The Daily Signal - Mexico & Venezuela Tensions, Charlotte's Web, Trump Agrees to Sign Epstein File Bill | Nov. 18, 2025

Starting point is 00:00:00 At Desjardin Insurance, we put the care in taking care of business. Your business, to be exact. Our agents take the time to understand your company so you get the right coverage at the right price. Whether you rent out your building, represent a condo corporation, or own a cleaning company, we make insurance easy to understand so you can focus on the big stuff. Like your small business. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage.

Starting point is 00:00:30 Tensions between the United States, Mexico, and Venezuela rise as kinetic strikes against narco-terrorists increase. The Department of Homeland Security launches Operation Charlotte's Webb in Charlotte, North Carolina, and last-minute squabbling before the House of Representatives votes on releasing more of the files on Jeffrey Epstein. I'm Tony Kennett, host of the Daily Signals Tony Kennedcast, syndicated nationally at 7 p.m. Eastern. It is Tuesday, November 18, 2025. Get to know yourself and your roots better with Ancestry DNA. Want to know where your family comes from in northern France? Maybe you'd like to see how your genes influence certain traits like diet, fitness, and allergies. There's so much of you and your heritage to discover. Visit

Starting point is 00:01:15 ancestry.ca and get started with an Ancestry DNA kit today. This is the Daily Signals. Top News in 10. Tensions continue to increase between the United States, Mexico, and Venezuela. After not only a series of strikes against Venezuelan narco-terrorist boats and terror groups in the eastern Pacific off the coast of South America, Mexico is also running into a couple of issues. Over the weekend and into Monday, a series of protests turned into violent riots, after many in Generation Z, claimed that Claudia Scheinbaum, the president of the United States of Mexico was in bed with the cartels and was purchased by them. Federal police then arrested many of those who were rioting and also several that according to video evidence were

Starting point is 00:02:08 not in the riots at all, but were just teenagers chanting along with those protesting. Shinebaum has recently stated that she would not be sending the Mexican National Guard or the federal police to go after the cartels operating in many parts of Mexico, saying that she believed violated the rule of law as well as human rights. 37 Mexican political candidates have been assassinated in the last year. And the situation between the United States and Venezuela is not necessarily getting any better. The president of the United States has said that he would be willing to talk with Maduro while simultaneously increasing the number of kinetic strikes as well as the presence of

Starting point is 00:02:46 the USS Gerald R. Ford in the Southern Caribbean. We talked to our senior correspondent Virginia Allen for more. We now move over to our senior news producer, as well as the one acting as our defense and foreign correspondent, the best of correspondence, huge, they might say. Virginia Allen, thanks for joining us. Tony, it's always a pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having me. Well, let's not beat around the bush. Tell us what's going on.

Starting point is 00:03:12 You covered the Venezuelan situation over the weekend. I know that's rapidly escalating what's going on. It is rapidly escalating, changing really by the minute, even hour. We saw a lot of action unfold over the weekend when President Donald Trump spoke to reporters on Sunday night, and he was asked, are you willing to have a conversation with the president of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro? And Trump said, yes. He said, Maduro wants to talk to me, and his exact words were all talk to anybody. And we have seen that time and time again with this president. He's willing to have conversations with those that previous administrations have not been willing to talk with. Now, this willingness to talk, critical moment for there to be communication, because keep in mind some of the events that have led up to really this escalation of tension between the United States and Venezuela, so much focused from the Trump administration on the drugs and the cartel activity out of Venezuela. We've seen now upwards of 20 strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean, in Eastern Pacific, yeah, the Eastern Pacific as well at the end of the week. that was, I won't say, startling, but I did notice the ocean name change on some of the news reports

Starting point is 00:04:26 are, where are those Pacific-based craft coming from? Yeah, Columbia, Tony, is one of the primary ones, along with Peru and Ecuador, all countries that the Andes Mountain Range runs through. I've been in those mountains. It's, of course, really treacherous terrain, but because it is such treacherous terrain, it does, I think, give the cartels a real advantage to carry out operations, often with, little enforcement from authorities. And so these boats are coming into the waters, and we've seen the Trump administration take decisive action, aka blowing them up, in order to prevent those boats from reaching U.S.

Starting point is 00:05:02 shores with those drug loads. And we saw also over the weekend that Secretary Marco Rubio took a really critical step in giving the U.S. even more authority to address the threats of these cartels that are operating in South and Central America, specifically in Venezuela. So the U.S. has now declared one of the large cartels in Venezuela, Cartel de la Solis, as a foreign terrorist organization. Now, this is a cartel that the Trump administration claims Maduro is essentially the head of. Of course, the Maduro regime denies that.

Starting point is 00:05:38 Not just a state-sponsored cartel. Essentially, the state, they claim, is embedded itself in this particular Cartel de Los Solis, and this is one of the things that I noticed in at least some of the coverage over the weekend, when you discuss the Andean nations and the mountain ranges on the eastern Pacific all the way up that provide cover for narco operations to operate out of, that's essentially kind of in the mountains and hills-style terrorist last-minute operations, right? but when it comes to Venezuela, if you have the head of the country, which is essentially operating this large cartel, no wonder there's so much focus on the ports of Venezuela, given that that

Starting point is 00:06:25 allows for larger shipping, larger coordination. It's right out in the open. It has all the logistical capacity that major highways and train routes going to those ports carry. So it certainly puts a lot of pressure on the regime instead of just saying kind of a cartel in general like trendi or aguas meanwhile the department of homeland security has launched operation charlotte's web in charlotte north carolina claiming that the sanctuary policies in charlotte as well as the catch and release procedure of some of the local law enforcement was too much to ignore however news nation pointed out yesterday according to their internal sources that there's a little bit more to this in In fact, 161,000 reasons more.

Starting point is 00:07:11 Why Charlotte? Well, DHS says it's because the city operates as a sanctuary jurisdiction and criminal illegal immigrants are being released back to the streets instead of being turned over to ICE. Now, we can tell you that there are more than 161,000 illegal immigrants living in the area that have a final order of removal. This means that they violated their immigration terms. They didn't qualify for asylum. A judge ordered them removed, but they have not left.

Starting point is 00:07:36 Now, of those 161,000 individuals, 6,300 are convicted criminals. Now, the deployment of federal resources, though, coming with mixed reaction from local leaders after these videos circulated over the weekend, Republican lawmakers say the operation is critical, while Democrat Governor Josh Stein says the tactics of federal officers are using are going too far. This didn't stop Democrat Charlotte Councilman elect J.D. Mazuerra from appearing on CNN to call this particular act a terrible, terrible situation. If it really was about public safety

Starting point is 00:08:12 then why out of the 81 folks that were arrested yesterday only seven were announced as actual convicted criminals and we saw this happen in Chicago where just 62 of them were convicted criminals and we've seen that

Starting point is 00:08:27 less than 5% of them actually had convictions, right? And another stat that's very interesting is that 72% of ICE detainees do not have a criminal record. If anything, their only civil offense is being here undocumented. Federal officers were also assaulted during the Charlotte's Webb operation, including one by a transgender individual. So what we had here today was assault on a federal officer, this individual assaulted federal officers at a gas station about a mile away

Starting point is 00:09:01 and then engaged officers in a high-speed pursuit, failed to yield to our lights and siren. She traveled down this cul-de-sac here, came to a stop, and was arrested. And as the House of Representatives begins for a vote on releasing a larger portion of the files on Jeffrey Epstein later today, a little last-minute squabbling between leaders of the parties occurred yesterday afternoon. The president of the United States said that at this point, though he views the Epstein files as more of a distraction from the workers' administration, is up to, that at this point, whatever they send across his desk, he'll try to sign it. Here you go.

Starting point is 00:09:36 Here's what I want. We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats. You look at this Reid Hoffman, you look at Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, they went to his island all the time, and many others. They're all Democrats. All I want is I want for people to recognize a great job that I've done on pricing, on

Starting point is 00:09:59 affordability, because we bought prices. way down, but they go way lower. On energy, on ending eight wars and another one coming pretty soon, I believe. We've done a great job. And I hate to see that deflect from the great job we've done. So I'm all for it. You know, we've already given 50,000 pages. You do know that. Unfortunately, like with the Kennedy situation, with the Martin Luther King situation, not to put Jeffrey Epstein in the same category, but no matter what we give, it's never enough. You know, with Kennedy, we gave everything, and it wasn't enough.

Starting point is 00:10:37 With Martin Luther King, we gave everything, and it's never enough. We've already given, I believe the number is 50,000 pages, 50,000 pages. And it's just a Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia hoax as it pertains to the Republicans. Now, I believe that many of the people that we, some of the people that we mentioned are being looked at very seriously for their relationship to Jeffrey Epstein. But they were with them all the time. I wasn't. I wasn't at all. And we'll see what happens. What I just don't want Epstein to do is detract from the great success of the Republican Party. And then Hakeem Jeffries appeared to have just a little bit of trouble when a reporter asked him why several of the emails released in the last document dump appeared to show

Starting point is 00:11:27 Jeffrey Epstein communicating with a House Democrat during the President Trump Oversight Committee hearings a couple of years ago. Thank you. Why should Americans trust you and House Democrats on the Jeffrey Epstein files when one of your own, Congresswoman Plaskett, was down to be texting with Jeffrey Epstein during a hearing, getting information from him, using that and her questioning during a congressional hearing, and at one point he tells her, good job. This is a bipartisan effort to make sure that consistent with what the survivors have requested,

Starting point is 00:12:04 that there's full and complete transparency. And every single predator who may be in those Justice Department files doesn't escape accountability. Before you go, head down to the description and make sure you're subscribed to the Tony Kinnett cast. And join us tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern for a roundup of the day's news and nonsense. I'm Tony Kinnett, and this has been The Daily Signals, top news in 10. Take care.

The Daily Signal - Mexico & Venezuela Tensions, Charlotte's Web, Trump Agrees to Sign Epstein File Bill | Nov. 18, 2025

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.