← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
1/6/26: DOJ Admits Maduro Cartel Is Fake, Megyn Kelly Rips Fox, Zionist To Profit From Venezuelan Oil
01:19:09
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- [00:00]
Michelle Williams
This is an I heart podcast.
- [00:02]
Emily
Guaranteed human. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Walley.
- [00:06]
Yoan Grillo
And I'm Hari Kondabolu.
- [00:07]
Emily
It's a new year, and on the podcast health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means.
- [00:12]
Yoan Grillo
Being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
- [00:29]
Emily
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:34]
Michelle Williams
Hey, everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. You know, we always say new year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season whole and empowered. New year Real you listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you desperately hoping for change in 2026 but feeling stuck? I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, and in a new year series of my show, the Happiness Lab, I'm going to look at the science of getting, well, unstuck, unstuck at work, unstuck in your relationships, and even unstuck inside your mind.
- [01:28]
Sagar and Krystal
I am the absolute worst culprit when it comes to getting into these ruminative.
- [01:33]
Emily
Loops and just driving myself crazy.
- [01:35]
Michelle Williams
Listen to the Happiness Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows.
- [01:41]
Sagar and Krystal
Hey, guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:43]
Emily
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.
- [01:50]
Sagar and Krystal
This is the only place where you.
- [01:51]
Yoan Grillo
Can find honest perspectives from the left.
- [01:53]
Sagar and Krystal
And the right that simply does not ex anywhere else.
- [01:56]
Emily
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breaking points.com Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:07]
Sagar and Krystal
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.
- [02:15]
Emily
Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to Breaking Points. Good to see you.
- [02:18]
Sagar and Krystal
Great to see you. We were just arguing before we went to air. We won't tell you what about, but.
- [02:22]
Emily
We were just, just so you know, in case there isn't enough arguing in the show. Yes, there was arguing off the show.
- [02:28]
Sagar and Krystal
Do you sense the underlying tension? It's because we're furious with each other.
- [02:33]
Emily
That's great. Absolutely. I'm ready to storm off the set.
- [02:35]
Sagar and Krystal
The sight of us is actually probably great news for a lot of people because it means bro show tomorrow. Unexpected bro show tomorrow.
- [02:42]
Emily
That is true. Yeah. Sagar will be in for Emily on what formerly was known as Counterpoints on Wednesday. So. So anyway, you can look forward to that. But we also have a lot of good stuff for you in the show today, including a guest that we're both really excited about. Yoan Grillo, who is down in Columbia. We're went on a ride along with the Colombian military to the border with Venezuela, is tracking movements of guerrilla groups there, has a lot to say about what's going on. And of course, Trump has been fighting with the president of Colombia. So really looking forward. He's such a fantastic journalist. Really looking forward to speaking with him. We have all the latest with regard to Venezuela. There's a lot to say there. Maduro in court yesterday, very colorful moments. A lot of speculation about what might be going on behind the scenes in Venezuela and the potential power struggle that could be unfolding there. There's a lot we don't know. Of course, we're going to take a look at how some leading lights of MAGA are responding to all of this and what level of consistency they've showed with their regime change takes over the years. So you guys will probably enjoy that. Also really disturbing questions being raised about whether someone got rich off of insider trading, of inside knowledge of when this raid and kidnapping was going to occur and some suggestive hints of who that may actually have been. So we're gonna take a look at that. We also have some more details about a specific MAGA billionaire that would be Paul Singer, a major donor to Republican causes and to Donald Trump's campaign specifically, who stands to directly, personally benefit from this new regime, whatever's going on in Venezuela. So we will get into that. We also want to pay attention to what's happening in Minnesota to Tim Walsh, in a stunning move has announced he is not going to run for reelection. He had planned to. That campaign was ongoing. He said, I'm gonna step back. Amy Klobuchar is taking a look at it. What an incredible fall. And seems all to do with this fraud allegations. So lots to get into there. And also wanted to keep our eye on healthcare prices. It's probably thing that you guys care more about than anything else in the show. For millions of Americans, healthcare premiums spiked in the new year. Very little relief in sight. And and comes at a time when people are continuing to say like, hey, however we feel about Venezuela, this is really not what we want you to be focusing your time on. So we wanted to make sure and pay attention to that as well.
- [05:00]
Sagar and Krystal
Yeah, big deadline coming up on that and all kinds of congressional dynamics that we will cover. So stay tuned for that. Give us a subscribe if you can. By the way, we appreciate it. Over at BreakingPoints.com, you get the second half of the Friday show every week that is paywalled. You also, of course, get the show in your inbox in full, no breaks or anything every morning if you subscribe. Over at BreakingPoints.com, no problem. If you can't, we totally understand. It helps us a lot to like, leave comments, subscribe, all of that. Thanks so much. Let's get into it.
- [05:28]
Emily
All right, so had a little bit of a like false alarm in Venezuela yesterday evening that we'll talk about in a moment because I think some of the questions and conclusions people were jumping to there are illustrative of some of the dangers in terms of what has already been done in Venezuela. But let's start with this. Maduro had a court appearance yesterday. We've got some VO of him we can put up on the screen of him being escorted here in New York City. You know, lots of armed agents here basically taking him in on his way to the New York City courtroom, boarding a helicopter, et cetera. And it was, you know, it's one of these brief hearings where there's not a lot that happens. He just entered his plea of not guilty. But we can put a 2 up on the screen. There's no cameras in the courtroom, so we just have, you know, court reporters to tell us what happened here. Here's part of what he said. He appeared alongside his wife, who, by the way, was apparently injured significantly in the kidnapping. She has huge bandages on her face. Her lawyer has said he thinks one of her ribs may be fractured. So she was significantly injured in any. And that's why you see that weird stuff on her face in this courtroom drawing. In any case, part of what Maduro said is I'm innocent, I'm not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still the president of my country. He said in Spanish, formally entering a plea of not guilty of when he tried to keep speaking, saying he had been kidnapped. The judge then interrupted also Emily People have been noting the judge in this case is what, 92.
- [06:54]
Sagar and Krystal
92. He was appointed by court.
- [06:56]
Emily
Years old.
- [06:57]
Sagar and Krystal
Yes.
- [06:57]
Emily
I don't know about these lifetime appointments for judges are. It's a pretty wild thing. In any case, fresh and ready to go. Ready to go. I mean, listen, I don't wanna be ageist. There are 92 year olds who are still really with it. But you know, your odds at that point of being like right on top of everything, pretty low.
- [07:14]
Sagar and Krystal
We've seen it go wrong in recent years. So I think that's. Speaking of fresh, that's fresh on everybody's memory.
- [07:20]
Emily
That is true. Yeah.
- [07:21]
Sagar and Krystal
Ryan said also they had a job site reporter who was outside of the courtroom yesterday and noticed bruising on Maduro's wife's face. And so that may seem like nothing, but actually what it could speak to is the operation itself. And the more we know about the operation, actually, the more we could know about the politics on the ground in Caracas right now, because there's a genuine question of whether Delsey Rodriguez was cooperating to some degree. It could be a really significant degree. It could be something very minor, but in a way that gave up Maduro, which would speak to the violence of the capture and possibly. And it could also speak to the politics right now, how cooperative Delsey Rodriguez is going to be with the US Government if Rodriguez is going to be able to continue during this, quote, transition period, as the administration keeps referring to it, with a Maduro light regime, basically. And so that's a, it's not an insignificant detail that there appears to be bruising on her face.
- [08:17]
Emily
Yeah. And the number of security personnel who were killed. Now the death, total death count, which does include some civilians, is over 80. So there was a significant, you know, significant loss of life. And with his security personnel, I know dozens were killed. So, you know, I think those are worth keeping in mind. We had Ava Gollinger on yesterday. She feels very strongly that Delsey Rodriguez and potentially her brother were talking directly behind the back of Maduro with Trump. Now, we have known, this has been publicly reported, that there were ongoing negotiations between Maduro and including Delsey Rodriguez with the Trump administration. We've been tracking those reports for a while now. So we know they were in conversations. That's part of why this whole action is also very perplexing. Counterproductive is like Maduro offered basically everything that continues to be on the table. It's not like he was opposed to doing a deal. But Trump got backed into a corner where he needed to please a Certain constituency. And it needed to not look like he was weak after bombing all these boats and amassing all these military resources, et cetera. So I think that's how you end up in this place where, you know, in a sense, potentially there's not that much that has changed. You still have, you know, Maduro's number two in charge. You still have. You don't have at this point anyway, a direct US Invasion. You still just have this threat. Now maybe the threat has been escalated significantly. I would say that is the case. But I don't think anyone was under any illusions that the US could do whatever they want at whatever point in time. So that threat continues and remains. And that's what they're effectively using to say, okay, we're gonna use that threat of force in Mafia style to control you and the decisions that we care about you making in your country.
- [10:04]
Sagar and Krystal
And this now obviously raises questions. As the United States is prosecuting Maduro, what are we gonna learn from the prosecution, Maduro, in either direction? Ways the government might love for us to learn. Ways the government may not be so happy that we learned this. We can put this next element up on the screen. This is a screenshot. Part of it is a screenshot from the New York Times where it says prosecutors in the superseding indictment still accused Mr. Maduro of participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy. But they abandoned the claim that Cartel de Los Soles was an actual organization. Instead, the revised indictment states that it refers to a, quote, patronage system and a culture of corruption fueled by drug money.
- [10:46]
Emily
It's more of a state of mind, really. Yeah, we didn't mean it was like a real, actual cartel.
- [10:52]
Sagar and Krystal
It's a vibe.
- [10:52]
Emily
It's a vibe. You know, it's just kind of a feeling that you get. Yeah, I mean, we mentioned on the show that this thing was fake. It's a CIA invention.
- [11:00]
Yoan Grillo
I know.
- [11:00]
Emily
Ryan's talked about it. Max, Blumenthal, Benor, Lots of people have pointed out the trafficking is real and.
- [11:05]
Sagar and Krystal
The corruption in the government is real. The idea that it's organized under the banner of Cartel del Sol.
- [11:12]
Emily
Which was the justification offered by the government for this whole buildup and this kidnapping and attack on Venezuela, whatever. They're like, yeah, I don't think that's really gonna hold up in court. And so they pulled that out of the indictment. Because the other thing is Maduro, I forget the guy's name, but he has a top defense attorney now, so he has someone.
- [11:34]
Sagar and Krystal
Julian Assange's defense attorney.
- [11:36]
Emily
Julian Assange's defense Attorney. That's exactly right. And so he has someone who knows what they're doing, who is handling his case. And so something like that that's just glaringly, obviously not true would be a major problem. So the government pulled all those references out, except maybe like one or two and are like, yeah, that's just, you know, we're just using that as a blanket term to refer to this culture of corruption within Venezuela. And when we talked to Ava Golinger yesterday, she was saying, you know, basically what they have is they have some high level informants, including people that they already have in incarcerated, who were formerly, you know, high level in security services, et cetera in Venezuela, saying they helped to facilitate, you know, they allowed the airports to use, they allowed cocaine to be trafficked through facts. Yeah, that sort of thing. And that, you know, they could show that this was a sort of concerted effort, not a one off and not just handled by underlings, that Maduro had direct knowledge of it, et cetera. But in terms of it being like this actual he's the head of a cartel, that is not a thing. So kind of funny that they had to. When rubber met the road and they were like, we're gonna have to prove this in a court of law. We better pull that piece out.
- [12:44]
Sagar and Krystal
I'm sorry. But if you're in Latin America, the idea that these kickbacks going to Maduro officials is worth the regime change operation. You've literally watched the United States do this in country after country to nab communists for decades on end. And so the idea that that's pretext to come in and say this is a terrorist organization that warrants war, it's not going to land as wonderfully with many people as the line goes from Republicans.
- [13:16]
Emily
Well, especially not when you just pardoned a guy who was convicted of massive cocaine trafficking and won Orlando Hernandez, because he happens to be buddies more on your political side and buddies and financially benefiting some of your oligarch friends. So it all does ring more than a little bit hollow here. Also wanted to play for you Mike Waltz, who I kind of low key forgot existed after what was the position he was originally up for and then he got pulled.
- [13:40]
Sagar and Krystal
Well, he was. I mean, it wasn't the nsa.
- [13:43]
Emily
I think so.
- [13:44]
Sagar and Krystal
And then he was up for. Now he's at the un so now he's. But they pulled Elise Stefanik and put Mike Watson.
- [13:50]
Emily
That's okay. Elise Stefanik was supposed to go to the UN and then she didn't and now she's not. She was running for governor. Now she's already. For Guy. It's been a.
- [13:58]
Sagar and Krystal
It's been a real whirlwind.
- [13:59]
Emily
It's been a Tim Walls esque Tumblewalt. Elise Stefanic. Yeah. In any case, Mike Waltz was at the UN and I mean, there's not even a pretext of any sort of lofty justification here. It's just brazen. Like, they have oil and we want it, and we can't allow these people with oil in our region to have it and us not just come in and grab it. So let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say at the un.
- [14:26]
Yoan Grillo
As Secretary Rubio stated just yesterday, this is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live. And we're not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be used as a base of operation for our nation's adversaries and competitors and rivals of the United States. You can't turn Venezuela into the operating hub for Iran, for Hezbollah, for gangs, for Cuban intelligence agents and other malign actors that control that country.
- [14:56]
Sagar and Krystal
You cannot continue to have the largest energy reserves in the world under the.
- [15:02]
Yoan Grillo
Control of adversaries of the United States, under the control of illegitimate leaders and not benefiting the people of Venezuela and stolen by a handful of oligarchs inside of Venezuela.
- [15:16]
Emily
So there you go. I mean, they just don't make regime change war propaganda like they used to. Emily. We used to get weapons of mass destruction, now we just get machine guns.
- [15:24]
Sagar and Krystal
They're doing it better.
- [15:25]
Emily
You used to get like a whole, you know, UN presentation and trying to get them on board. Now it's just like, no, we did it and we, you know, want the oil. And so it is what it is.
- [15:34]
Sagar and Krystal
We are getting slightly closer to the.
- [15:35]
Emily
Truth, I guess, although I don't even know it may be the case. I'm not even convinced that the oil thing is, like, really a thing, because some of the oil economics don't make sense. And we're gonna talk about Paul Singer lately. Like, he definitely directly stands to benefit, but Trump talked to the oil executives beforehand, didn't brief Congress, but briefed the CEOs who would be involved. So that's great. Still hasn't briefed Democrats and has already gone back to the oil executives. So they've gotten multiple briefings in any case, reportedly. And we covered this yesterday in Politico. They were like, okay, who's in? Right, who's with us? And hard nose across the board. Because the infrastructure is degraded thanks to years of sanctions. There's been a huge brain drainage. You know, there's obviously incredible risk and uncertainty in Venezuela. There's incredible risk and uncertainty with regard to our own politics. And oil per barrel is like pretty cheap right now. So there's a lot of more possibly lucrative places where they could invest with a lot more political certainty and stability.
- [16:39]
Sagar and Krystal
Yeah, it would make oil cheaper. Obviously Ryan was pointing that out yesterday. So it's, this is about China, Iran, Russia. That's like, it's interesting because again I keep referencing Ryan, but he was saying last night that basically like, this is the first time that you're using that they're openly saying like, yes, this is about oil, when it's actually not like, not even afraid to be like to use the oil excuse anymore. Even though it's like there's no shame to say like this is a transactional war, this is all about the oil. It's actually about Iran, China and Russia. And that's what you hear from Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz when it's, when they're having these like, bigger picture, broader discussions. But that's ultimately, I mean, for Rubio, it's a deep ideological commitment to Latin American right wing politics. Yes. You know, he knows a lot of the players who have fought in this going back decades. So it's, it would have been unthinkable for a Rubio administration, secretary, State Department administration, to not see some significant, significant push in a direction like this. But it's also fundamentally for them about pushing. This is a real politic of it and it's honestly probably a better argument than oil. But it's about pushing back on Chinese influence in the American hemisphere. And by the way, if you are trying to turn off the Latin American left from China, Russia, Iran, all you're doing is re solidifying their belief that the United States is an imperialist actor by being nakedly imperialist.
- [18:18]
Emily
Yeah.
- [18:18]
Sagar and Krystal
And it's not just about the Latin American left, which I would say is largely out of reach for like a Marco Rubio. They're not trying to persuade, he knows he's not trying to persuade Latin American leftists. But for normal people who might welcome Chinese influence in the country because it makes something better, cheaper, as they're told. Bukele, by the way, who welcomed Chinese influence in his own country, are you making that more likely in the long run?
- [18:48]
Emily
Seriously? Absolutely. Yes.
- [18:50]
Sagar and Krystal
I keep saying this, but like, guys, there's a Sandinista in charge of Nicaragua right now. It's 2026. Are you looking at the last several decades as a major success?
- [19:01]
Emily
Right.
- [19:01]
Sagar and Krystal
Like they're Pointing to Panama and Panama involved. I forget who said this. It was like Elliot Abrams, who was like, we had thousands of people on the ground in Panama. Is that what you're asking for right now?
- [19:12]
Emily
Tens of thousands of people.
- [19:12]
Sagar and Krystal
We lost people in Panama.
- [19:14]
Emily
So smaller country, it looks like people. Much less difficult geography.
- [19:19]
Sagar and Krystal
US Influence for years, like US Territory. It's completely different. And that was. People died.
- [19:27]
Emily
Yeah. And it should be stated as well. They went back and did a comparison between the public support, the US Public support for this action now, which is very tepid, very weak, basically just on partisan lines for even the mission accomplished moment that we're having right now, which is the most popular part of the foolish wars that we get ourselves into. They compared that to the, you know, the taking of Noriega in Panama, and it was like, 90% support. It was a. I maybe rumor, the numbers a little bit, but it was overwhelming everybody, consensus, like, yes, of course we should do that. So, you know, those things matter, too, even if you don't really live in a democracy, which, you know, questionable in our country at this point, but the sentiment of the public still matters, even in the most authoritarian systems. So you also don't have public backing for what you're doing. I saw a poll this morning. 75%, including a majority of Republicans, are worried that we will get too involved in Venezuela.
- [20:28]
Sagar and Krystal
Yeah, well, Trump is talking about rebuilding their infrastructure when the domestic politics line right now is about affordability. And to have the President of the United States literally saying, we are going to rebuild there. We have a lot of infrastructure to rebuild is what I think he said at his press conference. That lands like a ton of bricks to people in middle America.
- [20:48]
Emily
Absolutely. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Walley.
- [20:53]
Yoan Grillo
And I'm Hari Kondabolu.
- [20:54]
Emily
It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means.
- [20:59]
Yoan Grillo
Being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed?
- [21:12]
Emily
We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.
- [21:16]
Yoan Grillo
You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that.
- [21:22]
Emily
We break down the topics. You want to know more about sleep.
- [21:26]
Yoan Grillo
Stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health.
- [21:30]
Emily
We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind inside, inside and out, healthy.
- [21:36]
Michelle Williams
We human beings, all we want is.
- [21:37]
Emily
Connection we just want to connect with each other.
- [21:40]
Yoan Grillo
Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
- [21:44]
Emily
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:50]
Michelle Williams
You know, we always say new year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey, everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season whole and empowered. New year. Real you listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you desperately hoping for change in 2026 but feeling stuck just spinning your wheels in old routines and bad habits? I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, and in a new year series of my show, the Happiness Lab, I'm going to look at the science of getting, well, unstuck, unstuck at work, unstuck in your relationships, and even unstuck inside your mind.
- [22:47]
Sagar and Krystal
I am the absolute worst culprit when it comes to getting into these ruminative.
- [22:52]
Emily
Loops and just driving myself crazy.
- [22:54]
Michelle Williams
We'll look at ways to reignite your sense of purpose, rediscover your values, and get more creative. We'll also explore how to design a life that feels more fulfilling.
- [23:02]
Emily
It's sort of like the game of life. I don't know if you ever played that game.
- [23:05]
Sagar and Krystal
Oh, my gosh, yes.
- [23:06]
Emily
You take the car along and you try and get money and you try.
- [23:09]
Michelle Williams
And get degrees and you try and.
- [23:10]
Emily
Get to the end where either you have a mansion or a ranch or a shack, and once you get to retirement, you're done. What about the whole path along the way?
- [23:19]
Michelle Williams
So join me to get unstuck in 2026. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
- [23:26]
Emily
Wherever you get your shows, we may use taxpayer dollars to help fund the reconstruction of, like, the oil apparatus and whatever needs to be upgraded. He floated that we might be directly on the hook for that. And that, of course, comes on, you know, on the heels of the Argentina bailout and all of this. And just a sense of like, okay, now you're doing another thing that doesn't directly impact us. And I know there's a lot of people running around with some sort of fantasy about how this oil is going to benefit you. It's not okay. The interest of Paul Singer and ExxonMobil and Citgo and Donald Trump and the oligarchs in the empire, like, those are not your interests. That oil is not going into your gas. It's a global commodity. It's gonna be sold. In fact, what you're more likely to get is, I think, Trump part of this, too, is that he looks at the Gulf monarchies and he's sort of envious of the level of control and their sovereign wealth funds and how they can just do what they want and spend all this money around the world and build lavishly and all of this. And so he's saying, okay, well, this gives me more control over this global commodity. And so what you're more likely to get is actually that they restrict the supply to spike the prices. That's actually a more likely outcome, that this is really going to directly inure to your benefit in terms of cheaper gas at the pump. But in any case, if I had to say what this is about, I think you're right about the geopolitics in terms of countering Russia, China and Iran in a way that I agree is very foolish and counterproductive. But I think that is partly how they're thinking about it. You have this ideological commitment. Sager calls it the Miami occupied government. I think it's a good way to think about it because, you know, we've talked a lot about the Israel Lobby and its influence and how it compels behaviors that are not even in the interest of the empire. And so some of the foolishness of this you also have to attribute to the fact that you have a political constituency with a lot of money that is very influential in this administration and, you know, and Donald Trump down in Mar a Lago hearing from them a lot of. And so you have to factor in that money in politics piece as well. So you've got that. Then you've got the piece that I just said of. I think he's envious of these Gulf monarchies and wants to set himself up in that space. And you put those pieces together, along with the fact that you've got all these Wall Streeters and we covered this yesterday, licking their chops to get in there and do carve it up and financialize it and buy up the distressed assets and do the thing that Wall street does, which is not exactly just oil, but is in some ways more destructive to Venezuela, certainly, but it would be profitable for them. And you've got the perfect storm for this action, whatever this ends up ultimately being.
- [26:05]
Sagar and Krystal
There's also the possibility, and this is, I know Ryan's been paying attention to it, but you see it becoming a bit amplified on the right that Trump wants to pressure Nicolas Maduro into talking about the 2020 election. And that sounds ridiculous to many of you, I'm sure, but I would not be surpr. I mean, Sager and Ryan actually reported that one of the ways Rubio World convinced Donald Trump to do this regime change was by saying, you know, Maduro, Venezuela, the allegations of the 2020 elections, that Venezuela had something to do with changing those vote tallies, which obviously there's not evidence to suggest, but that tells you they are probably right now trying to flip Maduro or convince Maduro to say something along those lines. We don't know that for sure, but I think logic, it stands to reason that Trump's prosecutors in conversations with Maduro and his legal team have floated that. So, yeah, don't be surprised if you see something like that come down to.
- [27:06]
Emily
Yeah, well, Ed Martin, who is, what is he in the Department of Justice, amplified a tweet yesterday suggesting exactly that, suggesting that Maduro could plead to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. So, I mean, and Maduro, I mean, he doesn't give a shit. He'll say whatever, right? If it helps him get out of a pickle and get his wife out of a pickle as well, by the way, who's also being held and charged in this and injured in the capture and whatever. So, I mean, it sounds insane, but you're right to point that out too, as a factor in all of this. You not only have the fact that Trump is obsessed with this, like, Venezuela aspect and he himself was posting on true social media, more like Venezuela election conspiracies just in the past one or two days. Also indicating that that is on his mind in all of this. So you have this Venezuela fixation from the election perspective. And then you also have the sense of humiliation, both that they tried to do the coup the first time and they failed with the whole Juan Guaido nonsense, and they failed. And then you have Maduro, who was apparently offending Trump with his dancing. I don't know. I don't really buy that whole thing. No, I think the whole plot was already bake long before the offensive dancing was going on. But I think that's probably true that Trump found his behavior because he was effectively trying to call Trump's bluff. Like, I don't think you're gonna do anything. I'm be out here singing, don't worry, Be happy and dancing like a Goofball and showing everybody that I don't care and I'm unbothered by your threats and your provocations. So I think those personal feelings certainly work into this as well. Did you see Machado last night on Sean Hannity?
- [28:48]
Sagar and Krystal
Sure did.
- [28:50]
Emily
I also don't buy that, like the fact that she got the Nobel Peace Prize is why she's been snubbed in all of this. But it doesn't. But she clearly thinks that may be part of it. Cuz she went on with Sean Hannity and was like, I will give you the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. President, it's all yours. You deserve it. And he did come out and say, you know, I don't think she should have gotten it. So it is a, you know, a rub with him for sure.
- [29:13]
Sagar and Krystal
Oh, I'm sure it's not nothing.
- [29:14]
Emily
Yeah.
- [29:15]
Sagar and Krystal
But it's also, I mean that's what we can put the next element up on the screen. That brings us to this point about what's going on here. This is the Dr. Post. Some of the new reporting here about this is from the Miami Herald. Diosdado Cabello has sent voice messages to loyal military officers and ruling party figures calling for unity, reorganization and mass mobilization in defense of the government, saying those responsible for the U.S. aid, quote, will regret it for the rest of their lives. He is the interior minister. And this goes to questions about Delsey Rodriguez and what might happen in the future. So instead of doing a Juan Guaido and saying we have Maria Karina Machado ready to go in, we'll just bring her in on the boat and let her step off and this will be her kingdom.
- [29:58]
Emily
Ride her in on a tank.
- [29:59]
Sagar and Krystal
Yes, yes. They're allowing obviously Maduro's second in command, interim President Dulcie Rodriguez, to maintain control during what they're referring to as a transition period. But Dulcie Rodriguez especially, I shouldn't say especially, but also from the American left is under a cloud of suspicion for people think there was cooperation and not unreasonably, people think there was potentially cooperation with the CIA in prepping this actual regime change military operation. And I don't know, the more that we're learning, I mean, the death toll you mentioned earlier of the Cuban guards keeps getting higher and higher. So that suggests maybe there wasn't as much cooperation as people initially thought, as though Delta Force walked in, plucked Maduro and his wife from the beds and just walked on out and was that easy. But this is a significant political question right now because it gets to how Delsey Rodriguez will behave during the, quote, transition period.
- [31:01]
Emily
Yeah, absolutely. And although in a sense, I'm not sure how much it matters whether there was an explicit conversation, because the pressure she's facing externally from the US and internally from both domestic power players and from the population, are kind of the same regardless. But in terms of whether this is going to be anything approaching a stable government, I think the question of whether she directly collaborated and how that'll be received, et cetera, that is where that could be really significant. I mentioned yesterday, we were all watching very closely. There were reports of gunfire. There was significant gunfire around the presidential palace. There was. We saw drones in the air. Everyone was like, my God, maybe a coup was going down. Maybe this guy Cabello is coming in. He's got the military behind him. But it turns out that it was their own drones that were interpreted as being hostile. And so it was, you know, but it shows you, number one, they're on pins and needles. And number two, you know, if they thought that that was like, you know, another US Action, they were ready to defend against it.
- [32:05]
Sagar and Krystal
Things can turn very quickly.
- [32:07]
Emily
Yeah. And I think also that's an important point to take away as well. I'm not gonna play this, but I'll just mention Maduro's son also was in the legislature yesterday, giving his blessing to Delsey Rodriguez ascending to being acting president. And her brother is in charge of the legislature. So that was sort of like a show of solidarity there. So that was significant. And then speaking of repressive regimes, already some indications here that there's limited space for speech about this. In a similar way, there was limited space for speech around Palestine. This is an extraordinary clip that went viral yesterday of a protester who was doing an interview with local news. And right after the interview ends, while the cameras are still rolling, she's arrested there on the spot for her protest activities. Let's go ahead and take a look at that. We have to apply pressure at all points that we can.
- [33:04]
Sagar and Krystal
This is not just in a foreign issue. It's our tax dollars that are also being used to commit these war crimes. It is also the duty of us, the people, to stand with, stand against the Trump regime, the Trump administration that.
- [33:17]
Emily
Are committing crimes both here in the.
- [33:19]
Sagar and Krystal
US and against people in Venezuela.
- [33:22]
Yoan Grillo
Now, in the background of this interview, you could see that police car. And now right here, we're showing you video we have. Immediately after the interview finished, Plichta was.
- [33:30]
Sagar and Krystal
Arrested by two Grand Rapids police officers. You can see it in the video.
- [33:34]
Yoan Grillo
And an officer tells Plicta that she is being arrested for obstructing a roadway.
- [33:40]
Sagar and Krystal
And failure to obey a lawful command from a police officer.
- [33:44]
Yoan Grillo
You can see as she's taken away in that car, she was issuing a number of messages about wanting the US to free Maduro, but again, she was.
- [33:50]
Sagar and Krystal
Taken away by police officers there. And you can see in this video.
- [33:53]
Yoan Grillo
Officers were closely following this procession in downtown Grand Rapids.
- [33:58]
Emily
So there you go. I don't know. The roadways looked more blocked by the snow, I feel like, than any activity that was presently occurring in that video. At least that looked.
- [34:10]
Sagar and Krystal
That made me cold watching that video of Grand Rapids, Michigan, I was like.
- [34:14]
Emily
Because of the free speech implications.
- [34:15]
Sagar and Krystal
The trolls. No other. Gosh.
- [34:19]
Emily
Yeah.
- [34:20]
Sagar and Krystal
I mean, I don't know. This particular story, it looks like. I mean, I don't know. I genuinely don't know. They did arrest her for disruption, which is a thing when you go out and protest. A lot of people know that. And in fact, it's kind of meant to sometimes say, like, this is civil disobedience. So I don't totally have a clear idea of what happened. I hope that she wasn't doing nothing and then plucked off the street, but that wouldn't be unprecedented either. And at times of heightened tension over war, of course we see that. And so that's. People need to be really aware that if you are someone who was disturbed by free speech questions over the last decade, especially from the right, and you support what the Trump administration did, you may have to challenge yourself to look at potential censorship and suppression coming down the pike, because that always happens when there's escalated military action. So people should 100% be aware of that.
- [35:20]
Emily
And there were, you know, pretty widespread, like, immediate protests, which was also, to me, very noteworthy. Like, it didn't take any time. You know, we didn't have months and months of, all right, let's plan. And now something really bad is. It was, you know, it was instantaneous, that day. The very next day in places like, you know, Grand Rapids, Michigan, not New York, not New, not L. A. So that was. That was noteworthy to me as well, in terms of the way that the public was responding to this. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Walley.
- [35:49]
Yoan Grillo
And I'm Hari Kondabolu.
- [35:50]
Emily
It's a new year, and on the podcast health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means.
- [35:55]
Yoan Grillo
Being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed?
- [36:07]
Emily
We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.
- [36:12]
Yoan Grillo
You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that.
- [36:18]
Emily
We break down the topics you want.
- [36:20]
Yoan Grillo
To know more about sleep, stress, mental health and how the world around us affects our overall health.
- [36:26]
Emily
We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind inside and out healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection. We just want to connect with each other.
- [36:36]
Yoan Grillo
Health stuff is about learning, laughing and feeling a little less alone.
- [36:39]
Emily
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [36:45]
Michelle Williams
You know, we always say new Year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast we talk mental health, healing, growth and everything you need to step into your next season whole and empowered New Year Real you listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you desperately hoping for change in 2026 but feeling stuck just spinning your wheels in old routines and bad habits? I'm Dr. Laurie Santos and in a new year series of my show, the Happiness Lab, I'm going to look at the science of getting, well, unstuck, unstuck at work, unstuck in your relationships, and even unstuck inside your mind.
- [37:43]
Sagar and Krystal
I am the absolute worst culprit when it comes to getting into these ruminative.
- [37:47]
Emily
Loops and just driving myself crazy.
- [37:49]
Michelle Williams
We'll look at ways to reignite your sense of purpose, rediscover your values, and get more creative. We'll also explore how to design a life that feels more fulfilling.
- [37:58]
Emily
It's sort of like the game of life. I don't know if you ever played that game.
- [38:00]
Sagar and Krystal
Oh my gosh, yes.
- [38:02]
Emily
You take the car along and you try and get money and you try.
- [38:05]
Michelle Williams
And get degrees and you try and.
- [38:06]
Emily
Get to the end where either you have a mansion or a ranch or a shack and once you get to retirement, you're done. What about the whole path along the way?
- [38:15]
Michelle Williams
So join me to get unstuck in 2026. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows.
- [38:23]
Emily
Should we talk about your boss? Megyn Kelly never brought.
- [38:29]
Sagar and Krystal
No Happy to.
- [38:30]
Emily
So she made some really interesting comments yesterday. Actually Revealing a bit of the mandate that she was under back when she was at Fox News with regard to covering war. Let's take a listen. I really think this is something we need to consider both sides on. I really do. I don't think. Let me just tell you something. When I was at Fox News, which was a long time, 14 years, I would have known exactly what to do in the wake of Trump's attack in Venezuela, his retrieval, shall we say, to put it in mild terms, of Nicolas Maduro. I would have known that I was supposed to cheerlead it. And I turned on Fox News yesterday and I'm sorry, but it was like watching Russian propaganda. There was nothing skeptical. It was all rah rah cheerleading. Yes, let's go. And that's fine. I love our military as much as anyone and I believe in President Trump. But there are serious reasons to just exercise a note of caution before we just get on the rah rah train, all right? I have done that enough times in my career as a Fox News anchor to have been embarrassed enough to know I'm going to stay on the yellow light for this. I'm not in the green light territory. I'm not in the red light territory either, but I am staying in the yellow light territory for now. I see all of the strategic advantages of what he's done. Trust me, I do. I see that other countries like Russia and China and Cuba were all over Venezuela and it's oil, posing a potential threat to the United States. I get that. That's actually the most persuasive argument and obviously the real one. And none of this bullshit about law enforcement. But I have seen what happens when you cheerlead unabashedly US Intervention in foreign countries, thinking it's for our good and for the national, the international good, only to wind up with what we've called quagmire. And what does it mean in terms of boots on the ground? Trump is saying, I'm actually fine with that in Venezuela. Well, whose boots? Cuz I have a 16 year old boy and I have a 12 year old boy and I have a 14 year old girl and a lot of my listeners have children too, who are actually the ones who might have to fill the boots. So I think I speak for a lot of moms and dads for that matter, when I say I'm staying in yellow territory until we know more. And I will not be joining the Fox News cheerleading brigade this time. I think that was a very important moment in revelation and requires some humility to Say, because she says, you know, she's embarrassed by the cheerleading that she did at Fox News. Because what she's saying here is not just like, this is what we were expected to do, and it's not even having worked at one of these cable nets. Like, you know, I think Fox News had more of a top down, this is our line and this is our storyline than msnbc. Just because culturally, like, they were different spaces. And I was on Meghan's show many times actually at Fox News. But in any case, you don't need that direct instruction to know what you're supposed to do and to know what the consequences are if you don't do that. And so she's also admitting here that, like, yeah, I knew what the assignment was and I did it right. I knew the assignment was whatever the new war is. I'm all in. I'm cheerleading for it. It's great. Look at our brave men and women. This is gonna be amazing. Go, America, go. And I was a good little girl and I fell in line and I did that thing and I'm not doing it anymore. I'm not going to participate in that anymore. I will say one nitpick thing is, you know, she's talking about this like, she's like, I think the real reason is that it's Russia and China buying the oil. And I don't. This is so silly to me because, like, the reason that it was our own choice to not buy the Venezuelan oil, it's not like they wouldn't sell it to us. It's that we had decided to sanction them and block them from exporting oil to us. So, like, that was always available to us. It's just sort of like, crazy to me, the way this is framed. Like, well, they were selling to our adversaries. It's like, yeah, because you wouldn't buy from them. So in any case.
- [42:33]
Sagar and Krystal
Well, and we didn't like that. They said we couldn't do it on our terms. Like, that's basically what Chavez expropriated it.
- [42:40]
Emily
Chavez, yes. But I'm talking about in the present with Maduro. He was like, take the oil. Like, yes, I will do the deals. Like, it's all there for you. I'm cool. It's fine. Let's do a deal. Donald Trump.
- [42:51]
Sagar and Krystal
And there's this amazing Chomsky clip that friend of the show Glenn Greenwald references a lot. And Ryan and I actually asked Don Lemon about it one time, which was incredibly funny. I think we asked Brian Seltzer about it too. But Chomsky, I remember when you asked.
- [43:03]
Emily
It's not familiar with it, right?
- [43:06]
Sagar and Krystal
He was not familiar with it. But it's this moment where Chomsky's sitting across from. I want to say it's a BBC guy. And. But the point is, the guy is like, we aren't getting. Do you really think that we're getting talking points essentially to, like, manufacture consent? And Chomsky was like, no, no. The thing is, if you weren't ideologically on board with everything that your corporate bosses are, you wouldn't be sitting here. Like, the point is they don't need to tell you what to say. And I actually thought that was pretty interesting from Megan, because it wasn't just about this idea, this conspiratorial idea that's easy to believe if you haven't seen how the sausage is made inside of these networks, that there are, like talking points handed out at the beginning of every day. There are editorial meetings where, you know, you, I'm sure, get a pretty good sense of what the network's line is. And they say these are the topics that are hot right now. This is what the audience is loving and all of that. But the point is, they hire people who are ideologically in agreement on this big foreign policy question, which is imperialism and US Intervention. And I think that's actually genuinely very interesting to see an ideological break from a lot of people. Now, this is Trump quote. We can put B2 up on the screen. This is Trump saying, MAGA loves it, referring to this regime change operation. MAGA loves what I'm doing. MAGA loves everything I do. MAGA is me. Is this a poem? Maga loves everything I do. And I love everything I do, too. This is like, what do you tell a seven year old to write a poem?
- [44:35]
Emily
I mean, this is cartoonish.
- [44:37]
Sagar and Krystal
This is an incredible Trump quote. This is truly an incredible quote.
- [44:41]
Emily
That's Pete Trump.
- [44:41]
Sagar and Krystal
Yeah, that's.
- [44:42]
Emily
That's Maga is me. Maga loves everything I do. And I love everything I do, too.
- [44:47]
Sagar and Krystal
Maga is me.
- [44:48]
Emily
All right, but self reflection there.
- [44:51]
Sagar and Krystal
But, yeah, I mean, listen, I think most people, and we have a kind of compilation of reactions to share with everyone, but there's a division on the right. Yes, but the division isn't necessarily between oppose and support. It's a lot of people who fall into the Meggin camp, which is the. She described it as yellow light, not green or red, not opposed to green or red necessarily. And I think it was remarkable that she had on Aaron Mate yesterday to talk right away. That was obviously, I don't have any insider knowledge of it, but I think intentional to start that show with mate. And then she had Walter Kern on to give the pro case, which was super interesting. But that's where I think a lot of people are like Tucker on his show last night, dropped last night. Tucker Carlson was talking about how he's kind of uncomfortable with it, but if it's a precise thing that works out, which he sounded pretty skeptical that it will, maybe it'll be a good thing. But you just see hesitance among a chunk of maga. You don't see total outright opposition from many people. I think there are a lot of people who I know we polled this Matt Walsh reaction. What did you make of this, Crystal? Not entirely surprising. So Walsh rebutting and J.D. vance did something similar, rebutting allegations that it's a war for oil. He seems like he's on board with this one.
- [46:17]
Emily
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so you can see, first of all, the war lasted like 90 minutes. I mean, it's just.
- [46:22]
Sagar and Krystal
So that's from Walsh.
- [46:24]
Emily
Yeah, this is Matt Walsh. Second, going to war to secure vital resources for your own people is totally legitimate. This is the sort of thing we used to have some shame about. We used to feel the need to cloak it in democracy or human rights or stuff. Now it's just, no, we're gonna steal the resources. Why should we allow some third world communist shithole to control trillions of dollars worth of oil? So then just like, oh, okay, people aren't allowed to. And listen, Maduro's last election, I think pretty widely viewed as illegitimate. But in general, like, okay, there's lots of countries around the world with leaders we don't like, right? We're just gonna depose them all. And many of them we work with, right? Many illegitimate authoritarian leaders that are direct allies. But in any case, I mean, just completely embracing the most brazen, overt, like, villainous, truly language about resource extraction. Now, because Daddy Trump does it, and I'm gonna position this as the cool and based position, we can put B5B up on the screen from him. Previously, I've noticed a stark uptick in anonymous accounts of no followers claiming they've unfollowed me and that my employer should cut ties because I'm opposed to regime change wars, a stance I've held consistently and vocally for my entire adult life up until Trump did something different. And now here we are. So. And there's a lot of this. I mean, Fuentes, we can put him up on the screen, he's actually taken some, I don't know how significant it is from his followers. He was cheerleading this Venezuela regime change leading up to it, making comments in favor of it, et cetera. It's a buying into the, like, Monroe Doctrine, all that sort of stuff. After it happens, immediately he just posts this, like USA with a flag. And then after Trump comes out and is like, we're going to run the country and we're going to rebuild their infrastructure, he says, well, initially it seemed like a solid operation to cleanly, bloodlessly and quickly remove Maduro from power last night. But this new policy of running Venezuela with US Soldiers sounds like a massive over commitment. I have zero confidence in nation building. Big mistake. And I sort of feel like, well, what did you think regime change was gonna be? Vibes, ethics, how did you think this was gonna go? Like, you don't just depose the leader, decapitate the regime, and then it's like, oh, done with that, moving along and expect that all the resources are gonna flow to you. No, I mean, this is gonna be much more complicated, much more fraught, much more chaotic. And with Trump overtly saying, hey, we may do boots on the ground, we may do years of, we may take on other countries, it's all on the table. Seems to be pretty diametrically opposed to all of the assertions previously when they thought it was politically beneficial. And Trump was positioning himself as the piece of president and the anti regime change war president and the anti forever war president. You know, there was a lot of a different tone being struck then. But leading up to this, Emily, I mean, we talked about it. I talked about it with Sager. There was not the same level of resistance from MAGA on this as there was with Iran. No, with Iran, it was. There was much more direct opposition. There was much more expressed concern building up to it here because, I don't know, you've got a confluence of, you've got the Latin American neocons, you've got the, oh, it's just based to come in and take the oil vibe. Socialism, the drug trafficker thing. Yeah, you've got the communism angle. There was enough there that basically all the factions of MAGA were kind of on board with it or actively cheerleading it. And I think that is another piece of why. I'm not saying this the whole reason, but I do think that's another piece of why this went forward at this time. Because Trump, I mean, he's looking around, all these people hate each other's guts and are fighting with each other and his whole coalition is splintering. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is out of Congress actually now or I think yesterday was her last day and she's taken shots at him. Thomas Massey's taken shots and his approvals in the toilet. And I think he also sort of felt like okay, this is a way for me to gather up all the pieces and get everybody back singing the same tune on something that you know, a regime change operation that we're all going to get behind.
- [50:28]
Sagar and Krystal
Well and it's obviously there are significant differences between Iran and Venezuela and as a conservative I'm sympathetic to some of the arguments about like hemispheric stability and undermining Chinese influence among potential allies. What I disagree with is that this is a constructive way to deal with either of those problems. Given the last 50 plus years of history in Latin America, US history in Latin America. I'm looking at it outcomes Alex Jones post right here that says America must protect its own hemisphere. Mike Cernovich on that Tucker Carlson episode that dropped last night I referenced was basically debating the wisdom of this with Tucker and Cernovich made a valid point. I think we would all agree with the point that not every war is Iraq and that there are grades of Iraq style conflicts and that there are some military being opposed to what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan does not mean you're opposed to all use of military force. And at the same time again there's this Alex Jones. Mike Cernovich I find this actually genuinely interesting. I think you can tell that Tucker was sort of torn by it idea that there is a kind of ideological globalist slash communist, what's the right word, like plot to consolidate world power. And part of that, that's so ridiculous. But part of that, what's interesting is that part of this is this idea that the elites are communists, right? The idea that they want you to.
- [52:02]
Emily
Live in the pod, right. Which is so preposterous. Like the global elites are the people who are doing this regime change war to carve up Venezuela into pieces and profit off of it.
- [52:12]
Sagar and Krystal
Yeah, they're definitely not Marxists and they may have some cultural progressive leanings but that's where I think this is. Your point about how there's a thought that this could bring together disparate factions. The Alex Jones reaction I think is genuinely pretty interesting. I'm not saying it's like politically significant, but I think it's genuinely interesting because it's this. What's the right word for it? It's testing what MAGA actually is. Is MAGA this, like, kind of interesting. I mean, it's obviously going to be interesting no matter what. It's maga. And MAGA is me, as we know, according to Donald Trump, MAGA is everyone. MAGA is everywhere. But, like, what is it? Because here's Lindsey Graham. We would be remiss if we didn't play this clip of Lindsey Graham. One of the things that Tucker was debating with Cernovich is that he thinks the problem is that this is creating a playbook that Trump is going to rinse and repeat elsewhere.
- [53:09]
Emily
So let's roll the happiest man in America.
- [53:12]
Sagar and Krystal
The happiest man for now. B7. I pray and hope that 2026 will be the year that we make Iran great again.
- [53:25]
Emily
He just put a make Iran great again hat on. On cable news, and I think he had Trump sign one of these as well. So. Yeah. And you guys probably saw the clips. We may have played one of them yesterday, I don't remember. Of Lindsey Graham on Air Force One with Trump. And just, I mean, I have never seen anyone. I mean, like, you know, like a kid on Christmas, just absolutely ecstatic. So, you know, ask yourself if you want to be on board with the things that make Lindsey Graham happy in terms of foreign policy.
- [53:53]
Sagar and Krystal
That's one of the things Meghan mentioned when she was talking to mate. She was like. She was like, anytime Lindsey Graham is happy, I'm uncomfortable.
- [54:00]
Emily
That's a good barometer.
- [54:01]
Sagar and Krystal
It's a great barometer. It's a great barometer. His track record is not stellar.
- [54:05]
Emily
And I think Thomas Massey didn't. Thomas Massie. Or was it maybe Rand Paul? I think it was Rand Paul said something like he should be banned from going to the White House.
- [54:12]
Sagar and Krystal
He said there should be a law. Yeah, he said there should be a law that Lindsey Graham can't go the White House, like, more than once a week. Something like that.
- [54:20]
Emily
And that seems really generous. Once a week is way too many.
- [54:23]
Sagar and Krystal
Yeah. You know, it'll be poetic. Justice is not justice. Justice is definitely the wrong word for that. But will be poetic is if Trump pardons Maduro for giving some type of.
- [54:35]
Emily
Like, I don't know, fake election information.
- [54:38]
Sagar and Krystal
If Trump pardons Maduro, Lindsey Graham goes from being the happiest man in America to the saddest man in America. I don't know.
- [54:44]
Emily
Does he, though? I don't know if he cares, like, once he's gone and if they're getting what they want out of Venezuela. I don't know. I don't know that he really cares deeply about specifically the fate of Maduro and whether he rots in prison for the rest of his life or gets shipped to Turkey or Russia was something that was floated.
- [55:01]
Sagar and Krystal
I feel like Lindsey Graham is one of the few remaining genuine neoconservatives. Not neoconservatives in that he's a former Trotsky guy, but actual imperialist, ideologically believes in spreading democracy. He's one of those, like, real true believers. So he may. He may genuinely want Maduro to rot in jail. We'll see.
- [55:18]
Emily
But anyway, I mean, I think for right now, Maga, I think Trump is right. Maga is on board. The polling reflects that.
- [55:25]
Sagar and Krystal
It looks like it.
- [55:25]
Emily
You know, there are some warning signs they're worried about, okay, well, do we get too involved? But I think they also have shown the capacity to, like, when you ask them in advance whether they support this, that was a different story. And then once Trump does it, then they're on board. So if we get more involved in Venezuela, they're going to gonna probably be on board with that as well. So I don't think there's the same coalitional risks here that there were with Epstein, that there were with Iran, with Israel. I don't think you have the same sort of fraught landscape for him. But, I mean, I could be wrong. If it goes, like, really catastrophically, then maybe that calculus changes. But for now, people are pretty much more or less on board. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyankiwale.
- [56:04]
Yoan Grillo
And I'm Harikundabolu.
- [56:05]
Emily
It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means.
- [56:10]
Yoan Grillo
Being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed?
- [56:23]
Emily
We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.
- [56:27]
Yoan Grillo
You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that.
- [56:33]
Emily
We break down the topics you want.
- [56:35]
Yoan Grillo
To know more about sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health.
- [56:41]
Emily
We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind inside and out healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection. We just want to connect with each other.
- [56:51]
Yoan Grillo
Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
- [56:55]
Emily
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
- [56:58]
Sagar and Krystal
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [57:01]
Michelle Williams
You know, we always say new year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you your goals. Hey everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast we talk mental health, healing, growth and everything you need to step into your next season whole and empowered New year Real you listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Yes, Are you desperately hoping for change in 2026 but feeling stuck just spinning your wheels in old routines and bad habits? I'm Dr. Laurie Santos and in a new year series of my show the Happiness Lab, I'm going to look at the science of getting, well, unstuck, unstuck at work, unstuck in your relationships, and even unstuck inside your mind.
- [57:58]
Sagar and Krystal
I am the absolute worst culprit when.
- [58:01]
Emily
It comes to getting into these ruminative loops and just to trying driving myself crazy.
- [58:05]
Michelle Williams
We'll look at ways to reignite your sense of purpose, rediscover your values and get more creative. We'll also explore how to design a life that feels more fulfilling.
- [58:13]
Emily
It's sort of like the game of life. I don't know if you ever played that game.
- [58:16]
Sagar and Krystal
Oh my gosh, yes.
- [58:17]
Emily
You take the car along and you try and get money and you try.
- [58:20]
Michelle Williams
And get degrees and you try and.
- [58:21]
Emily
Get to the end where either you have a mansion or a ranch or a shack and once you get to retirement, you're done. What about the whole path along the way?
- [58:30]
Michelle Williams
So join me to get unstuck in 2026. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your shows.
- [58:39]
Emily
Speaking of laws that need to be passed, Seriously, the fact that this insider trading on Polymarket is just going on and the things you can bet on on these, you know, websites is just insane. The level of corruption and, you know, corrupt dealings and the way that our whole not even economy, like our whole world, is turning into a casino. In any case, let's actually start with C2. This is the Wall Street Journal's write up of this polymarket mystery trader who made $400,000 betting on Maduro's downfall. They say less than five hours before nighttime explosions rocked the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, an unknown trader doubled down on bets, specifically that Nicolas Maduro would soon be out as the country's leader. The wagers on Polymarket had a 12 fold return on investment and fueled suspicions that someone used inside knowledge of the closely held US Operation make a quick profit and they track here, you know, this person placed some initial bets in December, and then they end up, you know, just placing a massive amount of their bets just hours before this occurs. And at the time, there was only an 8% probability, according to the overall market that Maduro would lose power that month. Because while, you know, while we all knew that something was brewing and something might happen, et cetera, like the specifics of it, that it was gonna happen now and that it would be this kidnapping operation, like, you know, the public did not have knowledge of that. So in any case, you know, it looks very much. It has all the hallmarks of some sort of insider who had, you know, once they got the information, went all in on this bet and netted themselves $400,000 because of it.
- [60:28]
Sagar and Krystal
I mean, it's almost. And we can put C1 up on the screen now, too. There's people who have done some digging on this wallet. And if you, if you dig deep enough, there is a potential connection to Steve Witkoff now, of course, with these wallets, that's very, very difficult to verify. And we don't know. I mean, that's. I don't want to spread this as though it's definitive or anything like that, but if you're interested, I encourage you to go look at the wallet digging that some folks have done. I did reach out to the White House to ask whether they were investigating this yesterday, especially actually given that semaphore reported the New York Times, or was it the Washington Post also were tipped off about the operation and refrained from posting it. It for the protection of troops. That's what the White House. I mean, that's an order that the White House or a request that the White House makes of outlets in similar situations historically, but they decided to comply and they didn't run their stories. But I asked the White House, are you investigating this, given that maybe journalists could have been people that were making these bets. Now, to me, I look at the wallet investigation, I find it to be fairly compelling Crystal. And it seems like it was a very small circle of Trump officials who were or even in a position to alert the media. So the odds of this being someone at a very high level are significant. And it's something the White House absolutely should be investigating. But we've seen from crypto, and we're gonna talk about that in just one moment. But from crypto to these types of betting markets, polymarket Kalshi this administration is pretty comfortable with this type of financial activity. And it may seem like nothing. And I Know, people who use polymarket and Kalshi and bet on these things think that it's. You can make the argument sometimes that it's good to have insiders involved. From their perspective, they'll make that argument and say it gives it. This is not an argument I agree with, but it's democratizing in the way that smart traders can try to follow these wallets and see what they're doing and capitalize on it. But on the other hand, you have the deeply corrupting, deeply corrupting influence of people who are making these bets and public life getting super rich off of it. First of all, it's wrong. And second of all, it can start to influence their decisions. It's obvious, of course.
- [63:00]
Emily
Yeah, I mean, I think it is obvious. I don't think it requires explanation. I think most people look at this and are disgusted by it that you use your position of power or to personally profit and that it's impossible even for that individual to really know whether that's influencing the advice they're giving to the President of the United States and whatever policies are under their direct purview that they can affect and they can also bet on and make tons and tons of money on. So it's deeply, deeply corrosive and frankly disgusting. So I don't think there's any doubt, there's very little doubt that there was some insider here who was trading. Who it is is more of a question mark. The wallet investigation point, just my understanding is that one of the wallets was affiliated with or connected to a wallet that had the name Stephen Charles Witkoff's name is Stephen Charles Witkoff. So that's the connection that they're making there. Again, this is not at all definitive or proven, but these are the sort of breadcrumbs that have to be tracked down to get any sense of what is actually going on here. Let's go ahead and talk about.
- [64:02]
Sagar and Krystal
By the way, we should mention Donald Trump Jr. Is a involved with Kalshi. Yes, he's on the board or an advisor and also for Polymarket, at least he was as of August. He was an advisor to polymarker.
- [64:14]
Emily
He was involved with them too. I didn't even know that. That was wild. In any case, let's go ahead and talk about this other person in the Trump orbit who stands to directly benefit from the regime operation and war on Venezuela. Can put this up on the screen. This was a very good article from Popular Info where they, Judd Legume writes down here that Venezuela raid enriches mega billionaire. The ouster of majority of financial windfall for a prominent Trump supporting billionaire investor, Paul Singer. Okay. Singer gives millions of dollars to Republicans, Trump included, and he recently purchased Citgo through his investment vehicles. Okay, okay. Citgo, bear with me here for a moment. Used to be owned by the Venezuelan state oil company. Okay. It had debt. I'm not even gonna get into the technical legal specifics, but basically we took it in the, you know, under the, like, sanctions era against Maduro. We basically took it and sold it off. And, you know, now it has ended up in the hands of Paul Sanders. So Citgo has, you guys are probably somewhat familiar with them. They have, of course, gas stations across the country. They also own refineries. And those refineries are specifically outfitted to process Venezuelan crude. And the fact that they are not no longer able to get that crude from Venezuela because of the current sanctions regime and hostile relations with Venezuela has made Citgo much less, less profitable and much less of a highly valued asset. So the estimate is that Singer got this for basically like bargain basement prices because of that reality of their refineries not operating at optimal capacity because they don't have access to this crude well. So he stands to benefit and his companies stand to benefit directly if that situation changes. So I think that that's important to understand that this Trump donor, and we talked earlier about how you've got this, a lot of powerful wealthy influences, both for ideological and financial reasons, who wanted to see this outcome in Venezuela that pushes Trump in this direction. And Paul Singer, I think, is an important part of understanding that. And then the last thing we have here from C4 is I mentioned this earlier, but Trump met with the oil executives before the action. He's set new meetings with oil companies now after the action to make a deal with them. They'll benefit from a little bit of US Government socialism helping to prop them up in Venezuela so Trump can get what he wants out of this transaction, try to push them in that direction over what appears to be some reluctance to re engage or engage for the first time in Venezuela in certain situations. But in any case, that gives you some sense of what's going on here.
- [67:15]
Sagar and Krystal
Yeah, the Politico did a story trying to reach out to some of these oil companies before the operation and found that nobody was interested. It was crickets when they reached out, being like, hey, anyone want to get back into Venezuela? And people were pretty hesitant about it. One thing we should also mention is that lest you think that popular information story is just from lefties, the Wall Street Journal has an article, citgo is a crown jewel of Venezuela's oil industry. Elliot, That's Paul Singer's hedge fund is set to reap the benefits. And if we go further down, this deal actually has to be approved by the Treasury Department. So it's not done yet. It's not done yet. Who's in charge of the Treasury Department? Oh, a man named Scott Besant, who loves deals like this. And so that's now in front of the Trump administration again. So we'll see. Crystal. But it reminds me of the story that Ken Vogel did just yesterday in the New York Times. I think it was yesterday. I'm sorry, it was actually earlier. But January 3rd, January 2nd, the headline, Trump Super PAC raised more than $100 million in recent months. The single biggest donor was 12 and a half million dollars each. These are the single biggest donors from Greg Brockman, who's co founder of OpenAI and his wife. So we're talking. This is from crypto.com, this is contributions from the parent company of crypto.com, $20 million. And so this is an administration that is openly transactional. I don't even need to tell people that. Everyone kind of understands that's how it works at this point. The administration is relatively transparent about that being how it works at this point. But if you think that played no factor in this geopolitical military intervention, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, I think it's fairly obvious. And the stakes of that when you have Lindsey Graham putting his make Iran great again hat on during Fox News, hits the stakes of that. Lest you think Venezuela is no big deal, which obviously you and I don't agree with, Crystal. But let's say that's your position. This can accelerate around the world in ways that I think would make people genuinely nervous about who's deciding American foreign policy at the end of the day.
- [69:37]
Emily
Yeah.
- [69:37]
Sagar and Krystal
And why.
- [69:38]
Emily
Yeah, Well, I think people are already pretty concerned about that. At least I am, and I think many others are also. Because they can see what's happening. I mean, it's not even. It doesn't require us to explain, like, it's all out in the open. You know, Trump says it outright, so kind of makes our job easy because he's like, yeah, we want to. We want to plunder. That's what we're there for.
- [69:57]
Sagar and Krystal
For. So, yeah. And as Vogel writes, some of these guys were invited to that big dinner for Mohammed bin Salman. So the crypto guys. And so, yeah, this Is it's bought and bought and paid for. Guess maybe it's slightly better that we can kind of see what's happening, but it's also even more nakedly transactional.
- [70:16]
Emily
Yeah, I see. I don't. I understand that instinct and I feel it in a certain sense as well. But. But I think shame is actually a good thing.
- [70:25]
Sagar and Krystal
Oh, I don't disagree with that.
- [70:26]
Emily
Yeah. Because it does create some limits on what can be done. I mean, as bad as the democracy regime change, like, oh, we're doing this for human rights, whatever, it meant that the fact they had to code it in some sort of legitimate aspirational goal gave a political weapon to oppose it with when it's just like, no, I mean, and I, I keep bringing up Gaza. I mean, I think Gaza was an important test case for them of like, oh, we can do a genocide in plain view. Everyone can see it. We can starve an entire trap population, turn the whole place to rubble, and we can just do it and no one's gonna stop us. And, you know, that puts everything on the table. It puts everything on the table. It just means if we have the force and the weaponry, we can do it. Now, it doesn't consider any second order consequences, let alone any third, fourth, fifth, 40th order consequences. But in terms of the initial shock and awe might makes right, it puts everything on the table, and that's the world we live in now.
- [71:30]
Sagar and Krystal
Well, this is a great point to turn now to yo and Grillo and to bring him into the conversation because he's been on the ground in Colombia, where Donald Trump is also now flirting with potential regime change efforts against Gustavo Petro. So let's get to yoan.
- [71:44]
Emily
Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Walley.
- [71:45]
Yoan Grillo
And I'm Hari Kondabolu.
- [71:47]
Emily
It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means.
- [71:52]
Yoan Grillo
Being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed?
- [72:04]
Emily
We talk to experts who share real experiences and insights.
- [72:09]
Yoan Grillo
You just really need to find where.
- [72:11]
Emily
It is that you can have an.
- [72:12]
Yoan Grillo
Impact in your own life and just start doing that.
- [72:14]
Emily
We break down the topics. You want to know more about sleep.
- [72:18]
Yoan Grillo
Stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health.
- [72:23]
Emily
We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind inside and out healthy.
- [72:28]
Michelle Williams
We human beings, all we want is.
- [72:30]
Emily
Connection we just want to connect with each other.
- [72:32]
Yoan Grillo
Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Alone.
- [72:36]
Emily
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
- [72:40]
Sagar and Krystal
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [72:42]
Michelle Williams
You know, we always say new year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey, everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast we talk mental health, healing, growth and everything you need to step into your next season whole and empowered. New year. Real you listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you desperately hoping for change in 2026 but feeling stuck just spinning your wheels in old routines and bad habits? I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, and in a new year series of my show, the Happiness Lab, I'm going to look at the science of getting, well, unstuck, unstuck at work, unstuck in your relationships, and even unstuck inside your mind.
- [73:40]
Sagar and Krystal
I am the absolute worst culprit when it comes to getting into these ruminative.
- [73:44]
Emily
Loops and just driving myself crazy.
- [73:46]
Michelle Williams
We'll look at ways to reignite your sense of purpose, rediscover your values, and get more creative. We'll also explore how to design a life that feels more fulfilling.
- [73:55]
Emily
It's sort of like the game of life. I don't know if you ever played that game.
- [73:57]
Sagar and Krystal
Oh, my gosh, yes.
- [73:59]
Emily
You take the car along and you choose. Try and get money and you try.
- [74:02]
Michelle Williams
And get degrees and you try and.
- [74:03]
Emily
Get to the end where either you have a mansion or a ranch or a shack, and once you get to retirement, you're done. What about the whole path along the way?
- [74:12]
Michelle Williams
So join me to get unstuck in 2026. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows.
- [74:20]
Sagar and Krystal
We're joined now actually from the border, Colombian border with Venezuela, by journalist Yoan Grillo. Truly one of the very best out there. Please go subscribe to his substack over at CrashoutMedia. DOT is one of, I think, the most invaluable places to get reporting from Latin America. Yoen is based in Mexico. Yoen, thank you so much for joining us.
- [74:42]
Yoan Grillo
Yeah, great to be here.
- [74:43]
Sagar and Krystal
Hopeful as well there now you've been embedded actually with Colombian law enforcement. As the chaos in Venezuela ensues, can you just give us a sense of what you people should Absolutely. By the way, go over to your substack and read your piece about this. We can put D1 up on the screen. This is Yoen's reporting from the ground in Colombia. But if eoen you could just give us a sense of what it's been like on the ground in Colombia where Donald Trump has threatened Gustavo Petro since this Venezuela operation was completed. What's going on down there right now?
- [75:20]
Yoan Grillo
Yeah, sure. So I'm in Cucuta, which is the biggest border city between Colombia, Venezuela and one of the biggest communities of Venezuelans outside of the country. And you've got the situation at the around the border post with a lot of Venezuelans who come over to work and a lot of refugees as well in neighborhoods here, but also one with the military outside of the city. Now, one of the things that happened is that immediately when the attack happened on Saturday at 2:00am Venezuela time on Saturday, the colonel was saying he was woken up then. They had immediately had a meeting with President Pedro and with the Ministry of Defense to say we have to react to this. And they sent 30,000 troops to the border. Now, part of this was just because of the threat or what they saw as a threat of any US Aggression that could spill over. The same as if in the United States you had suddenly an attack from China on Canada. I'm afraid sure that's would immediately send troops to the Canadian border just as a kind of response. But also there's a guerrilla group called the Elnac Liberacion National Liberation army, which is a guerrilla group also incited in the indictments against Maduro, which crosses both sides of the border. It's about 5,000 people. And immediately following the attacks, they noted a lot of these guerrillas moving right over back into Colombia, you know, responding to. But since then, the guerrilla group has now issued a statement saying we need to respond to gringo aggression. So you see these things and the army were looking at this also. You had in December, the same guerrilla group carried out a wave of attacks and bombs and all these kind of things as well.
- [77:09]
Emily
Can you talk a little bit more about that? What is your sense of why they were moving into Colombia, what they may do going forward and how significant they are to the future in Venezuela.
- [77:19]
Yoan Grillo
So I think that they just immediate response. I mean, they move back and forth over the border. And so they're very present in both countries and they can move very easily. And immediately when they saw the attacks, it was kind of an immediate retreating movement. They saw large people like, you know, are we going to be attacked ourselves? You know, could their camps have been targeted, you know, with their CIA locations of some of their camps and should they move into Colombian territory? But seeing that it was, you know, a more limited attack, I think one of the big situations happening right now, and there's this news this morning about this, there's apparently a bunch of a kidnapping of a bunch of police officers by the guerrillas. And there's a lot of reports that are quite hard to confirm. But from Venezuela, since this US Special Forces abduction or apprehension of Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, you've got a lot of these armed groups emerging and coming out more so the guerrillas, the ELN in a lot of this part of Venezuela, they move their people so they're very, very openly present there and they're working with Venezuelan authorities. Use up his group called people say, called the Klectivos, which are basically pro government or pro Chavista, Chavista being the socialist ideology named after Ugo Chavez, the founder. These are armed groups which are very, very present in the neighborhood and we've seen them come out a lot more. So people are telling me that like in the areas now that seeing the these militias out. Just talking to colleague in Caracas, Venezuelan colleague in Caracas who's sending me information there from there. There was a big march on, on Sunday following the apprehension of Maduro where a lot of these collectivos came out openly holding guns, openly carrying Klashnikovs. So I think there's a kind of a worry about with a certain vacuum of power, with the Venezuelan government being weakened from above by the United States, then from below, these kind of armed groups taking more power. And, and one of the things my colleague in Caracas was saying is there's a worry this could become bit more of like a Lebanonization of the streets with these, you know, with these different armed groups, ELN collectivos and different groups openly kind of controlling the neighborhoods if there's not a clear authority asserted.
- [79:49]
Sagar and Krystal
Well, let's play here, Donald Trump talking about Gustavo Petro. This is going to be D2. Colombia is very sick too, run by.
- [79:57]
Emily
A sick man who likes making cocaine and so selling it to the United States.
- [80:01]
Yoan Grillo
And he's not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.
- [80:04]
Emily
What does that mean? He's not going to be doing it very long. He's not doing it very long. He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories.
- [80:11]
Yoan Grillo
He's not going to be doing it very long.
- [80:13]
Emily
So there will be an operation by the US and it sounds good to me.
- [80:16]
Sagar and Krystal
And we can go ahead and put this next element up on the screen as well. This is Gustavo Petro a couple of times actually in recent days, basically saying come get me. Not dissimilar entirely from what we saw from Nicolas Maduro obviously before Trump came and got him. Yo and just wanted to ask how this back and forth is affecting the, basically the reality on the ground in Colombia. That's kind of what we've been talking about the entire time. But how fragile is or is not, how fragile is Petro right now? What is the, what is the sense on the ground?
- [80:51]
Yoan Grillo
So I think Petro is a very, very different thing from Maduro and a very different situation. I mean Maduro was indicted twice, was indicted in 2020 and again this year on, on narco terrorism, conspiracy, cocaine trafficking. We don't know about any indictments of Gustavo Petro, if there's any there at all. The other thing is that whereas with Maduro there's a pretty credible claims that Maduro stole the election in 2024 war. And though Trump hasn't really talked about this much, it's being much the reasons, the political reasons. It's more about crime or oil. There's, you know, Marco Rubio emphasizes that and he was, you know, Venezuela was quite a kind of rogue regime in some senses around the region. That's not true. There's no real serious claims that Gustavo Petro stole the election when he was elected and he actually will leave power this year. It now Gustavo Petro is very big on social media and talks in a very kind of, you know, anti imperialist talks, a very, very kind of hard rhetoric. But it's quite hard to see if that would be kind of be backed, you know, with the military. I was with the military in Colombia and my sense is the military in Colombia are actually quite right wing. You know, they've fought for years against the far. The left wing rulers of the FARC are now fighting the eln. I think they're quite anti leftist, very different than Venezuelan military which is run by Chavistas. And so I don't think this kind of situation or an armed confrontation, I don't think it's on the cards. However, I just always give a caveat here now because you know Trump, you have to take him seriously, he can say this stuff and you think, oh, it's not serious. And then, you know, now he's shown with this, you know, a very brazen, high risk operation to take out Maduro. You have to take this stuff seriously. So we don't know but I don't think war will go to Colombia at this point. But, you know, we have to see.
- [82:59]
Emily
What was Petro's relationship with Maduro like and how many Venezuelans are actually in Colombia now.
- [83:06]
Yoan Grillo
Yeah, so that's another interesting thing about, about Petro is whereas he had left wing and he was himself as a history with guerrilla movements, he actually ended up having a bit more of a combative relationship with Maduro. It was, you know, it was a bit rocky up and down. And so he's kind of trying now to, to kind of bring in certain chavies to stuff, certain Chavez stuff. But his relationship was not great. And also he's in conflict now with this ELA group. And the ELN Gorilla group is very openly pro Chavista, very openly, you know, ideologically, very, very left wing, very anti imperialist, very anti American. Although they're also, you know, like involved in cocaine trafficking and justify that as a way to kind of sell cocaine to the gringos, to the United States. Now the actual Venezuelan population here, it's estimated at 2.8 million Venezuelans in Colombia. So it's, you know, there was a, about 8 million, close to 8 million Venezuelans left the country since 2014. Maduro took power in 2013. And whereas the economy there was actually growth under Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chavez took power in 1999. So he was in power for 14 years. And you did have a period of growth. The first time I went to Venezuela was 2012, and things were quite good then. There was still quite a lot of sympathy for Chavez. Then you saw things go down drastically in the country. So like 2015, 2016, just things absolutely collapsed. I mean, you saw the economy go down by 80%. And what that meant on the ground was, was real devastation and malnutrition. So when you have 8 million people walking out of country in a decade, and so there's a lot of people, you know, when talking to people, the Venezuelans at the bridge here, people coming over for the day, they're generally very anti government in this particular part. Now there's also our pro government people still marching in Caracas and in various places, but a lot of them are very much against this government, but also with kind of a lot of caution about this. I mean, one thing is they took out Maduro for a second, you thought, okay, this is a big change. The revolutions happen, happened, and within a few hours you realize actually the regime is still in power.
- [85:28]
Emily
Right.
- [85:28]
Yoan Grillo
So the rest of the people are still in power. So. And again, to understand the situation on the ground, and what this really looks like, people, they can't go out and start celebrating on the streets in Venezuela. They've got these pro government militias in their neighborhoods and they're going to know who you are if you go out and they can target you. You've got a political police notice Sebi, you've got the gorillas around there working with the government. So you have got a lot of this apparatus there. And then they realized, okay, it's still there. But one guy will say to me because, well, we're patient, we've seen over a lot of years. But then it's very unclear. You had then, you know, the Trump turning against Maria Corina Machado of the opposition. Now I talk to a lot of people about that and in some way it's kind of interesting because a lot of the, the kind of left wing commentators would say, oh, Maria Corina Machado was a CIA asset. But according to some of the evidence is coming out now, it seems, as the CIA was saying from their intelligence reports, he doesn't actually have that much support in the country on the ground. That might be fairly true. Talk to people. It's not like there's a real big support. There's still quite big.
- [86:43]
Sagar and Krystal
Which is what happened with Guaido, right?
- [86:46]
Yoan Grillo
Yeah, exactly. And one of the problems I think for the Venezuelan opposition is the Venezuelan opposition often are from quite an elite upper class Venezuelan background and most Venezuelan people are poor, working class and poor. And so there's quite a big gap sometimes of how they're related to people. Whereas the Chavistas did genuinely build this kind of working class base in these communities, which also I think is very repressed. So it's a complex situation. But like the, you know, so they kind of concluded, but they're right now leaving Elsie Rodriguez, who's been, you know, part of the regime, we talk to people that say, well, she's just part of the same thing. They've got Caballo is also right there in power still. He's indicted, but he's still in power. And they said, well, these are still the, it's still the same regime. Now we have to see how things play out. But you know, one of the worst situations would be or what's happening right now is you have, you know, the Trump government saying, we know, we say we're running Venezuela saying, but we're meaning we're running it with warships in the Caribbean telling them what they have to do or we're going to bomb you again rather than an Iraq occupation. But then Running an authoritarian government as long as they give the United States what it wants, but keeping that same authoritarian government in power, power kind of worst of all worlds, or is it going to be actually overseeing a transition and they see it has to be slow, you know, move slowly. That might be the case, but things just seem very unstable. Another thing is, is that like, so for us journalists, most of us who came down here hope to go into Venezuela after the thing nobody's been able to get in. A lot of journalists who've tried to go in, they've detained them, deleted all their material and throwing them back. There's a lot of news about journalists inside Venezuela being detained now. You know, people are trying to apply for, for visa journalists to go in. Then, I mean, it's the same. The United States says you have to have a visa journalist to go in a report, but nobody's really getting them. So it's hard a lot of the information there, but the, the immediate atmosphere is the government continues to be repressive or even more repressive in reaction to this. What's happening right now?
- [89:02]
Emily
My last question for you, Yan, is my understanding is Petro was not that popular. Has his popularity in the country improved vis a vis his sort of like aggressive stance in defense of Colombia and against Trump, or has that not really made a difference?
- [89:19]
Yoan Grillo
I don't think so. It's not my impression and it's hard to see. We have to see new opinion polls. But I think generally in Colombia there's quite a lot of disillusionment with Petro in power even among some people that kind of sympathetic to him. Whereas in contrast with Mexico, where I'm normally based, I do think Claudia Scheinbaum in Mexico is still generally popular overall and has been quite an effective president in some ways. I don't think that's true of Gustavo Petro. And there's, there's a base and there's quite a, a enthusiastic or dedicated base and you know, there's, you know, dedicated people who really, really believe in, in, in, in Petro and the kind of left wing project and the kind of first time you've had it in Colombia. In Colombia for a long time, political left was kind of not, not being very active because the guerrillas were, you know, they said like left wing basically meant you were a gorilla, meant you were the farc, meant you were the elm. But this time experiment of a left wing government in Colombia I don't think has been very popular. But we'll see. There's a new election coming up in on 31st of May and Petro the party has a candidate and there's a right wing candidate competing then as well.
- [90:40]
Emily
Well, from the outside I will say have enjoyed his content creation quite a bit. So there, at least there's that. We'll have to have you back to talk about Mexico, which is a whole other can of worms, but thank you so much for breaking down what you're seeing there on the ground. So, so helpful. We really appreciate it.
- [90:56]
Yoan Grillo
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