The Duran Podcast - US military force grows and waits off coast of Venezuela

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

US military force grows and waits off coast of Venezuela

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the USS Ford Carrier Group, which according to various reports, is now in the region of Venezuela. It's in the Caribbean and it's heading towards Venezuela. What do you think we're going to see? Well, indeed. Are we going to get some sort of a military operation now that this carrier is in the area? or could this be some sort of a bluff or routine rotation or something going on here? What do you think?

Well, I think the first thing to say is that a couple of days ago, we were getting all these reports that Trump had had second thoughts about the Venezuela operation, and it looked for a time as if the Ford had stopped, steaming towards the Caribbean, and was staying off the coast of Mexico, And a lot of people seized on that and said that this is proof that the US is not going to intervene in Venezuela after all. And we warned in a program that we did that we need to be very careful with this administration because they will say one thing and do the opposite. They have shown in the past that they can give the impression that they're pulling back when in actual fact they're moving forward. Now, the Ford is now in the Caribbean. There is no other reason why it would be there than in order to conduct an attack against

Venezuela. If you're going to start intercepting speedboats carrying drugs, you do not deploy a U.S. Navy carrier, the biggest, most powerful, most modern Navy carrier. in the US Navy for that purpose with all its escorts. They're clearly there, it seems to me, to build up the pressure against Venezuela and to prepare for an attack. And this is the question. I don't believe that you send a whole carrier steaming around the coast of Venezuela just in order

to bluff. It's a massively expensive thing to do, incredibly costly thing to do. If you simply pull it back, then you're going to look ridiculous. It's a point we've made in the past. So the fact that the Ford has now joined the already existing very powerful task group that was already positioned close to Venezuela's coastline, suggests to me that an attack is indeed coming. Yeah, I don't think there's been any pullback from the other ships that are in the area.

Has there been any reported pullback or anything? They've stayed put. Exactly. Exactly. That's exactly correct. I haven't heard any pullback at all. On the contrary, this force is now growing. I understand that something like 15% of the U.S. Navy, which is a huge and very powerful

Navy is now deployed off the coast of Venezuela. Russia said that they have not been asked by the Maduro government to help, but there are reports that Russia has provided some help to Venezuela and China has also tried to provide help to Venezuela. What do you think that's about? Right. This comes from an interview that Lavrov gave to Russian journalists, and he was asked directly, has Venezuela? asked for help in the same way that Belarus has asked Russia for help. And Lavrov said, look, we haven't received the same kind of offer, requests for help from Venezuela as the one that we

got from Belarus. And you cannot compare the two because we're a military ally of Belarus. We are not a military ally of Venezuela. And then he's a military ally of Venezuela. And then he's, he said critically, there is also the question of geography. And we've discussed this in many places. The geography makes it impossible for Russia to supply the kind of military support to Venezuela than they would to a country like Belarus, or, by the way, potentially, to Iran, if Iran asked for it. Venezuela is an ocean away from Russia. There are no secure supply routes.

If we're talking about Russian ships crossing the Atlantic, there's the U.S. Navy in the way. If we're talking about Russian aircraft flying to Venezuela, again, there's the U.S. Air Force in the way. And a military supply to Venezuela, such as would make a difference from Russia, would be a gigantic opportunity. It would involve hundreds of flights or large numbers of ships, and it would probably take months before the buildup was so strong that it would make a difference. So what Lavrov is basically saying is, look, there isn't very much we can do here. I think the Russians are doing what they can. They're providing Venezuela with intelligence. They're keeping Venezuela informed of where the Gerald Fordy.

and where the other U.S. warships are, they're helping Venezuela bring its fighter jets, its Suhoi 30 fighter jets, back on stream. Some of them apparently were short the spare parts. The Russians can do that. They might have sent Wagner people to Venezuela, who could act as bodyguards of Maduro and other high Venezuelan officials

and who might protect some of the facilities, but they cannot realistically do more. And that's the point that Lavro. was making. CNN is reporting that Maduro is preparing with military mobilization, exercises. What do you make of that? Well, I think that's probably true. That's exactly.

And that's what he needs to do in this situation. And when he's got the Gerald Ford there, he must know, he must sense that an attack is coming. And he's preparing for it to the extent that he can do. So he's mobilizing his military. He's organizing his militia. He's probably taking precautions to protect himself and other key members of his government, because it's highly likely that a decapitation strike is coming, and he's probably taking steps to ensure the loyalty within Venezuela of all the key people and all the key military officers.

of them probably are receiving offers or pressures from the United States to defect and go over to the side of the US. So Maduro is doing exactly what you would expect from him in a crisis like this. What do you make of the timing of a strike, the window of the strike to happen? You have this G7 meeting of foreign ministers, which is taking place in Canada. Rubio has already hinted at the fact that they spoke about Venezuela. Actually, Rubio brushed off any allegations. He claims that the vassals of Europe pressed him on striking the boats as being an illegal action. I doubt that the vassals in Europe really pressured the United States.

said out that. But he said that the United States is going to do whatever it wants to do. I imagine that the G7 meeting was more about Rubio, at least with Venezuela, where Venezuela's concerned was more about Rubio updating the vassals as to what the United States is about to do. That would be my guess. Not that he's obligated to update them, but I guess there's a part of, of U.S. diplomacy that needs to update the European allies, the NATO allies, for example, the British, which recently cut off some sort of intelligence sharing with the United States with regards to Venezuela. But then you have Thanksgiving. Then you head into Christmas and New Year's. And then you're looking at the focus being on the midterms pretty much.

So, I mean, the way I'm looking at it is either Trump does something soon or, I don't know, would he strike Venezuela during a midterm, during the ramp up towards midterm campaigning? Right. Let me explain about the British because this is a story that I think is slightly misunderstood. The British stopped some intelligence sharing with the United States on the grounds that they say that attacks on speedboats on the high seas is contrary to international law. Now, the reason they did that, as I understand it, is because there have been some concerns about from the Royal Navy, the British Navy about this. and the British don't want, the Royal Navy officers have made clear that they don't want Britain to be involved in anything like that because they think that that is a crime and they want to distance themselves from it. An attack on Venezuela is a completely different matter.

It's not just attacks on speedboats in the high seas. and no government in Britain is going to publicly oppose an American attack on Venezuela. On the contrary, they will support it. And I think this needs to be made clear. So there is an American attack on Venezuela, and I think this is probably what happened at the G7 summit meeting. You will see all of the G7 states, issue of statement, a joint statement. supporting the American operation. That is what Rubio was there to do.

And the British will be absolutely fully engaged and supportive of that. And all of the other G7 governments will be as well. There is not going to be any diplomatic opposition to this from any one of the Western or a US-aligned states. Now, as to the timing, all I am going to say is basically what you have just said, which is that the time window is relatively short. Trump will want to get this out of the way before we start getting into the election period in the run-up to the midterms. because all the indications are that this is deeply unpopular with his base. So he want to get it out of the way now. He want to pocket the win.

And Rubio and Gag says, the win is certain. He want to pocket the win now. He will not want this to spill over beyond the new year into the midterms, into the period of the midterms. So I think quite plausibly we will see an attack. with the next couple of days or weeks, certainly before Christmas, and besides, you do not want to keep a U.S. Navy carrier bobbing around the Caribbean indefinitely. You want to deal, you want to conduct your attack with it as soon as possible.

We'll see if we get the attack. Just a thought before we wrap up the video. An attack on Venezuela to act as a distraction to Trump's catastrophic past couple of months as president. Catastrophic with the visa issue. He's interviewed a Laura Ingram of Fox News, where she asked him about the 600,000 student visas, the 50-year mortgage, the 50-year mortgage, the 50. 15-year mortgage, his reply there was just out of touch. His claims that the United States has received $18 trillion in commitments from foreign governments to come into the U.S. commitments, not actual money into the United States, but he threw that out there, which obviously

made him once again look like he's just not understanding what's going on. on with the economy and the insults to American workers, right? That was in the Laura Ingram interview where he said, we need the foreign workers to make missiles, pretty much is what he said. So they have to come and teach Americans how to make missiles. Why missiles? I don't know, why not cars or something else, but he chose missiles. And then you have the Epstein, the Epstein documents, which are sinking his presidency going all the way back to the summer, and they're not going away and his refusal to release the Epstein files. So basically my point is thinking of Clinton and his illegal attack on Serbia when he was president after the Lewinsky scandal broke out,

and he had other issues as well in his presidency. And then he launched the attack on Serbia, Do you think that maybe Venezuela could be used in order to distract away from all of Trump's problems? Yes, I think that's exactly what Trump thinks. I think this is what has more than anything else driven him to do that. He wants a win. He wants a win and he wants a big win because, as you absolutely rightly say, the last couple of months have been dreadful since about May. things, everything has been going wrong, one thing after another, and the economy is starting to look bad. And his ratings are falling, and the election results recently were poor. So he needs

a win, or so he believes, he needs a win, firstly, to restore his reputation and his popularity, as he thinks, but also he needs a win, a big win, for his own self-confidence. Now, the people around him who are pushing him to do this have all sorts of agendas of their own. Some, like Rubio, are obsessed with Venezuela and Cuba as well, by the way, and they want to settle scores with the leaders of these countries. Others are neocons, and they always want wars, because that's what meocombs are all about. Others still perhaps want to consolidate US control over Latin America. You can come up with all kinds of explanations, all kinds of reasons why various people

of the administration are advocating this. But I think you have put your finger exactly correctly on what Trump's own motivations are psychologically, and as he wrongly thinks, in my opinion, politically, he needs a big win in order to turn what has been a bad situation around. I think far from it turning the situation round for him and making things better for him, it's going to make them worse. I think he's completely misjudged the mood and sentiment of his own base. Of course, It could even be that this operation goes wrong, in which case it will make his position much worse. And for the record, I think the only thing that can stop this, and I'm not sure that it will,

but the only potential obstacle to this happening is not what the Europeans say. The Europeans will be on side. It's not fears of what the Venezuelans might do or fears of the Russians might do or fears of the It would be arguments made to Trump from within his administration by those rational people who are still left and who understand what a disaster this would be, political disaster this would be. I agree. That's the only thing that will call off this operation is from people in his administration

who still are realists about what's going on, who have not lost touch with. with reality. Exactly. Tulsi Gabbard, for example. It could be one person, but it looks like she's been marginalized and sidelined. Exactly. Exactly. And also the people who, you know, do the rating, who, you know, examine the ratings and providing you with the polling figures and things like that.

And it will explain to him, look, if you did this, I mean, your popularity is not going to improve, it's going to sink further. I wonder how accurate the information he's getting on that is. Because during the Ingram, during the Ingram interview, once again, it looked like he was just completely out of touch with what's going on. And he thought he had his pulse on what's going on, but he obviously doesn't. He doesn't have his finger on the pulse of what he's going on. And the other thing is he's now almost completely stays in Washington.

He doesn't do what he once did, which has traveled around the country and get a sense of what people are saying to him. and he isn't interconnected with them as he once did. And it is one of the reasons why he's basically losing touch with the true sentiments of his own base. And about polling, I'm afraid you're absolutely right. As we know in America, there are opinion polls, some of which are accurate.

A few of them are accurate. And then there's the vast majority of them from the polling agencies, which basically you buy for and tell you what you want to hear. Yeah, all right. I think he's scared to go out and speak. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I think he's afraid to go out on the road. Anyway, we'll wrap up the video there. The duran. Dotlocals.com. We're on X, we're on Rumble, and we are on Telegram. Take care.