Justin Webb (2:21)

Yeah, that's right. That much I can confirm. Not much else, but I can certainly confirm that because I was up early this morning doing my day job. But I've come in bleary eyed back to the BBC because we've got a lot to talk about and it's absolutely fascinating. And it's about a place as well, which is a place that we've both been to and both much loved when we were there.

Sarah Rainsford (2:43)

Yeah, that's right. We're going to be focusing on Venezuela. The latest news is that last night On Wednesday, the US Government released a video of US Forces basically seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker. And the pictures are remarkable. I mean, it's amazing that you can see this much of a military operation happening in the ocean. But there's video of US Forces rappelling out of a helicopter on ropes to land on the top of this massive oil tanker. And then guns drawn, they're marching towards the cabin where the crew are. You can see them basically taking the ship. There's about 10 of them land on it. It's really, really remarkable to be able to watch. And that was released shortly after Donald Trump told us that they had seized this ship and said that the US Was probably going to keep the.

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (3:31)

As you probably know, we've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela. Large tanker, very large. Largest one ever seized, actually. And other things are happening. So you'll be seeing that later, and you'll be talking about that later with some other people.

Justin Webb (3:52)

What happens to the oil on that ship?

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (3:54)

Well, we keep it, I guess.

Justin Webb (3:56)

When does it come? What port is it coating?

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (3:58)

Well, you have to follow the tanker. You know, you're a good newsman. Just follow the tank.

Justin Webb (4:03)

Follow, follow it.

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (4:04)

Get a helicopter, follow the tanker. But we're going to. I guess we're going to keep the.

Justin Webb (4:11)

The biggest. It had to be the biggest ever, didn't it, the seizure. But if you thought that was a kind of slightly peculiar Trumpesque reaction to what had happened, listen to the Venezuelan president, who was every bit as strange. Here's Nicolas Maduro.

Sarah Rainsford (4:41)

Don't worry, be happy. Don't worry, be happy. Just peace, not war. Just peace, not war. He was saying there and in Spanish, immediately before he broke into song, he was saying to American citizens who are against the war, I respond with a very famous song. Now, the US has not actually declared war on Venezuela at this point and said that they had seized that oil tanker because it was transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran as part of an illicit oil shipping network the US Says is supporting foreign terrorist organizations because there are American sanctions on oil from Venezuela. So they say the ship was breaking them and that's why it's been seized.

Justin Webb (5:34)

Yeah, I mean, it's fair to say most Venezuelan oil goes to China, doesn't it? In this day and age, it's not going elsewhere in the world, but it appears to be a ship that, at least in theory, was at one stage coming from Iran, which obviously is also subject to sanctions. And it may well be that oil. All of that is true, and that it is Sanctioned. But it's still a very big deal, isn't it? Not just because of stealing the oil and putting it somewhere, but much more importantly what it says about, you know, the ability of Venezuela to continue to do business in the modern world without Donald Trump putting more pressure on it. And I think that's the question, isn't it, Sarah?

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (6:16)

Is this.

Justin Webb (6:17)

Are we talking about a gradual ratcheting up towards something or not?

Sarah Rainsford (6:23)

Yes, I think we are. A little bit of background. Our Americas will be very well aware that there have been over 20 US strikes now on boats that America says is smuggling cocaine to America from Venezuela. There has been CIA covert action sanctioned inside the country, according to Donald Trump, and a huge buildup of military forces in the region as well, both land and sea forces. And Donald Trump muses every so often about the possibility of a land invasion. So I think we don't know exactly what he's going to do, but I think we do know what his aim is, and that is regime change. He wants Nicolas Maduro out in Venezuela. He doesn't like him. He's a far left ruler who is no friend of the United States, no friend of Donald Trump, does most of his business with China. And Trump has decided he wants to get rid of him. I don't know if he has decided whether he's prepared to go to war to do it, but I think he's prepared to use a fair amount of American muscle to see how much pressure it will take to topple Maduro.

Justin Webb (7:18)

And to those who think they've spotted a bit of a flaw in Donald Trump's logic. So on the one hand, he's telling the world, we don't care what you do. We're not interested in regime change anymore. We're not even interested in whether you pursue human rights or you don't pursue human rights. You just do what you want to do. He made that famous speech, didn't he? I think you were there, Sarah, in Saudi Arabia. Really cogent speech, I thought, actually that set out Trumpism. And of course, more recently we've had the national security document that they put out that caused so much upset in Europe, basically saying, you know, the world should get on with its business. Except he's not doing that with Nicolas Maduro. And as you suggest, there are kind of various reasons why Maduro could be a target. He's not a democrat. In fact, he almost definitely stole an election and he runs his country incredibly badly. And lots of people have to leave that country. Lots of Venezuelans have left the country well, perhaps talk a bit more about Venezuela in a second. But there is another reason, isn't there, why he would say this fits with his overall view of the world, A.

Sarah Rainsford (8:26)

View of the world that was made very clear in that national security strategy that was released last week. Donald Trump believes that the United States has a sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere and that basically Central and South America ought to be, if not controlled by the United States, that he has the right to make sure that there are regimes friendly there doing business with the United States and where he perceives there to be any kind of enemy or opposition, that he has the right to interfere and to intervene and that nobody else does. He's making it very clear that this is America's backyard, European or other foreign influence is not welcome in any way whatsoever, but that he ought to be allowed to cast it in his own image practically. So we have this pressure campaign against Maduro in Venezuela. We've seen him interfere in Honduras, where they are still in the process of counting the results of a very recent election. Donald Trump intervened in that by saying he was backing the conservative candidate and making threats that the US Would stop funding Honduras if his preferred candidate didn't win. And then of course, he released the former president as well, who had been serving a 45 year jail sentence in America for drug smuggling. He was pardoned by Donald Trump. And then if you look at Argentina, where his friend Milei is in charge, you see very, very friendly relations where a $20 billion loan has just been issued to Argentina in a form of a currency swap to help prop them up. And he says very supportive things about Argentina. So what he's making obvious is if you are America's friend, then you will do very well out of this. And if you are in opposition to Donald Trump, watch out.

Justin Webb (10:05)

And all of it, students of history will know, stemming from the Monroe doctrine. Back in 1823, President Monroe, if Marianna was here, she would ask me whether covered it when he made this declaration. I did not cover it, nor did I cover the Roosevelt corollary, which would have been, I can't remember when it was the beginning of the last century when Teddy Roosevelt was around that basically said not only must the Europeans not interfere in the Western Hemisphere, which is what the Monroe Doctrine said, but also America. Exactly as you're saying, Sarah, America takes to itself the responsibility to interfere where it needs to. And that's, I mean, it's fair to say this isn't new with Trump. I mean, it's been the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt corollary have been much acted on. You mentioned Honduras. Honduras was the original banana republic. And a lot of those bananas, almost all of them owned ultimately by American firms. And of course, this whole business of America's influence in Central America, but also leaching down into South America is nothing new. But there's also just this sense now, I suppose, that with Trump, the thing that people thought might be different was that he wouldn't actually involve himself. There might be all sorts of rhetorical flourishes about those rulers he didn't like. And Maduro would come into that category, but nobody thought he'd actually. Well, I think a lot of his supporters didn't think that he'd actually act on it.

Sarah Rainsford (11:31)

Yeah, because he said that he wasn't interested in getting involved in any more foreign wars. And even if he does think that South America is America's backyard, you know, it's very definitely foreign. And we've yet to see if he does have any interest in putting boots on the ground to support these policies, even though there has been this huge buildup of forces, most of whom are stationed in Puerto Rico at the moment. They could be there as a threat rather than an imminent invasion force. But this is not just because Donald Trump thinks that he ought to control the policies of other countries. This is absolutely rooted in American self interest. So he would argue that this is about America first, and the reasons are drugs. And he goes on all the time about the number of Americans who are dying from drug overdoses, and he says that's why he needs to crack down on the drugs coming from Venezuela, albeit that's mostly cocaine, and it's fentanyl that's killing people in the United States, and that's coming from Mexico. But setting that aside, he says that the war on drugs is vitally important, and that needs to be tackled in South America. Immigration, we know, is his number one issue. And it's the failed regimes in South America that are driving a huge amount of inward immigration into this country. Massive numbers of Venezuelans, where the economy has absolutely collapsed, are trying to come into the United States the same from other South American countries. So if you can stabilize the regimes there, you stop one of the big drivers of immigration coming here. But also over the last couple of decades, when America wasn't as involved in South America, the trade all went to China. Every single country, bar one in South America. China is their biggest trading partner. And Donald Trump wants to move them away from that and back into dealing with America. So if you look at that drugs, migration Trade. These are his big issues, the big things he thinks America should be concentrating on. And he sees his interference in South America as helping those policies.

Justin Webb (13:21)

Yeah, when you talk about migration, that's really interesting, isn't it? Because you're talking about people who are still to come out of Venezuela if it continues to spiral downhill economically. But actually, of course, there are, what, a million or so Venezuelans already in the United States? I remember just after the election, Sarah just popping out of the office in D.C. and we went to meet a family, a Venezuelan family, who were here, I say here, who were there, where you are on this temporary status visa, where the United States accepts that a place is an unacceptable place to send people back to for the time being, but doesn't accept it in the longer term. And the weird thing about the family I talked to Sarah was that Mum and Dad were on this temporary status, but they'd had kids in the United States, including one who'd actually become a U.S. marine. So they were the actual epitome of. Of this conundrum that the Trump administration that America faces if they want to send people back home. Quite often they've made lives in America and what most Americans would regard as very, very decent lives. And I just wonder whether part of this, just listening to you there, just occurs to me, are there so many Venezuelans in the United States that if Venezuela became, in quotes, a safe country, that there'd be this sort of huge movement of people out of the United States and back into South America, which would be something the Trump administration would want to really trumpet.

Sarah Rainsford (14:49)

Oh, absolutely. And they want to see it happen and then be able to boast about it. And whilst there are families, as you describe, whose children are citizens because they were born here and who are very, very well embedded in American society, there are also a lot of Venezuelans who have come very recently. And the temporary protected status that you're talking about, which has also been afforded to people from Haiti and other countries under the Biden administration, that's just being canceled or all the time by the Trump administration, they're just. I think they've already said Haitians no longer have temporary protected status. So if that's the basis on which you were in the States, you're no longer legally here. So, I mean, it's entirely possible that he would happily cancel that for all Venezuelans in order to get them to go home.

Justin Webb (15:31)

Yeah. I mean, on the economic side of it, is there also an argument that there are kind of plunderable natural resources? I mean, over you Think of oil. Well, I suppose it is mainly oil, isn't it? Because Venezuela doesn't really export much else because part of its crisis, cut off of its long term disaster, which we will get to in a second or two, is the inability of the Venezuelans ever to find a way of diversifying what their economy is dependent on. But I mean, the oil is still quite significant, isn't it? You do wonder if Donald Trump would like to have, if not complete control over it, then to give American companies much more control than they have at the moment.

Sarah Rainsford (16:13)

Yeah, absolutely. American countries are not doing business with Venezuela under this regime. And actually I think it has the largest oil reserves of any nation on earth. Although it's not great oil, it's very heavy, apparently. Don't you hate it when your oil's too heavy, Justin? Yeah, well, it makes it incredibly difficult apparently to extract and to refine. So you need quite sophisticated methods to do it. So currently Venezuela's not even actually being able to maximize its oil reserves. But yes, of course American companies are chomping at the bit to get in there and make huge profits out of exploiting that. As we know, the Trump administration isn't particularly worried about transitioning away from fossil fuels, so they would happily exploit that. So yeah, there's a significant short term business opportunity and longer term policy reasons why Donald Trump thinks it's nigh unessential. I think actually to try and change things in Venezuela. What we don't know is if he was able to topple Nicolas Maduro, that that would necessarily guarantee that you would have a democratic regime or a Trump friendly regime come in there. But that's a different story at the moment. He's focused on trying to get Maduro.

Justin Webb (17:17)

You see, that's the thing, isn't it? Just before we talk a bit more about Venezuela, just on the domestic US Politics side of this, it's exactly that point, isn't it, that some Trump supporters or erstwhile Trump supporters are saying, hold on a second, we didn't go for regime. We thought that this wasn't going to be a regime change administration. And what concerns us is not just the principle of the thing, that we don't want to be involved in conflicts around the world. It's also the practicality that you look back, I mean, the whole Trump shtick is that George W. Bush made such a mess of Iraq that Biden made a mess of Afghanistan and made a mess of pulling out as well, that it costs American lives, et cetera, et cetera. There is a sort of practical within the MAGA movement, group of people isn't there who say it's not just that on principle we shouldn't be doing this stuff, that in practice we get ourselves into such a mess. And you of all people, Donald Trump, ought to know that.

Sarah Rainsford (18:22)

Well, I think you could make a case. I haven't heard Donald Trump make it yet, but I think you could make a case. One that this is principally about migration, which is MAGA supporters would listen to, especially if you highlight, for instance, the number of Venezuelans that there currently are in the United States. But also you could say that you're going about it for entirely different reasons. Reasons that George W. Bush was trying to bring democracy to Afghanistan and to the Middle east, because that's an ideological good in itself. And they were trying to almost govern these countries before they could hand them back to a functioning democracy. Whereas Donald Trump just wants to remove one leader and replace it with a Trump friendly one with no thought whatsoever of state building when you get in there, or actually trying to govern any of these countries. But of course, people would point to the fact not just that everything in Afghanistan and Iraq just grew and grew and grew into a problem that they never thought they were gonna have. Actually, US involvement in South America hasn't exactly always gone to plan either, has it, Justin?

Justin Webb (19:19)

It certainly hasn't. Talking of which, let us concentrate a bit on Venezuela and begin our coverage, as it were, of Venezuela with a young, handsome foreign correspondent strutting around the capital, Caracas. We're inching our way Caracas now, through the clogged streets, past the flea markets, towards the barrios, the shanty towns where the poor people live and where the Chavez revolution will succeed or fail. I'm in Mulattar, which is a godforsaken place, a shanty town clinging to the side of a hill. The buildings are made of corrugated iron, which makes them uninhabitable in the heat. There are open sewers, there are dead animals. The road isn't properly made up. People here are living in really desperate conditions. I'm with Alejandra, who's a local community organizer. Yeah, there we go.

Sarah Rainsford (20:19)

God forsaken.

Justin Webb (20:20)

God forsaken. Yeah. Not sure we can say that.

Sarah Rainsford (20:23)

You seem as though you're broadcasting from the 1950s in black and white.

Justin Webb (20:27)

I always do. I always do. I think it's because my mother was still alive and she insisted on certain ways of staying speaking. Look, Hugo Chavez, who I mentioned there, Hugo Chavez, still around in those days. And of course, all of this has a longer history which is the history of Hugo Chavez and what he did to Venezuela. Hugo Chavez, very much the darling of the European left for a bit, but also frankly, someone who ran his country into the ground. And there are all sorts of suggestions. Well, I think more than suggestions, it's a fact, isn't it, that those who are close to him, including his family, made off with quite a lot of the money that Venezuela had. And that description for me is important in this sense that Venezuela a few decades back, and I suppose you're talking about the 1960s, really was one of the richest countries in the world per capita. In the world. So you're talking about Switzerland, I don't know, Singapore, etc. Etc. Their per capita income was really high. Although this oil, you attack their oil, Sarah, and say it's too heavy. They managed back in the day. Maybe heavy oil was a thing back in the day. They made a ton of money out of it. And Hugo Chavez, you know, and those around him could have used that money to make their country better and didn't. And so, you know, there are plenty of reasons to criticize Venezuela and Venezuelan leaders, and plenty of Venezuelans, of course, including the opposition leader, is just, just been to get her Nobel Peace Prize, hasn't she? Plenty of people have perfectly cogent attacks on Venezuela who are not Donald Trump. There are all sorts of ways in which Venezuela should be almost a paradise, actually, in many respects. Because you. I went to Caracas, you've been to even nicer bits of it, haven't you?

Sarah Rainsford (22:19)

Yeah, I went on holiday in the mid-90s, it must have been with a few friends and we had an absolutely wonderful time. In fact, I text them quite often saying it's just heartbreaking what you see happening to Venezuela. And I remember then we got lost in the middle of a thunderstorm driving a hire car through Caracas and getting a little bit nervous because it was well known then that the slums and shantytowns surrounding the city were pretty dangerous. But actually there was huge wealth in Caracas. You saw these wonderful mansions where the rich and prosperous lived. But we roamed around the countryside, went to see Angel Falls, this amazing waterfall in the middle of the rainforest, and stayed in some beach resorts and it was a paradise. It was absolutely glorious. I loved it and would go back and back, if only it weren't for the fact that everything has changed and.

Justin Webb (23:03)

It'S got these amazing beaches, isn't it? Because, I mean, just think about where it is. If you think about Central America, that sort of isthmus that goes down the middle bit, when it widens out again and becomes South America, we're talking about right at the top with a kind of view, as it were, metaphorically speaking, right across the Caribbean. So you're looking out towards, I suppose, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados and all those places all the way eventually to. To Cuba. It is an absolutely glorious part of the world. Plus it's got a load of oil. I mean, what can possibly go wrong? And the answer is pretty much everything for the Venezuelans themselves. And it's worth saying, you know, there was I going around talking about desperate conditions in whenever that was 2005 or so. It's actually got worse.

Sarah Rainsford (23:48)

Yeah, yeah, it has. And Nicolas Maduro followed on from Hugo Chavez and was his number two and his protege and is governing in very much the same way. And I don't think anybody can say that he ought to remain in charge or that he has much support around the world. And as you were quite rightly pointing out just this week, the opposition leader received the Nobel Peace Prize. And so, you know, Trump and the Nobel Committee might not agree on a huge amount, but the need to get rid of Nicolas Maduro is the one thing of which they are of the same mind.

Justin Webb (24:17)

Yeah. And it's interesting that the opposition is now playing this difficult game, isn't it, where it comes to, it doesn't really want to be the Trump opposition. It doesn't want to be working on behalf of Donald Trump or seem to be too close to him or indeed to the United States, actually, because these are proud Venezuelan people who think they do want to sort out their own problems and might not want to have a desperately close relationship in the future with the US it would certainly be a better relationship, but it might not be as a kind of vassal state relationship that Donald Trump and some of his acolytes might, might suggest was. Was good to them. But at the moment, it is really interesting. We, we are poised, aren't we, at a moment in time where it looks as if Donald Trump is himself trying to work out whether they pull the trigger and actually go for Maduro and take all the risks of doing that. And we were talking on the pod, I was a few episodes ago now, weren't we, about a similar decision that they made with the much smaller and much easier to attack, as it were, country of Panama all those years ago where they swooped in, got hold of the leader and put him in prison in the United States. And to do that to Maduro, I mean, he sounded from his song, didn't he as if he's not too worried, but that might just be the sound of it. But to do it would involve presumably some bloodshed. The idea that they could just swoop in and get him I think is unrealistic, isn't it? And presumably that's the advice Donald Trump is getting.

Sarah Rainsford (25:47)

But they've offered a huge reward. I can't remember how many millions of dollars it is, but it's more than the price that was on Osama bin Laden's head in the hope that somebody around him will turn for the money. And, well, I think the United States thinks ideally assassinate him. He spoke on the phone with Donald Trump who tried to persuade him to flee into exile, but they couldn't agree on the terms of it. They couldn't because Maduro wanted all sorts of guarantees that Donald Trump wasn't prepared to give him. But I mean, I don't think he's under any doubt that Donald Trump very much out to get him. And yeah, we don't know how this is going to play out because we don't know how far the US is prepared to go. But we do know that they are expanding their sphere of influence beyond Venezuela and into Honduras as well, aren't they?

Justin Webb (26:32)

Yeah, the Honduras thing is interesting. You mentioned it earlier on the idea that they are interfering in the Honduran election to the extent of obviously wanting one side to win and doing everything they can to get that side to win. So there's a conservative candidate, isn't there, Asfura, who says that he can work to fight against the narco communists, as he called them. But in order to get that person elected, Trump pardoned the former Honduran leader who is of a similar political persuasion. This guy, Juan Orlando Hernandez, comes from the same party as as Fura. But the catch in all of that is that he was serving a 45 year sentence in the US for conspiring to import cocaine into the US and that wasn't as Trump sort of suggested in some way, Sarah, didn't he, that it was a kind of made up charge. But it wasn't. I mean, he was banged to rights. This guy. He is a drug smuggler and he's now been released by Donald Trump.

Sarah Rainsford (27:39)

He is. And some of the country's biggest drug smugglers are also now incarcerated to give evidence against him at trial after an investigation that started during the first Trump administration. But he was detained and tried during the Biden administration. And Donald Trump appears to have been persuaded that this was a politically motivated prosecution similar to what he says happened to him whilst he was out of office. And his argument seems to go that, yes, Honduras, there was a lot of drug smuggling going on, but you can't blame the president for that just because he's the president of the country. And if you follow that logic, then any president of any nation where there has been any criminal wrongdoing could get blamed for it and jailed. And I mean, were that the case, you can see why Donald Trump wouldn't think that that was great. That's not what happened here.

Justin Webb (28:25)

Yeah, but it certainly is. I mean, the idea that they were gonna stay out of all of these places affairs is for the birds is plain that they are going to be involved. And although I take your point, Sarah, that they can make the case to their own supporters going back to the United States now and the internal politics of it, I understand what you say. They can say it's all about immigration, we need to stop people coming, and we can send back a lot of the people who are here, etc. Etc. I do still wonder if it goes to this fight that we've been talking about a bit recently with Marjorie Taylor Greene, former Trump supporter. Now he calls her a traitor. She says her life's been put at risk by him, et cetera, et cetera. This kind of it's MAGA on the one side and it's America first on the other, isn't it? This new division that seems to have opened up among Trump's supporters. And if he were to go in further and if there were to be American losses and a muddy situation, you know, it's not going to be Iraq, is it not going to be Afghanistan? But if there were troubles ahead, the extent to which that would play into the any way more troubled waters that the Trump administration is sailing into, I think is an interesting one.

Sarah Rainsford (29:42)

Yeah. And there has been criticism from the maggoing of the party and his supporters that he's just spending too much time on foreign affairs generally, whether or not we're talking about military entanglement, that he's not concentrating on the homeland and he's not delivering for the people who supported him because he's spending too much time flying around the world trying to put together peace deals. He gave a speech this week in Pennsylvania that was supposed to address people's concerns that prices aren't coming down. The one thing he promised them was that he would lower inflation, that you wouldn't be paying such egregious grocery prices any longer. He blamed all of that on Joe Biden, said he would fix It. And here we are over a year after the election, and it is far from fixed. And so he's supposed to go out and talk to his supporters about why that will be soon fixed and why he really does care about affordability. And instead he went on calling affordability a Democratic hoax.

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (30:35)

They have a new word, you know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability. So they look at the camera and they say, this election is all about affordability.

Justin Webb (30:48)

Now.

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (30:48)

They never talk about it. They never talk, thank you very much. They say, I'm not allowed to run. I don't know what the hell that's all about, but that's okay. He said four more years. You see the new hat. We have four more years. 20, 20. We have all sorts of.

Sarah Rainsford (31:05)

As though these people are just wrong when they say they can't afford to make ends meet. No, no, that's your mistake. You know, you're only listening to Democratic propaganda there. You've not got it right about your family finances. So that's to help make the case that he is concentrating on delivering for his supporters rather than just looking at foreign affairs. And I think Argentina is part of a piece of this with Honduras, in Venezuela, I think, because the $20 billion that essentially was loaned and probably will never be repaid to keep Milei in office in Argentina, at the same time as the Trump administration is saying it can't find the money to continue health care subsidies for a lot of the people who voted for Donald Trump, that's not popular either. I mean, they're not keen to send military forces overseas, but they're not keen to send billions of dollars overseas either.

Justin Webb (31:55)

Yeah, it's interesting about the health stuff because that really begins to hit, doesn't it, in January, where people will suddenly find that their health insurance costs hugely increase. A lot of poorer Americans, a lot of Trump supporters, and he's been warned about this by his own people for some months, a lot of Trump supporters are going to find, as a result of the measures in the big, beautiful bill, that their health bills are going to go up, up absolutely massively, the insurance bills. And that's going to be a real thing that they're going to have to explain away again. I mean, I suppose he could make speeches saying it's not happening, but those things, as the Biden administration discovered, when it actually is happening, that doesn't really work to tell people that it's not when it comes to economics, because they actually see it in their own homes. It's funny, isn't it. You can get away with all sorts of lies and half truths. And I'm not suggesting Trump is alone in this. Politicians can get away with all sorts of. Of, of illusions and kind of weirdnesses about the wider world. When it comes to whether someone in their own lives is better off or worse off, they tend to know. And that's a, a truth that Donald Trump is coming up against. I also noticed there, I don't know what you thought of that speech as you bring it up. He called Susie Wiles, didn't he, his senior advisor. He. He called her Susie Trump.

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (33:09)

So Susie Trump. Do you know Susie Trump sometimes referred to as Susie Wild Susie Trump, she's the great Chief of staff.

Justin Webb (33:18)

But he does occasionally, doesn't he, show signs of his age?

Sarah Rainsford (33:22)

Yeah, and he, he gets the odd word wrong and muddles things up. And also he has been seen to look as though he's been dozing off in Cabinet meetings as well, although I listened to every word of those, certainly. What's televised with those Cabinet meetings, about two and a half hours of it last week. And I have to have as well starting to doze off my, myself, and I'm still a little bit younger than Donald Trump, so I can forgive him for that.

Justin Webb (33:43)

Very vigorous, very vigorous. No one more vigorous. No one more vigorous than Sarah. I can say just a final thought or two about Venezuela and about the wider position of the Trump administration when it comes to foreign affairs and what they do. Who do you think's got his ear at the moment? Because that also matters, doesn't it? None of these things happen. There are people in the room, obviously, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, but there are other advisors, too. You think of that national security document that you mentioned, mentioned earlier, written at least in part by a kind of committee of people, people chipping in. There was a lot of J.D. vance in it, a lot of J.D. vance's view of the Europeans. I think they're pretty ill. Disguised. I was going to say disguised, but actually it wasn't really disguised at all, was it? I just wonder, is anyone talking about who has his ear when it comes to how far to go in Venezuela?

Sarah Rainsford (34:36)

It's an extremely interesting question because I think his sort of closest kitchen cabinet are more aligned on Venezuela than they are on, say, Ukraine. Because with Ukraine, we look at it and we always think that Steve Wyckoff, probably the vice president, J.D. vance, are more pro Russia and more hawkish on that. Whereas you've got Marco Rubio, who is that bit more sympathetic to Ukraine and will occasionally sweep in and just sort of, you know, stop Donald Trump wanting to give Vladimir Putin everything he wants. If you look at South America, Marco Rubio is so incredibly anti communist. He's, of course, from a family of Cuban refugees, so he's very hawkish on South America. So there's no need to, you know, there's nobody there trying to hold Trump back to that extent. I think. Of course, then the decision whether or not to take military action becomes very important. And of course, we're in the slightly weird situation where Marco Rubio is not only the Secretary of State, he's the national Security advisor as well. Well, so he, he almost gets double the say in Donald Trump's ear when it comes to these kind of things.

Justin Webb (35:37)

Yeah. Okay, Sarah, we will do americast from Venezuela one day.

Sarah Rainsford (35:42)

Oh, that would be great.

Justin Webb (35:43)

It would be good, wouldn't it? And anyone who eventually does get the opportunity to go there, don't go at the moment because I think every government advises against travel. So AmericasT is not going to endorse your effort to get to Caracas or indeed to the beaches in Venezuela. But one day, let's hope so for the Venezuelan people, first of all, it becomes a pleasanter place to live. But number two, a bit of tourism is possible as well.

Sarah Rainsford (36:07)

Yeah, I very much hope that you, me, and all of our Americasters can do that sometime soon. And just before we go, Justin, one more thing I need to say. We're going to be opening up the AmericasT time capsule soon. So that means that we will find out whether our predictions for the year were right or wrong. Yeah, I've got horrible feeling mine. We're pretty much wrong.

Justin Webb (36:26)

He's always right, but he's always cautious, too.

Sarah Rainsford (36:29)

And you were half right the year before. And we should, we should always remember that.

Justin Webb (36:34)

Yeah, I have once been half right.

Sarah Rainsford (36:35)

The exciting thing is we're going to be putting a new time capsule in the earth with our new predictions for next year. And we would love for Americasters to send us their views because, look, you couldn't do worse than us. So try and improve our record on the predictions. So do please give us your reflections on 2025 and what do you want us to predict for 2026?

Justin Webb (36:57)

Bye.

Sarah Rainsford (36:57)

Bye. Bye.

Justin Webb (37:00)

Thank you for listening to another episode. It is you, the ameracaster, that makes AmericasT the community that it now is. If you like what you've heard, please do subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. We always want to hear your feedback as well. We look at every every single bit of correspondence that we get. So you can send us an email. AmericaSTBC.co.uk the WhatsApp is 443-301-239480 and you can get involved in the AmericaST Discord server. The link to that is in the description. Till next time, bye bye.

Sarah Rainsford (37:41)

Foreign.

Justin Webb (37:48)

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Sarah Rainsford (37:58)

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Justin Webb (38:03)

Hello, it's Ray Winstone.

Donald Trump (Impersonation or Quoted Speech) (38:05)

I'm here to tell you about my.

Justin Webb (38:07)

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And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are gonna come out of your head.

Justin Webb (38:26)

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