← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
Sam
All right, we are officially live. Hello, everybody. It's Saturday morning. It feels like a Sunday. It has felt like a Sunday for several days now. But we woke up this morning to pretty remarkable news. The United States has carried out an operation essentially removing Venezuela President Nicholas Maduro and his wife, capturing them from their home overnight, a large scale strike on the capital city of Caracas. Venezuelan President Maduro is now en route to New York where he's facing criminal charges. I believe I haven't actually read the indictment. A remarkable thing to wake up to. And we want to break it down with our experts. Sarah is going to join us in a little bit. But right now we have General Mark Hurtling and Ben Parker. We're going to be taking a quick break. When Trump does speak to the Nation at 11am that's when he's supposed to speak. And then we'll continue talking on the other side of his speech for some analysis about what he has to say. But Mark, let's start with you. I mean, what did you, you've, you've been digesting this for several hours and talking about it on MSN for several hours now, too. But what do you make of what happened overnight? And what should people take from the operation?
- [02:13]
General Mark Hertling
Well, first I'd start off by saying it was probably pretty prescient that Ben edited a copy of mine that was printed yesterday about regime change and the challenges associated with it. And what I said in that article was primarily that, you know, the military operations are usually very short and in case when the United States does it, they're very good and they have been so far this morning. But then it's what comes after that. What I've been watching this morning and been commenting on is the effectiveness and efficiency of the special operations forces. The first piece of film I saw had a couple of Chinook helicopters, which are normally associated with some of the special operations forces, flying very freely across the skyline of Caracas with explosions having occurred in the background. Before that, the President gets on a couple hours later on to Fox News and says how great the military operations was and, and how surprisingly he also said we had a couple of guys hurt, but I think they're okay. Nobody was killed. Well, even that announcement of casualties is pretty significant and is something that's not usually done. But now during that presidential address on Fox News, before the true address at 11 o' clock that he promised, we also hear when he was asked by one of the hosts what's going to happen next. And he basically said, well, well, I'm not sure. We'll see. It's the typical answer of we'll see what comes next. That's pretty troubling because that's what I addressed in the article I wrote is what does come next when you're talking about the head of a government being decapitated and brought onto a ship. The Iwo Jima don't know what's happening there. Is he being questioned or just being detained until they can get him off there? That has to do with is he being treated like a prisoner or is he being treated like a prisoner of war where he could be interrogated? These are all the things that are coming to mind. But then again, what I think is going to be interesting when the President speaks is what is going to happen next? What kind of State Department actions are we going to see what comes after the military withdrawals? Venezuela is a huge country about, I think it's about 90 million people. It's a pretty large country. It's got a coastline that's 1700 miles long or the equivalent of going from Boston to Key West. So you're talking about a really large country with a huge population and they have not been in very good shape recently. If you've tracked Venezuela over the last couple years, they are in a little bit of chaos and dysfunction. A lot of immigrants coming out of there to escape the bad economic situations and, and the government itself. So really it's what happens after that Decapitation occurs. It's going to be important to watch. And this is where we as a nation always get in trouble when we conduct something that would be the equivalent of regime change.
- [05:22]
Pete Hegseth
Right.
- [05:23]
Sam
Well, let me just pick up on that. And Sarah, welcome to the, to the show. Appreciate you joining. Trump did go on Fox News as you talked about. He called in to talk about the operation. To your question of what comes next. He, he, he offered a few little chestnuts here and there, so on. With respect to who will take over in Venezuela, this is his quote. We can't take a chance of letting someone run it and just take over where he Maduro left off. That will be involved in it. Very much. So that to me suggests we will be intimately involved with choosing who will run the country, that it's not necessarily going to be purely democratic with a lowercase d. And then there's one other thing that he said where we were talking about Mexico and he, he argued that the cartels are running Mexico. He says we have to do something, something's going to have to be done with Mexico. And it, oh, raised the specter to me. And Sarah, pick up when I, when, when I stop here. Are we, is this going to be something that we, a playbook that we duplicate for other countries? Already we're seeing people talk, senators talk about something similar happening in Colombia, Trump talking openly about Mexico. Are we at this place now where we're just going to start picking off leaders that we don't like in Latin America and saying, you know what, we're going to install people that we do?
- [06:46]
Sarah
Well, Sam, this is where having a coherent foreign policy that is stated is incredibly helpful. The reason you're asking the question is because we sit here without a clear understanding of this administration's foreign policy goals and aims. And in fact, because Trump ran as an entirely different type of person. Right. This is the opposite of what he ran on. Now, we don't know is this a forever war in there. But the idea that we would be intimately involved in regime change, not just in Venezuela, but with people who we're friendlier with, like Mexico, that would be the kind of thing that a normal administration would lay out as a matter of foreign policy. This is what America's aims are. This is why it's good for America. This is what we do. But it is, this is the exact opposite of what Trump told us. And so we've got nothing to go on. But Trump's weird call INS to FOX News. I mean, what do you, I mean, not to state the Obvious, but that's no way to run a country. It's no way for a world superpower to behave. Where we have to sit on the couch with these Fox News hosts to figure out what is America doing?
- [07:55]
Sam
Ben, what do you. When you're, like, digesting all the news bits around this, there's a bunch of things we just don't know. Right. Like, and I think that filling in those blanks as Sarah is talking about is going to be critical to just basically having a better understanding, a better opinion, a more founded opinion about this. So what are the things that you're waiting to see in here?
- [08:16]
Ben Parker
So a lot of the questions we're going to be hearing are very important legal questions about if this is legal under American law, if it's legal under international law, what's the status of Maduro? Those are all really important. But the biggest question here, and Sarah alluded to this, is what problem are we trying to solve here? And we talked about this a little bit before we got on whether or not this is regime change. It's hard to say at this point. Certainly Maduro is no longer in charge of Venezuela. He's on an American ship on his.
- [08:44]
General Mark Hertling
Way to New York.
- [08:45]
Ben Parker
But that doesn't mean the whole regime around him automatically collapses. There are reports that the vice president of Venezuela is currently in Russia. Those are, I think, not confirmed yet, but it could be true.
- [08:57]
Sam
Russia's denying that, for what it's worth, but, yeah.
- [08:59]
Ben Parker
Oh, then it's definitely true. Okay, but, you know, this is a regime that was started by Hugo Chavez and it was able to survive him. When he died, Nicolas Maduro took over. So it's not clear that we're actually going to do anything to change the regime in Venezuela beyond just getting this one guy. And if we are just getting this one guy and lobbing some bombs in Caracas, how does that help us? Does that solve the drug issue? Does that solve the huge, like, 8 million people who have fled Venezuela into neighboring countries in the last years that solve the economic problems? Does it help us get the oil or whatever Trump wants us to do? It's the biggest question is what are our goals here? And Trump has not done the work to bring Congress on board, to bring the American people on board to support whatever it is is going on.
- [09:46]
Sam
Just a brief program. You know, Trump is running a little late. We'll keep you guys. APPLAUSE well, busy day. Mark, you and I were talking very briefly about the actual operation. There's been a lot of people comparing it to what happened in Panama. With Noriego, you made the case to me that you don't see the parallels. And I'm wondering if you could just sort of explain why.
- [10:08]
General Mark Hertling
Yeah. Operation Just Cause 3 started in December of 1989, rolled into January of 1990. There were about 27,000 soldiers involved in that US army soldiers on the ground. But you got to remember Panama first of all is one tenth the size of Venezuela. We were talking about the size issue a little earlier. It has a significantly smaller population. The Panamanian military at the time was corrupt and ineffective across the board. We had a real national interest in securing the Panama Canal against a dictator that actually was a well known drug trafficker and was very involved in fraud and chaos in that country. And it was President H.W. bush who went to the Gang of Eight and told them what he was going to do. He did not ask for an authorization from Congress, but he at least did inform Congress and the American people in terms of what was happening, very different from the Venezuelan situation. As Sarah said a minute ago, we just don't know an end state. We don't know what is supposed to be happening. And until you have an end state, you can't determine the ways and means that you're going to execute that strategy. We are seeing kind of the same type of attack that is just mind boggling that we saw in February of 22 when Russia invaded a sovereign country. We have invaded. No matter what you think about President Maduro, he, he is a crook, he's a terrible individual, he's corrupt, he is, he is linked to drugs. But this is a sovereign country with a lot of people involved and not all of them support him, but they sometimes don't have another choice. And there are other ways to use elements of national power, diplomacy, information, more sanctions, some of which we've already placed on Venezuela than just immediately using the military as the first tool of choice. And again, it gets back again to what Ben said, is that what are we doing? Because we don't know. I mean, the four of us are kind of scratching our heads saying what should we talk about in terms of what's going to happen next? And unfortunately that's the same thing that the US Congress is doing. Who represents the American people who haven't voted for these kinds of wars. We just got out of 20 years of these kinds of things.
- [12:37]
Sarah
Yeah, just, just jump into like our, our job often, right, is to do sense making for people. There's a bunch of people watching. We want to do sense making. We're all trying to make sense of it. And I think in a lot of political situations, we have enough either inside understanding or professional experience to be able to clearly talk about what it is we think is, is going on. This is extraord difficult to evaluate right now. Literally no one has any information other than Trump was tweeting at some point saying, yeah, we've been bombing the boats and wait till you see what we do on land. Like that was the President of the United States giving us a hint of information. Congress has no information. Newspapers have no information. The people who have the most information right now are the people who listen to Trump directly and watch Fox News and had him do it. So that's all anybody's got. And we are talking about an enormous jump in American foreign policy without, and I guess so we're going to listen to an address from Trump which he is running late for. And the entire country is going to learn whatever we learn about American foreign policy from whatever stream of consciousness Donald Trump, you know, chokes out during this. But the idea that there's some coordinated theory about who we are right now in terms of our role in the world, we don't know what it is. And that is, that is the astonishing part. That's the only sense we can make of it.
- [14:06]
Sam
Well, and then I'll just add to that. I mean, if, if this is ostensibly about cracking down on the drug trade and of course they made this in the public utterances since last night. They've said, while we got rid of a head of a narco state. I mean, sure, great, but then you can't pardon 2 weeks ago Juan Orlando Hernandez, the ex president of Honduras, who is a narco traffic state head. There is no real coherence to that. It was something that JD Vance put in a tweet about this morning about getting back our stolen oil. I wasn't really sure what to make of that. Is there some logic to the idea that Venezuela has stolen our oil and then we have to retake it? I, I couldn't really follow that one. And again, I guess, Ben, to, to Sarah's point, it would be much more soothing, I suppose, to have some sort of coherent explanation from the administration, obviously to have the buying of Congress, but also to have just a common thread line. These pardons on one hand and then going after Madura on the other just don't make any coherent sense to me.
- [15:18]
General Mark Hertling
No, not at all.
- [15:19]
Ben Parker
And you know, I guess maybe Vance is referring to the fact that Venezuela nationalized its oil industry like 20 years ago. But still you've Had American company, one American company in particular, I think it's Chevron, that still operates in Venezuela. And you know, there's a long history of America dealing with countries that nationalize their natural resources. You can talk about Iran, you talk about Egypt in The, you know, 50s, 60s, 70s, but how is this about that? How is getting rid of just Maduro going to help get the oil back? It makes no sense. And also, is that what we want? Like, is the idea that American companies are going to be pumping Venezuelan again, Like this all could have been explained before they sent people into harm's way and started spending all this taxpayer money. But they, they haven't done that.
- [16:11]
Sam
Trump is. The feed's up. Trump's not speaking yet. Why don't we put up the empty podium just so I can at least get a sense of when he's starting. We get some great shots of reporters texting on their phone there in a big old camera. Sarah, before Trump starts, I want to talk a little bit about the politics of this. The polling data, I think is obviously premature because it was all done sort of as a hypothetical about what would, you know, how the public would support action. But it was pretty clear that the public would not support action. So the CBS poll from November, so not so long ago, late November, US taking military action in Venezuela, 30 would favor, 70% would oppose. They also asked, has Trump administration clear explained US position on military action in Venezuela? 24 said, clearly explained, 76% said not done that yet. Again, this is, I just want to be honest, this is early. We don't have anything since, obviously since Trump announced the actual action. But what do you make of those numbers?
- [17:18]
Sarah
Yeah, I mean, first of all, because we don't have any information, we, we ourselves cannot evaluate the rightness or wrongness of this action other than what feels wrong because we have so little information. But for the public, Look, I said this up front and it remains true that Donald Trump specifically ran against this type of foreign policy, not just this time, but the first time he ran. It was an express, in fact, it was that break from, I would say, traditional Republican ways of showing leadership in the world that many people were attracted to. And that kind of gave Trump this element of like, I transcend regular party politics because I don't hew to the kind of neoconservatism that seems to dominate the Republican Party. And that, like, express rejection of that, that express rejection of Bush era foreign policy is like central to Trump. And so, and he has taught, like, this is the thing he has taught Americans. He has taught Republicans to oppose exactly what he is doing, like Tulsi Gabbard, like the people who make up his administration. The whole Republican Party now has shut shifted on things like this. Now are there going to be Trump dead enders who are always like yeah, whatever Trump says, big strong man getting rid of drug traffickers, there will be people who like that. You're about to hear a lot of that from like the just, you know, people without the bottomized sort of Trump defenders. But for a lot of the voters, especially the red pilled voters who were brought into the Republican Party, it contra stuff like this because they opposed things like this and because Trump taught them like he's always talking about being a peacetime president, like this is just the exact opposite of that. And so whatever he is doing right now, I'm seeing a lot of things in the chat like it's a distraction from Epstein, like is it you know, to get us oil so we can make gas prices? Like who knows what the reasons are. All I know is it's the opposite of everything he said that he stood for since he started running.
- [19:25]
Ben Parker
Hey Sarah, can I Douglas Advocate here real quick.
- [19:27]
Sam
Wait, wait, wait one sec, one quick second. Because I wanted to get Mark in before Trump speaks because I have there's a thing that, so there's white. You see the White House press corps down there. Those are all sort of White House reporters who are on what is considered a dead shift. They get the vacation shift. They're down in Mar a Lago. This is no offense to them. They're not, they're not foreign policy reporters. Now Mark, I want you to play the role of if you were in the press corps as a foreign policy whiz here, what would the questions you ask Trump be right now?
- [19:59]
General Mark Hertling
Well, the first thing I will say, what Trump will say, he will focus primarily on an operations update. He'll talk about how good the military is. He'll talk about there was no resistance and they shut it down. And in fact he used the term the special operators bum rushed Maduro in his apartment which contrary to what they really do. But then if the reporters are good, they're going to say a couple things about what was the resistance? How come the TV station, the state TV is still playing in Caracas and people are still getting the news and they're confused there because usually that's what you shut down first in a military operation. Who is in charge of the Venezuelan government right now and who are you talking to? What are the sanctions you're going to put on or when you said, you know, someone needs to take over, what is exactly does that mean? What kind of government assistance are we giving? Where is Marco Rubio going to be in this whole thing? Who's taken over? Have you heard anything from Russia or China on this actions, informal channels? What kind of alliances are commenting in South America and Latin America on what just happened? What kind of civil affairs forces are you going to put? These are all the kind of questions I would have because it gets back to what Sarah and Ben were both saying a minute ago. We don't know what's going to happen next. And he said earlier this morning when asked about what is going to happen, he says, well, we're going to work through a plan. Well, criminy, if you're working through diplomatic and informational plan after you've conducted military operations, I gotta tell you, I've got a whole lot of scars from regime change operations in Iraq. This is exactly the same playbook we use there where we first had Garner and then had Bremer. And it was a disaster because both of them went in without really any kind of plan or a support for a plan which really occurs after you take out the head of government.
- [21:58]
Sam
Ben, I saw you shaking your head.
- [22:01]
Ben Parker
Yeah, no, I think another question we should be asking is not just who's in charge of Venezuela, who's in charge in the United States? You know, General Hartle, you've been writing about this, but the commander of Southern Command, which includes Central and South America, the military commander for the United States has only been in office a few months I believe because his predecessor resigned very soon into a multi year tour. So we've got a guy. I mean, I'm sure these plans or plants or something like this have been floating around SOCOM and the Pentagon for a long time. They've recently been updated. But you've got a guy who is very new and in his job overseeing this operation, we assume, are we going to hear from the Secretary of State, Are we going to hear from the Secretary of Defense? Are, is it just the President spouting off and saying, you know, here I decided to do this unilaterally. That's, you know, one thing I would like to see is maybe some hint at organization for this administration. But this is what I wanted to say earlier is. Oh, sorry, go ahead.
- [22:53]
General Mark Hertling
No, Ben, it's a great point because you and I have talked a lot about why HOLY resigned or why he agreed to early retirement. Could it have been the boat strike or could it have been because he knew this plan was on the table. And he's the guy in charge of all of the South American countries and Latin American countries. And he's saying, he's probably saying, this is not a good idea, fellas. You're going to get yourself into another Iraq war. So that could be a rationale and that's, you know, it's kind of speculation, but it could be true. I'm sorry, Ben, for interrupting.
- [23:26]
Ben Parker
No, I would be interested to hear from him about that and that I was going to make this point earlier just as a little sort of devil's advocate to Sarah, but it is possible, I think, that if this is really it, if we just went in, bombed a bunch of stuff, snatched Maduro left, that maybe politically this redounds to Trump's benefit. And he's able to say, sort of like he did after the Abu Bakr Baghdadi raid in his first term, and, you know, we went in, it was so impressive, I did it myself. He died like a dog, whatever. And that, you know, the Republican Party, the rank and file voters might say, like, oh, that was great. That wasn't a 20 year forever war. That was a quick snatching time. And then ignore all the downstream consequences that definitely will affect us for decades to come.
- [24:10]
Sam
I'll just add on to that, that, and I'm stealing from Michael Weiss here, the foreign policy reporter. But there are, there's enough evidence now that Trump likes acts of war, but not war. That little operations here and there, that. Not little big operations here or there, but that don't last very long, that he can then point to and say, I did it swiftly and I did it while keeping our hands relatively clean, are things he likes. And in fact, he was talking about watching this operation unfold and how thrilling it was for him to see. So I'm, I get what Ben is saying. I think that's where we're probably heading, judging by history, is that Trump will have done this and then whatever the consequences are. The only flip side, of course, is that if this descends into chaos, right.
- [24:51]
Sarah
A real problem, that's the thing, right, is like these things can get away from one awfully quickly. And so that might be his plan, and maybe that does work. But the one thing I would just say, and this is why it's so important to understand what is our stated objective is are we in the business then of taking out people that we say are narco terrorists as heads of state? Because there are a lot more of those. And so if, if that is what we're doing, then we may find ourselves being this. It can get out of, it can get out of his hands in a bunch of ways and get out of his hands, specifically in Venezuela. And it can get out of his hands as a pattern of things that he has now committed himself to doing as part of American foreign policy.
- [25:38]
Sam
And then, and then on top of that, Mark, there is the chance. There's, of course, the, the signal sense to China and Russia, which is, hey, you can do the same.
- [25:47]
General Mark Hertling
Exactly.
- [25:48]
Sam
We have no authority to say no.
- [25:50]
General Mark Hertling
That's what I was going to say. That's exactly right. We were showing the example of what right looks like. We've taken out a dictator. You know, you could apply the same thing to Putin against Zelensky in 2022. That's who he wanted to destroy. He tried to kidnap him a couple times. So. And is. Is China going into Taipei to do the same thing? Is North Korea going to go into South Korea? I mean, the, the possibilities are endless as soon as you bless it by the most. Allegedly the most democratic country in the world with the biggest amount of military strength and superpower.
- [26:24]
Sam
Yeah, we're still waiting here for Donald Trump. This is Mar a Lago, where he's been. There is something I don't think unsettling or anything because he basically lives in Mar a Lago, but it is a little bit weird that he's in his palatial country club having just dined on caviar, and we're doing regime change war a couple days after the fact. I will note, as we're sitting here and just waiting for him, the Democratic response to this just in my inbox. Ken Martin, DNC Chair, sends a fundraising appeal saying, another day, another unconstitutional war for Trump, who thinks the Constitution is a suggestion Congress has war powers. The Republican cowards are hiding under their desks while Trump orders an unauthorized attack against Venezuela. The, the preponderance of the Democratic response to this has been skepticism, with a caveat. Some lawmakers in Florida with fairly robust Venezuela populations have been supportive of this. It's an interesting thing because I just got to think back to, you know, the Bush era, when Democrats felt incredibly vulnerable and scared about this type of stuff and were supportive of the war. By and large. I don't think the party's in that position now, and I don't think that's going to be the case. I think they're going to come down fairly hard on Trump for this, regardless of whether it turns out to be a success or not. But maybe my read is wrong. Ben, what do you think the Democratic response will be or should be?
- [27:45]
Ben Parker
You know, basically everyone's a hypocrite here, you know, because, you know, General Hertling did, you know, talk earlier about Operation Just Cause in which we did a sort of similar thing. So if you're worried about China and Russia, first of all, I don't think they actually care about legal justifications. They're going to do what they want to do. So I don't think they're looking at this one way or another. I mean, of course they're looking at. I don't think they're honestly changing their, their moral or legal calculations as far as domestic politics. You know, it's going to be difficult if you're a Democrat to say a, this is unconstitutional, but what we did in Libya under Obama was fine to say. Or for that matter, the, the raid to take on Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. It's going to be difficult if this ends up being successful and we get out with limited damage and Maduro successfully trying to convict it to criticize the way this was done without looking like a Maduro apologist. I think some Democrats are going to be able to do it, but it could be a, you know, as Trump is waving the flag and you'll rah rah the troops and all that. It could be a difficult line for Democrats to tell.
- [28:55]
Sarah
But you know who it's not difficult for? For Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has tweeted the following. Let's just check in with MTG on what she said. She said she served on Homeland Security Committee for the past three years. One safe border. She's against, you know, these narco terrorists, but she says Mexican cartels are primarily and overwhelmingly responsible for killing Americans with deadly drugs. If US Military action and regime change in Venezuela was really about saving American lives from deadly, deadly drugs, then why hasn't the Trump administration taken action against Mexican cartels? That's a good point. And if prosecuting narco terrorists is a high priority, then why did President Trump pardon the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is convicted and sentenced for 45 years of trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into America? The next obvious observation is that by removing Maduro, this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change, war in Iran. Anyway, she goes on regime change, funding foreign wars, American tax dollars being consistently funneled to foreign causes. She's against it. So anyway, the point is she could do it without being a hypocrite there is the. To the extent that she does lead or at least represent kind of a very specific American for America first kind of faction. Those. Those types, I think, are going to be mad about this because it was a. One of their specific and stated reasons for supporting Trump.
- [30:18]
Sam
You're just like. I mean, JVL's heart is pumping right now.
- [30:22]
Sarah
I know. I'm not usually. I'm not usually one to pump up. Marjorie Taylor Greene is like the voice of reason the way some of our. No, but it's, it's.
- [30:31]
Rocket Money Advertiser
But.
- [30:31]
Sam
But in this case, she is consistent. I mean, people are pulling up these old Tulsi tweets from 2019 where it's just like, never do no regime change, war in Venezuela. And like, like, it doesn't take much to dig into Trump or J.D. van saying, you know, we're not going to get, you know, engulfed in these ventures overseas. So there is hypocrisy there. I. That's where, I guess, I suppose I disagree with Ben a little bit, which is. I don't know if Democrats have to really hold back. I mean, this is a case where Trump did promise a certain foreign policy and seems to be moving against it and operating without any congressional oversight whatsoever. I mean, it seems pretty simple attack for me, I don't think. And obviously the polling shows that voters are a little bit skeptical of this. Yes, you don't want to look like an apologist for Maduro, and that's why you're getting a lot of throat clearing in these statements. But it does seem like Democrats feel fairly confident. They can argue that Trump's not out of control, but swinging wildly on foreign policy. All right, there is a new video that the RNC has put out of the Caracas raid they set it to. What is the band that they sent to? Was it Leonard Skynyrd?
- [31:44]
Pete Hegseth
Clear.
- [31:44]
Sam
Credence, thank you very much. I appreciate it. We're gonna try to play it. We have to play it.
- [31:48]
Ben Parker
How did none of you old guys know Credence? I mean, I haven't heard it.
- [31:53]
Sam
I got a little confused. We're gonna. I know, because we're not allowed to. We're not allowed to play the song without copyright problems, but let's play the video. I want Mark to talk.
- [32:02]
Sarah
Something that I guarantee you the Trump administration also doesn't have.
- [32:05]
Sam
They don't give.
- [32:05]
Pete Hegseth
Yeah.
- [32:06]
Sam
They don't care. Let's see if we can play this because it is the first sort of video we've gotten of what actually happened. So, Mark, just walk us through if you can see anything, what's going on here?
- [32:16]
General Mark Hertling
Yeah, I can see right now there's two and then a follow on couple of three ships of either CH47s, the big, what they call Big Wendy's, the two bladed helicopters. And then you've probably got a couple of Apaches following them. At the same time you're seeing explosions, simultaneous explosions in different locations, which means there's the. The helicopters are flying through a pathway where aircraft are probably striking. These are. Yeah, the initial ones were, were rocket burst. I don't know what the hell that was. That just looks like second secondary explosions from something. But what they're hitting at this point, from what I understand is, is one of the major air force bases inside the center of Caracas. There's a military base right in the center of the city. And you can see a lot of citizens are taking a lot of smoke, a lot of fire, a lot of explosions. So you're getting secondary explosions from initial blasts. So that, that tells you that whoever is firing kinetic devices are hitting the mark and they're doing a pretty good job. But it's also smack dab in the middle of the city at whatever time it was 2:30 in the morning or whenever they struck. So yeah, it's war porn is what it is. It's what soldiers call war porn. Just seeing people getting destroyed and killed and explosions going off.
- [33:43]
Sam
And can you talk a little bit in detail about what sort of goes into that operation, how much prep work, takes the plan?
- [33:49]
General Mark Hertling
A lot of prep work. If you're talking about getting a force on the ground of special operators, either Delta Force or SEAL teams or Rangers or anybody else you may have included, and the fact that they are using Delta for this, which is a pretty good force in terms of larger sizes as opposed to SEAL teams, which are smaller units, that means that they were trying to cover down on a bunch of different areas. They were inserting them likely with helicopters. I don't think we had any airborne or parachute drops into this area. It was mostly probably aviation helicopter insertions. And while that was happened simultaneously, the aircraft, probably fighter jets of different types were knocking ground targets or striking ground targets. And you probably had something called an AC130, which is a large C130 aircraft that can shoot cannons out the side door. And they are extremely accurate. They've been using those against boats in the western Pacific. You can tell by the explosions around the boats that are different from the one blast that destroys a boat which we see in the Caribbean. So yeah, first of all just the very synchronization of firepower is really difficult to do, but these guys practice it all the time. But when you synchronize the firepower of striking ground targets and destroying air defense so other helicopters can't be shot down with the insertion of special operators, either SEAL teams or Delta forces, with potentially a lot of rangers on board too. I mean, that's, it's, it's a complex operation for sure, but that's what they train to do. They train 24 hours a day for that kind of operation.
- [35:46]
Sam
Are you surprised and sorry, I'm just peppering Mark with questions here, but are you surprised that they didn't encounter more resistance?
- [35:54]
General Mark Hertling
No, I wasn't. Because usually what preludes an attack like this is jamming or some type of cyber activity where you can't communicate. The other thing it was, you know, two o' clock on a, I think it was around 2:00am on a, on a Saturday morning. So that's usually when most forces aren't all that alert. That's the witching hour for military. That's when you want to attack. Because even if you are on guard during that period, you're getting sleepy between two and three in the, in the morning, you're really kind of starting to nod off saying, hey, nothing's going on. So I'm going to relax a little bit. But you got to imagine that as the aircraft who have been reported to have turned their transponders off and they have stealthy configurations where they can get in under radar and not be seen. They're capable of doing these kind of things and they've cleared the airspace from all other aircraft by putting out the notams for commercial airliners. So you've got nothing but military aircraft with transponders turned off. And most, most of them are pretty stealthy in terms of what they do.
- [37:07]
Sam
I'm going to pull up a picture now that Trump posted this is Maduro on the US Iwo Jima, bottle of water in hand. Looks like.
- [37:19]
General Mark Hertling
Yeah, yeah. So they're depriving him of all senses. So they've got him looks like handcuffed. They've got dark, you know, you can't see through those glasses he's wearing. And they've got headphones on him so he can't hear either. And they've, I don't know if those are the, his pajamas or a sweatsuit they would issue. I would think it's the latter.
- [37:40]
Sam
Okay. Why would they deprive him of all senses?
- [37:43]
General Mark Hertling
Well, first of all, because they, they really don't know where. They don't want him to know where he is. He knows he's on a ship somewhere, but he, if they took him to the Iwo Jima. And it even says that on board Iwo Jima is a Navy ship, but it's also the one that carries Marines. So that's one of the ships that will carry a Marine Expeditionary Force or a Marine Expeditionary Unit, a MEF or a mu. It will also have a whole bunch of helicopters. It will have a landing dock behind the ship. So it's smaller than an aircraft carrier with a little bit of different mission, but it does have a landing deck. And there's a whole boatload of troops on this thing. There's probably, I would guess probably a normal contingent of about 2,500 Marines on board this ship.
- [38:31]
Sam
Got you. We're bouncing around a little bit because we're still waiting for Donald Trump now 30 minutes late. But one of the things he said in his Fox interview and Sarah, I'm going to kick this one to you because it does get to sort of motivations and there's the question of, you know, obviously, is it the oil? Is it the drugs? What is it? He did notably compare Maduro's election to his own 2020 election loss. He said the election Maduro was a disgrace, just like my election loss was a disgrace. 2020 was a disgrace. 2024 was too big to rig, frankly. Maduro's election wasn't a hell of a lot, wasn't a hell of a lot worse than what they did to us in 2020. There's also, and I, it seems wild, but it, you know, we will summer. Our, our expert on the conspiracy, adult right. Says he believes it's not appreciated enough. There's been a long standing election conspiracy in MAGA circles that Venezuela was involved in rigging the voting machines in 2020. And that might have factored into Trump's animus towards Maduro. It's crazy, it's disproven. But Will at least thinks maybe this is a motivating reason or one of them. Could it be, I mean, are we at that place? I don't know if there's a way to definitively say yes or no, but clearly Trump has his own election or election loss in 2020 on his mind.
- [40:11]
Sarah
Yeah, I mean, first of all, the 2024 election of Maduro is widely thought by the international community to have been fraudulent. And he like, I am not an expert on this but, and actually Ben and Mark should correct me if I'm wrong. But, but part of what he did was shut out his opposition, right, to keep them from being able to run. And even though they had like initially invited the UN in, like they had invited the international community and like, that they were going to be transparent. And then they, they like, forewent all of that, blocked his opponents. And so, like, it was fraudulent. There is no, and it is funny how much sort of the, the Hugo Chavez's ghost was switching, you know, the votes in the machines. Like, there is like an insane Chavez related, Venezuelan related conspiracy theory on the right around Trump's election. But Trump, of course not. Like, none of that is true. Like, and this is where, if that, if that is part of Trump's calculus, that is Trump's addled, insane conspiracy mind making it up. Like, there's no way that, and if, if Trump's election lies, not only it's funny, because it is January 3, we are up on the anniversary of the January 6 attacks, which were the result of Trump telling that lie and, and really shoving that particular election conspiracy theory, you know, both to his fervent supporters as well as more broadly the Republican Party, which refused to challenge him on it, which is like one of the most insane things to happen in American politics. If that is part of it, that is even a scarier reason for us to be doing this. Because if you look, it would make some sense too, if you think, well, Trump is neither offering a consistent position, meaning that he is going to look at other dictators who are narco terrorists and take them out, nor is there a direct American benefit from this. Then you, basically, what you have left is Trump's weird grievance over Venezuela, his belief that they interfered in the election, plus the cosplaying that he likes to do around looking like a tough guy in these, in, in just on the international stage in some way. So that would be wild if that was true. But I don't know who can make sense of what's going on in Trump's head.
- [42:41]
Sam
I mean, he did bring it up. That's the thing. It's, he, he brought it up. Like, I, I, I wouldn't normally, I'd be sitting here being like, this is crazy. I don't even feel comfortable talking about it. There's no way that this is a motivating fact for him. But he brought it up while he was on Fox saying, oh, yeah, my reelection was rigged. Clearly it's in his head. Ben, did Sarah get her facts right? I know I'm putting you on the spot. To, you know, fact check your boss, but whatever.
- [43:04]
Ben Parker
No, yeah. My understanding is that the leader of the opposition in Venezuela is Maria Karina Machado, who was the most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner. She was prevented from running for president, so there was another candidate who was one of her allies, sort of a stand in, I shouldn't say standard. It was another candidate who was presented. He won, he won the election. They, they, they, the opposition basically proved it, and the vote was entirely rigged. I, I have no evidence of this. I've not even seen it reported, but it would not shock me. We should not rule out the possibility that Maria Karina Machado and her people who just said that she wanted to dedicate her Nobel Prize to Trump, has been whispering in Trump's ear about how her election was just like his stolen election. And that's very smart, right on her part to do everything she can to get his support to overthrow the Maduro regime. And it's so easy to tell what pushes Trump's buttons. It's the same reason Vladimir Putin is talking to Donald Trump about how, hey, you know, Zelensky hasn't had an election and, you know, it's kind of rigged over there, too. And we've seen, you know, in good ways and bad, we've seen how easy it is for foreign leaders to figure out how to pass press Trump's personal buttons to change American policy rather than appeal to what's actually in America's interests. And so, who knows, maybe we'll find out in a year or less that this whole operation wasn't actually about helping America do anything or solving a drug problem or solving a security problem or solving a humanitarian problem. It was actually just about Trump being angry about his election loss and taking it out on Maduro.
- [44:38]
Sam
I'll just read Machado has put out a statement on social media. I'll read it as is, quote, given his refusal to accept a negotiated exit, the government of the United States has fulfilled its promise to enforce the law. We have struggled for years. We have given it our all, and it has been worth it. What had to happen is happening. Machado added that Edmundo Gonzalez, who the US has recognized as Venezuela's President elect, must, quote, immediately take office and be recognized as the country's commander of armed forces. But this mark brings us to the what next element here, which is who is going to take over? Is this going to. And, and even if, even if Gonzalez does take over, it's no guarantee that elements of the Maduro regime comply.
- [45:28]
Pete Hegseth
We.
- [45:28]
Sam
And how do we administer that and.
- [45:30]
General Mark Hertling
Who administers it well. And while you were both talking, I was thinking back to my long past and a guy named Ahmed Chalabi who convinced Bush that he needed to be the next president. And I was once told always be fearful of those from foreign countries who speak English and are trying to persuade you to get them enthralled on the shrine. And that's exactly what I think we're seeing to a degree here. But to your question, Sam, there are, let me quote some numbers for you again, because they're important. Comparing this again to the relatively small Panamanian army and security forces it's Venezuela has an estimated between their active military and their militias, about 300,000 soldiers. So that's a pretty big chunk of whether or not you say they're effective or not. They're supplied by Russia and Iran, they've got some good equipment, they're a viable military. And, and it backs up the fact if Trump is true in saying that a couple of our guys were hit during the strike that they conducted, it tells me that somebody was at least fighting back. But it's not just the military. That's part of a security force. What we found in Iraq, again, some additional scar tissue, is when you decapitate a government and you tell people they're not going to get paid or you put everybody on furlough and you have no longer a police force. So a chaotic situation, which already exists in Venezuela and it existed before that because of immigration and economies and food, is only going to get more chaotic. And when you combine that with a lack of security force, not just the military, but also the police, you're asking for dysfunction within your government.
- [47:25]
Sam
So we just brought in Joe Perdicon, our congressional reporter. We did so because, frankly, we're tired. It's 45 minutes of talking. We need some fresh blood here. Donald Trump is 40 minutes late. And so we're going to keep going for a bit. Hopefully he comes on at some point. But Joe's been monitoring the hip. Here we go. So let's go to Trump and then we'll get reaction on the other side.
- [47:50]
Donald Trump
Okay, thank you very much. This is big stuff. Appreciate you being here.
- [47:55]
Sarah
Here.
- [47:59]
Donald Trump
Late last night and early today, at my direction, the United States armed forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela, overwhelming American military power, air, land and sea with was used to launch a spectacular assault. And it was a assault like people have not seen since World War II. It was a force against a heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas to bring outlaw Dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice. This was one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history. And if you think about it, we've done some other good ones, like the attack on Soleimani, the attack on Al Baghdadi, and the obliteration and decimation of the Iran nuclear sites just recently in an operation known as Midnight Hammer. All perfectly executed and done. No nation in the world could achieve what America achieved yesterday. Or frankly, in just a short period of time. All Venezuelan military capacities were rendered perilous as the men in women of our military, working with US law enforcement, successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night. It was dark. The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have. It was dark and it was deadly. But captured. Along with his wife, Celia Flores, both of whom now face American justice, Maduro and Flores have been indicted in the Southern district of New York. Jay Clayton. For their campaign of deadly narco terrorism against the United States and its citizens. I want to thank the men and women of our military who achieved such an extraordinary success overnight with breathtaking speed, power, precision and competence. You rarely see anything like it. You've seen some raids in this country that didn't go so well. They were an embarrassment. If you look back to Afghanistan or if you look back to the Jimmy Carter days, they were different days where a respected country again, like maybe like never before. These highly trained warriors operating in collaboration with US law enforcement caught them in a very ready position. They were waiting for us. They knew we had many ships out in the sea just sort of waiting. They knew we were coming. So they were in a ready, what's called a ready position. But they were completely overwhelmed and very quickly incapacitated. If you would have seen what I saw last night, you would have been very impressed. I'm not sure that you'll ever get to see it, but it was an incredible thing to see. Not a single American service member was killed and not a single piece of American equipment was lost. We had many helicopters, many planes, many, many people involved in that fight. But think of that. Not one piece of military equipment was lost. Not one service member was, more importantly killed. The United States military is the strongest and most fearsome military on the planet by far, with capabilities and skills our enemies can scarcely begin to imagine. We have the best equipment anywhere in the world. There's no equipment like what we have. And you see that. Even if you just look at the boats, you know, we've knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by sea, 90%. Each boat kills 25. On average, 25,000 people. We knocked out 97%. And those drugs mostly come from a place called Venezuela. We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. So we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. And it has to be judicious, because that's what we're all about. We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela. And that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country. It's their homeland. We can't take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. Had decades of that. We're not going to let that happen. We're there now. And what people don't understand, but they understand, as I say this, we're there now, but we're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place. So we're going to stay until such time as we're going to run it, essentially until such time as a proper transition can take place. As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time. They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place. We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave if we needed to do so. We actually assumed that a second wave would be necessary, but now it's probably not. The first wave, if you'd like to call it that. The first attack was so successful, we probably don't have to do a second, but we're prepared to do a second wave, a much bigger wave. Actually, this was pinpoint, but we have a much bigger wave that probably won't have to do. This partnership of Venezuela with the United States of America, a country that everybody wants to be involved with because of what we were able to do and accomplish, will make the people of Venezuela rich, independent and safe. And it will also make the many, many people from Venezuela that are living in the United States extremely happy. They suffered. They suffered. So much was taken from them. They're not going to suffer anymore. The illegitimate dictator Maduro was the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States. As alleged in the indictment, he personally oversaw the vicious cartel known as Cartel de las Solas, which flooded our nation with lethal poison, responsible for the deaths of countless Americans. The many, many Americans, hundreds of thousands over the years of Americans died because of him. Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice and stand trial on American soil. Right now, they're on a ship. They'll be heading to ultimately New York. And then a decision will be made, I assume, between New York and Miami or Florida. But we have people where the overwhelming evidence of their crimes will be presented in a court of law. And I've seen it. I've seen what we have. It's both horrible and breathtaking that something like this could have been allowed to take place. For many years after his term as president of Venezuela expired, Maduro remained in power and waged a ceaseless campaign of violence, terror and subversion against the United States of America, threatening not only our people, but the stability of the entire region. And you all saw it. In addition to trafficking gigantic amounts of illegal drugs that inflicted untold suffering and human destruction all over the country, all over, in particular, the United States, Maduro sent savage and murderous gangs, including the bloodthirsty prison gang Tren de Aragua, to terrorize American communities nationwide. And he did indeed. They were in Colorado. They took over apartment complexes. They cut the fingers off people if they called police. They were brutal, but they're not so brutal now. And I just have to congratulate our military, Pete, and everybody, and our National Guard, because the job that they've done, whether it's in Washington, D.C. where we have a totally safe city, where it was one of the most unsafe cities anywhere in the world, frankly, and now we have no crime in Washington, D.C. we haven't had a killing. We had the terrorist attack a few weeks ago, a little bit of a different kind of a threat, but we haven't had a killing in a long period of time. Six, seven months. We used to have two on average, two a week. In Washington, our capital. We don't have that anymore. The restaurants are opening. Everyone's happy. They're going. They're walking their daughters, they're walking their children, their wives. That walk to restaurants. Restaurants are opening all over Washington D.C. so I want to thank the National Guard, I want to thank our military and I want to thank law enforcement. Been amazing and they should do it with more cities. We're doing it as you know, and we're doing it in Memphis, Tennessee right now. And crime is down. We've just sort of started a few weeks ago, but crime is down now 77%. And the governor of Louisiana called, great person and he wanted us to help him, as you know, in a certain very nice part of Louisiana. And we have done that. And so it was a rough, rough section. And we have crime down. I understand it's down to almost nothing already after two and a half weeks. New Orleans, it's down to almost nothing. And we've only been there for two and a half weeks. Can't imagine why governors wouldn't want us to help. We also helped, as you know, in Chicago and crime went down a little bit there. We did a very small help because we had no, no, we had no working ability with the governor. The governor was a disaster and the mayor was a disaster. But it knocked down crime. But we're pulling out of there 1. When they need us, we'll know. You'll know, you'll be writing about it. And likewise Los Angeles, where we saved Los Angeles early on where the head of the police department made a statement that if the federal government didn't come in, we would have lost Los Angeles. That's after long after the fires. That's when they had the riots in Los Angeles. We did a great job, got no credit for it whatsoever. But that's okay, it doesn't matter. We don't need the credit. But we'll be pulling out. When they need us, they'll call or we'll go back. If we have to, we'll go back. But we did a great job in various cities. But the thing, the place that we're very proud of is Washington D.C. because it's our nation's capital. We took it from being a crime ridden mess to being one of the safest cities in the country. But the gangs that they sent raped, tortured and murdered American women and children. They were in all of the cities I mentioned trend and they were sent by Maduro to terrorize our people. And now Maduro will never again be able to threaten an American citizen or anybody from Venezuela. There will no longer be threats. For years I've highlighted the stories of those innocent Americans whose lives we're so heartlessly robbed by this Venezuelan terrorist. Organization really one of the worst. One of the worst. They say the worst Americans like 12 year old Jocelyn Nungare from Houston. Beautiful Jocelyn Nungarry. What happened to her? They, as you know, they kidnapped, assaulted and murdered by trend animals. They murdered Jocelyn and left her dead under the bridge. It was a bridge. A bridge that will never be the same to so many people after seeing what happened. As I've said many times, the Maduro regime emptied out their prisons, sent their worst and most violent monsters into the United States to steal American lives. And they came from mental institutions and insane asylums. They came from prisons and jails. The reason I say both, they sound similar, actually. Prisons a little bit more, a little bit more hostile, a little bit tougher. A mental institution isn't as tough as an insane asylum. But we got them both. They sent from their mental institutions, they sent from their jails, prisons. They were drug dealers, they were drug kingpins. They sent everybody bad into the United States, but no longer. And we have now a border where nobody gets through. In addition, Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars. They did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it. They took all of our property, was our property. We built it. And we never had a president that decided to do anything about it. Instead, they fought wars that were 10,000 miles away. We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive and skill. And the socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations and they stole it through force. This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country. Considered the largest theft of property in the history of our country. Massive oil infrastructure was taken like we were babies and we didn't do anything about it. I would have done something about it. America will never allow foreign powers to rob our people of, drive us back into and out of our own hemisphere. That's what they did. Furthermore, under the now deposed dictator Maduro, Venezuela was increasingly hosting foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten U.S. interests and lives. And they used those weapons last night. They used those weapons last night, potentially in league with the cartels operating along our border. All of these actions were in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy dating back more than two centuries. And not anymore. All the way back it dated to the Monroe doctrines. And the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Don Row document. I don't know. It's Monroe Doctrine. We sort of forgot about it. It was very important, but we forgot about it. We don't forget about it anymore. Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again. Won't happen. So just in concluding, for decades, other administrations have neglected or even contributed to these growing security threats in the Western Hemisphere. Under the Trump administration, we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region. And our home region is very different than it was just a short while ago. The future will be. And we did this in my first term. We had great dominance in my first term, and we have far greater dominance right now. Everyone's coming back to us. The future will be determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security. These are core to our national security, just like tariffs are. They've made our country rich, and they've made our national security strong, strong, stronger than ever before. But these are the iron laws that have always determined global power, and we're going to keep it that way. We will secure our borders, we will stop the terrorists, we will crash the cartels, and we will defend our citizens against all threats, foreign and domestic. Other presidents may have lacked the courage or whatever to defend America, but I will never allow terrorists and criminals to operate with impunity against the United States. This extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives. Very importantly, the embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect. The American armada remains poised in position, and the United States retains all military options until United States demands have been fully met and fully satisfied. All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they aren't just fair even to their people. The dictator in terrorists, Maduro, is finally gone. In Venezuela, people are free. They're free again. It's been a long time for them, but they're free. America is a safer nation this morning. It's a prouder nation this morning because it didn't allow this horrible person and this country that was doing very bad things to us, it didn't allow it to happen. And the Western Hemisphere is right now a much safer place to be. So I want to thank everybody for being here. I want to thank General Raisin Cain. He's fantastic, man. I've worked with a lot of generals. I worked with some I didn't like. I worked with some I didn't respect. I worked with some. They just weren't good. But this guy is fantastic. I watched last night one of the most precise attacks on sovereignty. I mean, it was an attack for justice. And I'm very proud of him. And I'm very proud of our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, who I'm going to ask to say a few words. Thank you very much.
- [69:01]
Ben Parker
Can you explain how the US will run Venezuela?
- [69:04]
Rocket Money Advertiser
Well, thank you, Mr. President. Finally, a commander in chief the world respects and the American people deserve. And as the President said, words can barely capture the bravery and the power and the precision of this historic operation. A massive joint military and law enforcement raid flawlessly executed by the greatest Americans our country has to offer. American warriors are second to none. The best in the world and the best of our country.
- [69:33]
Pete Hegseth
What I.
- [69:33]
Rocket Money Advertiser
What all of us witnessed last night was sheer guts and grit, gallantry and glory of the American warrior. I'm simply humbled by such man. Such men. And I tip my hat to our Chairman Dan Raisin Cain and all those Americans who stood watch last night. Our warriors are the elite of America. And again, President Trump has your back. No other country on planet Earth, and it's not even close, could pull this kind of operation off. And no other president has ever shown this kind of leadership, courage and resolve. The most powerful combination the world has ever seen. As the President said, our adversaries remain on notice. America can project our will anywhere, anytime. The coordination, the stealth, the lethality, the precision. The very long arm of American justice, all on full display in the middle of the night. Nicolas Maduro had his chance, just like Iran had their chance. Until they didn't. And until he didn't, he effed around and he found out. President Trump is deadly serious about stopping the flow of gangs and violence to our country. Deadly serious about stopping the flow of drugs and poison to our people. Deadly serious about getting back the oil that was stolen from us. And deadly serious about re establishing American deterrence and dominance in the Western Hemisphere. This is about the safety, security, freedom and prosperity of the American people. This is America first. This is peace through strength. And the United States War Department is proud to help deliver it. Welcome to 2026 and under President Trump, America is back. I'd like to welcome now our chairman, Chairman Raisin Cain to give a few more details about the operation.
- [71:40]
Sarah
Mr. Chairman.
- [71:43]
Pete Hegseth
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. President. And good morning. Last night, on the order of the President of the United States and in support of a request from. From the Department of justice. As the President said, the United States military conducted an apprehension mission in Caracas, Venezuela to bring to justice two indicted persons, Nicholas and Cecilia Maduro. This operation, known as Operation Absolute Resolve, was discreet, precise and conducted during the darkest hours of January 2nd and was the culmination of months of planning and rehearsal. An operation that frankly, only the United States military could undertake. What I'd like to do this morning is talk to you through some of the preparation and the details without compromising any of our tactics, techniques and procedures. There is always a chance that we'll be tasked to do this type of mission again. Our interagency work began months ago and built on decades of experience of integrating complex air, ground, space and maritime operations. While the past two decades have honed the skills of our special operations forces, this particular mission required every component of our joint force. With soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and guardians. Working in unison with our intelligence agency partners and law enforcement teammates in an unprecedented operation, we leveraged our unmatched intelligence capabilities and our years of experience in hunting terrorists. And we could not have done this mission without the incredible work by various intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA and nga. We watched, we waited, we prepared, we remained patient and professional. This mission was meticulously planned, drawing lessons from decades of missions over the last many years. Decades? Many missions over these last many years. This was an audacious operation that only the United States could do. It required the utmost of precision and integration within our joint force. And the word integration does not explain the sheer complexity of such a mission. An extraction so precise it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western hemisphere in close coordination, all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single purpose. To get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical surprise. Failure of one component of this well oiled machine would have endangered the entire mission. And failure is never an option for America's joint force. Those in the air over Caracas last night were willing to give their lives for those on the ground and in the helicopters. Let me talk a little bit about the preparation. After months of work by our intelligence teammates to find Maduro and understand how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets. In early December, our force was set pending a series of aligned events. Key was choosing the right day to minimize the potential for civilian harm and maximize the element of surprise and minimize the harm to the indicted personnel. So as the President said, that could be brought to justice. And as the President said earlier, Today, weather in Venezuela is always a factor this time of the year and over the weeks, through Christmas and New Year's, the men and women of the United States military sat ready, patiently waiting for the right triggers to be met and the President to order us into action. Last night, the weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could maneuver through ocean, mountain, low clouds, ceilings. But when tasked with a mission, this organization does not quit. At 10:46pm Eastern time last night, the President ordered the United States military to move forward with this mission. He said to us, and we appreciate it, Mr. President, good luck and Godspeed. And those words were transmitted to the entire Joint force. Over the course of the night, aircraft began launching from 20 different bases on land and sea across the Western Hemisphere. In total, more than 150 aircraft, bombers, fighters, intelligence reconnaissance, surveillance, rotary wing were in the air Last night, thousands and thousands of hours of experience were airborne. Our youngest crew member was 20 and our oldest crew member was 49. And there's simply no match for American military might. As the night began, the helicopters took off with the extraction force, which included law enforcement officers, and began their flight into Venezuela at 100ft above the water. As they approached Venezuelan shores, the United States began layering different effects provided by Spacecom, Cybercom and other members of the interagency to create a pathway overhead. Those forces were protected from aircraft, were protected by aircraft from the United States Marines, the United States Navy, the United States Air Force and the Air National Guard. The force included F22s, F35s, F18s, E, A18s, E2s, B1 bombers and other support aircraft, as well as numerous remotely piloted drones. As the force began to approach Caracas, the Joint Air component began dismantling and disabling the air defense systems in Venezuela, employing weapons to ensure the safe passage of the helicopters into the target area. The goal of our air component is was and always will be to protect the helicopters and the ground force and get them to the target and get them home. As the force crossed the last point of high terrain where they'd been hiding in the clutter, we assessed that we had maintained totally the element of surprise as the helicopter force ingressed towards the objective at low level. We arrived at Maduro's compound at 1:01am Eastern Standard Time, or 2:01am Caracas local time. And the apprehension force descended into Maduro's compound and moved with speed, precision and discipline towards their objective and isolated the area to ensure the safety and security of the ground force while apprehending the indicted persons. On arrival into the target area, the helicopters came under fire and they replied with that fire with overwhelming force and self defense. One of our aircraft was hit but remained flyable and as the President said earlier today, all of our aircraft came home and that aircraft remained flyable during the rest of the mission. As the operation unfolded at the compound, our air and ground intelligence teams provided real time updates to the ground force, ensuring those forces could safely navigate the complex environment without unnecessary risk. The force remained protected by overhead tactical aviation. Maduro and his wife, both indicted, gave up and were taken into custody by the Department of Justice, assisted by our incredible US Military with professionalism and precision, with no loss of US Life. After securing the indicted persons, the force began to prep for departure. Helicopters were called in to exfiltrate the extraction force, while fighter aircraft and remotely piloted aircraft provided overhead coverage and suppressive fire. There were multiple self defense engagements. As the force began to withdraw out of Venezuela. The force successfully exfiltrated and returned to their afloat launch bases and the force was over the water at 3:29am Eastern Standard Time with indicted persons on board. And both Maduro and his wife were embarked aboard the USS Iwo Jima. In closing, what we've witnessed today is a powerful demonstration of America's joint force. We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again, not to get it right, but to ensure that we cannot get it wrong. Our jobs are to integrate combat power so when the order comes, we can deliver overwhelming force at the time and the place of our choosing against any foe, anywhere in the world. I am immensely proud today of our joint force and filled with gratitude to represent them here today. There is simply no mission too difficult for these incredible professionals and the families that stand by them and support them. As we stand here this morning, our forces remain in the region at a high state of readiness, prepared to project power, defend themselves and our interests in the region. This operation is a testament to the dedication and unwavering commitment to justice and our resolve to hold accountable those who threaten peace and stability. In closing, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the brave men and women who executed this mission. Their courage and tireless commitment to our nation are what makes us strong. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And thank you, Mr. President.
- [82:18]
Marco Rubio
Well, I don't have much to add to what you've heard now, other than the following points. Nicolas Maduro was indicted in 2020 in the United States. He is not the Legitimate president of Venezuela. That's not just us saying it. The first Trump administration, the Biden administration, the second Trump administration, none of those three recognize them. He's not recognized by the European Union. In multiple countries around the world, he is a fugitive of American justice with a $50 million reward, which I guess we saved $50 million. And just to make sure. Yeah, exactly.
- [82:47]
Donald Trump
But don't let anybody claim it. Nobody deserves it but us.
- [82:52]
Marco Rubio
But I want to be clear about one thing. Nicolas Maduro had multiple opportunities to avoid this. He was provided multiple very, very, very generous offers and chose instead to act like a wild man. Chose instead to play around. And the result is what we saw tonight. The other message here is the following. You have a guy, like many people around the world, they like to play games. You have a guy who decides he's going to invite Iran into his country, is going to, you know, do the confiscation of American oil companies, is going to flood our country with gang members, is going to take Americans prisoner and try to hold them for hostage and trade him like he was able to do with the Biden administration. Basically likes to play games all this time and thinks nothing's going to happen. And I hope what people now understand is we have a President, the 47th President, United States is not a game player. When he tells you that he's going to do something, when he's good, tells you he's going to address a problem, he means it, he actions it. I, I can tell you, I've watched this process now for 14, 15 years, been around it. Everybody talks. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that when I get there. We're going to do this, we're going to take. This is a president of action. Like, I don't understand yet how they haven't figured this out. And now, if you don't know, now you know, because this is the way it's going to play out. And I think people need to understand that this is not a president that just talks and does letters and press conferences. And, you know, if he says he's serious about something, he means it. And this is something that was a direct threat to the national interest of the United States. And the president addressed it. There's a president of peace, by the way, I told you what I just said earlier. This guy had multiple opportunities to find his way somewhere else and figure out another. He could have been living somewhere else right now, very happy, but instead, he wanted to play big boy. And so now, you know, he's got other sets of problems on his hands. And. But I think that the message here should be for the world. But the President doesn't go out looking for people to pick fights with. He's not generally wants to get along with everybody. We'll talk and meet with anybody. But don't play games. Don't play games with this President's in office because it's not going to turn out well. And so I hope that, you know, you know, I guess that lesson was learned last night. And, and we hope it'll be instructive moving forward.
- [85:01]
Sarah
You said that the US Is going to run Venezuela. So who's in power right now?
- [85:05]
Donald Trump
Well, we're going to be running it with a group and we're going to make sure it's run properly. We're going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which will cost billions of dollars. It'll be paid for by the oil companies directly. They will be reimbursed for what they're doing, but that's going to be paid. And we're going to get the oil flowing the way it should be. As you know, it was just a minor flow. It was actually a minor flow for what they have. But we're going to run it properly and we're going to make sure the people of Venezuela are taken care of. We're going to make sure the people that were forced out of Venezuela by this thug are also taken care of.
- [85:43]
Sarah
Mr. President, does the U.S. running the country mean that U.S. troops will be on the ground? How will that work?
- [85:48]
Donald Trump
Well, you know, they always say boots on the ground. Oh, so we're not afraid of boots on the ground. If we have to have we had boots on the ground last night at a very high level, actually. We're not afraid of it. We don't mind saying it, but we're going to make sure that that country is run properly. We're not doing this in vain. This is not. This is a very dangerous attack. This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly. Could have gone very badly. We could have lost a lot of people last night. We could have lost a lot of dignity. We could have lost a lot of equipment. The equipment is less important, but we could have lost a lot. And we're going to make sure that this is proper. We're there now. We're ready to go again if we have to. We're going to run the country.
- [86:30]
Pete Hegseth
Right.
- [86:30]
Donald Trump
It's going to run very judiciously, very fairly. It's going to make a lot of money. We're going to give money to the people. We're going to reimburse people that were taken advantage of. We're going to take care of everybody. It's very important. We couldn't let them get away with it. You know, they stole our oil. We built that whole industry there and they just took it over like we were nothing. And we had a president that decided not to do anything about it. So we did something about it. We're late, but we did something about it. Yeah, please.
- [87:03]
Sam
Why are you explaining the exact mechanism.
- [87:06]
General Mark Hertling
By which you're going to run the country?
- [87:07]
Ben Parker
Are you going to designate a U.S. official, coordinate.
- [87:10]
Donald Trump
It's all being done right now, designating people. We're talking to people, we're designating various people, and we're going to let you know who those people are.
- [87:20]
Sarah
That would run Venezuela.
- [87:21]
Donald Trump
Well, it's largely going to be for a period of time, the people that are standing right behind me, we're going to be running it. We're going to be bringing it back. It's a. It's a dead. You know, I talk about a dead country. A year and a half ago, we were a dead country. Now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're a country doing better than any country anywhere in the world. And it required leadership. Venezuela has a lot of bad people in there, a lot of bad people that shouldn't be leading. We're not going to take a chance at one of those people. Take over for Maduro so you can look at. And others. We have fantastic people, including people in the military. So we're going to have a group of people running it until such time as it can be put back on track. Make a lot of money for the people and give people a great way of life. And also reimbursement for people in our country that were forced out of Venezuela.
- [88:15]
Sarah
Would be.
- [88:16]
Rocket Money Advertiser
You said earlier today that you weren't going to back Machado to come back.
- [88:19]
Donald Trump
And be the opposition leader in your Fox and Friends interview. And then you also mentioned the vice president of Venezuela.
- [88:25]
Ben Parker
Are you going to work with vice.
- [88:26]
Donald Trump
President of Venezuela or how do you foresee the relationship? I understand she was just sworn in, but she was, as you know, picked by Maduro. So Marco is working on that directly. Just had a conversation with her and she's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again. Very simple, Mr. President.
- [88:47]
Sam
So Colombian President Gustavo Petro, you know, a couple weeks ago he said he's got to watch his ass.
- [88:53]
Ben Parker
And today he said he's not concerned.
- [88:54]
Sam
About anything happening to him in the.
- [88:56]
Donald Trump
Aftermath of this operation.
- [88:57]
General Mark Hertling
So just what your message is, he.
- [88:59]
Donald Trump
Has cocaine mills, he has factories where he makes cocaine. And yeah, I think I stick by my first statement. He's making cocaine, they're sending it into the United States. So he does have to watch his ass.
- [89:14]
Sarah
Did you notify any members of Congress in advance, Marco?
- [89:17]
Donald Trump
Do you want to talk about that? Because you were involved. Sure.
- [89:19]
Marco Rubio
We call members of Congress immediately after. This was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on. It was a trigger based mission in which conditions had to be met night after night. We watched and monitored that for a number of days. So it's just simply not the kind of mission you can call people and say, hey, we may do this at some point in the next 15 days. But it's largely a law enforcement function. Remember at the end of the day, at its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American Justice. And the Department of War supported the Department of Justice in that job. Now, there are broader policy implications here, but it's just not the kind of mission that you can pre notify because it endangers the mission.
- [89:55]
Donald Trump
Plus, if I can add one thing to that, Congress has a tendency to leak. This would not be good if they leaked, General. I think it would have been maybe a very different result. But I have to say they knew we were coming at some point. You know, a lot of ships out there, they sort of knew we were coming, we weren't. But. But Congress, Congress will leak and we don't want leakers.
- [90:19]
Sarah
You were one of the only people to watch this all play out live. What was Maduro doing when the US forces entered what I assume would be his home? And also, was there any point where the US was considering if Maduro pushed back or resisted killing Maduro?
- [90:33]
Donald Trump
It could have happened. It could have happened. He was trying to get into a safe place. You know, the safe place is all steel. And he wasn't able to make it to the door because our guys were so fast. They went through the opposition so fast and there was a lot of opposition. You know, people were wondering, do we get him by surprise? Sort of surprise. But they were waiting for something. It was a lot of opposition. There was a lot of gunfire. You saw some of it today. But he was trying to get to a safe place which wasn't safe because we would have had the door blown up in about 47, I think, 47 seconds, they say, on average, regardless of how thick the seal was, it was A very thick door. It was a very heavy door, but he was unable to get to that door. He made it to the door. He was unable to close it. Go ahead, finish.
- [91:23]
Sarah
Where is Maduro going to be in the time being right now? Do you know his exact.
- [91:26]
Donald Trump
Well, eventually, ultimately, ultimately in the near future, he's going to be brought to New York.
- [91:30]
Sarah
And where is he going to be held? Where is he going to be held in New York?
- [91:33]
Donald Trump
That's going to be up to the officials that do these things.
- [91:35]
General Mark Hertling
Mr. President. Mr. President. Mr. President. The U.S. has something of a mixed.
- [91:39]
Sam
Track record of ousting dictators without necessarily.
- [91:42]
General Mark Hertling
A plan for what comes afterwards. Did that weigh on your decision when.
- [91:46]
Donald Trump
We had different presidents? But with me, that's not true. With me, we've had a perfect track record of winning. We win a lot. And we win. If you look at Solemani, you look at Al Baghdadi, you look at the Midnight Hammer. Midnight Hammer was incredible. Right now.
- [92:02]
General Mark Hertling
You.
- [92:03]
Donald Trump
You wouldn't have peace in the Middle East. We if essentially peace in the Middle east because of that. If you didn't. If we weren't successful with Midnight Hammer, you wouldn't have peace in the Middle East. So with me, you've had a lot of. A lot of victory. You've had only victories. You've had no losses. Yeah.
- [92:18]
Sarah
Mr. President, can you.
- [92:20]
Ben Parker
How long do you expect the US.
- [92:21]
Sam
To run Venezuela and how soon do.
- [92:24]
Ben Parker
You want Venezuelan people to hold election?
- [92:25]
Donald Trump
So I'd like to do it quickly, but it takes a period of time. You know, we're rebuilding. We have to rebuild their whole infrastructure. The infrastructure is rotted. It's actually very dangerous. It's, you know, blow up territory. Oil is very dangerous. It's a very dangerous thing to take out of the ground can kill a lot of people. It has killed a lot of people doing just that. The infrastructure is old. It's rotted. Much of it is stuff that we put there 25 years ago, and we're going to be replacing it and we're going to take a lot of money out so that we can take care of the country.
- [93:00]
Sarah
Are you saying that secretary Rubio in.
- [93:02]
Donald Trump
Mr. President, China, Russia and Iran have interests in Venezuela.
- [93:07]
General Mark Hertling
How does this operation affect your relationships.
- [93:09]
Pete Hegseth
With them when it comes to oil And Russia?
- [93:13]
Donald Trump
Well, Russia, when we get things straightened out. But in terms of other countries that want oil, we're in the oil business. We're going to sell it to them. We're not going to say we're not.
- [93:23]
Sam
Going to give it to it.
- [93:24]
Donald Trump
In other Words. We'll be selling oil, probably in much larger doses, because they couldn't produce very much because their infrastructure was so bad. So we'll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries, many of whom are using it now. But I would say many more will come.
- [93:42]
Sarah
Are you saying that, Mr. President? Are you saying that, Mr. President.
- [93:46]
Ben Parker
Thank you.
- [93:46]
Pete Hegseth
What is your message to the people of Venezuela today? Of course, the civilian population specifically, they have a lot of questions.
- [93:53]
Donald Trump
What is your message to the people of Venezuela? You're going to have peace, justice. You're going to have some of the riches that you should have had for a long period of time. It was stolen from you. But you're going to have peace and you're going to have safety, you're going to have justice. You're going to have a country. You're going to have a real country. You're going to have potentially a great country. You know, if you go back 20 years, maybe even a little longer ago, that was a great country and they destroyed it. Remember, I said that if we lose this election, the United States will be Venezuela on steroids. That's what would have happened had we lost the election, the 2024 election. We suffered so badly. When you look at the border from 2020, what, what they did, what Joe Biden administration did to our country should never be forgotten. But if we had to go through another year of that, we wouldn't have. We would be exactly where Venezuela was. In terms. I used to say, if they win, we're going to be Venezuela on steroids. And that's what would have happened.
- [94:51]
Sam
President, thank you.
- [94:52]
Sarah
Are you saying that Secretary Hegseth and Rubio are going to be running Venezuela and will you be sending in US.
- [94:58]
Donald Trump
Military that's working with the people of Venezuela to make sure that we have Venezuela Right? Because for us to just leave, who's going to take over? I mean, there is nobody to take over. You have a vice president who's been appointed by Maduro, and right now she's the vice president and she's, I guess, the president. She was sworn as president just a little while ago. She had a long conversation with Marco and she said, we'll do whatever you need. She, I think she was quite gracious, but she really doesn't have a choice. We're going to have this done right? We're not going to just do this with Maduro, then leave like everybody else. Leave and say, you know, let it go to hell. If we just left, it has zero chance of ever coming back. We'll run it properly, we'll run it professionally. We'll have the greatest oil companies in the world going and invest billions and billions of dollars and take out money, use that money in Venezuela. And the biggest beneficiary are going to be the people of Venezuela. And also, I can't stress this strongly enough, the people that got thrown out of Venezuela that are now in the United States. And frankly, some want to stay and some probably want to go back. Yeah.
- [96:10]
Sarah
In the country. And were any of the detained Americans?
- [96:13]
Donald Trump
Well, right now they're very protected because nobody's going to mess with us. They're very protected. The people of. And we let them know that you better not touch one of them.
- [96:22]
Sarah
Are you concerned that bad elements of the Maduro regime will remain in place?
- [96:27]
Donald Trump
Well, we know who they are. We're on them. And they're acting much differently now than they would have acted two days ago. Okay, wait behind you, please.
- [96:36]
Rocket Money Advertiser
Mr. President, why is running a country.
- [96:37]
Ben Parker
In South America, America first?
- [96:40]
Donald Trump
Well, I think it is because we want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability. We want to surround ourselves with energy. We have tremendous energy in that country. It's very important that we protect it. We need that for ourselves. We need that for the world, and we want to make sure we can protect it. Yes, sir. Please go ahead. Is there a message here for Cuba and Diaz Canel? Well, Cuba is an interesting case. Cuba is, you know, not doing very well right now. That system has not been a very good one for Cuba. The people there have suffered for many, many years. And I think Cuba is going to be something we'll end up talking about because Cuba is a failing nation right now, very badly. Failing nation. And we want to help the people. It's very similar in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we want to also help the people that were forced out of Cuba and living in this country. Do you want to say something about that, Marco, please.
- [97:33]
Marco Rubio
Well, I mean, I just gave you a statement a few minutes ago about, you know, when the president speaks, you should take him seriously. Suffice it to say, you know, Cuba is a disaster.
- [97:42]
Ben Parker
It's.
- [97:42]
Marco Rubio
It's run by incompetent, senile men, and in some cases, not senile, but incompetent nonetheless. It has no economy. It's in total collapse. And by the way, you know, they were, you know, all of the guards that helped protect Maduro. This is well known, their whole spy agency, all that were full of Cubans. I mean, they Basically, it's amazing this poor island took over Venezuela in some cases. One of the biggest problems of Venezuelans have is they have to declare independence from Cuba that tried to basically colonize it from a success security standpoint. So yeah, look, if I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I'd be concerned at least a little bit. Well, the president already announced a week ago that anything that's sanctioned, it's sanctioned oil, it's not going to be allowed to get there. So that. That's pre.
- [98:25]
Rocket Money Advertiser
Existing.
- [98:25]
General Mark Hertling
Mr. President.
- [98:28]
Donald Trump
The answer is. The answer is yes. Yes.
- [98:32]
Sarah
Aware of the location of opposition leader Machado and have you been in contact with her?
- [98:37]
Donald Trump
No, we haven't really. We haven't, Mr. President.
- [98:44]
Sarah
On, on Monday.
- [98:45]
Donald Trump
I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect. Is it possible that the US Ends.
- [98:55]
Rocket Money Advertiser
Up administrating Venezuela for years? You know.
- [98:58]
Donald Trump
Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial. So it's not going to cost us anything. We will. Well, we want safety there. We want to be surrounded by countries that aren't housing all of our enemies all over the world. That's what was happening and you don't want to have that. But we're going to be rebuilding and we're not spending money. The oil companies are going to go in, they're going to spend money. We're going to take back the oil that frankly we should have taken back a long time ago. A lot of money is coming out of the ground. We're going to get reimbursed for all of that. We're going to get reimbursed for everything that we spend. So it's going to be. It's going to be a very important. It's going to be a very important. This is a very big evening that took place last night. We have to be surrounded by safe, secure countries and we also have to have energy. Very important. We have to have energy that's real energy, not where they're getting 4% and 5% of the energy out of the ground. You take a look. It was such a disaster. So what's going to happen with Venezuela, I think over the next period of a year is going to be a great thing. And the people of Venezuela will be the biggest beneficiaries.
- [100:13]
Sarah
U.S. military. Mr. President, thank you. What did you last speak to Maduro about when you spoke and is the.
- [100:18]
Donald Trump
Well, I don't want to get into the conversations, but I did have conversations with him and I said, you got to surrender. And I actually thought he was pretty close to doing so, but now he wished he did. Yeah.
- [100:35]
General Mark Hertling
You said that Maduro is responsible for drug trafficking.
- [100:38]
Ben Parker
You recently pardoned the former president of Honduras who was convicted of many drug trafficking. Can you explain how these two situations are?
- [100:44]
Donald Trump
Well, the, the. I endorsed, as you know, the winning president, the man who won in Honduras. I endorsed the man who won in Chile. I endorsed the man who won in Argentina. And we are doing very well with that whole group. What demand that I pardoned was if you could equate it to us. He was treated like the Biden administration treated a man named Trump. That didn't work out too well for them. This was a man who was persecuted very unfairly. He was the head of the country. He was persecuted very unfairly. And there are a number of them. And we felt that it was a very unfair situation that happened to him. He's also a party member of the man who won. So obviously the people liked what I did. And one of the reasons that was done is because of the fact that the party in power felt very strongly that that man was treated very badly. I studied it very quickly and then I studied it in great detail. I went to a lot of the people standing behind me and they felt that that man was persecuted and treated very badly. That's why I gave him a pardon.
- [101:49]
Sam
You referenced boots on the ground earlier.
- [101:51]
General Mark Hertling
Can you just sort of button this up?
- [101:52]
Sam
Do you envision the US Military having.
- [101:55]
General Mark Hertling
A presence in Venezuela as the US Runs?
- [101:58]
Donald Trump
Well, no, we're going to have presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil, because we have to have. We're sending our expertise in. So you may need something. Not very much, but. No, we're going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground, and that wealth is going to the people of Venezuela and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela, and it goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country. So I want to thank you all very much. Thank you. Do you have one? Yes, please. You were so nice before. I'm going to give you the final question.
- [102:33]
Sarah
Thank you, Mr. President.
- [102:34]
Donald Trump
Unless it's a bad question, in which case I'll go one more.
- [102:37]
Sarah
It's about, it's about Putin, if you want. You had a phone, you had A phone call with him on Monday. Did he talk at all about Maduro? Did you talk about this?
- [102:47]
Donald Trump
No, we didn't. We never spoke about Maduro.
- [102:49]
Sarah
Are you mad at him right now? I mean, there's this.
- [102:50]
General Mark Hertling
I'm not thrilled with Putin.
- [102:52]
Donald Trump
I'm not thrilled with Putin. He's killing too many people. I thought that would be. So I settled 8 1/4 war. You know what the one quarter was? Thailand in Cambodia. I did it again. They were. They broke out. And I did it in about five hours. And I settled it. I'm giving myself one quarter. So I'm up to now eight and one quarter. In other words, I settled the war. But then they broke out. They had a pretty bad breakout over the last four days. I got them to go back to peace. So I only give 1/4. I thought the easiest one would be. One of the easier ones would be Russia, Ukraine. It's not. And they both have done some pretty bad things. And look, that's Biden's war. That's not my war. But I want to stop the lives. Did you see where last month, 30,000 this last. It was 27, 27,000. The month before, 30,000 mostly soldiers were killed this last month, 30,000. I want to stop that. You know, I got NATO to pay 5% instead of the 2% that they weren't paying. They weren't paying 2, now they pay 5. And we send them a lot of munitions, we send them a lot of things, missiles and various other things, a lot. And they pay. The United States is not losing money. We're probably making money on that. It's the last thing I care about. I just want to stop all those people. We're losing 25, 30,000 human beings that come from two places that are very far away. But if I can stop, because it's something I've been pretty good at, doing deals, I guess it's all a deal. Life is a big deal. But if I can stop that war and stop 30,000 young people, in addition to the fact that people are being killed in Kiev, people are being killed in other cities throughout, you know, a much smaller number, but they're being killed, viciously killed. So I'm not happy about it. I thought that would be something that would get solved. We have Mr. Witkoff here. I think that we're making progress. But that's a war that should have never happened. If I were president, it would have never happened. Putin says it, everybody says it. If I were president, that would have never happened. But I inherited that. War. That was Joe Biden, Zelinsky and Putin. I came into the situation, situation, and it's a mess. And I will say this. I watched an operation last night that was so precise, that was so brilliant. I mean, it was incredible. If we had our people like this general and our people involved, that war, that war would not have gone on very long, that I can tell you that. War, to use an old term, that war has become a bloodbath and we want it to get stopped. Thank you very much.
- [105:48]
Sam
Okay, well, we can turn the volume down on Trump and we can start talking about that. Getting a lot to unpack here. I'm just going to go through some of the top lines and then, Sarah, I want you to sort of pick up with your observations. Obviously, the biggest news is we are now going to run a foreign state. We will be administering it. It's unclear who will be administering it, just that some Trump administration officials, along with someone from Venezuela or some groups in Venezuela, notably not Maria Karina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Trump said she doesn't have the support to run Venezuela. I thought that was interesting. And then, of course, we will have boots on the ground. Trump's not ruling it out, saying that we should not be afraid of boots on the ground. Wouldn't say how many, when, for how long. Suggested potentially that it would be to protect oil interests. As for the oil interest, we are going to be drilling oil. We're going to be reconstituting Venezuela's infrastructure, and some of that oil revenue will go in part to us for reproduction, payment for them nationalizing the oil industry there. So a lot to unpack. I'm actually shocked about all that. But, Sarah, go ahead.
- [107:08]
Sarah
First, it is genuinely shocking because in part, we got a ton of information, but that begs questions for an enormous amount of additional information. One of the things you guys can all go dust off your no War for Oil bumper stickers because we are back in the part of. What is astonishing is how upfront they all were about the fact that this is in large part a war for oil, although also it's a war against a dictator who was illegitimately there. And also it is about drug deals, like, so it's about all the reasons. But Trump is very clear. I mean, they are talking about boots on the ground. They're talking about there's a group that's going to be running it, that's going to include Hegseth and Rubio, because Rubio doesn't have enough jobs that he's doing. But that we are going to stay in the country and rebuild their infrastructure. Like, that is madness. And I got to say, one of the striking things as Trump was talking that he was doing is he was both obviously being, you know, I'm a big swinging dick about how we're gonna walk into Venezuela, but also how we are walking into American cities. Like, he was conflating going into Venezuela with like, what we're doing here in America. And he goes on this whole thing about crime and how, why don't they want, like, look, I am on some level still an unrepentant neocon. I think that Maduro is an evil person. I am not sorry for whatever happens to him. He is a murderous dictator. But what we just witnessed is America at its most feckless and irresponsible with to just say to all of us as we are unpacking this, who's going to run it? A group of people. And we're going to stay there and we're going to rebuild the infrastructure and maybe we'll send troops in. Like, that is. That is just. That is. It is information, but it is insane information. I'll stop and let other people go. There's a lot more to talk about.
- [109:16]
Ben Parker
It did.
- [109:16]
Sam
It did give me. I know they're not totally comparable, but gave me real flashbacks to 2002, Mark. They're always going to pay for itself and the reconstruction. We're going to be greeted as liberators by the people there. It would be very easy to prop up a government in a foreign country and we can administer it for a period of time. All those are echoes of the arguments pre Iraq and all turned out to not be true. Again, big differences, different hemispheres. But I was left, and I don't know about you, with real concerns about the lack of thought that appears to have gone into the post operation realities.
- [109:58]
Sarah
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- [111:00]
General Mark Hertling
Yeah, I'll start off by saying even Rumsfeld didn't have this kind of arrogance and hubris. And, and he was pretty bad. And, and I was in the Pentagon when, when the war on Iraq started. My only time in the Pentagon. There were so many things in this. I mean, I, I was scribbling along. First of all, I have to say first off that the Hegseth remarks after the cane, very long description of the operation with a whole lot of hyperbole was just something that, to me personally, is a huge turnoff. You know, it is a guy who's bragging and at the same time being a sycophant. But when he turned, the most shocking moment to me was when Hegseth turned to Rubio and Secretary Rubio said, I don't have anything to add. This is his ball game. Now, as we said before this speech started, you know, the military part, the initial operation that caused this to happen is over. Now it's, how do you fix it? And Rubio, as the secretary of state, national security advisor, and I guess other things now, for him to say, I don't have anything to add, is just shockingly. Well, it's just shocking. Running by a group U.S. troops are not afraid of. Boots on the God on the ground. No, we will go places where we're sent, but this is going to be an extremely difficult mission, especially if it's geared towards oil supplies. The other thing that, you know, the make Venezuela great again was just a seminal moment. But then when Rubio said, this is not the kind of mission you can call Congress about, you can't pre notify them, is just elimination of the three forms of government that we're supposed to have as a democracy. But then when it got into the number of years and how we want to surround ourselves with good people in the Western hemisphere. And when the question was asked, what if we're there for years? And he says, well, it won't cost us anything, that just tells me he's prepared to commit war crimes, taking another nation's natural resources. Now, we may have built oil facilities in Venezuela a few decades ago, but that is not a prerequisite for getting whatever they they mine or strike in their fields. I'm just the best thing about this entire presentation was one of the last things that he said was I'm not thrilled with Putin because he's killing too many people. I wonder who gave him the alert on that because you know, Putin has invaded a sovereign country and that should, that should be a look in the mirror moment.
- [114:18]
Sam
Well, let me just pick up there because you reference, you reference Congress and Joe, I want to bring you in here because the reaction on the Hill has been well on why don't you describe the reaction on the the Hill and, and how it's gone down.
- [114:32]
Joe Perdicon
So early morning I started seeing the kind of like Florida moderate. I say that very lightly. Republicans like Maria Salazar, Carlos Jimenez, Mario Diaz, Bart saying great, this is awesome. We love it. Bart in an interview, in a Spanish language interview said that Cuba is next, which Rubio kind of and Trump both kind of hinted at as like well, you better watch your ass. There's obviously that reaction. There's some outspoken, expected outspoken against it. Republicans like Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene though she's not going to be a member of Congress in a matter of days. The things that stuck out to me that I think are super important to watch is I was taking notes while Trump was talking boots on the ground obviously, but him saying oil companies will be reimbursed, ex Venezuelans will be reimbursed. Those are things where Congress can't just sit on their hands because these are things that will require some kind of appropriation which I don't know if there are enough votes for in a two seat majority where that majority still includes Thomas Massie, maybe some others. So there are a lot of problems that we're going to Congress is going to have to address.
- [115:52]
Sam
Joe, let me ask you, are they going to appropriate for this, I mean or is this just going to come from some operation overseas account that they have? I mean how do you go about funding this stuff? What's it going to cost? What kind of oversight is there going to be? Are the hearings going to be happening to get some answers? Because if we're going to put boots on the ground, if we're going to administer the government of a foreign country for sake, like I would like to know a few details and I expect lawmakers who we elect to get those.
- [116:19]
Joe Perdicon
Details and these things have huge price tags. The things he's talking about, even if it's not a years long thing facilitating security for these oil companies who are these oil companies? The, the, the, the unknowns here? It's just, it's massive.
- [116:37]
Sam
What happens? What happens? Yeah, Ben, what happens if, God forbid, an American service member gets killed in Venezuela? I mean, that's. That we are making real risks here. When we're putting boots on the ground, what's the reaction going to be? Why are we there?
- [116:53]
Ben Parker
Yeah, I mean, it's not clear if, if it didn't seem like even the Trump administration was on the same page. Rubio was saying this was just effectuating the arrest warrant for Maduro, basically, whereas Trump and Hegseth some degree made it sound like we now have a colony. You know, this is the, Sarah said this earlier, but this is the kind of thing where it's clearly not being thought through. And if you keep American service members in Venezuela long enough, eventually one of them will die. It will happen. It happened, by the way, in D.C. with Trump's national Guard deployments. He didn't mention this when he said there were no murders, but there was a murder of a National Guard.
- [117:32]
Sam
He, he, he did reference that. I will.
- [117:34]
Ben Parker
Oh, he did, okay.
- [117:35]
Sam
Yeah, yeah.
- [117:35]
Ben Parker
But, but I mean, if it can happen in D.C. it can certainly happen in Venezuela. And, you know, either you have to decide then that it's not worth it and you pull out and you leave whatever Venezuela is, or you get a sort of Vietnam style situation where you send more troops to protect the troops you already put, and all of a sudden it's 20 years later and you have no idea what you're there for. It's really astonishingly poorly thought through.
- [117:58]
Sam
I couldn't help but think of there's no mission accomplished banner. But Mark's point, the braggadociousness was insane to me. Hegseth saying around and find out, basically, and Rubio saying, you want to play with the big boys, don't play games. It's like these guys are setting themselves up for humiliation.
- [118:17]
Sarah
Well, this is, this is the, this is the will we will be greeted as liberators moment. Right. Like the certainty of how this will all go down and, and look, the ability of, first of all, I want to go back to just this is everything Trump has run against the whole time. And people will see it as a, as a through line of Trump's strongman tendencies, which of course it is, but it is genuinely like this is Bushism with less of a plan. And it is, it is, it is like the Iraq and Afghanistan thing with less of a plan. The Marco Rubio clearly didn't have written remarks right he got up there and spoke off the cuff, which was odd to me. And he was. First of all, let's just talk about the presentation that we were just given. Trump was slurring. He was, he was off going off on wild tangents at a critical moment of information. As a result, like, as is always the case with Trump, we did get quite a bit of information. Like, we got some insights. But then of course, they couldn't give us anything further. Like they, like Trump gives this slurring kind of meandering thing and then you get Hegseth who just is like a, I'm sorry, but like an ass kissing session on Trump, you know, like, and, and, and they all did that. And then Rubio wasn't even prepared to speak, Right. He turns to Ruby and Ruby's like, yeah, I don't have anything to add to that, but I guess what I'll say is, everybody, put your big boy pants on. Because Donald Trump means what he says. And I'm like, what is, what does he mean? He just, he ran an entire, he ran for two terms of a presidency saying that this is the exact thing that America wouldn't be doing. And they've made. And then when he answered the questions right, they were. The reporters in the room asked pretty good questions. Although I would have liked for somebody to really drill down on who's the group running Venezuela. Like, Trump made it very clear we are going to run Venezuela and then made. No. There was no other illumination around what that looks like or what it means. That is an enormous thing to say. Like, we're at war. Like. Yeah, right. Aren't we? Aren't we at war?
- [120:31]
Sam
Well, Mark, and I know you, Mark, it sounds like you got to go after this and so I'm going to let you run.
- [120:35]
General Mark Hertling
No, I'm good. I'm all right.
- [120:37]
Sam
Sure. But are we at war? I mean, is this.
- [120:39]
General Mark Hertling
Yeah, yeah. No, without. Beyond a doubt.
- [120:43]
Donald Trump
And you know what?
- [120:44]
General Mark Hertling
I'll say, too, I've done this before, but I'm going to do it again to make, to reinforce Ben's point. I've got a box on my desk, it looks like this. And on the top of it it says, make it matter. When you open it up, there are the pictures and the cards of 253 soldiers that were lost under commands that I had in Iraq. 253. And this was a war that many people said, as Ben just said, they're going to welcome us as liberators. They're going to allow us to come in and you know, they want Saddam gone and everything's going to be fine. And this is also the same war that Trump said, why didn't we take their oil? And if I was in charge, in fact, I'm honored by the fact that I'm the first general that Trump said he was smarter than, because I told Anderson Cooper that we tried bringing the oil companies in and they wouldn't come in because the situation was so terrorized. So all of these things are coming together for me in a very visceral way because I've been there before. And as we said, as Ben helped me craft in the last article I wrote, the tragedy wasn't that Iraq was hard. The tragedy is we acted as it would be, you know, that it would be really easy. That's the real tragedy. And that's what I'm hearing with this group of two between Hegseth and Rubio. And those are the last two people I would want running a post conflict operation in a country that's just been bombed.
- [122:19]
Ben Parker
These guys aren't doing such a great job running one country. I'm not sure they could handle two.
- [122:24]
Sam
Fair enough. All right, we're coming on two hours of our livestream. We're going to go for a little bit longer. But Joe, who are you going to watch for on the Hill? Like, who is your person who's like, I want to see how they react to this as a sort of bellwether for where the opinion is on this.
- [122:38]
Joe Perdicon
Definitely the Democrats and Republicans on armed services and intel for obvious reasons. But in terms of people who might, Republicans who might be opposed to action, the expected ones, Thomas Massey, Rand Paul. But you could potentially see others emerge, maybe Josh Hawley, maybe some of these people who, who view, well, you know, who view the America first agenda, like the people who were trying to pull Trump towards this isolationism that he pretended to have. Those could be potential voices either in paring back these big plans or watching them fizzle out in certain ways. So there's a, there's a lot of what ifs about this. And especially with the, the makeup of the majority, they have very little room for error to do anything.
- [123:30]
Sam
And I, and I just can't get over the fact that this is, I mean, they were openly embracing the idea that this could just be the first of several countries in which we do this.
- [123:41]
Pete Hegseth
Right.
- [123:41]
Sam
I mean, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico have all.
- [123:44]
Sarah
Come up, but Rubio was acting as though, yeah, oh, yeah, no, we're thinking about Cuba. They were kind of like, this is the, what is the whole Thing about Rubio and his off the cuffness is he was kind of like, yeah, it's a bunch of senile old guys. Like, they should be worried. Like, they're just, like, throwing this stuff out there.
- [123:59]
General Mark Hertling
They, they want a safe neighborhood, so they're going to clean up the block.
- [124:02]
Donald Trump
They're.
- [124:02]
General Mark Hertling
They're going to kick everybody out of their houses on the block and make a safe neighborhood. It just, I mean, he, he was.
- [124:08]
Sam
Calling it the Donro Doctrine. The Donro Doctrine. The, like, absence of any sort of historical thought on this really is confounding. And, I mean, I get it. Like, he, he, Someone probably got on Fox News or whispered in his ear, you can do this much better than anyone else has tried before. You're smarter and more efficient and better at it, and you can run these countries. But, boy, to have some sort of historical basis would be really nice now to know that we're stepping into some really problematic areas. Anyone could pick up on that one. I'm just like. I guess I'm just sort of stunned by what we just went.
- [124:42]
Joe Perdicon
I was a little confused why Stephen Miller was standing there on the edge of the screen, so.
- [124:48]
Ben Parker
Oh. Oh, this is a good one.
- [124:50]
Sam
Yeah, go ahead, though.
- [124:51]
General Mark Hertling
Go ahead.
- [124:51]
Ben Parker
Oh. So the reporting has been that the Venezuela policy in this administration is driven mostly by Rubio and Stephen Miller. Rubio, because he wants to get rid of, or wanted, I guess, to get rid of Maduro. It has always been hostile towards Cuba, and I'm very sympathetic to that. Cuba's terrible. Yeah, the government point. But you heard a lot of this, is what Trump said. We haven't talked about it yet. Miller apparently wants to create conditions to send Venezuelan Americans or migrants from Venezuela back to Venezuela, which required getting rid of the Maduro regime. And, you know, I'm not sure I trust this administration to stop at people who aren't American citizens. But, yeah, that's the theory, that first you topple the government and then you send all the people back. And you heard Trump say again and again, all those people have been forced out of Venezuela. That's part of the goal, I guess, is to repatriate people who have left the country.
- [125:39]
Sam
Yeah, I did pick that up. It does seem like the idea here is dangle a little bit of Venezuelan oil wealth and get any Venezuelan who's in America to come back to Venezuela in exchange for, you know, oil revenue or something like that.
- [125:54]
Ben Parker
So the oil revenue is going to pay for the resettlement of all these Venezuelans, and it's going to pay for the war and it's going to go under the Venezuelan coffers and it's going to, going to go to the oil companies who are going to be reimbursed for all their investments and they're going to reimburse. What the hell, what the hell.
- [126:07]
General Mark Hertling
Mexico is paying for the wall too.
- [126:09]
Sam
Exactly.
- [126:09]
Pete Hegseth
Sure.
- [126:10]
Sarah
Did anybody, did you guys also. So he was asked specifically about the pardon.
- [126:15]
Sam
Yes.
- [126:16]
Sarah
And his answer made no sense to me. Did it make, did it make sense to anybody else?
- [126:21]
Donald Trump
No.
- [126:22]
Sam
I think what I divined from it was that because the Honduran president's political party is currently in power, pardoning him was.
- [126:32]
Ben Parker
Okay, Maduro's party is in power.
- [126:36]
Sam
Well, he's not giving Maduro pardon. I don't know. I, you're trying to make me make sense of it all.
- [126:40]
Donald Trump
You might have to pray.
- [126:41]
Joe Perdicon
He might have to praise Trump a little bit to get a pardon. We'll have to see on that one.
- [126:45]
Sam
I was, I was thinking about that, a little thing. Is Trump going to take the $50 million reward for Maduro's capture? I wouldn't rule it out.
- [126:53]
Sarah
Did you see him say that? You see him where he was like.
- [126:56]
Sam
Don'T let anybody else, don't let anyone else claim it. But he didn't say, I'm going to claim it myself. But might go to, it might go to the ballroom, who knows.
- [127:03]
Sarah
What about him? What about him saying that he talked to what's her name, the, the opposition leader who got the Nobel priest prize? Machado. She's a nice lady, nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect. That was interesting too. I don't know what to make of it other than maybe the theory that she was whispering in his ear.
- [127:23]
Sam
No, I think, I think what I think the easiest thing to make of that is that they have actual designs on who they want to administer the country and they want people who are not independent of them to be in charge of it and that they wanna put in a puppet, basically someone who will just do what they want.
- [127:38]
Ben Parker
And yeah, the problem, they can't, they.
- [127:40]
Sam
Can'T lean on Machado in that sense.
- [127:45]
General Mark Hertling
I, I know I'm the new guy, but can I ask as the military guy, all you really smart people a question?
- [127:50]
Sam
Sure.
- [127:51]
General Mark Hertling
What, what's going to happen on Monday when Congress comes back in session? Because you've got this, you've got the Jack Smith testimony of the other night. You still have the Epstein files. You have the potential close down of the government and health care. Where are they going to focus Their.
- [128:07]
Pete Hegseth
Joe.
- [128:08]
Donald Trump
Joe.
- [128:10]
Joe Perdicon
So it's going to be very chaotic to say the least.
- [128:15]
General Mark Hertling
Okay. It's an old soldier. I know that.
- [128:20]
Sam
I probably paid Joe the big bucks.
- [128:21]
Joe Perdicon
Yeah. I think there's just going to be, there's going to be like so many members of Congress on the Democratic side trying to carve out their own lane, introducing a flurry of bills to condemn or pull back. This, that won't go anywhere. You might see some coalition start to form and allies to figure out a compromise that won't go anywhere either. And this is a massive issue, obviously, but like the number one thing they have to deal with right now is healthcare. And it's. That is going to consume their time more than anything. And so other than, I think the early part of this week, I don't anticipate a heavy foreign policy debate right away in, in Congress because there's so many things they have to address that are, that are more pressing and more dangerous for them politically than anything.
- [129:11]
Sarah
I mean that's crazy than we just invaded a country and deposed its leader.
- [129:16]
Joe Perdicon
Oh, in, in terms of how they. They, you know, at the ballot box.
- [129:22]
Donald Trump
Yeah.
- [129:22]
Joe Perdicon
Healthcare. Healthcare is, is still the number one issue in politics and they are going to have to deal with that because they have not dealt with it. I think that is going to still take precedence. I think you're going to even see maybe some Democrats attempt to reorient and keep the focus on health care because they view it as politically valuable.
- [129:42]
Marco Rubio
So.
- [129:42]
Joe Perdicon
Yeah, I don't think this has a lasting effect to the degree that some of the other issues before Congress do.
- [129:50]
Sam
I'm not totally unconvinced. Health care premium is about to rise or are rising thousands and they do have a draw. Am I right that there. The discharge petition is going to force a vote in the House on health care anyway, so it's going to come to the fore. Yeah. I don't know. There's so much to deal with right now.
- [130:09]
Sarah
But this, but this is, this is an important political point which is. And, and Joe, I do want to know whether people in Congress are mad at all about not being consulted about any of this. Feels like they could be pissy about this.
- [130:23]
Ben Parker
But.
- [130:24]
Sarah
Do you want to answer that really quickly?
- [130:25]
Joe Perdicon
There's, there's been some reporting this morning that the Gang of eight was notified, which was, was surprising because they weren't for the boat strikes.
- [130:35]
Ben Parker
But it's sounds like.
- [130:37]
Sarah
Did you. Yeah. Did you hear him saying like they're leaky. They leak. You can't, you cannot trust our own.
- [130:43]
Sam
Maybe, maybe notified as it was happening, but definitely not beforehand.
- [130:47]
Joe Perdicon
According no, Manu Raja reported that Gang of eight was notified in advance. Okay, Gang of eight doesn't leak.
- [130:54]
Sarah
Okay, so then, so then just take, take. So if Congress has all of those things to deal with, premiums about to go up. We now are in a land war in Venezuela, which we are occupying and which we are nation building. As best I can, like to everybody's point here, the echoes of our most recent foreign policy failure blunder. You know, I mean these are, these are everything Trump ran against. He's going to be doing that. Like there is nothing about this that is politically advantageous for Trump. The civil war, other than it's a distraction from Epstein, I guess, or distraction from some of the other bad things he's doing. But I don't know. The civil war in the Republican Party that's already being torn apart by Israel, Palestine, who's taking over? Charlie Kirk. This feels like it adds another dimension to sort of the America Firsters versus some of the people who are, you know, Trump apologists or maybe old school Republicans who still believe in stuff like that. I don't know. But what is going to happen now? This is, seems like politically it's bad for Trump.
- [131:55]
Joe Perdicon
Oh, absolutely, I'd agree with that. Where there's this like. And that's why I mentioned Josh Hawley. Maybe it's not him, maybe it's somebody else. But you could see America Firsters kind of break from this if, if they, if they see it as a political advantage the way that some have with the Epstein files or maybe they commit to it the way like Boebert and Green and so I did so well.
- [132:20]
Sam
Guys, I gotta, I'm gonna take a point of personal privilege. I'm seeing privilege here. We're at 2 hours and 10 minutes, I'm exhausted and my kids birthday party is in a little bit. So I'm gonna try to close us out with some final thoughts. Mark, look, I'm gonna, where you and I are gonna talk after this because I think you should do some pop up podcasting here around what happens. But I'm just sort of curious, what are you looking for? Like what are the main things you're looking to see in the, in the weeks ahead here?
- [132:50]
General Mark Hertling
The first thing is who's going to be in charge. I mean that's a critical piece all the time. What we've had over the last couple of months is special operators doing their thing and now we've had a synchronized attack, but those are tactical battles Those aren't even operational campaigns. Those are tactical battles. And now we're looking at what is the strategy, what is going to happen, what is the United States really trying to do and how are they going to do it? What are the resources, the ways and the means they're going to use them to reach that end state. And what I tell you, Sam, it's just hard to do those kind of things. And if you haven't thought about how you're going to do that before you conduct a tactical strike like this, it's even harder and more chaotic. And that's what we're going to see because there's, you know, it depresses me a little bit what Joe just said about it refocusing on health care. I understand that, but as Sarah said, we're. We're at war.
- [133:58]
Donald Trump
You're.
- [133:58]
General Mark Hertling
You said it. We're at war right now. I mean, we've just attacked another country and it's not the top priority in this administration right now. That scares the bejesus out of me.
- [134:10]
Sam
Yeah. Okay. Well, look, we're obviously going to keep covering this. It's a huge moment for our country, for the world, frankly. And it's going to be center to our coverage for sure, guys. Yeah. Thank God we have Mark, honestly, Sarah, Ben, Joe, Mark, thank you for just diving in on this Saturday morning. I honestly cannot believe it's just Saturday. I felt like it's been Sunday for four days now. We'll be following the story to the people who came on and watched us and followed us on YouTube. Thank you, guys. Really appreciate it. Your support really helps, you know, helps us stand up operations like this. So become a BULL subscriber if you can, and we'll be talking to you again throughout the year. Take care, guys. Have a great rest of your week.