The Charlie Kirk Show - The Great Venezuela Caper and America First

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

President Trump stunned the world over the weekend with a daring raid that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro without a single American casualty. It was an impressive victory, but how can the Administration translate into a long-term MAGA political win? Rep. Andy Biggs discusses that along with his continuing run for Arizona governor, and RAV's David Zere gives an update from the courthouse where Maduro is facing charges. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as much.

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It's our first show of the new year. I can't tell you how excited I was for 2025 to come to an end. Joined, as always, by Blake Neff, the producer on the show. And we are honored to have the great Andy Biggs in studio here in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome back to the show. Sandra. Great to be with you and Blake. Thank you for having it. It's an honor to have you. We thought it was appropriate. You know this. Your race for governor was truly, it's hard to put into words, actually, how important it was to Charlie that you become the next governor. That was his project 2026. Project 2026 was make Andy Biggs governor of the great state of Arizona, state 48. And so it just felt fitting to have you here. And, you know, I was prepping for you coming in studio. I was looking at the poll. and I was the latest one from Emerson has you up like huge in the I want to get the actual the actual number here pick 152 has you at 50 percent within the GOP primary so that's I mean

this is the last independent poll that we have to go off of in this primary so things are looking good yeah yeah and you know I tip my hat to Charlie and and I'm working hard in not just for the state, but because Charlie was a friend, and he went out on a limb to support me. And so we're going to win big for Charlie. And the polls do look good. The polls look good. How many, you were just telling me, how many independent polls have there been, you know, conducted on this race? I believe it's 17, and I've led by at least 30 points in every one of those. God bless you. That's great. So we're very excited about that. We're going to get into some Arizona specifics in just a few minutes here. But we're,

We have so much breaking news over this holiday break, this holiday weekend. Of course, you know, the big news is that Nicholas Maduro has been deposed, the dictator of Venezuela. He is being arraigned right now in a Manhattan courthouse, federal courthouse. You know, there has been much made about the fact that Congress, you're still a sitting congressman, was kept in the dark about this. What do you think about that as a member of Congress? Well, so we're going to get briefed this week. week but let's just face the facts i have literally sat in skiffs where they've had all of congress sitting there and walked out and some for some reason somehow the the media is telling the world

exactly what i just heard in the skiff yeah congress leaks like a sieve and uh that was that was wise yeah well so let's let's play this clip uh 156 was the administration justified in this case and not briefing congress well there's been no evidence that the administration has presented to justify the actions that were taken in terms of there being an imminent threat to the health, the safety, the well-being, the national security of the American people. So you've got the minority leader here, Hakeem Jeffries, saying there was no imminent threat and that Congress should have been briefed. So your response to your colleague in the House there. Well, number one, he didn't answer the question because he knows Congress should not have been

pre-briefed. Number two, that's not the legal standard. He knows that's not the legal standard. He's going to try to distract because that's their mantra. Everything is bad. They didn't question when Noriega in Panama, which is the case law that we rely on. Yeah, I think he was bogus from start to finish, but that's Hakeem's way. Yeah. So there's a larger issue here because you're kind of, you're an America first guy. You are, you know, part of this larger coalition. We are not neocons. You are not about foreign adventurism. And it's a question that we all sort of have to grapple with. And, you know, I thought Rubio put this very well. I'm going to play a clip here, have you respond to it, where he's talking about basically the Monroe Doctrine and Western Hemisphere Domination. Don Roe Doctrine.

Donne Roe Doctrine. The new, the new, yeah, Trump did that depressor. Some are calling it the Donro Doctrine. I don't know. 145. We don't need Venezuela's oil. We have plenty of oil in the United States. What we're not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States. You have to understand, why does China need their oil? Why does Russia need their oil?

Why does Iran need their oil? They're not even in this continent. This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live. They are not going to come from outside of our hemisphere, destabilize our region in our own backyard and us have to pay the price for it. Not under President Trump. So, I mean, I think that was a pretty good articulation, essentially, of the Monroe Doctrine.

Where do we draw the line, Congressman, and where do you draw the line on when we should get involved, when we shouldn't, and how does this one sit? You know, it feels like the comparisons to Iraq and Afghanistan are not apt here. They're unfair comparisons, but we still want to be cautious, skeptical, and not give in to foreign adventures and the neocons. Yeah, right. So the first thing to remember is Maduro was indicted. This was a legal issue. And what you're going to find is that the feds now took him over legally. So the second that the military essentially had control of Maduro, they gave him to the law enforcement.

That kind of obviates all of those other issues. The question now is, going forward, what do you do? And do you leave a vacuum there for China, which literally was meeting in? Venezuela at the time to do what, to take over the oil, just the way they've done the alternate canal in Panama, the way they are trying to basically take over. So for us, it's not, it shouldn't be viewed as a typical American adventurism type of issue. What we're doing is we're enforcing the law from a guy who was the head of a cartel that was coming after the U.S. Yeah, I think that's well said. I mean, the, the reaction.

action has been mixed, you know, Blake, you're the contrarian in the room. I mean, you know, what are your concerns and what, do you have a defense of the administration's action? Well, the best, frankly, the best defense is that so far it's worked very well. I think that stands apart because the biggest argument against most interventions is they're unpredictable. They can have a lot of downside and the upside isn't always as clear as it seems. So far, it looks pretty straightforward. They got Maduro out quickly. There were no casualties on our side. And ideally

they could install a friendly government in Venezuela and we're in a better situation. My concern would be, right now we still don't actually run Venezuela. I know the president said we're going to run it, but right now we just spirited out one guy. So we either have to

threaten them into making concessions or we're going to need more military effort there. And at that point, you're asking, okay, are U.S. troops in Venezuela long term? Are they trying to control the interior of the country? How difficult is that? Those are questions that are still going to need to be answered. And those are the ones Charlie would care about as well. Yeah, exactly. And a reporter asked the main question, Congressman here, that is, why is running Venezuela America first? President Trump was asked about this at the

press conference 136. Mr. President, why is running a country in South America first? Well, I think it is because we want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability. We want to surround ourselves with energy. We have tremendous energy in that country. It's very important that we protect it. We need that for ourselves. We need that for the world.

So that really does become the central question. I think the success of this is going to be determined in the coming weeks and months ahead. To Blake's point, how costly is this going to be from a military standpoint, from just a cost of doing this and will the people still in charge in Venezuela? Will they seed control? Will they cooperate? Will that transition happen well? We don't have a great track record of that. But President Trump does not have a bad track record. That's right. And I would just say that nation building is not what we should be engaged in here. And I don't think that's what the president intends. And don't forget that ostensibly, pre-Hugo Chavez, you have Venezuela was a democratic

regime. They had regular good elections. Even Chavez and Maduro nodded to elections, right? But maybe what we want to do is just make sure they have good elections. And if they get good elections, then we can work with them. You're tempting me to go down a rabbit

hole here. Howdy, Blake here. You know, in moments like this, truth really matters. The truth was important to Charlie, so we want to share with you a new documentary that's caught our attention. Not because it's political, but because it refuses to shy away from the questions that so many Americans are still asking. It exposes the truth.

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Angel Studios was the only platform willing to release it, and that's because you, not Hollywood, decide what gets made. Join the Angel Guild today at angel.com slash Charlie Kirk. Become a member and stream. Thank you, Dr. Fauci, today. For the audience that doesn't know, Andy, tell us why you are running for governor of Arizona. So I've got a vision for the state of Arizona to restore the American Dream, which has been priced out here in Arizona by this governor, the current governor, Katie Hobbs. And so we, she took down border protections for Pete sakes.

And so we'll restore border protections so we're the safest state in the country again. but we'll also put the American dream back out there. So young people, this really gets to me, they can buy a house, they can afford to buy a house, and we won't have sticker prices that cause shock. We're going to create jobs again. She's taking us down, Andrew, as far as job creation, from the fourth highest in the country to number 47.

That's the problem that we have. She's not doing anything with our infrastructure. She's not doing anything with our education system. She's basically hermitized herself, except for some radical environmental issues where she's gone after her own state, trying to stop our economic development growth. That's shocking, actually. You know, a lot of the sticker shock, I mean, you know, somebody's newer to the state, has actually impressed me. Like, I've been floored at how expensive some of the just basic items, the rent, the housing market is, at least where people want to actually live. live, you know, and, you know, is some of that because we're just getting flooded with Californians

like, you know, myself? Some of it is that, but that's not, the demand is high. But historically, we've always met that demand and been able to keep prices rational. But what she did is this governor imposed land and water management restriction areas. So in the Phoenix metro area, in some places, you can't even build a single family home because of her restrictions so prices get jacked up uh transport prices because uh so much is it's got to be done by gas and we don't have any natural gas resources we have to basically pipe in from california and Texas and we're at capacity right now and we've got we've got a great jober who wants to expand

but the mayor phoenix and the and the state will not let him expand he wants to He's doing on his own dime for Pete's sakes. And this would give us greater storage, which help bring down gas prices overall. Yeah, it just feels like, to your point, that a lot of this is just a regulation issue. It's a green new scam issue. It's just kind of hatred of civilization, hatred of development. Hatred of growth. Anti-human.

I would say it's anti-human. Sorry if this is a total wildcard, but while we're talking about maybe bossing around Latin American countries, I know for the long-term growth of Phoenix, the biggest concern is always water. And I've read a lot that the best thing to do to get water for Phoenix is you build a desalination plant in Mexico and you pipe it here. And it's basically regulatory apocalypse that would prevent this from ever happening. But while it's on the table, could we get Mexico to help us with that? Actually, there is a plan to bring it up from C.F. Cortez, and they've got, they have some of their permits now. The question is, since Mexico is ostensibly run by cartels,

and I asked the operators of this company, what are you going to do about the cartels? And they said, well, we're an Israeli company, and we're going to work with some Israeli security forces. And I said, okay. That's interesting. That's very interesting. But I'll tell you, Blake and Andrew,

what people need to understand is even Katie Hobbs' own water resources department and say we have six to 700 million acre feet of water underground in Arizona. But they just don't allow us to access it and treat it here and get it into the stream. By the way, that's about 300 years supply at growth levels, including industry. But it gets, again, to management and stopping the myth that she's created that we have no water. Seah Cortez, Israel's security forces, desal. This is a complicated, I didn't know that. I see a mini-series movie.

It's one of the funny things. Israel's really good at making their own water. Yeah, of course. They have a lot of experience with that. They do. They made the desert blossom, certainly. So head to head, you know, again, I don't want to look past the primary, but you are dominating in the primary polls, which is going to continue.

We're going to help make sure that that happens to the best of our ability. But this was what floored me. And a head-to-head with Katie Hobbs, they have, you know, know they say the first top issue is the economy is considered the top issue facing the state 34% of voters followed by immigration 18 threats to democracy 11 housing affordability 10 education 9 and health care 9 in a matchup between hobbs and bigs voters who say the economy is their top issue break for hobbs 45 to 41 percent which and by the way those who find immigration should be the top issue break for bigs 81 to 6 percent um so why do you think

that that is and what's the message that to fix that well it's hard to comprehend it except for I think some people that they like on economy they think they're in the status quo they don't really like to see change they're quite sure what what's going to happen and the reality is we're going to deal with income taxes our income taxes are pretty low two and a half percent flat tax we're going to reduce those significantly as the governor people also have a concern about property taxes. We're going to, we're going to, I have a plan to reduce property taxes as well.

And, and, uh, I just think that people, they, they sense that they should be doing better and they're not doing as well as they'd like. And that's a reflection that comes, that is the Republicans in charge now and, and we've got to be better. So we're holding the bag for the last four years of, of, of terribleness under Biden, basically, and the inflationary environment that was created. And I mean, listen, things are too expensive, but the way you get those prices down, or at least, you know, real earnings start to outstrip inflation, even the inflation during the Biden years, you got to have a pro-growth candidate in office. It is boggling to me that you are the pro-growth candidate. You are obviously the candidate that is going to be expanding housing permits, expanding, you know, decreasing the cost of doing business, making this more of a pro-growth state, pro-jobs.

obviously more income, more tax base, all of those things. She's the anti-growth candidate. So she's the one that's stopping Arizona from being unleashed to its full potential. And here you go, people are, I think, taking it out on anybody with an R-nex of their name because we're still getting out from under the Joe Biden years. Exactly right. I mean, inflation under Biden was about real inflation is about 22%, 20, 22%. Trump's taking it down real inflation rate under him.

is a little over one point, actually. But we got so high, and people want to bent down, and the reality is we've got to catch up to the level of inflation. You see that with that GDP number that came out just before Christmas. It was a 4.3% growth, which actually outstrips inflation, so real wages, real incomes are going up. We're on the right path. This ship does not turn overnight, but we are on the right path now.

Hopefully, I mean, Charlie was always very clear about this. We're in a race against time. Exactly. We have to show that these ideas work, and we have to do it quickly, so the electorate starts feeling the relief in their pocketbooks. What other issues do you want our audience to know about, and how do they get behind your campaign to support you? Well, so I think it's important for them to understand that we have to use our resources in the state.

So when I talk about tax policy or talk about water or land policy, All of those can be ameliorative to our current affordability issue, because that's what it is. If we don't fix that, Andrew, we're not going to win this. But it's going to turn around in this first quarter, probably because of the big, beautiful bill, and some new tax breaks coming in. So we're going to make sure that we're the safest state.

We restore the American dream. but I have a vision for the state I'm not going to veto everything that the legislature does because they also have some great ideas that need to happen that this governor's killing but if you want to get behind my campaign it's bigsfor-Arizona.com Bigsfor-Arizona.com

The number four? Nope, spell it out. All right, good. Spell it out. Bigs for Arizona.com. Let's get that up for everybody. Everybody needs to get behind this. This was Charlie's mission.

2016, Project 2026, what do you want to call it, was Charlie's nearest and dearest passion going into 2026. And Arizona has to be a red state. It is a red state. It went for Trump by nearly six points. Turning point action is going to have our army of ballot chasers behind you completely. And, you know, we have your back. Anything we can do to help. We're here for you. And we know that the state of Arizona will be in good hands if we get Andy Biggs elected as this next governor. So God bless you. you, sir. Godspeed. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Blake. And I look forward to serving the state again here in the state. Well, we've got a lot of work ahead of us this year, but it's going to be fun,

and we're going to be behind you, and we're going to get it done. This is Lane Schoenberger, chief investment officer and founding partner of Y Reefi. It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us. His endorsement means the world to us, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Turning Point for years to come. Now, hear Charlie, in his own words, tell you about Y-ReFi. I'm going to tell you guys about whyrefi.com. That is Y-R-E-F-Y-F-Y.com. Why-refi is incredible. Private student loan debt in America totals about $300 billion. Why-refi is refinancing distress or defaulted private student loans. You can finally take control of your student loan situation with a plan that works for your monthly

budget. Go to Y-refi.com. That is Y-refi.com. Do you have a co-borrower? Why, refi can get them released from the loan. You're going to skip a payment up to 12 times without penalty. It may not be available in all 50 states. Go to YREFI.com. That is Y-R-E-F-Y-F-Y.com. Let's face it, if you have distress or default to student loans, it can be overwhelming. Because of private student loan debt, so many people feel stuck, go to Y-ReFi.com. That is Y-R-E-F-Y-F-Y.com. Private student loan debt relief, Y-refi.com. It was great with Andy Biggs. We're honored to have him. Going to be the next governor of the great state of Arizona. But we have so much news. that is, Tim Walls has announced that he is not running for re-election.

First governor brought down by a YouTuber. And apparently he is very upset this morning. It held a press conference. We'll get some of those clips. But he didn't take any questions. The reporters are very upset that he didn't take questions. So that's happening. Obviously, we have the Maduro arraignment.

We're going to have David Zier from Real America's voice reporting live outside the courthouse. in Manhattan. We have, the U.N. is condemning President Trump's attack against Venezuela. Yeah, you have Somalia sort of leading the charge, which is an irony of ironies. And Liberia was getting in on the action. Pete Hegseth initiates proceedings to demote U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, a retired captain over his seditious six video telling soldiers to refuse illegal orders. So all of that is happening and more but i i do want to just sort of start here blake at the at this baseline that this was an incredibly impressive precision attack where no u.s troops were killed we had no military equipment that was lost one helicopter was shot but it it maintained uh its flyability

and it seemed to be just executed at a level that uh no other nation perhaps could even match China and Russia are probably looking on going, wow. I think that's the immediate most impressive thing. You can remember in 2022, Russia did their attack on Ukraine. They also tried to go for not really a kidnapping, but a decapitation strike. They landed troops in Kiev. It seemed their belief was, and frankly, the belief in the West also at the time, was that Ukraine would collapse quickly.

We apparently offered to have Zelensky flee the country. like we thought the whole thing would collapse in a matter of days and Russia thought that as well and it didn't work out and they're more almost four years later hundreds of thousands dead and that's still ongoing so by comparison successfully spearing out Maduro it's now coming out that last night I believe that he had this sort of Cuban praetorian guard yeah apparently this was 30 apparently 30 plus Cubans were killed in us capturing him so yeah so that is like the interesting part i mean you had cuba venezuela turned into essentially a playground for all the world's worst actors right china iran cuba russia they were all trying to get

access to the mineral riches that exists within venezuela and it's fascinating to watch the left-wing reaction to it where everybody seems to be very upset that america is going in that Trump's being honest that we're going to control, the oil fields that were expropriated from American oil companies back when Hugo Chavez took over, that we're going to take those back, and that we are going to share the revenues with the people of Venezuela, but Americans are going to get their recompense. So people are upset about that. But I actually, I've been thinking about this all weekend long. And the fact that we are asserting dominance in the Western Hemisphere, it feels like a return to sanity from years of foreign adventurism in Iraq, Afghanistan, other places that have

been catastrophic, that have been terrible for our country, terrible for our coffers, cost us blood and soil and lives. And so this, but this does feel different. It's, you know, people don't realize how close Venezuela. Hold on. I mean, it's in the Western Hemisphere. They don't realize how close it is to Miami. It's like a two-hour flight to Miami from Caracas. And, you know, if you if Venezuela fell into control of foreign agitators like China, which China was there visiting the day it happened and the day before it happened. So it does feel like the then question is how do you sell this to the American people when they're struggling to afford gas and groceries, right?

That is a fair question to ask. And I mean, people do need to understand that when you control oil resources, mineral resources, energy resources within the Western Hemisphere, that will ultimately make America save for a more secure place. But the question then becomes, we are running Venezuela, or at least in theory we are, and that is going to, that's going to be a tough pill to swallow for the America First crap. Well, again, I think right now the vibe is very good. And the vibe is very good because it was easy.

There were no losses. They got their guy. They got out. Everything looks extremely smooth, especially in comparison. to Russia's own failed military ops, especially compared to our failed endeavors in the Middle East. This is clearly better. But our endeavors in the Middle East looked better early on. When we took down the Taliban, they crumbled in a matter of weeks. And we took over the whole country. And then it was the following 20 years where everything went horribly wrong. And Venezuela, it's a big

country. It's got 30 million people. I think 40 million people at this point. Well, 8 million people have left. and so we'll say a no number of people then a lot of people a lot of it is rainforest a lot of it is mountain a lot of it is urban healthscape not well controlled it's not a super it's not like taking over japan or something where it's a pretty orderly society it's a chaotic society it has some of the highest murder rates in the world some years and it will be especially when it's super easy early on you have to worry about that temptation to get get more invested? Oh, if we put 2,000 troops here, it'll be okay. If we add a few more, we can get this under control. You're going to have to resist that temptation to get too involved, either in monetary terms or in military investment terms. And so I think we'll have to watch out for that. You'll also have to make sure you don't, in my opinion, overlearn from how easy it is. So you've seen some takes, okay, well, is Cuba next? Is Mexico next? Is Colombia next should we just forcibly seize greenland i would say make sure venezuela is actually a success

before you start looking for new things to do and we were talking during the break that uh after afghanistan and after the initial iraq takeover as well there was a lot of arrogance that oh we can remake the middle east to our will uh max boot uh i think he's still at the washington post but he was he was this neocan guy and you can find his essays from that period where he saying, yeah, we could topple Syria, we could topple Iran, we could topple Saudi Arabia. He actually goes a little mad with power about all the countries that we could take out with our unlimited military might. I would always say, calm down. Remember what is truly America first, and what is most America first is not getting us involved in foreign quagmires. As long as this

is not a foreign quagmire, that's great. It's great if we are able to turn an extremely anti-American regime in our backyard into a pro-American regime in our backyard at minimal cost. If it's true that this is a fragile regime, you take out the top guy and you can use your blockade to pressure them into something

much more friendly, that is good. But be careful because there will be people, there will be people who try to sell us on a much bigger involvement, a much more expensive intervention. And if we get into that, it's harder to get out than it is to get in.

And that's where you get the potential for negative effects for America. And let's be frank, negative effects politically. If this is a big win a year from now, it helps the Trump administration, helps us in the midterms. But if this is, if this has become a conflict where U.S. troops are getting killed, where there's no obvious way out, then it's going to be bad. Well, to your point, this is what makes, I think, a lot of people nervous. You got Lindsey Graham, we're grabbing the clip here. You just wait for Cuba, he says. Cuba is a communist dictatorship that's killed priests and nuns.

They've preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered. So now we are talking big game. Lindsay Graham added again, neocon of neocons, licking his chops at another possible invasions. By the way, he's flanked by President Trump and Commerce Secretary Lutnik while he's saying this in a press gaggle. So that's not a good sign.

But, you know, and you got President Trump talking about Colombia saying he needs to watch his backside, to say it in a nice way, the President Columbia. So there are questions here, but certainly, and we need to, I think it's, listen, it's important to be skeptical because this stuff tends to spiral out of control. If this can be done in a clean way, one of the things that I'm encouraged by is the fact that you have the Venezuelan diaspora, whether that's in New York City or Florida or Argentina. These people are taking to the streets by the tens and tens of thousands celebrating the fall of Nicholas Maduro, who was a bad guy and who stole the election who has militarized the military, which is, but against the people of

Venezuela, the extreme poverty rate in Venezuela is over 50%. Their oil production has fallen off a cliff. Their inflation has been through the roof. People can't afford jobs. They're eating cats and dogs, literally in the street. And so this was a dictatorship that held on to power. And as Andy Biggs described it, he is a head of a cartel, essentially. It's a thug-based sort of boss-style mafioso tactic to maintain control of the country of Venezuela. It's a good thing that Maduro is gone. But what's interesting here is that you have all these clips now coming out from Democrats who before were talking tough on Venezuela. But now that Maduro's gone at the hands of Trump, it's suddenly a bad thing.

right so let's play 154 this is democrat chris murphy doing exactly that in 2019 you wrote an op-ed and you called for maduro to be gone you said let's get one thing straight there should no longer be any debate about maduro's lack of democratic legitimacy the trump administration is right to put restoring Venezuelan democracy at the center of our approach to this crisis a return to a stable democracy is in the interest of the Venezuelan people and the united states and the hemisphere. We don't know what's going to happen with regard to the civilian leadership there, Tom Cotton, which is here saying that he hopes that there are Democratic elections. Isn't that what you want? Well, the rest of that article was a criticism of President Trump's early moves

to saber-rattle around regime change. And not only that, but Joe Biden put a $25 million bounty on Nicholas Maduro's head. So this is Joe Biden, $25 million, and now you have Democrat after Democrat after Democrat that is, and Chuck Schumer's guilty of this, Hakeem Jeffries, Chris Murphy, many that are now going back on that saying this is bad. Yeah, obviously they're going to be hypocrites. That's just inevitable with Congress. I feel people return about. It's less interesting to you, though. It's less interesting. We should focus, in my opinion, it won't matter if Democrats are hypocrites if this is a win for us because the win will overshadow whatever dumb stuff they do.

And if this is a disaster for us, the fact that they were hypocrites, is definitely not going to bail us out from that. So the number one focus always is make sure that this intervention is not damaging to America. Make sure we achieve the America first goal. That has to be the number one focus, not winning any social media fight. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see the way this plays out, certainly. Hopefully the saner voices prevail, and we don't expand this to. much. But again, I think I agree with what something Jonathan Turley actually wrote, that whether

we said it out loud that we were going to be running Venezuela or not, the truth was we were going to be running Venezuela. After you do a mission like this, you got to see it through and you got to make sure the transition happens, which is a big if, which is a big if. So we're about to be joined by David Zier, who's outside of the federal courthouse where Nicholas Maduro has just pleaded not guilty, not guilty, saying he's a decent man. I mean, regardless of whether you support this intervention in Venezuela, regardless of how it plays out, Nicholas Maduro is not a decent man. I'm a decent man,

by the way, some of my favorite parts of the videos playing over the weekend was, you know, Maduro like saying, come at me now, come now, coward. And, you know, and then he gets, you know, they fast forward to the next shot. Apparently they changed his clothes 10 times in a 24-hour window. Like, he keeps having a different outfit every time he's spotted. Oh, really?

Just to kind of mix people up. It's probably some Cuban, uh, Praetorian Guard defense measure that they've... No, no, this is since we got him. They keep changing his outfit, apparently. Fascinating. Let's just talk about this, too. Nicholas Maduro was given multiple off-ramps, and he, Fafote, 135. Nicholas Maduro had his chance, just like Iran had their chance, until they didn't and until he didn't.

He effed around, and he found out. President Trump is deadly serious about stopping the flow of gangs and violence to our country. Deadly serious about stopping the flow of drugs and poison to our people. Deadly serious about getting back the oil that was stolen from us. And deadly serious about reestablishing American deterrence and dominance in the Western Hemisphere. This is about the safety, security, freedom, and prosperity of the American people. yeah uh it is i think the biggest challenge is going to be communicating why this is good for america i think that's going to be i think the america first it's a challenge although i don't

as long as it remains a clear win that will be easier than it thinks like i think we took out a guy and we did it in one night with a few special forces and we took no losses makes it a lot easier to make that sell as long as that remains what has happened especially if we've followed up with a government that is friendly to the United States, and we can point towards stuff. It's going to be a harder sell, the more there's clear downside to it. So that's why you have to avoid getting enmeshed. You have to avoid getting U.S. servicemen killed. And even just the jump from zero to one is going to be very important in that regard.

If this is a thing where U.S. soldiers have been killed, that's very different from something where there are no casualties. Yeah. I agree. I just think, again, you've got this affordability crisis. you've got a base that is clamoring for us to focus on domestic issues. And here we are again. But this is what I'm saying is the harder message to sell is that this will have downstream positive impacts on America.

And I would just not be too arrogant about how much the upside is. Remember, George H.W. Bush won the Gulf War in February of 1991. February of 91, after the midterms, wins a gigantic war against a big enemy. complete beat down. I think he has 85% approval or so at that time. Loses. And he loses re-election. A lot of that was Ross Perrault. And it loses bad. And he loses it thanks to a recession that itself ended in March 1991. That's how much economic stuff beats out foreign policy stuff. That victory was just totally forgotten by the time. Well, it was also Ross Perot stole a lot of his votes. Well, yeah, but

Ross Perot, why was Ross Perot stealing his votes? Yeah, well, fair enough. I mean, I'm just saying if it would have been head to head, you know. He would have lost worse. You think so. Yeah, Ross Perot took, I think, more votes from Clinton, if anything. Wow. Well, we can argue that another day. But I do think here's my basic thought on this. We have to deal with Mexico. If you really want to deal with the fentanyl flowing into the country, it has to be, you have to deal with Mexico.

That's where absolutely the most of it is coming from. The precursors come from China. They go into Mexico. I have a whole theory that we need to threaten Mexico with reversing the Gadsden purchase, connecting Arizona to the Sea of Cortez, reclaiming Baja, yes, if they don't, they're going to Fafo as well.

But this is way better. This is way better, Blake. Don't look at me like that. This is way better because this is actually contiguous with the United States, the lower 48. We're just going to add landmash. You just want us to extort Mexico? Yeah, if they don't stop the fentanyl coming into our country.

I read a history of Mexico a year ago. The number one moral I took from it is we should build a 1,000-foot wall around all of Mexico and keep it out and just not no one goes in no one goes out it's like escape from new york except with a whole country i don't know bahas pretty beautiful uh i will i i i'm open minded to just building a way bigger wall i would invest in that one thousand feet high um game of thrones yeah i mean so basically you know the point is the so we i guess we have davids there let's bring him in really quick uh david can you hear me yeah got you loud and clear awesome tell us what you're seeing in in manhattan well we're outside

the courthouse heavy security drones helicopters everywhere i just walked out of the arraignment about five minutes ago um no cameras or any recording devices were allowed in there uh but i did take some notes and medoro defiantly uh pled not guilty along with his wife celia flores uh saying that i am an innocent man i am a good man and he went on a speech in spanish i only understood a little bit of it he said he's a prisoner of war and he wants to be treated i think according to Geneva Convention and Vienna Accords, but don't quote me exactly on that. But Judge Hellestine cut him off and said there would be plenty of time for such dialogue in the future that this was just about the arraignment. And the judge asked him if he wanted to request bail,

and he said, I don't want to request bail at this time. And he reserves the right to do that at any point going forward. The defense did say that this was a military abduction. And also they didn't look that healthy. The judge didn't sound that healthy either. You know, it's a 92-year-old Bill Clinton appointee, Hellerstein. But, you know, the attorneys for Maduro were requesting also medical help for Celia Flores, who may have sustained perhaps what they say is a fracture during the arrest from a few days ago and wanted her to get some treatment. The case will reconvene in 60 days. I believe that date is March 16th. And they also discuss his right to consult with his counsel, because as a foreign person, I think he has the right to consult with the consulate

in Venezuela or other. And they also talked about, and the prosecution agreed, I think, because we're not allowed to take money from Venezuela, our attorneys in the United States, that the prosecution would make an exception, I believe, to be able to transfer funds to pay the defense team Basilia Flores and what Nicholas Maduro said, he is the rightful president of Venezuela. A lot going on here on the ground, lower Manhattan. Yeah, David, I'm curious if you've got any insight as to why this case was tried in Manhattan as opposed to perhaps the Southern District of Florida. Do you have any insight under that?

Well, the case, the crux of the case, and I know Florida District did participate in this under DOJ. But this goes all the way back to 2011 for the DOJ Southern District. And we had other indictments and a recent conviction of top general Hugo Armando Carval Barrios, also known as El Pollo, the chicken, who worked for Hugo Chavez. This is a 15-year-old Southern District indictment. And he said he's been worked, that Barrio has been working with the cartel since 1999 in a conspiracy. I think his sentencing is coming up next week here. He pled guilty to the same charges as Maduro, and he's facing life in prison. And I was thinking maybe he sang like a canary. I don't know that. But the indictments, all four indictments, including narco-terrorism

conspiracy, alleging a 25-year partnership with FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Columbia, weapons charges, corruption and violence, kidnappings, murder, and to protect trafficking ops. All those indictments, he did plead not guilty to as well as Celia Flores, who also said that she was an innocent, she's innocent 100% in this case. So a lot more to come. And I think maybe there will be an application to move the trial to Florida. I'm not sure if that's doable or not. Right. So it's a, it's a sort of a legacy of when the indictments against Maduro started. it sounds like probably in 2011 they were filed in the Southern District of New York. So keeping with the legality and the indictments that were previously issued, that makes sense.

David Zier, thank you for the reporting on the ground in the federal courthouse where Nicholas Maduro has been arraigned and pleaded not guilty. David Zier, thanks so much. Thank you, sir. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust. com.