The Chris Cuomo Project - What Really Happened in Venezuela (and What Comes Next)

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

Chris Cuomo breaks down the competing reactions to what just happened in Venezuela and why that “pick a side” framing misses the real issue. He lays out why the operation went forward, what it cost, why the aftermath is more complicated than “bad guy out, good guys in,” and the biggest unanswered questions about what the Trump administration is doing now and what comes next. Then, Rick de la Torre (founder and CEO, Tower Strategy, and former CIA Caracas Station Chief) joins Chris to explain what the post-operation reality looks like on the ground, why stability often means dealing with whoever is actually inside the country, and how a reported CIA assessment fits into the decision to leave parts of the existing power structure in place—plus what that implies for the next phase in Venezuela. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: Refresh your winter wardrobe with Quince—visit https://quince.com/cuomo for free shipping and 365-day returns. Get the right life insurance for you and save more than 50% at https://selectquote.com/chrisc Reverse hair loss with @iRestorelaser and get exclusive savings on the iRestore Elite, use code CUOMO at https://irestore.com/cuomo! #irestorepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Do you want to know what led up to what just happened in Venezuela? Why and what it was about and what is going to happen next? I have real answers for you two ways. One, through my reporting and reasoned analysis of what has happened before, what I know about what's going on inside the Trump administration, and what is to follow. And I've got the guy who led the CIA on the ground in Venezuela for years for perspective.

I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Now, you must fight through, okay, this needing to be all one way, that because, arguably, what America just did violated international law, may have violated domestic law, and may have sent a message all around the world that might make right when you think it does. And for all of those reasons, I do not like what just happened in Venezuela. So that's why. position. Trump sucks. The other position is say that to the Venezuelan people who just got freed from a despot. Maduro is a bad guy. He rigged and then stole an election that he lost anyway. He is not recognized as the leader by many in the international community. And literally almost a third of the population of Venezuela ran away or was sent away or was chased away because of him. So this was a good thing, no matter how it went down. And sometimes doing the right thing is worth it, even if you didn't do it the right way. That's the argument.

And that comes along with a string of, oh, and also, which is, oh, and also, we now have control of this massive oil reserve. Oh, and also, we just sent a message to Hamas, Hezbollah, Russia, and China that you don't play in our backyard. And also, this was done in a way that shows to the world how effective the American military is. Okay, so those line up. And what the problem is, is that you feel like you've got to pick one. And I don't think that's the way reason works. And I can tell you why this happened, okay? The number one reason that this happened is because President Trump was convinced by his people that this was an easy,

win. And, you know, they're not always right. This time they were militarily. Militarily, this went off exactly the way they told him it could. Now, they also, in my opinion, were deceptive about the cost here. You had some American military injuries, nothing significant, certainly not by the standards of what we've seen in the Middle East and has always been ignored back here at home with American blood being shed. But, you know, you know, you know, you know, You killed Venezuelans, not just Maduro's security. You broke their houses. You broke infrastructure.

There was a price here. But that said, the reason that this happened is because Trump was told it would be an easy win. And he liked the politics attached to it. That he looked strong. And I'm not speculating. I'm telling you, I know. How do I know? because I speak to people in and around the administration all the time.

I also speak to people in and around the power structure of the Democratic Party all the time. So I understand the state of play on how people are playing it. And I'll tell you something. The left is a little quiet here. And I understand why, even if I'm not endorsing it. Why? Because they learned from the El Salvador situation when they went all in on a guy who was, was accused of being a gang member from South America who got deported to El Salvador.

And then the Democratic senator went down there and they were screaming about ICE, which I believe are legitimate complaints about how ICE is doing the job, whether or not someone is here illegally, and that is a crime. It doesn't mean, just like with Venezuela, that you go about justice any way you want to. But they learned a political lesson there, that you've got to be careful about what hill you want to die on. And do you want to be defending Maduro? No, he's a bad guy. And Democrats have been saying he's a bad guy.

And the Trump administration was followed by the Biden administration that upped the reward for his arrest. There's also a reason that the Biden administration upped the reward for the arrest and didn't do what Trump just did. And it's not because they didn't have the same military capabilities. It's because they didn't think it was the right thing to do. Trump does. Why? I'm telling you why. He was told this could be done easily.

we'll show everyone how amazing we are and that you look strong and this is a bad guy and it sends a message to China and Russia to get out. Now, I have to tell you, does it check all those boxes of success for the administration?

Probably from what we've seen so far, Russia has said almost nothing and China said, oh, we'll see you in court if any of our rights are violated, which was the weakest response they could have given. And a bad guy is gone and Venezuelans are really happy.

now here's my problem this is exactly what president trump campaigned against exactly there is a big group of MAGA people who are quiet right now when they should be going crazy because this is foreign intervention and you can make the same art look is Maduro and Venezuela a little bit more threatening than Saudi Arabia and a lot of other bad players bad people that we do business with. Yes. Why? Proximity. Maduro's insistence on inviting in as many of our enemies as he could. The amount of people that he has punished within his own country. Again, I'll say it even again, proximity really matters here. Now, however, then why aren't you talking about Mexico? Listen, the president of Mexico is not Maduro, okay? It was a real election. She won. She's recognized

as the principal, there's nowhere near the kind of reporting about her infractions against her own people like Maduro had. It's not even a close call. However, as a threat, you take the proximity and Mexico is actually a fentanyl factory, and Venezuela's activities and drugs are nothing compared to Mexico's activities and drugs. And if it's really about drugs, then why would this have been your priority? Because it wasn't just about drugs. It wasn't. In fact, the drugs are the weakest part of the analysis. And even if you were right about drugs, even if you're right about all of it, how you administer the law matters. It just does. And I don't like how this looks. And it doesn't mean that I don't think it's great for Venezuelans there and who have run away

because they had to and live here in America or elsewhere. I get why they're happy. I get why they wanted this guy taken out. That doesn't mean America had to do it and it doesn't mean America had to do it this way. Okay? Now, what's my, what's the problem with this argument? It's not satisfying enough to either side. Trump breaks the law, abuses the military, kills people in another country, takes their leader and comes home and talks about wanting to do it more and maybe putting boots on the ground and secure the oil. He is an authoritarian despot who breaks law and is immoral. That is all that is allowed on one side. You say anything short of that or anything other than that, you're MAGA. Now, on the MAGA side, you say any of the things that

I just said. And even though many people in MAGA, there are more of you who should agree with me about this being the wrong way to do it than on the left. I'll tell you why. Because you guys are xenophobes. You guys want us out. You are nativists. You want our. You want our concerns here at home to dominate. That's what America first means. The president campaigned more than any recent president on the simple premise of, man, do these guys fuck up foreign power and policy on a regular basis? We ought to stay out. These places are sinkholes, man. Stay out of it. Focus on home. Bring the money back. Bring the energy back. Bring the troops back. Bring the focus back. Let's focus in America. Now, that's another reason that this just happened.

Venezuela. Why? Because it's so much easier for the president to pull off as a success than what's happening here at home. And yes, it violates a main promise of his. And look, you can argue nuance, but once you're explaining, you're losing in politics. So once you start explaining why this foreign intervention, this use of military abroad, this was okay. This was okay, but other ones were not. Once you start explaining, you're losing. And you are no longer what you said, you would be about. And that should be resonating within MAGA, but you guys are stuck because you don't want to go sideways on Trump. But man, you guys are finding more and more things that are hard to justify. And that's why Megan Kelly, who's desperate to reclaim her MAGA chops, right?

Because you guys are all mad at her for the Candace Owen stuff and all of the double speak and all of the bullshit. But I don't know why you're so angry. Don't you know what it's about for her? It's about what gets the clicks and the follows and the revenue. That's what it's about. That's why it's the topic of the week. That's why it's outrage of the week. That's why she's picking enemies and then they go away because it's not about principle.

It's not about conviction. So her saying, I'm a yellow signal on what Trump just did in Venezuela. Ooh, bold. Of course you should be a yellow signal or a red one. Why? Because it is anathema to Magadogical. about what to do and not do abroad. And she's trying to win you guys back

and get away from what you're angry at her about. Just see it for what it is. Because that's the purity test that's killing us. Two things can be true at the same time. Things can be nuanced. Things can be complicated. And that's okay. And this move in Venezuela is one of them.

Bad guy, but arguably you just did a bad thing or you did it a bad way. No, you didn't. You got rid of him. He's a bad guy and he was uniquely menacing to us. menacing to us. Okay, so who's next? If it was such a one-off, why wouldn't the president say that? Now, you know what the answer is? Because he's not thinking the way I'm thinking. He's not thinking, I really don't want to do things like this. And I'm going to say that this was really an extraordinary set of circumstances, and that's why I did it, and I'm not going to keep doing it. He

doesn't want to say that. Why? Because he believes in might makes right. He believes in it. He likes to look muscular and powerful and alpha. And to some, that's how this looks. And that's why it's like, well, would you put boots on the ground? I'm open to it. What about Mexico? What about Cuba? What about Columbia? I'm open to it. Now, that makes his critics crazy. And I understand why. But it's not Trump derangement syndrome. You do have to remember, though. This is a guy who says things. Doesn't mean he's going to do things. But he just did this. I know. I know. It's a tricky analysis. It's not easy to know. He is unpredictable. And that is difficult to deal with in a president of the most powerful of the superpowers. It's totally confounding. I totally get it. Look at my

headline. I get it. I get it. But what I also get is it's a new year. You got to have a new way of looking at situations other than absolutism. This is absolutely wrong or this is absolutely right. Because it winds up leading to no progress. And do I think he's going to keep doing this in different places? No, I don't. Why? Look, we're going to lose people. There's going to be international condemnation. It's not going to be this simple or this obvious, okay? And there are a lot of bad guys in the world, and I thought America was getting out of the business of being its policeman. So, when you look at Venezuela and you want to say, was it right or was it wrong, you can answer that question either.

way. To me personally, this was good for Venezuela. It was not as good for America, even with the message sent to Russia and China, because what if Russia turns around and takes Zelensky? And what if China turns around and goes into Taiwan? Are we going to be able to say, hey, you shouldn't have done that? What moral standing do we have? I think that's an issue. Oh, yeah, but the oil. Listen, we got plenty of oil. It's a world market. If you really want to control oil, go after the Saudis. The Saudis, you know, the guys where everyone, except maybe for one from 9-11, came from, you know, the home of Wahhabism, the violent form of extreme Islamism that was born there

and that they helped finance and export, you know, where Osama bin Laden got a lot of his money and ideas, you know, those guys. You know, the guys who killed Khashoggi, the journalist, and a lot of other people who have their women covered and all that other shit. When Dave Chappelle says he's freer to talk. Yeah. Talk about them and their women and their rules. See how free you are, Dave.

But we're not going after them. Why? Well, they're far away. Okay. Because you can't just reach out and fuck with people from anywhere anymore, right? China and Russia, you think their biggest threat was that they were playing in Venezuela and trying to get that oil? You don't think what they're doing to us on social media,

their ability to hack into our control boards and our power grid and make us all hate each other. you don't think that's more menacing and moral focus of theirs and this stuff? Look, if you want it easy, stick to board games. Okay? If you want to look at geopolitics, if you want to look at policy, if you want to look at moves, you have to be open to things that aren't all one way.

And Venezuela is one of them. And again, I am saying to you out of the box, I do not like why and how this went down. I don't. I don't think it's satisfying legally or morally. And yes, and probably more than anybody else on News Nation, I had the voices from Venezuela and former leaders of theirs saying this was a good thing. They're happy that this happened. But if you think it's that simple, you're not even looking at what's happening in our own government. Why is Trump saying we're in power in Venezuela? Why didn't he take out Maduro's government? Why didn't he install another one if that's true? Because it's not that simple because a lot of the people who you would put in as the opponents of Maduro aren't even in the country or they have problems of their own or they don't have the capabilities to run the place and will lead to just more chaos. That's why they didn't install somebody else. It's not because that's not what we usually do. That's exactly what we usually do is take out a bad guy.

Usually we kill them or somebody else kills them who's affiliated with us or financed by us or helped by us or friendly to us. And then you put in a whole new group. That's what keeps happening in the Middle East, right? But we didn't do that here. Why? Because it's more complicated than that. And I think you've got to be open to that on these issues. It can't just be that if I say, oh, the American military really went in and out there

and got this done in a way that probably nobody else in the world could have, you're MAGA. No, I'm not. I just told you I don't like the way that this happened. It doesn't mean that the military didn't execute well, but it's an illegal order. No, it's not an illegal order to them. It may have been an illegal international law situation. But I can say that and not be an endorsement of Trump or his rationales or his policy. And at the same time, I can see why people in Venezuela are so happy about this and see that this may be a positive move for them, even though Maduro's regime is still in power.

And that doesn't make me MAGA. And it doesn't make me anti-Maga, although I am anti-partisan. I'll be honest. I'm not just nonpartisan. I don't just not pick a side. I'm against the sides. You people are killing us. Our social media is just consuming our any kind of sense of collective conscience

or of patriotism or of being a nation. It's just all division all the time on every level. And this issue is a perfect Rorschach test for it. And that's not how life works. And it's not how policy works. And it's not how the situation in Venezuela works. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Quince. Now, what is Quince?

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You want them to hold up, you want them to look, and look the right way, I don't want them to hold you up at the cash register. Quince checks all those boxes. Check them out for yourself. Quince.com slash Cuomo. If you want to know what was happening in Venezuela before this and what Maduro was about and this new classified report that came out from the CIA

that made its assessment about why, if Maduro was gone, America was better served and Venezuela was better served by leaving the regime in place than by kicking everybody out. That report just came out. The guy who was the head of the CIA in Venezuela for years who knows the situations then and now is Rick Delatore. And he joins me for an interview where he's going to tell you why this happened and what happens next. Rick, great to have you, couldn't have a better guest for this. There are reports that a classified CIA kind of look at what would be best post-Moduro,

informed the Trump administration, was asked for by the Trump administration, that you're better off staying with the VP and that there's some other heads involved in the regime that can help create stability better than going to be. with Machado, better than going with an outside opposition group. One, do you believe in that assessment? And two, do you agree with that assessment? Well, look, I think that kind of assessment distills a lot of variables, a lot of facts into something that's digestible.

But it's a little bit more complicated than that, right? You know, ultimately, when these things happen, when an operation like this occurs, right, you've got to still deal with the realities of what you've got on the ground. So you look around, you've conducted this is a great operation. Someone's still got to stay behind

to turn on the lights, right? Someone's got to turn around, you know, keep the water and sewer systems working and keep some sort of peace, you know, amongst the country. So, so what do you do? You know, who are you going to go with? Yeah, obviously the exalt community,

the opposition leaders, but they're in exile. They're not in the country. a third country. So, you know, you've got to work with what you've got on the ground. So you pitch your nose and you work with, sadly, with Delci Rodriguez. So one, your suspicion is that this reported, classified report is legit, and that sounds like the right assessment to you. I think, I think that kind of briefing occurred, you know, obviously. I'm not sure if that was the headline or the actual results of that kind of report of like, hey, you know, we're

to do this and this is where we're going to go with. Right. You know, I think it's just, you know, making the best of a horrible situation. But it would explain why the administration has been open to Maduro's administration staying in place in the form of his vice president. The question for me is, okay, I get it. But I'm not really crazy about any of the having happened in the first place. And if Maduro's so bad and you're going to go take him and his wife, why would you want any of his regime staying in there? The concern of, hey, let's go there.

Let's wrap them all up. Let's put them all on handcuffs. That's a perfect world scenario. And again, you know, we went out, we went there. We took down Maduro and his wife. They're in prison. You know, there's still arrest warrants out for Vladimir. And for Adjostalo, that's still there.

They're still wanted men. So I'm not saying that it's over and done with. You know, it's a matter of timing. It's a matter of resources and everything else that I just mentioned, right? Someone's got to run the place. So you're left with Delsey. It's a really bad situation. It's not what everyone wants, but it's just the reality.

I think it's short-lived, by the way. I think this is one of those things that within a few weeks, hopefully, you know, if things continue the way they are, you know, we'll have someone else there who, you know, that doesn't have this kind of, you know, this kind of problem of being a member of the regime. Why do you think that? And do you think that there is an in for Machado or do you believe that Trump doesn't like her because she took the Nobel Prize and didn't say it should be his? Yeah, no, look, I think I saw that story, too. I don't buy that story. I think that, come on, I think that's nonsense. It's a matter of realities. She's in Norway, right?

She's not in Venezuela. Is she going to be in Venezuela? Yeah, sure. You know, look, and also what would happen, you know, here's the thing, right? If we went ahead and took Maria Carino Machado and said, hey, Maria Carino Machado, you're now running this country. you know, here's the door. What does that do to her and her legitimacy?

Now, you know, not keep in mind. She, you know, her party won 80, 90% of the vote the last round, you know, the last time around. But even then, she had to run as vice president. And the only reason why she could run as president was because Maduro, you know, made sure she wasn't on the ballot and did a whole bunch of goofy things with the election. So that's why she wound up being as vice president, not, not president. But even then, the critics would claim, oh, but she,

was never president. So now how is she pre? So it's best to, you know, allow the Venezuelan community that's in exile, be a sport to start coming back. Yeah, you know, have elections again where

if she won 80% the last time, then now she should win at least 80 or 90% now in the new election. And this time be, you know, be elected as president. So all of those things I think bode well for her. It's matter of making sure that that it's done right and it's done right the first time.

There's also a lot of options now, too, on the table that, oh my God, what was the name? He just blew my mind, the guy who was president last time. Guido? Guido, who was on before me last night, right? Great guy, Juan Guido. He got a lot of hate, by the way, on my comments on social media. A lot of people believe that he was corrupt, that he was chasing. out of the country for good reason.

Now, could some of those people be Maduro plants and does he have the sophistication to have a troll farm, putting out messaging for him? Maybe, but it was pretty concentrated and more present in the interview with him than it was in any of the other clips I put out. Really interesting. Yeah, I'm not surprised about that.

You know, I get your points about troll farms. I totally believe it. You know, those things exist. I think one of the challenges I had with the opposition folks was that when you looked at them, when you looked at all of them, right? There was no George Washington or John Adams or Amos Jefferson in that group. You know, a lot of these guys, a lot of these guys had a lot of ego issues.

Yeah. Right? A lot of them wanted to really just be in it for themselves. And the opposition for the longest time, sadly, was being penetrated by Majuro and Cuban Intel and you guys because it was just easy to manipulate them that way. So it was always very difficult to, you know, to find the diamond in the rough in that group. But look, Guaido and others have an opportunity now

to, you know, to deal in an open election, you know. So let's pivot from why it's good for them to whether or not it is good for us as America. First, the proposition that the president said, which I dismiss as ego and Trump being Trump, which is, we're in charge in Venezuela. We're running Venezuela. I'm open to having boots on the ground to secure the oil. These are all terrible ideas, in my opinion.

Boots on the ground in Venezuela, as you well know and are about to inform the audience as to why. You're asking for bloodshed. There are a lot of capable militaristic groups that will absolutely go ham on whoever is on the ground there, especially if it's American troops. And us running Venezuela seems completely counterproductive and cuckoo.

What is your take on those assessments? Yeah, look, I think Trump's comments are more for others that maybe wanted to take advantage of the situation. And also he's the kind of guy who doesn't want to take anything off the table. He said that, you know. He will never say, I will never, do that because that's just not his style right um i i i agree i don't think uh i don't think uh american troops uh running the place standing on every street corner or something like

that that's that's just not in the cards um i think uh i i do think it's good for us though right i i do think all of this is good for us in the united states i think it's good great for the region. You know, like we've commented, yeah, Maduro is a horrible, horrible guy. He's no longer there. That's a good thing in itself. But this is a real game changer on a global scale, not just for the people of Venezuela, not just for the United States, but this changes our leverage with Russia. This changes our leverage with China. There's a lot more good things that come out of this. Why? Look, first of all, I give you some debt. on that point, not just because you understand the situation much better than I ever will,

but China had a delegation on the ground. We, America operates, extracts, their response is we're willing to go to court to protect our interests. That is the weakest possible response they could have offered, right? They should have said one of two things. One, circa 1960, as Russia did, saying, we're going to help our friends in Venezuela. They need military help and we're going to give it to them. They could have said that. They didn't. And they could have said, hmm, I like your thinking here.

And then gone into Taiwan and done the exact same thing. They didn't indicate either of those paths. And that was surprising to me. Was it surprising to you? No, no. Look, the Russians were pulling out already. They had moved the folks out of their embassy a couple weeks ago. The Cubans themselves, the same thing.

Hey, you know, it's pay for play. Give us oil. We'll help you out. You have nothing to give us. We'll turn our backs on you. And after the Chinese, it's all transactional. You know, it's all belt in the road. It's all our investments.

They're not going to sacrifice any Chinese PLA soldier or anything like that to fight up against the Americans. Well, I think, you know, look, I think what I meant by it being real game-changing is this. Right now, today, the United States controls probably 50, more than half of the world's oil supply with, you know, counting Venezuela, right? That changes the dynamics of things. We could now see a future where a barrel of oil is less than 55 bucks. Or we could keep it at 55 bucks, you know, or 40 bucks. Now, where are you, Rick, in terms of the estimates of Venezuelan oil?

I totally believe following the chain of reporting that, of course, it's going to be less because the reporting came from Chavez and then Maduro, and they have no reason to be accurate and to do anything but inflate it to inflate their own, you know, their own relevancy. But do you share that assessment that they have a lot of oil, but it may be nowhere near the numbers that are being put out there? Yeah. I mean, you're right. It may be what? Maybe not the, the world's largest supply could be maybe the world's third largest supply, or I'm looking at a total, you know, a total output, a capable output production, right? And I know that there needs to be significant investments in their capabilities to pump the wall out of the ground

currently. But when, you know, if you extrapolate from what they used to be running at and their capabilities when, you know, when the machines were on and they were pumping out the oil, And at that time, I think the U.S. was buying about 20% of it was getting 20% of its oil from Venezuela. You know, this is, you know, around the time that Chavez started the nationalized things. So whatever that ultimate number is, it's going to be huge, right? And if we just accept the numbers at the moment, then that still puts us at the number one oil country now, right? Which we were before. But in other words, we control all considerable.

amount of the world's oil supply. What that means is we now control what that price of oil can. We have more influence. I mean, it's not like we weren't in the oil game before, and it is a world market, which is why gas prices can't come down as fast as Trump promised, because there are a lot of different factors involved. But I give you that. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from select quote. Once you're adulting, once you've got people your responsible for. It becomes irresponsible to not think about how to take care of them. And when you got to take care of people, you've got to have life insurance, okay? I know it's a little scary. I know that people don't like to think about it. They think it means that something's going to happen.

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and you'll get a better deal. So let's do some point, counterpoint, put on your citizen, politically active person and not just your former CIA hat. This was very arguably illegal, what America just did. The reason Biden upped the reward for his arrest was because America couldn't go in there

and just take. take him because you need the sovereign to give its consent for you to do that. This violates international law, arguably violates American law. You disagree why? Oh, completely. First of all, you're accepting, you're starting with the premise that you're accepting he's a sovereign leader. And he wasn't.

You know, he lost two elections. Most of the countries in the world never recognized them as being its sovereign leader. They actually recognized a, excuse me, Hernandez and and Maria Carino Machado. So not him. That's number one. The other thing, too, is we don't, we don't turn to Europe to provide us the guidance on what we should or shoot it to when it comes to our national offense.

There was a warrant out for his arrest, and we've done stuff like this before. I know about the, you know, drawing the comparisons to Manuel Noriega in 91 in Panama. But, you know, here's the guy who was indicted under federal court. and him and his wife and a few others, right? There was a, Biden himself was the one who put out a $25 million reward on his head. So while we've done it, we doubled the reward, it went from 25 to 50, and then they acted on it. So, look, it would have been different, I think.

I think it would have been very different if it would have been a, you know, full-scale Normandy style invasion. We took Maduro, you know, we, you know, strung them up there in the center plaza and then american troops stayed behind that that's a very very different scenario than what occurred what occurred here was a very surgical strike military surgical strike we went into a country that a country that was not cooperating with the united states on on matters of international law of matters of stopping drugs right it would have been very different if the government of venezuela said hey you know what um we agree this guy's not

our leader, so we're offering them up to the United States, take them. Okay, obviously they're not going to do that because he's the leader, but we went ahead and we exercised, you know, that activity by arresting them, and we took him back the court, right? So now he's sitting in a New York jail cell, and he's going to have his dating court. I know, but that doesn't make the arrest legal. And why? Here's the argument. And again, this isn't just sophistry and it's not just playing to I get that if you are Venezuelan or South American but living here in the United States or there, you see this as an unqualified good thing. He's a bad guy. There was a moral imperative in America did it. Okay, I'm saying put that to the side because even if it was the, in quote, right thing to do, you still have to do it the right way. And there is no example except ones that are very legally dubious where we've been sued for it and actually had people convicted in the way. And there is no example except ones that are very legally dubious where we've been sued for it and actually had people convicted in the the past, although in absentia, they, you know, they never got hands on any Americans to hold them accountable, where if the home country that you're going into doesn't say yes, come on in,

it gets very dicey legally, very quickly. Just because the guy is indicted here doesn't mean you can go get him somewhere else. And using the military to do it probably put a requirement on the president that he didn't satisfy until afterwards. So legally, I think that, there is absolutely an open question. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of international action. But now here goes to the second one. I got three points. That's the first one. The second one is this. The Don Roe doctrine, I think one, needs a little bit of a background on what it sounds like, which is the Monroe Doctrine. Monroe Doctrine, you know this, of course, Rick, but for everybody else. Monroe Doctrine, President Monroe, leader of a weak country. Okay. America was weak

at the time. And they were saying, please, don't come into our backyard and colonize. Stop colonizing, please, because we're trying to get our own footing and it's really, you've done enough and it's kind of a problem. It was put out by him as a policy statement. It was never a law and it never had any teeth because he didn't have any bite. Then you had what this is really kind of like, which is the Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which is where Teddy, who was now in charge of a very different America, said, if any shit happens in my backyard, I love to fight.

And I especially love to fight in South America. And I am spoiling for that. And I am the policeman. I am the sheriff. And if anything happens here, I'm coming. That's what this sounds like. Here's my problem with it. OK, let's say it makes your muscles puff up.

And makes your chest puff up. And you're like, that's right. This is who America is, basically. be, all right, then who's next? Now there's all these, of course, Trump will never say no because of what you said stylistically. He just likes the options there. He thinks it makes him more dangerous, you know, more volatile, you know, someone who has to be taken seriously because you never know what he's going to do. Okay, so now you have all these people saying, and Colombia should be next, and Mexico should be next, and Cuba should be next. I don't know how any of that

is good for America and least of which is that he promised to stop doing these kinds of things, that he had learned the lesson of going abroad and doing nothing but losing blood and treasure and he would focus here at home. How do you deal with those, the Don Roe doctrine and what this was supposed to be about under President Trump? Well, you know, right off the bat, I'd tell you that you should have been, you would have been a great high school history teacher, right? I would have I would have definitely paid more attention then. I think the argument that his usage of the Monroe Doctrine or his usage of saying, hey, Western Hemisphere is our backyard.

We want all those foreign powers out of our backyard, especially obviously the adversarial ones, the China, Russia, Iran's, and others. The argument there is we kind of liberated Venezuela from being colonized. not so much by us, right? And definitely not by us, but being colonized by the Cubans,

if you look at it. Because it really was, the Cuban government was the one that propped up and has maintained them in power, even after Maduro lost elections. So the Cuban intelligence, and then, so if anything,

the real colonizers there are, is not China and Russia, but it's actually the Cuban government. So now we've hopefully taken that out of the equation, and we're going to get the Venezuelans an opportunity to do things on their own. and we're going to stay by and make sure that's the case. There's no doubt.

Look, he turned Venezuela into the launching pad for the Russians, the Chinese, Hamas, Hezbollah. They were all working there. They were all there, right? And they weren't just sitting there in Venezuela, you know, twiddling their thumbs and happy and content to be in Venezuela. No, from there, they ran active operations against the United States in different parts. of Latin America.

And then they took advantage of our immigration policy when it was, you know, when we had an open border and they made sure that people fleeing Venezuela and Colombia and other places,

you know, had a real easy access into the United States. Not to mention what they've done on the Colombian border with the FARC-E-LN with Similomark Italia,

you know, and all these other Colombian terrorist groups. Maduro, that's where you, you know, that's where he made his money, right?

the cartel of solace. And that's what really made him in the legitimate leader. He, you know, he allowed these terrorists, you know, that were wanted in Colombia, across the border, live in his jungles, run their criminal operations, as long as they kicked up money to him and his generals.

So, so now I'm wondering what's going to happen now, right? You know, are the, that the U.S. government is in Venezuela. What's going to happen with those terrorists in Venezuela? Are they going to go back to Colombia? And what's Columbia going to do about it? Are they going to accept them, you know, open arms? Well, do you think, would you be okay with America playing a little hopscotch around South America right now? And look, you could make the same argument that this is exactly what we were doing in the Middle East.

The argument against the Middle East was always, that's over there. Okay. So you don't have the, that's over there argument as easily here because it is obviously much more proximate. But would you be okay with them saying, well, hey, by the way, this was Cuba. And the people in Cuba are pretty fucking oppressed. And Castro's gone, but they're really not gone as a regime. So we're going down there. And we're going to get the Bay of Pigs right, which will prove that Trump is better than Kennedy in his mind.

Yeah. Yeah, that's one way of looking at it. No, look, I don't think anyone's calling for that. I don't think anyone's okay with hopscotch diplomacy, right? you know, we're going to, we're going to topple these one after the other. Now, I don't think, I'm not right with it. I don't think anyone really is falling for that. We're just calling, you know, we're just calling balls of strikes, right?

You can't, you can't put on the hat or the sash, in this case, I guess in Venezuela. Is the pun intended there, Rick, ball and strikes? Because nobody was calling for the strike on Maduro either, and it happened. Right, but it, well, I'll tell you one thing, yeah, I was calling for a strike on a Duro, you know, for a while. Just because of the danger that he, that he was, of what he, you know, what he was doing in the region and to ourselves, there's a lot of leftist organizations here in the United States.

That's true. A lot of a lot of crazy. I'm not talking about leftists. I'm not talking crazy leftists, like, like the, you know, the anarchist types, right? The burn it down types. Yes. That we're getting, you know, their training and their funding and open arms from places in Venezuela.

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Now you can discover the chapters you've never read at an amazing low price. With an ancestry membership, you can start building your family tree and easily search and add the historical records you uncover. Memberships are now at their lowest price of the year. With billions of new records, powerful features, and intuitive search tools, it's easier and faster than ever to get started. Get ready to say, look what I found. Visit ancestry.ca. slash new year for more details. Terms apply. I totally get it. You've got plenty of crazy to go around. I mean, I know the CIA doesn't operate within the American borders, but the idea of domestic terrorism should be real and realize. certainly by this podcast audience, I talk about it all the time, the number one threat is, of course, far right, but you now have a recent spate of lefty violence far left. We got crazies all around. No question. I'm just saying my concern with this is, and again, I can't believe Trump has us in this situation because this is what he campaigned against, by the way. But if your arguments are taken seriously by the administration,

Well, then why didn't they do this in Mexico? Mexico is the gateway for fentanyl, not Venezuela. Look, hey, Morena party. And by the way, I suspect when Maduro gets some time with, has some time with DOJ attorneys and the deal start getting cut and, hey, what do you know? We're going to learn a lot more about the monies, which politicians in Latin America. And maybe, who knows, maybe here in the United States and elsewhere, you know, where has this money got?

Right? You know, who else has benefited from this? I will say I suspect there's a lot in the Morena Party that have. But again, that's an elected government, right? It's people show up at the polls. They vote. They honor those elections. Same thing in Colombia.

And I think Petro's a scumbat. That guy is horrible, right? He's a drug addict, a drunk, a real Marxist guerrilla. He's taking a country that was our closest ally, right? in the war against drugs, in the fight against terrorists. And he's almost like made it in continuous turning it into another Venezuela. And even then, I, you know, I believe in the institutions of democracy within the, within Colombia.

And I believe in the Colombian people. And those institutions now in May, when the election is, will hopefully show that they're strong enough to withstand. Now, my opinion will change on May, the election shows that, you know, that he doesn't like who won because he can't run again. But let's say he decided that he's going to stay, right, and go counter to the Colombian Constitution. Well, then at that stage, my opinion, it was going to change very quickly, right? And there's no reason why we should tolerate this stuff now in the 21st century.

We shouldn't. The president would give you several reasons. The president would have given you several reasons before, in my opinion, what's really driving this. In my opinion, what's really driving this is a combination of Trump liking the might is right. He likes it. He likes that as a model. And two, he has problems domestically. It is no coincidence that the day after, or two days after, Venezuela, he's saying the stock market's up, thank you for the tariffs. The tariffs are not why the stock market is up. They're a problem. Our economy for the majority of Americans is a problem when it comes to

affordability. He knows it. This is easier for him. But this is a guy who would have cut you off a long time ago with these arguments. He would have been like, nah, nah, no, no, unless they give us the oil, unless it's really easy, unless somebody else does the fighting, stay out of it. These places are all sinkholes. Look what happened in the Middle East. That was a big part of the MAGA coalition. He's got a lot of people in his base right now who just saw something that is not easy

for them to defend, even though Maduro is a bad guy. There are a lot of bad guys, Rick. We were supposed to stay out of that job of being the world's policeman. Right. But how can you compare what just happened a couple days ago to a full-scale military invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan? I mean, it's completely different. It is completely different until it isn't. And also, look, it matters.

I know it's a lowercase concern for a lot of people right now. But Venezuelans died and not just his protectors. And houses got blown up and stuff. Those are Cubans. Those are Cuban bodyguards. All right, fine. They got killed, but look, there are all these reports coming out of civilians, dying and being hurt. Now, maybe Venezuela says we're okay with it, but the idea that it was bloodless isn't true, and it's a good move until it isn't.

I just, I can't get past the, I can't get past the contradiction of what he said his policy was, which is stay out of it. I've heard him say, there's scumbags all over the place. Scumbags all over the place, man. If you do a deal with them, you do a deal with them. Otherwise, stay out of it. Just stick home. The more you do it home, the better. This is the opposite.

Yeah, look, I think in this case, and I agree with you, in the sense of that transactional kind of president where what's in it for the United States, you know, how do we benefit from this? And we've already talked about this. I think we've checked those boxes. But today, you know, as a Monday morning, the world shifted. in the sense of we no longer, you know, we're no longer concerned that much

about the China-Russia threat coming to us from our own hemisphere, right? We kind of thought off that landing pad for them. And secondly, now we can control global markets when it comes to oil. So I know we were certainly energy independent before we got into this, but now we're controlling,

where, you know, where there are places where they need to go right away, we've got a lot more control about that. What does that mean? To me, that translates now. You've got more leverage when it comes to, say, negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, right? Right. You've got more leverage. You've got more leverage now when it comes to dealing in Southeast Asia with China, too.

Right. And notice, they completely decimated the Chinese weapon systems within seconds, right? Nobody knew the Americans were there. So everyone who's been buying Chinese arms over the years and, oh, this is what we're going to use to defend ourselves, they got sold crap. None of that stuff works. Why doesn't your argument extend as easily, other than the sending message about American military superiority over China, which I do think is a legitimate message that was sent? Why don't you make the same argument about Saudi Arabia? Bad people.

Most of the guys on 9-11 were Saudis. Osama bin Laden was Saudi backed They are the head of the snake They are the home of Wahhabism They have all this control over oil Take them out Take them out, bad guys Yeah

Look, if this I would agree with you If the Saudi government Right Was working with the Chinese To undermine us Or working with the Russians directly to undermine us

Look, I'm not one of globalists, right? Certainly not. Right. I don't, there's no global sovereign. My value system is very different than, say, someone from Saudi Arabia, definitely someone from China or Russia, the way I look at life. So we're not all the same, right? I do believe in right and wrong. But like you said, we, you know, we make deals sometimes with folks that we don't want to make deals with. We have to, we have to pinch her nose and move forward. The Saudis aren't a physical threat to us. They're not building a navy. They're not trying to take canals away or, you know, or enslave people with a Belt and Road. So if the Saudi people have a problem with their system of government,

okay, you know, let them, you know, let them voice that as best they can and do what they, you know, and do what they have to do, right? You know, and I'm not calling for anything. I'm not calling for anything violent or anything like that, but I'm just saying that that's just the reality of the world, right? It becomes our issue when it's, you know, it's, targeted towards us. And that's what this guy was doing. So you can't play, he can't play victim, right? You can say, oh my God, Yankee imperialism, look at what you guys are doing to me.

But all the while, you know, he's letting, you know, he's actively, not letting, he's actively involved in having, you know, drugs come up into our country. You know, he's giving oil to our enemies, right? He's providing them the resources to,

you know, the spread their hate and violence throughout the rest of the hemisphere. So, you know, if there were all their world leaders doing the same thing that Maduro was doing, yeah, I'd have no problem with it. Rick, I really appreciate your expertise, the depth of perspective, and the arguments.

It's not that deep. It is for me. It's commonsensical a lot of ways. Go on. You and I, we look at things the same way. We really do. We really do. Well, except you have decades of perspective

of being on the ground and knowing the players, and knowing what was behind, what was behind what I learned about. So that's why I wanted you on. That's why I hope to continue our conversations. And look, it doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with the assessment. It's what the basis of it is and how that feeds our understanding of the situation overall. I mean, our biggest problem, in my opinion, in America right now, is we have forgotten how to disagree.

And either you are all in on Venezuela and this was the best thing ever, or Trump is a Nazi. and this was a huge violation in America is dead. And if you don't fit into one of those, they both hate you. So I'm happy to have you on. I appreciate your perspective, and I look forward to doing it again. Yeah, anytime, brother. Now, do I agree with all of his assessments?

No. Does that mean I know better than him? No, absolutely not. But I don't have to agree, even if I don't have the experience that he does because I'm living it and I'm have a right to my own opinion. But in hearing what Rick has to say, it can only help you understand the context of this situation

and why the president decided to do what he just did and what the risks are with what it just did. And you even heard Rick say, hey, you better not keep doing this. This was a one-off in his opinion. Is he right? We'll see. Now, why don't I just have one side represented all the time? Because I don't think that's how you feed being a critical thinker.

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your own independence and showing that you're a free agent got a shirt that says that too and that you are a critical thinker that you're not another mouth breather another lemming someone who's just going to pick a side and go all in all the time in every way life's not that simple politics isn't that simple and the more we try to make it that way the worst things are getting so thank you for subscribing and following thank you for being with me in this new year. I'll check you out on News Nation, 8 p. and midnight every weekday night. And I'll see you here in the Chris Cuomo project. And I got some cool announcements coming up. So stay tuned.