Will Cain Country - Trump vs. Maduro: Inside the Venezuela Takedown (ft. Kurt Schlichter & Morgan Murphy)

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Story 1: After Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is taken into U.S. custody, the Left erupts with claims of international law violations. Will dismantles the outrage, calling out the hypocrisy of Democrats who once slammed President Donald Trump for not standing up to the very dictator he just removed.Story 2: Author and Senior Columnist for ‘Townhall.com’ Kurt Schlichter, and U.S. Navy Captain and Alabama U.S. Senate Candidate Morgan Murphy join Will to further examine the reaction to Maduro’s capture and discuss the implications of similar operations taking place in Cuba and Mexico.Story 3: Will and The Crew share the highlights of their two-week break. Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch Will Cain Country!⁠⁠⁠Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), Instagram (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), TikTok (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), and Facebook (⁠⁠⁠@willcainnews⁠⁠⁠)Follow Will on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WillCain⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For God, for glory, for king, for America, for oil and minerals. And next, Greenland, the conquest of Venezuela. It is Will Kane Country streaming live at the Will Kane Country YouTube channel in Fox News Facebook page. And welcome to 2026. It's so good to be back with you. It's so good to welcome in a new year. I had a wonderful two-week vacation. where in just the last couple of days, the harvest included 70 geese, 29 sandhill crane, about 120 dove, and Venezuela. Let's get into all of that with story number one. The Conquest of Venezuela. That is the story that's dominated the break. That is the story that's dominated the new year. That's the story to start 2026.

The United States in a military operation, incredibly impressive, incredibly efficient, captures Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. He today appears in New York City to stand trial, to face charges of drug trafficking, among other charges, in the same spirit as Panama's Manuel Noriega some 40 years ago. Today, it is Maduro. Today, it is Venezuela, and today the question is, is it America first? There will be hand-wringing, there will be international outrage, there will be hypocrisy from the left. But the only real conversation that matters for serious-minded adults is what just happened in Venezuela?

Does it serve America first? The president of the United States has been asked that question over the last two days, and his answer is a definitive yes. security, the Western Hemisphere, a modern-day Monroe Doctrine, and oil. All of that serves the interest first of Americans. For me, it's quite honestly a simple cost-benefit analysis. What did it cost in terms of American life, plunder, and treasure? What is the benefit to Americans? There was a time when we believed in conquest. There was a time when everyone believed in the concept of conquest, not just as the law of the jungle, but as something to be revered for God, for king, for glory. Civilizations took over others, for resources, and they were proud of their accomplishments.

It's really the law of the jungle and really the law of the land that has dominated humanity up until very recently. Over the last 70 years, 80 years, since the end of World War II, we've papered over the law of the jungle with the falsehood, the fiction of international law. And that is what we hear much of today. The criticism of the United States capture of Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro. And President Trump's words that we will run the country and that we will be in charge of the vast natural resources that exist within Venezuela. Venezuela, by the way, number one in the world when it comes to oil deposits and other critical minerals. Heavy crude, dirty crude, needed to be refined.

One of the few places in the world capable of such refinery is the United States of America. Under Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro, over the last 20 years, Venezuela has gone from one of the top producers in the world when it comes to oil and gas to absolutely crushed, much like the local economy, much like the local population, much like is the history of any communist regime, any experiment in extreme socialism, from the Soviet Union to Venezuela. But today, what you'll hear is not a celebration necessarily of conquest, but a question and the criticism that comes, I think, in three forms. One, this was an illegal operation. The basis of illegality for the United States military action in Venezuela seems to be the loose concept of international law.

Today, the United Nations is conducting a security meeting to review what the United States has done in South America. And you can hear the cries and outrage from countries like Cuba and Colombia. But that is much less about really some type of moral international order and more fear of what the lion will do next in the law of the jungle. There is no such thing as international law. There is no such thing as international norms, as I've pointed out. For thousands of years, it has been the rule of the mighty. And make no mistake about it, the mighty is the United States of America. To the extent there is international law, it has been designed to keep smaller countries, upstart countries,

from doing what was and is done by larger countries. That's just a point of fact, that hypocrisy, but it's not a point of moral certainty. or moral superiority, the truth is, almost every civilization from the beginning of time, has looked across its borders or across the world and said, we could use that. We could use that land. We could use that oil. We could use those resources. And we haven't really suggested there's some type of international law or common morality

that prevents the better among us from living by the law of the jungle. It's a falsehood. It's a fiction. International law isn't real. It's never even pretended to be real when it comes to real world action, only in words and only in debate halls, only in chambers at the United Nations. No, the real world exists by the law of the jungle. And I have no problem with that reality. You can't live by a fiction that no one else buys or lives by.

You can't live in Neverland if no one else will join you in Neverland. And so I'm not here to hear about anything being illegal, not by the standard of international law and not even by the constitutional constraints of the executive power of the United States of America. Forewarning Congress, forewarning the Senate, a congressional declaration of war, while something that I think is or should be the standard course of business in the United States, has long since expired. When's the last time you saw Congress convened to actually declare war? Should or should not is beside the point, is and is not, is the reality of the world. The second criticism you hear is a bit of an isolationist street that used to exist exclusively on the left, but today has become also the province of much of the right. There is a section of the right who sounds not unlike yesterday's left.

Gnome Chomsky, Gorvadol, this fairy tale that in any international story, the bad guy, the villain, is always the powerful. Therefore, the bad guy, the villain is always the United States of America. When President Trump came to power, he repositioned the United States into a more dovish foreign policy. The peace president, eight and a half, what did he say? Did he say nine and a half yesterday coming home from. Sandhill Crane hunting, I put on the press conference from President Donald Trump, and he gave himself credit for being the peace president. He said, I've settled nine and a quarter or nine and a half wars.

He said, Thailand, is it Thailand and Cambodia? He settled it once. It flared up. He settled again. So he's giving himself, you know, a quarter or a half point on that one. It was a hilarious Trumpian moments of that press conference. conference, nine and a half wars for the peace president, Donald Trump. But we on the right, or much of the right, has validated the criticism of the neocon

concertive movement, and the left, because all the left really has to offer anymore, is anti-Trumpism. Have you seen the way the left has responded to this latest? Honestly, victory? Well, they're now champion Nicholas Maduro. We've gone from waving Ukrainian flags. to waving Palestinian flags, to waving Mexican flags, to now we're waving Venezuelan flags.

They're literally arguing for the release in some circles of Nicholas Maduro. And these are the people at higher levels of power, like Senator Chris Murphy, who, because his only worldview is in opposition of Donald Trump, because his only worldview is anti-Trumpism, can't reconcile with himself from six years ago when he criticized Donald Trump for not being involved in Venezuela? So over the past decade, Nicholas Maduro, the brutal dictator of Venezuela, has presided

over a stunning collapse of the Venezuelan economy that has caused nearly 8 million Venezuelans to leave that country, most of which destined for the United States, part of the reason why we saw 10,000 people showing up at the border every day last year, a number that the United States just can't handle with current resources because of the meltdown of the Venezuelan economy. And so it's no surprise that in the election that was held this week, Maduro clearly lost. The briefings that I've received today suggest that Maduro not only lost, he probably lost in a landslide and is attempting as we speak to steal the election. But today, Senator Chris Murphy criticizes Donald Trump for illegal actions to capture Nicholas

Maduro. And he's not alone. He's also joining his criticism today by Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. But this was Chuck Schumer before on Venezuela and Maduro. The president brags about his Venezuela policy. Give us a break. He hasn't brought an end to the Maduro regime. The Maduro regime is more powerful today and more entrenched today than it was when the president began. Of course, you would think that would mean Senator Chuck Schumer celebrates today as Nicholas Maduro is in court in New York City, but no. He criticizes President Trump because the only guiding light for these politicians, for the left, for Democrats, is anti-Trumpism. It's not pro-Venezuela. It wasn't thin. It's not now.

It's not sincerity in the truth behind Epstein. It wasn't thin and isn't now. It's only guided by anti-Trumpism. What's up, Dan? Well, what do you say to criticism of people that say, you know, Trump didn't really have a plan going? into this. I mean, he knew what he wanted to do outright, but now what happens? I mean, how do you move forward? How long do we stay there? I would say that criticism is in line with the constant doubt and bad predictions of Donald Trump and based upon the history of the United States in regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan. This operation in Venezuela has been in the works for well over six months.

We first apparently placed CIA into Venezuela in August of 2025. Over the last couple of months, we've been positioning aircraft carriers and military personnel off the coast of Venezuela. CIA has ramped up operations over the last several months tracking the movements of Nicholas Maduro. Apparently, it was already communicated to oil companies in the United States who didn't have much heads-up warning about this, that if they wanted to have a presence in the now U.S. controlled oil field, of Venezuela, then they'd better be prepared to rebuild the destroyed, not from the U.S. military action, but from 20 years of communist rule of Chavez and Maduro, the oil capacity and infrastructure of Venezuela.

I would suggest there's much more planning underway and in place before an incredibly impressive military operation takes place like this just over a couple of hours, an absolute success. Where do we go from here? I think that was a question that is well-born, well-bred out of skepticism from Iraq and Afghanistan. And this takes me back to the isolationist right. The isolationist right, learning the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, suggests we shouldn't get involved in anything beyond our borders.

But that's not the lesson to take from the peace president. That's not the lesson to take from America first. In those instances, we went in with two main problematic goals. One, we seem to think that foreign intervention is only in service of the United States being a net exporter of democracy, that we're a great exporter of democracy, which is an absurdity that is a fiction, not unlike the fiction of international law. We don't export democracy. Why? Because not every civilization is fit for democracy. And that's the lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan. Not everyone is fit for self-rule. Not everyone is fit to vote. That's a fact. That's not controversial.

The founders of the United States of America knew that when they said our form of government with its freedom and constitutional protections was only fit for a moral people, a people who had self-restraint. That self-restraint in their mind originating from Judeo-Christian morality, religion. That's the governor on humanity if you give it freedom. Ask yourself, does that same governor exist in every culture across the world? does it exist in Afghanistan? Does it exist in Iraq? Therefore, are they fit for that form of government? And the neocon wing of the Republican Party for years thought that was the justification, or at least used it as the falsehood, for invading Iraq. When I much more appreciate the honesty of President Donald Trump, we like their oil. This is the isolationist wing of the Republican Party

that sees us as always the villain. And that is the third criticism that I hear today. are we going to rule Venezuela? Are you going to turn it back over to the people? And I so appreciate the honesty of President Donald Trump. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what serves the interest of Americans because it serves the interest of Americans to have access and control of the world's biggest depository of oil and gas and critical minerals. It serves the interest of Americans, if the cost is low and the benefit is high, to kicking China out of the Western Hemisphere. It serves the interest of Americans in our security guarantee. guarantees to re-ignite the Monroe Doctrine. It serves the interest of Americans to conquer. And I'm not ashamed of the concept of a nation capable of conquering. Whether or not you think this was illegal, you think we should be isolationist, or we should export democracy. It's all a fiction, none unlike the movie. We're sitting bull sits in front of the United States military general and says,

this is stolen land. A line echoed throughout the centuries by not just disillusioned Native Americans, but from the left. Stolen land. There's no such thing as stolen land. There's only such thing as conquest. And that conquest is justified if it serves the interest, not of elites, not of corporations. But if it serves the interest of Americans. Let's break this down, including the TikTok of this incredible military operation

with senior columnist from townhall.com, Kurt Schlichter, and candidate for Senate from the state of Alabama, Morgan Murphy. When we come back on Wilcane Country? This is Ainsley Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52 episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Chuck Schumer, Chris Murphy, United States Senators, and the voice of the left. Rachel Maddow have very big criticism today of President Donald Trump on Venezuela. But yesterday criticized President Donald Trump because he wouldn't intervene in Venezuela. Not only admire each other's tactics, they copy each other's tactics. They support each other in doing those kinds. of tactics whenever they can. And they support each other around the world. So Russia gives money to Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela.

And Xi Jinping sends a love note to Kim Jong-un today on his country's birthday. But they are all led by rulers who are all interested in staying in power for life and making sure that the people of those countries never rise up against the strong-man form of leadership that keeps them under the boot. comparing Nicholas Maduro to President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. It is Wilcane Country streaming live at the Wilcane Country YouTube channel and the Wilcane Country Facebook page. But always here for you at Spotify or on Apple. Here for us now is senior columnistatown.com, the author of the American Apocalypse,

the Second American Civil War. He's also retired Army infantry colonel and an attorney, Kurt Schlichter, and a candidate for United States Senate from Alabama also. A veteran, a United States Navy captain, national security expert, Morgan Murphy. Thank you both for being here. Morgan, good to have you. Good luck in Alabama. Thank you.

Great to be with you. Will. Kurt, what do you think of sort of, I think it's pretty clear. It's like the only guiding light, the only principle for Schumer and Murphy and Maddow is anti-Trumpism. Like, literally, he could come out. And we've made this joke, but it's just so increasingly clear. Donald Trump could come out. Like what? In favor of curing cancer and they would say and champion it and wave the flag of cancer.

Like there's really nothing more to the ideology or the or the animation of the movement than anti-Trumpism as you hear there from Rachel Maddowcurt. Well, before I address that, Will, I'd like to address my Navy buddy Morgan Murphy. How about those army guys? Huh? Huh? We've been taking it for 15 years. I know. Dining out on Osama bin Laden. It's about time for our boys to shine. Well, we'll...

I can get through this camera, I come for you. I mean, you've got to understand. We're not in court here. We're not making arguments. We're not providing evidence and facts with a neutral trier of fact. It's all nonsense. And look, I'm a Los Angeles trial lawyer.

respect professionally their ability to say X one minute and do a 180, you know, like the Dukes a hazard in the General Lee, and say the exact opposite thing with the same pretend fervor five seconds later. It's actually quite remarkable. As a lawyer, I'm very impressed. As an American citizen, I'm disgusted and embarrassed for them. takeaway is simultaneously shocking and simplistic. It's like, this is all. But look at the corners back to themselves into, Morgan. Look at, I mean, I can't imagine this plays well politically.

You're about to find out. I mean, you're need deep in polling and every other aspect of politics. But I mean, what is the constituency for pro-Moduro? Now, of course, they're going to push back and they're going to go, no, this is about constitutional restraint on the executive power of the president. of the United States. And look, if I want to give them some legitimacy, here's the deal. I think this action of Venezuela serves my political guiding light of asking, does it serve America first? But that in part is because the cost is low and the potential benefit is high. Now, if the cost goes up, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I'm much more confident

because Venezuelans are not Afghanis, but if the cost goes up and this thing descends into civil war and chaos and it's on our hands and we got to control it and maybe it takes presence and then they'll have a legitimate argument but right now i mean they've backed themselves into the same corner they've done over and over again which is they're pro kilmar obrego garcia they're pro you know Palestinian terrorists they're pro nicholas maduro it didn't make any sense will and it it it doesn't make any sense strategically so if you look at the new national security strategy that Bridge Colby and others in the Pentagon have crafted, it really makes clear that this is this time in this administration, we are putting America

first. Now I'm an America first guy. I work for the president in the first term and in the second term. I worked for Tommy Tuberville in between terms. So I'm MAGA through and through. And people have asked me, well, how is this interdiction in Venezuela an America first action? And I say, number one, it's an America's first action. This is our own backyard. Number two, what President Trump is doing is he is telling China, showing China, that you can't mess around in our hemisphere. And it also is a remarkable display to the rest of the weapons buying world that Chinese arms are kind of junk. It doesn't pay to buy your military hardware on TEMU because we absolutely do.

destroyed it all in a 30-minute war. Might I add another element, and I just spoke about this, and I am not ashamed to say this. In fact, Kerr, I wish an open justification had been made and a promise lived up to in the invasion of Iraq to say, you know what, we're going to control the oil in that part of the world. To the victor go the spoils, I believe in the concept of conquest. And I think the United States having control over the biggest oil reserves in the world is a legitimate reason and a legitimate justification of America First. Well, look, yes.

Look, America First doesn't mean we're pacifists. And I've got to compliment Morgan on there for explaining a lot of the concepts. You get it like War College in a way people can understand it. Great job. He's going to do a great job in the Senate. Look, I'll tell you, though, I am no, like I said, I'm no pacifist. I didn't sign on to an America first that lets America be pushed around by a bunch of third world scumbags. That's not in the cards. I never signed on for that.

This was a quick, sharp, discreet military action. I do believe that if we're going to have an extended interaction, an extended campaign, that we do need to bring the American people into it. You do that through Congress. But the idea that the president, who is the commander in chief, cannot react to a changing situation with a short, sharp shock is, well, it's ridiculous in concept. It's not supported by anything in either the Constitution or anything else. It is well supported by history, because we've done that many times. This is a basic presidential function.

I'm perfectly happy with the way this has gone down. Okay, but I want to push both of you because I think I'm being a realist. I think I am explaining the way the world works, even if people don't like to hear it. The way the world works is through the concept of conquest. The idea of international law is an absolute fiction designed to inhibit certain countries and excuse others. And I'm happy to ignore the concept of international law. The true law of the world is the law of the jungle. And we happen to be the lion in the jungle. The lion takes what the lion wants. The lion will try to be moral on his way, but he will serve the pride. He will serve the lions. And we are lions.

And I think I'm being the realist, Morgan, I'm going to put this to you because you're the man running for Senate on this. I don't know how that plays politically, but I think it's true. And I think that's exactly what I hear from the President of the United States when he says, yeah, you know, yeah, we're going to take a look at Cuba, Greenland, Mexico. I think we're hearing the foreign policy plan that serves Americans. That is being honest and truthful. about the law of the world. Yeah, Donald Trump is remarkably forthcoming, and he is who he is, right?

He doesn't pretend, he doesn't tiptoe around fig leaves and saying, oh, we're making a humanitarian intervention. We're restoring the rightful, you know, ruler of Venezuela who was duly elected. He pretty much came out and said, you know what, they've got the largest strategic oil reserves in the world. They stole it from American companies. No other president did anything about it.

I'm going to do something about it, get that oil back. I'm going to sell it to China. We're still going to be nice to China, but they're going to be buy it from American companies. And China is not going to be allowed to do in our hemisphere what basically we've done in theirs. So China looks at Japan. They look at Korea. They look at our other allies in the Pacific. And they want that here.

You know they want that here. They want to have Cuba. They want to have Panama. The president already cut them off there. They want to have Venezuela and a bigger. petroleum reserves in Saudi Arabia. And I bet you they'd like to sail one of their new aircraft carriers right between us and our first island, chained the Bahamas. What do you think, back to you on this, Morgan, what do you think then, therefore,

I'm not asking what the president will do, but I'm going to ask you a should question. What should the president do about Cuba, about Greenland, about Mexico? Well, I think he's doing something about Cuba by cutting off its funding source. Basically, Cuba's been dependent on Venezuela since the collapse of the Soviet Union. So for the better part of 25 years, they've been completely dependent on that oil money from Venezuela. That's been flowing throughout our region, causing untold havoc. Greenland, you know, the president has said, we want it. And I'm all for that.

Let's go get it. Not by military force, but let's buy it. And let's ask the people of Greenland. And he's absolutely right when he said, you know, Russia wants it, the Chinese wants it. I think the president's vision here is remarkable because he sees brighter days for America. And that's what voters want. They finally have in Donald J. Trump, a leader who spells out a brighter future for the United States. We haven't been all that we can be, and we're going to be under this second term of Donald Trump.

It feels good to have a vision of the United States that is sort of, you know, looking at the horizon. looking at the bright sky ahead, not looking, you know, for all the criticism of Make America Great Again, it was like retroactive, retrospective, pining for the 1950s, but there was also a spirit in America that was like, tomorrow can be brighter, and we're going to make it that way, because not through Obamacare, but but through like expansionary policies that make the life better for Americans, that rugged individualism, that pioneerism, that frontiersman, spirit, that's kind of what I see this. But tie it together, Kirk, like, what is the vision When he talks, Iran is its own thing. Iran has its protests going on as we speak. The Iranian leaders may or may not run for the hills, but we've been through this story before multiple times. So Iran is its own thing, and I think it's different. I don't know how you feel, Kurt, but it's different than the calculus and the vision when you put together Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, and Greenland. Like, what ties those together in your mind?

Well, those are obviously tied together by being by geographic proximity, but look, Iran is part of this too. Look, anybody who's seen the godfather knows what's happening. Donald Trump's taken care of all family business. The Iranians have been murdering Americans for 45 years, okay? It's time they pay. Those communist bastards in Cuba, it's about time they start swinging from the lamppost. I'm not just saying that because I'm married into a family the communists chased out of that island paradise. or what should be an island paradise, except for the magic of socialism that has somehow

made an island full of Cubans poor. And you're right about resources. Oil is important, and it's important to us, and we need to make no excuses for wanting our hands on it. Now, when I say hands on it, I don't mean steal it. We built up their industry. They took, they naturalized our industries there, and they need to pay us back. But that oil, which will go where we direct is going to benefit the Venezuelan people as they build it back into a prosperous democracy like they were before this communist came along. And I'll tell you what, the Chinese are getting their oil primarily from Venezuela and Iran. Well, those two companies are in the countries are in the crosshairs right now. Suddenly, China's got to think maybe, maybe snatching up

Taiwan's not so great an idea because the USA will pull in on the leash and and choke. off. So this has benefits down the road. What Donald Trump is doing is setting up an American future by taking these foreign policy problems, these running sores, these abscesses, they have tormented us for decades. He's taken them out of the picture, and I think it's great. Wait, let's talk more about China. So you both have brought that up. The effect this has on China, taking Venezuela out of the equation. You know, I read, Kurt, forgive me, don't get on to me. I read a Nick Kristoff, New York Times column over the weekend, where he's like, I spent time in Venezuela. Here's what I saw on the streets, right? And in the course of the

column, he talked about, first of all, he admitted, you know, how bad it was under Maduro and Chavez, you know, not just, you know, the inefficiencies and the problem with oil production over the last 20 years and what it's cratered to, but the poverty, the corruption, the the impact on the Venezuelan people, the crime, the murders, quite honestly, from government officials, it just, it continued to decline into a really dystopian world under these two men, under communism. But he did say in there, and this is obviously in antithesis to the worldview I just espoused, that he's concerned about the violations of international law because, and here's the because, he gives the because, Morgan, it might give license to Xi Jinping

to invade Taiwan. Like if America doesn't live by these rules, why should China? But I will give him this credit in the column. He admitted that's not what's holding Xi Jinping back. The quote unquote international law isn't. The law of the jungle is holding Xi Jinping back. He's afraid of what we'll do if he goes into Taiwan. So I'm just curious, like, all of this we're talking about, what does it do to China? You're absolutely right, Will. International law doesn't hold back dictators around the world. You know, Putin didn't worry about international law when he rolled into Ukraine.

And she won't worry about international law if he chooses to risk going after Taiwan. As you correctly point out, what holds him back is the strong arm of the United States and our allies in the Pacific. And every day, you know, we just want him to look out his window and think, you know, not today. And that's what he's done. That's what China has done for, you know, 70 years there. And that is the strategy I think the president is pursuing. What's different about Trump, though, and what I'm so happy to see going on at the State Department, at the Department of War, is that he's using every instrument of national power to make sure that the United States remains dominant.

For so many years, our presidents have just used the military. Like it is a Swiss Army knife of all things. And that's to be expected because we spend, you know, close to a trillion dollars on our military. And if all you buy is hammers, everything looks like a nail. But Donald Trump uses the other instruments of national power, diplomacy, intelligence. Yes, the military, as he did in Venezuela, and also the economy. And he, as a businessman, understands just inherently how all these pieces come together. So when you look at the oil and what that does, how that necks China down.

and look at our allies and, you know, what Japan is doing, looking at rearming and even looking at exploring a nuclear umbrella for itself. I mean, that changes the balance of power in a way that may be able to keep Taiwan free for the next 50 years. Let's take a quick break, but we'll be right back on Will Cain Country. When the weather cools down, Golden Nugget Online Casino turns up the heat. This winner, make any moment golden and play thousands of games like her new slot Wolf It Up and all the fan-favored Hoff and Puff games. Whether you're curled up on the couch or taking five

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But with Corona Cerro, Golden Moments go beyond the Winter Olympics. They're enjoying sunsets, time outside, reconnecting with nature, and laughs shared with friends. For every golden moment at the Winter Olympic Games, enjoy your own with Corona Serro, 0% alcohol and a source of vitamin D. Corona Cerro, the official non-alcoholic beer of Milano Cortina, 2026. Let's talk more, just a little more about China. So both of you've said this, okay? I want to get specific to the extent that you both have knowledge on this. Like China's relationship with Venezuela, and as you mentioned, China's, Kurt, you mentioned, China buys its oil from Venezuela, Iran, and I imagine from Russia as well.

And you're now, and we'll see what happens with Iran, but you're choking China at some point, right? You're hurting China. Do you see any risk to that, Kurt? I'm being sincere, and I'm not just playing, you know, nominal devil's avidavits. Just a little bit of history knowledge, I do know that we did something similar to Japan in the 1930s, which gave them license, or not license, it backed them into a corner to where they were like, well, you know, the United States is embargoing oil. We need oil. So what do we do? Pearl Harbor. Well, look, I'm not saying we shouldn't allow Venezuela to sell its oil to China. I'm just saying we should have our hand on the spigot. if you guys want to get uppity, if you guys want to start getting an ornery, we'll just turn it off and we'll turn off Iran too. It's not that we have to shut it.

We want peace with China. We want coexistence with China. We don't want war with China. But the only way that China is not and the United States are not going to go to war because you've got these two countries circling each other, these two major. powers. And you know, you go back to the Peloponnesian wars and you know what often happens. The only way is if we're both focusing on our own economy. So we don't want China to crash. We want China to focus on being China and not being outwardly expansive. And there's only two things they're going to do it. One is that if it knows it'll be

crushed economically, including by cutting off the oil. The other if it knows it'll be defeated militarily. And thank goodness we've got Pete Hegeseth in there, who's bringing the military back to the military. You know, now we're, look, now we're celebrating Delta Force victories and not Trans Day of Awareness. Okay. This is a great change. Look, all this stuff adds up to one thing. Under Donald Trump, America is a serious country again that's asking like countries have acted for 5,000 years of human history. All this garbage about international law just got like invented in the last century by weak companies, countries that didn't want to get dominated. But that's well put, Kurt. But I don't think there's an appetite on the right to

return to a neo-conservative, expansionary American interventionist world. I'll tell you, And I don't want this is being a bad cross-examiner because I'm leading the witness. What differentiates it for me is that we are not trying to see ourselves as the world's democracy exporter, that we are not trying to be the world's regime change and military police in service of greater goals than quote unquote America first. But I still think that's something that has to be asked and answered. If we did for the past, let's say 12 years, move away from the foreign policy of George W. Bush, are we not yet now returning to it? How do we distinguish it from where we were, Morgan? Well, not at all. And you've touched on something that I think is so important. It's entirely why I'm running for office. People have asked me, why are you your first-time candidate? Why are you getting into this Senate race?

I'm a veteran of Afghanistan. And when I was in Afghanistan, I was up in Bamian province. which really blew up the Buddhas, and I'm standing on this road. And it is a beautiful four-lane blacktop highway as far as the eye could see. Not a soul was on it. There was one guy walking down the highway on the side of the highway with his donkey. And I asked my translator, I was like, why is that guy on the side of the highway and not on the highway itself? And my translator said, oh, because the Lara Bush Highway is too nice. I said, what did you just call that?

He said, the Lara Bush Highway. And that's when it struck me. We were spending $2 billion a week in Afghanistan when I was there. And I thought if the American taxpayer could see this, they would throw up on the Laura Bush Highway. We built schools. We built roads. We built a lot of things nicer than anything we've got here in Alabama. And it didn't buy us an ounce of goodwill from the Afghans.

They took it like talking about getting the Taliban out of Afghanistan is the equivalent of getting the Methodists out of Mississippi. not going to happen. It was a stupid strategy that didn't do a lick of good for the people of the United States. And so this, the American people can see in this interdiction in Venezuela a clear and present benefit to the American people and for security. By the way, if you're a liberal and you're listening to me and you want to have peace in Ukraine, the best thing we can do is bring oil down to 50 bucks a barrel and bankrupt the Russians. They are funding their war machine with oil, which is a global commodity. So we bankrupt a lot of people we don't like when we bring oil down to 50 bucks a barrel. So I think this strategy is vastly different than George Bush. I mean, if it had been Trump going after Osama bin Laden, he would have gone in there, nabed Osama bin Laden in 30 minutes,

and that war would have been over. He wouldn't be trying to rebuild all of Afghanistan or change the Taliban. As a Methodist, I do wonder if there's not more Baptist in Mississippi. Like if I'm trying to get somebody out that's the hardest to get out, I would think the Baptist are probably the most deeply rooted into Mississippi. I could be wrong. It may be a it may be a 51-49 proposition, but I think it could be the Baptist. Okay, I want to ask you guys both this with your experience.

So let's just do this quickly. Talking about the mission, just the way this went down. Kurt, you brought up Hegg Seth. I mean, far be it for me being kind of military expert. But, I mean, I actually think both sides, even though those that are critiquing it, are praising the execution of this thing. Like what went into it for months ahead of time in the two hours during the mission. Like, when you look at it from your military experience, Kurt, like, what do you see? Well, look, I was the exact opposite of special forces.

You know, they're the tip of the spear, and I was a giant sledgehammer with infantry. But the tactical skills of the Delta Force guys, the pilots, the Navy guys, unbelievable, remarkable. But, you know, while we excel at that, and I think Morgan will back me up here, where America really excels is intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, planning, and leg, logistics. Hey, amateurs look at the Delta Force guys and go, whoa, that's cool. So do professionals. But the professionals are looking at what did it take to resource this? What was the planning process that brought in not only every single, you know, soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, and whatever the hell they call space force people, along with non-governmental, governmental organizations, the interagency process, all our resources. I mean, holy cow, this was, you know, when you are a commander,

a conductor of a symphony. And you've got all these instruments. You've got to make them work together. This is like a symphony the size of the Rose Bowl. It is an astonishing achievement. I am so proud of these guys. And I've got to tell you, I'm not at all surprised. That's awesome. That was an awesome analogy. And I can only imagine how right you are on that. What are your thoughts? United States Navy Captain Morgan Murphy. Kurtz, anybody who's quoting Peloponnesian wars as I'm a fan of, and Kurt's exactly right. He is, I mean, it's the coordination that was on display is astonishing. It's also astonishing we didn't lose anymore.

I mean, Venezuela is not a small country. They're not a lightly armed country. They had a lot of oil money to buy air defenses, and they have Russian weapons there, and they had Chinese weapons there. They had Iranian drones there. So this was not a cakewalk by any source of the imagination. I've handed out in my 26 years of the Navy 266 American flags to Mexican across a tombstone. And I think about that first whenever there's an operation like this. And I know the president thinks about those families and those lives.

And to have pulled this off the way they did without the loss of a single American life, achieving all of our objectives, is truly something that every American can be proud of. One last follow-up for both of you. You heard me mention earlier, Panama, Noriega, to your point of no lives lost, this mission took a couple of hours, apparently. No lives lost. I think there was a helicopter that took some damage, but no real equipment loss as well in what just went down in Venezuela. Panama. I think it took four days, did it not, to finally get Noriega. I think 23 American lives were lost. Is that right? Something like 23 American lives were lost. Why was this so much more successful than what happened in Panama? We'll start with you, Kurt. Well, look, Panama was an amazing success, and a very good friend of mine was a platoon leader during that. It was a state-of-the-art operation, and it was occupying the country. So that's why you had Rangers. dropping in and, you know, all sorts of forces coming in. This was a very different thing.

This was a snatch and grab designed not only for the tactical purpose of grabbing this guy, but for the information purpose of demonstrating our dominance. I mean, you know, why do you think they blew up Chavez's tomb? That was a message. And I think it was pretty clear. And as I wrote in my town hall column today, if we'll kill a guy again, think what we'll do to you if you screw with us. So, look, if you want to really understand these, back to the Peloponnesian Wars, go read the Mellian dialogues.

And Morgan, there is smiling. Now you're just. I wish to California. Now you're doing it. Now you're doing a show for a one-man audience. That's right. I get what you're doing, Kurt. You liked the compliment earlier.

Now you're going to open it. And you think you like the Peloponnesian War. Watch this, Morgan. So, Kurt, doing a one-man show right now from Morgan. I'll take it. I get it as well, by the way, Kurt. Panama was an amazing success. It just struck me, and you're right, it was the occupation, not just a snatch and grab.

But, you know, I just, this is amazing, you know, nothing lost. Two hours, Morgan. Yeah, it was amazing. And the American people need to wake up to the threats we face around the world. And I'm telling people this out on the campaign trade. that last year, China built 900 ships. We built seven. China has a larger Navy than ours now.

They're at 385 ships. We're at about 290. China, we have 185 shipping vessels flagged to the United States. China has 10,000. We've given up our manufacturing base. We've let it atrophy. And we've got to build this back. And I want to see people and politicians in Washington

jumping up and down on their desks about this issue that we have got to compete and we've got to step it up and we've got to bring reshore our manufacturing capabilities here that's good for our economy that's good for our people that's good for jobs but you know they're not enough people saying that the United States can dominate again and that's what is so special to me about this president because he's saying we can do it and we have the will to do it and he just showed this we can do it. That's why it's such an important mission. Morgan Murphy is running for Senate to fill a seat vacated by Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor of Alabama. He's running for Senate from the great state of Alabama. And Kurt Schlichter is a senior column to town hall.com. You should also get his book, by the way.

I watched over the break one battle after another, a dystopian, not civil war, but revolutionary movie with good acting, by the way, Kurt, before you criticize it, good acting in DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro. But not American Apocalypse, not the writing and the story of Kurt Schlicker. So make sure you check that out as well. Fellows, we really appreciate you being here on the show and for the long conversation. Thank you. Kurt, also being with you. You too, Will.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. You bet. You bet. Always great to have you, Kurt. All right, there they go. By the way, you as well are here on the show today. You out there in the Walliscia.

And over on Facebook, Robert Hawks says it's shameful that Democrats and American people are now protesting the arrest of Venezuelan dictator. What happened to no kings? Yeah, no kings, except for those that run drugs in Venezuela. Amira Lusher says, behind every decisive action, there should be a clear exit strategy. That's fair. I think that's fair.

You know, and I could have heard myself saying that, Amira, and I do believe that you're right, but I do think there's something to be said where if our position, is not. See, if you're saying we're going in to regime change and we're going in to instill democracy, then that by its very nature is a hard concept to build into an exit. But if you're saying in quite a realistic way, we're going to have control of the oil, we might put in a puppet and there's no promises of democracy. Like, we're not using the United States military to be

your local police. We're not using the United States military to, you know, enforce home invasion and burglary laws. We're there for American interest. I'm less concerned. I just have less concerned about what's the exist strategy because we don't have a gigantic military presence sitting there right now in Venezuela. Also over on Facebook, Juliet Monet says, regardless of political stance, let's not forget that ordinary people are the ones most affected by all of this. Yeah, I just, What I'm concerned about, honestly, is the net benefit effect of ordinary Americans. We'll talk more about this. Plus, that's the conquest of Venezuela.

What about the harvest of Sand Hill Cranes, dove, and not my favorite. My second favorite now, geese, when we come back on Will King Country. Carmela Carnali, 9,900 on YouTube, says so much good for America with Maduro gone. Venezuelans may go home to their country if they want, more oil for our country. Trump taking Maduro when he said, come and get me, I love it all. Meanwhile, Sarah Jordan on YouTube said, welcome back. I've missed Wilcane Country so much. It is Wilcane Country at the Wilcane Country YouTube channel, and we have our own Facebook page as well.

We're about at half a million of you over there on Facebook. So make sure if that's your preferred social media platform to join us over there on Facebook. By the way, speaking of Facebook, because Meta owns Instagram, I just posted a bunch of photos on Instagram of my weekend hunt trip. And we're back from break. How are you, fellas? 10-4-O-Patt, two-a-days, Dan. How was your break? Well, Patrick, you can go first.

I'd rather or not He said it was pretty rough I'm exhausted He's exhausted What? What? Yeah So pretty much

What's wrong Patrick Pretty much for the last two months My entire household has been coughing And then like They get better And then they get back sick again And we're still going

Honestly I've had the same thing My second son My 14 year old got sick, then my 17-year-old got sick, and now my 14-year-old's sick again. And, by the way, we shut the whole world down because of this just five years ago. Remember that? Yeah, yeah.

But we shut the whole damn world down because everybody got sick in the wintertime. This was Omnacron. You remember Omnacron? I don't know if we've got COVID or what we've got. But do you remember, like, the second wave of COVID that came along? Omnacron. It's giving me PTSD. I mean, I don't know what the kids are.

Patrick, have you gotten sick? or is it just staying in the kid population? It's mostly kids. I have a little bit of an earache, but I'm tough and through it, fighting through it. So that's what I do. Always playing hurt.

Mine was good, Will. Mine was great. I'm glad to hear that, Dan. It was really good for my mental health. I saw family. Nice. Yeah, I'm still mentally checked out for the rain of sunshine. I can't get back.

Good. Okay. Okay, well, then let's just put it this way. If next Monday, you're not a ray of sunshine, then we've got a real problem, and we need to have a deeper mental health issue check. Was I before? But I got to tell you, mine was great. Mine was great for my mental health. Mine was great.

I did a pretty good job of checking out from, you know, the daily news cycle. That didn't mean I checked out from, you know, thinking. I went into this break saying, tangibly hear a couple of goals. I'm telling the audience. You know what? One, I want to analyze Bill O'Reilly and the O'Reilly factor because Bill O'Reilly was number one for 25 years in cable news. And if you're not interested in studying Michael Jordan, then you're not interested in basketball.

Like anybody who wants to play basketball, I don't know anything about Michael Jordan, well, you're not that interested in being great at basketball. And so, look, quite honestly, I wanted to learn more from O'Reilly. And so I did that, and I spent some time thinking. about that. I wanted to do what I said I couldn't do before, which was give some time to listening to Candace Owens and what she has to say because she keeps coming up in my private life of people saying this or that about Candace Owens. I have. I've got to tell you, I'm not impressed. I'm not impressed with the arguments. I'm not impressed with the questions. I'm not impressed with

the sincerity. I'm not impressed after having now invested in listening to Candice Owens. And I wanted to begin to read and or listen to C.S. Lewis, mere Christianity, which I did begin as well. So those were like my productivity-based goals, that and clean my office and organize my home office and finally get my closet in order. So I had time to do all that. But my break, really, the mental health part of it was, and I'm so happy to be able to say this. I'm not like, I got copious amounts of liquor. No, I'm kidding. There was a lot of quality time.

I am done drinking by the way Like Forever It's January I think I'm going to do No You don't do that in January Don't do that

Stop drinking I need Please stop drinking Don't stop drinking I'm My goal is to drink more this year And you also cannot quit nicotine I heard you see

I saw you say that There's no Nicotine withdrawals here Okay Oh you don't want to deal with me Um Well, it's just the highlight, and you know, it's such a cliched stereotype thing, but it's also so true. Like, you know, it kind of starts small, right about Thanksgiving.

And then it's like a train that picks up speed all the way through New Year's, where you're always like, man, let's just go a couple days without eating like an A-hole or drinking of some kind for some social thing. And before you know it by the end, you're gross. You know, by December 30th, you hate your stuff. self. Who am I? And, and I want to be clean eating, clean living. And the negative is, so I'm, by the way, starting today, guys, I'm doing my rowing challenge, which is a three-month rowing challenge I try to do every year. But the bad news is, I played paddle. Do you all know what paddle is? Unfortunately, yes. For the fancy people, I'll say, Paddell. Yeah, I only played at the country club. It's super fun. I bet you do. We do. I bet you do. All winter.

Do you have country clubs in Dallas? It's really fun. Oh, yeah. What do you mean? I don't know. Big part of life. I'm not, but it's a big part of life. But do you know what Padell is or paddle, Patrick?

My family's into pickleball right now. I have no idea what this other thing is. So I'm not a high flute. It's like take pickleball. Take pickleball. Put it on turf. add racquetball in that you have walls at the back and then a little bit on the sides, not the whole sides, and it's like a tennis ball.

So it's not as bouncy as a racquetball, more bouncy than a pickleball. And that's the game. And informatically, it's a lot like pickleball, but you can play off the walls like racquetball. And it's really fun. And I only played once, and I got tennis elbow. And I haven't been able to kick it for like three weeks. Soft. And so it just hurts

Every time I go to the gym And now I got to do all this rowing I'm not sure I'm going to pull it off with this tennis elbow But back to my rate Quality time Okay A lot of quality time with my sons And I'm forever grateful for that

We went to Palm Springs And we played golf None of us are golfers But it was really fun We went out into the country Near my hometown And we shot guns Every kind of gun that there is

Spent the night Built a campfire we and then we just got back from a three-day hunting trip out around Lubbock, Texas. I heard all about it. Where we hunted from your wife, Dan? Yeah. She unfollowed you because of that. She's a vegetarian.

She unfollowed me? No, maybe not. She was thinking about it. But she's like, I just don't get the hunting thing. I'm like, you're not from Texas. That's why. Well, you don't have to be from Texas to get hunting, but you just got to be interested in being out in nature. And I would ask, get out of your New York City apartment because you're never more connected to nature.

It's like that thing I was talking out earlier, like, what is the world? The world is the law of the jungle. Like, hunting is natural. This is what animals do, and we're an animal. And when you're doing it, you're more connected to nature. That's a fact. Like, you appreciate. And by the way, hunters are the biggest conservationist of the population of these animals.

Their money goes to funding the conservation. Harvesting is actually a good part of controlling and helping the population of these animals. I hear that. Just ask some of the Northeast where you have deer in your yard like dogs, you know? Where Connecticut? Some of those deer need. It's crazy. Yeah, that's, I've been there.

I know, Dan, I've been there. That's not a healthy population. Then they get small and they get sickly and they spread chronic wasting disease because there's too many of them. Like a managed population of deer is a healthy population of deer. But, man, so growing up, I never would have thought of way. West Texas. Let me just describe a few West Texas. So when you go west in Texas, sooner or later, you're going to hit what's called the Lano Estacado. What towns? And you're going to climb. It's not in towns, really. It's just kind of, it's before you get to Lubbock. And they're all small towns. Like, but you show Abilene, you're down here where I am. It's kind of lower country. Because you're going towards the Gulf of Mexico, right? And then it's not just a gradual slope. Once you get there just east of Lubbock, it goes up by about a thousand feet, right? and it's just it's like a little it's an outcropping that goes up and then at the top it's just flat and you're in the southern great plains now you're in the southern great plains a lot like it would look in cans or something but drier and hotter than it is up there and you're like no trees and you're like what could you hunt here well the answer is it's and i always thought this but it's beautiful it's great beautiful was a stretch it is good for animals so we were hunting out of lubbock we did two dove hunt

It's still warm there, and you can do dove hunts and that kind of thing. Dove hunting's fun. Dove is great to eat. It's awesome. It doesn't sound great. We really went. Dove, it's a tiny little, it's a tiny little breast, it's red meat, and the traditional way to cook it is with jalapeno, cream cheese, and bacon. You put jalapinian cream cheese on it, you wrap it in bacon, you put it on the barbecue.

I'll do it that with a jalapagia. But it reminds me of like little house. the prairie where they like hunted uh like those bird like just regular blackbirds or something and they and they cooked them up and they were like oh it's really really good i can't remember what they were but i don't know about i don't know about blackbirds uh i don't know but dove is not that hot i mean it's hard because it's really hard to shoot them but like you don't have to be super camoed up you don't have to be hiding you kind of stand next to a fence and they come by and we went out there to hunt sandhill crane which i'd never hunted and i feel like in the last

decade or more that hunting is taken off sandhill crane are really big in terms of birds they look huge and they're slow and it's called guys and i've never eaten it the rib eye of the sky and i did see a video steve ranella our friend meat eater love that dude on instagram where he put actual rib eye and sandhill crane next to each other and they did a bland taste test and they were saying it's really hard to tell a difference. Like, it's very close. So I don't know. I can't wait to find out.

But we did kill in our group. We had like 25 guys. We split up. One group did goose one day and crane the other, and the other did the opposite. I didn't do as well on crane in my hunt. We got three, but they got 25 crane in their hunt. So we got a lot of crane. Will you use all that beat?

But I did the first goose hunt. I got it all in my freezer. I've got it all in my freezer. Yeah, his wife wants you to send them up, if no mind. Yeah, please. I send you a big bag I though went on the first goose hunt Now this

It's so fun man Goose hunting is up there with duck Like it's so much work We got into the field at 5 a.m. We worked Patrick you would love this You're perfectly tailored for this For an hour and 15 minutes

Walking in and out of the field We put 1,000 decoys up 1,000 decoys And then you put on a white A white like Breaking Bad you know painter's costume and then you get you lay down and you put like a camouflage foliage blanket over half of you and you lay there with your gun and the dude calls them i've got this up on my instagram story if anybody has never done this the the the guides will call and it is so fun you'll

have thousands of birds in the sky and he's just talking to him talking to him talking trying to get them to come in and you can watch him turn them and turn them again and maybe they leave and they light out because they don't like it or they think it looks like decoys or whatever, who knows? Or maybe they saw one of the hunters face, who knows? Because you're buried in all these decoys.

You're buried amongst them. And then finally you get this group that just likes what he's saying and likes what they see and they commit. And when they commit and come at you and then he yells he waits, he waits, he's like, get them boys! And you all kind of pop up and start shooting and take as many as you. It's so fun.

The wingspan on these suckers. On a goose? Yeah. I'd go here. What am I holding out? Like a three feet wingspan? A crane's out here more, like four to five feet. But, and you have like, in a three to four hour hunt, that might happen five or six times for us.

We killed 60 geese. The other dudes, when they went goose hunting, they only got 17. So we had an awesome goose hunt. Almost a limit. We almost all limited. There's a limit on how many you can kill each day. But the long short of it is, people don't care about hunting. Man, I was just with my boys and a bunch of other friends and their boys, but five-hour drive back and forth to love it, talking, hanging, learning, you know, doing.

It's just the ultimate. Like, golf was fun, and I love that too. But this is a different level of relationship building. Here's the words you hear sometimes. I think it's the perfect word. fellowship. It's awesome fellowship with your sons. Maryland says on YouTube, yes, Will is back.

Paul Raymond says, welcome back, Will. Excalibur 4 says, Happy New Year, everyone. Well, we're glad to have you back as well. We're here at Wilcane Country every Monday through Thursday at 12 o'clock Eastern Time. All you have to do is go to the Wilcane Country YouTube page, the Wilcane Country Facebook page, or If you're driving in your car, you're not watching this that day, you just want to listen. Hit follow on Spotify or Apple. And you know the story.

We're going to be back here tomorrow. Same time, same place. Happy 2026. Listen ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast. And Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show, ad free on the Amazon music app.