which Kelly, along with five other Democratic lawmakers, urged service members to refuse unlawful orders. At the time, President Trump had called for the Democrats to be put to death. The Pentagon's now starting administrative steps to reduce Kelly's rank, citing what it calls reckless misconduct. This would affect Kelly's status as a retired Navy captain and cut his military pension. Senator Kelly blasted Secretary Hegseth, saying, quote, if Pete Hegseth,

the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in our country's history thinks he can intimidate me with a censure or threats to demote me or prosecute me, he still doesn't get it. I'll fight this with everything I've got, not for myself, but to send a message back that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump don't get to decide what Americans in this country get to say about their government, Senator Kelly said. And the Trump administrations deployed 2,000 ICE agents to Minneapolis to probe alleged cases of fraud at child care facilities, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commander Gregory Bovino, who's overseeing controversial immigration roundups in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, is expected to arrive in Minnesota.

It comes as federal health officials announced they were freezing funding under the Child Care Assistance Program to all states. Meanwhile, Democratic Governor Tim Walls announced on Monday he's dropping his bid for a third term as governor in order to focus on rooting out fraud in Minnesota's public assistance and social services programs. Every minute that I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can't spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who pray on our generosity and the cynics who want to pray on our differences. So I've decided to step out of this race and I'll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that's in front of me for the next year. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now.com.comocracy.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. It's all about the oil. stupid. That's part of the headline of a new piece by our first guest, Medi Hassan, the founder of the online news site, Zateo. In the piece, Hassan details how President Trump's repeatedly admitted that gaining access to Venezuela's oil was a key reason why the U.S. attack Venezuela Saturday and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores. On Monday, Maduro and his wife pleaded not guilty to federal charges in a New York court.

courtroom. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves. This is part of what President Trump said on Saturday from Marlago. 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. On Sunday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, he'd briefed oil executives ahead of the attack on Venezuela, something he did not do for members of Congress. Have you spoken with the oil companies about going into Venezuela? I have. Have you received any commitments from the oil companies? They want to go in so badly.

Did you speak with them before the operation took place about, did you maybe tip them off about what was coming in? And they want to go in and they're going to do a great job for the people of Venezuela. And they're going to represent us well. On Monday, oil company stock surged in value. Paul Singer, a billionaire who's a top donor to President Trump, is set to profit immensely since his investment firm purchased Citgo, the U.S.-based subsidiary Venezuela, state-owned oil company, for $5.9 billion. The Venezuelan government estimates Citgo's value at $18 billion. On Monday, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on the U.S. attack.

Venezuela's ambassador to the U.N., Samuel Moncado, said Venezuela's targeted due to oil and energy resources. Venezuela is a victim of these attacks as a result of its natural wealth. Oil, energy, strategic resources, and the geopolitical position of our country have historically been factors of greed and external pressure. When the use of force is used to control resources, impose governments or redesign states, we are faced with the logic that refers to the worst practices of colonialism and neo-colonialism. Accepting this logic implies opening the door to a profoundly unstable world, where countries with greater military capabilities can decide by force the political and economic destiny of other states. Joining us now is Medi Hassan, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zateo.

Thanks so much for joining us again, Medi. Why don't you start off with the title of your piece? It's all about the oil, stupid. Or to be exact, yep, it's all about the oil. Talk about what happened, your response to the abduction of the Venezuelan president and his wife, the charging yesterday, what the Trump administration has said. he is guilty of doing, actually didn't jive exactly with what he was charged with. But then what all this means, as Trump talks about narco-trafficking, but also, what,

mentioned 25 times in his press conference afterwards, talked about the word oil. Yeah, good morning, Amy. Thanks for having me. I wrote that piece on Saturday in a hurry at 7 a.m. when I woke up and saw the news that the U.S. attack Venezuela. And I pulled together, it's a list of Trump comments, basically, from the past few months and years. I went back to 2019 and Andrew McCabe, who was FBI deputy director, he wrote in his memoir in 2019, the threat. He quotes Donald Trump saying in government during his first term, the country we should be invading is Venezuela. They're right next door and they have all that oil. Trump was thinking about Venezuela's oil long ago. Even during his

period in the wilderness between 2020 and 2024, he did rallies where he did. spoke about, if I was still in charge, we would have Venezuela's oil. And of course, he spent much of December just before the New Year's talking about we want our oil rights back. Our oil was stolen from us. All BS nonsense lies. Said Venezuela took our oil. We want it back. They need to return it, he said. They took an oil tanker. He said, we're going to keep the oil. So I put that all together in a quick piece on Saturday, thinking people are going to attack me as they did in 2003. When people like you and me, Amy, was saying, it's about the oil. Iraq was about the oil. But in those days, the people in power pretended it wasn't, right?

George Bush, Dick Cheney and others, they said it was WMDs. They said it was democracy. They said it was Al-Qaeda. They at least pretended that it wasn't about the oil. Trump, as you just pointed out, spent the last three days non-stop telling us it's about the oils. You have all these people on the right and in the center, you know, saying the sophisticated analysis is it's not about the oil. That's a conspiracy theory. And then you have Donald Trump comes out, as usual, throws them all under the bus, says, no, no, it's about the oil. oil. He just can't stop talking about the oil. Every time he's asked about anything, he says, well, let's talk about oil. And as you pointed out, oil company stocks are up. He gave oil

companies a heads up that he didn't give members of Congress per the Constitution. If you go back to the election campaign, Amy, in Florida at Mar-a-Lago, he hosted a bunch of oil company executives and said, give me a billion dollars, and I'll help you all out. He's helping them out. He's enjoying himself. This is what he likes. He's not actually done a full regime change. He's kept the Maduro government in place, Delci Rodriguez, the vice president in place, as long as she plays ball on the oil. He's made that very clear. So this was about oil. It was never about narco-terrorism or drugs. This is the same president who pardoned the former president of Honduras just a few weeks ago, who was convicted in American court and imprisoned

for bringing 400 tons of cocaine into the country. It's not about democracy. This is a president who loves dictators, his pals with Middle East and Asian and African dictators, loves Kim Jong-un. And this wasn't about, you know, running a cartel. The indictment that said that Nicholas Maduro was the head of a cartel, the cartel of the sons, as you pointed out earlier, de la Solis. It's a completely made-up cartel, as experts have said for years. I said it in my piece on Saturday. And now they've dropped it.

Classic Trump administration, whether it's someone that ICE is taking or some foreign leader that they've kidnapped. When they come in front of a judge, they always change their tune. I want to go to Stephen Miller. He's got a number of titles, but mainly the deputy chief of staff. This is what he said on CNN. By definition, we are in charge because we have the United States military stationed outside the country. We set the terms and conditions.

We have a complete embargo on all of their oil and their ability to do commerce. So for them to do commerce, they need our permission. For them to be able to run an economy, they need our permission. So the United States is in charge. The United States is running. So the country during this transition period. So that's Stephen Miller. We are in charge, he said.

Medi Hassan, your response. And Donald Trump has said the same, right? On Air Force One on Sunday night, it was very interesting to see Trump's comments because, as usual, his people went out to do Operation Cleanup on the media. They tried to clean up his remarks from Saturday, where he said, we're going to run Venezuela. This is a famous anti-war, anti-regime change, anti-nation, anti-neocon Republican president.

And yet on Saturday, he says very quickly, we're going to run Venezuela. So on Sunday morning, all his people go out on the Sunday shows and say, that's not what he meant. Marco Rubio does clean up in Isle 11, goes on the Sunday morning shows and says, what he meant was we're going to keep the blockade in place. And then he goes out on Air Force One on Sunday night and says, no, if I tell you who's in charge, it'll be controversial. They say, who he goes, we're in charge. We're running it. And then you have Stephen Miller, who's also very blunt. I mean, he is the voice of Trump's id making clear that might is right.

The same people who told us for years that America needs to mind its own business. America needs to nation-build-at-home. America needs to stop all these foreign wars. They're now loving this moment. You know, they're very hyped up. They think they've got a big win. They've loved this kind of smooth, elite special forces moment where they pulled Maduro out without any American losses. It has shades of post-war Iraq, mission accomplished, the hubris of the George Bush.

administration and the neocons in the spring of 2003. You know, it all looks fine in the short term. It's the long term and the medium term that's the problem. And they don't really have a plan for Venezuela. They don't really have a plan for any of these countries. They're now threatening. Trump is threatening Cuba. He's threatening Colombia.

He's threatening Iran. And, of course, he's threatening Denmark by threatening to take Greenland. And Stephen Miller is now pushing this new line that might is right. You know, we're not going to pretend that we care about international law or UN resolutions or national sovereignty. We're going to take what we want. seeing that in the MAGA media universe, too, Amy. You're seeing people like Matt Walsh, the far right podcaster at The Daily Wire, who used to say, I'm a non-interventionist.

We shouldn't go abroad. We should focus on America. Now he's saying, well, we should do whatever we want. We're a superpower. And third world countries just have to get on board. So that's an interesting development here in the MAGA movement, which claimed to be anti-war. And some of them, I'm sorry, Amy, just have to say this. Some of us spent much of 2024 warning people on the left that Donald Trump is not anti-war, will not be a dove. He will actually. be a belligerent hawk who starts new wars. He bombed seven countries in 2024, seven countries in the space of his first 12 months, and now he's threatening to bomb four more, one of whom is a European ally.

Can you talk about Trump's national security strategy, which was released last month, which states the U.S. will, quote, assert and enforce a Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. And, of course, Trump himself now is referring to the Dunrow Doctrine. Well, Donald Trump has the brain and comprehension and attention span of a toddler. And I say that in a very generous fashion. So when he hears new words, new terms, something that makes him sound good, he jumps on it. So of course, when right wing media came up with this idea of the Donro doctrine, borrowing from the Monroe doctrine, of course, Donald Trump couldn't tell you what the Monroe

doctrine was if his life depended on it, he loves this idea that he's now doing something new in American history. He's a president who's breaking new ground. new ground being, we're going to run the hemisphere. You saw the post that the State Department put out yesterday saying it's our hemisphere, which people pointed out is both, you know, performatively strong, like being the neighborhood bully, but also weak because you're basically saying, well, the rest of the world isn't ours, which is what previous American presidents suggested that they were leader of the free world. Trump's basically saying, well, this is ours

and China, Russia can have their spheres of influence, and it is very 19th century-esque. Let's divide up the world between the powers. But on the national security strategy, Obviously, European governments were alarmed when they saw this national security strategy. It is very hard to describe. It's nuts in many ways. If you read it, it's written, it feels like it's parts of it written by the Gropers, by the neo-Nazis, around the Nick Fuentes types. It talks about the decline of Western civilization. It says Europe is being destroyed.

It's committing suicide by allowing in non-white immigrants. It talks about, you know, it treats the West and Europe as America's main enemy because we know how much Donald Trump actually likes Vladimir Putin. So it's a very bizarre document that is both hawkish and belligerent and isolationist and withdrawalist at the same time. It's classic Trump. He has no consistent views or principles. And people say, what is Trumpism? We need to find out this guiding ideology. Donald Trump is a collection of impulses. And that's why we're now seeing in the space of 72 hours, the same people who spent years telling us that regime change is bad, this is a different Republican Party. This is not the Georgia W. Bush neocon party. Suddenly, they sound even more hawkish

than Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney, as I said in my piece, whatever the opposite of rolling in your grave is, he's doing it right now. Because I don't remember George Bush and Dick Cheney threatening four countries at a single press conference, one of them being in a European country. Trump is doing that. So this isn't about ideology. This isn't about some new doctrine. This is about might being right. This is about Trump's nativist impulses meeting his belligerent impulses. there was a cartoon that Pete Hegsteth retweeted from the Trump Warham account over the weekend, which has Donald Trump standing astride Latin America with a stick in his hand. That is their approach to the world right now.

Let's see how long it lasts. And Iran, you have on Monday the Jerusalem Post reporting there are multiple indications. The U.S. and Israel are looking into regime change options in Iran. Lindsay Graham was on Fox. He put on a hat that said, make Iran great again. again? Are you concerned about moving from Venezuela to Iran? 100%. And also, Graham took a picture with that hat standing alongside Trump. And Donald Trump, of course, we were told would be the guy who doesn't want a new war in the

Middle East. We were told he would do a deal with Iran and do deals with everyone in the region. And, of course, he became the first American president to bomb Iran. He did what Obama and Bush and Biden did not do. He bombed Iran last year, in violence. of international law. He claimed it was to stop this quote-unquote 12-day war between Israel and Iran. But smarter analysts like Trita Parsi and others pointed out that this was unresolved, that 2026 would be a year where we would see military conflict again. If you would ask me prior to the New Year's what I was most worried about, I would have said Iran and Venezuela. And Venezuela has happened. Iran is next. In fact, the day before he bombed Venezuela, Amy.

Actually, let me get the timeline right. On Christmas Day, he bombs Nigeria. On Christmas Day, on New Year's Eve, at a party in Moralago. He's asked, what's your New Year's resolution? He says, peace, peace on earth. Then on Friday, January 2nd, he posts, we're locked and loaded, ready to attack Iran. And then on Saturday, he attacks Venezuela. This is the most hawkish president of my lifetime at the moment, as of right now. George Bush must be wondering what's going on in his house in Dallas looking at what Trump's up to. So yes, I'm very worried about war with the Israelis and the Israeli press, as you mentioned, are loving this moment. They're seeing this as a moment. Remember, they're tying Venezuela to Iran. They're saying Venezuela supported

Hezbollah. Iran supports Hezbollah. These regimes are all connected. It's kind of like a new axis of evil. So, of course, they're pushing for an attack on Iran. This is not just Netanyahu, by the way. I know we love in this country just to say, Netanyahu, it's the entire Israeli political spectrum. Benny Gantz, an opposition leader, former general, openly called, I think, yesterday or Sunday, for the Americans to take out the regime in Iran as well. And of course, this is what hubris does to you. Donald Trump will look at what happened in Venezuela and say, well, I did it so smoothly. bloodlessly. By the way, they killed Venezuelans, including Venezuelan civilians. But no Americans

were lost, and I got praised by people in the media for my wonderful win. That's the kind of hubris that would allow someone like Trump to go, well, maybe we should do it in Iran. Maybe I should listen to Lindsay Graham and Benjamin Netanyahu and Marco Rubio and do it in Iran. Of course, Iran is a very different kettle of fish to Venezuela. That won't be a walk in the park, I can assure you. Mandy, when you talk about Nigeria, let's not forget. It's the largest oil producer in Africa. Completely coincidental, Amy. Completely coincidental. And Iran, of course, overthrown in 1953 by the United States, the democratically elected leader, on behalf of BP. So oil all the way, not to mention Iraq in 2003 when you mentioned George W. Bush.

I just wanted to go to Jeffrey Sachs speaking at the U.N. Security Council yesterday, the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. In the past month, President Trump has issued direct threats against. against six UN member states, including Colombia, Denmark, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, and of course, Venezuela. Members of the council are not called upon to Judge Nicholas Maduro. They are not called upon to assess whether the recent U.S. attack and ongoing naval quarantine results in freedom or in subjugation. Members of the council are called upon to defend international law, and specifically the U.N. Charter. So that was Professor Jeffrey Sacks.

Medi Hassan in this last 30 seconds. Supposedly on Thursday, there's going to be a vote and a debate in the U.S. Senate on the War Powers Act. Can you talk about the significance of this and where you see this all headed? What the Maduro's, President Maduro is expected to be back in court. I think it's March 17th. Well, we don't know if he's going to actually win or lose. the Trump DOJ doesn't have a great record in prosecuting people.

It will be hilarious if they lost and Maduro walked free. Let's see. Very quickly, the story of the Trump administration at home has been people rolling over for him. Big law, big universities, big tech, all of the banks, all rolling over from universities, rolling over for Trump. And now the story on the international stage is the same. European allies cannot bring themselves to condemn what Trump did. The British government embarrassingly could not even say he shouldn't take Greenland.

America's wrong to be threatening Greenland. Congress has abdicated its role on foreign policy, on warmaking. So at every stage, Donald Trump, luckiest man in the world, finds no opposition. I think this is all going to come bite everyone in their backsides very quickly. If he does take Greenland, the Europeans will feel very foolish for not standing together when he went and went after Venezuela. Minnie Hassan, award-winning journalist, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zateo, will link to your piece.

Trump's Venezuela attack, it's all about the oil, stupid. Coming up, Alexander Avina, Associate Professor of Latin American History at Arizona State University on what they're calling the, what he's calling, the Trump's calling the Dunrow Doctrine. Stay with us. Eyes is just another skin simply slips away. You can rise above it. We'll shed easily And all will come out fine

I've learned it line by line One coming wire One silver thread All that you desire Rolls on ahead. Grateful, performed by Patty Smith in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now. Democritory Now.org, the War and Peace Report.

I'm Amy Govinez. We look now at how Trump's military attack on Venezuela will impact Latin America, where the U.S.-led coup on Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro has resurfaced the historical echoes of decades of U.S. intervention in the region. The U.S. State Department posting a message online saying, quote, Quote, this is our hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened, unquote. The comment followed remarks by President Trump, who referenced the Monroe Doctrine, a credo enacted by U.S. President James Monroe in 1923, that's been repeatedly invoked by U.S. presidents in order to justify U.S. political and military interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean through much of the 20th and 21st centuries. This is President Trump speaking Saturday. 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 Western Hemisphere, will never be questioned again. Leftist governments across Latin America has swiftly condemned the U.S. military attack on Venezuela and Maduro's abduction.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Monday he would, quote, take up arms for his country if necessary. In response to Trump's threats against Colombia, Petro also said in a statement, quote, come get me, I'm waiting for you here, unquote. As Trump specifically targeted Petro claiming without evidence, Petro's involvement in cocaine trafficking.

Trump has also threatened military action against Cuba and Mexico. This is Mexican president, Claudia Schaembaum. Mexico's position against any form of intervention is firm, clear, and historic. Following recent events in Venezuela, where the United States government carried out a direct intervention that resulted in the capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, as well as the loss of human lives, Mexico reaffirms a principle that is not new and admits no ambiguities. We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. Latin America's history is clear and compelling. Intervention has never brought democracy,

never generated well-being or lasting stability. Only the people themselves can build their own future, decide their path, exercise sovereignty over their natural resources, and freely define their form of government. Our position is clearly enshrined in the Constitution of the United Mexican States. That was the Mexican president, Claudia Shanebaum. For more, we go to Phoenix, Arizona, where we're joined by Alexander Avenia, associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University, who's extensively researched and written about capitalism,

the U.S.-backed War on Drugs and State Violence, author of the award-winning books, Spectors of Revolution, Peasant Gorillas, and the Cold War Mexican countryside. So if you can talk, Professor Avina, about what this attack on Venezuela means for Latin America, what some are calling the re-hemisphering of Latin America. Good morning, Amy. Yeah, I think this is, you know, contrary to what Trump was saying, the Monroe Doctrine has never quite been forgotten by the United States. It's just the methods of enforcing it or implementing it in the region have varied across presidential administrations and across political parties. I think it bears to keep in mind that U.S. empire in Latin America is a bipartisan

project that involve both Republican and Democratic parties. Just thinking about how President Obama is the one who labeled Venezuela a threat to U.S. national security back in 2015 as one pertinent example. So I think what we're witnessing now is just a quite visible and unabashed assertion of U.S. power over Latin America. Now, that's what we're witnessing now. That's what we're one way to read it. The other way to read this move, and particularly in light of the national security strategy, it's also, it's a moment to read it is a moment of U.S. weakness, right? They're basically conceding other parts of the world to peer rivals. They've more or less accepted that they cannot compete frontally with China, for example, in Asia. So as has happened in the past,

when the U.S. has forced resistance or defeat elsewhere in the world, they come back, quote, unquote, home to the Western Hemisphere. And they use Latin America as an imperial laboratory, as they have since almost the founding of the United States. And so the U.S. has long served as historians like Greg Grandin have written about as a workshop of empire where the U.S. gets to refine its imperialist tactics abroad. But they also use those moments to try to create internal domestic political hegemony depending on which political party or which political coalition is in the ascendancy. The moment, the difference now, I think, is that, again, to reiterate, this is a moment of U.S. weakness internationally, but I think also for the Trump Coalition is a

moment of weakness internally. So one way, I think the way I read this is this is a, you know, if you have to continually have to say that you're strong and you're powerful and that you own the Americas constantly online through different images, through different public appearances, in a way that's a weakness, right? The fact that you have to continuously assert how powerful you are. So that's one way to read it. Talk about the Monroe Doctrine, what most people, you know, certainly don't understand going back to the early 1800s.

So the Monroe Doctrine is famously, contains multiple meanings. I mean, it depends on who's reading it at what moment in time, et cetera. But initially, this was not a law, right? It was a promulgation of President James Monroe that asserted that Latin America or the Americas was to remain a place strictly for Americans, broadly defined of the region. And it was a sort of an anti-colonial statement against European rival powers in the context of Latin American independence wars. And initially, Latin American independence leaders like Simon Bolivar saw this as a positive. They figured that the United States was going to be an ally in their efforts to overthrow colonial rule. but even someone like Bolivar really quickly learned that the United States was not going to play that role and that it was going to just resume the imperialist control over the region that had previously been taken up by European powers.

The other important moment in this history is when with President Theodore Roosevelt invoked his own Roosevelt corollary in the late 18 or the early 20th century, when he essentially made the United States an international police power over. the Americas and it justified a constant U.S. military intervention in the region using the justification of, well, the justification that any quote-unquote loosening of ties of civilization in Latin America would then trigger some sort of U.S. police response in the form of U.S. Marines invading Latin American countries, so the tune of about 34, between 1900 to 1934. And then Trump comes in and he's the first, he talked about a Trump corollary and now he's taken over the entire Monroe Doctrine to call it the Don Roe Doctrine. And again, as your previous guest was saying, it's difficult to assign some sort of serious

ideological coherence to whatever Trump says. But I do see that this is an effort to coalesce a really fractious internal political coalition within his party, within the United States, at the same time that it's wielding illegal, violent actions against sovereign Latin American nations like Venezuela. And when you look at the history of the U.S. involved with the coup against Jacoba Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 as he was trying to enact land reform against Allende, who died in the palace on another September 11th, September 11th, 1973 as the U.S. back Pinnishe forces rose to power. Do you see this as an extension of this as we wrap up? Yeah, I do. And again, it's just part of this long history of constant U.S. intervention in the region, prevent and not tolerate Latin American assertions of sovereignty and self-determinations.

Those two examples are also good to highlight that it doesn't matter what type of Latin American leader is in power and how they achieve that power. In the end, if they are deemed intolerable or antithetical to U.S. imperial designs, they are going to be overthrown or destabilized by the United States. You could have St. Francis is the president and he will still be overthrown by the United States if a president of this country deems that leader to be a threat or an obstacle to U.S. imperial designs and what they have long characterized as quote-unquote our hemisphere, our backyard. So this is just one more action. The one new thing, well, relatively new thing is that they're using narco-terrorism charges against President Nicolas Maduro.

And that's a more recent 1980s origin story, but it still fits within this longer history of constant U.S. violation of Latin American sovereignty and attempts to assert self-determination. Alexander Avina want to thank you for being with us, Associate Professor of Latin American History at Arizona State University's research and written about capitalism, the U.S. back war on drugs and state violence. Coming up, we speak to a Wall Street Journal reporter on oil stock surging, especially Chevron, and also how the Trump family businesses have generated at least. least four billion dollars since Trump was reelected. In December, Trump media merged with a company

aiming to build the world's first viable nuclear fusion plant to power AI projects. Stay with us. The taste of money, the smell of wealth. Oh, so tempting, but it's my feel of hell. They're quick to tell you, there's not enough. We've got what we want. Keep your hands off. Our stuff. hear the warning you get the point don't you dare to put their nose out of joint they keep on saying there's not enough we've got what we want keep your hands off our stuff once upon a time we would talk to share you heard it all the time but they're all the time but they're all This is all a feather together in crime. It's not what you're about. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman.

We turn now to look at how the U.S. attack on Venezuela has impacted Wall Street. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial average rose nearly 600 points to a new all-time high. Shares in the oil giant Chevron jump 5%. We're joined now by Wall Street. reporter, David Uberti. Thanks so much for being with us. Why don't we start off there? Talk about the significance of Chevron in Venezuela. And President Trump saying he didn't consult Congress, but he did talk to corporate executives before and after the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the abduction of the president. Right. Well, U.S. oil companies have had a long history in

Venezuela over the course of decades, ExxonMobil, Conoco Phillips, Chevron. A number of them left Venezuela in the mid-2000s after the government nationalized many assets in that sector, but Chevron has been the sole player to continue navigating this sort of political and economic environment in Venezuela since then, more recently operating on a license agreement with the U.S. government to basically get around U.S. sanctions. Now, investors on Wall Street believe because of that imprint within Venezuela right now, Chevron is potentially best positioned to capitalize lies on any new opportunities to come within Venezuela. That said, it's an extremely long road to any of that happening.

In addition to the geology that's at question with Venezuela, they have very large oil reserves. There's also the question of decrepit infrastructure in the country, which will take billions of dollars of investment in years of time, as well as the other above ground factors at play, which mean political and legal institutions in the country that have withered over the course of time and that the Trump administration has really called into question going forward to. And can you talk about Paul Singer, the billionaire supporter of President Trump, who bought Citgo, I think, at $5.9 billion, now it's worth $18 billion? Well, there's been investors across the map who have invested in various Venezuelan assets over the course of time, essentially playing the long game in the hope that something like this might happen and provide an opening for them to cash out those assets. Singer's invested in Citgo, which is the Petta Vesa, the state-run oil company in Venezuela.

They own a downstream refining business and marketing business as well. It's been in for sale proceedings for some time, and that might move forward in the months and years ahead. You know, the world doesn't have much of an appetite for more oil. And some oil companies like Chevron are not sure about investing more in Venezuela. But in order to profit from this, since President Trump says, the U.S. is controlling the oil supply in Venezuela, they have to push for more appetite for oil around the world. The most important piece of information in the oil market is the price of oil. And yesterday, U.S. oil prices were something like $58 per barrel.

Now, U.S. oil companies can make a profit at that prices. That said, Venezuelan oil trades at a discount for a bunch of nuanced reasons. But $58 a barrel is not sending a signal to companies in the U.S. and elsewhere, hey, why don't you spend billions of dollars to tap? into unproven, decrepit reserves and infrastructure in a country that's unstable. So you saw there was an NBC interview last night the President Trump gave where he essentially suggested that U.S. might actually subsidize some of these oil companies going back into Venezuela. The word he used, I believe, was reimbursement.

That seems like a very difficult political move to make. But that said, I think oil companies might need some sort of incentive in addition to the political and legal stability that are looking out for to make those big decisions. Former Chevron, Executive Ali Mishiri, is raising $2 billion for Venezuelan oil projects, telling the financial times, quote, I've had a dozen calls over the past 24 hours from potential investors. Interest in Venezuela has gone from zero to 99 percent. Has your reporting shown this?

There will always be speculators who are ready to pull the trigger on big bets in very unproven environments. I'd be curious to check in with that investor in a year or two years' time to see if he's actually raised that money. and see if they're ready to actually pull the trigger or an investment decision, given whatever the political situation is in Venezuela. And I'd be curious to know how the Trump family plans to profit,

but which that takes us to your overall luck at the Trump family. You're reporting on the Trump's family finances. In the Wall Street Journal, you recently revealed that ventures launched since Trump's reelection have generated at least $4 billion in proceeds in paper wealth for the Trump family. that figure based on company statements and security filings. In addition, you've reported how one of the family businesses, Trump Media and Technology,

recently announced a $6 billion merger with a firm aiming to build the world's first viable nuclear fusion plant to power AI projects and data centers. This merger, particularly interesting given it was announced shortly after Trump signed an executive order to bar states and local governments from enacting. their own AI regulations. If you can start off, David, on this issue of the massive Trump wealth that has been accumulated just in this first year of President Trump. Right. The $4 billion figure that you mentioned, that's in proceeds and also paper wealth that have been generated strictly by businesses that have been launched since he's been elected, that it's potentially a conservative estimate. This is only what has been made public, either through securities filings or federal disclosures made by the president or the first family.

These range from the traditional real estate, golf, hotels, business, but increasingly veered into things like cryptocurrency, different types of merchandise. You mentioned the fusion deal as well. And what we see is that, you know, Trump was in some cases elected because he's a businessman. He can run the government like a business. The potential byproduct of that is if you have a president who doesn't divest from his assets. His previous presidents have done. You have all of these different business interests in different areas in which the government regulates, which raises a lot of questions. So talk about where the Trump investments are around the world. They're totally global. The hotels, the real estate, the golf courses,

they span everywhere from the United States to Ireland, to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East as well. Cryptocurrency is by nature a global type of industry. And that's where you see the real money making being happening right now. We made this conservative investment not taking into account some of the meme coins. The president and his family have generated is very difficult to track how much money or proceeds those types of things generate. But it's truly a global operation at this point. It's worth saying that the White House and the Trump organization, when we've corresponded with them, they say there is no conflict of interest. They've installed guardrails around all of this. But as our reporting shows, a lot of these assets lead back up

into the Trump Revocable Trust, which is a trust in the vehicle that is ultimately controlled by Donald Trump Jr., and it benefits Donald Trump. The biggest crypto venture is World Liberty Financial. Explain who owns it, what it is, and the countries it's working with. World Liberty Financial was co-founded by Trump and his sons, as well as Steve Whitkoff and his sons. It is owned basically 40% of, by entities linked to the Trump family, and through a complex ownership structure, various entities lead that investment back up into the Trump Rebacol trust. Now, World Liberty Financial issues its own governance tokens, as well as stable tokens,

stable coins, rather, which are backed by U.S. treasury bonds. And through both of those different offerings, they can get both trading fees, as well as interest payments by their treasury holdings as well. As some of my colleagues reported, different investors in cryptocurrency around the world have either put money into the stablecoin offerings. Those span Middle East and Asian investors. Be more specific when you talk about Middle East and South Asian. What are the countries that are pouring billions into these Trump family businesses?

More specifically, as my colleagues have reported, the founder of Binance, who was recently under federal investigation, he made an investment. He bought some of the stable coins that World Liberty Financial offers. And that business deal was helped along in some instances by different Middle Eastern players as well. So this really spans different Gulf nations. These countries are very big into crypto.

They're investing in this area in the hopes of diversifying their economies away from energy as well. And because the Trumps have become such a large player and they have many business and political collections, it's also almost natural in some senses that they would work together. And it just so happens that Donald Trump's the president as well. And it just so happens.

So you've got the sons of Donald Trump. You've got the sons of the so-called peace envoy, Whitkoff, where you have them all traveling together. And as the envoys leave, you've got the sons there. What do they gain by their parents, either the president of the United States or his number one representative, in dealing with different countries, by being there in their wake. Have you been able to trace that? I mean, it certainly hasn't hurt their prospects. I mean, we've spoken to people,

bankers, investors, potential business partners in different industries. You know, they are attracted to the fact that the Trump family name carries a considerable amount of fame and power and has for some time. As I said, the White House says there is no conflict of interest, but it raises a lot of questions over sort of like the indirect ways in which the sort of proximity to power help along some of these deals and the valuations at which they're made. Let's get into the AI data centers and what fuel them. Talk about the Trump company that will now deal with nuclear fusion. And the possibility of nuclear fusion powering requires massive energy, these data

centers. And at the same time, President Trump, issuing an executive order that would prevent states or local entities from regulating anything related to data centers. Well, there's two things happening here. First and foremost, the Trump administration has been all in on AI data centers. They want to boost this as a new American industry, foment investment from the major players in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. They want to reduce as many regulations as possible, both to build data centers and to build the energy infrastructure, mostly natural gas infrastructure, as well as nuclear, but that is needed to power those data centers.

So that's what's happening on one part of the industry side of things. At the same time, Trump Media, which is originally founded, as you know, as sort of a holding company for the truth social media platform, has really sort of traveled through the wilderness in terms of finding an actual business to become over the last several years or so. They were founded in 2021 when Donald Trump was very much in the outs with corporate America and Wall Street. And this business deal with TAE Technologies, which is quite an established player in the nascent nuclear fusion field, it kind of represents full circle happening for that Trump family business empire. This is an established firm. It's backed by Goldman Sachs and Chevron,

coincidentally. The Charles Schwab family is involved. These are very mainstream. financial people in the United States. So you really see the Trump's increasingly integrating their business empire within the quote unquote real economy in the U.S. as well as mainstream finance. But this is very serious. For people understand, AI data centers require massive amounts of energy, sometimes equivalent to what you would power, a whole small city. And if you're talking about nuclear fusion, some have said that this energy source is decades away from actually manifesting itself, but if he's also in charge of the regulation or more importantly the deregulation of it, who's going to be in control of this?

The company claims that it can reach operations by 2031, which would be light speed, as per what you said previously. This is commercially unproven technology. There is capital behind this company now to make this all happen, but that said, it's kind of a moonshot, which follows sort of a well-worn path. If you were sort of to step back and look at the Trump interests, broadly speaking, they play in very speculative, highly risky corners of financial markets. And this is definitely one of those areas. And the idea that the executive order says you cannot regulate AI data centers, I mean, a lot of the activism around the country now is around communities deeply concerned about these energy centers. President Trump is saying this would now be

against the law. Right. Those community organizations in different places around the country, which I visited, they are anathema to this idea of building out data centers as quickly as possible. You add in the element of the administration being very antagonistic toward renewable energy, things like solar in wind power. Solar in particular is very proven and quite cheap in some circumstances, and instead being all in fossil fuels, which are obviously more polluting in many circumstances, as well as this more unproven technology of nuclear, which the U.S. is a very checkered history with. We have to leave it there, but we're going to do part two after the show, David Uberte of the Wall Street Journal. I'm Amy Goodman.