The Ben Mulroney Show - BMS moves to the afternoon drive - The Big Story today? Venezuela of course.

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

GUEST:  Rebecca Sarfatti / co-founder/ Canada Venezuela Democracy Forum GUEST:    JASON KENNEY  /  Former Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're listening to the Ben Mulroney Show. Yes, you are listening to the Ben Mulroney Show. you may be asking yourselves, you may be taken aback, what is this nonsense? This is not what I was expecting. This is not the show I normally hear at this time. You would be correct. Not in the nonsense part.

I think I will, over the course of a few weeks, if you believe it's nonsense, I'll make you think otherwise. This is the Ben Mulroney show. And we've had a few changes here at the radio station in Toronto where we do the show. My show is no longer from 9 to noon,

as it is in Toronto and then sort of tape delayed in various places around the country. Instead, we are now on from three to six in Ontario and that allows us to be live with the entire country for larger national conversations every day, Monday through Friday. And so we are very much looking forward to that. And I say welcome and I hope that if you were expecting something else and you heard my voice that you didn't turn the radio off just yet. Give us a few minutes. road test us for a few days.

See how it feels. Put us on, see if you like to feel the show, and if you do, stick around with us. And for those of you who have listened to the show before and simply waited a little bit later to hear us, we say welcome, we say thank you. And we say, let's start the conversation. I'm joined as always with the intrepid producer, Mike.

How are you? Hey, it's weird being here at this time. It is when we woke up today. There was sunlight. There was sunlight. And we got to the office, there was sunlight, exactly. But when we leave. Yeah.

And there were more people. More people in the office. There were. It's strange. It's weird because our show used to be sort of in the middle of our day. Sorry, I should, I should, we'll take pause for a second. For any civil servants listening to the show, the office is the place that you go to work. Sorry, continue.

Okay. Oh, I'm glad that I was unclear about that as well. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I just wanted to remind them a lot of civil servants are at least nationally or griping that they're going to. have to go back to work. But I think we are very excited about the fact that this show is in the afternoon drive because we've been syndicated across

the country for the last year, but it's different times because time zones suck. And we've got a lot of them. And we're trying to deal with that and trying to schedule with that as a nightmare. So now we are live across the country. For our listeners

all the way out, you know, in Mantoba, Alberta. Do you know how many time zones China has? One? One. Yeah. One time zone. I mean, that's a boss move.

Granted, it's, you know, authoritarian communist move, but it's a boss move. Yes. Just one time zone. But it's also a very, it's a wide country. It must be very different being in the east versus the far west. No, it's crazy. Yeah. Of course it's crazy.

But. Yeah. Anyway. So to those of you who have never heard the Ben Mulroney show before, we wrote down a few things, how we want to introduce the show to you. So the Ben Mulroney show is about you, the listeners, about Canadians writ large. This is a conversation open to everyone. This, we were thinking about how best to sum it up. It is a conversation with no cancellations. It is, let me say again, all conversation, no cancellations. We're going to tackle issues that will be

uncomfortable. We are going to take on things and speak about things in ways that maybe you haven't heard on radio and certainly didn't hear conversations like this a few years ago. Everyone is going to be who's invited here. Yes, some people will be challenged. Yes, there will be pushed back. But every conversation will be open. It will be free flowing. It will be respectful.

And it will be honest. And we're going to hopefully reach a broader audience than we've ever reached before. Now I said with the show syndicated live across the country. Canada will not get back on track. We will not get back on track. if we put our head in the sands and if we tell ourselves nothing to see here,

everything's fine. Not everything is fine. There are real failings in this country. Some of them of our own, doing others due to other forces. But we cannot get back on track if we are not honest with ourselves. You cannot solve a problem

unless you identify the problem. You can't identify the problem if you hide from the problem. And we are going to do our best to shine a light on the problems that we think are real, that we think are important. And we can do that with your help.

So here's our promise to you. Canada, we're going to talk about what people are not saying. When we hear a politician, what are they not saying? I like to refer to it as optimistic skepticism because I'm optimistic about this country, but I'm skeptical that the people in charge are willing to do, not all of them, some of the people in charge are unwilling to do the heavy lift. They want to be there for the big post, for the big photo op with the big check, with the big scissors, with the big bow to make the announcement, but I'm skeptical that they are willing to do everything that it's going to take to get to the other side of the problem. We're going to talk about power and

consequences. There's a lot of regulation out there that sounds good, but costs us more. And we're going to come correct with the receipts. We're going to hold leaders accountable with their own words. And I don't know, I think that's a big, that's a lot to bite off, but I think we could do? I think so too. And I think all those tie in together. I mean, the fact that we're going to hold, I mean, we've always tried to do this, hold leaders to their words. But it's, that also ties in well with the fact that we're going to talk about the things that they're not saying. Yeah. With all these press conferences, all those, as you said, the big checks. Yeah. And we've seen that for far too many years. Yeah, 11 years. 11 years of that.

Yeah. And enough is enough. We're going to say it. I mean, if you listen and you hear it and you disagree, let us know. If you agree with us, let us know as well. And also let other people know. The only way things are going to get on track is if we have this conversation with Canadians, they have the same conversation with us. Yeah. And then it expands and it grows. Well, look, the conversation that almost everybody is having today is what happened in Venezuela. Venezuela. What's that? Where? Venezuela. And we're talking, of course, of the military incursion by the United States, was early Saturday morning? Yes. Yeah, early Saturday morning into Venezuela to arrest the president, some say illegitimate president of that country, and bring him to the United

States, extradite him, if you will. Not an extradite. They renditioned him. They brought him into New York City. Today, he was before a court to hear the charges against him. But what a spectacle before to get him to court. Oh, yeah. You remember the OJ, the chase down the highway? This is nothing on that. This is unbelievable. The helicopters.

Yeah. So let's listen to some of the voices of Venezuelans outside the courthouse. They're celebrating. They are celebrating. And look, there's a lot. lot to unpack here, right? There's a, there are those shouting exclusively about the violations of international law by the Americans for doing this. And no borders are safe anymore. And I even heard somebody on this very radio station this morning saying, hey, you know, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't

say that Canada was safe and you got all that oil up there. So be prepared. Like, you could be next. Now that's, I think, nonsense. I think it's ridiculous. I think it's turning the volume, the temperature way beyond where it needs to be. And I think a lot of stuff can be true at the same time. I think the fact is he probably did violate international law.

But I like the result. I like the result. It reminds me of the time that I met a vegan. I'll tell it. So I met a vegan once. I know he was a vegan because he told me he was a vegan.

Because it's like, someone who does CrossFit. And I was eating a hot dog in front of him, some street meat from here in Toronto, one of my favorite hot dogs, not as high as the hot dogs from Montreal. I did CrossFit once, by the way. Oh, great.

I feel I have to tell you. Thank you for telling me. And he looked at me with disgust, and he said, like, how could you eat that? And I said, because it's delicious. And he said, but don't you know how they're made? Have you seen how they're made? I said, yes, I have.

And that's the magic of a hot dog. as ugly as that part is, the result is this delicious. And for the people of Venezuela and the 9 million asylum seekers and refugees that left because there was no life for them anymore because the country fell into a dystopian hellscape, they're enjoying the hot dog today. And they're not so concerned with how the sausage is made. They just know that there is hope and potential for the first. first time in their lives. So we're going to discuss all of this stuff over the course of,

well, not just today, but the entire week. And we're going to follow the trial of Nicholas Maduro, like nobody's business. But Maduro is now in custody, what he said months ago that may have egged Trump on. We're going to talk about that next, right here on the Ben Mulerney show. ...soft ramp going to White's Road. There's a police investigation block in the right lane. It's North America's largest indoor boat show. We are... Is this really the best use of my time? Is this really the best use of my time? Well, busy season always end in Barnow.

Is this really the best use of my time? Do I have to turn down partner to spend enough time with my kids? With Blue Jay, you'll have more time to do what's important to you by completing hours of tax research in seconds. Get better answers to tough questions. Blue Jay, AI, for tax experts. Yes, indeed. The Ben Mulroney show, all conversation, no cancellations.

That's a tagline we're working on. Well, that's how the sausage is made here. Maybe it's not for, you'll tell us if you like it. I like it. I think it's a good tagline. I think it speaks to the show that we want to do. And I welcome you. tuning in. This is the new time slot for our show. And I thank you very much for not tuning out.

And we are going to do our very best every day to earn your time. Your time is very valuable to you and we want you spending it in a way where you feel enriched in some way. And we're going to do our best to keep you. And hopefully you'll help spread the word of the show. All right, everybody's talking about Venezuela today. Of course, because it has very real implications for on so many levels. And so we're trying to tackle it in various ways. that are meaningful to you, the listeners of the show. Here's something that may be insignificant. It may speak to Donald Trump's pettiness,

or it may have very real implications for how this invasion. It was, I don't think it was an invasion. It was an incursion into Caracas, Venezuela, where at about 2 a.m., the elite forces that make up the, the fighting force of the United States had a pre-dawn raid along with air support to take out, to bring in Nicholas Maduro, the president, the dictator of that country and his wife.

And we'll get into his wife tomorrow. But in August of last year, Maduro dared U.S. President Donald Trump to arrest him at the presidential palace called Mira Flores. It's the only time, by the way, I'm ever going to do that. After the U.S. president increased its reward for information leading to his capture to $50 million. Now, this is very short. It's in Spanish. I will tell you what he said after, but I want you to hear it in his own words. He said, come get me.

I'm waiting for you here in Miraflores. Don't take too long to arrive, coward. those were his words. He said that to a guy who is the most powerful man in the world. And now, he didn't, he didn't wait too long, um,

inmate number, whatever. He waited roughly four months to come get you. Now, I don't know enough about it. It may not mean anything on the, uh, international law front.

It may not. But he literally, he literally, the president of the United States literally did what Maduro asked. He did. He could say, I didn't break the law. I accepted his invitation. Now, I'm being a little bit cavalier here.

I appreciate that. It's a thought exercise. Like, international law on a great many things is about how we treat each other. And this guy came out and said, come get me. I'm waiting for you here and meet up. Floresh. Why do I keep doing that? Don't take too long to arrive. Coward.

How do you think Donald Trump reacts to people calling him coward? Apart from obviously invading, going in. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like it. Okay, so that was about four months ago. And now maybe what we should do is listen to, that's the f-around part, and this is the find out. So let's listen to Sky News reporter James Matthews on the Maduro court case. He asserts once more that he is not guilty, and he says this, I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still the president of my country. So from inside a New York courtroom, Nicholas Maduro having his say on the politics of all of this, and his very firm stands clearly, is that he remains the president of the country. A president clearly. in exile and Donald Trump and the Trump administration, the U.S. government would take a very different view of whether or not he is the president.

Yeah, I mean, what else is going to say? When you have people who are caught in the act of killing somebody coming out and saying, I didn't do it, I'm not guilty. Of course, that's what you do in an American court. Of course you do that. He's not going to come out and say he's guilty. No, he's going to assert his, he's going to assert his innocence. And he's going to say, he's put the system on trial. But that is the latest. Apparently this was months of intelligence gathering and planning, including a source inside the Venezuelan government.

They were tracking Maduro's movements for precise execution. So no Americans were killed. I'm sure that there was collateral damage on the Venezuelan side. But the theater and the pageantry of him being paraded about was really interesting. And my boss upstairs, Mike Ben Dixon, was watching, you know, when those helicopters, three helicopters took off. And it was as if they slowed down in front of the Statue of Liberty. Two things that probably happened.

One, that was, you know, the Navy SEALs that were inside were telling Maduro, you're in the United States now. Like, this is your home now. Get used to it. See that? That's the Statue of Liberty. And this is how we do things. And the other thing is it was the shot that they're going to use in the documentary,

which will absolutely be coming out on Netflix in the next six months. But the interesting thing to me about this, well, everything's interesting, is, you know, the woman who has replaced him at the head of the government is Delci Rodriguez. She was, she started out, she was very close to Maduro. She started out puffing out her chest talking about how terrible this was But she fell in the line With some far more conciliatory language

After that And I think It got back to her Pretty quick We did this to him We have no problem coming back And doing it to you If you are not going to be part of our team

As you transition to democracy And we will be there to watch every step of it You are going to find yourself In the female jail Very similar to his Now that being said, there was some conversation about why he was the only one, along with his wife, that were taken out. And let's listen to the CBS host Margaret Brennan asking the head of the

State Department, Marco Rubio, why they didn't go after more leaders of Venezuela. I'm confused. Are they still wanted by the United States? Why didn't you arrest them if you are taking out the narco-terrorist regime. You're confused? I don't know why that's confusing to you. They're still in power. It's very simple. We're not going to go in and wrap up.

You're going to, but yeah, but you're going to go in and suck up five people. They're already complaining about this one operation. Imagine the howls we would have from everybody else if we actually had to go and stay there four days to capture four other people. We got the top priority. The number one person on the list was the guy who claimed to be the president of the country that he was not. and he was arrested, along with his wife, who was also indicted.

And that was a pretty sophisticated and frankly complicated operation. It was. It is not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the country. The guy lived on a military base. Land within three minutes, kicked down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter, and leave the country without losing any American or any American assets. Yeah, well, look, I don't think anybody would criticize the operational success of this.

It's what comes next that is the issue for a lot of people. And, of course, we're going to talk about that. But as a reminder, this was a country that was one of the richest and most successful in the Latin America. As a matter of fact, at one point, it was a far more, it was a far more successful country than Poland, for example. But two things happened. One, Poland embraced free markets and capitalism. And now it is ascendant in Europe. Venezuela decided to go the opposite direction, embrace collectivism and socialism, and it fell off the shelf with hyperinflation, job loss, you name it.

It has become a dumpster fire of a country with nine million people leaving everything because what they had, the everything that they had was worth nothing anymore. And they left for any semblance of a better life in the United States. There are almost 700,000 asylum seekers. They're still waiting to be processed. All those people could go home. All of them feel that tomorrow is better than yesterday. And that was not the case for the years and years and years of oppression under Chavez and Maduro. All right, we've got to take a break.

But when we come back, what are doing next? Up next, what are Venezuelan Canadians saying? That answer is next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Of course, we are talking about the seismic changes to the world order, especially in this hemisphere, due to the arrest of the president, dictator, illegitimate leader of Venet. Venezuela. There have been celebrations in the streets of Caracas and indeed around that

country. As somebody said, unless you work for the government, this was viewed entirely joyfully with ecstasy. And we have promised on this show to, yes, tell you about these big stories and big headlines. But I think it's incumbent upon us to really bring the stories down to the human level and talk to the people who have been affected and talk to people for their perspective because it's not just about the power brokers in Ottawa and Washington and the United Nations, but it's indeed about the impact of these stories on people with real connections to places like Venezuela. And on that note, we're joined by Rebecca Sarfati. She's the co-founder of the Canada-Venezuela Democracy Forum. Rebecca, welcome to the show.

thank you for having me ben first of all um it has been overwhelming the support of the canadian media on on what's happening in my country well i'm so grateful for that tell okay just tell me how you heard the news tell me what and what you felt in that moment well i was just chilling at my house just going starting to go to bed and you know it was a friday night and up sudden uh my WhatsApp start blinking. Blu-blu-plu-plu. They say, what it's happening? So, you know, we Venezuelans, we have chats with family members, with friends, with people

from school. So the first one was my cousin saying, okay, people, who is in Caracas that is hearing what I'm hearing? Do you know what's happening? My first reaction was to say, you know what, maybe there's a concert, those are fireworks. And she said to me, no, no, no, this is not fireworks. There's planes. Planes going very low in the city.

I say, oh, my God, what is happening? So immediately it started like a chain reaction. All chats wake up everywhere in the world. And basically, my family members were asking us, what do you know? I say, okay, I don't know anything. So my first instinct's reaction was to go to social media to see what I could find. But tell me, when you realized that Maduro had been arrested, And he was being shipped off immediately

to the United States to face drop. At that point, what did you think? Well, at that point, my heart was like pumping like a million a minute. I was like, I couldn't sit still. I was nervous in a happy way. Yeah, of course. Explain this.

I never thought that was going to happen that night, especially like we were just chilling, you know. And it took a bit to actually realize that that was happening because we started this around 2 o'clock in the morning and it was probably around 4, 450 that we actually knew that he was caught and taking outside Venezuela. So now that I got that initial reaction from me, I think it's important to know whether you were elated.

It's nice to know that your first reaction was dubious. Did this actually happen? But talk to me about why. you left Venezuela and ended up in Canada. Well, my story might not be as anybody else. I've been here for 25 years, early stages of Chavez. Yeah, you lived under the Chavez rule because he was, as much as people, he's the father of the Bolivar revolution, but he wasn't in power.

Yeah, he wasn't in power nearly as long as Maduro. No, but you can start feeling, especially at that point, was more economical than political, to be honest. There was no much to look forward to at that time. And I'm married to a Canadian, so we decided, you know, well, let's give a try to Canada. And to come back, we have our life to come back. Yeah. And that's going back to live there never happened. But yeah.

And why didn't it? Was it because of the financial situation and the economic situation in Venezuela? No, it turned to be like rolling, rolling, rolling, to get it worse, worse, worse, worse. And economically, politically, I am a political science graduate. So I always see this as a way of destiny, take me away of the fire. I'm pretty sure if I was there, I was getting in trouble since day one. And here I had the opportunity and the capability of leading my community to do what we can do from here.

Yeah. And so what has been the work that you've been doing from here? I have been trying in the best of my knowledge and my experience, leading demonstrations, petitions, organizing, not only here in Toronto, but organizing, organizing, organizing, again, petitions. And we managed to be part of a very active group across Canada. So basically we created the Canada-Venezuela Democracy for us with the purpose of being able to have a voice, more as a formal voice for politicians, for being able to do activities, to permit.

So everything that entitles activism. Rebecca? Rebecca, explain to our audience. There are people from the West, from Canada in the United States, who are their knee-jerk reaction is anything Donald Trump does, there's something is negative and needs to be protested. But it seems to me, from what I'm watching, that most Venezuelans are celebrating today.

Why do you think that is? Tell me about the Venezuelans on the ground in Caracas. I believe the feeling is that someone finally made it, made it happen. I think that's basically about it. So the news is so big that we finally, after 20 plus years, we finally managed to not only to take him in custody, but to present him in front of a court of law. That's the big thing.

Even though it's a first step towards everything else that need to happen, it is a huge step. Yeah, it's a huge step. But talk to me about, you know, how he was perceived by regular Venezuelans. You know, he said in court today, I am the legitimate leader of that country. And there are some people saying, no, you're not.

How do Venezuelans perceive him? Yeah, Venezuelans perceive him as a legitimate leader, if you can say it in a way. Like, we had an election. They lost. They never were willing to acknowledge their loss. So he's been in chair since 2024 without legitimacy at all. Yeah. Like, he's the one, he was the one ruling, let's say, by, by factor, if you see it in a way,

because they allow us to participate. We fought to participate in a fair election, but when the results didn't come out the way they thought they had or the way they think they could do, they just, you know, like, okay, you participated, but I don't care. Yeah. So there were so many troubles to even go to that election that Venezuelans were like at that time in 2024 demonstrations were going crazy just because people went out of their way and sacrificed so much to be able to vote because that's what we want.

We just want to participate in a fair election. That's the only thing we want. Well, well, no, but wait, I have to assume, and we're going to talk about this after the break. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so I wish we had more time. I would love to have you back on because I really do want to get a sense on the ground of what it was like under the Maduro regime from the people that you talk to, from the experiences that you had. Because there are a lot of people complaining today that this is a net negative for the world.

And I cannot imagine how that is. But again, I don't want to speak for anyone from Venezuela, but I want to thank you for this initial conversation. I look forward to speaking with you again, Rebecca Sarfadi, co-founder of the Canada of Venezuela Democracy Form. All the best. Thank you. All right. When we come back, we are talking, oh, we're talking with the former Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship of Canada about this very topic. Mr. Jason Kenney joins us next. You are listening to the Ben Mulroney show in our new time slot.

We're speaking to more Canadians live than ever before and very pleased as our first big-name guest, big-ticket guest to have on the show to talk about what has transpired over the weekend with this paradigm-changing arrest of the former president, illegitimate leader, dictator, if you will. of Venezuela. We've got with us the former Minister of Immigration, refugees, and Citizenship of Canada, and the former leader of Alberta, the Honorable Jason Kenney. Thank you so much for joining us, sir.

Happy New Year, Ben. And congrats on the new program and format. Well, thank you very much. It's really exciting. And happy New Year to you as well. Jason, I want to talk to you about this is one of those situations, I believe, where a lot of things

can be true at the same time. But it's quite stark how many things are true at the same time. In order to have a fulsome conversation about this, you have to acknowledge the good and the bad. And why don't we talk about what you believe is good that came out of this? And then we talk about the bad.

Well, the good is that a narco-dictator criminal was just removed from, you know, destroying a country that has been basically a playground for narco-traffickers, for international terrorists for the past 15-plus years. No, 8 million people have fled Venezuela under Maduro's misgovernment. Every democratic country in the world that I know of says that his last election was completely bogus and that he was not the legitimate leader. He was put under an indictment for narco-terrorism by the Biden administration.

They put a $25 million price on his head. And what happened this weekend is that the U.S. in a very surgical strike removed him and is now saying to the what's rest of the rest of his gang, either you schedule elections, stop the narcot trafficking, stop cooperating with Venezuela and Russia, or you're next. So I think a very strong message was sent about, frankly, the rule of law that is giving great hope to the Venezuelan people. Well, yeah, I mean, if you listen to certain voices in the media and certain voices who just seem to want to protest anything that comes out of the United States, you know, this is such an egregious violation of international law. And, you know, I think rational people have to acknowledge that, yeah, that country's sovereignty was invaded. But if we're looking at this as, you know, what laws are being violated, I mean, the Americans are alleging a whole lot of international laws were being violated by Nicholas Maduro. And I feel safer knowing that we're moving towards a place where China and, oh, let's not forget, we know, we've learned about the safe harbor that was provided in Venezuela for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. I kind of like the fact that they're not so close to us anymore or not.

They can't get as comfortable there. When I was a federal minister, Ben, I was briefed by a foreign intelligence agency who showed me receipts that about how the Venezuelan regime was bringing cocaine from the FARC-Marxist terrorist group in Colombia, trans-shipping it on what they called dark Iranian, or they were actually planes owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Al-Hoods Force, which is the principal sponsor of Hizbollah. Flown to Beirut, the cocaine was then processed in facilities in the Beka Valley and Lebanon, and then sold in Europe.

And then a lot of this, somewhat was brought to Canada, but they explained to me how Hezbollah was operating a money-la operation in Canada connected to that drug, that narco-trafficking operation, all of this leads back to Venezuela. When you talk about violating their sovereignty, well, the, in order, you know, the Maduro regime, by the way, all of the bodyguards he had who were killed by American special forces the other day, they were 100% Cubans. So he is, this is a guy whose regime has been de facto, Venezuela has been invaded by Cuba, Russia, China, Iran.

Yeah. And it's understandable the United States would say, we're not going to let a nearby neighbor within easy striking distance of the United States to become a forward operating base for all of our strategic adversaries. And, you know, a lot of people are saying, well, look, you know, regime change has never worked out

in the Middle East, but I'm looking at, I'm looking at what happened in Panama, right? After the invasion and the takeout of Noriega in 1989, relations were normalized between between you know say it North America and that country it's been more or less stable they've had some issues as

as every nation to nation relation goes and I and they have they have a you know some traditions with democracy there it seems to me that this this is more analogous to that than anything that might that the Americans might have tried

in other parts of the world Yeah, bang on. And one thing we know about Trump is that he is not an interventionist and he doesn't want to get into a nation building. But the same time, he's applying the Monroe Doctrine, as articulated in his administration's national security strategy published just before Christmas, which is to say that the United States will not allow threats to its interest to develop in the Western Hemisphere. Venezuela, prior to that, to Chavez's de facto coup 25 years ago, had a fairly strong Democrat. tradition and culture. A lot of highly educated people who fled, though. Eight million of them have fled. And all I can say to the lefties who are whinging about this is just a minute. Maduro was violating international law repeatedly. No one was enforcing that. He was an illegitimate fake president who stole two subsequent elections. And millions of Venezuelans are dancing in the streets. Are you telling them that they should be forced to take this dictator? for as long as he can retain power until the other 29 million or either killed or have to leave.

I do want to point out that I'm, you know, I'm, I criticize the liberal government in Ottawa when I think they get it wrong, but that also means I've got to give them credit when I think they get it right. And what I heard out of, uh, the minister of foreign affairs, Anita Anand, as well as Mark Carney from his personal account and the prime minister of Canada, you know, they are focused on the good that came out of this. And they aren't talking about, you know, as I like say, how the sausage was made. They're just talking about, you know, the fact that Venezuelans are enjoying the delicious sausage as it's after it's after it was made.

But they're talking about, you know, since 2019, when Canada closed its embassy in Venezuela, which I thought was the right move then, we've refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Maduro regime in keeping with our longstanding commitment to upholding the rule of law and democracy. Canada calls on all parties to respect international law. we stand with the people of Venezuela and their desire to live in a peaceful and democratic society. I like the fact that they probably have a problem with Donald Trump and now he handled that. But diplomacy dictates that you don't poke that bear today.

Yeah, which is why I think you see the European heads of government taking a similar position. In fact, President Macron taking a much stronger position implying he's in favor of what the Americans did. Look, the world is a better place today. And if you want to quibble to international law, the United States enforced international law that was being violated by Maduro. And it's not going to be easy, though. It was an amazingly clean and effective military operation. But, you know, what the Trump, it's clear to me this file is being run by Marco Rubio, who clearly understands Latin American politics extremely well. His challenge is to get the henchmen around Maduro to gradually surrender power so that they hold.

hold elections, the sooner the better, and then let that country have a fresh start. Jason Kenney, I'd love to have you back again. Well, we could talk about more of this, as well as the implications for all the asylum seekers in the United States, there's almost 700,000 of them that have unprocessed claims. I think the hope for all of them would be they would want to go home, which you know is a priority for somebody like Donald Trump. So a lot to talk about and unpack as we move forward. I thank you very much for your time.

And thank you for being our guest today on the Ben Mulroney Show. Thanks, Ben. Global. My mind is trying to tell me something. With gripping new cases. If it doesn't work, you'll kill him. It will work. They're going to make you the fall guy for this.

I just don't want to fail any one ever again. As her fight moves forward to recover what was lost. You can't undo what was done. Just let it go. Please. No. And rebuild her life. I'll do whatever it takes.

I'm here if you need me. I know. Doc returns Tuesday, January 6th on Global. Stream on StatTV.