The Daily Beast Podcast - How Trump's Big Moment Left Him Exposed: Rothkopf

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

David Rothkopf joins Joanna Coles to explain why Trump’s move in Venezuela looks less like foreign policy and more like a heist. Rothkopf walks through the rushed effort to topple Maduro, the boastful talk about “running” Venezuela, and the alarming reality that there was no plan for what came next — who governs, who controls the oil, or how any of it ends. Together, they examine what Rothkopf calls Trump’s “mafia doctrine”: kidnap the leader, seize the resources, ignore the law, and dare the world to respond. It’s chaotic, risky, and deeply consequential — for Venezuela, for America, and for everyone watching what comes next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As exquisitely planned as the military operation was, the minute that Maduro was put on a helicopter and flown out of the country, there was no remaining plan. We don't know who's in charge in Venezuela. We don't know who's on our side in Venezuela. We don't know what we're going to do next in Venezuela. We don't know how we're going to control the oil in Venezuela. We don't know which oil companies are going to participate in this in Venezuela. Frankly, I don't even think they understand really how to control the oil in Venezuela. the Maduro trial is going to play out because a lot of what they're accusing him of isn't

actually true. I'm Joanna Cole. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Happy New Year if this is your first podcast of the year, though I urge you to listen to all the ones that we've dropped since January the 1st. This is our first, however, with our favorite columnist and the founder of the DSR Deep State Radio Network, David Rothkopf. His columns about Venezuela this weekend have been unsurpassable,

and he's here from his hotel room in Paris, where he's on holiday with his wife to tell us exactly what's going on. David Rothgopf. You're in Europe. Happily, you're not stuck in St. Bartz. What hell! What fresh hell to be stuck in St. Bartz, unable to move because of...

of what's happening in Venezuela and the airspace is closed. What else? What else should I be worrying about David Rothkopf? Is the world coming to an end? I don't think anything else is more important than the billionaire. Jeff Bezos was trapped. And, you know, I think Leonardo DiCaprio had a bad, hard time getting to the Critics' Choice Awards. He barely made it.

He barely made it. I mean, yes, the United States had a sixth of its Navy not too far. away, invading another country illegally to snatch up, or as Trump likes to say, kidnap, he apparently approves of that term, kidnap its leader and bring it back to the United States, and then assert that we will be running the country and stealing all of its oil, despite the fact that there is no grounds under an international law to do that. So that's a little worrisome. And, of course, in the course of announcing that, Trump and,

his little henchmen who were standing behind him on the stage, also threatened the president of Columbia, said he needs to watch his ass, threatened the government of Cuba, have since threatened several times to take over Greenland, and immediately before he went on stage, he threatened Mexico, saying that the president of Mexico was not really the president,

the cartels were running Mexico, and we needed to go in and clean that up. So basically, it looks like we're in for a whole new era in U.S. foreign policy. Trump likes to call it the Don Roe doctrine, and he seems to be proud of that. But essentially what it means is, you know, and I wrote a piece for you, which will be up shortly, I think, which essentially is we have a new kind of mafia foreign policy. This is our territory. that Don is going to tell his people what to do and take over. And like the mafia, we're going to use the fact that we have muscle

and we don't care about the law to do whatever we want in our neighborhood. And so that's where we are. And frankly, if you are sitting right now in St. Bartz, I would say, go get another Nogroni, go back to the beach and stay right where you are. It sounds fantastic. Why don't I ever get stuck in St. Bartz? I always get stuck upstate somewhere. I never get stuck in St. Bart.

Your life is a living hell, Joanna. So, David, from your Parisian hotel room. I feel the dig that was in that. Okay, go on. Come on. Come right at me. Come right out. I got like one week of vacation this year.

It's zero degrees outside. It's snowing. It's icy. And I'm here talking about Donald Trump and a war in Venezuela. So I'm feeling super luxe right at the moment. Okay, but it's snowing in Paris. Come on. It doesn't get better than that.

It's the world's most romantic city. You're going to have a fabulous time with your lovely wife, Carla, who's an opera singer. So there's nothing to fear, David. But is this really just now a gangster foreign policy? Is this also about Trump going in and making some money yet more money for him and his friends? Look, everything he has done so far in this term of office has one way, another led to money for his friends. His chief negotiator is another real estate guy, Steve Whitkoff, who goes into places like the Middle East and works on the basis of deals that exist with

the Trump company or Whitcroft's company or Whitkoff's kids companies or Commerce Secretary Lutnik's kids companies, Don Jr. and Eric in Qatar. They're, you know, they're talking about building casinos in Gaza. They've talked about other kinds of developments around the world. That's what's important. They're doing crypto deals left and right. And, you know, there is no reason to assume that what happens in Venezuela is going to be any less corrupt. And in fact, you know, the president said, we're going to go in, we're going to take the oil, and it's going to go to these big American oil companies who will run it. And of course, you may recall during the campaign that he got a bunch of oil executives together and said, look, if you give me a billion dollars in campaign donations,

I'll do whatever you want. I mean, that was roughly the deal that he struck. And here we are, Donald Trump, America first, no more oil wars, no more foreign interventions, intervening for oil because they gave them the money. And he's giving them the money. So, David, is there an argument to be made here? I mean, you, you are editor of foreign policy magazine. You worked for the Clinton administration. This is something you understand well. Is there an argument that actually looking at foreign affairs or foreign policy through the lens of business might actually be more effective than what we've done up until recently? I mean, I know it sounds absurd, but, you know, when you see images of the Gaza Strip with hotels and casinos, what if it turns out that business and creating jobs in places like that is actually just as effective as having conversations at high level about, you know, whether or not a company is going to be democratic, whether or not a country is going to be democratic?

I mean, is there an argument for business deals? Because it's not like America's had a run of success in the middle. least? No. Look, there are probably 10 different ways that I can blow up that argument. So you may need to give me a little bit of time. But first of all, let's start with the reason that governments exist, okay? The reason that governments exist is to provide peace and prosperity for the people within those societies, not just the rich people, not just the corporate leaders, but everybody. And if you prioritize the needs of billionaires and corporations over everybody else, you get what we've got. Donald Trump building a golden palace in the White House and people in the United States having to pay three, four, and five times as much for their health care. Businesses don't really care about the future of the people of Venezuela.

Donald Trump doesn't care whether the money is going to go to the people for whom it is the rightful. patrimony of their nation, he wants it to go to the United States. He's stealing it, and U.S. companies are going to get a lot of it, and some of his friends are going to get some of it, and the people of Venezuela aren't going to get any of it. In fact, Joanna, the reality is that a lot of business has driven foreign policy for a long time. We've had wars in the Americas for banana companies in the course of our history. We've had plenty of wars for oil companies. We've had wars over shipping routes. It's actually more often than not that economic interests ends up driving national security

actions, and who suffers the victims in the war? You know, there are 70 or 80 or 90 or 100,000 innocent people dead in Gaza, for whom the argument that maybe someday will build a casino is no solace. and in fact is not justice. And enabling some billionaires to cash in on some waterfront property at the expense of the lives of a couple of million innocent people in Gaza is not only disgusting, it's also bad foreign policy because when people are treated that way, unrest ensues. And, you know, so it doesn't work on. any level from justice to stability. And I think that's why over time people have, you know, said, let's not do that anymore. But Donald Trump doesn't know it. He thinks he's William McKinley.

He thinks he's living in the late 19th century in some gilded age that he doesn't understand. And he's perfectly willing to do what works for his friends at the expense of every single friggin other human being on the planet of which there are eight billion of us. Okay. So I'm going to stop playing devil's advocate. Let's get into what did you think of his explanation for why we had done this. You saw the press conference. You must have watched him standing what frankly looked as if he was asleep, swaying.

I literally thought at one point, oh, my goodness, he's going to fall over. What did you think of his justification for why we were doing this? and then let's come on to the complexities of America, in theory, running Venezuela. Well, first of all, you're absolutely right looking at him. He was kind of lurching to one side. He could barely read the words in front of him. His brain these days seems as if it's floating in an ocean of oatmeal and Xanax. You know, it's just he can't.

I don't think he's ever eaten oatmeal. Well, I think it's used as a medium in this case as opposed to a, food, although frankly at his age, well, never mind, let's not get into the regularity of the president. But the reality is that, you know, the first explanation is we were doing this as a law enforcement operation. Are we doing this as a law enforcement operation if what we are doing is illegal? If we are illegally kidnapping the leader of a country, if we are illegally stealing the resources of a company, this was an armed robbery. It wasn't a law enforcement. operation. And his justification doesn't hold water. He said we are initially, whether we were doing

this as a law enforcement operation. But of course, how could it be a law enforcement operation? What we were doing was illegally intervening in a country to illegally kidnap the leader of another country and then essentially conduct what is a giant armed robbery where we're going to steal the world's largest oil reserves from that country and put them to our own purposes. So what we're doing actually is a crime. It's not a law enforcement operation. He also then said, we're going to run the country. And you could literally see Marco Rubio, tiny little guy that he is, shrink further as he said that, because he knew on who that would fall.

And in the days since, he's like, well, we don't really mean we're going to run it. You know, we're going to influence their behavior. And they better do what we tell them to do because we have the military there and we can cut off their. oil supplies. But there is no plan to run it. And that was the other thing that really came through loud and clear as a result of this. I mean, you had Pete Hegsitz there pounding us check about brave, Pratch asked about brave Americans. But as exquisitely planned as the military operation was, the minute that Maduro was put on a helicopter and flown out of the country, there was no remaining plan. We don't know who's in charge in Venezuela. We don't know who's

on our side in Venezuela. We don't know what we're going to do next in Venezuela. We don't know how we're going to control the oil in Venezuela. We don't know which oil companies are going to participate in this in Venezuela. Frankly, I don't even think they understand really how the Maduro trial is going to play out because a lot of what they're accusing him of isn't actually true. They're saying he's the head of a cartel called the Cartel de Los Solis. And it's not really a cartel. It's a name they've given to a bunch of people doing a bunch of activity, a little like Antifa, which is not really a thing. They just make it up to be a thing. Well, that's interesting when you're doing a press conference, but in a court of law, that may not hold water. So there is

no aspect of this operation that seems to be well planned. There are no aspects of what comes next that they seem to have the slightest clue about. Everything that they said about the operation is a lie and everything that we intend to do following the operation is disturbing on some level, whether it's a current crime, future crime, or threat against another country, undermining America's standing, or if we go after Greenland, as Trump and Stephen Miller's wife have said in the past 48 hours, we could actually end up attacking NATO. Think about that. And that's like in the cards. That's like A follows B in the minds of these people. So just to go back to Venezuela a second, Dulce Rodriguez, the former vice president to Nicholas Maduro, was sworn in over the weekend.

We were assured that she was on side, then she gave very hostile comments, which may or may not be performative. But now it looks like she's sort of settled down into the business of running it. Internally in Venezuela, how confident are you that she will have the support she needs to be able to deliver for what Donald Trump needs? I mean, zero. I have no confidence. Right. Right. She, you know, clearly was not closely consulted with on this. There are other forces in Venezuela that would think they have a claim on the presidency,

including the people who legitimately won the last election. Remember, she's the right-hand person of Maduro. She's part of the regime that we were ostensibly throwing out. When Trump was asked about Machado, the winner of the Nobel Prize, and whether she should be the leader, the White House leaked a little story, which was as cringe-worthy as any story you'll see out of this cringe machine

that is the White House. And they said, the president decided she was not the right person to run the country because she pissed him off because she did not renounce her Nobel Prize so he could get his. I missed that.

That's actually the story that they put out. That story was leaked out. over the weekend that he has a bone to pick with her because she didn't say, oh, no, no, no, no, I couldn't accept the Nobel Prize. You really should have given it to him. And by the way, I'll remind you that what she did say was I honored Donald Trump. I dedicate this prize to him. He's doing the right thing.

So she was really kind of bending the knee. But, you know, he's not going in the direction of democracy. And when I asked about democracy on the Sunday morning shows, you know, Mark, Rubio gave that classic kind of comment, which is, you know, this is very complicated. You know, this may be a little too complicated to get into democracy right away. You've also got other forces, though, that are close to Maduro, like the defense minister who stood up and said, you know, we are a Bolivarian nation and we have the right to control our future and we will maintain our sovereignty.

And what we have not seen here, what we have not seen from anybody here, is that we have is somebody standing up and punching Trump in the nose. You know, somebody's standing up and saying, no, I'm not going along with it. I am not going to be intimidated. I don't know whether that's going to happen at Venezuela or in Colombia. Lord knows if Donald Trump goes after the cartels in Mexico. He is going to have a different kind of experience because they have a long history of dealing with politicians they don't like, and he won't like it one bit. Will NATO pull together to defend Greenland?

Will that cause the kind of pushback that he doesn't like? Don't know. But they do call him Taco Trump for a reason. And when people stand up to him, he does chicken out. So I don't know. Is that going to happen in Venezuela? Nobody knows for sure because we don't know what our next move is. So the premier of Greenland put out a statement saying it would be illegal to seize Greenland.

and America already has plenty of rights and access to Greenland, it felt very Danish and a little higger and probably would have not very much impact on the president. Do you actually think that they would try and go into or try and annex Greenland? I mean, there's zero reason to because we already have full access to Greenland, did we? Well, what do you mean by full access? We have an air base there. We can go out of the airbase

anytime we want. Greenland is part of NATO from a security perspective. It's doing its purposes. But if we want to go in there, find rare earth minerals, dig them out, and have that money go to Donald Trump's friends, I don't know that that access exists. And that's what that would be about. I think it's a big mistake for the premier of Greenland or anybody in Europe, and by the way, there were a bunch of people who issued statements like this in Europe Care Storm comes to mind, but there were a bunch, the EU officials.

It is a big mistake to handle Donald Trump by issuing a Chuck Schumer-esque statement, which is, you know, I'm disappointed, and this is illegal, and he ought to be ashamed of himself. Trump doesn't have shame. he doesn't care about the law. He thinks the law is fiddle people. And as a consequence, what Donald Trump will do is trample over those people.

Where he stops as people, as I said, stand. I don't know how that's going to play out in Greenland. If he thinks he can just barge in, send the Navy, send a bunch of troops, use the airbase and say, Greenland is now ours. and the response of, you know, the Danes is to send their Higa patrols to... To send some cozy blankets and some herrings. Yeah, well, exactly. It sends some warm Danish sweaters and an herring. That's not going to stop him.

And I think that's what he's looking at. He looks at the world and he says, where can I flex my muscles and get what I want at a very low cost? And, you know, I think sooner or later somebody's going to have to realize that the way that you stop Trump is you send a message that the cost is going to be very high if he tries to do what he says he's going to do. David, hold on one second. We're just going to take a word from our sponsors. Convierter your passion in a new business with Shopify and bathe records of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. Has you heard of the best. The incredible system of Pago of Shopify facilitates. the market

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And David Rothkopf and I are back discussing what else Venezuela. So David,

if you're Xi Qing or you Vladimir Putin, how are you looking at

this latest US manuver into Venezuela. Well, I think you're looking at it that essentially Trump is buying into the Vladimir Putin

and Xi Jinping view of the world. In fact, I wrote a column for you guys a couple of days ago in which I call it the Putinization of U.S. foreign policy, which is to break the world into spheres of influence. And Russia can have Europe and it's near abroad and the U.S. can have the Americas.

And, you know, by extension, Xi Jinping may be able to have Taiwan and neighboring countries in Asia. Fiona Hill, you remember the former National Security Council, an expert on Russia, said that the Russians thought that the natural deal with Trump would be to say, well, look, we'll give up protecting Venezuela in exchange for the United States giving up on protecting Ukraine. You can have Venezuela, we'll have Ukraine.

This is how we divide up the world. Right. She wrote this. When did she write? When did she write? It was during the last Trump term. And, you know, I think that's always been the way Putin has viewed the world. It's always been the way bullies have viewed the world. It was kind of the way Genghis Khan viewed the world, which is, you know, I get what I can attack and hold. And, you know, you don't.

And, you know, this kind of a condominium where we have a world of bully states, each one of the bully states has some territory. And so long as they don't get into each other's territory, they're perfectly happy to let the others do what they want in their neighborhood is a real formula for eventual unrest and conflict. And it seems to be where Donald Trump wants things headed. Even in official documents like the national security strategy, which they issued, this idea of spheres of influence was embraced.

But it's all very well to have a sphere of influence until the country you're trying to influence fights back, right? So we have the endless war that's going on now between Ukraine and Russia. Turned out it wasn't so easy to just annex Ukraine. They have Vladimir Zelensky fighting back and a country that doesn't want to be turned over to Russia. So do you suspect that there will be similar – do you think there will be similar resistance from Venezuelans? I don't know if there will be in Venezuela. I don't know what the deal that they get.

You know, Maduro was run in the country and stealing it blind and, you know, was doing a very bad job running the oil companies. If American oil companies went in, increased productivity from the oil fields a lot, and gave a little bit more of the money back to the people of Venezuela, you know, there might be a short-term agreement. You know, are the people of Mexico or the people of Colombia or the people of Greenland and NATO going to all go along with this Trump's high view of the world? I don't think so. Somebody is going to push back someplace.

And, you know, sometimes what, you know, these attacks do is they trigger resistance from people who know they will be next. That's what happened in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the United States, but also the EU said, no, we're going to back you, Ukraine, because you're fighting this war for. for us in effect. And if the nations of the Americas got together and said, whoa, this guy is out of control, we're going to, you know, enter into a pact where if he goes after one of us, all of us step up and help and we're going to actually do something about it. Or we're going to say, hey, you know, China, we love your investment here and we don't like

U.S. investment anymore. And we're going to block U.S. investment. I mean, China's already the number one investor in Latin America and the number one trading partner of most of Latin America. But if they all said, the U.S. is now sanctioned because of what they're doing and it starts hitting Trump's buddies, that could work. That, by the way, is a very effective strategy. I recall as a slight digression during the war that was fought in the former Yugoslavia during the Clinton administration, they were bombing a lot of things and nothing was really going on with Milosevic, and somebody got the bright idea in the Clinton administration

to say, well, why don't we bomb the factories owned by Milosevic's friends? And so they went in, they bombed the factories owned by Milosevic's friends, and Milosevic started getting phone calls, like, hey, buddy, stop doing this. It's costing me money. And, you know, that's how you've got to, you know, get to Trump. You've got to go to those people who are the big donors, whose approval he's seeking, and you've got to make them pay the price. You've got to say, no, there will be no Google in South America. No, there will be no Palantir in South America. There will be no Microsoft or meta in South America.

And if they start feeling the squeeze, if nobody's allowed to buy a Tesla in South America, then Elon Musk is going to start calling up Trump. And so, you know, that's another way that they can push back. Well, significantly, Elon Musk was back at Mar-a-Lago, I think, on the third. There were, you know, videos being sent out by people. But there are a lot of online pundits saying that this will give license to Xi Jinping of China to go in and extract the president of Taiwan.

Is that on the cards, do you think? Well, look, Xi Jinping has said for a long time, the people of China, have said for a long time that Taiwan is part of China. And they have said that they seek the reunification, and they seek it sooner rather than later. The Chinese are very pragmatic about these things, and they have been willing to play the somewhat long game on all of this, although there's increasing naval activity around Taiwan.

But they're going to also look at the clock, and they're going to say, are the next few years of Donald, Trump in office our best shot at doing this. And I think, by the way, everybody in the world needs to think about what that clock looks like to bad actors around the world. They say, well, Trump's not going to respond. So we now have three years. And the clock is ticking. And so if we want to do something where this administration will let us get away with it and a future one might push back, let's move now.

And it makes the period of the next couple of years considerably more dangerous than any period we faced in the recent past. And how significant is it that Congress, or at least the group of eight within Congress, weren't informed about what happened in Venezuela? I mean, is there any argument? Super duper significant, right?

Because the Congress is the part of the government per the Constitution that has the right to declare war. And not only did they not consult with the Congress based on a preposterous argument that Rubio made that this was a law enforcement operation

and so they didn't have to. But Trump also said, well, you know, you can't tell the Congress anything because they'll leak it. And if, you know, he's allowed to use that argument saying, well, I don't have to follow the Constitution

if I don't think the Constitution is going to produce a good outcome, then, you know, the Congress has cut out of it. And, you know, I would say, you know, a lot of people were, like, outraged on January 6, 2021, when, you know, armed mob stormed the Capitol because they saw it as an attempted coup. Well, I'll tell you what a coup looks like.

If the Congress is supposed to control taxation, if the Congress is supposed to control the power of the purse and where we spend our money, If the Congress is supposed to control war and peace, if the Constitution is supposed to control who can be a citizen or who cannot be a citizen, and all of those things are essentially erased by the administration, that's a coup. And so bypassing the Congress on this is effectively the same thing as sending a mob of violent people to attack the building. It's an attack on our institutions, and it takes away from the freedom of the people to choose who's really making the decisions that affect their futures as American citizens. So we've got the, it's five-year anniversary of January the 6th tomorrow. We've got Congress back after their holiday break today.

Do you expect any pushback from Congress? I mean, what can they do? Well, you know, it's not super encouraging, right? There are a few people in Congress who stand up and say the right thing and do it in unvarnished terms. Mostly, you know, those are Democrats, although there are a couple of Republicans, Massey and MTG. And Don Bacon, I think. And Don Bacon, but they're just a handful that will stand up and say that they don't approve of it. but they're an even bigger number who will either support Trump or who are taking this middle ground.

You know, there's a bunch of centrist Democrats who are like, well, it will look weak if we stand up to Trump. Of course, what looks weak is not standing up to Trump. Opinion polls say the American people don't like what happened in Venezuela. And this kind of view of centrist, well, how are we ever going to win mega voters? doesn't understand that mag of voters didn't want Trump to do this either. Right. It's the very opposite of America first. It is. It's the opposite of everything they said. But, you know, that's because Trump lies to get ahead all the time

and betrays the people that supported him all the time, whether there's his wife, there's kids, there's business partners, or there is political allies. David, we're taking a quick break for some ads. And David Rothkopf and I are back discussing Donald Trump's foreign policy, or as he calls it, the Dunrow Doctrine. So 2026 is supposed to be the year of the horse in the Chinese calendar. What are your predictions for how this plays out over the next few months?

Well, I'm afraid Chinese astrology is not really in my wheelhouse. So I can't tell you the difference between the year of the snake and the year of the horse and what that all means. Well, I think the snake clears the pathway. and the year of the horse means you move forward? Did you not hear that? I didn't know this about you. No, I heard it. I just, I didn't know that you were a Chinese astrologer.

Many things. No, you contain multitudes. I wish they contained multitudes. Who's going to move forward? I think Trump is going to try to move forward with this very aggressive agenda. Because, you know, you have to remember, first of all, he has no legislative agenda. they're looking for some kind of things that can help him win the election later this year, which looks bad for him. And, oh, Epstein, oh, Jack Smith.

You know, I mean, just a couple of days ago, Jack Smith, it turns out, went into the Congress, and they were just a couple days ago released the results in which he said, oh, no, we had Trump dead to rights. We would have convicted him in any court of the land of having violated the law. And all of a sudden, you know, we're invading someplace. And the same is true with the Epstein. You know, those things are not going away. So Trump's going to have to keep looking for distractions. And the people around Trump know how to manipulate that.

I mean, you know, for example, I, you know, some people around Trump are trying to take advantage of this. Stephen Miller is a perfect example. Stephen Miller is the Deputy White House chief of staff for domestic policy. And yet he's now in charge of China policy. And yet there he was on Saturday standing next to Trump. involved in this issue. Was the White House chief of staff there? No. Were there other White House staffers there? No. Just Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller clearly seems to be the puppet master for the dark side of Donald Trump. And, you know, whether that has to do with putting troops

in the streets in the U.S. or putting troops in the streets in Caracas or, you know, violating the constitutional rights of Americans, you know, this little strange man who looks like, as I said in the article that I wrote for you, he would rather be in a room someplace pulling the legs off of insects is sitting there rubbing his hands together going, Trump needs me. The only way Trump can, you know, distract from Epstein and distract from Jack Smith and distract from the election is if he does what I say and he goes, you know, go after immigrants and go after people of color and go after women and go after the Constitution. And so, you know, that's the horse Trump wrote in on, and I expect that's that horse Trump will be riding for the rest of this year.

Okay, great use of the image of the horse there. Thank you. I appreciate you staying with my Chinese astrology theme. J.D. Vance was very clearly missing from the press conference on Saturday. We had Pete Higgs-Earth who read and didn't go a word off script. We had Trump, who only went off script, apparently, including surprising the team up there that we're going to run Venezuela. And then Marco Rubio seemed at least to speak off the cuff confidently about what was going on. How significant do you think the absence of J.D. Vance was to not have the vice president there. Is that good for Vance, bad for Vance? I just don't know.

You know, could he have been someplace else? Yeah. It was over the holidays after all and so forth. He's certainly been very visible. He's been talking about all of these things. Might it be that Trump is getting a little uncomfortable that J.D. Vance is clear the air apparent. And, you know, there's already, you know, Erica Kirk and all those other kinds of people are like, yeah, we're behind Vance. And, you know, they're already moving on to 2028 and leaving Trump for dead.

Yeah, he may be uncomfortable about that. but frankly, the counterbalanced to Vance is Rubio, and Rubio was there. I don't know how to put it. But is that Donald Trump playing with J.D. Vance? I mean, it felt like Rubio came out with the current advantage. Could be, but I also think, you know, I mean, you talked earlier about Trump lurching to one side and falling asleep. He always falls asleep when Rubio's talking. I don't know if you remember the cabinet meeting a couple of weeks ago.

He literally cannot stay awake when words come out of Marco Rubio's mouth. And I think that's because he just doesn't think he's important and he knows Rubio'll do whatever he wants to do. I don't know. I mean, we're going to have to see. One of the big stories of this year is going to be when the rest of the Republican Party accepts the idea that Donald Trump is a lame duck and how they respond to that. Do they go to Vance? Do they split off like Marjorie Taylor? green. You know, I think this is going to be a very big story of the coming here. I also think a big

story of the coming year is going to be when the penny drops on all of this for a lot of the companies that have been in there kissing Trump's bud who are then going to say, uh-oh, what if the Democrats win the House? What's going to happen then? Are they going to do investigations? What if a Democrat wins in 2028? And we're seen as a company that was in Trump's profit, profiting off of Trump. and there is going to be this real existential anxiety, and it's going to push them away from Trump a little bit. And it's going to make Trump feel a little more isolated, and I think that's going to make him a little more dangerous and desperate

because you can't hold MAGA together on the promise of Donald Trump's energy and action much longer. Okay, David Rothkoff, It's time for you to go skipping back into the snowy streets of Paris. Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us this morning. And also totally referring people to your columns in The Daily Beast. I wanted to read one bit from your column yesterday. That said, we need to keep our eye on the bigger picture as well.

What does the naked US aggression in Venezuela suggest our next moves in the hemisphere will be? And what does it suggest for how we will implement? are more spheres of influence and might makes right foreign policy going forward. Ominus. Ominus. We live in ominous times. There is no question about it. This is a very dark turn that took place over the weekend.

It is not just business as usual, even as it echoes with past misadventures of the United States, because this one is much less well planned. and the guy in charge is not fully with it and the people around him have pretty malevolent intentions and he's collaborating with dangerous actors around the world. So, you know, this can be the worst kind of slippery slope and I think we all need to be on alert. David, thank you for that. We will be on alert.

The Daily Beast, we are always on alert. You can sign up and leave a comment for David on YouTube. Please do. And subscribe to the podcast. We're independent media. So we appreciate your support. And a special thank you for all your comments, which we do read. And especially those from our Bee Beast level members.

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