← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
1/5/26: Venezuela Civil War, Wall St Oil Companies Swoop In, Dems Flail, AI Videos Flood Social Media
01:05:20
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- [00:00]
Kyle Kulinski
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [00:36]
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- [01:34]
Sagar Enjeti
C Studio for details hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:38]
Kyle Kulinski
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.
- [01:45]
Sagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:51]
Kyle Kulinski
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.
- [02:02]
Sagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com with all of that. We are also now going to turn to our friend Juan David Roas, who joins us now to break down the potential future pathways for Venezuela. Good to see you, Juan. Thanks for joining us.
- [02:20]
Kyle Kulinski
Happy New Year.
- [02:21]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, so let's go and put your piece up here on the screen. You write specifically about the multiple ways that Trump's invade or I guess even regime change. Not sure if we can call it that. Trump's military, police action. Let's call it that. In Venezuela. You say Venezuela's path to freedom, it is menaced by colonels, cartels and Trump. Juan, you lay out multiple different pathways that all of us could go. Given your expertise and your long kind of analysis and knowledge of the region, why don't you lay that out here for the audience? Donald Trump has unleashed this current situation. There's a lot of chaos. You write specifically, we could go the Panamanian model, we could go the current model with, where there's this negotiation and oil deal struck with the remnants of the regime. We could have full blown civil war and chaos. Where, where do you see things as possible and which one do you think is the most likely?
- [03:08]
Juan David Roa
All right, I'm going to try to be as fair. I, I try to be as fair as possible in the piece to like, you know, all. It's a spectrum. There's a wide range of scenarios. And to steel, man, the neocon version, which is, is Panama, is that, hey, look, like Venezuela, Latin America is not the Middle East. Venezuela had a past history with democracy. Look at Panama. We did the same thing in Panama. And Panama is like, you know, has flaws, but it's a vibrant democracy. Whatever. They have peaceful alternations of power. Venezuela had that during the 20th, most of the 20th century. All right, cool. There's, I'm skeptical of that version, let's say, like, really the only way that that version could happen, I think, is if, you know, Density Rodriguez, who now is, was sworn in as president of Venezuela. She like, holds new elections, the opposition takes over, and by some miracle, all of the military backs her. There's no defections. I mean, I'm skeptical of this because if you look at Panama actually, like we put boots, boots on the ground for like several months and for several months there were loyalists that held out in favor of Noriega. Like, it is not actually that much of a cakewalk as it's, as it's portrayed.
- [04:25]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, 23Americans were killed.
- [04:27]
Juan David Roa
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And so, you know, Trump's saying that, oh, if they don't do what we want, we'll bomb them again. It's like, okay, if they don't. You really don't do everything you want, then I guess you'll have to put like troops on the ground, Occupy, as he said, which is extremely disturbing. And no one here in the US wants according to polls. So I'm skeptical of that. I'm also skeptical that if the opposition takes over, all of the military will back them. There will be holdouts worse there. The problem is, unlike Panama, there's a ton of sophisticated armed groups in Venezuela. The eln, the fark dissidents trend. And you know, you say like, oh, these are just a few thousand gorillas, which is a lot. And they're basically indestructible. You can weaken them, you can reduce their numbers. You cannot eliminate them completely. I mean they're from neighboring Colombia. They've been fighting an insurgency there for 60 years. Colombia has an extremely sophisticated military and has not been able to completely eliminate them. And you can, you know, blame particular governments. People on the right will blame Petro for whatever. Anyway, the reality is there's going to be some sort of insurgency and there's also like paramilitary pro government collectivos. So we could see. Yeah, some sort of like civil war scenario. And I've been thinking of the analogy a lot that Venezuela and the regime specifically, it's kind of like, like a Jenga tower. And for the past 10 years, like, you know, it's been wavering back and forth because Venezuela is, it's almost a failed state. I mean, you know, this insane humanitarian crisis. Its economy is a fourth the size of what it was 10 years ago as an economy smaller than Ecuador. So if you just remove one piece, the whole thing could collapse. And that would be the worst case scenario. It would really be something like Libya where you have like multiple different governments, competing factions. There's no like solid control over the country. And I guess the third option, which seems less likely, density. Rodriguez said yesterday that she's now going to cooperate with the Trump administration, whatever that means. And they were saying yeah, yeah, that they want to put in the opposition now, who knows, maybe they could change their minds. But they theoretically they could just leave the regime in place and maybe DLC is more cooperative with what they want. They're just willing to hand over all the oil. And yeah, I've seen a lot of headlines, Bill Ackman and Bloomberg saying, yeah, oh look at all how much we can invest and revive Venezuela's oil industry.
- [07:14]
Kyle Kulinski
Can you talk a little bit also about just the. I mean Venezuela is a very different country. Than Panama. And I think it was you that said to me, you know, you could actually end up with sort of a Vietnam situation. Maybe the Middle east isn't the right model. Maybe it's more of a Vietnam possibility that we could be facing if we actually went through with this insanity of troops on the ground and trying to fully occupy and, quote, unquote, run this country, which you rightly point out is effectively a basket case at this point.
- [07:40]
Juan David Roa
Exactly. I mean, honestly, I do think that the Middle east could be out, Iraq, Vietnam, all of this stuff. The point is, like, we could end up in a drawn out, prolonged occupation with, like, you know, terrorism against our troops. I mean, this is to give you an idea. The ELN has, like, hijacked planes in Colombia, car bombings that have killed, you know, like, dozens of people, laid siege to rural towns in Colombia and Venezuela. And like I said, I mean, this is the same thing as the insurgents, Al Qaeda, isis. You cannot eliminate them completely. And, you know, we talked about how we destroyed isis. I mean, they still exist. It's just not the same as before. But either way, they still carry out attacks against our troops. I mean, look what happened just happened recently in Syria. So this could go very, very badly. And if all of that happens, you know, this would further destabilize the rest of South America. There's 8 million Venezuelan migrants that have already left the country, and it'll end up affecting us. You know, this administration is anti immigration. They want to deport now 100 illegals, or not even 100 illegals, just 100 deportations, whatever.
- [08:54]
Kyle Kulinski
Million. Yeah.
- [08:55]
Juan David Roa
And so what's fascinating, 100 million. My bet.
- [08:57]
Sagar Enjeti
What's fascinating to me, Juan, is also the complete. What? You know, originally, the coalition that supported this ouster of Maduro was largely the camp that was pro. Let's call it pro democracy, which, you know, democracy in quotes, as in pro Maria Machado. However, the Trump administration now making it clear she's not even really an option for putting this forward. This will put the administration now directly at odds with previously some of the biggest backers of regime change in Venezuela. For example, we have a South Florida congressional delegation here absolutely crashing out over Trump ruling out Maria Machado. Let's take a listen. Why are you not willing to support Maria Corina and Mundo to be. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, wait.
- [09:43]
South Florida Congressional Representative
Hold on, hold on a second. First, you're talking to us. When have we ever not supported. No, no, no, wait, wait, wait. But let's look, these are serious issues. Do not put words in My mouth and do not. No, no, no, wait. But you said us. You said us. You said us. Okay, but it's very. I will not tolerate putting words in my mouth or my colleague's mouth. We have been consistent from day one. And I am convinced there's going to be a transition. We already talked about that. And I'm convinced that when there are elections, whether there are new elections or there's a decision to take the old elections, the last elections, that the next democratically elected president of Venezuela is going to be Maria.
- [10:31]
Sagar Enjeti
So there he's declaring that she is the next president of Venezuela. That is not what the Trump administration is saying. And this was the primary rhetorical backing of this action. However, now, as we move perhaps into some collaborationist Maduro remnant regime military junta which will be extracting oil, but will also probably have to be deeply repressive if it were to go through with this. How does that shape the dynamics, let's say, of the South Florida community that you are an expert on?
- [11:01]
Juan David Roa
That's a good question because. And there's a lot of different ways that this could go. I've already seen it kind of shape out. There's a camp that then, and this is even like the old school, like Iraq neocons, that if then, you know, we just prop up like basically Maduro's regime without Maduro and extract their oil. Oh, that's so horrible. Look, we don't actually care about Venezuela's democracy. Shocker.
- [11:27]
Sagar Enjeti
So.
- [11:28]
Juan David Roa
And then on the other hand, well, you know, there's people like us who like, principally just impose, oppose, just, you know, violating other countries sovereignties and, you know, extended occupations and with no plans that are, or that are completely incoherent. It's impossible to know, like you said, I mean, Trump, even Rubio now has like poured water on Machado. Now Trump said something that I thought was interesting that she doesn't have the respect or support. When he says that, I think he. What he means is the, the Venezuelan military. Venezuela is basically a military dictatorship. The military is what matters, even more so than in a normal country. And the reality is that the military are terrified of her because she is completely insane. She wants to privatized. She asked. She called on Netanyahu to intervene in Venezuela to liberate the country. So anyway, yeah.
- [12:30]
Kyle Kulinski
And so, I mean, as things proceed, do you think it's possible that we hear more from like the South Florida congressional delegation from some of the opposition leaders? Because it's possible that they end up actually the big losers here. You Know, if you really did have this deal with Delsey Rodriguez and she's actually working with the Trump administration, and like you said, I mean, Trump doesn't give a shit about elections, free and fair elections and democracy and whatever. And so he's like, okay, I got my girl, like, we're good to go. Let's just keep this regime in place forever. They could actually end up as the biggest losers in the whole situation.
- [13:05]
Juan David Roa
Totally. Again, it's hard to know. Like, DLC said yesterday that, you know, she's going to cooperate and Rubio saying that, you know, there's gonna, they're gonna hold new elections. I think even Trump said that now, you know, they could like, switch on a dime. I, I really don't know. The incoherence is the point. And there's all these different competing camps within the administration. Who knows what the, all the discussions look like. There's probably, you know, one current that wants to do full regime change, another one that does it. I'm not really sure. It's. Yeah, it's, it's really uncertain and troubling. I mean, the plan is, has holes in it.
- [13:49]
Kyle Kulinski
What do you make of the threats against Cuba and Colombia and Mexico as well?
- [13:55]
Juan David Roa
I mean, look, like, again, this has to be said, this is one of the most atrocious violations of like, you know, another country's sovereignty we've ever seen. And yes, like, Maduro is horrendous. Horrendous, Horrendous. He's one of like, the worst dictators that Latin America has ever seen. There's a reason why people all over the region hate him. That said, you're setting up a precedent that any leader can be kidnapped, your country bombed for any reason, because the pretext for all of this is completely insane. The amount of drugs that come to the US through Venezuela is extremely small, according to the DEA itself. Oh, yeah, that's the other thing. We want to literally steal their oil. No, Fentanyl is produced in Venezuela. And so, I mean, you know, he's talking now about Mexico, Cuba, Colombia. Where does this end? How is this going to go? Are we just going to start deposing, kidnapping more leaders? I mean, yeah, he's already starting to get involved in, in all of these elections supporting this or other candidate. And don't even get me started on, you know, anti interventionists like Matt Walsh is pathetic. Is just saying, oh, might make right and it's good to have vassals. We should just occupy the whole hemisphere. I guess that's America first.
- [15:20]
Sagar Enjeti
My kind of final Question here, Juan, is we didn't know it at the time, but Libya, for example, set the stage for the endurance of the Kim Jong Un regime. They said that's it, we're just going full blown ICBM with nukes. What do you think? And foresee, let's say, on the continent for the security situation, for how South America, Central American leaders will be handling it. So you have the Malay camp, you have the new Chilean, the Hondurans, for example, who are like, okay, we just need to be protected by, let's say by the Trump umbrella. But what will some of the more oppositional regimes take away from this? Will they nuclearize? I mean, will they make better deals with Russia, with China? How are they going to be thinking about their security situation going forward?
- [16:02]
Juan David Roa
That's a really good point. You know, a few months ago, and I've been saying this for a while now, I think a lot of countries in Latin America, the big ones, especially Brazil, Mexico, need nukes to protect themselves from the U.S. now granted, I guess if they tried to develop them, then we could have an Iran situation where we invade them to stop them from getting a nukes. But Lula's energy minister actually said a few months ago that. Exactly that, that Brazil needs, it needs nukes. And some of these countries at one point were developing them. Yeah, funnily enough, under like US aligned regimes. Brazil's military dictatorship in like the 70s and 80s started work on like a, a weapon, a nuclear weapons program. Argentina had one too. Mexico has never had one. But that possibility is there. And more broadly, I mean, who knows how this will play out. Yeah, it's, it's hard to say with a lot of these different elections. And as far as like on the Latin American right, I mean, look, I'm very respectful of like the reasons why people vote for different leaders. But I'm also going to be honest, like a lot of the left, right wing leaders, they're basically pawns of the, of the U.S. they'll just support whatever Trump or the U.S. does. But yeah, there's a lot of internal dynamics. And alternatively, like on the left, like, yeah, you have leftist democratic leaders, a lot of which were critical of Maduro. And that's another thing. Like, that's right when you just like celebrate this guy, like stealing elections and like killing protesters who protest stealing elections, it makes you kind of unviable. Like there's a reason why there's not that many leftists that like openly support Maduro in the region.
- [17:46]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, he was, you were pointing this out to Me, it's like, yeah, he can criticize us coming in for oil. He wanted to invade other countries to steal oil.
- [17:52]
Juan David Roa
Yeah, he literally wanted to invade Guyana and steal his oil. He's a lot like Trump in that sense. So, yeah, you could, you could. As a designer shock. Some people are going to come out of their seats coming out of this. You could talk about Venezuelan imperialism anyway.
- [18:08]
Sagar Enjeti
The greater Bolivarian empire.
- [18:10]
Kyle Kulinski
Well, and the big personality also matches. I mean, if they actually go to trial here in New York, that is going to be a wild spectacle, too.
- [18:18]
Juan David Roa
Exactly. His tracksuit is already sold out. He is extremely funny. He's like telling like his prison guards, happy New Year and all this stuff. His charisma that you people say that, like, he lacks the charisma of Chavez. I honestly, I think he has more charisma than Chavez. The problem is the country went to hell under him.
- [18:34]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, fair enough.
- [18:35]
Juan David Roa
But. But anyway, yeah, this guy has been such a drag on the Latin American left. So, I mean, alternatively, yeah, maybe like in Colombia and Brazil, like, Trump's actions will help these guys. We'll. We'll see. Hard to say, but I don't know, you know?
- [18:57]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I think you're precedents for all.
- [19:00]
Juan David Roa
This is our terrible. We'll see what happens.
- [19:02]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, well, thank you very much, Juan. We always appreciate you. We'll see you later.
- [19:05]
Juan David Roa
Thanks, guys.
- [19:07]
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- [21:10]
Sagar Enjeti
With all of that analysis, we now turn to perhaps the future and the real motivation behind all of this, which is oil. Let's go and put this up here on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. We've got the finance industry already circling the drain in Venezuela, looking with bright eyes at the oil reserves. Let me read here from the Wall Street Journal. Some on Wall street already considering the possible investment opportunities following the capture of Maduro. One investment investor Charles Myers said in an interview he's planning a trip with officials from top hedge funds and asset managers to determine whether there are investment prospects in the country. Under new leadership will feature some 20 officials finance, energy, defense sectors. The tentative plan is for the group to travel in March to meet with the new government, new finance minister, energy minister, head of the central bank and the stock exchange. The they did not provide a list, but they said there will be between 500 billion and 700 billion investment opportunities for foreign investors over the next five years. So you can see very quickly how the dollar signs are flashing all over Wall Street. The question though is is this actually gonna benefit anybody? And by the way, you know what always actually belies these Is it actually a good investment? And that's one of those where there's been so much talk about oil. I will not purport to be an oil expert, but there is a legitimate question of can we even get any of this oil out all of that easily? Do we need this oil? We are a current net exporter. What would be the effect of getting this? Or do the US Oil companies even want it? And in general, how has it generally worked out, not just investing in Venezuela all over South America, from Argentina. I mean Argentina literally need a bailout from, you know, even under their great stewardship. Like if you look in the long run over these types of projects, do we just really gonna sit here and declare the next administration will honor any deal currently made here? I mean, I'm not saying they should or shouldn't, just saying in general it's kind of a bad idea to invest in Venezuela or really any in some sort of like coup d' etat type situation, despite some promises that are currently made by the administration. But nonetheless, that is the justification. So we should judge it is it possible and can it work out? And obviously some people on Wall street, they certainly seem to think so.
- [23:23]
Kyle Kulinski
Yeah, I mean they would be investing into an inherently unstable situation. I think that is just the reality, the undeniable reality. One funny note, I guess, funny note about Charles Myers, huge Democratic donor, like one of the biggest Democratic donors last I checked. Part of how I know that is cuz he actually contributed to my congressional campaign back in 2010. So I've met him, I've been to his apartment. Seems like a very nice man, but you know, he does what Wall street guys do. And this is a. It's important to understand the way that on the money side it is a thoroughly bipartisan affair. Thoroughly bipartisan affair. And so, you know, we'll talk more about the Democratic Party reaction, but on the oil front, you've got the economists doing a pretty good analysis of some of the challenges here. We can put this up on the screen of whether or not this great Venezuelan oil gamble would even pay off. They say the country is the world's largest petroleum reserves. Getting them out of the ground will be torturous. And they point to the fact that, I mean, the infrastructure has been thoroughly degraded over years. They've had a massive brain drain. So some of the top engineers and scientists that have to be involved in oil extraction have fled the country. The whole thing is basically run by the military at this point. Then you also have the, you know, I mean, it wasn't that long ago that you had oil interests in the country and then they had the revolution and were forced into a situation where they had to take if they were gonna stay a minority st. And so they're sort of Trump scarred by that. You've got the same administration in place, even if it's not Maduro. You've now got Delsey Rodriguez, his vice president, who is head of state. So leads to a lot of questions. And then you also have the reality of the Oil market. Listen again, I also am not an oil expert here, but we can put the Politico piece up on the screen. This is from a few weeks ago. Trump administration was asking US Oil industry executives whether they would return to Venezuela. And it says they were getting hard no's across the board. And so it's the infrastructure, it's the brain drain, it's what would be required, it's the difficulty of it. There's also a problem with, because of the sanctions on Russia, getting what they would need there some key solvent that they need for this particular type of oil. And then you also just have the economic reality that oil is pretty low per barrel right now. So the economics aren't necessarily there to justify this type of investment, at least not in the short term anyway. So anyone who's thinking like, oh, it's going to, we're just going to go in and get the oil. First of all, as I said before, I don't know why we get this confusion about how this works. Like oil is a global commodity. It's not us getting the oil. It would be like ExxonMobil, congratulations to them. And even that is highly uncertain. And because the economics don't make sense. And at best it would be a very long term, like decades long project at a time when renewables genuinely are coming into their own and becoming much more cost competitive and much more widespread. And China's obviously made a big play there. So that's kind of the landscape.
- [26:32]
Sagar Enjeti
And fracking. Fracking, of course, people seem to act like it's the year 2000. Like, guys, we have fracking. I mean, we have our net oil exporter. We've never had more oil than we have right now. And you've got the heavy crude problem, the production problem also. I mean, this is a problem that China runs into. One of the things that they do is they'll make some deal, you know, for minerals or something. But then somebody needs to guard their personnel in these like destabilized African countries. And then routinely they run into like security problems and they don't really know what to do. This is exactly how you have, you know, kind of the poll where, okay, let's say US Oil company strikes a deal. Well, that means American employees will have to go there and do something. You just talked about brain drain. That means that they're now a target for, let's say leftist or right wing guerrillas who are either upset about Venezuela or just want to steal their oil. This happens in Brazil. There's all these people who are always Surrounding either gold mines in the Amazon rainforest. And then people need to go there and protect them. And then you just needs to one death, which brings more troops in, which, which brings an attack on them, which brings us even. I mean you can see it, how easily it could all spiral.
- [27:40]
Kyle Kulinski
Would you want to open a business in Venezuela? Just think about it from like a personal perspective.
- [27:46]
Sagar Enjeti
That's what I'm saying. Like look at the White House and be like, yep, those are the guys who are gonna protect me. Those are the guys who are good to their word. Those are the. Not even just this White House. Look at everybody. I mean all of the promises that have all been made over the last 20 years. Would you really do well betting on Washington? No. Unless you're a defense contractor, I guess. But everybody else, I would, I'd be very, very skeptical. And as you said, I mean I had, that, I had so many notes about Venezuela from our last show and this was one of them that came out I think right after our very last show about not getting any takers. And the, the main point that these oil companies were making to the White House is they're like, guys, we have a five year low. It's like that's not when you drill, right? That's whenever you're like, okay, we'll sit here, we're trying to manage supply. All of this. We need to recoup a lot of losses and things that we made previously during the great exploration times of 2019. There's not a big desire right now. Another point, as you just said, there's this idea of, well, it will take between 5, 700, 500 to 750 billion of oil infrastructure that takes years to implement. But another important thing to remember about Venezuela is where the oil is. I mean it's remote, like it's not actually that easy to get to. And then there's the port infrastructure. There is the use of perhaps the necessity of the US Navy in having to protect all of this. Right now, as you and I are speaking, there is a test where some former Maduro tankers are actually leaving Venezuela in a test of the blockade because the Trump administration has said that they're going to continue the current economic blockade. Are they gonna be able to go through? There are two Chinese Venezuelan co owned supertankers which are waiting off the coast. There are three supertankers which currently ferry Venezuelan oil to China. This is another thing. You know, China literally had to build new refineries just for this heavy crude that came from Venezuela. Is that gonna be permitted what will the Chinese government say? You know, the Chinese delegation was actually in Venezuela, in Caracas when all of this went down, and met with Maduro the very day that he was actually captured that night. I don't think they're gonna take too kindly to that. There's so, so many questions, but the main one is about money. Yeah, I mean, as you said here, I mean, the fundamental question is really like, does more oil colony equal more money for America? Maybe. But as we all found out, let's say during Ukraine, it was a bonanza for American oil companies because the price of oil went up. And especially lng, we were exporting and we got these great clients in Europe. But also all of our prices went up too, because we refused to enforce any of our export laws and made it so that the price in the aggregate rose and we ended up paying more. Remember how many, how much everybody's power bill went up. And with all the gas, Conoco and all of the crises, and I haven't even brought in data centers, you know, in the way that we have a completely deregulated energy market. So I just really am skeptical, you know, that this is all going to work out extraordinarily well for the average consumer. I mean, I'd be happy if it did, but I just. I don't. Genuine. I genuinely do not see how you could really bet as a Wall street or an oil executive that you will have 10 to 15 years where you'll be able to come in, build the infrastructure, extract the infrastructure, and have enough political stability to be able to get the oil, ship the oil, get it to America, refine the oil, profit from all of it. There's a reason why they were not really chomping at the bit. Or is it. I always forget. Whatever. Chomping at the bit. Champing.
- [31:25]
Kyle Kulinski
I think it's chomping.
- [31:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Okay, we'll go with that one. But why? They were not, like, begging the administration to go in, like, in the 21st century, like, for where we are right now, it's not like a fundamental necessity. And then there's also opec, you know, you have to remember that. So even if we do necessarily control a large amount of these reserves, there's this huge global market with Russians, you know, the Chinese also have their ability. They have their own deals in place with a number of others. So, look, I don't know yet, but it's one of those where the oil bet seems to me like there was a reason. We talked with Eva, why in the 2000s, they were obsessed with Venezuela and now there's this Jack Ryan clip going around about oil. I'm not saying oil's not important, but it is not fundamentally the same story or strategic calculus as it was at that time. Not saying it won't be a bonanza, per se, perhaps, if they were able to pull it off, but there's so many roadblocks. There are way more roadblocks on the path to success. And the payout from the success does not necessarily seem like it would be all that fantastic or great for the United States.
- [32:34]
Kyle Kulinski
So one thing I will say, I don't know how much stock to put in this, but I did see one analysis that was like, you know, it's not really about the oil. It's more about the petrodollar. And with the idea being that, yeah, I mean, the petrodollar is an important part of maintaining the dollar as the world's reserve currency. That if American oil companies are the ones who are in control of these oil reserves, then that oil is continuing to be denominated in US Dollars. Sort of a blow against the BRICS alliance and any sort of other competing project for countries to band together and move away from that global system of finance. So I did see that, just to put that out there, that perhaps that is some of the thinking that's going into this as well.
- [33:14]
Sagar Enjeti
I saw that, too. At the same time, for China, it's only 5% of their entire oil supply. It's not really a great big blow, necessarily to them.
- [33:24]
Kyle Kulinski
Yeah. But in their fantasy world, you know, they would get Venezuelan oil production back up to the glory days of wherever it used to be, and it would put it in line with, like, you know, the eighth largest oil producer in the world.
- [33:35]
Sagar Enjeti
Could happen. I mean, there's. There is a better case for the US Colonizing, in my opinion, Taiwan, than there is for Venezuela. Like, that is ten times more important. I mean, the Chinese might call it already the US Colony that they currently have over in Taiwan. Part of the reason why they're very upset about the entire current political situation and may even use the same logic that we just did in enforcing their own spheres of influence doctrine. But nonetheless, that is the theory here about Venezuela. So many roadblocks in the interim. I mean, if you are the current Venezuelan regime. Yeah, you just want to give Trump whatever he wants. Just remember this, even lifting the sanctions by 50% of where they currently are would be a massive boon to the Venezuelan economy. Massive. And would enable, like, some limited investment. Chevron already currently has a deal right now with Venezuela. They could maybe ramp that up and they could call it a win. But is there going to be some, you know, massive move, Panama Canal style project down in Venezuela? I don't see it, especially considering the political instability there and here. Instability here, Exactly. It just doesn't seem like a good investment if you are a multi multi billion dollar oil company. But it could be wrong and maybe they want to explore and all of that. So we'll see. Let's get to Dems.
- [34:54]
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- [36:57]
Kyle Kulinski
We wanted to take a look at the Democratic Party reaction here, which has been somewhat divided. I guess I would characterize it that overwhelmingly there's been opposition, but some much more forceful than others, especially from the leadership of the party, which has been very like, process oriented. Like you didn't even ask us or notify us appropriately about your regime change war. Emblematic of that, of course. Chuck Schumer with the lamest possible approach to all of this. Let's go ahead and take a listen.
- [37:25]
Chuck Schumer
We are saying to the Republicans, this is your responsibility. President Trump is a member of your party. You've gone along with him over and over again and this is one time you got to resist them. It's too serious.
- [37:37]
Sagar Enjeti
Are you hearing anything from other Republicans?
- [37:41]
Chuck Schumer
We, as I said, we have heard from some Republicans in private conversations, chairs talking to their ranking members, that they have some, they are troubled by this, but not much more than that.
- [37:54]
Sagar Enjeti
And is that something that could rise to impeachment or what other options are available to you guys?
- [37:59]
Chuck Schumer
Tyler, I just say it's premature to guess that far into the future. We hope that, as I said, we hope that we can have support from our Republican colleagues to put a break on this long before it gets that far. This is sort of, this is unprecedented as to what he has done, the way he has done it and the secrecy in which he is engaged in it. And we're going to do everything we can.
- [38:30]
Kyle Kulinski
So many strongly worded letters were written, were penned. Hakeem Jeffries also put out an extremely lame letter that, like I said, focused on the process. You can see Schumer there, you know, ruling out any sort of like, move towards aggressive measures like impeachment, saying this is really the Republicans responsibility. We hope they do something special. Spoiler alert. They're not going to. Overwhelmingly, they support this with the exception, I think, of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie. Let's go and put this up on the screen. This is from some anonymous, supposedly, like swing district Dems, they are unhappy with the fact that the party has positioned themselves in opposition to the kidnapping of Maduro and the attack on Venezuela. Let me go ahead and read you a little bit of this so you can see just exactly how lame it is. Some Democrats are grumbling at their party's largely oppositional stance to Trump's raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, saying privately their Colleagues should be celebrating why it matters. These lawmakers argue it could be a major political miscalculation if the party fails to applaud the downfall of a brutal dictator with sufficient volume. Even given grave concerns about the operations, legality and longer term ramifications, party leaders have raged at Trump for bypassing Congress, leaving them in the dark. So here are some of the quotes they say. One swing district House Democrat told Axios in a text message on Saturday. Nuance is dead in politics. Maduro is bad. Glad he's gone. You can't have it both ways, the lawmaker said, venting that everything Trump touches must be bad according to the base. So hating their own base. Another vulnerable House Democrat told Axios in a phone interview. As Democrats, we can't just condemn what happened. I wish the Democratic Party would be a little more measured on this. I think it looks weak. A third centrist House Democrat said. If you don't acknowledge when there is a win for our country, then you lose all credibility. So that is what's coming from some of these swing district Dems. I did want to put this in context with the fact that before this action occurred, there was polling that was done. I'm pretty sure we covered some of it here. Ask the American people whether or not they would support military action in Venezuela. And it was overwhelmingly unpopular. Okay. So I feel like Sager, some of these Democrats, I mean, there's a money influence here. Like, no doubt about it. I think it's ideological, but there's also, there's an ideological. There's also like just a legacy. Thinking of still living in an era where Florida is a swing state and where, you know, the politics of regime change was a lot different and where there was still more of this, like, Cold war fervor. And certainly for someone like Chuck Schumer, he's still living in that era and they don't recognize that, like, it's the easiest political layup just based on where the American people are, you know, Democrats and independents in particular, to oppose this and oppose it more forcefully than the Schumers and Jeffries of the world certainly have.
- [41:21]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, look, there's snap polls that are coming out right now. People are basically split on it, but the vast majority are especially against occupying or running Venezuela. I mean, it's kind of understandable. Everyone can be impressed with the capability of the US Military and especially the US Special operations. And we always have been. That's been like, you know, they make movies about it. Zero Dark Thirty. I'm sure that there will be one about this. One that is fundamentally separate, though, from the idea of running Venezuela and in particular the strategic logic of the future of explicit, like oil extraction. For what exactly? And again, you have to rely on the competence, the follow through of this current administration. I think that that is one where it's pretty simple to speak out against. And on a base level, I mean, whether this was a, quote, good idea, bad idea or not, from where a lot of the Democratic base is, I just don't see how there could be any potential upside for being like, oh, yeah, it's a good idea. Unless you're literally in living in a red state where, yes, okay, if you're a Florida Democrat, I definitely see the calculus for you. For everybody else, and especially in the potential primary, I mean, what they're. What they. If you're a Democrat and your critique of the Trump foreign policy, you have to get to a point where it is literally like vision based for a different view. At this point, that is like what Ro Khanna and very few other Democrats are offering. Part of the reason Kamala struggled in the election was a, she was tied to the Biden administration, but B, is that she could never particularly articulate like a vision or a view of the world. Now, Trump actually did, you know, didn't stick to basically any of it. But it was a compelling narrative, definitely one that took off with a lot of people. You could have pointed out, you know, different stuff during the first Trump administration that was contradictory. But the vision itself was important. Looking explicitly at this for Venezuela, for Gaza and for much for really like a general tariffs, general treatment of the rest of the world, you're like, we are not going to act like this. And I don't see that from Chuck Schumer, from Hakeem Jeffries. They're much more concerned about like, oh, we weren't briefed. It's like, okay, we were all briefed about Iraq. Like, does that make Iraq a good idea? No, you were all briefed on Libya. Okay. I mean, Libya was bad. Like, for some reason they're just obsessed with this like process oriented brain and they're not looking at it both in terms of 2028, but also just as like a literal alternative vision of like, this is not how we're going to run our country.
- [43:58]
Kyle Kulinski
Yeah.
- [43:58]
Sagar Enjeti
This is not how we're going to interface with other countries, period.
- [44:00]
Kyle Kulinski
That's exactly right. The SNAP poll, you referred to one of them. Anyway, this is from YouGov on January 3rd. Do you support or oppose the U.S. running Venezuela following the U.S. military's capture of Nicolas Maduro. Support is 34%. Oppose is 41%. Net support, GOP plus 44, Dem minus 48 and Independent minus 17. So it's popular with MAGA. And I think that's where you've seen the numbers move dramatically because prior to the action, you even had a significant number of Republicans who were like, no, we don't want to do this, but the moment Daddy Trump does something, then suddenly it's a great idea. But in terms of Democrats and independents, they're still opposed. And let me tell you, it's not going to get any more popular than. Than it is right now. In fact, to me, it's a little bit shocking given the overwhelming force of pro war propaganda that blankets the airwaves across the board. And all the celebration of like, oh, my God, the operation was so incredible and it was so great and so brave and it was executed so well, blah, blah, blah. It's kind of amazing to me that out of the gates, it's already net negative. It will never be more popular than it is right now. So there is, for Democrats, politically, zero risk in taking an aggressively oppositional view. And so it's crazy to me that you have these. And this is where, like, the, I don't know, the political calculus has just gone so wonky, where the whole thing of being a quote unquote centrist is just to, like, disagree with wherever the, wherever the base of your party is, regardless of whether they're the ones that are actually holding the popular position. The idea of being a centrist was more to sort of, like, acknowledge places where the right has strong ground. Here they're doing something that's popular. That is not the case with yet another regime change war with some total boondoggle, lack of a plan, and no idea what's gonna happen going forward. So I don't know. It's just pathetic. But you're right that ideologically, some of them just agree with it. I disagree. Or some of them have come out W. Wasserman Schultz came out and was like, mad about Machado being said. Why didn't you go further with your regime change? There's a little bit of that going on with them as well, where they're still critiquing Trump. But honestly, from like, a more aggressive, more pro war stance, you can see Margaret Brennan's interview with Marco Rubio if you want a flavor of what that looks like. But I do want to give credit to a few people who are out there who have done a Good job. Surprisingly, Kamala's statement was a little bit better than I thought. She did do the process thing, but it had a little more meat to it than I expected, so. Sign of her positioning herself and trying to figure out where to be for a potential run in 2028. Ro Khanna, though, I mean, once again, really standing up and showing up in a way that is impressive and I think understanding the moment much better than maybe any of his colleagues. You can put this up on the screen, he says. The silence from Many media hyped 2028 contenders today is shocking. If you cannot oppose this regime change, war for oil, you don't have the moral clarity or guts to lead our party or nation. And at this point, when you put this out, I don't know if they've piped up yet, but Newsom hasn't had anything to say. I think Pete put out a lame statement. Pritzker put out kind of a lame statement. A lot of the ones who get a lot of love from the media for 2028 have either had very little to say or have been completely silent, or it's been the sort of process thing. And then as a very sort of aggressively alternative view of what I think the messaging should sound like. Graham Platner, of course, candidate for Senate in Maine and and a former service member himself, just came out of the gates swinging very hard and using very aggressive and unequivocal language of the sort that I think really lands much better than this sort of like nitpicking over process stuff that you get from the leadership. This is E5. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Graham.
- [47:45]
Graham Platner
This is not foreign policy. This is gangsterism on an international scale. We must not be fooled by the childish lies being used to justify this illegal aggression. Be wary of the establishment voices in media and in politics who over the next few weeks will work tirelessly to manufacture consent even when they sound like they are opposed. Keep an ear out for this operation is bad, but followed by words about democracy, dictatorship and international law. If those were justifications for invasion and abduction, we'd have invaded many of our allies a long time ago. Those voices are doing the work of empire, and we must be vigilant for their duplicitousness. If they are media figures, change the channel. If they are political figures, work tirelessly to remove them from power.
- [48:49]
Kyle Kulinski
And you know, Sager, you'll recall there was this war Powers resolution vote in the Senate Marco Rubio went to cause it was hanging on a knife's edge. Marco Rubio went and said, we're not gonna do any sort of military action. If we do, we'll come to you first. We pinky promise that, you know, we don't have any plans in that direction as they were actively planning exactly what we've seen unfold. And because of that, guess who decided not to vote for the War Powers Resolution? Waited til the last moment. Susan Collins. So very relevant in that race in Maine. And also, look, I don't know how you like, if you believed them at that point, like you're just a fool. And I think many of them probably didn't even believe them. They just wanted an excuse to take the easy route and not take a difficult vote.
- [49:37]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, I think they, I don't know if they. Maybe they did believe because it would just be so unbelievable to literally go an extraordinary rendition. Maduro. I mean, you have to admit it's shocking. Right. But even from their perspective, it would be stupid and counterproductive. Yeah, I mean, I don't understand with the Democrats why they just don't take swings. And of course it's always easier when you're on the outside, like Graham or some of these other insurgent candidates. But learn from the lesson of Obama. Like 2002, Obama gave his speech against the Iraq war. It was overwhelmingly unpopular at the time.
- [50:06]
Chuck Schumer
Time.
- [50:07]
Sagar Enjeti
It's actually way more popular right now to just speak up about Venezuela or any of these things. But you get rewarded for actually not even taking a gamble, but having a clear position. Whenever Trump did the same thing, he was the only person on the stage in 2016 to just be like, yep, the Iraq war was a bad idea. And everybody else was trying to say, oh, we didn't do it.
- [50:26]
Kyle Kulinski
Right.
- [50:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Or any of that. Actually the initial invasion was correct. Or you literally had Jeb Bush up there defending his brother. It was literally just him being like, it was a complete disaster. Disaster. Right. That's what a lot of people wanted to hear. That's what makes somebody different. That's just purely from the political level. It also happens to align with the base. And you know, ideally what you want is you want base plus country to be able or try to convince the country that your idea is correct. So it's just very clear to me that the current Democratic establishment, like doesn't have it whenever it comes to any of this. The question will be how they respond to, to these primaries, if they even really materialize and are successful. And then what does that 2026 dynamic look like in a new Congress? Right, Because Schumer he may not be long for this world from a leader perspective. Although if I had to bet, put a bet down, I still think he would win, unfortunately. Just, I'm saying win with the. With the race. Because, I mean, I've been asking around.
- [51:22]
Kyle Kulinski
Oh, I think if AOC ran against him, he would.
- [51:24]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, no, no. He's saying if he wins reelection and if he gets reelected, if he becomes. If he wins reelection and he's still in the Senate, whether he will become the leader, I think there will definitely be some protest votes. But considering that the way that the caucus is, there's too many safe seats, I asked a friend of mine to do the general math on whether they wanted. Whether any consensus candidate could actually reemerge. And they're like, well, you know, in general, he's done enough. Enough of a job to keep some people happy, but it's certainly possible that he could. He could lose. He could, if he does win reelection, that he could lose the eventual leader race again, I'm not entirely sure. But it just comes down to, like, vision and being able to present a real opportunity. And then the biggest question is about these insurgents is how are they going to act when they come into Congress? Because you had the AOC squad. I mean, you know, it hasn't really worked out all that well. So the question is, like, you know, are they going to keep that energy? What's that going to look like? Are you going to form a similar Freedom Caucus thing? Are you going to use media as a pressure force, you know, on your party, the way that the original Freedom Caucus was able to do that to the current Republican establishment whenever they were in power? So, I don't know. These are all, like, the more interesting questions.
- [52:33]
Kyle Kulinski
Absolutely. And that's. I mean, we're going to get a lot of answers this year in 2026, especially with primaries. What happens in these primaries? Obviously, what happens in the general election? Are we going to have Graham Platner in the Senate? Because that in and of itself will be significant. And, you know, so I think. I think Schumer's fate as leader does hang in the balance of what direction the Democratic Party decides to go. And I'm not talking about the Democratic Party lead. I'm talking about the base. And that's what I think is different now and why you may end up with a different result than, you know, the tactical, sort of like, I guess, tactical retreat that the squad decided to pursue and really never acted as a cohesive entity. I don't think ever really saw themselves as a cohesive entity, you know, according to Ryan's reporting. But you've got a base that wants to hear them aggressively opposing this war, aggressively opposing the genocide in Gaza, aggressively pursuing Medicare for all that is different, and who is very disgusted and disappointed with the leadership of the party. So that does put things in a very different place. But we've got a number of these issues that are rising to the surface that are really separating the factions of the Democratic Party and helping to make it clear. Like, sure, you can be a Gavin Newsom and you can go out and you can post and go against Trump with your posting and your memes, and people appreciate that, there's no doubt about it. But are voters going to be sophisticated enough to make the distinction between someone who postures in this way and someone who is genuinely going to offer a different vision and is not going to be beholden to capital, is going to be willing to confront capital and take some of these difficult stances? So that's some of the flavor of what we're going to start to learn in 2026, which I'm excited to see.
- [54:25]
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- [54:57]
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- [55:23]
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- [56:28]
Kyle Kulinski
I am so disturbed and disgusted by the number, not only of fake videos that have been put out and spread around to manufacture consent for this kidnapping and attack on Venezuela. But even after people get called out, there's no shame anymore. They don't take them down, they just leave them up and then added to that mix. So when we first started covering the Ukraine war, we had to contend with a lot of fake videos. Gaza, we had to contend with a lot of fake videos. We tried to be really careful. And I don't think we've had any significant failure on our part of putting something up that turned out to be fake or misrepresented. So now, though, you have to add into it AI and AI being good enough now that apparently people, especially people who want to fall for it, will just completely fall for this bullshit and share it widely. So the specific flavor of video that was being shared everywhere were these, like, oh my God, the Venezuelans in Venezuela are so happy that Trump came in and kidnapped the leader of their country. And one of them that was shared the most widely is just, it's AI. It's all invented. And if you have at all a discerning eye, you can see that this is fake. Like, if you look at this carefully, you can tell that it's fake. Let's put this up on the screen and you guys can see for yourself.
- [57:48]
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- [57:48]
Kyle Kulinski
So it's supposedly all these Venezuelans take to the streets to celebrate Maduro's downfall. And you have this old lady in the front who's crying with joy. Okay? This fricking AI post, which is still up, even with the community note in here that says it's AI generated. This has 39,000 retweets. It has over 5 million views. It has 118,000 likes, and it was shared by none other than the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk. So now we have to add to just the general propaganda, the fact that people can put out completely fabricated videos and pass them off as if they are reality to create a portrait that Venezuelans across the board inside of Venezuela are celebrating these actions. Let's go ahead and put the next one up on the screen. We can go through some of these. So Glenn was really doing the Lord's work here, going through and flagging a bunch of these fake or misrepresented videos. So this one is from Alex Jones. He posts this video and he says millions of Venezuelans flooded the streets of Caracas and other major cities in celebration of the ouster of communist dictator Nicolas Maduro. In reality, the video shows anti Maduro protests and from last year following the disputed presidential election, or I guess now two years ago, now that we're in 2026, not celebrations of his recent capture by US forces. And Glenn says yet another mega viral video from Trump supporters that is falsely described. This is not a video from today. It's an old video long before that. There also aren't close to millions here, but again, who cares? These claims make people feel good. That's what counts. Let's go and put the next one up on the screen we've got here. Oh, Nick Shirley of the vaunted Minnesota fraud video that has now been used by the Trump administration to shut down daycare payments for all states in the entire country. He's got a fake video here. The video actually depicts Venezuelan exiles in Miami, not inside of Venezuela celebrating. Nick Shirley tweeted, Wait a minute. The MSM media lied to us again. The people of Venezuela actually didn't like being ruled by a narco terrorist. World cup style celebrations are erupting all across Venezuela at the moment. And Glenn says this is Miami, not Venezuela, but who cares? Just keep retweeting it. It feels good and that matters most. And again, last I checked, had not taken this down. Even though it is not true the way he's representing it. Let's go and put the next one up on the screen. We've got. I'm not familiar with this guy. Jorge Macrae. He says the city of Buenos Aires has always been, is, and will always be on the side of freedom. Marks a historic day. Margaret Kimberly says this video is from Buenos Aires. I guess he, he changed it, but, oh, it's a 2021 celebration of their, I think of like a World cup win or something. So, yeah, has nothing to do with Maduro. It's an old video from 2021 celebrating a soccer victory. There you go. And, yeah, I mean, these people are dishonest. Like, they know that what they post is wrong. They may have known it when they posted it and intentionally posted just flagrant lies to back up the Trump administration and to push a narrative about what is actually happening here. And even after they get called out, they just leave it up. So to me, it's very dystopian. The invention of reality to match the narrative that they want to push.
- [61:15]
Sagar Enjeti
I've never been. I also. I've never been more disturbed because. And you know what? The reason why. It's not just that we care about accuracy. I always operated on a theory. If you get stuff factually incorrect and don't, you know, apologize for it, then people will leave you. I don't think it's true anymore.
- [61:35]
Kyle Kulinski
I think people to be lied to.
- [61:37]
Sagar Enjeti
No, I don't know if that's necessarily it. I think they just don't care. I don't think they want to be lied to, per se, maybe, like, structurally, yes, but as long as it goes along with the narrative, like, they'll just, you know, continue to say, oh, well, they meant well, or something like that. And I'm like, it really makes me question, you know, my entire career and just every single time, even on Venezuela, how I, you know, hours on the phone, talking to people, verifying details, making sure that everything I say is generally backed up by, like, what I know, what I confirm. I have a roster of things that I've been told but don't, can't confirm, so I don't say them on the air. Yeah, it's like, what's the point? You know, I'm being serious. What is the point of. What is the point of not just being like, oh, here's what I heard from so and so. Who cares about looking like an idiot? You know, these. These guys are. You know, look at their views, their retweets, all of this. Not even. I mean, that's just business. I mean, but generally, like, look at their. They pay no price.
- [62:39]
Kyle Kulinski
They seem to sleep well at night. I don't know. I mean, that's the thing. I was talking to Kyle about this. He made one statement on his show when it was slightly misrepresented something, and he realized it after the. He was like, I could not sleep at night because I was, like, thinking about it. Like, I was so bothered by the fact that I stated this thing incorrectly. And I relate to that. Like, I cannot imagine just putting out something that is blatantly false, getting called on it by, like, literally thousands of people and just leaving it up there. Just leaving it up there. And like, yeah, I don't care if.
- [63:05]
Sagar Enjeti
I found out that I said something 100. I'm not talking about an opinion, okay? Like a bad opinion. That's. I mean, even that I may feel bad about, but it's like one of those where if you say something wrong, like actually 100% wrong, and especially if it was really important to the point that you were trying to make.
- [63:23]
Kyle Kulinski
Yeah.
- [63:24]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, my God. I think in the limited times that that has happened, I mean, I've gone in and done comments on our own videos, just be like, hey, this is me. I got it wrong, you know? Or I'll say it here, you know, here on the show. I don't know. I guess other people don't care. Apparently the audience doesn't care. You know, these guys are doing great.
- [63:43]
Kyle Kulinski
So, yeah, that's the world we live in. It's wild. And look, I don't purport to, like, represent or know the ins and outs of how every Venezuelan in Venezuela is.
- [63:53]
Sagar Enjeti
Thinking about it, nor would I ever.
- [63:54]
Kyle Kulinski
Who has the audacity? Exactly. But I will say, I mean, I genuinely went out and looked for any of the Inside of Venezuela celebration videos to be accurate. None of them I have not found. You guys can genuinely. If you have seen some that you think are accurate, please send, because I have not seen one. And you know what? It works. The tactic works, because if your feed is flooded with these things and you don't bother to go in and check it, you just assume, like, oh, some of them must be real. There must be some of that going on. And we also have to remember, like, this is a repressive regime. I'm sure the opposition is very afraid right now of what consequences could come to them or potential collaborators or whatever. So it wouldn't be a surprise if there were no celebrations, even as you do have plenty of people in Venezuela who are not happy living under Maduro and whatever. So what we do have, I mean, the legitimate videos I have seen are people who are upset about the leader of their country being kidnapped. I don't think anyone should be surprised that that is a significant sentiment within Venezuela. You can imagine if this was done to us, how people would react here, including some people who were not big fans of Donald Trump. So you can put F3 up on the screen. You had a number of news organizations who were there on the ground. These are some of the pro maduro, don't kidnap our leader protests that were ongoing. Sky News was there on the ground talking to people. You had, I think this is Middle east eye was on the ground. This is a major march in Caracas. And I thought this one was really significant. He says, how do I feel? I feel scared. And that was some of the coverage I saw on the ground too, is people are just like, what the hell does this mean?
- [65:36]
Juan David Roa
Right.
- [65:36]
Kyle Kulinski
Like, there were huge lines at pharmacies and at grocery stores. People like stockpiling the way that they do before a natural disaster because their country continues to be threatened by our maniac president who says, hey, I'll go in. I'll go in even harder, says that we may put boots on the ground, say, this may last for years, and says we run their country. So I think a lot of the, you know, from what I can tell from the news reporting, a lot of the sentiment is just fear about what is going to happen going forward.
- [66:04]
Sagar Enjeti
It would make sense that there's no celebration because the current regime is still in power. They will kill you. Maybe if you go out and you celebrate, like, openly. And an operation inside your country also, I know it's very reductive, but as many people have pointed out, if a foreign country came in and deposed a political leader like Trump, then there would be millions of Democrats, perhaps here or around the world, who would celebrate. And by the way, vice versa. If it were a Republican or. Sorry, if it were a Democrat and there were Republicans who might celebrate. That is not proof positive, but it is necessarily like the entire nation. Let's think about this. How many. How many Americans live in the uk? I'm going to guess hundreds of thousands. I don't know the exact number. Are they representative? Representative of all of us?
- [66:52]
Kyle Kulinski
Right.
- [66:52]
Sagar Enjeti
That would be insane.
- [66:54]
Kyle Kulinski
Yeah.
- [66:54]
Sagar Enjeti
What is the country with the most amount of Americans? Biggest expac? Probably Israel. All right. Okay, let's guess. Does the vision of all or the view of all Americans who reside in Israel, are they totally representative of all of us? I've been all over the world. In my experience, the Americans living abroad and often, often are the least representative of the average Joe in the US.
- [67:24]
Kyle Kulinski
So the number one American expat community is Mexican. Mexico.
- [67:27]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, Mexico.
- [67:27]
Kyle Kulinski
Followed by Canada, of course.
- [67:28]
Sagar Enjeti
I apologize.
- [67:29]
Kyle Kulinski
Yeah. So in any case, and then uk, Germany, Puerto Rico. Okay.
- [67:34]
Sagar Enjeti
But even Mexico, I mean, if you live in Mexico, like, what do you really know, you know, much about us like this? I can say this Too. My parents are Indian. My parents views on India are like miles apart from the people who actually live in India. That's the funniest part. Like we don't. Just because you were from there doesn't mean you know anything. Also, if you hated Maduro, you probably left.
- [67:56]
Kyle Kulinski
Well, that's the thing. There's an ideological, you know, distinction between people who are still in Venezuela and people who left or you know, fled fearing political persecution or fearing that their, you know, their capital was going to be taken by the revolutionary government or whatever. Like, I mean there's very clear ideological divide. Just like with the Cubans, Cuban community. We could put, let's put F4 up on the screen just to try to attach some data to this drop site. Shared this polling, trying to get a hold. This was before the kidnapping of Maduro. But as would be predicted, there's a huge divide between Venezuelans in Venezuela, of whom a majority 55% were opposed, 23% supported some sort of foreign military intervention and 22% unsure. And people the Venezuelan expat community. So in this other poll they. We don't have the screen for it but an Atlas intel poll from October that was published by Bloomberg and it's a Brazil based polling firm. So 64% support for US military intervention among Venezuelans abroad. So like the Venezuelans in Miami who were celebrating, whereas only 34% among Venezuelans living in the country. So significant political divide between, you know, the people who are there in the country and the people who have left for any number of reasons. And it's also just worth remind remembering, look, when we had our mission accomplished moment in Iraq, there were people who were genuinely celebrating. I mean there were not just people.
- [69:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Thousands of Iraq, millions of Iraqis were like wow, this is great. They even were, I forget the exact phrase in Arabic that people chanted in the streets of Baghdad. And then what happened? I mean even in Afghanistan, yeah, there are a lot of people who didn't want to be ruled by the Taliban that did. They also had their own problems. That's the just the reductive nature which we talk about this. It is amazing to me. And that is why we were talking about the journalism thing. It's the same on foreign policy. I mean I truly realize this under Afghanistan, when all of MAGA was like, oh, we should have stayed for. I was like, oh my God. I mean it's all bullshit. It's just fake in terms of like a lot of the ways that people will approach their overall commentary. But I see it here now too.
- [70:08]
Kyle Kulinski
Oh, yeah.
- [70:08]
Sagar Enjeti
I'm like the triumphalism. I mean, nothing has changed. And what's even crazier to someone like me is to roll the clock to read the quotes at the time of the Spanish American war of the Philippines and like the, you know, rah, rah nature that went. And then those were disasters for America. Dan Carlin, you probably have to pay for it at this point. He has an amazing four hour episode on just like the history of the US Imperial kind of project back at that time. Go listen to it. Seriously. I mean, nothing has changed. It's amazing. And I guess we're just doomed to repeat our mistakes over and over and over again.
- [70:51]
Kyle Kulinski
But yeah, some of these people have no principles. They believe in nothing. They will flip their positions on a dime and have absolutely no shame about it. 5 seconds ago we're like, no, I mean, Tulsi Gabbard right now she's in the administration, but she was extremely explicitly against regime change in Venezuela and now nothing. Nothing. And so many of these right wing influencers were no more forever wars, no more regime change wars, no foreign interventions. Put America first. And then the minute this happens, they flip on a dime and it's like, let's go. We love this. This is great. This is based, et cetera, just zero principles.
- [71:24]
Sagar Enjeti
I think it's bad. I mean, I mean, I'm not so sure, you know, if the other side were in power that things would be all that different. But I mean, I think that's part of the issue, right? I don't know. All right, whatever.
- [71:35]
Kyle Kulinski
I mean, Biden didn't kidnap Maduro. I mean, Biden actually tried to do some deals with him, in fairness.
- [71:40]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, but he kept the $25 million bounty. Never kept the.
- [71:44]
Kyle Kulinski
Yeah, there was not a full back, full rollback of the sanctions. But we also didn't have Ford USAID dollars, did not have a kidnapping and direct attacks on the country.
- [71:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Ford USAID dollars encouraged millions of Venezuelans to come here. You know, caused a massive migration crisis. Probably most responsible for Trump's victory. Like, it's not, you know, his hands are not clean. You know, sure, it didn't kidnap him.
- [72:05]
Kyle Kulinski
Okay, you can't. But Sagar, at this point, I'm not.
- [72:07]
Sagar Enjeti
Saying they're the same. Okay, but you kind of are saying blameless is ridiculous.
- [72:10]
Kyle Kulinski
I'm not saying they're blameless, but like, let's be real, this is of a different nature. Like brazenly being like, we're taking the oil, we're kidnapping their leader, we're coming for Cuba, we're coming for Colombia, we're coming for Greenland, we're coming for Mexico. That is different.
- [72:24]
Sagar Enjeti
I didn't say that at all. I was more talking about, like, left wing Democratic Party influencers. Like whenever a Democrat is in power. I don't think they're necessarily, like, so principled.
- [72:32]
Kyle Kulinski
Oh, yeah.
- [72:33]
Sagar Enjeti
Or whatever.
- [72:33]
Kyle Kulinski
I'm not.
- [72:34]
Juan David Roa
Yeah.
- [72:34]
Sagar Enjeti
Okay, so we agree.
- [72:36]
Juan David Roa
All right.
- [72:36]
Sagar Enjeti
We'll see you guys.
- [72:37]
Kyle Kulinski
And we'll be backing whatever Democrats do.
- [72:40]
Sagar Enjeti
That's what I mean.
- [72:40]
Kyle Kulinski
No matter what.
- [72:41]
Sagar Enjeti
I may not be on the show tomorrow. My kid got very sick, so we might have to do a follow up with the doctor. Emily may be in place for me, but if, if she is, then I'll swap with her on Wednesday. So regardless, someone will see you tomorrow and they'll see you then.
- [73:00]
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- [73:44]
Kyle Kulinski
You can can keep it all.
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- [74:03]
Ryan Seacrest
Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz.
- [74:05]
Sagar Enjeti
We host the podcast Mind the Small.
- [74:07]
LifeLock Announcer
Business Success Stories, produced by Ruby Studio.
- [74:10]
Ryan Seacrest
In partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.
- [74:12]
Sagar Enjeti
We're back for season four to talk to some incredible small business owners. The big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing. Everyone's a rookie. That's how fast the industry is changing. So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change. So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [74:31]
Kyle Kulinski
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.