1/5/26: Trump Threatens Cuba, Mexico And Colombia, Maduro Internal Betrayal

Summary

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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode Date: January 5, 2026
Episode Title: Trump Threatens Cuba, Mexico And Colombia, Maduro Internal Betrayal

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Overview

This episode is a Venezuela-focused special, with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti offering a deep dive into the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration's threats toward other Latin American nations, emerging internal power struggles within Venezuela, and the broader geopolitical consequences of these events. The hosts are joined by attorney and Chávez biographer Ava Gollinger to provide critical context and nuanced insight.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Why Venezuela and Why Now?

[02:29–04:23]

• The entire episode centers on recent events in Venezuela: the Delta Force-led capture (described as “kidnapping”) of Nicolás Maduro, public statements from former President Donald Trump about “running Venezuela,” and speculation about U.S. intentions toward neighboring countries, especially Cuba and Colombia.
• There's confusion and disarray among Democrats about their stance and response, and a surge of misleading or outright fake news about the intervention—including AI-generated videos shared by prominent right-wing influencers.

“We're gonna go in deep because obviously this is incredibly significant action and we're going to try to figure out where we are and where things may go from here.”
— Krystal Ball [03:48]

2. Trump’s Rhetoric & Geopolitical Escalation

[06:22–09:19]

• Trump publicly boasts about U.S. capabilities, directly threatens not only Venezuela but Cuba and Colombia as well.
• He frames Cuba as “ready to fall” due to its reliance on Venezuelan oil and singles out Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro for involvement in drug production.
• Trump’s doctrine, as interpreted by the hosts, is to do “whatever we want, wherever we want.”

“We can't take a chance after having done this incredible thing last night of letting somebody else take over…if they're gonna hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela…Cuba is ready to fall.”
— Donald Trump [07:53]

“He has cocaine mills…So he does have to watch his ass.”
— Donald Trump, on Gustavo Petro [09:05]

3. The Monroe Doctrine–Era Mentality Returns

[09:19–12:54]

• Hosts explain how the Monroe Doctrine has been distorted from its original form (preventing European intervention in the hemisphere) to justify U.S. interference.
• Trump’s actions are described as a “madman theory” meant to scare Latin American leaders, which paradoxically increases their popularity domestically.

“What has unfortunately kind of been morphed into [the Monroe Doctrine] is just America gets to do whatever it wants...It actually engendered not only a lot of the problems that happened… but a long legacy…”
— Krystal Ball [09:19]

4. Law of the Jungle: Limits & Consequences of U.S. Action

[12:54–16:46]

• Saagar emphasizes U.S. double standards: if the U.S. can abduct foreign leaders, what stops China or Russia from doing the same?
• The action does not guarantee a favorable or stable outcome for the U.S.—the spectacle may embolden adversaries and create unpredictable chaos.

“If you are any country around the world, you should be thinking, I need to get nukes. Because that's basically your only insurance policy against the U.S. doing whatever it wants…”
— Saagar Enjeti [12:54]

“He kind of showed his hand in terms of what he is actually willing to do. So I think that's an important learning to take from this as well.”
— Krystal Ball [16:34]

5. Regime Change or Colonial Experiment?

[16:46–18:49]

• Comparing the operation to U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Krystal points out that swift “decapitation” does not equate to sustainable regime change.
• The situation resembles old British colonial tactics: a show of force to install a compliant local leader, not a real governance solution.
• The viability of Trump's oil ambitions is questioned, as well as the capacity for the U.S. administration to manage post-intervention realities.

“It is very similar…to a British colonial…experiment…where the implicit…admission was that you do what we want, we won't mess too much in your own internal affairs, but if you do…the full force…will come in.”
— Krystal Ball [17:13]

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Key Segments & Guest Insights

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: U.S. Policy in Venezuela, Cuba, and Beyond

[20:52–23:13]

• Marco Rubio describes the operation as “a law enforcement function”, avoids describing it as regime change, but leaves all options on the table.
• Admits the only U.S. “boots on the ground” were for Maduro’s capture.
• Asserts Cuba could be next target due to its influence in Venezuela and economic struggles.

“Our military is helping the Coast Guard conduct a law enforcement function…tremendous leverage, incredible crippling leverage…”
— Marco Rubio [21:16]

“I'm not gonna talk to you about what our future steps are gonna be…but I don't think it's any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime…”
— Marco Rubio [22:36]

U.S. Policy — “International Gangsterism” and Miami Politics

[23:13–26:06]

• Krystal highlights the powerful influence of South Florida exile communities—especially the hardline anti-left Miami bloc—on U.S. policy.
• Saagar calls the administration’s tactics “international gangsterism”: threats, intimidation, and the threat of force rather than occupation are now the mode.
• Rubio and Trump’s public posturing serves both ideological and domestic political goals.

Factional Chaos Within Venezuela

[31:32–33:15]

• Hosts discuss Venezuela’s internal factions—the military, cartel-linked actors, the Rodriguez family, oil oligarchs, and assemblies—all vying for power.
• The new acting president, Delsey Rodriguez, may keep power, but risks ongoing instability.

“The thing is about Venezuela…the reason why they couldn’t actually do the regime change…there are multiple competing factions…multiple competing power centers. Who knows what will happen and whether there will be some internal coup against them.”
— Krystal Ball [32:55]

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Deep Dive Interview: Ava Gollinger, Author of The Chavez Code

[40:13–61:23]

Who is Delsey Rodriguez?

[44:24–48:16]

• Delsey Rodriguez, now acting president, is described by Gollinger as a pragmatic technocrat, not from Chavez’s original inner circle but adept at surviving and negotiating with Washington.
• Crucially, she and her brother Jorge have not been sanctioned by the U.S., which may have made her a more palatable figure for Trump administration to deal with.
• Internal power struggles are still likely as she lacks direct control over the military and social movements.

“There can be several things true at the same time…There was some type of negotiation for this outcome…but that doesn't mean that they're welcoming US intervention…They're trying to hold power.”
— Ava Gollinger [42:09]

Was There a Deal? The Risks of “Stability”

[48:16–54:32]

• Gollinger sees the probable outcome as Delsey and her network retaining power and crushing the opposition, with some kind of U.S. economic deal (oil, gold, minerals) forthcoming. True regime change is unlikely.
• The Venezuelan opposition lacks sufficient military or political clout; exile groups and U.S. influencers overstate their influence.
• Saagar and Krystal speculate whether Maduro himself was party to the deal—Gollinger doubts this, saying “I don’t think where he is right now is a place anyone would voluntarily go…”

Legacy and Propaganda

[57:36–61:23]

• Gollinger notes Hugo Chavez predicted this outcome: the U.S. would one day try the “Noriega formula”—indicting a leader as a drug trafficker to facilitate regime decapitation and control of resources.
• Gollinger casts doubt on the drug kingpin allegations but sees the pretext as useful to U.S. interests in Venezuela’s vast resources.
• The tragedy, she emphasizes, is that ordinary Venezuelans will pay the price for this power play.

“It's a very sad and tragic…time though for Venezuelans. Nobody wanted this inside Venezuela, amongst the Venezuelan people, and they're the ones who are going to pay the price.”
— Ava Gollinger [61:19]

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Selected Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On U.S. double standards:
  “If you are any country around the world, you should be thinking, I need to get nukes. Because that’s basically your only insurance policy against the US doing whatever the hell the US wants to do...”
  — Saagar Enjeti [12:54]

• On Monroe Doctrine rhetoric:
  “What has unfortunately…been morphed into is just America gets to do whatever it wants…I mean, we actually did try that…it didn’t work out so well…”
  — Krystal Ball [09:19]

• Speculating on U.S. goals:
  “It’s just about the bottom line of ExxonMobil and the bottom lines of the oligarch class…it doesn’t have anything to do with your self interest.”
  — Saagar Enjeti [13:53]

• On Delsey Rodriguez’s rise:
  “They have been playing a long game here…Not to say that they were always sort of working to undermine Maduro, but I think that was the objective in the end, was that Delsey could rise to the presidency...”
  — Ava Gollinger [48:16]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [02:29] — Preview of show, Venezuela deep dive
• [06:22–07:53] — Trump's remarks on Venezuela, Cuba, and Colombia
• [09:19–12:54] — Monroe Doctrine and its distortions, international reactions
• [20:52–23:13] — Secretary of State Rubio's statements on regime change and Cuba
• [40:13–61:23] — Interview with Ava Gollinger: Delsey Rodriguez, Venezuela’s internal dynamics, U.S. motives, and future predictions

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Takeaways

• The Venezuela operation marks a return to open, performative shows of force in U.S. foreign policy, with a doctrine resembling “might makes right.”
• Internally, Venezuela remains unstable, power resting on uneasy alliances and a technocratic leader palatable to the U.S. but not necessarily widely supported.
• The outcome is likely to enrich a narrow set of actors (in both countries) while everyday Venezuelans and the region suffer destabilization.
• The episode frames these events as a warning about the long-term blowback of interventionist policies and the risks of believing the promises and propaganda in the immediate afterglow of military success.

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Contributors:

• Hosts: Krystal Ball & Saagar Enjeti
• Guest: Ava Gollinger (author of "The Chávez Code")
• Key Figure Quotes: Donald Trump, Marco Rubio

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For further context and the latest reactions—including polling data and social media fallout—visit BreakingPoints.com.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

C Studio for details hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Krystal Ball]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited, free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Krystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy New Year. We have an amazing show for Everybody today. What do we have? Crystal.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Feels good to be back in the studio. It does.

[Krystal Ball]

It feels great to be back reflexing our muscles on the horizon. Didn't want it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Do you want it?

[Krystal Ball]

We're here to do it with all of you. And I wouldn't rather. I would rather. I would not rather do it with you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Anyone else?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Thank you. Sagar. Same. So we are actually just going to focus on Venezuela for the entire show today from every angle that you could think of. We're going to give you the latest. Trump made a bunch of new comments yesterday. Also, Maduro is actually expected in court today. He's being held in the same prison as Luigi and Diddy. So I don't know this. None of it feels real anyway. We're also going to have a fantastic guest named Ava Gollinger. She's an attorney. She's also written a book about Hugo Chavez and she has a lot of insight and theories about what actually went down. And especially with regard to the now acting president, Delsey Rodriguez. So definitely want to talk to her. We've got one David Rojas joining us as well. He wrote a piece about the future that he sees for Venezuela and also going to ask him about some of the South Florida reaction and the upset over the fact that Trump just threw Machado, the opposition leader, under the bus. We're going to take a look at all of the vulture capitalists who are swarming and circling and also whether or not Trump's oil dreams are actually going to come to fruition. We're going to take a look at the Democratic Party reaction as well. They are a bit in disarray over how to approach all of this. And also gotta call out a bunch of right wing influencers who shared a bunch of fake ass videos and even after they got called out, did not take them down, including just like overt AI slop retweeted by people like, oh, I don't know, the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk, which again continues to just be up even though it's widely clear, totally clear, and has been widely pointed out that this is AI generated. We'll also show you some actual videos from inside of Venezuela and give you the polling on, you know, as best we can figure how people inside Venezuela and how people in the Venezuelan diaspora also feel about this military intervention as best as we can glean. So that's what we're going to get to today. We're going to go in deep because obviously this is incredibly significant action and we're going to try to figure out where we are and where things may go from here.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, that's right. I mean it's a, it's very tough. As you know, I want to say from the top, like we're not in Venezuela. We don't really know anybody who's claiming that they know exactly based on the word of somebody in Doral, Florida, you know, a little bit ridiculous in my opinion. It is a country, it's a large country, tens of millions of people, many of them will have differing opinions. It's complex. We're do our best over the coming weeks and months to get down to it. Thank you to everybody who is supporting the show. BreakingPoints.com if you're able to join us. 2026, it's an election year again. So now we can roll back some of our older pitches. It's an election year. The 2026 election is coming. It's so it is upon us. If you want to join us for all of that content as well as what I'm sure going to be an insane year here whenever it comes to Venezuela, perhaps Iran, many other conflicts which we have our eye on, please join [e-mail] and support our work. If you're just watching this on YouTube, please hit subscribe on YouTube and if you're listening to this podcast, just go ahead and share an episode with a friend. Perhaps this one is an entire special just on Venezuela as everybody tries to make sense of this situation. But let's go ahead and dive into the nitty gritty. We do, of course, Crystal, thank you very much. I was actually in South Florida on a back party while all of this was going down on a boat trying to help Krystal on the team get all of this. Haven't been able to weigh in but.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Here we can you honestly what was it when you had your wedding was when Biden dropped out? I don't every time you're like off the grid, it's something crazy happens before.

[Krystal Ball]

Maybe we can cut people can Fast forward this. October 7th, I was planning my wedding.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's right.

[Krystal Ball]

My food tasting.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's right.

[Krystal Ball]

Then when Biden dropped out it was my it was the day after my wedding on my way to Mini Moon. Then let's see. Yeah, there's like multiple of it's like a meme at this point that whenever I'm like completely out of pocket unable to join that something insane happens. So all of you can just set your watch by it. Oh, when I had the baby, what happened? There was something crazy that happened that.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We'Ve lost track at this point.

[Krystal Ball]

But yeah, I almost said maternity leave. Lol. My critics can have a good time with that one. All right, Trump Maduro, let's do it. So Mr. Maduro, I don't even know how to refer to him. The former president, current president. It's up to the Venezuelans, I guess. Here is now here in US custody, in fact, as we speak, he just landed in lower Manhattan on his way to the courthouse. But we did have a perp walk. We can go and put this up here on the screen. Stunning scenes. Actually he somehow was placed in the hoodie by my friend Jocko Willink's company. So I'm not exactly sure who did that. That was his Nike tracksuit, which has now been completely sold out.

[Saagar Enjeti]

A lot of fit changes.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. A lot of outfit changes happening here. To Mr. Maduro being perp walks here at the DEA headquarters posing, smiling. He was seen wishing people Happy New Year, saying goodnight to his wife Celia, who was also what, extraordinary renditioned from the country of Venezuela. I mean, it's an insane image, you know, one day being the leader of Venezuela. Long time now to being in US custody after that stunning Delta Force raid. But what we do know now, and the big questions are the day after. So Kristol broke that news down. Trump saying, we're going to run Venezuela. Marco Rubio backtracking. Trump retracking, saying, no, no, no, we are going to run it. Basically everything is up in the air and that's what the focus of our show is going to be. So we've done a super cut here of many of Donald Trump's comments, specifically about how he intends to, quote, run Venezuela. Let's listen.

[Donald Trump]

But we can't take a chance after having done this incredible thing last night of letting somebody else take over where we have to do it again. We can do it again to nobody can stop us. There's nobody that has the capability that we have. You know, when I watch that war in Russia going on and on and on and everybody dying and it's like, it's primitive. It's primitive. It's horrible. One of the things that is happening, and I think you see it, you see it all the time, Howard. You've seen, seen it, that Cuba is ready to fall. You know, Cuba looks like it's ready to fall. I don't know how they. If they're going to hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They're not getting Any of it. And Cuba literally is ready to fall. And you have a lot of great Cuban Americans that are going to be very happy about this. They come in through the southern border, and something's going to have to be done with Mexico.

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Mr. President.

[Krystal Ball]

So Colombian President Gustavo Petro, you know, a couple weeks ago, he said he's got to watch his ass, and today he said he's not concerned about anything happening to him in the aftermath of this operation. So just what your message is.

[Donald Trump]

Well, he has cocaine mills. He has factories where he makes cocaine. And, yeah, I think I stick by my first statement. He's making cocaine. They're sending it into the United States. So he does have to watch his ass.

[Krystal Ball]

So we're gonna run Venezuela, and also multiple of these other countries are perhaps going to fall. I mean, at this point, obviously, this is what they wanted. They want the Mad Men theory of perhaps being able to threaten any of these other countries in Latin America. This is obviously a massive kind of geopolitical moment. There's a lot of talk about the Monroe Doctrine. I previously said here on the show that the vast majority of people saying Monroe Doctrine don't actually know what the Monroe Doctrine means. Perhaps if anyone wants to saddle up for a history lesson, the Monroe Doctrine was created to prevent human European powers from intervening in the Western Hemisphere and had a much more of an idea and frankly, like, you know, intellectual basis in the age of a European empire when the US Was a much smaller and tertiary player on the global stage. Now, this time around, what has unfortunately kind of been morphed into is just America gets to do whatever it wants, which we actually did try that. It's called the, you know, the Cold War period. And it didn't work out so well, if you ask me. And in fact, if you ask them, because it's engendered not only a lot of the problems that happened there between the 70s and the 80s, but a long legacy, actually, of the very leaders like Maduro and now the current leader of Venezuela, who see that legacy as the exact reason for why they need to be oppositional, let's say, to the United States, many of the countries that he actually just named. One of the things that he could, again, I've talked about this here previously with Venezuela, is that he's actually doing the best possible thing he could for Claudia Sheinbaum, for Petro, for the Cuban regime, all of whom actually, well, Sheinbaum excluded. Let's take Lula. In all of those cases, those leaders were less popular. And actually, after Trump started Threatening them, they became dramatically more popular. I was told directly by a source in the State Department that Petro's greatest dream is for Trump to threaten to depose him and to attack him, because that would make. He's very unpopular actually in the country. But this is lifting his tide there. So look, there's. I mean, I have no idea right at this point, can you really rule out any of what is going on? But this is one of the most explicit and frankly, I mean, look, there's so much, you know, kind of geostrategically and all that to say about it, but just at the very least, what they want is to basically move past, even directly, let's say, intervening in elections like Argentina with talks of loans, but to just be like, we can black bag any leader. And I mean, it's just think about this legal precedent. The United States President cannot be prosecuted for any official acts, but the official acts of any foreign leader. As long as you're indicted in the United States, you can be black bagged and then charged under US Law for trying to procure machine guns for the use of your military. That is literally in the indictment, which we'll break down at some point. So, yeah, I hope we're all ready to live in this era when the Taiwanese president is indicted in a Chinese court or when, you know, I'm sure Zelensky will be indicted soon by the Duma for being a Nazi and all this. Good luck, good luck talking, right? I mean, what did we just say now? Who's the biggest superpower who is opposed to Israel? Can they just use the ICC warrant to go into Israel and just black bag him?

[Saagar Enjeti]

President Aoc is gonna have her eye on this.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, yeah, I mean, oh, by the way, Mr. I Saw Bukele celebrating this. I'm like, listen, listen, brother, whoever Democrat is seriously, in the future, I wouldn't be talking this way if I were you. So, yeah, okay. I mean, this is the world that we live in now, I guess.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And Gaza is an important part of setting the stage for this moment of, you know, complete barbarism, complete law of the jungle, complete might makes right. You know, when Israel and the US Were able to get away with all of that, it's like, okay, then anything is on the table. And which is something we also talked about at the time. If you are any country around the world, you should be thinking, I need to get nukes. Because that's basically your only insurance policy against the US doing whatever the hell the US Wants to do with you going in and grabbing your oil, your gold, kidnapping your head of state, locking them up in a federal prison in the Southern District of New York, that is your only real safeguard. So, like, North Korea vindicated. We're not messing with them, are they? Are we? There's a reason for that. And for the Monroe Doctrine, people, there's a few things I would wanna. Number one, there seems to be this illusion that, like, oh, if, quote, unquote, we take the oil, this is somehow going to directly benefit the American people. Versus no, no, no. This is about the bottom line of ExxonMobil and the bottom lines of the oligarch class. It doesn't have anything to do with your self interest. Like your self interest and the interest of the empire and the oligarch class, maybe sometimes they align, but they are not the same interests. And I think that's really important to remember. Another thing about the Don Roe Doctrine, people, is Trump himself has said, like, oh, no, it's not just about our neighborhood. It's about doing whatever we want, wherever we want. It's about getting what we want when we want. So that is the world that we live in now. And if anyone was under any illusions, I think those illusions should be disabused. But the other thing that I would say about this is that we are going to have immediate repercussions in terms of the way that the rest of the world relates to us. And there's a tension in what Trump did here, because on the one hand, it's insane. It's a sort of, like, military spectacle, right? This great theatrical military display, which Trump absolutely loves. He's going, all our amazing military. And this operation was so dangerous and they're so courageous, and they love that aspect. He loves that aspect of it. On the other hand, it also does illustrate that there was a limit to what he wanted to do. You know, there were war games that they conducted previously where they found, you know, if we really did the whole, like, take out the whole Maduro regime and try to install Machado, it's gonna be a fucking mess. And we're gonna have to have, you know, massive number of troops there. We are truly going to have to, like, own this thing and occupy it, and there's gonna be rival groups fighting and it's going to be a disaster. So Trump looked at that and was like, I don't want to deal with that. So, sorry, Machado, we're not doing that. As of today, you can't really call it a regime change because the same regime is in charge and you have the same level of threats now. Trump feels that he's up the ante, that he's escalated the threats so that he may get more out of the vice president who's now in charge in Venezuela. There's also a possibility we're going to talk to our next guest about whether there was a deal that was struck directly between Delsey Rodriguez and between the Trump administration. But in a lot of ways, the situation has not fundamentally changed. We have military assets in the region, but not on the ground. We have the same regime in charge, and they are still stuck between having to respond to their own population and their own movement and having to worry about Trumpian threats. So at the same time that it's this insane and extraordinary action, and it also actually demonstrates some of the limits of how far Trump was ultimately willing to go here. He kind of showed his hand in terms of what he is actually willing to do. So I think that's an important learning to take from this as well.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, I have seen so much discourse about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and they're like, wow, the military has changed. We need to rethink. Guys, you're an idiot if you think that the United States defeated Saddam's military. In three weeks, the United States deposed and took out the Taliban with barely any troops on the ground and a CIA team very in some ways to what happened here with Maduro. Nobody has ever doubted the incredible professionalism, planning and all of that of U.S. special Operations. What we do doubt is the strategic know how of the general class and of Washington and our civilian authorities to be able to govern that effectively. And that's the end game that we're in right now. So it's not even correct to call it regime change. It's not even really correct to call it a coup or any of that. It is very similar. We have to roll the clock back almost over 100 years to the British times, where this is probably more akin to a British colonial, where British colonial experiments, where what they would do is they would have, like quasi local leaders, they would have a very select few number of troops and corporations on the ground. And the implicit kind of admission was that you do what we want, we won't mess too much in your own internal affairs, but if you do, the full force of His Majesty's Navy will come in and will basically wipe you out. But even that obviously broke apart many times. It worked in some cases. And then every once in a while, oh, Afghanistan would happen, right? And a number of troops would die in the Khyber Pass like this is akin to that model even in the US times. Like our grand colonial experiments were honestly much more like flirt. Like we've never really had explicit basic announcements. We're here to take the oil. Now remember, keep this like deep in the back of your mind. That is Trump today, that is not Trump tomorrow or yesterday. Like it could be anytime, anywhere. And this is the competing faction which is currently in the White House.

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[Krystal Ball]

So we have the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio here, all over the place. We're about to play for you. First, we're not running it. Trump says we are running it. He says that this isn't regime change, but maybe regime change isn't so bad. The Middle east was bad, but this isn't necessarily the exact same thing. We could be using leverage. It's about China, even though Trump said that we're gonna sell them oil to China. So let's take a listen to this from the Secretary of State. It's completely all over the map.

[Marco Rubio]

We intend to use every element of leverage that we have to ensure that that changes. The one I would point everyone to is that our military is helping the Coast Guard conduct a law enforcement function which is not just the capture of Maduro, but the enforcement of our sanctions. We go to court, we get a warrant, we seize the boats, and we think this is tremendous leverage, incredible crippling leverage which we intend to continue to use until we see the changes that we need to see.

[Ava Gollinger]

Was asked about the possibility of US Boots on the ground. He said, quote, we're not afraid of it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

How many US Forces are on the ground right now in Venezuela? Are there any?

[Marco Rubio]

We don't have US Forces on the ground in Venezuela. No, we don't have US Forces on the ground. Everyone knows they were on the ground for about two hours when they went to capture Maduro. And I think what the President is saying is very simple, and that is, as President of the United States, he is not going to go around telling people what he's not going to do. He's not going to. He's not going to go around saying, I won't do this, I won't do that. Yes, I care about this issue, but I'll only go so far. He retains all this optionality. In the particular case you're citing, this was, in essence, at its core, a law enforcement function.

[Ava Gollinger]

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

[Marco Rubio]

Well, the Cuban government is a huge problem. Yeah, the Cuban government is a huge problem, first of all.

[Ava Gollinger]

So is that a yes?

[Marco Rubio]

But I don't think people fully appreciate. I think they're in a lot of trouble. Yes. I'm not gonna 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 C. Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro. His entire like internal security force. His internal security 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 Dulce 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.

[Krystal Ball]

So important clip there, because that's what he's really all about there for Mr. Rubio. Right. Whose father's dying wish was that he liberate Cuba. Joking. He wrote about it in his own book.

[Saagar Enjeti]

By the way, they left before the revolution, just so everyone knows. And visited after the revolution. Yeah. Also their families involved in drug trafficking. Was involved in drug trafficking.

[Krystal Ball]

So allegedly. We'll put that up. Not sure about that, but okay, we could.

[Saagar Enjeti]

On the Cuba piece, there's a piece in American Prospect where you can read the details about the narco trafficking piece. In any case, the Cuba bet is both that they will have fear struck in the heart from the this kidnapping, abduction, holding the leader of Venezuela hostage, and also they benefit from inexpensive oil from Venezuela. And it is true the Cuban economy is a mess. They are actually in very dire straits. So their reverse domino theory is that perhaps just by withholding this Venezuela oil, that will be enough to shake the Cuban regime and then with the threat that we could go in and take direct action as well. So the whole mentality, I think the best way to think about it is a couple things. Number one, in the same way that you have the Israel lobby, you have like, you know, Miami, South America lobby that is obsessed with these things and that are very influential both in terms of financial donations, in terms of the administration and in terms of a political constituency that's important to the Republican Party. So sometimes the moves that are taken seem irrational because you have to calculate in that you have this incredibly ideological die hard faction that is both money and political power, that is dedicated to this neocon ideology with regard to these certain to any left wing government that is in Central or South America or in the Caribbean. So that piece I think is really important to keep in mind. And then in terms of the way the Trump administration is operating here, Graham Platner, which we may play later in the show, called it international gangsterism. And I do think that is the right mentality. They are operating like mob bosses through threats and intimidation. We're going to hold your leader hostage and do with him what we will. We're going to amass these forces in your region as a threat and we're gonna hope that those threats and that coercion is enough for us to be able to effectively run your country without actually doing the boots on the ground, the military, occupation, et cetera. Now, they're not ruling that out. That's part of the sort of, like, mob threat on the table. Hey, we could come in and occupy your country. We could come back and bomb your country some more and kill more of your citizens. But it truly is this sort of like, gangster mentality that they're hoping that the threat and the coercion is enough to be able to run the entire country and turn them into a puppet regime.

[Krystal Ball]

It's possible. I mean, a lot of it, it's like gunboat diplomacy from the early 1800s. If you don't know what it is, we don't have enough time to go into it. But basically, the idea is you can roll in, you can open a port, you can coerce the government to do what it wants. But the idea, and really why a lot of this fell out of favor from the United States is that what it unleashed effectively was not only the greatest war that Europe had ever seen, but then 10 to 20 or, sorry, 20 to 30 years of complete destabilization. Hitlerism, fascism. The Soviet Union and the United States were the ones who decided. They're like, look, we need to go to war in Europe to stop international gangsterism. Look, as people know, I think international law is fake. And that's why I'm like, I'm not using some, oh, illegal kidnapping. And all of that might does make right, but that doesn't mean that you should do it. And so I think that everybody should talk in terms of good idea, bad idea. Now, when we talk here in terms of Venezuela, one of the reasons that a lot of this fell out of fashion, I guess, guess, if you will, is that the United States for a long time actually dramatically benefited from effectively doing the same thing, but under very different, not only tonal ways, but also in terms of the way that they acted in order to make sure that you didn't have the same contradictions arise. Let's say when Russia invaded Ukraine and you wanna sanction the hell out of their economy. I mean, what do we really even have to say here? And look, Monroe Doctrine. I mean, yeah, good luck explaining that to the Chinese. When they're starting to talk about Taiwan, they're like, yo, look at the mileage between Washington and Venezuela. And then look at the little space there between us and between Taiwan. They're like, yeah, it's an unresolved question. You guys are in our sphere of influence. This is open and shut case. You have nothing to say. Now? I'm not saying that this is gonna make it more likely or less. I think it just makes it like, I think if they were gonna do it, they were going to do it. But the way that the United States and the world of course would have to react in that type of situation does dramatically matter.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And so here, remind people, Sagar, what percentage of chips are manufactured in Taiwan?

[Krystal Ball]

It depends. I mean if we're looking at overall. But in terms of the advance, the most important is over 90%. Yeah, like literally the entire US economy is gone like this.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Like, even if you don't care whether Taiwan is independent or under Chinese control or whatever, in terms of what actually will impact your life and our national security, your ability to buy basic consumer goods, you have a lot more interest in Taiwan than you do.

[Krystal Ball]

I've said this before. I mean, if Taiwan happens, all of us, like all of our camera equipment will probably be nationalized by the government. Like I'll probably, it's like in Russia, like we're literally gonna have to turn this laptop in. They're gonna take the chip out. We'll all have to go buy like 2006 laptops on eBay. You think I'm kidding? This could be. That would, after two years of something like that going on, and if we try to react negatively to that situation and don't come to some quasi deal with the Chinese, that's what it's gonna look like. And beyond that, I mean, just like with us in Venezuela, the Chinese now currently figuring out what they want to do. But let's just really remember like within this, it's the chaos element. And the chaos element, what it can unleash is if we look back and Marco Rubio is claiming with a straight face, this is not Middle East. The point is not about the Middle east. The point is about the playbook, is that in every single time, the United States has never been adept at being able to manage a multi year occupation and or governance plan which would actually benefit the people there and the people here. In every single case, whether it was direct intervention, whether it was decapitation, what happened was chaos. The United States was never adept because of its own domestic abilities or whatever in order to actually manage this. And it unleashed hell for the region and it eventually led to either blowback or problems for us. Now the craziness of this is that that in the interim, the Maduro regime remains in Power without Maduro. And in fact the most likely outcome as of today, we have no idea. Of course what will happen is that the current vice president will assume power, issue oil licenses. Her and her brother run the entire country. They will use some sort of concession and economic benefit from the United States with their new. I mean just lifting the sanctions would boom the Venezuelan economy. We'll reopen an embassy. Trump doesn't care about democracy. What do you think that Delsey Rodriguez and her brother are gonna do? They're gonna lock up the entire opposition and kill them. Just, I mean, why wouldn't you if you were them? That is the modal outcome. Now the problem then is that it becomes just like any other volatile US backed situation. I'm not saying any of this will fall apart in one year or two. That's what many people misunderstand. Like in retrospect, you can see how Libya was a disaster. It took years for Libya to fully fall apart. In Iraq 04, you could actually made a case that it all worked out.05 in Afghanistan, that was the only time that this is the only time it's really started to go off the rails. Everybody can say mission accomplished, it's easy. And then what? In retrospect we see like, ah, the groundwork for the problem, everything falling apart. Not gonna sit here and say that it's gonna be a chaos tomorrow. That's not how these things happen. What has always been the case for non intervention or for deeply thoughtful intervention is that 40th order consequences are completely unpredictable and you would rather not as the United States play with them. I mean, even now they're talking about how Midnight Hammer was some great success. It's like really? Well, BB's still trying to claim that he wants to bomb Iran. Okay, so that's what I'm saying.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And Trump's giving him the green light.

[Krystal Ball]

When you read the history book, you'll just skip over, but you'll go Midnight Hammer to here, right? And it'll look completely obvious. But in the interim, we're all, all having to deal with this ridiculous propaganda about how incredible it is. But kind of wrap all of this section up, let's go and put a six up on the screen just to show the chaotic element. Trump is currently threatening Venezuela's new leader with quote, fate worse than Maduro. A second wave of strikes is possible. And even my analysis earlier is presumptive on the fact that she can keep control. The thing is about Venezuela and the reason why they couldn't actually do the regime change, change we're gonna talk about this with eva. There are multiple competing factions. Remember, there are the oil fields, there are the cartels. Yes, they do operate in areas of Venezuela. There is the military. There are actually various factions within the military. There's the assembly, there is Rodriguez, there's the Venezuelan, kind of like quasi oil oligarchs like in Russia. There are multiple competing power centers. Who knows what will happen and whether there will be some internal coup against them. That's what happens in these scenarios is within chaos. Anything can happen. And again, usually it does not work out to overall US benefit. It usually leads to some sort of intervention or it can easily spiral. It can cause a decision tree which very easily leads to more US boots on the ground, which our president explicitly refused to, to rule out also. Yeah. Rubio saying there's no U.S. service members on the ground. Yeah, maybe not officially. I mean, the entire story of the captures is multiple CIA black squads running around. Okay, so obviously there are.

[Saagar Enjeti]

They don't consider that military. I count it.

[Krystal Ball]

I think everybody else is different. Yeah, it counts to me. And then finally a seven. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. What we have here is that, look, this hasn't been officially confirmed, but I called around. Some people are saying it's fake. It's not. What it does generally fit with, though, is that Venezuelan leaders offer the US a path to stay in power without Maduro. And this is, I think, a good segue to Eva is that we really still don't know whether this was part of some backroom deal where the, you know, other people inside the Maduro regime made a deal with Trump and them and said, look, yeah, you can come and take him, so be it. Kill some Cubans, whatever. You can create some big victory. Yes, I mean, they have, have. Remember, whenever we say we want to take the oil, it's in their benefit too. They want to sell it to us. Their economy has been destroyed by sanctions over the last decade. I mean, they're actually, we're doing okay, what, some 15 years ago or so, it's now that they've actually been driven down into the ground. That's what had a lot of the migration. They don't want any of those problems. They want to be rich too. And they have no problem killing their opposition or any of that and effectively being like a quasi corrupt state which is under semi, like one party ish type rule. They don't want elections or fake elections or any of this. This could be a great outcome for them. They want to basically be almost a Gulf style monarchy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, but that's part of the thing is, and this is something you and I have covered a lot, like none of this was necessary. The deal was on the table. You didn't need to kidnap Maduro to secure this deal. It was not required at all. I mean, the oil deal was there and whatever other natural resources, which they do have other significant stockpiles of natural resources, that was all on the table. I think Trump, with his rhetoric and also under pressure from Rubio in that faction, felt like he needed to do some like, my God, Venezuela spectacle to appease that constituency. And so that's how you end up with this outcome. Because in terms of the economics of it, I mean, I think there's a pretty strong case to be made that he actually would have been better off not doing this. Because now you have Delsey Rodriguez under more pressure domestically from. But possibly because the population is looking like we don't want to be some colonial outpost, we don't want to just completely bend and be under the thumb of the Yankee oppressor. So it actually creates some more potential dissent and some more pressure in terms of what may happen going forward. So in any case, the deal was on the table, did not require this. And by the way, over 80 people were killed in the context of this military operation, did not require the kidnapping of a world leader, did not require any of this. If you just wanted the fricking oil.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and this is what's so complicated. Cuz what I think Trump and his White House want is for everyone to absolutely lose it and be like this is regime change, entanglement and all that. It's not responsible, that's not what happens happened. But that doesn't mean that it isn't bad. And that also doesn't mean that you can't easily foresee many of the issues and also the triumphalism in the. Look, I've just been in politics long enough, I always know the day after tweet. It usually doesn't age well and especially when it comes to war. Let me ask you this basic proposition and I'll ask it to the nation. Do you have confidence that this team can competently pull off an oil extraction inside of Venezuela? Yes or no? Question. Do you have confidence that this team, you know, could have. I mean, look, I hate Bush, I hate Cheney. Cheney was an actual oil man. All right, if anybody could have done it, could have been him. If anybody could have done it, it could have been Ronald Reagan. And those people, they were very smart, they were very competent. In fact, one of my favorite books is about Vietnam. What is the best and the brightest? We had the world's greatest minds, you know, sit there and come up with their stats, stat sheets and their ideas behind how to win against North Vietnam. And in fact, if they can't do something like that, really ask yourself whether this team can, and then say, do you have confidence that this can also be not only a single administration, but a future problem that every one of our great. We're gonna talk about the Democrats. Do we really have confidence that this bipartisan establishment in our current country can competently pull this off? Or can we look at our long history of all of this and say, yeah, we probably would have been better off just striking a deal with Maduro. Just like, hey man, stop dancing in public and cut us some oil and minerals. He would have done it. I'm sure he would have. He would have been like, okay, fine, stop threatening to kill me and then I will. But we'll see. Now, you break it, you buy it. And they certainly do. So with all of that, let's get to Eva and let's see get her reaction on some of the background behind this possible deal between the Maduro remnants of the regime and the Trump administration.

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[Saagar Enjeti]

Let's turn now to the question of Delsey Rodriguez. She was the Vice president to Maduro. Now she is of part been sworn in. So she is the active president of Venezuela and there's a question of whether or not she could have been involved in striking a deal with the Trump administration in advance of their kidnapping of Maduro and attack on the country of Venezuela. So following those actions, we've gotten some contradictory signals from Ms. Rodriguez. So first we had this very bombastic public statement where she said we'll never be slaves again. She also said that the action had a quote, Zionist tinge. Since then we've gotten a new statement that has quite a different tone. We can put this up on the screen where she's seeking cooperation. She says so she says Venezuela reaffirms its commitment to peace and peaceful coexistence. Our country aspires to live without external threats in an environment of respect and international cooperation. We believe global peace is built by first guaranteeing peace within each nation. We prioritize moving towards balanced and respectful international relations between the US and Venezuela and between Venezuela and other countries in the region. Premised on sovereign equality and non interference. These principles guide our diplomacy with the rest of the world. We invite, and this is the key paragraph, we invite the US government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence. President Donald Trump Our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war. This has always been President Nicolas Maduro's message and it is the message of all of Venezuela right now. This is the Venezuela I believe in and have dedicated my life to. So, for further analysis of the situation, we are very fortunate to be joined by author and lawyer Ava Gollinger. She is also the author of the book the Chavez Code. Great to have you, Eva.

[Krystal Ball]

Good to see you.

[Ava Gollinger]

Thanks for having me on.

[Saagar Enjeti]

All right, so talk to us about Delsey Rodriguez and what you think is going on here.

[Ava Gollinger]

There's so much going on also under the surface behind the scenes that obviously most of us are not privy to. So things are very much in development in real time. But certainly there can be several things true at the same time. One, it can be true that there was some type of negotiation for this outcome that then has platformed and placed Delsey in the presidency in Venezuela for this transitionary period, as it's being referred to, at least by the United States. And it can be true that Delsey and the government in Venezuela remain anti imperialist and opposed to the US Control of their country. Both things can be true. I mean, this is a very dangerous moment for Venezuela. Even if there was a negotiation that took place ahead of time that somehow sacrificed Maduro or enabled his capture to remove him to give Trump a victory, so. So that the rest could stay in power, it doesn't mean that they're welcoming US Intervention and invasion into the country. I mean, obviously, they were pushed into a corner, but at the same time, there have been negotiations going on now for months, at least since the start of this year. And leading them have been Delsey and her brother Jorge, who up until now has been head of Venezuela's legislative body, the National Assembly. They are very astute and intelligent and, you know, internationalist individuals who have been involved in this particular part of the government throughout most of Maduro's presidency. So it's really not surprising to see that they are the two key players in this chapter of the Venezuelan government. But I think primarily they're trying to hold power. So by any means that's necessary, and it's in part to ensure their own power and their own, you know, posturing in the country, the wealth they have accumulated. But it's also to ensure that the opposition doesn't come back and take power, because they certainly don't want that to happen. And that's not something that's widely accepted and desired, at least in the Venezuela that I know. So I think that there can be several things true at the same time.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, we should know. You're one of the literal experts on the country. You Spent a lot of time there. You knew many of these people personally. Part of the things I'm interested in here is about this deal with Delsey Rodriguez. You have said that she's looked at in the country as more of a technocratic manager of the current like quasi socialist capitalist system whenever it comes to oil. Part of the reason that she may have been picked here by Donald Trump or at least accepted by the current Trump administration. I mean, how will you see her capability of balancing these two things of wanting to either appease, work with the Trump administration and then organic, internal, you know, small d Democratic concern over the United States and this current intervention, the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro. What are your, what's your sense of the internal dynamics and her ability to manage that and what that's going to look like?

[Ava Gollinger]

Well, I think that that's going to play out over the next few days because certainly there's an internal power struggle going on. I mean, Delsey may have been the chosen one by the United States and through the negotiation process. That doesn't mean that she sort of has that power over the other groups, powerful figures in the, in the government. You know, there are sectors like Delsey is not the one who's controlling the security forces in the military and the social movements, but again, they have been the key negotiators with Washington. And one other aspect that's very, well, a couple things. One that's very interesting is that both her and her brother Jorge have never been sanctioned by the United States are implicated in any of these indictments, whereas pretty much almost every other member figurehead of the government has been. And that was reiterated in this most recent updated indictment that included Celia Flores, Maduro's wife, as well as his son and Diocelo Cabello. And so that's curious because I think it puts them sort of on alert that they're the ones who are next in line. Dios Dallo, particularly holding the threat on Maduro and his wife possibly to not give up, up any information because their son, well, his son, it's not, it's not their son together, but Celia's stepson could be next. And there's already outstanding indictments and sanctions against the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino Lopez and others in the, in the security apparatus. So I think there, you know, there's several factors going on that she has, she has to comply to maintain order and power in the country right now. She has, has to be complicit to the U.S. i think that's what's gone on behind the scenes. But again, this has been a lobby in place now at least for months, possibly since the beginning of the year. We saw her placement, for example, in the New York Times weeks ago, where she was presented as the moderate, which is entirely laughable because her history shows while she may be more pragmatic to deal with in terms of business, certainly not moderate in terms of. Of ideology and behavior. These are people who have, I would say, very repressive instincts. She does will not accept any kind of dissent. They will go after anyone who they think would be betraying them. So I think it's a very volatile time in the country in that aspect, that she's going to be with the help of her brother, trying to exert some kind of control and power brokering amongst the group groups to see how far can they advance under this immense pressure that they have. But Trump's made clear they'll just go in and do it again if they want to. And I mean, I think that it's true. We've seen that it's true that they can do that. And now I think they've placed all these CIA assets inside the country so they could execute another rendition at any time if they wanted to.

[Krystal Ball]

Right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Ava, give us a sense of who Delsey is, where she comes from, how she comes into this position as vice president to Mador.

[Ava Gollinger]

Well, she's someone again, her brother Jorge, her older brother, is the more sort of behind the scenes powerful player here. He did always have a key position, not directly with Hugo Chavez when Chavez was president. Neither of them are from sort of the grassroots, original movement that brought Chavez to power, nor were they close confidence of Chavez. Whereas definitely Maduro was his wife, Celia was Dios Dallo Cabello was, was Padrino Lopez was. I mean, those are more the core members that were part of the original movement. Delsey and Jorge were always on the outskirts but had powerful positions. Well, Jorge did. Jorge was head of Venezuela's National Electoral Council. So he oversaw the voting process for years in the country. He also was mayor of Caracas at a key moment. He pushed Delsey into Chavez's government. At one point, Chavez briefly took her on as his chief of staff. That was her first sort of. Of foray into the government that lasted not more than six months. Chavez fired her and ousted her entirely from the government and never wanted her back again, never brought her back again. It wasn't until after his death that she was brought back in along with her brother Jorge as part of this power sort of deal that they made with Maduro. For him to maintain power. But she is someone who's educated internationally. She's a lawyer. She's very smart. These are very smart, calculated people. So they've been playing a long game here. They have wanted to take the presidency and to rise to that position. And she's done well for herself. She started as minister of communication with Maduro, she rose to foreign minister. That was the way she was sort of able to create her networks and get into these sort of role as being the pragmatic and the technocrat. And then she pushed her way into both the vice presidency and the head of the oil industry. I mean, they have been playing the long game here, and I think that they have done quite well for themselves that she has been placed in this position now. And I think that they've been. Not to say that they were always sort of working to undermine Maduro, but I think that was the objective in the end, was that Delsey could rise to the presidency and potentially her brother could be next in line.

[Krystal Ball]

Ava, what's your general sense of the modal outcome here? We make some deals. They crush the opposition. Does that just end US Intervention? What does that look like inside of the country? Let's say the sanctions lift, all the groups get rich. Everybody seems to be happy. What are the downsides to that, you know, for Venezuela?

[Ava Gollinger]

Yeah, I mean, the groups are rich anyway already, but, you know, it's really more. There's a. There's other aspects here because there are the people of Venezuela. I mean, there are movements there. They can't be disregarded. You know, there is. Is still a powerful bastion of the original sort of Chavista movement. There's a lot that were not content with the situation with the current government and wanted change, but that didn't mean they wanted U.S. intervention or any kind of, you know, U.S. puppet regime in place. They weren't supporting the opposition either, but they wanted change. So I think there's a lot of factors that, you know, it's still volatile and delicate. Just because Del is getting support from Trump, Trump doesn't mean that she's going to have the support of the people. And there's a lot of psyops going on internally, people saying that it's not true, the betrayal, that there must be some other thing going on here. And I'm sure they're going to present it to the country as though this is what they have to do in order to maintain the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. But in reality, it's to maintain their own power. But I do think that potentially over time, you know, grassroots movements will again begin to build up in opposition and, you know, it could be anyone's game at some point. What I, what I found really interesting though from Trump was that they did completely dismiss the opposition and Maria Karina Machal, who were waiting in the sidelines, who asked for this. So, I mean, I think that Delsey sold it really well to Rubio and Trump and I think that she was right. You know, many outside of Venezuela and who had the sort of platforms in the media were saying that she, Maria Karina Machao had all this support and could just ease back in if she was given the chance. But that's not really true. She doesn't command any of the military and security forces in the country. She doesn't have that level of, you know, political and security, military support. So this was definitely sold to Trump as, as we are the ones who can maintain stability, we are the ones who can guarantee access to the oil, which is what Trump wants, and everything else in the country. If you try to come in and put these other people here, it will be civil unrest and, you know, there will be a civil war, which, which could also be true. So I think that, that, you know, that's this, that's how it was explained and I think that that was, was a very, you know, reasonable proposal to Trump. And I think that they believe it because it's actually true. And so it just depends how it's going to play out because this doesn't seem to be that it's a long term solution with Delsey at the forefront. But you really never know. I mean, these people are survivors. People thought that when Chavez died, the whole thing was dead, the whole revolution was over. And here we are, look, it's now going to be 13 years since Chavez's death and they're still in power.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Do you think it's possible that Maduro was also in on the deal and the whole thing was sort of like fake and staged? It's hard for me to imagine him going to trial. I mean, just with a sort of cursory understanding of his showmanship, it would be quite a spectacle. I sort of have doubts in the ability of them to proffer enough evidence to actually fully convict him, at least on all of the charges that they've asserted. So is there a possibility that actually he and Delsey, that they were all in on some sort of a deal with the Trump administration? Trump gets his military spectacle, the revolution, the regime gets to stay in power, and Maduro, maybe they quietly Ship him off somewhere else after some period of time and decide not to go through with the trial?

[Ava Gollinger]

I don't think so. I mean, not in my opinion. I think that Maduro really thought that this wouldn't happen and that's why he was sort of taunting Trump. But, I mean, Maduro's always been trying to negotiate. Basically everything Delsey's going to do now, Maduro essentially would have done. Yeah, it's just that he wouldn't have done it in the same way. So, no, I don't think that he was in on it. I don't think where he is right now, that's not a place where anyone would voluntarily go to. The, the case is real. They have some pretty star witnesses. It doesn't mean that all the evidence is going to hold up, but there is witness testimony. They have some key figures. They have the former head of military, Venezuelan military intelligence, is in the same prison as Maduro and he's already singing his song.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And Diddy and Luigi Mangione all hanging out together in the same prison.

[Ava Gollinger]

Well, I mean, there are a lot of figures there, but in terms of this particular case, there's aspects of it that obviously are not going to hold up. Some of the charges are ridiculous, but there are other things that they could try to make work. And I mean, there's no one possibly who could believe that Maduro is going to get a fair trial in the United States. So certainly his lawyers are going to try to get the charges dismissed, to get it thrown out because of the way that he was captured. Obviously it was an illegal violation of international law. There's no question, however, if it played out that somehow there was an agreement that Delsey had sort of taken over and permitted this, then they could say that it was authorized by the government that they were recognizing in Venezuela. We don't really know some of the issues behind the scenes that will come out in discovery if the case does proceed to trial. But I. I could see it actually happening at some point further down the line. There could be a deal. There could certainly be a deal. I mean, they have his wife, too. It would be very sad. I'm just saying, from a human perspective also, I know them. They would be in prison basically for the rest of their life. These are two people who've spent the past, you know, 30 plus years together every day. They are a team. You know, they're. They're a very solid couple. They're going to be separate. I saw at least that as they go into trial, they're still Together, but at some point in prison, they're going to be separated and they may never see each other again. Or there could be a negotiation further down the line that gets Celia at least released and sent somewhere. But it would be hard to imagine that this would have been some facade planned by all of them just to appease Trump and give him his victory. It seems more likely that Trump had a buildup in the military in the region, that if he wasn't going to use it, he was going to look like a big loser. And Maduro would have come out extremely fortified and strengthened, and they would never have left. They would never have left. So at least this way, two sides get a victory. Trump gets his man, he gets his show, and the same regime stays in power in Venezuela. And so it's just a question of, you know, how long will this play out? And is Trump so emboldened now that he's going to. Going to go after Cuba, for example, which seems to be next on the list, at least from Rubio's perspective.

[Krystal Ball]

Very possible.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Eva, one last thing I wanted to get your reaction to, because you did know Hugo Chavez so well, wrote a book about him. This clip has been circulating. This is before guys, and we can put this up on the screen where he effectively predicts exactly the chain of events that occurs. He says, years ago, someone told me they're going to end up accusing you of being a drug trafficker. You personally, finally, you, Chavez. Not just that the government supports it or permits it. No, they're going to try to apply the Noriega formula to you. And we have now heard a lot about the Noriega formula and Panama being held up as the positive example of what is being done in Venezuela now. So just wanted to get your thoughts and reflections on that clip that is now making the rounds again.

[Ava Gollinger]

No, no doubt. I mean, Chavez knew what was in the works for. He knew the danger that it presented. The fact that his movement and his ideology was about nationalism and sovereignty and that Venezuela sits atop the world's largest oil reserves. I mean, even as part of the research work that I did, because I investigated and unraveled the entire US And CIA role in the coup d' etat against Chavez in 2002 and subsequent destabilization and intervention attempts over the years until his death, that, frankly, have continued to date, and we've now seen them play out explicitly. But there were invasion plans drawn up. Plan Balboa was drawn up and practiced as a war exercise against targeting Venezuela to take control of the oil reserves. And to divide the movement internally and to take out and decapitate the leftist leader. I mean, this has been a scenario they have been planning now for over 25 years. Essentially when Chavez took not only one office, but refused to obey at that time, George W. Bush's mandate that he would take him under his wing and, you know, ensure that the US Would continue all access and into Venezuela's oil industry. So certainly that, that's what's going on here. I mean, haven't seen all the evidence, but from experience I could say that I would find it highly unlikely that Nicolas Maduro is a drug kingpin. Certainly there is circumstantial evidence of drug shipments. Venezuela doesn't produce drugs, so it's not made in Venezuela. They're coming from Colombia, from Ecuador. They have been facilitated through the country. There's no question of that. There's plenty of evidence pointing to that. But pointing to Maduro himself running the show and the operation, that's just very hard to believe and highly unlikely. But nevertheless, being the leader of the country, they can try to pin it all on him, especially now that he's the one they've captured.

[Krystal Ball]

Exactly right. You know, if you get pinned, machine gun, somebody. Ridiculous. I mean, you could pin it.

[Ava Gollinger]

What even is that?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, it's, it's unbelievable. I mean, I reported this. I was told directly by somebody who spoke with him. He said, I have all the oil and all the gold. What the f do I need to deal drugs for? That's apparently what he said. So Maduro, Maduro said that apparently to us.

[Ava Gollinger]

Well, I mean, he's not dealing drugs, but it is, you know, I think another thing, just because a lot of people always talk about the oil, you know, Venezuela has vast resources, huge amounts of gold. They have all kinds of heavy metals, aluminum, you know, there's a massive industry in Venezuela of rare earths. Everything that is desired, frankly from the Trump administration. So it's really no surprise that this has been played out in this way. It's a very sad and tragic, tragic time though for Venezuelans. Nobody wanted this inside Venezuela, amongst the Venezuelan people, and they're the ones who are going to pay the price.

[Krystal Ball]

Thank you so much for your analysis. Just been excellent. We hope you'll come back again.

[Ava Gollinger]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Great to meet you, Eva. Thank you.

[Ava Gollinger]

Thanks for having me on.

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No, no.

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