The Duran Podcast - Venezuela geopolitical play and Trump political damage

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Venezuela geopolitical play and Trump political damage

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is possibly going to happen in Venezuela. We had the Trump post on Truth Social, where he declared that Venezuelan airspace is closed. We also had a Trump phone call with Maduro. The reports are that Trump gave Maduro an ultimatum, leave or else we're going to start our operation. A regime change is what we're talking about. CNN is also running a report which claims that Maduro offered to leave, but after one and a half years. He's going to leave after a year and a half. That's what CNN is saying.

I don't know if I buy it. But anyway, that's the situation. We've talked about the military buildup. Pete Hexseth continues to say some crazy stuff about the military actions. in Venezuela. You also had Trump pardoning the former president of Honduras who was set to prison in the United States for drug, allegedly drug dealings. He was part of a big drug cartel, right? Even with El Chapo, he even had contact with El Chapo, at least that's according to the court rulings. And Trump pardons him. So that looks really, really bad. I mean,

The hypocrisy there is obvious, right? You talk about going after Venezuela for drugs and the drug cartel, and then you pardon a guy who was set to prison for being part of a very big drug cartel, former president of Honduras. Anyway, your thoughts. By the way, Trump says that the prosecution against Hernandez, the former Honduran president, he said that it was a rigged prosecution by Biden or something along those lines. Maybe, maybe not. But anyway, your thoughts on everything going on in Venezuela. Well, let's just talk about the Honduras thing very briefly, because even if it was as rigged as Trump says,

and I don't know that it was, I have no reason to think it was. I mean, the look of this at this particular moment and time is so bad that, I mean, it's in your face almost. I mean, it's Trump himself practically telling everybody. Whatever it is I'm saying about Venezuela and about drugs cartels and all of that, you know, don't really listen to me. It's all a big geopolitical play because ultimately, you know, I'm prepared to pardon somebody who's been convicted of trafficking on a massive scale and support his party, the candidate of his party in the forthcoming elections in Honduras. Now, coming back to Venezuela, it's clear that Trump wants Maduro to go.

He had this apparently very contentious telephone call with Maduro. I've no doubt that he did ask, he didn't tell Maduro to go. My guess is that Maduro said that he would not go. There's all sorts of stories circulating that Maduro said that he would leave after one and a half years or that he would leave if he was given pardon. and protection for himself and his family and for other members of his regime as well. I suspect all of those are stories that are being circulated to weaken the regime, weaken Maduro's government.

We can create the impression that Maduro really knows that he's going to lose. and we've had this announcement of what amounts to a no-fly zone. And we've also had reports that US aircraft are now flying very aggressively over the Caribbean. And it all looks as if all of the signs suggest that an attack on Venezuela is now about to happen. The only thing that gives me pause is that I've expected. this attack on Venezuela to happen any time over the last month, six weeks, seven weeks now. I mean, it's taken a remarkably long time for this to crystallize. We've had deployments of seven U.S. missile destroyers to the Caribbean. We've had amphibious warships stationed in the Caribbean.

We've had F-35 fighter jets stationed in Puerto Rico. We've had the general Ford carrier group arrive in the Caribbean. An enormous build-up of forces, disproportionate to what would be needed if it was just a case of conducting missile strikes against Venezuela, but still not enough if the plan is to occupy the whole country. So it's strange that this is taken,

so long to crystallize in this way. I mean, I don't myself think Venezuela has the capability to resist U.S. missile strikes. So why is this taking quite as long? Is there still dithering and uncertainty within the Trump White House about this? Is Trump getting contradictory advice? Is he himself unable to make up his mind? I am not sure. But the latest indications suggest with the call and with Trump announcing this no-fly zone that he has finally made the decision and that must point to a strike taking place at any point over the next couple of days.

The reason for the military buildup, the way it is because it's regime change, right? I mean, they don't want a full invasion but they don't want it so that they're not able to achieve the regime change in a type of shock in our manner. I mean, that would be my guess, right? Yes. Well, that's right. I think the thing the United States doesn't want to medora or something, something like that. Exactly. Exactly. What the United States clearly doesn't want to do and isn't ready to do and hasn't deployed forces to do is an invasion and occupation of Venezuela.

We've discussed this many times. It is a huge country, two and a half times bigger than Iraq. It's covered with jungle and mountains. Caracas itself, apparently is a difficult city for an invading army to control. The United States doesn't want to be involved in all of that. So they deployed these enormous naval and air forces, and they wanted either to scare Maduro into resigning, and that hasn't happened, or they wanted to give themselves the means to conduct. to destabilize, a decapitation strike, destabilize his regime, precipitate some kind of crisis in Venezuela, in which a new regime gains control, presumably with some backing from some elements of the army and the police agencies, and the United States can again go in and support it. Now, of course,

the big risk for the United States, because this is, you're absolutely right, this is the configuration of the forces. The big risk for the United States is that it conducts its decapitation strike. It carries out these bombing raids on Venezuela, but the Maduro government survives and retains control. And again, if that happens, the longer that this thing plays out, the more damaging it is for the United States and the more the stronger the Maduro government's position will become. The Lula, the Brazilian government, has now announced its strong opposition to all of these moves. Now, Lula doesn't like Maduro.

There's no friendship between the two. In fact, there's deep hostility. Brazil does not have strong armed forces and is not in a position to withstand. the United States and is no interest in doing so anyway. But the fact is that if there is a military strike on Venezuela and Maduro withstands it, the government withstands it and is still there in a week, two weeks, three weeks time, then eventually you're going to start to see opposition across Latin America start to build opposition in the United States problems. will also start to build, and at that point, the pressure will be on Trump to call the thing off.

And of course, if he does call it off, and Maduro is still there, then he will suffer significant political damage. It's not different from what we saw with Iran in June. You remember we said at the time that with every day that the war against Iran continued, The balance shifted in Iran's favor. And eventually it was the United States and Israel, as we now know, that asked for the ceasefire. And it would be the same with Venezuela too. I don't know to what extent this has been thought through in Washington. I don't know how strong the intelligence is.

I don't know what contacts, if any, the Trump administration has with people inside Venezuela, and I don't know what the reaction to an attack against Venezuela within Venezuela would be. But again, to repeat, if Venezuela withstands the blow, if the government of Maduro withstands the blow, the first 48 hours will be crucial. But if it's still there, if the government is still there in two or three weeks time, then, as I said, the balance will start to shift in his favor. What if the reverse happens, the opposite happens? What if Maduro decides to leave?

What if he brokers some sort of deal for amnesty or whatever, for protection? And Trump says, okay, and he leaves. or what if the decapitation or the extraction of Maduro is successful? Then what? I mean, I don't think it's going to be as easy as the neocons as the U.S. thinks it's going to be, that they can just swoop in, you know, put Maria Corira Machado in as president, and everything will be fine, and they can get access to the oil, and everything is going to run smoothly.

Is the next target, also a follow-up question? Is the next target Cuba after Venezuela? Well, yes. Okay, so let's start with that. Let's let's start with Cuba, because I think it is, actually. And the word is that what the United States wants to do is to stop Cuban oil, sorry, Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba, which are what have been keeping Cuba basically afloat. Now, the Russians, and, you know, I've had this, whether, there's no doubt about this, the Russians some time ago, about two years ago, came along to the Cubans and said, look, this situation with Venezuela is unstable. You must stop trying to rely on Venezuela for oil. We are prepared to step in and supply you with oil in Venezuela's place. For us, this is nothing. I mean, it's a tiny, because you're a small country, it's a tiny proportion of our oil exports. We can easily make up the difference, but it will stabilize your economy and your society, and you'll be

economically safe. The Cubans said no, and it's not surprising, because the Cubans have a lock grip in effect on the Maduro government, and from their point of view, the Maduro a government is loyal ally and the Cubans remember that Russia was not. I mean, the Soviet Union was, but then when the Soviet Union collapsed, Yeltsin stopped oil exports from the Soviet Union to Cuba, from Russia to Cuba. So the Cubans very reluctant to accept that Russian offer. I think that was a mistake, by the way, but anyway, that was their decision. And they decided to stick with the Venezuelan relationship because it worked for them. If Venezuela collapses and the oil stops, I suspect the Russians would come back and make the same offer.

Then I presume the Cubans would this time accept it. But then the big question is, what next? because if the Americans are prepared to attack Venezuela, might they be prepared to attack Cuba as well? An attack on Cuba, I suspect, would be internationally much more unpopular than an attack on Venezuela would be, because Cuba has a huge reputation around the world, amongst the left, people on the left,

amongst people in the global south, in Russia, in China. It's not inconceivable that the Russians and the Chinese, but especially the Russians, might take more action to try to secure Cuba than they did with Venezuela. And of course, Cuba is known to take a very, very strong line on trafficking drugs. And it's very unlikely that the story that Cuba was very strong. involved in drugs trafficking that was applied to Venezuela would stick with Cuba. But I do think, I do think that this is part of the bigger play that the Trump administration has,

that certainly that Marco Rubio has. It's just that I, you know, I suspect that Cuba would be a much more difficult nut to crack than Venezuela would be. and the international reaction, including with, when I say the left would not like it. The left in the United States would not like it. It's a fact that many people don't know outside the United States, but significant sections of the left also have a very sympathetic view of Cuba, more so, I think, than they have a Venezuela, in fact. So anyway, that's what I want to say about the Cuban situation, and it's,

complex and we'll see how it plays out. But definitely, I think Cuba is on the list, on the agenda as well. Now, the other two things, the two scenarios that you outlined, which are effectively the same in a way, I mean, Maduro goes, there are differences, but there are differences. I mean, if Maduro goes, you could, in a way, argue that from the Trump administration's point of view, that is the optimal outcome. You then, you know, the regime, the Chavez movement is humiliated. You stage elections. Maria Machado comes back.

She wins the elections. She becomes president of Venezuela. And then, of course, she tries to reverse all of the reforms. The trouble is, I don't think it would be at all easy. Because everything I've seen about Machado suggests to me that she is, completely unable to understand why Chavez and Maduro happened in the first place. And I suspect that with a very, very different Venezuela from the one that existed before Chavez, she would very, very quickly run into very, very significant trouble and the whole thing could quite easily turn bad

and sour very, very soon. But anyway, that's once a very simple. But anyway, that's once a The other scenario, which is that the Maduro government collapses, there's some kind of implosion. Well, I think in that case, we could actually have an uncontrollable situation in Venezuela because it's debatable whether a Machado government in that case would be able to simply slot in and take over because the central institutions of power would have been to. destroyed, you could, there would be major issues about her legitimacy. And apparently there's been war gaming done about this very scenario in the United States itself. And the word that came out of the war games was that if this is the scenario that develops, Venezuela would be all but

impossible to control and that the situation might spiral out of control, in which case we are looking at an absolute debacle, even worse than the first one of the Maduro government surviving. The first situation would be a massive political humiliation and embarrassment for the United States, but a kind of crisis in Venezuela, of Venezuela. are completely breaking down in the way that Iraq broke down after the American invasion in 2003. Well, a crisis like that triggering massive refugee flows, fighting inside Venezuela. Because remember, people there are heavily armed, an explosion of trafficking, of drugs and everything else.

Well, I mean, that would be a catastrophe for the United States. and one, which, by the way, would be landed on Trump, he would be held responsible for it. Yeah. No doubt the outcome that Trump is angling for is to get Maduro to leave. Yes. Right? I mean, and to get Machado in, to just swap one in for the other. Yeah, that's what he's angling for.

Yes, yes. But it's not happening, at least for the moment. No, absolutely. Given the problems, again, the big question is, why is this being done at all? They want the oil. They want the oil and Cuba and Rubio Trump. I mean, there is an obsessive. I think the driving force, I think we can say the driving force is the oil.

I mean, there's many factors, even Trump's ego, even Rubio's ego, right? but the driving factor is the oil. But they could have had the oil anyway because apparently Maduro was telling them, you know, look, you can come in, you can develop the oil, you can develop all with us. I mean, Rick Grinnell apparently was making major progress with Maduro. A rational government focused on America first

would have taken that course, it seems to me. I mean, maybe you wouldn't have had. the absolute control of Venezuelan oil, which is what they want. What they want, yeah. Probably the Venezuelans would still have sent oil to Cuba and all of that. And China. And China and all of that. I mean, Bricks is also an issue in all of this, China.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And all of that. But is Venezuela, is the current setup in Venezuela really such a big problem for the United States that it invites all of these risks that the US is now taking. I would have thought not. But anyway, that's their decisions that they seem to have made, and we'll see how it plays out for them. I think the neocons want full control. I think you said it. They want full control of everything.

The oil, the pricing, everything. They want full control. No China, no Cuba, none of that. We control everything from top to bottom, and they probably, calculated that even with Maduro or some sort of Maduro government, they always run the risk of not having the full control or of something going against their plants. And so they just calculated better to be done with it. Exactly.

You've got it exactly by. I mean, that's the neocons. That is what the neocons always are. The neocons are, I mean, they take no prisoners. I mean, they have no reverse, no reverse gear, and they take no prisoners. And by the way, Maduro thinks that any deal he does with them for pardons and protection and not worth the paper they're written on. If he's going to escape, I mean, he has to, not Cuba, he has to go all the way to Russia

or China or someplace like that. Well, Lindsay Graham is saying Turkey or Iran. That's what he posted on his, on his ex-account, Lindsay Graham. So, I mean, that tells you everything. Well, I know, but two countries that are also on his list. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Lindsay Graham, right, the neocons. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. All right. We'll end the video there. The durand.orgals.com. We're on X. We're on Rumble. We are on Telegram, and we are also on substack.

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