Venezuela’s Power Flip

A fortress door half-closed, a city’s radar gone dark, and a head of state in cuffs by midday. That’s how our Monday began—and from there, the real story started: not boots on the ground, but hands on the oil valve. We walk through the covert capture of Nicolás Maduro and why the aftermath is the strategy. Control the tankers and court-ordered seizures, and you control the incentives of every ministry and general in Caracas without toppling trash pickup, payroll, or airports.

We dig into why Venezuela’s outsized resource base makes it a hinge for Latin America and a proxy for China, Iran, and Russia. The narco-state playbook—diplomatic jets, laundered oil, sanctioned banks—only functions when the oil flows. By decapitating the regime and leaving the bureaucracy in place, Washington traded occupation for leverage. Western refiners need heavy crude; Western firms will line up when contracts are clean. That funnel could revive a shattered economy while starving the trafficking networks that push fentanyl and gangs toward our borders.

There’s friction on both flanks. Some on the right point to Venezuela’s bans on abortion and pornography as if virtue cancels violence. Some on the left blame sanctions as if plunder never happened. We cut through the noise: social policy doesn’t absolve starvation, and ideology doesn’t pump fuel. More provocative still are the claims that Venezuelan-born software helped rig votes abroad. With Maduro in custody, does that web unravel or vanish behind sealed filings? Either way, the signal landed in Havana and Tehran: distance won’t save you when our interests are at stake.

What comes next isn’t instant democracy. It’s continuity without complicity: the same desks doing the work, but under new incentives. Oil revenues reopen, court orders steer tankers, streets calm, and then real elections can mean something. That’s the difference between spectacle and statecraft—using the structure of institutions and the pressure of markets to make a failed state govern again. If you want a clear, sober breakdown of the raid, the oil math, the regional fallout, and the realistic path to legitimacy, this one brings receipts and context.

If this perspective resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who tracks geopolitics and energy, and leave a review with your take: leverage well used or line crossed? We’re reading every word.

Chapters

• 0:51 Cold Open: Peasants Perspective Kickoff
• 1:34 Breaking: The Capture Of Nicolás Maduro
• 3:14 The Raid: Tactics, Tech, And No Losses
• 4:59 HD Footage And The “Is It AI?” Debate
• 6:33 Why Venezuela’s Resources Matter Geopolitically
• 8:45 Narco-State Mechanics And Sanctions Evasion
• 11:26 Left And Right Reactions To Regime Change
• 13:45 Social Conservatism Under A Dictator
• 16:20 Symbol Warfare: Bombing The Chávez Mausoleum
• 18:57 Street Reactions And Diaspora Joy
• 20:51 2020 Elections, Machines, And Venezuela Claims
• 24:05 Proof Of Life And Signals To Adversaries
• 26:25 The “Proxy For China, Iran, Russia” Frame
• 28:19 Will Maduro Flip On Global Election Rigging?
• 30:50 Decapitating The Cartel: Power Vacuum Questions
• 33:36 Why Arrest Maduro’s Wife: Celia Flores’ Power
• 35:54 Trump’s Leverage: Run The Country Through Oil
• 38:04 Rubio’s Case: Law Enforcement, Not Invasion
• 41:28 Blockade, Court Orders, And Seizures
• 44:09 Chevron, Heavy Crude, And Western Refineries
• 46:40 Cuba’s Reliance On Venezuelan Oil
• 49:02 Stabilization Without Invasion
• 51:12 Continuity: Leaving Bureaucrats In Place
• 54:11 Elections Later, Leverage Now
• 58:22 American Mindset And Constitutional Structure
• 1:03:28 Closing: Private Segment Tease And Ads
• 1:23:36 Private: Property, Collectivism, And New York
• 1:30:09 DC Culture, Power, And Family Policy
• 1:33:12 Scott Adams On Faith And Final Choices
• 1:36:16 Sign-Off And Monty Python Coda

Transcript

SPEAKER_18: 0:51

We're just peasants. Everyone loves it. You watch the little movies, you see the peasants in the background with the kings and kings walking around. We're those people. We're those people. Good morning, peasants. Welcome to another episode of the Peasants Perspective. Glad to be here on this wonderful Monday morning. The first Monday of the year. First Monday of the year. Is it really?

SPEAKER_19: 1:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_18: 1:18

Wow. Didn't realize we didn't do anything last year. Well, I guess we did. We did, but we just haven't had a Monday yet. Not on the first Monday.

SPEAKER_19: 1:24

Okay, that makes sense. You gotta get right on that mic, man.

SPEAKER_18: 1:27

How's that?

SPEAKER_19: 1:27

That's better.

SPEAKER_18: 1:29

We're trying to prevent the room sound in the microphone, which means we've got to kind of eat the mics, which whatever. Okay, so woke up on Saturday morning with some pretty big news. Maduro had been captured.

SPEAKER_11: 1:42

Four days ago, three days ago, two days ago. And then all of a sudden it opened up and we said go. And I'll tell you, it's uh it was just amazing. And what was he doing? He was uh in a very uh highly guarded, like a fortress, actually. It was in a fortress, you know, that we had nobody killed was amazing. I think we had nobody killed, I have to say, because a couple of guys were hit, but they came back and they're supposed to be in pretty good shape. But uh that we had nobody killed, that we lost no aircraft, you know. Everything came back, we got it all back. One of them was hit pretty hard by a helicopter, but we got it back. But it just was the right time to do it. We had to do it because it's a war. We're losing 300,000 people a year. We don't lose that much in a war. Okay, if you look. And we had to do it. But he was in a uh in a house that was more like a fortress than a house. It had steel doors, it had uh what they call a safety space where it's you know solid steel all around. He didn't get that uh space closed. He was trying to get into it, but he got bum rushed so fast that he didn't get into that. We were prepared. We had you know massive blowtorches and everything else that you need to get through that steel, but we didn't need it. Uh he didn't he didn't make it to that area of the house.

SPEAKER_18: 3:09

Mr. President, your war on narcotics. So I don't want to spend too much time talking about the capture itself, but it is pretty impressive. About 150 total aircraft had to be deployed. They had to use the Space Force to take out radar technology. They blacked out a portion of Caracas, they flew in with, you know, these blacked-out uh uh stealth helicopters, flew right into his compound. He's living on their military base, right? Right into their compound, dropped down, went in, picked him and his wife up, read them their rights, cuffed them up, threw them back on air on helicopters, flew out to the Iwo Jima ship, and by midday yesterday or midday on Saturday, Nicholas Maduro showed up in New York City in custody. So I've seen a couple videos of the actual capture, and it's almost hard because we're so used to stuff coming out of the Middle East where it's kind of grainy body camera footage and helmet cams. This was like HD4K. Like I'm watching it, and the only reason I'm not playing it is because I'm not positive it wasn't AI, it was that good. But you had like Maduro like trying to close his big steel vault door, and he's literally standing there trying to close it with agents like, come on out of there, buddy. And they woke his wife up in her bed, you know, and she's like, and they're like arrested. It's too good. It looks like AI. So, anyways, uh, woke up to that, like, wow, uh, Nicholas Maduro was captured. This is one of those things where we always imagine the US military can do stuff like that, but then why don't they do it? Right. Well, turns out, uh maybe I guess they just show a lot of restraint. Well, maybe it's a little harder to do that than most people expect. Okay, but we want to talk not so much about the capture itself. I want to talk about the ramifications about this and what Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, specifically, has been saying, because he's the one who made the rounds on the set Sunday morning shows and got grilled by all legacy media. And so he's gonna answer a lot of questions for us. But this comes from a movie. I don't actually know what movie. This is uh this is Jim from The Office, but he's explaining Venezuela's role on the world stage. And this is accurate here. When we're talking about international politics, we're talking about international stuff. You have to understand some of these little countries and how significant they are because of resources. The whole world runs on resources.

SPEAKER_22: 5:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_18: 5:27

Civilization is based on the bank of a river because we needed fresh water. Right. And so the best spots on the river that don't flood are where you know the strongest are going to settle because they can defend it. Does that make sense? And so when we're talking about international politics, we're talking about different countries and nation states. You have to consider their resources.

SPEAKER_26: 5:46

What would you assume is the most major threat on the world stage? Anybody, just call it out. You don't have to raise your hand.

SPEAKER_09: 5:51

Definitely Russia.

SPEAKER_26: 5:52

Definitely Russia. That's confident. I like it. Who says Russia? Anybody agree with her? Hands. Okay, great. Who else? China. Stop yelling at me, but China is a good answer. Anybody? Who else? China?

SPEAKER_20: 6:04

North Korea.

SPEAKER_26: 6:05

North Korea. Any North Korea takers? And uh Venezuela? Anybody? Nope. Oh, yeah. One guy in the back. Everybody's cool with Venezuela? No threat? Okay. Let me ask you this. Which one of these places can claim to have the largest oil deposit on the planet? More than Saudi? More than Iran? Wow. Okay, what about things like gold? More than all the mines in Africa combined? The fact is that Venezuela is arguably the single greatest resource of oil and minerals on the planet. So, why is this country in the midst of one of the greatest humanitarian crises in modern history? Let's meet President Nicholas Reyes. After rising to power on a wave of nationalist pride, in a mere six years, this guy has crippled the national economy by half. He has raised the poverty rate by almost 400%. Luckily for the rest of us, he's up for re-election. So, who's running against him? This is Gloria Binalde. Now, Gloria is a history professor, turned activist. She's running against him on a social justice platform and on the strength of, in my humble opinion, just not being an asshole. On the news, they'll call it a crisis. But on the world stage, they'll call it a failed state. If you've never heard that term, other examples of a failed state in recent history are Yemen, Iraq, Syria. If that's not bad enough news for you, well, Venezuela is also the only one of these places within 30-minute range from the US next-gen nuclear missiles. You will not hear about any of this on the news, because the biggest players on the world stage do not want you to. To them, unstable governments are nothing more than the greatest of opportunities. So Russia, China, can never be the most major threat until countries like Venezuela leave the door open to our very own backyard.

SPEAKER_18: 8:24

So I love the point of that, right? Russia and China will never actually be America's greatest threat unless countries like Venezuela leave the door open in our own backyard, which is exactly what has been happening. Okay, so Nicholas Maduro, we've covered this. Your country's being run by narco-terrorists. And we went through the Emerald Robinson thread a while back, right? Nicholas Maduro, through his being able to capture the state, that gives him access to military ports, oil infrastructure, things that cartels normally don't have access and control over, right? He has actual access and control. State jets that have diplomatic immunity that can fly wherever they want. He has used that to advance drug trafficking. He's used it to advance money trafficking laundering. He's gotten around oil sanctions and other sanctions by using his banking apparatus, which was still allowed to do banking, right? In order to facilitate money laundering for countries like Iran and Cuba, which has long been on sanctions list. So he was able to do all of that. Now, in the coming days, you're going to hear naysayers on both sides. Unfortunately, the Democrats painted themselves in a hole here because they haven't supported the Maduro regime. In Trump's first term, you have a lot of Democrats that were criticizing Trump for not doing something about Maduro when he stole his last election, right? So the Democrat as a party can't really come out in support of Nicholas Maduro. But what you got to watch for is, and I don't even know, because I'm going to play you a clip here next about Tucker Carlson. I don't even know where to put this necessarily, but you're going to have people on the far right who are going to look at social outcomes and they're going to say anything to get the right social outcomes becomes justified. Okay. These this is pretty common when dictatorships come up, especially right-wing dictatorships. The desire for law and order and the desire to put your, you know, I'll call it your morality house back in order is pretty strong. On the left-wing side of things, you're going to hear people basically saying, you're not giving socialism a chance. So let's listen to a far right criticism of why Maduro should have been left in place. Now, again, this isn't Tucker Carlson defending Nicholas Maduro, but he's making a point that you're going to hear from some certain far-right individuals because they're going to say, Well, Nicholas Maduro got results.

SPEAKER_07: 10:42

Ben Shapiro was just sitting there being interviewed by Megan Kelly, and said something. He said something like, Well, Tucker Carlson's, you know, for Maduro. Maduro, the communist leader of Venezuela, who I guess were on the way to killing or something, forcing out regime changing him. And he defended Maduro. Didn't actually. And Megan Kelly says, Well, Tucker said in his show that Maduro, most people didn't know this, whatever his many faults, I wouldn't hire him as an economist, okay? But whatever's many faults has the most socially conservative country, probably in the hemisphere. So Venezuela is just a fact. I mean, I didn't make this up. I'm not in charge of Venezuela. Just noticing that Venezuela has banned pornography, banned abortion, banned gay marriage, banned sex changes, and banned usury. You don't have credit cards with 40% interest in Venezuela. Okay. Ben Shapiro responded this way.

SPEAKER_30: 11:48

Tucker's made the point. I'm not gonna here to be Tucker's defender, but he's made the point that Maduro is culturally conservative. Who gives a shit? The guy's a communist dictator. Everyone in this country is eating dog. He's shipping fentanyl to the United States to kill Americans. Why do I give a shit? Whether he's whether he's anti-LGBTQ rights. Who gives a shit?

SPEAKER_07: 12:12

I do. I do. I'm not moving to Venezuela. I'm not pro-Maduro. But I care about that. Why wouldn't I care about that? I've got kids. Like personally, I'm against abortion. I sorry. Unpopular. I feel that way. I think it's really sad. I would personally become poorer to end abortion. Voluntarily become poorer to end abortion in the United States. That's not a choice. Don't want to become poorer, but I would, because I care about it. Maybe you don't. Maybe you're offended that I do, but I care about it. Lots of people care about it. I don't think pornography is good. That really hurts people. You know? I I don't think pretending that the sexes are the same is good. And you claim that you didn't think it was good, but it turns out I don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_18: 12:55

So is it worth it to have a socialist communist government if they can get rid of pornography, usury, and gay marriage?

SPEAKER_19: 13:02

Oh man. No.

SPEAKER_18: 13:06

People will find a reason to attack for anything, right? That's a good question. That has to be considered. Now, on the left, people that are legitimately socialist and communist, because you know, Tucker Carlson's not going to defend Maduro from a communist socialist perspective. He's just going, well, as a conservative, yeah, we share some values. Okay. All right. All right. The funny thing, Lazy says where he's banned usury. I'm like, it's not that you've banned usury, it's that you're unable to enforce a contract. And you can't charge interest unless you have a functioning court system to collect the interest. So banning usury is really it's really a function of failure of law and order. Now, this right here is, you know, again, the socialists, they're they're ready. They've got their signs printed. As soon as Maduro was taken out, there was already a rally for uh uh in support of him. Excuse me, and and now Maduro is the is the heir of Hugo Chavez, right? He was the one who originally kicked things off in in uh in Venezuela. And one of the interesting things that they did when they went in and captured Nicholas Maduro, on their way out of the country, they bombed the mausoleum to Hugo Chavez. Okay. They bombed it. Where he's buried and where they it's like the temple to Hugo Chavez. No more memory. They bombed it. Okay, so that's just an interesting point of uh information here.

SPEAKER_03: 14:25

Chavez made sure that millions of kids who never had access to education would. He did so by sometimes using the Venezuelan army to seize the property of U.S. companies. He seized the oil and used that money for the Venezuelan oil, nationalized the oil to pay for social services. The quality of life for the poor in Venezuela skyrocketed. And today the US Empire bombed his grave. They want to destroy the memory of the hero, Hugo Chavez. Viva Chavez.

SPEAKER_18: 15:09

We could do an entire show on first reactions of Venezuelans throughout the world when they found out Maduro, like people getting woken up in their beds. Grandpa, Grandpa, Maduro's been captured by the Americans. Blessed be the day, God, thank you so much. Like people waking up in absolute excitement that Maduro's been taken out, right? But it's just again, from the right, you're gonna hear people have this weird criticism. Well, the ends justifies the means because you created a conservative country, right? Okay. And then on the other end, you're gonna have people who just are like, Chavez and Maduro got a bad rap. You know, if it weren't for the American empire sanctioning them all the time, they'd be wealthy and rich, which is clearly completely fake. Jumping into the chats here, John attack is good morning for Razure. It's a good morning in Boise, Idaho. Busy weekend watching the news, I know, especially with all this Venezuela stuff. Finally get to move on from Minnesota Somali scandal, right? Uh-huh. Good morning. Great extraction by Trump of the key witness for the 2020 election theft. Yep. Got him out before the uh deep state unalived Maduro. And he is in the Southern District of New York. So, I mean, this is the same jailhouse that had Epstein. So careful. And Mandami got notified. Hey, by the way, we're bringing Maduro into New York, so there's going to be some extra security. And he puts this tweet: I just got a call from the White House that they're bringing Maduro here. This was clearly a violation of international law. We'll see what we can do about security. It's like, oh, bro, it's gonna be rough. Uh Pony Boy, good morning. Tiff Time, good morning, Mata Easel watching with Xander and Zeke. Oh, yes, we got to train them up young. Those are little toddlers watching business perspective. Pony Boy, no kings except this one. Let him free is what's coming from the other side. Uh Pony Boy, he knew his time was coming when he was given giving away his resources to Trump. And pray the Rosary Daily. Good morning. Yeah, Trump was gonna Trump was gonna get the resources anyways. I think that's the net takeaway here. So Jack Basobia was on with Steve Bannon in response to this. Every dictator in the country that's a little bit cross with Donald Trump got woken up Monday, Sunday, Saturday morning by their security detail.

SPEAKER_32: 17:17

You're a naval intelligence officer. Intelligence here, at least on the strike, had to be pretty damn good, right? They knew exactly where he was, exactly how to get him, and extracting, sir.

SPEAKER_23: 17:30

Steve, as of 0400 Eastern Standard Time, every single world leader who is an adversary of the United States was suddenly woken up by the head of their security detail saying, uh, sir, you might want to put on the television. Because this just showed them that no matter where you are, no matter how secure you think you are, no matter how safe you think your defense is, your security is, the United States of America and the United States military has the capability to reach out in the middle of the night and get you, your family, and everyone around you with the flick of with the uh you know, the snap of President Trump's fingers. And when President Trump says go, that is exactly what the United States military does. And Steve, I know you and I were uh talking about this, the 15,000 U.S. Navy sailors that were parked there off the coast of Venezuela uh throughout New Year's, throughout Christmas, saying it looks like there's an operation imminent. A lot of people talked about this, and now we see that this is a culmination of those operations. We know that a variety of operations were given to President Trump, and this is the one that he ultimately went with. One of the things that I'm looking at right now, it's pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_18: 18:46

Could you imagine being in Tehran right now with people rising up all across the country? Because they've had like seven major city centers are having massive rise-ups, and Trump puts out a tweet saying, if you shoot any protesters, we'll come in for you hard and heavy. And then that next within 12 hours, Trump sneaks into Venezuela, which by the way is a Caracas is 3,500 feet. Like it's not just right on the coast. You know what I mean? Like to be able to project in, grab Maduro and his wife, read them their rights and extract them. You think the Ayatollah this morning isn't like, uh, yeah, maybe, maybe hold off on shooting those protesters? He's gonna be living in his safe house here pretty soon. So, just as a reminder, Elon Musk during the Trump campaign talked about Venezuela specifically and talked about one of the first things that Chavez did when he took power.

SPEAKER_24: 19:36

When when Chavez came to power in uh Venezuela, one of the first things he did was take the guns away from people. So he he basically put down private gun ownership um under the guise of you know safety. Uh and uh and then Maduro, when he had the election recently, he lost by a landslide and just ignored the election. And then people protested and they got shot. They couldn't defend themselves. And uh you know, like we send a lot of money to various countries, but I'm like, does it do any good? Yeah, so that's always a good question there.

SPEAKER_18: 20:26

Uh Jen Brown in 1984, all the way from UK. Jen had posted earlier in the Peasant Pod Living Room, she asked if we had any good candidates out in Minnesota for governor. And I said, Mike Lindell, the pillow guy. And uh, I haven't had a chance to respond yet because we went live, Jen, but uh yeah, he is a serious candidate, good candidate, and can self-fund himself for a good portion of it. And he already already has Donald Trump's endorsement. So honestly, given Minnesota's uh little four way with the Somali community, I wouldn't be surprised if Mike Lindell wins. I think I think Minnesota might be ready for a change. This is a clip coming from 2000, I want to say 21 or 22, and this was in Venezuela, and this was during one of their protests that they had. And I just want to show you guys this because when we talk about the Venezuela regime being brutal on its citizens, brutal on protesters, this is what we're talking about. Oh, jeez! And this was just one moment from that day. So what we just saw was their little armored cars just running over the crowd. Just no care, just running them over. And this day people were shot. I mean, there was lots of footage, but that's the kind of stuff like it's hard for us to understand, you know, as a January 6th or we went to Capitol and they shot us. Yes, they did, but had it been Venezuela, they don't know.

SPEAKER_19: 21:50

I thought you were gonna show me some water cannons or something.

SPEAKER_18: 21:53

They'd have brought the uh machine guns out. Yeah, no, they're not using water cannons in Venezuela, they're using front bumpers, is what they're using. And just as a reminder, remember, this Venezuela stuff goes deep, deep back into our elections, all the way back into 2020.

SPEAKER_12: 22:07

I can hardly wait to put forth all the evidence we have collected on Dominion, starting with the fact it was created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez and then shipped internationally to manipulate votes for purchase in other countries, including this one. It was funded by money from Venezuela and Cuba, and China has a role in it also. We have staggering statistical evidence. We have staggering testimony from witnesses, including one who was personally in briefings when all of this was discussed and planned, beginning with Hugo Chavez and how it was designed there, and then saw it happening in this country. As soon as the state shut down on election night and stopped counting, those are the states where the most egregious problems occurred. We also need to look at, and we're beginning to collect evidence on the financial interests of some of the governors and secretaries of state who actually bought into the Dominion systems to line their own pockets by getting a voting machine in that would either make sure their election was successful or they got money for their family from it. Well, for fraud this serious, I think even if the states are stupid enough to go ahead and certify the votes where we know the machines were operating and producing altered election results, then they will be set aside by the fraud also. I mean, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of votes. President Trump won this election in a landslide. It's going to be irrefutable. Patriots are coming forward faster than we can collect their information with testimony they're willing to give under oath about how their votes were stolen and how the machines operated. They were updated the night of the election, sometimes after the election. We've got statistical evidence that shows hundreds of thousands of votes being just put in and replicated. There needs to be a massive criminal investigation, and it's going to affect millions of voters in elections.

SPEAKER_18: 24:12

One of the things that, as as for this podcast, The Peasants' Perspective, right? I'll never forget you being like, I thought this was a conspiracy show. And I'm like, this is a news show. Five years ago, we did a broadcast on the slip into socialism and communism featuring the slide of Venezuela, right? And then learning about their election apparatus. Because I didn't know Venezuela was involved in our elections until the 2020 election. And then all of a sudden, we're hearing clips like that from Sidney Powell and Lou Dobbs and other people that are like, hey, these debidion and smartmatic machines both have their roots in Venezuela, and there's machine fraud, clearly. Look at the lines.

SPEAKER_19: 24:55

When I first heard about this, like, oh, our servers are in Serbia or they're in Venezuela. I was like, Are you kidding? That sounds so stupid.

SPEAKER_18: 25:04

It sounds so stupid, but then it's true. Here we are five years later. And even someone who, you know, I'll jokingly call a shill, right? Con uh conservative con, right? Benny Johnson, who clearly is one of these kind of darlings. Okay, well, I don't I don't know how else to put it. I'd love to be in his shoes some days, right? But one of these darlings, he's got lots of connections. Lots of people want to put information out through him. Well, he got a call. I the way he talks about this, I'm almost assuming it's Rick Grinnell, because I know Rick Grinnell was going down to Venezuela and meeting with uh Maduro, but this right here on the screen is the proof of life video that they gave us of Maduro. This is Maduro on the Iwo Jima, blacked-out eyes, handcuffed. Um, he went through like three wardrobe changes on his trip from Venezuela to New York, by the way. Every time they did a picture, he's got different stuff on. But this is what he was arrested in was all gray. Then he ended up in some black pants. And anyway, so he changed changed clothing throughout the day. I imagine they had him squat and coughing in between, too. No problem. Because, you know, if it's anything like transport, when I went, every time you have a stop, it's a stripped down squat and cough. So, I mean, one can hope, right? One can hope. Okay, so this is Benny Johnson.

SPEAKER_09: 26:16

Military signals doomsday for the globalist left. I just got off a phone call with a longtime friend of mine who, let's just say, is in clandestine diplomatic circles. And they laid it out clearly for me exactly what's at stake right now and why so many people are panicking about this arrest and the United States actions against the narco-terrorist state of Venezuela. Venezuela doesn't really exist. Venezuela is a proxy for China, Iran, and Russia. And they use that proxy, which is not too far off the American coast, to wage statecraft level terrorism against the United States. And that comes in the form of chemical warfare, like with fentanyl, and in biological warfare, like with human beings, millions of them flooding across our borders, gangs, and other operations that they've run. Remember, Lakin O'Reilly was killed by a Venezuelan gang member, along with many other Americans. Millions of Americans have been killed by the chemicals inside of the drugs that Venezuela ships into our country. And so the end of that proxy battle, uh, magnificently and stunningly through the evening, shuts down the capacity for our enemies to wage war against us in our hemisphere using that nation state. But it gets so much better. Listen to this. The individual who I spoke with, who has, let's just say, impeccable credentials on these things, has had dinner with Nicholas Maduro. This isn't an individual who's personally spoken with Nicholas Maduro and had conversations with him and his team. This is just what happens in high-level uh statecraft and diplomatic circles. And here's what he told me that the arrest of Nicholas Maduro obviously is going to end all of those operations that we just talked about, but it's also going to expose something incredible. The election rigging apparatus that is run out of Venezuela. And this has been run by big-time Venezuela software companies that were started in Venezuela, Smartmatic, Dominion, and these companies have been used effectively to rig elections around the world, including American elections. And the person who would know the most about that is Nicolas Maduro. My source tells me that Nicolas Maduro straight up admitted that this is exactly how the elections have been rigged in the West using Venezuelan technology, and he has direct knowledge of it. Is that going to be part of some type of plea agreement? Is this going to be part of some type of um sing like a canary situation with the feds? Is this Trump's major revenge for 2020? Along with, of course, understanding the network of left-wing NGOs and billionaires who fund these kind of things and world leaders, right? The left is sweating right now, and for good reason. It's all going to come out. It's going to be biblical.

SPEAKER_18: 29:04

Okay, so if Nicholas Maduro, if Nicholas Maduro really sits at the center of not only the narco-terrorism, but the human smuggling and trafficking, but also sits at the head of the election interference and rigging in up to 72 countries, this could be biblical. Or this could be like Epstein and Glaine Maxwell who trafficked kids to nobody. And oh, Maduro had a machine gun and pointed at the U.S.

SPEAKER_19: 29:30

What if we see our next clip? We see Maduro sitting next to Trump in the White House.

SPEAKER_18: 29:38

Oh my goodness. This is just having a drink. This is really interesting because unlike you know going after a bunch of low-level players and working your way up the mob or wake up the cartel, you just went and took out the cartel head itself. And with all the allegations, especially the idea that there are politicians and bureaucrats within our government that are on the payroll of these cartels, they may or may not know they're on the payroll of Nicholas Maduro. But all of a sudden, Nicholas Maduro's out of the picture. And who's calling the shots? Who's in charge? Who's directing the next payoff or drop-off of money? What if the drop-off of money doesn't happen? You know, my wife is supposed to get 20 grand every week when she goes to the jewelry store, she buys another diamond and they slip her a cash. You know what I mean? There's all kinds of ways to make cash drops. Go watch, go watch Hollywood. They've explained it very well. So you go to make your next cash drop, and all of a sudden the envelope's empty. Do you still have loyalty? Are you still on the payroll? Do they still have that blackmail on you that they were going to use? You have no idea. This is Alex Jones, okay, commenting on the same thing. Is Maduro gonna turn state's evidence? And yes.

SPEAKER_08: 30:51

Are they going to now have Maduro expose Pelosi, the Democrats, and the Clintons, and the Bushes for the drug dealing they've been involved in? I wouldn't hold your breath with the prosecutors, but definitely Trump is ending the U.S. sanctioning and laundering the money and supporting it and the election fraud. Because it's not Venezuela and China running it, it's the CIA deep state through China, through Venezuela, and Cuba doing it. So Cuba's in deep trouble, Mexico and Shine Bomb is operations in trouble. Their mothership Venezuela had all this incredible budget and all this incredible money. Not for his people, but for control. That's gone. And so Trump's leaving this current government in there. They already were about to go and put this new pump it. We're coming and stabilize it. Trying to cut your production again.

SPEAKER_20: 31:49

Turn your standard living back on and we're gonna fix this. And it's gonna work.

SPEAKER_08: 31:56

Because they have so much wealth.

SPEAKER_18: 31:59

So this is a big deal, folks. One of the things that's almost hard, it's kind of like when you grew up in a politically correct environment, and then somebody all of a sudden starts using immutable characteristics as descriptions, like that guy over there with the kinky hair, or the guy with the black kid, or you know what I mean? It's like we're not supposed to call that stuff out. You know what I mean? You're not supposed to say the black kid, you're supposed to say the kid in the black shirt, the blue jeans, and the white shoes. You know, you're supposed to describe everything but their skin color. Okay. For us, it's kind of hard because Trump is all of a sudden talking openly about taking the oil, about recall. Oh, one of the things I found when Trump said, you know, Venezuela, we're sanctioning until we get our property back. It's like, what property? When we we we opined that maybe it was an embassy or something like that. No, it was literally the wells, like the oil infrastructure that Chevron built 20, 30 years ago. Oh, when Chavez just nationalized, he just went in and took it. Oh, they put billions of dollars into it, and he just went and took it and said, Okay, you can, you know, you can pay me the for the oil direct now. You don't have to pay the employees. I got this. And then, of course, the employees became slave wages. That's what happens in communism. And you know, aren't you happy to have even a job? So we're taking that back. Sweet. Yep. We're taking that back. Now, as we get into this, because how Trump did this is pretty significant. He also arrested Maduro's wife. Now, at first glance, I thought, oh, you know, wife of the cartel leader, whatever. Okay, like she's involved, but she's secondary. Turns out she ain't so secondary, she's a big player down in Venezuela.

SPEAKER_05: 33:34

Who is Celia Flores, the first lady of Venezuela that has also been captured by the United States? Don't think of Celia Flores as just Maludo's wife. Celia Flores has been involved in the Venezuelan regime since the very beginning, 26 years ago. She was actually Choice's lawyer when he was in prison. She later joined Choez's political movement and quickly became a very important player within the Chavez regime. She was president of the National Assembly. Okay, so president of the National Assembly, that's like being Speaker of the House. WD she played important roles in getting the votes necessary to approve enabling laws for Chowiz to rule by decree. She wields significant power behind the scenes. And her sphere of influence is not overlapping with Maudo's sphere of influence. They're two separate entities. And they got married in 2013. Okay, this is important.

SPEAKER_18: 34:14

Her sphere of influence is highly political. Like the actual voters, the people who ran in their local precincts who were supposed to bring some pork back for their districts. She has political power. Maduro has some political power, but has a lot of muscle, a lot of cartel power. Okay, so their marriage is a political power matching up with the muscle.

SPEAKER_19: 34:34

No, it's a marriage made in heaven.

SPEAKER_18: 34:36

Marriage made in heaven. And they got married after Maduro became president.

SPEAKER_05: 34:42

Okay. In 2015, her nephews were arrested and extradited to the US for trafficking cocaine. Essentially, they were using Venezuelan diplomatic passports to traffic drugs. So it's important to understand that it's not just Maluro who's gone now, CDF Loris is also gone. That's a significant vacuum of power that the Venezuelan regime is going to struggle to fill. But we have to see what's going to happen in the upcoming days.

SPEAKER_18: 35:03

Okay. So one of the things Trump came in and said, he says, we're going to run Venezuela. Now they had an election a year ago, and they had uh the Nobel Prize winner. She wasn't on the ballot, but her guy, Edmundo, was on the ballot. He won. And the way they found out was people were taking pictures of ballots before they were going into the machines. So all everybody did this. All the election workers, they all knew this election's going to be rich. So they took pictures of the ballots, counted up the pictures. He won with like 67% support. Machines came out and they're like, oh look, Maduro got 99% of the votes. Right.

SPEAKER_19: 35:34

Maybe we should do that in Kidsap County.

SPEAKER_18: 35:37

Really should. Okay. So by taking her out and him out, and then one of the things Trump's allowing to happen is the vice president of Venezuela, Maduro's, you know, evil, evil secondhand person that's been very evil, she's now sworn in as president. So what Trump has done is he's basically said, look, I can just come in and get you. So I need you guys to play along now. I need you guys to actually run a government, run a country, and be nice to your citizens. He said that. If you're not, there'll be consequences, even worse. Okay. So he's basically saying, listen, you guys have all of this influence. She sat at the head of the assembly, she's got all the political influence. Maduro's in charge of all the muscle. Now we're in charge. So Trump just, just like when one cartel takes over another, take out the gang leader, take out the cartel leader. That the new cartel leader's like, okay, I'm in charge now. All of your captains, you're either loyal to me or you're gone. Does that make sense? Trump just did that. He's like, screw coming in and fighting block by block. I'm just going to come in and take Maduro. And now I'm going to look at all of his lieutenants and I'm going to be like, you guys work for me now. Oh, and by the way, we're going to set up a new election. We're going to get going on, you know what I mean? We're going to re-establish our country. You guys are going to give power back to the people. That's the way I see this going down. Now, Marco Rubio made the rounds. We're going to listen to quite a bit of Rubio here because he's he set out to explain everything. He got asked by uh Kristen Welker. He got asked about why they didn't seek congressional approval for this.

SPEAKER_29: 37:06

This was not an action that required congressional approval. In fact, it couldn't require congressional approval because this was not an invasion. This is not an extended military operation. This is a very precise operation that involved a couple of hours of action. It was a very delicate operation, too. It was one that required all these conditions to be in place at the right time in the right place. You couldn't afford leaks. We couldn't afford anything out there that would have endangered the mission and gotten people killed or killed off the mission in the optionality. We didn't even know if the mission was going to happen. How can you notify something you're not even sure if it can happen? Because in order for it to happen, you needed to have weather conditions in place. He needed to be at the right place at the right time. We needed to have forces prepared to go. There were a lot of factors in place. It was a trigger-based operation. You can't notify that, number one, because you don't even know if it's going to happen if those conditions will ever align. And number two, you can't risk it being disclosed. But this was not an attack on Venezuela. This was a law enforcement function to capture an indicted drug trafficker. And of course, we needed the Department of War to support it because they do have anti-aircraft missiles that could shoot down those helicopters. But will you? We had to take down radars. We had to take down those anti-air elements on the way in and on the way out. And that's what that's what this was limited to.

SPEAKER_27: 38:16

But will you seek congressional approval for any further action in Venezuela or the region?

SPEAKER_29: 38:23

Well, we will seek congressional approval for actions that require congressional approval. But otherwise, they will get congressional notification. Um, that and and this is not an operation that required congressional approval. In fact, this is an operation akin to what virtually every single president for the last 40 years has conducted. The difference is that when it's Donald Trump, you know, you know, all these Democrats go bonkers.

SPEAKER_18: 38:46

This was not an action that required congress. Ron, we got an ad.

SPEAKER_19: 38:49

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SPEAKER_18: 39:49

We need to get a coffee machine in here. For me, not you, of course. For me, not you. Okay, so Rubio gets asked uh um again on Meet to Pr Meet the Press, and he's just like, listen, all these experts talking about. About Venezuela, we get it. Trump's the no more war candidate. We don't want to go start these endless wars. We don't want to invade Iraq and spend eight months looking around for Saddam Hussein. We don't want to spend 20 years in Afghanistan chasing towel heads through the hills, garden poppy field, checking spider poles. However, Democrats and Republicans sat back while that happened. Okay. Many years ago, many, many years ago, stretching back to the Korea era, the legislature created the ability for the executive branch to basically go to war without ever having to go to Congress to declare a war. Imagine trying to go declare war on Venezuela, knowing that a large percentage of your congressmen and senators could actually be on Maduro's payroll. Right. Imagine that. Okay. So these people that go around talking about Venezuela, acting like it's different, it is different. Or it's not different. It is different.

SPEAKER_29: 40:51

Most of the experts that people have on top. I watch these experts, and it's clown hour. Okay. These are people that have focused their entire career on the Middle East or some other part of the world because that's where all the action was. They, very few of them know anything about Venezuela or the Western Hemisphere. Venezuela looks nothing like Libya. It looks nothing like Iraq. It looks nothing like Afghanistan. It looks nothing like the Middle East, other than the Iranian agents that are running through their plotting against America. Okay. These are Western countries with long traditions among their at a people-to-people and cultural level and ties to the United States. So there's nothing like that. So I think people need to stop ascribing the apples and oranges to the apples of the Middle East to the oranges of the Western hemisphere. But number two, this is about the national interest of the United States. And what I'm confident of is we are in a safer and better place because we're taking it seriously. The alternative would have been to leave Maduro there as an indicted drug trafficker, illegitimate president, running the country, open invitation for all of our adversaries to do whatever they want against the United States from Venezuela. That was not going to continue. The alternative would have been to allow a drug trafficker to continue to use national territory and elements of nation-state power to further drug trafficking organizations. Read the indictment. This guy used the levers of their security apparatus not to arrest drug traffickers, but to cooperate and facilitate the trafficking of drugs for the purpose of getting them into the United States.

SPEAKER_19: 42:17

You just commented on what I was going to say. I think Rubio should get an award for making her hang on questions.

SPEAKER_18: 42:26

But it's so bad. That is a big difference. You know, Iraq had never really experienced democracy, and neither had Afghanistan. Venezuela has. It's in their recent memory. In fact, they just had an election last year. I think they'll be quick on the uptake, is my guess. Like I'm guessing that we run an election here pretty soon and things start to change. And here's the other thing, too: taking out Maduro, specifically Maduro, not trying to take everything out and Trump inserting himself as the new cartel leader. Right. Right. There's other countries that are reliant on that state power that Venezuela had. Cuba and Iran specifically relied on Venezuela basically laundering money for them to make oil sales and in Cuba's case to actually get oil in order to run their country. So part of this blockade, the sanctioning and capturing these boats, these boats were headed to Iran, headed to Cuba. Cuba's running out of oil. And Cuba obviously is a huge adversary of the United States. Apparently, they have one of the most advanced intelligence agencies in the world and have high-ranking, high-level intelligence operatives inside of our government, even in the White House. So when Trump says this about Cuba, it's kind of a big deal.

SPEAKER_13: 43:41

Cuba looks like it's ready to fall. I don't know how they if they can all that. But Cuba has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela. Venezuelan oil, they're not getting any of it.

SPEAKER_18: 43:55

I told you he changed clothes a couple times. He's got a new pair of clothing on. So a lot of Cuban Americans are going to be happy because not only is Venezuela falling, but Cuba is next. And Lindsey Graham, Lindsey Graham, got to fly on the plane with Trump, and he had something to say about Cuba too. Dude, this guy's frothing at the mouth. Earlier before, when I was doing showburn before you got in here, Marie was standing right here with me. She was watching this. She's like, oh, he's thirsty.

SPEAKER_33: 44:30

And then to this commander-in-chief. He did something people talked about doing. You just wait for Cuba. Cuba is a communist dictatorship that has killed priests and nuns. They preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered. We're gonna wake up one day, I hope in 26. In our backyard, we're gonna have allies in these countries doing business with America, not narco-terrorist dictators killing America. This is a big frigging day. And everybody in the world is thinking differently than they were just a few days ago because of what you did.

SPEAKER_18: 45:09

Oh, I'm certain the Ayatollah in Iran is right now in his bunker, like, keep that door locked. I'm certain of it. Okay. Absolutely. Every pulp pot dictator, pinpot, what do they call it? Pin pot dictator, whatever. Right. Every dictator around the country that's a little cross with the United States is like, oh yeah, we'll go ahead and bomb those uh if you're Nigerian president. Yeah, no, bomb the terrorists in our country. We don't care. Okay. It is it is a I of all the ways to take out Nicholas Maduro, this is it's better than if he had just fled to Turkey with some of his you know fault people. Or died. Or died. Yeah, this is like he's captured. You've gonna have the visual of him being on trial, the potential of him turning states' evidence and talking. No one's ever gonna know if he talked or not, right? The people that are on the payroll that are downstream that don't know that we don't know where the money's coming from. Is the money gonna be there? I mean, guys, uh Cuba was deeply involved in Venezuela.

SPEAKER_29: 46:13

When it's Donald Trump, you know, you know, all these Democrats go bonkers.

SPEAKER_27: 46:16

Is the Cuban government uh the Trump administration's next target, Mr. Secretary? Very quickly.

SPEAKER_29: 46:22

Well, the Cuban government is a is a huge problem. Yeah, the the the Cuban government is a huge problem for some of the people. So is that a yes to Cuba? But I don't think people fully appreciate, I think they're in a lot of trouble. Yes, I'm not gonna talk talk to you about what our future steps are gonna be and our policies are gonna be right now in this regard. But I don't think it's any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro. His entire like internal security force, his internal security uh opera apparatus is entirely controlled by Cubans. One of the untold stories here is how, in essence, you talk about colonization, because I think you said Dulcie Rodriguez mentioned that the ones who have sort of colonized, at least inside the regime, are Cubans. It was Cubans that guarded Maduro. He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards, he had Cuban bodyguards in terms of their internal intelligence, who spies on who inside to make sure there are no traitors, those are all Cubans. All right.

SPEAKER_18: 47:13

Venezuela was really overrun by Cuba. Venezuela, uh Maduro was using Cuban thugs as his bodyguard, as well. Yeah. We've known that for a while, right? Because the Venezuelans weren't going to guard that stuff because if you're Venezuelan, your uncle is eating a dog for lunch. And that's the family pet.

SPEAKER_19: 47:32

Is that why we use Israeli guards here? Do we? Do we? I don't know.

SPEAKER_18: 47:39

I hope.

SPEAKER_19: 47:39

I'm just making, I'm just funning.

SPEAKER_18: 47:41

So Stephanophilos was like, hey, didn't you guys just pardon the former Honduran president for drug trafficking? And now you're you're arresting Nicholas Maduro. Is this just more of the same? Is this is this is Maduro just gonna get pardoned?

SPEAKER_16: 47:55

The congressional gang evade has a history of not leaking, but you mentioned the indictment of Mr. Maduro, and of course it does detail his drug running operations. Uh, in the same jurisdiction, the former president of Honduras was actually convicted on similar charges, yet the president pardoned him. Here's what the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, had to say about that. He said you cannot credibly argue that drug trafficking charges demand invasion in one case while issuing a pardon in another. What's your response?

SPEAKER_29: 48:23

Well, the president has the pardon authority. He's the one that reviewed the file with the folks at the White House to make these pardon decisions, and I refer questions to them on it because I'm not involved in the pardon process. So I can't comment on that because I wasn't involved in that process. But the president outlined yesterday that he felt that in that particular case there was unfairness. And uh that there was unfairness in the way that that that individual was treated. And he also pointed to the fact that the party that's now won the elections in Honduras had asked for this. And so um I I would point to those comments as as a rationale for it. In the case of Maduro, look, it's very simple. This guy was indicted, no one ever did anything about it. And he he didn't think he was under threat or that the was ever going to be enforced. It was enforced yesterday.

SPEAKER_16: 49:05

Hernandez was convicted by a jury.

SPEAKER_29: 49:09

I understand. You're asking me the pardon authority is something that, you know, I'm not involved in in my role. I'm not criticizing it. I can't just comment on it because I just wasn't involved in those deliberations.

SPEAKER_18: 49:19

So if we know anything about the pardon that happened before with the Honduran president, it was he was getting stuck, right? He was a conservative, and the Obama or the Biden administration came after him because he didn't want to support the open border regime and let people flow through his country. So they came after him, so that's why Trump pardoned him. Maduro's on the other end of the spectrum. Okay, it was Maduro that wanted to send people up through his country, and he was like, I'm not doing that. And that's what landed him in prison. So very different situations. Now, our favorite, Jimmy Carville here. Uh Tony Boy says Obama didn't get asked, he didn't ask for approval from Congress to overthrow Gaddafi. That is true. That is very true. Kind of side-blinded, side, side uh sideswiped a lot of us. In fact, we did an episode called It's All Started, It All Started in Libya. And yes, uh, Jen, I know I need to get you a copy of that going on like three or four years that you requested that. But uh there was an episode we did called It All Started in Libya, where we talked about how Libya just kind of out of nowhere, all of a sudden we toppled a nation state. And most Americans weren't really aware of what was happening at all. Here's James Carville here, and he's pretty dang certain that this whole capture of Maduro, this all has to do with Trump and Epstein.

SPEAKER_28: 50:36

People wake up if you think this is anything remotely legit, or this is in in furtherance of some foreign policy aim or some aim of American Come on, please, please, people, it's all about Epstein. Wake up, get the scales off your eyes. Do a little think beyond just the front of your nose. This is Epstein health subsidies. This is a giant diversionary tactic. It hadn't been totally thought out. What the fuck is he ever done this? Not totally thought out. That is even marginally thought out.

SPEAKER_17: 51:22

We're just covering up for Epstein and health premiums. That's all this is.

SPEAKER_18: 51:26

Okay. Pray the Rosemary Daly says Lindsay is insufferable. James Carville's insufferable. For real. Marco Rubio got asked about, okay, so who's in charge now? Who's going to be the legitimate president of Venezuela? What what what's what's the plan here?

SPEAKER_16: 51:40

So is it your position now that the vice president Delcy Rodriguez is now the legitimate president of Venezuela?

SPEAKER_29: 51:48

Well, this is not about the legitimate president. We don't uh we don't believe that this regime in place is legitimate via an election. And that's not just us. It's 60-something countries around the world that have taken that view as well, including the European Union. But I we we understand that they are there are people in Venezuela today who are the ones that can actually make changes. So, for example, when we want to send in the migrant flights, even though we've never recognized the Maduro regime as legitimate, we had to deal with the authorities that controlled the airports. We had to deal with the people who had guns and the people who had control of the airports. We had to deal with them to achieve these objectives. That's different from recognizing their legitimacy. Ultimately, legitimacy for their system of government will come about through a period of transition and real elections, which they have not had. And by the way, it's the reason why Maduro was not just an indicted drug or an indicted drug trafficker. He's illegitimate president. He was not the head of state. And I continue to see these media reports referring to him as President Maduro and the head of state. He was not the head of state. He was not the head of it. And it's not just us saying it, the Biden administration said it. And so did uh 60-something countries around the world hold that position.

SPEAKER_18: 52:52

Marco Rubio said something there that you rarely get from high-level politicians. Real politique. We have to deal with the people who control the airports. We have to deal with the people who control the guns. So the reason Donald Trump isn't just rushing in Eduardo or Edmundo, who won the last election, and rushing in this Nobel Prize winner and just installing them is because they, and Trump said this, they don't have respect, respect of who. The people that need to run the airports, that need to run the oil fields, that have to run your local uh DMV. Because remember, all the stuff that we associate with government, they have set up, right? You want to build a building permit, there's some sort of notification you have to give to the local jurisdiction. You know what I mean? And all of those people are Chavistas and Maduro loyalists. It'd be like right now, if you know Trump just got taken over and we installed James Carville as president, he doesn't have the respect of the cabinet heads and different people that are running their fiefdoms, so to speak. Because that's what happens in these dictatorships. The dictator gets the dictate, but the warlords and the generals and the kid, the prime minister of secretary of you know natural resources, they run these little fiefdoms, just like here in America. And so by leaving all those people in place, and then Trump coming in and basically saying, we run it, what he's saying is we're gonna run it through them. So this is some audio from him on Air Force One being asked just that question.

SPEAKER_10: 54:14

The next question is who's in charge of Venezuela right now? Have you spoken to the newly sworn president there Rodriguez?

SPEAKER_13: 54:22

And what are your thoughts on the entire situation? We're dealing with the people. We're dealing with the people don't ask me who's in charge because I'll give you an answer and then people.

SPEAKER_18: 54:40

Don't ask me who's in charge because I'll give you a controversial answer. Well, who's in charge? We're in charge. Okay. So this is exactly what I've described. Trump just took over the cartel, took over the country, and he's like, okay, all of you guys that are in that are in these places, I'm in charge. So do what I say. And if not, there'll be consequences. Because guess what? A lot of the people that are in charge of these different, like essentially your cabinet secretaries, these are all cartel members that are wanted. And so now the pressure's on. We came and got Nicholas Maduro. If you don't run that DMV nice and smooth, if you don't open up those oil fields and allow Chevron and other companies to come in and start repairing infrastructure and own it, right, then there's going to be problems. Marco Rubio was asked about just this too.

SPEAKER_16: 55:25

President Trump was pretty clear yesterday. He said the United States is going to run Venezuela. Under what legal authority?

SPEAKER_29: 55:37

That means their economy will not be able to move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interest of the Venezuelan people are met. And that's what we intend to do. So that leverage remains, that leverage is ongoing, and we expect that it's going to lead to results here. We're hopeful that it does, positive results for the people of Venezuela, but ultimately, most importantly for us. It's pretty simple.

SPEAKER_18: 55:59

A country needs money to run, and in Venezuela, that money means oil, and we're going to control the oil, so we're going to control the country. Okay, because all these different cabinet heads, oh, you're the interior minister of education and you've got some bribe you need to pay. You're going to have to produce some education.

SPEAKER_29: 56:15

In the national interest of the United States, we will no longer have, hopefully, as we move forward here, we'll set the conditions so that we no longer have in our hemisphere a Venezuela that's the crossroads for many of our adversaries around the world, including Iran and Hezbollah, is no longer sending us drug gangs, is no longer sending us drug boats, is no longer a narco trafficking paradise for all those drugs coming out of Colombia to go in through the Caribbean and towards the United States. And obviously, we want a better future for the people of Venezuela. We want them to have an oil industry where the wealth goes to the people, not to a handful of corrupt individuals and stolen by pirates all over the world. That's what we're working towards, and we intend to use the leverage we have to help achieve that.

SPEAKER_16: 56:57

Let me ask the question again.

SPEAKER_29: 57:11

We have court orders. These are sanctioned boats, and we get orders from courts to go after and seize these sanctions. So there's that's I don't know, is a court not a legal authority?

SPEAKER_16: 57:20

So is the United States running Venezuela right now?

SPEAKER_29: 57:25

Well, I've explained once again, I'll do it one more time. What we are running is the direction that this is gonna move moving forward, and that is we have leverage. This leverage we are using and we intend to use. We started using already. You can see where they are running out of storage capacity. In a few weeks, they're gonna have to start pumping oil unless they make changes. And that leverage that we have with the armada of boats that are currently positioned, allow us to seize any sanctioned boats coming into or out of Venezuela, loaded with oil, or on its way in to pick up oil, and we can pick and choose which ones we go after. We have court orders for each one. That will continue to be in place until the people who have control over the levers of power in that country make changes that are not just in the interest of the people of Venezuela, but are in the interest of the United States and the things that we care about. That's what we're doing. Well, the president was asked yesterday. Legal authority is the court orders that we have.

SPEAKER_18: 58:15

So the people who control the levers of power, this is exactly what I'm saying. We're gonna use the oil, which is their only output to control the decisions they make. Seems legit to me because I can see all of our big corporations, big ag, big pharma, big oil, they control what we do too, right? So if big oil is in charge down there, it makes sense to me. They're gonna use the people that are in place down there to clean themselves out. Listen, you don't want to get arrested and get extradited to the United States, run a fair election and let yourself get voted out of office. Okay, do it clean, walk away. Uh, Margaret Brennan on CNN was asking Marco Rubio about, are we gonna have an election? Are we gonna have an election? And Marco Rubio's like, hold on, we're gonna have an election, but this isn't gonna happen in like two days.

SPEAKER_02: 59:01

President Trump said Maria Karina Machado doesn't have the support or respect within the country.

SPEAKER_18: 59:05

And by your own admission, and what we're saying here is she's got the love of the country, but she doesn't have the respect to run the country. Because if the country is being run by the cartel, then presumably you're gonna need to use the cartel to run it because they're not just gonna walk away from their jobs. Does that make sense? Again, as you go layers into this, it's just like in the United States, you have Clinton corruptocrats spread out all through the bureaucracy. Your local treasurer very well could be a Clinton corruptocrat. They don't know they're a Clinton corruptor, they don't know they're running the Clinton playbook, but that's just the job they do. You're right. I mean, if you're in Venezuela and jobs are scarce, a good job is to go work for the government. You know what I mean? At least you get some bread. And so they've got to use those people. She doesn't command the respect of the people in those positions.

SPEAKER_02: 59:52

She walloped Nicolas Maduro in the last election. So it does sound like a decision was made, but there wasn't on the ballot in the last election. No, but her party was.

SPEAKER_29: 1:00:03

And Mundo was. Yes. Correct. So it was an illegitimate election, and that's why he's not a legitimate president.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:09

Right, but is there an agreement to transition to democracy? It sounds like.

SPEAKER_29: 1:00:15

Well, I think what the point is, but there's has to be a little realism here, okay? A transition to the market. They've had this regime, they've had this system of Chavismo in place for 15 or 16 years. And everyone's asking why, 24 hours after Nicholas Maduro was arrested, there isn't an election scheduled for tomorrow. No, no, I'm asking what you talked about within.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:34

Right.

SPEAKER_29: 1:00:35

And you I'm not gonna have I'm not going to publicly get into details about any of those things other than to tell you that our expectations remain the same. And we are going to judge whoever we're interacting with moving forward by whether or not those conditions are met. We want, of course, we want to see Venezuela transition to be a place completely different than what it looks like today. But obviously, we don't have the expectation that's going to happen in the next 15 hours. What we do have an expectation is that it move in that direction. We think it's in our national interest and frankly in the interest of the people of Venezuela.

SPEAKER_18: 1:01:05

Along with that question came the question of why didn't you arrest everyone else that's been indicted in Venezuela? And the answer's actually pretty straightforward.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:15

He's still in place. The defense minister, who has deep ties to Russia,$15 million price on his head, he is still in place.

SPEAKER_18: 1:01:24

All these guys now were like, I better do what the big boss man says.

SPEAKER_19: 1:01:28

I think it's pretty interesting that his name was Vladimir. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_18: 1:01:33

A lot of these people that are still in place, like you said, the defense minister ties to Russia and Cartel, right? Yeah. Yeah. He's next on the list if he doesn't play nice.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:42

I'm confused. Are they still wanted by the United States? Why didn't you arrest them if you are taking out the narco-terrorist regime?

SPEAKER_29: 1:01:51

You're confused. Yeah. I don't know why that's confusing to you. They're still in prison. It's very simple. We're not going to go in and wrap up. You're going to you're but yeah, but you can't go, you're going to go in and suck up five people. They're already complaining about this one operation. Imagine the howls we would have from everybody else if we actually had to go and stay there four days to capture four other people. We got the top priority. The number one person on the list was the guy who claimed to be the president of the country that he was not. And he was arrested along with his wife, who was also indicted. And that was a pretty sophisticated and frankly complicated operation. It is not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the country. The guy lived on a military base. Land within three minutes, kick down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter, and leave the country without losing any American or any American assets. That's not an easy mission. And you're asking me why didn't we do that in five other places at the same time? I mean, that's absurd. I do think this is one of the most, you know, uh daring, uh, you know, complicated, sophisticated missions this country has carried out in a very long time. Tremendous credit to the U.S. military personnel who did it. It was unbelievable and uh tremendous success. And today, an indicted drug trafficker who was not the legitimate president of Venezuela, who we don't recognize, the Biden administration didn't recognize, 60-something countries don't recognize, the European Union doesn't recognize, and many countries in Latin America don't recognize. He was a convicted, he was an indicted drug trafficker. He was arrested, his wife was arrested. The others who are also indicted are still in place.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:25

The others who were also indicted are still in place. So that's the point of my questioning there. But you talked about not being the legitimate. No, I'm asking why you chose that this was the limit of the military operation. But to your point that you just be so dumb.

SPEAKER_19: 1:03:45

Imagine being some hold on, imagine this. Imagine if we had an election 15 hours after we wouldn't people be asking some questions then. Yeah. Oh, or, and then what was the other thing she said that was so dumb? Um, oh, well, if we're gonna go arrest all these dudes, it's like where do you draw the line? I mean, do you stop at five? Why didn't you arrest 12?

SPEAKER_18: 1:04:10

Well, the whole idea is just go arrest all the ones that are indicted. That's if that was just a law enforcement activity, then why don't you go get them all?

SPEAKER_19: 1:04:15

Well, sure, but just like one at a time. Just like with the boats, we can select which ones we want to stop.

SPEAKER_18: 1:04:24

This is great. This is great. Imagine being the defense minister of Venezuela this morning. You know you're indicted. You know they can come in anytime they want and pick you up. And then they're saying things like, sure be nice if uh did actual Navy stuff and you know, I don't know, did something you're supposed to be doing. Sure be nice if this boat made It seems like you're we're in a way better position now.

SPEAKER_19: 1:04:53

Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, because you got maximum leverage, yeah.

SPEAKER_18: 1:04:57

And Chevron, now Chevron is not faultless in all of this. Chevron basically propped up the Chavez and the Maduro regime because they kept getting oil, right? They took their property, but then they're like, okay, we'll still deliver the oil, you just cut the check to Venezuela instead of cutting it to all the employees and the way they did it, right? So you don't get any profit out of it, out of the pumping of the oil. And then, of course, Venezuela turns around and sells oil to China, Cuba, Russia, and cuts Chevron out of the deal, right? So Chevron's not clean in this, but at the same time, they are an American oil company, right?

SPEAKER_19: 1:05:30

So well, they were probably doing the kind of bribes that they needed to to be in business.

SPEAKER_18: 1:05:35

Yes, they're not clean in this by any means. In fact, I'd borderline say boycott Chevron, you know, because they really shouldn't they're bad. Okay. So here's Marco Rubio though talking about Chevron and the oil companies coming into Venezuela quickly.

SPEAKER_16: 1:05:51

Chevron is is the only American company working in Venezuela right now, only American oil company working in Venezuela right now. Have you gotten commitments from any other U.S. oil companies to go in?

SPEAKER_29: 1:06:02

I haven't spoken to U.S. oil companies uh in the last few days, but we're pretty certain that there will be dramatic interest from Western companies, non-Russian, non-Chinese companies will be very interested. Uh our refineries in the Gulf Coast of the United States are the best in terms of refining this heavy crude. And there's actually been a shortage of heavy crude uh around the world. Uh that so I think there will be tremendous demand and interest from private industry if given the space to do it, if given the opportunity to do it. And that will spin off tremendous royalties for the people of Venezuela to benefit the people of that country, not the handful of people at the top, but the people. And and and you know that that can that can happen. There will be interest. I haven't spoken to the companies uh since all this has happened. I'm certainly aware of who they are. And uh I have spoken to Secretary Wright and Secretary Bergum and others. Uh on I know they'll they'll soon be sort of taking an assessment and speaking to some of these companies, but I don't have any concerns that there won't be interest. There'll be tremendous interest if it can be done the right way.

unknown: 1:07:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_18: 1:07:03

Some democracy. The the old thing, right? Anywhere there's oil, there's some American democracy on it today. Good gravy, man. Uh so for people that don't know, crude oil comes out of the ground in different ways, right? Right. Heavy crude, light crude, crude crude, and they have to be refined differently. You can get the end the products at the end of it.

SPEAKER_19: 1:07:23

Some refineries can only accept light or medium or heavy, right?

SPEAKER_18: 1:07:28

So heavy crude apparently is kind of the most sought after, they can do the most things with it, but it also there's the least amount of refineries because the places that sell heavy crude, like Venezuela, have not increased their output for a number of years because you know they've been under communist control. So the idea that all of a sudden, like China buys from them, uh obviously the Gulf Coast refineries need heavy crude. So this could really dramatically increase oil output in the Western hemisphere. This this could be huge. Again, the strategy of just going in and getting Maduro and not a long drawn-out war or an embargo that lasted a year and starved the Venezuelan people while the regime itself had money to last, all bad options. This right here, it's like new options on the table. Cuba's about to fall, Iran's about to fall. All because you took out a central figure, Maduro, all the contracts he signed. The Chinese delegation was in Caracas. They had met with him the day before and were going to be meeting with him the next day. And all of a sudden, there, oh, there's so much stuff going on. The Chinese delegation is sending emergency messages out of China because remember, the airspace is closed and all this stuff. And all of a sudden, Maduro's gone. He's the one who gave him permission to be there. And they're like, we gotta get out of here. We're stuck in Venezuela and Maduro's rest.

SPEAKER_19: 1:08:50

I hear you can get a backpack and start hiking north.

SPEAKER_18: 1:08:53

Yeah. So the concern is stabilization of the country. Again, why Trump just took out Maduro but left everyone else in place is because while there's people out in the streets celebrating, but the defense, the soldiers in Venezuela have not been shooting the protesters or the people coming out in the streets like they did a week ago, right? So there's been definitely a back-off. Um, but it keeps those civil services like somebody's in charge of picking up the trash this morning somewhere in Venezuela. That function is still probably happening because people got left in place, right? By letting the VP become the president, there's a payroll structure that happens here.

SPEAKER_19: 1:09:31

You know what I mean? Right. Again, because we didn't invade, this was not in like an invasion. We weren't coming in to invade and take over Venezuela. And because we didn't do that, the place is not in disarray.

SPEAKER_18: 1:09:42

It's the same thing that happens if one of our U.S. presidents gets shot. Obviously, they have a vice president for a reason. Sure. So now the vice president's the president. So there's a continuity of government.

SPEAKER_19: 1:09:52

Right.

SPEAKER_18: 1:09:52

Clearly, we oppose this government and this regime, but there's a continuity.

SPEAKER_19: 1:09:56

And that's what I mean. Yeah, the continuity remains intact.

SPEAKER_18: 1:09:58

Secretary Heggseth from the Department of War was asked about this. Is there any plans on stabilization? Let's assume that things go south really fast.

SPEAKER_25: 1:10:06

Mr. Secretary, then by by your words there, I imagine you are prepared for a full-scale U.S. intervention to stabilize the country of Venezuela if asked for by the president. If that comes to pass, will you ask Congress for approval? Do you believe legally you need to ask Congress for approval?

SPEAKER_10: 1:10:25

Well, we're postured. And the president said the blockade continues, no oil going in and out, no drug boats allowed to traffic in the Caribbean or the East PAC. So we're still poised there. This was a law enforcement exercise. It was the Department of War in support of the Department of Justice pulling out an indicted person who ultimately will face just uh justice. And Marco was clear there that this is not something you notify Congress about uh beforehand. But were there to be more or extensions to this, of course, we'll keep Congress involved. There are partners, uh, and we would do so.

SPEAKER_25: 1:10:55

So, Mr.

SPEAKER_18: 1:10:56

Secretary, then by by your words there, I imagine Congress when they have to. And there's plans, you know, there's contingency plans if things fall apart, but for the most part, I think you're gonna watch Venezuela kind of self-heal itself pretty quick. I think you're gonna find these cartel thugs that were doing what they're doing are all of a sudden gonna play really nice with Donald Trump. You're gonna see dramatic changes and you're gonna see an election get scheduled, and it's gonna be like, wow, so this is how you can fix a problem is just take out the problem. You know, if you take out the Ayatollah, there's a good chance everybody that does harm or bad things in his name may not be maybe a little more hesitant to do.

SPEAKER_19: 1:11:35

All of a sudden they're gonna be fighting for employee of the month.

SPEAKER_18: 1:11:38

Yeah, it's pretty unique the mindset we have in America. When we're told to do something, 50% of us are just like, I'm not doing it simply because you told me to do it. This is a unique mindset for Americans. This is common in the Western thought, right? Where we have our own independent mindset. Certain countries, and I often think of Europe in this way, they they think more collectively because sovereignty and independence and democracy, these are kind of new concepts, even though they were the breeding ground. In Asia, Southeast Asia, these are foreign concepts in many ways to truly be a free individual. But in the United States, it's baked in the cake, which gives us a little bit of a different characteristic. And it's the characteristic that every American country tried to model when they created their constitution. And and we're gonna so this is two parts here. We're gonna talk about the constitution of the people, and then we're gonna talk about the constitution of the government and how those two things work together.

SPEAKER_06: 1:12:35

America is the only place that exists where if the government stands up one day and tells you you must do this, that a significant portion of the population, not an insignificant portion, not like a tiny minority, but a significant portion of the population says, Hell no, I'm not doing that. Screw you. I don't care if you're the government. That doesn't happen any other place. That is an American mindset very unique to this country. That is something that only Americans do. It is it is very unique here. It's from the founding of the country, really. I mean, the the constitution, all of that builds into this culture that we've created. Because I'll tell you right now, that you know, there is a ton of people that really, the moment the government says you must do this, they go, Nope, not doing that. You can shut the hell off. That's not gonna happen. It's a very interesting thing, but it's just true. And that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world.

SPEAKER_18: 1:13:25

So you go back to the beginning of the show. What did Elon Musk say? When when Chavez came into power, one of the first things he did was he took away the guns, right? And then pretty soon, when you went to protest, he could shoot you in the face. Uh former uh uh Associate Justice Anton Skill Scalia here, when he was testifying in Congress one time, he talked about exactly what makes our constitution and our country so unique. It's that ability to tell you to do something and then force you to do it, is limited in the United States.

SPEAKER_14: 1:13:57

What do you think is the reason that America is such a free country? What is it in our uh constitution that that makes us what we are? And I guarantee you that uh the response I will get, and you will get this from uh almost any American, including the woman that uh he was talking to at the supermarket, the answer would be freedom of speech, freedom of the press, no unreasonable searches and seizures, no quartering of troops in those marvelous provisions of the Bill of Rights. But then I tell them if you think that a Bill of Rights is what sets us apart, you're crazy. Every banana republic in the world has a Bill of Rights. Every president for life has a Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights of the former evil empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours. I mean it literally. It was much better. We guarantee freedom of speech and of the press, big deal. They guaranteed freedom of speech of the press of street demonstrations and protests, and anyone who is who is caught uh trying to suppress criticism of the government will be called to account. Oh, that is wonderful stuff. Of course. Just words on paper. What what our framers would have called a parchment guarantee. And the reason is the real constitution of the Soviet Union. Think of the word constitution, it doesn't mean a pillar, it means structure. Say a person has a sound constitution. Here's a sound structure. The real constitution of the Soviet Union, which is what our framers debated that that whole summer in Philadelphia in 1787. They didn't talk about the Bill of Rights. That was an afterthought, wasn't it? That constitution of the Soviet Union did not prevent decentralization of power in one person or in one party. And when that happens, the game is over. The Bill of Rights is just what our framers would call a parchment guarantee. So the the real key to uh the distinctiveness of America is the structure of our government. One part of it, of course, is the independence of the judiciary. But there's there's there's a lot more. There are very few countries in the world, for example, that that have a bicameral legislature. Oh, England has a House of Lords for the time being, but the House of Lords has no substantial power. They can just make the Commons pass a bill a second time. France has a Senate, it's honorific. Italy has a Senate, it's honorific. Very few countries have two separate uh bodies in the legislature equally powerful. That's a lot of trouble, as you gentlemen doubtless know. To get the same language through two different bodies elected in a different fashion. Very few countries in the world have a separately elected uh chief executive. Sometimes I go to Europe to talk about separation of powers. And when I get there, I find that all I'm talking about is independence of the judiciary. Because the Europeans don't even try to divide the two political powers, the two political branches, the legislature and the chief executive. In all of the parliamentary countries, the chief executive is the creature of the legislature. There's never any disagreement between them and the and and the prime minister, as there is sometimes between you and the president. When there's a disagreement, they just kick them out. They have a no-confidence vote, a new election, and they get a prime minister who agrees with the legislature. And the Europeans look at the system and they say, Well, it passes one house, it doesn't pass the other house. Sometimes the other house is in the control of a different party, it passes both, and then this president who has a veto power vetoes it, and they look at this and they say, uh, it is it is gridlock. And and I I hear Americans saying this nowadays, and there's a lot of it going around. They they talk about a dysfunctional government. Because there's disagreement, and and and they and the framers would have said yes. That's exactly the way we set it up. We we wanted this to be power uh contradicting power. Because the main the main ill that beset us, as as Hamilton said in in the Federalist power when he talked about a separate Senate, he said, yes, it seems inconvenient. But inasmuch as the main ill that besets us is an excess of legislation, it won't be so bad. This is 1787. He didn't know what an excess of legislation was. So uh uh unless Americans can appreciate that and learn learn to love the separation of powers, which means learning to love the gridlock, which the framers believed would be the main protection of minorities. The main protection. If if a bill is about to pass that really comes down hard on some minority, they think it's terribly unfair, it doesn't take much to throw a monkey wrench into this complex system. So Americans should uh should appreciate that, and and they should learn to love the gridlock.

SPEAKER_18: 1:19:23

So every country in South America and uh modeled their constitutions after the United States Constitution, right? Now there's different variations which allow the very thing our framers feared, which was concentration of power. And Venezuela was one of those great states where you saw a perfect example of that. Their constitution allowed a concentration of power. So once they voted in a socialist, he consolidated power to the point where he could take away their guns. And for some reason they said okay. Right. And that is where we as Americans, our constitution as people have to be different, where we do say, Wait, no? Just because that's dope means no. Right. We have to have that. We have to maintain that because we project that into the Constitution where we make sure there's a separation of power. Where nobody can tell you to do something without such broad consent that it becomes the overwhelming will of the people.

SPEAKER_22: 1:20:19

Right.

SPEAKER_18: 1:20:19

All right, guys, that's it for our private show today. We are going to jump over into private and we are going to be talking about New York and the tenant director taking away private property. They're already working on this. We're going to be talking about exactly what it is socialists do in order to basically create confusion and how Mondami has already started doing that. We're going to be hearing from James O'Keefe talking about how gay the District of Columbia is. And we're going to be hearing about Scott Adams and his conversion to Christianity.

SPEAKER_19: 1:20:53

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SPEAKER_18: 1:20:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_19: 1:20:59

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SPEAKER_18: 1:21:00

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SPEAKER_19: 1:21:05

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SPEAKER_18: 1:21:06

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SPEAKER_19: 1:21:08

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SPEAKER_18: 1:21:15

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SPEAKER_19: 1:22:24

Something's happening. Okay.

SPEAKER_18: 1:22:26

All right, we're back.

SPEAKER_19: 1:22:28

Gonna let me back in.

SPEAKER_18: 1:22:29

Technically, you guys probably never saw us leave. Let's do it. Probably not.

SPEAKER_19: 1:22:35

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SPEAKER_18: 1:23:24

Okay, so now we're jumping over to private guys. We'll see you in just a second.

SPEAKER_22: 1:23:30

All right.

SPEAKER_18: 1:23:31

Okay, so this is Mandami's tenant director, Sia Weaver. If you're a white landlord in New York, I'd be worried.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:40

I think the reality is that for centuries, we've really treated um property as an individualized good and not a collective good. And we are gonna try and transitioning to treating it as a collective good and towards a model of shared equity will require that we think about it differently. And it will mean that um families, especially white families, but some POC families who are homeowners as well, um, are gonna have a different relationship to property than than than the one that we currently have.

SPEAKER_18: 1:24:15

For hundreds of years, Ron, we've developed an individualized view on property, but we need to have a more collective view on collective equity. This isn't your penthouse suite that you worked really hard to be.

SPEAKER_19: 1:24:28

This is our penthouse suite. If you really want to live like that, just pick a different place on the planet.

SPEAKER_18: 1:24:34

The interesting thing to me is collectivism should be a dirty word. Communism's a dirty word, right? You have to be pretty far down the Marxist rabbit hole to be like, I love communism, right? That's like, yeah, I mean, communism's good, right? It's something you say quietly. You don't openly say it. You say Schultzalism, democratic socialism.

SPEAKER_19: 1:24:52

That's because it's overt, whereas collectivism is not overt, and that's why I think it's worse.

SPEAKER_18: 1:24:59

That it's not overt?

SPEAKER_19: 1:25:00

What I'm it's not as overt as communism.

SPEAKER_18: 1:25:04

Yeah, what I'm impressed with is that they're choosing to use this word. This was the word that you individualism, collectivism, collectivism is better. Communism is the economic collectivism. Does that make sense? It's the political model. Okay. The fact that they're saying collectivists, so they've abandoned communism, unless it's, you know, quiet talk, socialism, democratic socialism, okay, that's the political party of the communists. Okay. But that they're talking about collectivism. That's easy to refute. I can hand you an the Atlas Shrugged book, right, by Ayn Rand. Read about collectivism. What is collectivism? Like you're not going to find a lot of really great supportive material for a functioning collectivist society of any type that leaves the tribal orientation, 50 members. You know what I mean? You can pull off collectivism in a family group. You can pull off collectivism. When you start talking about society, 500 people plus, it you ain't pulling it off. It's over. It's over. It's not going to happen. But Marxists, collectivists, communists, they will always present you something that is the opposite of what it should be, and then act like it's totally normal. Like, you know, we're just going to have to rethink hundreds of years of property. And especially if you're a white landlord, you're just going to have to get reused to your relationship to property.

SPEAKER_31: 1:26:24

What Mandami has done, and this is what happens with socialism, they deliberately take steps that make no sense and smile at you while they tell you it's the right thing to do. He has appointed a female fire chief who never served in the fire department. She was in the EMS department, which means that she was in the ambulances for 25, 30 years, uh treating people who are injured. That's an incredibly honorable position. That's not a fireman. What that move did and was designed to do is to show everybody I am in control. I am doing things that are objectively ridiculous because I have the power. There is a movement going on that is a slow revolution, which makes people accept things that are objectively ridiculous. There is no competent human being in the world that would pick that person to be the fire chief of the New York City fire department. Somebody who didn't serve in that department for decades, who served in another department. And his explanation is: well, she was on many emergency scenes, but it's a she and it's not from the fire department. And what it establishes is that he is controlling the narrative and common sense doesn't apply anymore. This is the end of New York City if something doesn't happen in terms of a new election. Because one, can you imagine all of the fire men and women who busted their ass for decades to move up the chain of command who want to protect their organization who got passed over for a semi-retired female emergency technician who never served in the fire department, and yet he has a press release and he's smiling at the camera. And I've seen that smile before. It's a dangerous smile. It's the smile of a borderline psychopath or sociopath who's like saying, I'm doing something that objectively looks wrong, and you guys are just accepting it. It's a way of enforcing a narrative on the population. It's bad for New York City, it's bad for society. And I think our society is polarizing into camps where rational thinking matters and where virtue signaling matters. And in the end, I don't think it's good for society.

SPEAKER_18: 1:28:31

Where rational thinking matters and virtual signaling battles, and they're two separate camps. We've seen this. We need to limit the free speech to save the free speech. We need to take your guns to prevent gun violence. But criminals, you've already taken guns, made it illegal for criminals to have guns. Doesn't matter, right? Thing after thing after thing. And here's the deal. We talk about DC. We started out with Tucker Carlson about how Nicholas Maduro, you know, he got rid of pornography and he got rid of usury and he got rid of LGBT, right? We live in a society where our politicians for a long time have subtly passed bills and implemented policies and programs that hurt the nuclear family. Would you agree with me, Ron?

SPEAKER_22: 1:29:19

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_18: 1:29:20

You know, if you're a struggling father that's having a hard time finding a job, your financial plan is to get divorced, let your wife go onto social, you know, Medicaid welfare, and have she'll have more money to feed the kids than you can make at a job. And all you got to do is get divorced. And the system's okay if you shack up together, just don't be married. Right. Does that make sense? So the system I I've I've had family members who have had debates about whether baby daddy and baby mama should get married or not because they're doing the math on the welfare. Right. You also have uh policies that increase cost of living, which then makes it almost impossible in certain communities for there not to be dual income households because the median cost is so expensive.

SPEAKER_19: 1:30:08

I've had family members talk to me about whether or not they should get a job because they run benefits. It's like, bro, get a job.

SPEAKER_18: 1:30:15

Yes. So how do you have a country like ours that has all the great virtues that we have that our politicians slowly but surely consistently pass policies that are bad for the nuclear family? I'm gonna suggest something here that James O'Keefe talks about. I'm gonna suggest a lot of our politicians going back a long time did not have the family at the center of their lives.

SPEAKER_15: 1:30:40

Most people in DC are gay, and the ones who are not openly are secretly gay. And I know narcissist is an overused word, but let's be honest, we have a little bit of narcissism in us. But in Washington, DC, and in politics in particular, people are so blinded by the love of power, and they're so in love with themselves that it's almost like they're in this little psychological cocoon where they're not even paying attention to the guy across them. They will literally not ask me one question about myself. These are Harvard educated people, Georgetown professors, national security people, people with top secret clearances are sitting across from me, not asking me one question about me. Why? In short, they're in love with themselves. And it creates this weird veneer where they're making it all about them. So my undercover people, I give them a book, it's called It's Not About Me. It's all about making it about the other guy. You just express genuine interest in them. And that's what nobody in politics actually does.

SPEAKER_18: 1:31:31

Most people in DC are gay, and the ones who are they're not interested in you, they're interested in them. And if most people in politics are gay, it should be no surprise that we end up with two-income households, broken families, policies that don't help the family at all. I mean, really truly, it is a big deal. When I heard him say that, that's a suspicion I've had, right? Because when you deep dive on politicians, you often find this don't look behind the LGBT closet, right? Like, don't go over here, don't ask where that source of money's coming from, don't ask about that staff member. There's always that that weird thing.

SPEAKER_19: 1:32:10

And I've well, then every once in a while you get a story that drips about uh you know, drips out about some politician reaching under the stall in some bathroom.

SPEAKER_18: 1:32:19

Idaho, Mike Crapo, right? Was it Crapo? No, it was uh a different one. Yeah. I I'm many of these guys, you meet them and you're like, you know, I'll never forget uh Mickey Ashley Babbitt's mom was meeting with me in jail, and she was talking about a politician in Texas, very prominent politicians. Everybody knows who he is. But I was like, Well, what was your impression of him? And she goes, He drinks white wine. And she was just like, I just don't know that you can be that Texas tough, put on the cattle hat, you know, the hat, and act like you're the man when you're holding a glass of white wine. Like it just doesn't feel very tough, you know what I mean? So there's a lot of a lot of politicians in DC are gay or they're cucks, let's just put it that way. All right, so here is Scott Adams talking, and I thought this was beautiful because I've I've listened to Scott Adams now for half a decade, if not more. He's really at the end of his life. This is probably his last month, stage four prostate cancer. Yeah, really, really sad. But he does a show every single day, and he's probably gonna do one until he takes his last breath, which unfortunately for many of us, we're bracing ourselves, it could be anytime. Scott Adams is not an atheist, he's kind of more of an agnostic, but definitely uh more in tune with atheist arguments and reasoning and rationing. Okay, and uh, but he's very supportive of Christianity. In fact, he talks openly about admiring Christians who truly believe in their faith and live according to it, and he's preferred Christianity over anything else. And he's been, again, like I said, as supportive as you can be. He's not one of these atheists that goes out to try to destroy your faith. He just says, I don't have faith, right? Does that make sense? But Scott Adams um had this to say about converting at the end.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:58

Whenever I talk about the simulation, and especially when I talk about my own uh impending uh death, um many of my Christian friends and Christian followers say to me, Scott, you still have time. You should convert to Christianity. And I usually just let that sit, because that's not an argument I want to have. Um I'm I've not been a believer. And uh but I also have respect for any Christian who goes out of their way to try to convert me. Because how would I believe you believe your own religion if you're not trying to convert me? So I have great respect for people who care enough that they want me to convert, uh, and then go out of their way to try to convince me. So you're gonna hear for the first time today that it is my plan to convert. So I still have time. But my understanding is you're never too late. And on top of that, uh any skepticism I have about reality would certainly be instantly answered if I wake up in heaven. Um, I do believe that the dominant Christian theory is that I would I would wake up in heaven if I r have a good life. Yeah, I don't necessarily have to you know state something in advance. And so to my Christian friends, yes, it's coming. So you don't need to talk me into it. I am now convinced that the risk reward is completely smart. If it turns out that there's nothing there, I've lost nothing. But I've respected your wishes, and I like doing that. If it turns out there is something there, and the Christian model is the closest to it, I win. So with your permission, uh I promise you that uh I will I will convert.

SPEAKER_18: 1:36:10

So some people might look at that cynically and be like, oh, deathbed conversion. We kind of grew up in a model that very much discourages deathbed conversions. But that's about that's about as sincere as it gets for someone that's lived the life he's lived.

SPEAKER_19: 1:36:23

That's not the same thing as a deathbed confession or deathbed conversion in my mind. So he's been wrestling with this his entire life.

SPEAKER_18: 1:36:32

Yeah, and but I just found that to be really sincere. And for many people who know me personally, you you can follow the logic through, but at the end of the day, it's the same thing Jordan Peterson says. I choose to live as if because there's nothing lost in a good life. And if this leads to a good life, what have I lost? Right? There's nothing lost.

SPEAKER_19: 1:36:53

Well, I think that that's the game theory he described, you know. But I you really shouldn't look at life as a game.

SPEAKER_18: 1:37:00

Or you should. Depends on how you think. All right, guys, that's it for us today. We are gonna log off and we'll talk to you again tomorrow. Huge stuff over the weekend. Gotta we got a 51st state now, Venezuela. Puerto Rico, too. Cuba's on the way. Cuba's next, exactly. We'll be we'll be vacationing in Havana at the end of the year. It'll be it'll be flying American flag.

SPEAKER_19: 1:37:19

And I won't even have to get a passport.

SPEAKER_18: 1:37:20

I know. It's gonna be awesome. All right, guys, thank you so much. We'll talk to you again uh tomorrow. Bye.

SPEAKER_04: 1:37:50

Matt, sorry. What night lived in that castle over there? I'm 37. What? I'm 37, I'm not old. Well, I can't just call you Matt. You could say Dennis. I didn't know you were called Dennis. I did say sorry about the old woman, but from behind, you don't have pictures. You automatically treat me as an experience. Well, I have kids, all keys experience. How did you get that? So much we perpetuate economic and social differences in our society. How do you do that? We're all we're all bringing us. Who lives in that class? Who lives there? Then who is your Lord? We don't have a Lord. What I told you, where I know this is coming.

SPEAKER_23: 1:39:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:39:14

But all the decisions, all the time, have to be ratified in a special by way of making. The lady of the lake. That is why I'm called kings. Listen, strange women, line is both distributed thoughts is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive. Right from a mandate from the master is not from some harsh called aquatic ceremony. You can't expect a window supreme executive power. Just got some water from a sword. I'm being repressed. Oh, what a giveaway.