The Team House - How Delta Force, Ground Branch, & Task Force Orange Captured Maduro | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

In this episode, Dee, Jack, and Mick discuss the recent operation to capture Venezuelan leader Maduro, exploring the intelligence and military strategies involved, the legal implications of the operation, and the potential consequences for U.S. foreign policy. They delve into the complexities of international law, the motivations behind U.S. actions in Venezuela, and the broader geopolitical landscape, including the situation in Iran. The conversation highlights the challenges of post-operation governance and the need for a coherent strategy moving forward.Read The High Side here:https://thehighside.substack.com/p/bold-delta-force-raid-leads-to-captureGhostBed⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 25% off! Get The High Side here:https://thehighside.substack.com/Grab Jack's book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History"https://a.co/d/eRxKBleSupport the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSubscribe to our new newsletter!!!!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/joinNew merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comCheck out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQYoutube:https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️https://fogbow.com/Lobo Institute ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/Twitter ⬇️https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCALinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/Bluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialMick’s publications ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substack ⬇️https://amilburn.substack.com/Andy’s book ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?uBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 Operation Maduro: A Bold Move02:45 The Intelligence Behind the Operation06:11 Legal Implications and Historical Context08:51 Execution of the Operation12:01 Post-Operation Analysis and Future Phases14:49 Political Ramifications and Strategy Moving Forward18:11 The Bigger Picture: U.S. Interests in Venezuela26:01 The Legitimacy of Leadership and International Law29:05 Sovereignty and Military Intervention30:41 Checks and Balances in Government33:49 Consequences of Indifference36:15 The Implications of Military Actions39:01 Future of Venezuela's Leadership41:15 Iran's Internal Struggles and Nuclear ThreatsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

The assault force comes down into Maduro's compound. Apparently this was like the presidential compound. The Delta operators quickly entering and clearing the target structure, Maduro actually ran for the panic room, trying to seal himself inside this panic room. He was trying to get the door closed when the Delta operators rolled up on him and detained him. Everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Jack Murphy, Mick Mulroy, Irish brothers today. Of course.

If you didn't say it, we would. Yeah. A lot popped off over the last 24, 36 hours. Nicholas Maduro was captured by a J. Soccerade. Primarily, it looks like, led by Delta Force with some CIA help. Obviously, there's been reported that ground branch was on the ground since August in a safe house in Caracas, shuckin and jiving, doing some covert operations doing what they do. It also was reported that there was somebody close in the inner circle of Maduro that was, you know, handing over a ton of intelligence to the United States. You know, 50 million sounds nice.

I would probably do the same thing if I lived in Venezuela. And it all went down. It looked like it went down pretty smoothly. One helicopter took some damage and there were a couple of injuries. But those folks were brought to, I think, San Antonio, right? because there's a level one trauma center there, a DoD one, to get, you know, get better. Honestly, it was, you know, we've been,

I've been doing the team house for a long time with Jack and Dave, and we've been, you know, interviewing guys like this. This is probably the best thing that the America can actually do, and I think it's all downhill after this, if I'm being completely honest. Maduro was transferred to the USS Ewojima, then to Guantanamo. Now he's like three miles away from me

in Brooklyn hanging out and he's going to be brought up on charges. So it was an insane operation. I can't wait for the next few years when we start, when guys start retiring and coming on the team house and telling us about it. But for right now, let's talk about what went down yesterday. I mean, you guys take your pick horse to go first. I'd just like to go a little bit into some of the background. And if my voice gives out, I apologize.

I'm getting kind of sick. So it's good we're doing this remotely. So one of the things that kind of like plays into how this unfolded was over the last four years, there have been a lot of dissatisfaction in the Venezuelan military because of Maduro, you know, basically promoting his loyalists, you know, people who are incompetent. And so that's creating, that created a break within the Venezuelan military. And then the other thing was there are a couple high-level defections. I think one of them was Venezuela's Intel chief and another was one of the guys that ran state-run oil.

companies over there. And those defections, as I understand it, were T to enabling the CIA to know who to work with on the ground, to put them in touch with resistance networks on the ground. And there was a local source network and resistance network on the ground that played a key part of this operation. So then around September, October, as I understand it, the planning process for this operation really kicked up. And they went into what's known as operational preparation of the battlefield or environment, depending on that acronym you want to use. You know, we mentioned, you know, special activities was on the ground. Absolutely.

The CIA was all over this one. The unit known as ISI or ISA or MSO or, again, whichever acronym we're using this day, but Army intelligence also, yeah, greatly involved in the OPE portion of this. and that involves a couple of different things. You notice that the lights got turned out in Caracas, similar to how they got turned out in Abbottabad, right before the operation took place. As I understand it, we had complete control of the Venezuelan comm system when we went in there. And then there's a few, and then there's a few more things that as we run up to the actual operation, but Mick, I'll let you take it from there. Sure.

Yeah, so let's start with absolutely. well done on the part of J-Soc and obviously my old outfit supporting them. You know, we'll get into the legalities a bit, but I think everybody can be proud of how this was executed. And I agree with you, D, it's one of the things that the U.S. does the best, right? Project power anywhere in the world based on exquisite intelligence, which really needs to happen, or it's a risk not worth taken if you don't have that intelligence, right? So I don't, I mean, you already repeated what was reported on what the agency did. I don't know that to be true, but I imagine it is.

And I imagine somebody out there is talking about it lately. I think it's exceptional if they did insert a team on the ground that was there for that many months. Took a lot of guts to do that and a lot of very skilled tradecraft. And it apparently did lead to knowing exactly where and when Mandur. would be, which is really a necessity when it comes to deploying a force like Delta. It's incredibly dangerous to go into a built-up urban environment with that amount of force. It's very risky, and they did it, and they did it really well. Yes, there was some, you can expect that, you know, it's going to be some injuries, unfortunately.

Let's all think about the guys as they get. better and then, of course, the damage to the helicopter. Pat's off, 100%. The question is going to be, and I think Jack needs to get into some more of the details because everybody's written about this before we get into legality and everything that came out for the press conference. Specifically to Maduro, I think it's important to point out that he wasn't a legitimate president. He had lost the election and stayed in power, and he has been indicted for five years. He is the head of drug cartel. So I get the questions on the legality comparing it to Noriega. There's some differences there, especially when it came to the aftermath and in New York, Noriega's

point, as soon as we got him, the actual elected government leader was sworn in, like the day after, if you go back and look at history. So we played it a little different there. But as far as the actual apprehension. Extraordinary well done. Hats off to the military. Hats off to my old organization to support it. And I think that it's a good thing that he's off the streets. One of the things that I heard was that we had recruited a source very close to Maduro

who was able to provide basically real-time updates on his movements the last couple weeks. So when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stood up yesterday and he said, like, we were tracking where he was going, where he was sleeping, even he. who, you know, what his pets were. Like, that's probably pretty, that's probably pretty accurate in this case. And the, you know, speaking to the legality a little bit before we get into the bigger picture, the OPE piece of this operation, as I understand it, was conducted under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, the AUMF, which is very interesting.

The AUMF is being used to justify basically any sort of military action anywhere in the world. I'm not saying that's the correct legal interpretation, but that's how it's been interpreted and how it's been used. And it's also being used to justify the strikes against the alleged drug boats off the coast. So it's, you know, a post-9-11 legal authority that continues to haunt us for better or worse. So as far as the operation itself, there were a couple guys from the FBI hostage rescue team on board the helipers. There were about 11 helicopters, three little birds, two Chinooks, six Blackhawks, about that, crossed into Venezuelan airspace around 1 a.m. local time. Where did they launch from? Do you know, Jack? I believe it's off the coast.

So from a ship? Because we have, let's just say in Logo Institute, we have a lot of former Steel Team 6 and Delta guys. So if they launch from a ship, this is going to be really funny. Yes. you know. There's going to be a lot back and forth on that one. For this operation, I'm told that there was a Delta squadron, a dev group squadron, and a Ranger battalion all deployed for it.

The assault force itself consisted of Delta and Rangers. I'm trying to make sure I'm 100% on this, but I believe it was C Squadron from Delta and 375 3rd Ranger Battalion that was on the assault force. They used terrain masking, basically to hide their rink. radar signature as they infiltrated into Venezuela, popped up over that last terrain feature, and assessed that they had still maintained the element of surprise. At that point, during the final leg of the ingress, there's a huge strike package, it sounds like, about 150 aircraft in the air, began suppressing the air defense systems,

you know, airstrikes. And those local source networks on the ground that I mentioned earlier were, as I understand it, huge in enabling this operation that they emplaced a lot of technical devices like jammers um beacons you know bombing beacons is a thing not too many people talk about but that's been around 60s um so those local source networks were a big part of helping this operation move forward and again as i mentioned the lights popped off as they were heading in um and president trump said during the press conference he said we did that using a expertise we have make of that what you will.

The assault force comes down into Maduro's compound. Apparently this was like the presidential compound. They came in, Rangers helping with the isolation piece on the target, the Delta operators quickly entering and clearing the target structure. And as we were told in the press conference, Maduro actually ran for the panic room. I was trying to seal himself inside this panic room. He was trying to get the door closed. when the Delta operators rolled up on him and detained him.

And at that point, him and his wife surrendered themselves. And they were placed under arrest by the FBI agents who were on this operation. Before we get into the exfiltration, anything you want to add there, Mick? Well, I wouldn't like to add, you know, hats off to the 160th, right? Sometimes they don't get the credit. There's really happened without the absolute skill of expertise that you already mentioned. They probably had the hard part of the mission, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, you know, I think the chairman said yesterday they flew about 100 feet above the water. I mean, I'm not an helicopter pilot, but I know how hard that is. 100 feet above the water at night going into an area where you're probably guessing you're going to get shot at a lot because, you know, we try to mitigate the air threats. But, you know, so super hats off to them. And hats off to the cyber guy. Somebody did that, whatever that was to get the. you know, we don't tend to give them enough credit. That is a real big advantage when we are very capable of fighting at night.

That's one thing the United States does better than anybody else. And it's only effective if you could make it night. Right. So you got to make it night. And that's what they did. So I just wanted to add those two, you know, addaboys to those two groups. So as the aircraft came in for the extraction, there were more suppressive, fires, more airstrikes around the target area.

They got onto the aircraft and, you know, they apparently were told that they, you know, the helicopters fired back in self-defense. One of the helicopters. So there was groundfire against our ground force? There was ground fire. One helicopter was hit, but remained flyable. And they took back off.

And I believe the time they gave was about 3.30 a.m. that they crossed back into international airspace. and back to whatever the platform that they launched from. Now, I'm told that the dev group guys that were there for that operation, not on the assault package, but they had secondary targets that they were hitting. And quite frankly, I don't know what those targets were right now. But they played in the action. So, yeah, a lot of different folks got to play during this operation in different ways.

And then, let's see, what's the next? Is it true that they? They did a whole compound? Like they did a mock compound and. Yeah, yeah. I was told Camp McCall, they built like a scale, like a two-scale perfect replica. It may not have been McCall. There's another training area that Jay Sock uses in that area.

That's not technically McCall. It's a different place. But it doesn't matter. Yeah, they did do like full mission rehearsals for all of this. And Maduro himself, I'm told that they've been recorded. hoarding him basically constantly since he was first detained in order to refute any allegations of torture that come down the line that they are not they're not they are not torturing him and I'm told that actually some of the things that have been done that they are treating him as a

representative of the state of Venezuela even though we understand him to be an illegitimate leader so they're not like perp walking him in the orange jumpsuit with a blindfold on they're not going quite that route with it. But he is being watched to make sure that, you know, there aren't these, these allegations down the line. And as you pointed out, the, he landed here in New York City, I think, last night. Yeah, like, A-ish. Yeah.

And I'm told right now the Department of Justice is hoping that they can flip his wife. So we didn't mention that, but the wife, Cecilia, was detained also during this operation. So that's why they also charged her, so they have something. Yeah, they're trying to flip her. Um, but I'm not a legal expert, but I believe there is some legal stuff about flipping a spouse. It's kind of something that's like in the, in the court of law, it's considered like something that you can't really do because a spouse is never going to be. There's like a spousal. It's almost like, you know, I have like a priest and a lawyer type. I don't know if that's inadmissible in reality.

I think they can, either one can waive it. I don't think it's not near as strong obviously as a lawyer client privilege. But there is a spousal privilege. Yeah, yeah. There is some legal hiccups there. But and also the indictment itself, I read through it yesterday. And the indictment is like almost laughable. It's like kind of a joke. And I've been told it's basically just a boilerplate drug conspiracy indictment.

And they're probably going to have to update it somewhere down the line because like the stuff they're charged, the stuff that's in there, it's like, yeah, good luck even proving that in a court of law. Well, the one where he was talking about using machine guns against the, those were kind of laughable sounding charges. Yeah, I mean, there was, I remember there was an indictment that came down in Gaddafi at one point. I read through that, and that was equally laughable. It's like it felt like a, you know, a high school kid wrote that in his mom's basement over a weekend or something. But they're going to have to produce evidence to get, I mean, this is just an indictment. That's just to get an indictment. That's a low standard.

To get conviction is, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt. they're going to have to declassify some intelligence and prove that he was running this drug cartel. I'm not saying they can't, but they're going to have to be ready to really disclose some information because they can't lose this. If they lose this, what are they going to do? Flying back. Just send them back. Yeah.

Like, that's insane. So the other thing that I wanted to mention was that I was told that this was phase one of the operation and that there are other phases, other stages that may or may not be executed. the triggers of which are kind of ambiguous from what I'm hearing. But, you know, Trump seemed to confirm this himself during the press conference where he said, I have a second wave, a much bigger wave actually. Second wave can be launched. So there are other stages of this that can be launched if things deteriorate inside Venezuela.

Interestingly, we did leave all the other T leaders in place in Venezuela. That was very intentional. We pulled Maduro out, but we did not decimated. the leadership element in the country, because we're hoping that they're going to figure things out. Now, this is kind of, in my opinion, kind of a dicey strategy. Like, good luck, bro.

Yeah. But hope it all works out. But that is why we did that. And if things deteriorate over the next 24 to 48 hours, you could see some of those other stages of the operation launched. If you're in the market for a new mattress, you've probably seen all the brands out there vying for your attention. Big names, splashy ads, all promising the same thing.

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or pillows or bedding, check out Ghostbed. You can go to ghostbed.com slash house and get 25% off right now. Love you and love Ghostbed. Thanks, guys. That's risky because like deteriorating situation is not generally the time you want to send into U.S. forces. Like what are they going to do, quella nation of 25 million people? I mean, think about, just do the math on that.

And under coin theory, that's like 600,000 troops necessary to actually. And we're not doing that. I hope not, Mick. No. I mean, I have to say, I mean, there was differences legally. Noriega, there was a treaty to defend the canal. There was U.S. forces that were in Panama at the time that Noriega was apprehended. So there was, in some ways, more of a legal justification and self-defense, both to the canal,

which we had a treaty obligation to do and defend our forces, right? But it was similar in the fact that we arrested and brought him to the United States, tried and convicted him. I think they had a stronger case, obviously, to make the apprehension of Maduro legally. But then when we got to the press conference, then the issue of, we're going to run Venezuela. I see no legal justification for that internationally. We're going to take the oil. That's clearly not allowed internationally. Now, the question is, well, there's like Exxon and Chevron.

They had their infrastructure basically taken by the government of Venezuela. And I think they have an actual judgment of a billion dollars, so a legal judgment. Obviously, I think they should be made whole. But that doesn't mean the United States is to take the resources of another country, just because they had a bad dictator, right? But that belongs to the people of Venezuela. And then the other part is this idea that Machado, has no support.

You know, Man Machado, the Nobel Paiat Prize recipient, I am not a Venezuela expert. I know Venezuelan experts. They say that's totally not true. And the ones I know are on the right side of the political spectrum, firmly on the right. And they have told me,

in no uncertain terms, she did win the election. It was a stand-in that won 70% of the vote. She wasn't allowed to run or she would have won probably more. And she has a lot of support in Venezuela. And if she were to come back, she could then legitimize the government. The United States could then work with them as another democracy that's more pro-US, less pro-Iran and Russia.

And then we could develop their oil infrastructure and everybody's a winner. But it sounds like what we're doing is keeping somebody in place that we think we can control. And then we're going to somehow govern through her. So they're hoping that VP that just begins. came president Delci Rodriguez. She's just as corrupt as Maduro. I mean, she has to be. Yeah.

Right? She was his spice. She goes all the way back to Hugo Chavez as part of this cabal. They're all the same. So it's part of the regime. She's just as corrupt and illegitimate as Maduro was. So if we're using that argument as a reason to remove Maduro, same thing with her. And the Secretary of Defense, Lopez, the Minister of Interior apparently is even worse.

So my question was like, Okay, good job on that, but what are we going to do going forward? Are we actually thinking? And she said she's not going to listen to the United States. So as soon as we said we're going to control the government through her, she said, no, you're not. Can you blame her? Of course. If she would have said yes, she might have been ripped the shreds by the rest of the regime.

There's three things that I would question. One, why announce it? You've just put her in a horrible place, even if that was the plan. not a good step. Yeah, that's not how it works when you got a puppet. Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand that.

You're not supposed to show the strings, dude. They're supposed to be invisible. And then two, when Y announced it, you're actually running the show. Yeah. So you said she's going to, yeah, it just didn't make sense to me why you would do that. And then we don't need the oil. I'm not an energy expert either. Well, I mean, we don't personally need the oil.

Like, we have a lot of oil reserves in the United States. we don't tap now. Yeah, but our issue with oil here is the heavy crude stuff that we import mostly from Canada from. And that's what Venezuela has. And we have a lot of refineries in and along like the Gulf. But we would still have access to it if it was a friendly government. Sure, absolutely.

We don't have to have a puppet government. Right. That's what I mean, but we don't need to take the oil. I agree with that. I'm 100%. Right, right, right. Yeah. Right.

I mean, what standard are we setting around the world if that because, Pretty bad one, honestly, because why can't China be like, we're just taking Taiwan? Yeah. It's the same thing. It's like neol colonialism. As well as Russia, like, we're just taking Ukraine. You are trying to. So, yeah, I get that we should have access to it and then we could help develop it for the benefit of Venezuelans as well as Americans.

There's a way to do this the right way. It seems like announcing that she's a puppet, saying that we're going to control it and saying we're going to take the oil are not the ways. Well, there were some reports to a couple months back when the buildup started that Madura was negotiating with the U.S. about like, hey, we'll cancel our contracts with China and Russia in terms of developing our own. We'll work with you guys. And that was a no-go. Is that a no-go?

That seems like a go-go. I don't know. I guess they wanted to win. On the strategy, I'd question the strategy here. Yeah. And what you disclose and what you don't. I think there's a way the U.S. can significantly benefit from the removal of Maduro, economically and politically.

Probably just going to need to do something different. Yeah. The U.S. will run Venezuela for now until transition with no specifics is kind of, I'm getting like, it's just like deja vu all over again. You know, I mean, I guess we're being honest, though, at least in terms of our administration interests of what they really want. And it sounds like they really want the oil and not just, hey, we'll be partners with you guys.

It's just like we want the oil. And I don't know how that happens without like a quarter million plus U.S. troops on the ground of Venezuela. So we can take the oil for our economic benefit for our companies. It's not going to be for our country or they're going to be for literally U.S. I'm assuming they're not going to nationalize the oil industry in the U.S. but like, yeah, it's for the oil companies. I don't think they just do that.

I mean, to think about it long term, you'd have to do a counterinsurgency plan forever because you're taking their natural resources. They're not going to like it. There's 25 million of them. It's twice the size of California. I'm with you. It's a bad shit.

Yeah. And we could just work with them. They get a benefit. The people, I mean, it's $17 trillion worth of oil. reserve, right? That's a big a win-win scenario for everybody involved, right? And it could be one of the wealthiest countries in the world. That's bigger than Saudi Arabia. Like, there's enough for U.S. oil companies, which they need the expertise. They always need the expertise, right? But it could also benefit the people of Venezuela. If you do it the other way, they're going to want to be the biggest

insurgency that you'll have to quell for as long as you're there. So, I mean, maybe we're going further than what they intend to do, to be fair. And I do think it was a very well-done operation, and I'm with him on Maduro paying the piper. But my question is going forward, you know, the end game. It's always the end game. Yeah. What are we going to do?

Yeah, I think it was a 10 out of 10 operation. I mean, like, there's nobody better than J-Soc and the CIA doing this. But like I said, when we started, it seems the U.S. is really good at that, but everything else kind of starts to go downhill after that after the military operation you know what i mean like we're really good at like fucking things up like in terms of doing what the military is supposed to do best in the world obviously because you see what russia try to do in terms of a decapitation strike in ukraine it's fast forward almost four years now they're still there um we did it in one night in two in not even two hours right um so we're really good at that it's just what comes after is we're

really at least our track record shows that we're not good at it yeah we need our policy folks to be as good as our uh special operations military intelligence folks it's almost always the failure to plan after the i want to touch on a little bit about the international law stuff because there will be there is a big uh debate going on in terms of that uh where are you guys at in terms you know with that i mean just going in and whether he's illegitimate or not, he's a dictator and he's not there. He's the president of the country, and we captured him. I think we should stop calling people who are a legitimate presence. The term that your DEA guys use sometimes is habeas grattis.

The FBI, even before 9-11, was involved in renditions. And that's essentially what this was. It was a rendition. It wasn't a traditional J-Soc capture kill mission like it was for Baghdaddy or Soleimani was a kill. Baghdaddy was probably capture kill. But it's very interesting and very odd, and I don't really know the answer as far as like what title authorities this was conducted under. It sounds to me like this was considered a Department of Justice operation enabled by the military. In this sense, the Rangers and Delta guys are like the escorts for the FBI agents to get them in there and serve an arrest warrant. And we can serve arrest warrants internationally, although going into sovereign countries and by military forces a different matter. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be interesting.

But another question, though, is like, because the AUMF is used, to justify anything. In the age that we're in right now, I think there's a legitimate question to ask, like, does it matter? Does it really matter what the law is? Because who's going to hold anyone accountable for any of this? I'm sorry to sound cynical. But, you know, we do this stuff over and over again,

and there's no accountability in government at all. And it seems like we can bend and sometimes break the law to do things And, you know, we don't let it get in our way all that much. So, yeah, I mean, that's like Congress has been a critical take on it. Yeah, to go down the legal. I'm sorry, do you go ahead. No, no, go ahead. On the legal side, so I mentioned Noriega, which seems like we had more evidence that it was lawful back then because of our true presence.

But it's poor to point out, we were roundly condemned by the UN. They passed a referendum saying that what we did was illegal back in 1990s. probably going to happen again. So under the charter of the UN, you either, you can't violate a nation's sovereignty unless you get a Security Council resolution, which wasn't going to happen because, you know, Russia's going to veto the hell out of that. Or you're under an imminent threat. That's where the administration, the White House is saying we were, I guess, from drugs.

But important to point out that drugs from Venezuela, mostly cocaine, I think a majority, of it actually goes to Europe. Right? So they were trying to like make fentanyl like a weapon of mass discretion and stuff. That's all Mexico. That comes out of Mexico. And China. Yeah.

The parts come from China. Precursions. Yeah. I mean, the drugs is such a pretext. And they're not even really BSing us too much about it being a pretext. I mean, they're saying it's about the oil. Now they're saying it's about the oil. Yeah.

So that's not an imminent threat. So you're defeating your own argument. Right. Right. But to Jack's point, like, well, who you're arguing with because they're just, they don't care. They generally don't care what the rest of the world's going to, if they are going to condemn them. So, but you're defeating your argument when you say it's about the oil because that's not an intimate threat. So we'll have to

see. But the other point Jack made, if there's no balance of powers, there's no checks in balance, there's no congressional oversight, there's no congressional response, they just, they get on talk shows, podcasts, and then they're going to do what they want, right? That's the only place to really hold them accountable if you think this is unlawful. I didn't think it was, but I'm not international legal, I do clearly think taking a country's natural resources because what? I mean, what's the justification?

Now you've even taken the justification that Maduro was a terrorist leader off the table because he's he's sitting in a jail cell next to the right now right so there's that there's no justification for taking a nation's natural resources it's clear under the law it's a potentially a war climb under all the geneva conventions that we only not only supported but we drafted like most of those things in the u.n's early creation after war war two was done by the united States to put us at the pinnacle of the world order. And now we're violating the very things that we didn't want to see happen and that kept us as the leader of a free world or created us as a later of free world. So big, big time, I think strategic and policy implications going

forward if we if we do something like physically take the oil, or maybe they're just being clumsy with the way they're saving, but I hope that's the case. I mean, forget even, international law, because like that seems to be very flexible. Just like you said, we told Congress after it happened. Like even the gang of eight, we didn't tell before. And I understand the reason you want to keep a secret and you want it to be a success. Totally understand that. But it looked like the New York Times and Washington Post already had this information and they elected not.

That goes to the whole point of kicking them out of the Pentagon. They still got the information and they did the right thing. they didn't they didn't spill the beans which would have been horrible yeah I'm with that I mean like if you're gonna put guys in harm's way like that's it's not there they're doing honestly I mean this is also a flexible term that they're doing their job and what they're order to do but uh I mean

the way that this administration kind of skirts the law is pretty pretty unbelievable and frankly the way the opposition reacts to it is also unbelievable because they are completely and utterly toothless cowards. Going to be honest, from my own senator, Schumer, Hakeemem Jeffries, they are gutless. They have no balls whatsoever. We obviously know the Republicans are going to go whichever way the administration goes, but you're the opposition party.

And just to go along with... We're looking should have their own agency too, right? They shouldn't just be... In theory, yeah, you would think. You'd think, Mick. I just don't question why we even have that branch of government. All I do is pass the NDAA, right? That's literally it.

Well, we can just have that, just rubber, you know, pachink. Yeah. Even if you agree with it, I think you would still want... Even if you agree with everything the administration is doing, and I have a friend of both sides of aisle, mostly on the right. Even if you agree with it, you'd still want a Senate that actually can put a check. What if the next government like this is on the other side of the aisle and there's nobody to, you know, that's the Constitution. That was set up for a reason.

Yeah. I completely agree with you, man. I mean, the Senate and the House, their jobs are serious jobs and they should take them seriously. And the fact that they aren't is an absolute joke. Just saying this as an American citizen. Jack, your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, again, I mean, this is such like. the unprecedented sort of times that we're in.

And I mean, I often think, and people rightly, you know, call things out and say, you know, that's illegal. We say, you know, that's hypocritical. That's inconsistent. But those things can be true. And we can also be in this moment where none of that matters. Like I find that arguing about these inconsistencies, it doesn't move anyone's opinion. It doesn't change anyone's stance. That's unfortunate.

You know, I wish we could have more open conversations about these things. But for Jack Murphy to sit here and be like, you know, that's a hypocritical policy. You shouldn't be doing that when you're doing this. No one cares. I mean, that's the moment we're in right now. No one cares about that. We're not interested in policy, regulation, waffle governance. Like, we're just not really tethered to these things anymore as near as I can tell.

And the courts seem to be, you know, hanging by a thread, maintaining some semblance of normalcy and in providing checks on power. But, yeah, we're in some interesting waters here as a country. Do you think that would change if you had the draft come back? Oh, immediately. A lot of things would change real quick. If rich people's kids started getting drafted into the military, a lot of things would change in this country.

Very clear. Dang, there's no consequences right now. That's why they're kind of indifferent to it. It's like, it doesn't know, exactly. And that's why we went and did Maduro because there's so little consequence. Like what are the, what are the Russians going to do about Venezuela? What are the Chinese going to do? Nothing.

They're not going to do anything. And that's why we go after Venezuela. We pick these fake fights, you know, like we did with Denmark and Greenland and this kind of stuff. Because this administration does understand they can't resolve our problems with Russia. They can't resolve our problems with China. They can't resolve our problems with Iran or. North Korea. Like these are quagmires that they're unable to solve, but they see something like Maduro and like, that's a feather in your hat. You can go and do that and there's basically

no repercussion. And as we've seen, the American public doesn't consider air strikes and special ops raids to be war. That doesn't phase them at all. Right. So you think we're going to see indictments of the leaders of Ukraine and Taiwan next? I mean, are they just going to duplicate us and say, okay, well, this is a breakaway province. It's a rebel leader. He's under indictment in Beijing. Same thing with, come up with some reason for Zelensky. He targeted my house, which he didn't, but even if he did, you know, he's a valid. That's what could happen. They just duplicate our MO. My understanding also is that Marco Rubio is one of the driving forces behind all of this, and that he has Havana squarely in his sights next.

But you said so. Yeah, yeah. A lot of this is about like closing that whole bay of pigs loop that's been going on for the last, you know, 50, 60 years. And they're thinking that this Venezuela op can be a template that can be used elsewhere. So we could see indictments of leaders. This Venezuela op isn't done yet, right? Like, I mean, what happens next in the next days, weeks, and months now? Really good question.

What if nothing changes, right? We get a drug on trial and the regime's still in place. Yeah. They're still dealing with Iran. They're still dealing with Russia. They're still trying to wrong drugs. Yeah, so that's why I don't get about the Cuba thing. Like, I get it, Cuba's like a historical black eye for the United States, I guess.

But it's a fucking little baby island that, like, it means nothing. And I guess that's to your point, Jack, where you were mentioning, like, this is like relatively low-hanging fruit. Right? Instead of like, you know, brinksmanship with China in the South China Sea over Taiwan, where it's like, holy shit, we could lose tens of thousands of sailors and personnel. And we're doing nothing about the current exercise that's witnessing the blockade of Taiwan. Right. That was like kind of unprecedented too, right? Like this wasn't like our new thing. This wasn't like a plane thing that they kind of like they kind of like telegraph a little bit. Like this seemed like it was out of nowhere. Yeah, it was because we approved like $11 billion worth of. sale of arms to Taiwan, which we have a law that kind of requires us to do that. I need some speculation.

Now, speculation time. What happens over the next weeks and months? Does Delci Rodriguez play ball with the administration? Does she, what are we looking at? I just had somebody text me and thinks she fled the country. I don't know if that's true. There was some rumor about that yesterday that she went to Russia, but she came down and did a press conference. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think she'll leave. I think, you know, on the ground in Caracas so far, we haven't seen like some sort of uprising or crime spree. You haven't seen widespread chaos, which leads you to think that Maduro maybe wasn't quite as important as any people, or as many of us may have thought he was, right? He didn't have a sort of importance to the people on the ground that live there. And as long as the vital services are kept running, you know, electricity, sewer

pipes, water, so on, that it's kind of business as usual for them, you know, and it's one dictator replaced another from their point of view, more than likely. So, you know, and it seems like things are relatively stable right now, but we're still going to need some sort of a long-term solution to Venezuela. Yeah, I'm also not convinced that, you know, you can just swear in this VP and suddenly the American oil companies are going to be able to operate freely in Venezuela. I'm not sure it's that simple. Yeah, I think the United States should use what they're doing, like the oil tanker seizure, to pressure the government to have a free and fair election.

Machado can come back. She wins, she wins, she doesn't, she doesn't, or whoever wins. Right. And then that government, we work with to help build up as a partner. And I'm sure they would give us access to them. I mean, they already had in the past. And then again, the U.S. would get the benefit of, you know, this huge reservoir of oil in our own hemisphere. And the people of Venezuela would get a lion's share of it.

I mean, that's, you know, maybe it's an idealistic way to look at it. But I think it's also an easier path board than trying to run the country from Washington, D.C., which is just not a possibility. And like Jack said, they're not uprising. So it's not even, it's not going to happen organically. Where they are uprising is Iran. I don't know if we're going to talk about that today. There's protests in like 70 different. Yeah, we can totally touch on that.

I mean, we see what's going on. I mean, what are you hearing about that? I mean, I know like their economies in the shitter, there are drought. There's a drought there. It's a fucking absolute nightmare. It is a nightmare. They've run it, like most regimes, they've run into the ground.

They basically just worry about the preservation of the regime. They're under a huge sanction, so that cost, that's also part of the problem. But every time these uprisings has happened, the only thing this regime's good at is quelling an uprising. So I don't know why the president is talking about direct military action as far as a protest. But one thing that President Obama said back in 2009, the Green Revolution, is he should have said, like we should promote. you know, because it would be overthrowing a regime very hostile to us and potentially getting a democracy in, in Tehran. And it's in a very advanced modern culture, like very smart. It would be, I think, great to have as a partner going for.

So whatever the United States can do, and I'm not talking like, airstrikes or anything like, although a lot of our friends are tracking a large flow of aircraft going into Europe right now, looking very similar to the, yeah, I'm 160 if I don't understand, but like all of the large refuelers and transport aircraft. So I don't know if there was something of an agreement between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu on another strike on Iran. I don't think that's related to the protests, probably more related to their reported desire to get a nuclear weapon. There's been some, I think, credible reporting that the, Supreme Leader has decided to do that, something he hasn't done in the past. If that's the case, they're going to, it's going to happen again, right?

Midnight Hammer is going to start hammering again because we can't let him get a nuclear weapon. It's only a couple weeks, I think, and I got to change over for my next media thing, but I can hear you. We got to really focus on the intel on that because they need to both get 90% enrichment, They have enough of the actual material. Then they have to make the triggering device, the weapon itself, and then they got to make it small enough to fit on the missiles. But they can do that. By all, everybody I've talked to that's expert on this, they can do it.

It takes a little while. Or they could buy some of it, which would speed this up substantially. Like they could buy some of it from North Korea. So two things. Protests, hopefully they're successful because then it also gets rid of the nuclear threat. But if they don't, this is just going to enhance the regime's need to have a nuclear weapon. It's the survivability of the regime, right?

So we have two things coming into play, and Iran could be what we talk about in the next two weeks. Yeah. Jack, what are you thinking about? I mean, I have thoughts on that. I'm not tracking it super closely, but I know they're having problems with inflation. The Iranians got hit by COVID. pretty hard that hit their economy too. And then, of course, the ongoing, you know, state repression and student rights and all this other stuff.

I mean, we've seen kind of these uprisings in Iran before, and every time you hope that the Iranian people are able to choose democracy. You know, you hope that it goes forward. And I think Iran would, I mix right, I mean, Iran would make a great partner for the United States. Right. for the fact that they have this extremist religious government that is very antagonistic towards the United States and the United States national interests. Very sure.

I don't want to be snarky, guys. I don't want to be snarky today. It's Sunday. Jay Sock just did an amazing operation. I don't want to be snarked out. I mean, I'll be a little snarked out. I mean, so I thought we obliterated their entire nuclear program. that's what I thought happened

as a layman right as what I'm seeing on the news and the headlines as obviously I know that they didn't we didn't but I'm talking as like the normal Joe here um when is enough enough I don't understand like are we actually going to obliterate their ability to create a nuclear weapon

also they didn't enrich as much uranium under the JCPOA 1.0 we know that for sure true and I get it Iran's a shitty regime, like the regime is shitty. They're religious fundamentalists, and there's no room for that, whether it's Muslim, Jewish, or Christian in terms of fundamentalism for me. So they're no bueno, obviously.

But at the same time, it's like, as the layman, it feels like we're doing Israel's bidding. I'll just say that. Sorry. Well, yeah, the question, I mean, does this benefit American interests or Israeli interests? And they may be aligned in some cases. but not all the time. And every anti-Iranian action is not necessarily a pro-American action. And that's just something to think about.

It is. So I have to jump. Mick's got to go to his real job. Thank you. As always. Thanks, you can jump whenever you want. I'll wrap this stuff. He did in the phone booth.

It's like Superman. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Great discussion. See you. Thanks again. Take care. Do us a favor, guys.

Check out Mix New Podcasts called the Pub and the Porch Applied Stoicism. Comes out every Monday morning. It's really good. Jack Murphy, the High Side, of course. Came out a great article about the inner workings of what went down with the operation to capture Maduro. Came out yesterday. So check that out. That link is in the description.

I'm going to write an update to that article today, too, with some of the additional information I've gotten. Cool. And the article is called Bold Delta Force Raid Reeds to Capture an Arrest of Maduro. It's up on the high side right now, the highside. com. You can go check it out. And there will be a link in the description for that. Just go snatch it right there.

He does it, of course, with Sean Naylor, legendary reporter and author. He wrote the book, literally wrote the book on Jay Sock Relentless Strike. And of course, you're going to check out these interviews with the guys who did this, probably in a few years from now on the Team House podcast. So to support the show, both eyes on in, eyes, uh, and the Team House where you get it for a completely

ad free early. You can ask us questions. Um, watch the show's the Teamhouse episodes live. You can go to Patreon.com slash the team house and you can help support the show. Jack, thanks for doing this. I know your throat is horse. Yeah.

And we have a busy week this week too. So we got to make sure we, uh, we, uh, We put a pitch count on your throat. Yeah, I'll try to get better. All right, guys. Thank you. All right. Take care, everyone.

Hey, guys. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House podcast, the Ais-on podcast, and the high side news outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox, and you're going to get the most current podcasts on eyes on and the team house and whatever's topical or current on the high side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get.

So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week. It's really good, man. Checking it out. The website for it is teamhousepodcast.com.com slash join. teamhousepodcast.kitt.com slash join. You go there and you enter into your email list or you enter your email into the little thing on the website and you're good to go and that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and hope you'll consider signing up.

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