The Duran Podcast - Cloud of confusion; PSYOP, oil, and coup

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Cloud of confusion; PSYOP, oil, and coup

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Venezuela, and it looks like this was a coup d'etat, a regime change, yes, a kidnapping, yes. But more than that, it was a standard classic coup d'ata operation inside, insiders around Maduro, who had some sort of back-channel communication or diplomacy with Rubio and the Trump administration. And they decided that it was time for Maduro to go and for a new administration to be put in place. An administration that would look after the U.S.'s interests and the big oil interests of the New York Times. Alexander is actually highlighting this in an article with the title, how Trump fixed on a Maduro loyalist as Venezuela's new leader. and it does talk about intermediaries communicating with Rubio and with Trump.

It talks about the Delci Rodriguez group in the Maduro administration and how Trump was impressed with her. Your thoughts? Well, can I just before we begin, I not only agree with absolutely everything that you just said, but I would also point out that this is exactly what we said here during the long. live stream that we did as the events were pouring in over the weekend, where we pointed out that it had all the hallmarks, all the look about it of an operation that was carried out with complicity on the ground. So I think that's the first thing to say. I mean, if we don't say it, nobody does. So we should, I just wanted to make that particular point. Now, all of the

evidence has come pouring in, there's clearly been communications between the United States, between Rubio, the CIA, and people within Venezuela. That was what made this whole operation possible. It could not have been carried out in the way that it was without cooperation from inside. And we're told that people were informing the United States, and we're told that people were informing the United States about Maduro's whereabouts. They were clearly informing the United States about where air defense missiles and things like that were located. There were clearly instructions set around to the military not to interfere with the American operation because even if the Americans attacked strategic bases where, you know, big missiles like book missiles were located,

We were also told that the Venezuelan military had thousands of man pads supplied to them by Russia. Only one of them, apparently, there's only one picture of one of them being fired. We see pictures of the American helicopters flying over Caracas. Very low. They're not launching chaff. They're not engaging in any kind of maneuvers at all. They clearly know that nobody is going to interfere. fear with them. And we hear now that there was a fight with Maduro's security detail,

but it turns out that nearly all of the people who were killed with Cubans, not Venezuelans at all. In other words, the Cuban bodyguards who had been sent to protect Maduro were targeted, but the Venezuelan military did not participate in defending their president in any way. And after it is all over, we have an extraordinary press conference. One of the most remarkable press conferences ever given by a US president. And we need to talk about that, and we shall do. But he basically confirms this. He throws Machado under the bus.

He says he's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have support and respect inside the country. We have American media reports which say that Rubio and the US were in touch with her and with other members of the Venezuelan anti-Moduro opposition and were unimpressed by all of them. They didn't find any evidence that these people could control the country or could control the military or could control the security forces, that they began to have contacts with Rodriguez, Dersia Rodriguez, the vice president and her husband, that there were meetings in the Gulf.

Some reports say the UAE. Others say Qatar. All of these reports say that these Arab countries, whichever it was, mediated the discussions. Clearly, a deal was done. The deal was that the United States could have Maduro and that these people would take over and that a deal would be done in future between them. and the United States. The United States would be able to go back in, take basically control of the oil industry, which is now manifestly what this is all about, and at the same time, these people

will remain in place. And we saw this again in the press conference, Trump saying nice things about Dersi Rodriguez, even as he throws Machado herself under a bus. And Rodriguez comes in, makes defiant statements initially about how Maduro is still the true president of Venezuela, but then also very shortly after makes conciliatory noises about the United States and wanting better relations with the United States. So this was an internal coup. The regime, the people within the regime, did not want to be seen overthrowing Maduro himself. They knew that would not go down well with some sections of the Venezuelan population and maybe with security forces.

So they did the deal with the Americans and they got the Americans to do the hard work for them of actually arresting Maduro, killing his Cuban bodyguards and taking him away to the United States. Yeah. Well, that appears to be the deal. You could make the argument. that the people around Maduro, let's say, Delci, the other ministers, whoever they are, that are involved in this palace intrigue, you could make the argument that they were given an ultimatum by Trump, and perhaps they said, you know what, instead of risking more violence

and a war and escalation in Venezuela, might as well play ball with the United States. You could make that argument, even though the reports do say that the Trump administration in Rubio were very impressed with the way Delci Rodriguez had managed the country. She did have a lot of power in the Maduro administration. And she actually gained that power. My understanding is she gained that power, much of that power over COVID. And she actually took a lead in all of that. and she was addressing the Venezuelan people over COVID,

and then she started to get control of the finance and the finance ministry and the economy. And they were impressed at that the way she was handling things and the growth that Venezuela was experiencing despite all of the sanctions. That's exactly true. And I think that's absolutely no doubt. I guess there's something else. So this is about Maduro himself. I mean, he became president.

There are lots of stories which I've never seen effectively denied that the Cuba played an instrumental role in arranging for him to become Venezuela's leader, that this was negotiated by the Cubans with Hugo Chavez in the last months of Chavez's life. And that Maduro, to a very great extent, kept things together in Venezuela. mostly on behalf of Cuba in the sense that he was sending oil, Venezuelan oil, to Cuba, and was clinging onto his position in Venezuela, and was perhaps prioritizing Venezuelan national interests, less and Cuban national interests more. I don't want to suggest, by the way, that this is only a one-way street type of arrangement. I mean, Cuba did send some help.

quite a lot of help to Venezuela, Venezuelan doctors, Cuban teachers, all of those kinds of things. But I can see how over time, this might have caused some resentment within some sections of the Venezuelan leadership. They might have said to themselves, well, Maduro really is too involved with the Cubans,

not sufficiently involved with us. So let us, now that we're, we are facing the rot of the United States, that they're coming down hard on us, that we are under threat, that we are under pressure, that we are also being offered inducements, because I've no doubt that some were there. I mean, I've no doubt that bribes were paid and money changed hands and offers of further bribes were given. They may have said to themselves, Maduro is becoming a political liability. The Americans are unreferential. reconciled to him. Let's just dumb him and see our way forward with the Americans and we remain in

control. It's worth pointing out that according to all of the reports, Maduro was himself prepared to give the Americans everything they wanted pretty much, except that he insisted on remaining president of Venezuela himself. And I wonder whether going all that way, making all these extraordinary concessions to the Americans, didn't in the end also undermine his position within Venezuela, because people would have said within Venezuela, I'm talking about the political leaders, the government, people of that kind. Well, if Maduro is prepared to go that far, if he's prepared to give the Americans control of the oil industry and work with them on immigration, migration-related issues and drugs issues and all of the other things, well,

What's the point of sticking with him in that case? Because anything that is distinctive, he's prepared to bargain away. The only thing that he seems to want to do is to stay in place himself. And of course, if they calculated that he was staying in place so that he could go on shipping Venezuelan oil to Cuba, that might have also played a part as well. Do you think this could be some sort of sci-op from the media to discredit? Rodriguez. I think there's a chance.

She has come out. We do know that she has publicly, publicly, we are getting reports that she is, well, she is in contact with Rubio and that she has offered some sort of a cooperation.

I think these reports are reliable. But do you think the information about communication with her intermediaries before? kidnapping Maduro and all of that. Do you think that could be some sort of a

sciop that the New York Times and all these publications are coming out with? No, I don't think it is, but I think it's a, I'm going to say why, I think it's a big mistake what they've just doing. But what I think could quite possibly be true is that even as the Americans have been manipulating people in Venezuela, in order to get, um, Maduro himself, to capture Maduro himself, it's entirely plausible and indeed highly likely that the Venezuelans have been manipulating the Americans as well. From a Venezuelan point of you, they've got rid of a leader who was perhaps beginning to lose support and had become something of a problem and an embarrassment. And the people who wanted to take over have now taken over

and it may very well turn out that they are not quite as compliant to what the Americans want than the Americans expect. In other words, that they might actually dig in on various things. And if we're talking about Rodriguez, and by the way, people should not be, you know, one can be cynical, but one can also understand motivations. It is not impossible that Rodriguez and people around her saw this, saw doing this deal as a way of preserving something of the legacy of Hugo Chavez. In other words, maintaining some of the changes that he did, the reforms and the social programs and things of that kind. Get the Americans off our back.

Let the Americans come back into the oil industry. And bear in mind, I mean, the only reason there's a crisis, I mean, the Americans basically remove themselves in the oil industry. Yes, Chavez did pursue policies of nationalization of the oil industry. But as has been pointed out to me, nationalization of the oil industry in Venezuela has been a long-term process, which began in 1976. So Chavez took it further, but it had always existed. So get the Americans back, get them off Venezuela's back, have Venezuela attract. rather less attention than it has been attracting, which is uncomfortable.

And maybe, as I said, if you want to assume that people like Rodriguez and others are acting from, you know, patriotic motives or what they perhaps construe as patriotic motives, that way they can preserve something of the legacy of Hugo Chavez and take it further. and, as I said, do so in a more comfortable and secure environment than the one we've seen. I also wonder if the reports that came out about six months ago talking about how Rubio, how Grinnell was in talks with Maduro, then talking about how Rubio was also in talks with Venezuela and with the Maduro regime and Maduro was ready to give up the oil to allow the United States full, access to the oil to give up his partnership with Iran and China and Russia, whether these reports

were true or not. These reports could have also been siops. I wonder if these reports also influenced the people around Maduro to say, you know what, he's ready to give it away. Well, then why should he, why should he be the one who is in power? Why should we keep him in power? If he's not going to to defend Venezuela against the Americans coming in and taking our resources, well, then, you know, what are we doing here? Well, exactly. What's the point of him? And I think that calculation absolutely was there.

I think, as I said, by being prepared to make these concessions, to the extent that he was prepared to make these. If this is true. If this is true. If it was true, yeah. But it was never convincingly denied from Venezuela. So if it was true, then, as I said, he probably would. in the long term undermine his own position within Venezuela itself. So anyway, we will see what

happens. Now, of course, Trump has given this really incredible news conference, he's been threatening Gonzalez, even as he's been praising her, telling her, look, if you don't do what we say, we're going to come after you. He says the same things about the president of Colombia. He said the same thing about Cuba. He's made threatening noises about other countries, Iran, Denmark, over Greenland. He's made it absolutely clear that this is all about oil and basically nothing else. He's thrown Machado under a bus, which just as, you know, the Venezuelans, through their leader, Maduro under a bus, is worth pointing out that the Americans have just thrown the person that they were building up, Machado under a bus.

And apparently the Europeans are very unhappy about that because they'd become very invested in the Machado project. And it was there, after all, he gave her the Nobel Peace Prize and all of this. So he's made it absolutely clear to everybody that this was nothing to do with promoting democracy, expanding freedom, doing all of the things that many the United States always talks about when it has previously conducted regime changes. This was purely an enterprise to go into a country, take it over, seize its resources and develop them to the pure and exclusive benefit of the United States. He's even talking about that. The Americans must have a Venezuela's oil.

To be clear, this is very much how the United States has behaved in the past, but up to now, it has dressed it up in, as I said, much more attractive language. It's packaged it in attractive language. The way that Trump has been talking, I think, has been, what should not underestimate the shock that it has done. I mean, there is. a sense that this is a person who's talking a little bit like a gangster running a protection racket. You know, if you don't do what I want, I'll grab you just as I grabbed Maduro, directed at Rodriguez this time. And, you know, out to get people's resources in that kind of way. As I said, I think this is unsettled a lot of people, a lot of governments, especially in Europe. And you can see the Denmark now is becoming increasingly nervous and agitated. And the Europeans

have difficulties with this. And I think are worried about this. And I think that again, broadcasting to the world, the extent that there were all of these contacts with Rodriguez and that this deal was done over this very long time. I mean, it could also play badly for her, ultimately, in Venezuela herself. She was, after all, Maduro's vice president. It isn't going to look good. I remember how Ronald Reagan presented another regime change operation that the United States carried out against Grenada in 1983. He didn't speak to the media. He went on US television. He spoke about the United States bringing freedom and liberty. He talked about the United States being the shining city on the hill. That made it all enormously attractive. It won over people.

What Trump has done makes it look cynical and sordid, which I think probably was not a wise thing. Yeah, I wonder if Trump will go through with the second strike if Delsey decides to not play ball. That's going to really confuse things. Oh, absolutely. It's going to confuse things an awful lot. It's going to cause problems, even more problems, because it'll make him look even more like a bully. He claimed on Air Force One, we are in charge. He did say that, the United States.

Absolutely. No, yes. He's going to run Venezuela as a kind of American colony. I mean, this is the rhetoric that we are seeing. As I said, it's unsettling to the world community. It tells everybody, well, rules-based international order, as you were saying, on a program that we did before, on our live stream, in fact, I mean, that's been thrown out of the window. It's now might is right. and we're out to get your resources, whoever you are and wherever you are.

You either play ball with the United States or with Donald Trump in his administration, or we send in a Delta force, and we grab you and we grab what you have. As I said, it's something that is going to unsettle much of the world. countries like Qatar, if it was Qatar, that was involved, would be perfectly happy, I think, to broker deals like the one that was done between Gonzales and Rubio. But they won't want it to be publicized in quite this way, and they won't feel quite so happy to be associated publicly with an open pirate raid, which is what this is starting to look like. So, I think that Trump's minders might want to point that out to him in future.

What you've done isn't very different from what the United States has done in many, many places, especially in South America in the past. It's no different, essentially, from what was done in Syria in November 2024. But do you really have to talk about it in quite this way? Yeah. Just that. Yeah, the Washington Post has an article with the title, U.S. plan to run Venezuela clouded in confusion. Yeah.

In Washington and Caracas, the vision of administering Venezuela in the weeks and months ahead appears complex. Well, indeed. They paint the picture of a Trump administration that had the regime change, the kidnapping, all planned out, but they didn't plan out the next steps. At least that's the way they're presented. it. Of course, this is the Washington Post and they're not friendly to Trump. But it does seem like we do have quite a lot of confusion as to how all of this unfolded. Well, indeed, I'm going to say

something else, by the way, that I think the premise of this whole operation, which is that there is a huge oil industry there for the United States to simply take over is actually wrong. I think that this isn't going to be the big success that many people in the United States believe. First of all, I've been told, I've no doubt at all, but I've checked this out. I think Venezuela is massively overstating the size of its oil reserves. Without a doubt. Every expert says that. Secondly, the oil that Venezuela does have is very difficult to refine, very expensive to refine.

At a time when oil prices are already low, this is perhaps not quite as profitable an enterprise as many people assume. And the third point is that the oil industry in Venezuela is very, very rundown. it's going to take some say at least a decade and tens of billions of dollars to bring it back to a proper level of production. And then lastly, what the United States, assuming it gets Venezuelan oil running and it opens the tap and starts exporting its oil and the way that it wants to do, what it's going to do is it's going to create a competitor to its own oil. industry. I mean, it's going to create another big country in the Americas that's exporting oil in rivalry to the United States. And bear in mind that in the United States, the break-even price apparently for shale oil, which is the oil that we're talking about from the United States, is said to be $60 a barrel. So I've seen some people say that Trump wants to bring the price of

down below $50 a barrel and keep it there. Well, that will not be good for the U.S.'s own oil industry if he achieves it, which I doubt that he will. So, I mean, I think that this, you said that, you know, the Washington Post is saying that this hasn't been thought through in terms of how to take over and run Venezuela. I think that he's almost certainly true, by the way, even though, as you rightly said, it is the Washington Post. But I think that it isn't thought. thought through either in terms of the expectation that this is going to be the enormous bonanza for the United States that Donald Trump thinks it is. Yeah, at least maybe not for the oil, but, and this is also going to be long term.

There is the talk about the rare earth minerals and the gold and other resources that Venezuela is very rich in. But once again, we're not talking about something that's going to happen in six months or a year. And we haven't even addressed the refining of the rare earths, which is something that, for my understanding, China has mastered and just about nobody else has mastered that. So, I mean, that may also play a role in what's been done. And of course, there is talk coming from Massey. Also, Robert Barnes has also brought it up about various donors and very wealthy investors who have invested in Venezuela. and they want some money back.

Well, indeed. And I think that's probably true, by the way. I think that plays a big... I am sure that this plays a big role in this because some of the people that have been mentioned are people who regularly talk to Trump. So I've no doubt at all that that has played a part. And again, it makes this business look even more sordid

than it already looked, which is pretty sordid, as things stood. But whatever, I mean, some individuals, some people are going to do very well out of this. But this is not going to be the great geopolitical or economic change, you know, game changer that I think many people assume. And the other thing it is going to do. And many people are pointing this out. And this goes back to the Trump press conference. The might is right or rules out of the window approach.

means that, you know, Medvedev has already said, what can the Americans say about whatever we've done in Ukraine from this point on? Their entire legal case against us has just been thrown away by the US itself. Bear of mind, I mean, Putin has been talking about Zelensky being an illegitimate leader of Ukraine, president of Ukraine. Trump has been talking about Maduro being an illegitimate president of Venezuela. China talks about the president of Taiwan being illegitimate. There's no symmetry about this. So it's probably giving away notional things.

I know these are abstractions and perhaps one shouldn't spend too much time on this. But, you know, we're giving away all of these sort of abstractions, giving, putting your adversaries in a stronger legal, moral position than they might have been. Certainly the Europeans who tend to care more about these things, at least to appear in a pretend to, pretend to, exactly. Well, they have to convince they're increasingly angry and discontented publics about them. Let's put it like that. I mean, it's put them in a somewhat awkward position. And you can see the embarrassment.

Yeah, well, what are the Europeans going to say when Trump does make a move on Denmark? because the Europeans, they're lining up to support this move from Trump on Maduro. And what's the Europeans' argument? And actually, Kayakhalis has issued a statement saying that all the EU member states are in support of her statement. Her argument in her official statement is saying that Maduro, he lacked legitimacy. So because he lacked legitimacy, what happened to him was okay. Well, you know, what are going to be the arguments when Trump goes after Denmark or what happens when Russia or China or any other country? It doesn't matter. Any other country does the same thing? I mean, just because one country says that leader lacks legitimacy, does that make everything okay? Does that make a kidnapping or a coup or regime change okay?

Well, I mean, to repeat again, the Russians have repeatedly said since May 2024 that Vladimir Zelensky is not the legitimate president of Ukraine. I mean, Putin says this. He brings out all kinds of legal arguments based on his reading of the content, not just his reading, I mean, the reading of the Russian legal experts on the wording of the constitution of Ukraine. Now the Russians can tell the Europeans and they can tell the Americans, look, you talk about legitimacy as being an issue when it comes to Venezuela. Why can't we say the same about Ukraine?

Let's not also forget just to wrap with the video, the geopolitics of Rubio. He wants to go after Cuba. Yes. And Rubio has emerged as an extremely powerful person in the Trump administration. I would actually argue that Rubio is the most powerful person in the Trump administration. And he wants to go after Cuba. He's made it very obvious that he wants to go after Cuba. Actually, Trump said that Cuba's in trouble, that Cuba could fall next.

Actually, I believe Lindsey Graham on Air Force One said that Cuba is going to fall next. So you have that playing out. You have bricks, China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela's connection to those countries, most notably to China. And then you have the narrative, Alexander, of where was China? You know, there were Chinese officials on the ground in Venezuela a couple of hours before Maduro was grabbed. Did China drop the ball? Did their intel drop the ball? Did they make a deal with the United States, with Maduro, with Del C, whatever? I mean, what was happening? What was going on with the Chinese officials on the ground on the very day that you had this kidnapping of Maduro? A lot of important points you've just made.

Now, let's start with Rubio. I think he is now by far the most powerful figure in the administration, apart perhaps from Trump himself. Maybe. Maybe. Well, I was going to say, do you remember how we used to say during Biden's time that the real person who ran US foreign policy was Jake Sullivan? It's increasingly looking that it's Rubio who's running foreign policy in the United States now.

I mean, he's turned out to be a very, very effective bureaucratic warrior. He's monopolizing all the key positions. He's both secretary of state and his national security advisor. He clearly has a very strong alliance with Radcliffe, who is the director of the CIA. And one gets the sense that the CIA and Rubio are working very, very closely together. They work very closely together over the operation in Venezuela. for example. And he's also got links with Congress. I mean, he was a senator. He's strongly supported by the Republicans in the Senate. So he's gathering all the threads into his hands.

And he knows how to flatter Trump. And he knows how to talk the talk about, you know, America first and all of that. But when you actually drill down and look at his foreign policy, it is the same neocon foreign policy as always, and is massively focused against two priority rivals. One is China. Rubio's much more interested in China, I sense that he is in Russia. to suggest that he likes the Russians at all or that he has got any fundamental differences of the neocon policies over Ukraine. But he sees China as the main adversary. And he's also determined to pursue neocon policies in the Middle East, but first and foremost

in South America as well, Latin America as well. And Cuba is obviously high on his list. of targets. So we are going to see the squeeze on Cuba over the next few weeks and months. Trump is talking about how Cuba is going to fall, so you can just sense what is probably coming. And here again, I have to say this. The Cubans have been offered help from many people, especially from the Russians. They have tended to look the other way because they had this relationship with Maduro and with Venezuela. They didn't entirely trust the Russians. They didn't want the Russians coming back into Cuba and telling the Cubans how Cuba should be run, which is what the

Soviet Union did. So they've kept the Russians away. And now they are potentially very vulnerable. We will see what the Cubans do. As for China, in Venezuela, no question at all, they drop the ball. clearly didn't have a good intelligence operation in Venezuela. I am sure that they were not a party to any of the discussions that took place to bring Maduro down. They didn't know what Gonzalez was doing. They clearly didn't know about these meetings in Qatar. They were meeting with Maduro with every appearance that they assumed that he would be there the following day. So it looks to me is that the Chinese have come out very humiliated from this affair. And they must also sense, they must also realise now that with Rubio in charge,

as the National Security Strategy Review clearly said, there is now a concerted drive by the United States to drive China completely out of Latin America, to end all its economic relationships with all of the Latin American states, Argentina, Brazil, all of them. Yeah, just a final thought, Alexander, China looks like they were caught sleeping, right? Their intel was caught asleep. And I don't want to draw too many parallels because the situation, are very different. Even the geography is very different. But it does remind me a little bit of how Russia was caught sleeping in 2014 with the Maidan coup. And we know what happened afterwards. Right. And I wonder what China's going to do now that they have been caught flat-footed and sleeping.

Well, the Russians were caught sleeping on the wheel in 2014, as by the way they've admitted. They were caught sleeping on the wheel in November 2024. I mean, they didn't realize that the Assad government, that the Assad system was disintegrating in Syria right up until the moment when it started to collapse. And China has been caught sleeping at the wheel. over Venezuela. Whether we like to face the fact or not, China and Russia have very, very effective intelligence systems operating close to home and focused on the kind of tasks that the Chinese and Russian leaderships give them. But they don't have that kind of global presence or that gift for covert action that the Americans do. I mean, it's just, it's a lot of.

straightforward as that. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.locals.com. We're on X. We are on Rumble. We are on Telegram and go to DuranShop, pick up some merch. There's a link to the description box down below and also go to our substack as well.

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