The Duran Podcast - Pull back or trickery? US Venezuela military operation doubts

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Pull back or trickery? US Venezuela military operation doubtsThe Duran: Episode 2380

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what is going on in Venezuela. We have a report from the Wall Street Journal, which is now saying that the Trump White House is, or at least President Trump, is starting to have doubts about some sort of an operation in Venezuela. I have a feeling that a lot of this, or at least the doubts that Trump is having, let's say, about Venezuela, because, a lot of military hardware has been moved into the region a lot, a big military buildup in the region. But I have a feeling that a lot of this is connected to the election results from the other day. What are your thoughts on what's happening in Venezuela? Absolutely. Now, of course, the other thing to say is that we've got to be very careful before we assume that these reports are even true.

Wall Street Journal. There's what the Wall Street Journal is reporting. But it could also be deliberate misdirection, the kind that we've often seen from the Trump White House. True. Leading the Iranians into a meeting, for example, in Amman and then attacking them and leading Hamas into a meeting in Qatar and then attacking them. All things of that kind. So we've got to be very, very careful about this. But against that, there are some facts on the ground.

which may, just may, suggest that there is some truth to this story. And that is that apparently the Gerald Ford, which is the US aircraft carrier, that is supposedly or was supposedly steaming towards the Caribbean, has now stopped. It's apparently off the coast of Morocco. That's the story that we're getting. And the reports say that it's not moving further towards the Caribbean. And, well, I don't know how important a carrier, a US Navy carrier really is for this operation.

But I presume it is very important. And it could be that the fact that this has stopped is a sign that there are indeed doubts, growing doubts about this in the White House and on Trump's part. And this report in the Wall Street Journal is not, by the way, the only report that suggests that Trump himself is having serious doubts about this operation. Now, if he is having doubts about this operation, if he is really dithering, then you're quite right, one has to ask why, because all of the indications were until very short time ago that the operation was on. And if you assemble a huge fleet, warships and all of that, and bring large numbers of military to a particular place and start to

refurbish bases and all of that, then it's very, very difficult to see how you can simply stop a military operation at that point and simply call it off, because if you do, you're going to lose face. And we know that one thing that Donald Trump doesn't like to do is lose face. You could end up consolidating the Maduro government because Maduro can turn around and say that, look, Trump is all bluff. I out-bluffed him. I called his bluff. We don't need to worry.

So at that point, people in Venezuela will say that Maduro is here to stay. and that will cause a political rearrangement in Venezuela itself. And then, of course, there's the further factor that this could cause tensions within the administration itself with the hardliners, Rubio and Kurt, very angry with Trump. So, you know, even if he's having doubts, he's moved so, he's gone so far with this, that simply switching it off is going to have problems. So there would have to be compelling reasons, I think, for him to call it off now. One is actual doubts about the military operation.

And there have been trickles of reports which I cannot confirm and nobody can confirm, but perhaps the US knows that Wagner forces have been sent from Russia to Venezuela. These are tough experienced fighters, many of them have fought in Ukraine. There's certainly people who would be able to give a tough fight to any U.S. military. And if there's a ground operation, if there's any ideas of a ground operation, or some attempt may be to capture and seize Maduro himself, then of course the presence of the Wagner troops there would be a serious problem. I have to say, I don't know how many Wagner troops were talking about, if they're there at all. I can't imagine it's more than a few

hundred. I can't imagine that is enough to deter the United States, Trump by itself. I inclined strongly to your view that it is the election results in the United States. The election results have been bad. Trump's base is. is fracturing, there is growing opposition to this operation from within that base, and I think that is causing Trump to back off. You make a good point about this being another deception tactic as well. That's what we could be seeing. What if that is the case?

Well, if it is the case, then the attack is going to come very soon, maybe tomorrow, because the longer a deception like this, you know, clays out, the longer the ships remain there, the more clear it becomes that it is a deception operation, and the Maduro government, instead of relaxing, toughens up. So I think that if there is a deception operation underway, and I don't think that's an possibility at all, by the way, if this is a deception operation, that the attack is imminent. What about the Ford stopping all of a sudden? Yeah. Do you consider that a clear signal that the Wall Street Journal reporting is accurate?

I mean, would that be a definitive sign that Trump is having doubts? Would it be U.S. President Trump who would tell Heg-S. Stop the Ford? And does the Ford play the key part? as to whether strikes would happen or not. What I'm trying to say is, could strikes happen without the Ford, or do they need that carrier group in the region? Right, a number of points here.

First of all, I am not fully familiar with the chain of command in the United States, but Donald Trump is the commander-in-chief. That is undoubted a decision whether or not to deploy the Ford in a battle situation in the Caribbean must at some level involve him. If Trump is telling Heggseth and the military, look, I'm decided to call this off, then he doesn't perhaps actually need to say stop the Ford. They would probably do that anyway because what would be the point of deploying it in that case? But the decision would be Trump's ultimately.

It would be, it would have to come from Trump in some. fork, direct or otherwise. So that's the first thing. The second thing is to say that the fact that the Ford has stopped is a very strong sign that the Wall Street Journal report is true. It is not a conclusive sign because I do believe that the United States has enough assets in the region already to carry out a strike without the Ford. I think that it could carry out strikes using missiles. Tomahawk missiles launched from the ages-class destroyers, which are already in the region. So these are powerful weapons.

I'm not convinced that Venezuela has the resources to shoot them down. That's one. The United States also has land-based aircraft in the region two. F-35 fighter jets operating from bases, apparently in the Caribbean, some of which have been refurb. I think the United States has all the assets it already needs to carry out an operation. It doesn't need the Ford. The presence of the Ford, the Ford's participation in the operation would be, would add massively to the power of the blow, but it would still be a very strong blow without it.

And we have to also take into account, given the Trump administration's, fondness for deception operations, which, as I said, you've talked about many times, that the whole story about the Ford might itself be a part of the deception operation. You move a carry. It's an expensive thing to do, but then, you know, we're talking about the US military here. You move the carrier. You'd say that it's going to the Caribbean. People say to themselves, well, nothing's going to happen until the Ford appears on the scene.

Then you stop it off the coast of Morocco. Then you plant a story in the Wall Street Journal saying that the whole thing is called off and then you attack. So that's, you know, because everybody in Venezuela has relaxed and stood down. They say to themselves, we've had this story in the Wall Street Journal. We see that the fort has stopped. So it looks as if an attack is incoming and then you attack. And that would not surprise me at all. So I'm not saying that is what is going to happen.

but it's not impossible. The Senate, the Democrats in the Senate, along with two Republicans, I believe Rand Paul was one of them. Anyway, they tried to block Trump's ramping up of a conflict with Venezuela. And they failed. They lost the vote in the Senate, 49 to 51. So basically, the Senate is backing. Trump or pushing Trump to continue the buildup of the military outside of Venezuela.

How would Trump walk this back, given that you also have pressure from the Senate? And of course, the Democrats are also boxing Trump in as well, even though they wanted to block Trump. Maybe they knew that this would fail, this attempt to block Trump would fail. They knew it. So now they've also got him in a difficult position. You're in a very good point because can I just say something about the Senate? The original intention of the founders of the United States, the people who drafted the U.S. Constitution, was that the Senate would act as a restraint on the president.

It has the power to declare war. It's actually given by the Constitution the power to declare war. It's supposed to be the key body determining or shaping U.S. foreign policy or help assisting the president to shape U.S. foreign policy. The expectation, and you can see this, is very clearly set out in the commentary that was made at the time and in the Federalist Papers and all of those things, is that you mustn't allow an overmighty executive. with standing armies and colossal abilities to conduct aggression, you need to have a major check on it, and that according to the system, as it was originally created, was expected to be the Senate. What we have, and this has been one of the major causes of the disaster we've seen play out in the United States over the last, well, 50 plus years, is that instead of the

Instead of the Senate acting as a restraining body, it has become a body that is constantly pushing the president towards confrontation. It is even more aggressive about war than the presidency itself. And we've had people like Lindsay Graham and Senator McCain in the past and all sorts of others who, well, basically, there is never a war that they don't want the United States to join or they don't want the United States to start. So in my opinion, given the structure of the Senate today, any idea that they would act to try to stop Trump from conducting an operation in Venezuela, I was never going to happen. And let's just say mathematically that there'd been a vote against it at the Senate. If Trump had simply ignored it and carried out the attack,

he would still have found people in the Senate to support him. So let's, you know, the Senate is one thing. But if Trump does indeed walk it back, I mean, it's difficult to see how he can avoid looking weak. The neocons and the Republican Party in the Senate is packed with neocons. I mean, you know, the Mitch McConnell wing is still the bigger. wing of the Republican Party in the Senate, and it is neocons, all of them. The neocons in the Republican Party, the neocons in the Democratic Party will be furious with him. And other Democrats

who are not neocons, but are there for the right, will join because, of course, it's Trump. So the political damage to Trump, one way or the other, is going to be extensive. This whole operations should never have been started at all. It was misconceived, however you spin it. If he moves, if he proceeds, if he attacks Venezuela, he will upset his base, who were promised that there would be no forever wars, no more regime change operations, no more operations of this kind. And his base is now clearly hardening against this. And I think we'll continue. We'll continue. continue to do so. And if the Venezuelan operation proves complicated and difficult, it could be a disaster for him, with his voters. And he backs off, he will have enraged and humiliated

himself before the neocons in the Senate and elsewhere, who will start to claim that this is a dithery president who can't make decisions, can't make up his mind. and that he's weak and useless, and he needs to have some backbone injected into him because he's given every impression over the last couple of weeks that he wants an operation in Venezuela, that he wants to overthrow Maduro. And if he doesn't do that now, people will ask one.

Well, he's killed 50-some people, right? From the boats and all of this stuff. Yeah, I mean, you know, how do you walk this back? That's what I keep on trying to figure out. Is there a narrative that he can put out on truth social? Can he change the conversation to move away from Venezuela, distract? I mean, you know, the Republicans in the Senate, they want the conflict, right? So they're voting.

Yeah, go ahead with the conflict. I believe also want the conflict. I don't think they want to block the conflict, but they know that they cover themselves by appearing to want to block the conflict, especially after the recent elections where it was a clean sweep for the Democrats. And a lot of the reason that it was a clean sweep is because the American voters, they're tired of Trump's. constant attention to foreign policy. It appears he's completely detached from domestic issues. He's completely absorbed in all these foreign policy adventures. I mean, he's got like four or five different things going on now outside of the United States and Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran, Middle East, Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, Greenland.

I don't know. It just never ends. Yeah. This is exactly right. And at a time when people, not just now, you know, people at the lower end of the economic spectrum, but now middle class people in the United States are starting to suffer severe difficulties with their finances. And we're not going to discuss this in this program because that's a huge topic in itself. But the data that's coming in shows this. conclusively, and instead, the president who was elected on the basis that he was going to protect living standards and focus mostly on the US economy has spent the entire first year of his presidency dealing mostly with foreign policy. And the president who assured everybody that he was going to be the peace president

and would not seek military interventions. has, on the contrary, sought military interventions with Iran. He's been involved in a war with Iran. He's now threatening a war with Venezuela. He's played a bizarre and a ridiculous game with Ukraine, which we've discussed in many programs as well. And he's overwhelmingly, obsessively focused on this all the time. And his base doesn't like it.

And they're staying away. And that's why we had this clean sweep by the Democrats in the elections a few days ago. I mean, I've no doubt about this at all. I mean, you can come up with explanations and rationalizations. He's blaming the shutdown. But again, the problem with that is, I mean, that in a way begs the question. because the question he ought to be asking is, why are his voters, former voters, blaming him for the shutdown instead of the Democrats?

When there was a shutdown of the government, you know, in Clinton's time, the voters blamed the Republicans, but not the president, who was, of course, Bill Clinton. this time they're blaming or starting to blame Trump instead of the Democrats. And that really ought to be the question that he's asking himself. But there it is. He's got himself into this mess over Venezuela. I saw a, well, there was a discussion that we had together in which you made the point that Trump has basically accepted control by this group of people, Kellogg, Wiles, Rubio, Wals, all of them.

And it is creating increasing, massive problems for his presidency. And this Venezuela affair is just a part of it. So, yes, I think he could limit the damage by pulling back. There would be damage. I mean, there would be problems in the Senate. There would be criticisms from people like Lindsay Graham. An intelligent president would know how to handle that. And, well, you're asked about the narrative that he might put together.

Well, you can always find narratives. You could say mission accomplished. We deterred, you know, we deterred, you know, more movement trafficking across the Caribbean. I don't think many people would believe it, but it would at least give the administration a talking point something that administration officials could say on the talk shows. Or you could come up with something else. I mean, you know, I'm not here to spin narratives for the administration. But there's always a narrative you can fall back on.

I mean, that's one thing that America, everybody, all the political groups in America are extremely skilled manufacturing. They can always spin narratives. The Democrats, of course, are even better at it than the Republicans are. But anyway, they can always spin a narrative. It won't convince many people. But it would limit the damage with the voters, the problems with the hardliners of the Senate, and in the administration itself, of course, those won't go away.

But if Trump were to win back support from the voters and were at some point to make a decision finally to have a showdown with the neocons in his administration, then you could in theory imagine that he might pull it back. But of course, he won't do that. We're going to get instead the same stop going. that we see all the time, you know, start something, pulls back, dithers, listens to what his donors are telling him, listens to what Rubio and Wilson Kellogg are telling him, moves forward with something, then pulls back at the last moment, as he appears to have done

for the moment with the Tomahawk missile deployments in Ukraine. He's never, I'm afraid, and we have to be realistic about this, going to fully change course, because, is the pattern of this presidency, it seems to me, is now clear. Yeah, well, the neocons are not going to change course either. I mean, they're not going to change course on the tomahawks. The neocons are not going to give it up. The media is not going to give it up. Zelensky is not going to give it up.

The Europeans are not going to give it up. They're going to continue to hammer away for those tomahawks. The same for Venezuela, even if he finds a narrative, which I hope he does. Yeah, agreed. I hope he finds a narrative. Yeah, people are not going to buy it. Yes, he's going to take a hit politically. He's going to lose political capital.

Fine. People will get over it. Better. People will be happy that the U.S. avoided a war. I think a lot of people will say, fine, whatever, make up an excuse. We don't care. Better to avoid any type of conflict in Venezuela. Of course, the problem comes back to the hardliners, to the hawks, to the neocons.

they're not going to let it go. They're so close to getting this conflict with Venezuela. They're not going to let it go, just like they're so close to getting a conflict with Iran. They're not going to let it go. And a lot of this is Trump's fault because he's brought to them so close to the conflict. He's positioned himself, the United States, so close to the conflict. People like Rubio have too much power, don't they? I mean, he's still the NSA.

director. He's also the Secretary of State. And then you have Wiles who has this firewall around him and Kellogg in Ukraine. But I mean, for Venezuela, I think the key person is Rubio, who has an immense amount of power. He's accumulated huge power because as you rightly say, he's both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. So he controls information flows to Trump because a lot of the information. inflammation flow goes to president through the National Security Council. That was supposed to be a temporary decision, you know, that it was all going to be changed once Trump decided on a new national security advisor after he sacked Mike Wals.

But he's never done that. So the result is that Rubio has been left in this outstandingly power. position, which no US official has held before since the days of Henry Kissinger. I mean, it puts Rubio in this immense position of power. And Rubio is an extremely clever political operator, as well as being, by the way, a dyed in the wool near con. I mean, he's near conti, his fingertips. He knows how to say things that, you know, please Trump.

but the advice he always gives, ultimately is pure nearcon advice. So the problem that Trump has is to break this circle of people that he's created around himself is going to be very difficult anyway, even if he has the inclination and desire to do it. And of course he might not. I mean, he might be very happy with these people. He might be thinking that they're giving him excellent.

advice. So you're absolutely right. I mean, he has to start listening. Well, in theory, he should start listening to others. Those others are there. They've always been there. But he's never really wanted to listen to them. Because as you absolutely rightly say, throughout his entire career, ever since he became president of the United States for the first time in 2017, he has always repeatedly gone out of his way to embrace the hardliners, neocons, people who ultimately despise him and quietly will always work to sabotage whatever agenda, anti-neucon agenda, he might claim to endorse and who always bring him back to policies that aren't really no different from the ones that the previous administrations, neocon administrations, have always

had. And about the neocons never getting up about Tomahawks, about wars on Iran, wars about about Venezuela, what have we said in program, after program, these people have no reverse gear. That has always been true. It was true before. It is true now. It will be true in the future. implacable, they always want war, they will always push for war. And if you try to bargain with them, what you will invariably find is that if you give them so much as an inch, they will take a mile. Trump has given them a lot more than an inch, a whole lot more than an inch. He's maneuvered himself into these positions. Exactly. Yeah, like on the ground maneuvered himself, not Not rhetoric. He's actually moved to the military assets there.

I mean, he's given them a whole lot more than Menonich, yeah. More than I can think of any other president giving to the Nio-Kanz. Well, I read an article yesterday, which said that he's starting to sound like George Dougby Bush. Yeah. Yeah, he really is. He really is starting to act like Bush. And Rubio seems to have the power of Cheney. Yeah. Absolutely. All right.

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