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Deadline: White House
“What does it mean to run Venezuela?”
00:42:44
Nicolle Wallace covers the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Maduro and his wife were arraigned in New York today on counts of drug trafficking and other crimes. Both pleaded not guilty and Maduro maintains that he is still the President of Venezuela.
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why Is this Happening? Gia Tolentino, staff writer at the New Yorker, on what this news cycle combined with social media together are doing to our brains.
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B
The things that are fake look extremely real. The things that are real are almost unbelievable. And then the result is this slurry in our mind that causes this permission structure to detach from the material reality of the world.
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A
That's this week on why Is this Happening? Search for why is this Happening? Wherever you're listening right now, and follow.
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C
Hi, everyone, it's Paul Clark in New York. What exactly what precisely does it mean to any of us, to anyone to run Venezuela? That is the $64 million question at the moment, the question on which America's standing in the world hinges on right now. That's after the Trump administration launched a raid capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and brought them to the United States to face criminal charges. Maduro and his wife were arraigned in New York City today on counts of drug trafficking and other crimes. He and his wife pleaded not guilty. He maintains that he is still the legitimate president of Venezuela. Meanwhile, back in Venezuela, the interim leader, Delsey Rodriguez, put out a statement offering to work with the US but according to Donald Trump, she's still not in charge. Quote, we're in charge, end quote. That was Donald Trump who said that. Here's how he put it in his own words last night.
- [01:35]
D
Don't ask me who's in charge, because I'll give you an answer and it'll be very controversial.
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C
What does that mean?
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D
It means we're in charge.
- [01:43]
C
We're in charge. We, Trump administration. We the United States of America. That's all we know from his lips. Problem is it directly contradicts what one of the people he, Donald Trump, says he put in charge of running Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Take a listen to that.
- [02:03]
E
When the president was asked yesterday who will be running Venezuela, he said it was you. He said it was the defense Secretary.
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F
He said it was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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E
Are you running Venezuela right now, Jordan? I've explained again that the leverage that we have here is the leverage of the quarantine. So that is a Department of War operation conducting, in some cases, law enforcement functions with the Coast Guard on the seizure of these boats.
- [02:29]
C
We'll coined the phrase hot potato. He said, not me. I'm not running it. The Department of War is running it. It was a law enforcement operation. That's doj. Last time I Checked. So it sounds like he's hoping to pressure Venezuela then into doing what Donald Trump wants Venezuela to do by blockading its oil and resources. He used the word coercion. But that what Rubio seemed to be tap dancing toward and actually running the country, which Donald Trump says we are doing, are two things that aren't just shades of gray. They're on opposite ends of the spectrum. Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling writes this today in the Bulwark quote, regime change fails less often from a lack of resources than from a lack of both planning and responsibility. Over decades of command, I learned what I called the belly button rule for assigning responsibility when a task is truly hard, complex, risky, politically sensitive, or strategically consequential. A senior leader in government, business or on the battlefield must be able to point to one person and say, you are in charge. One person, one belly button. Every serious operation requires three things to be unmistakably clear. What must be done by when or under what conditions, and who is in overall charge of making that happen. None of those three things are clear right now. Not who is in charge, not the timeline, not even the objective. And running Venezuela may frankly be an impossible thing for us to do. That's according to the guy who Donald Trump put in charge of his Venezuela policy last time. Here's a guy who had that job, his former envoy, Elliot Abrams.
- [04:11]
F
The United States cannot run Venezuela. The worst thing that we could do, and we may be doing it actually, is to make some kind of deal with the regime's remnants, with the vice president, Delsey Rodriguez, and leave her and the regime in place, except for maybe a change on oil policy. That's conceivable. But that's not our running Venezuela. That's the Maduro regime running Venezuela without Maduro.
- [04:41]
C
Two very different things. As if on cue, Donald Trump on Sunday downplayed the whole matter and issue and urgency the free and fair elections while touting repeatedly the opportunities for oil companies in Venezuela. Watch.
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D
Are you going to demand free and fair elections in the short term in Venezuela? Well, it depends. You know what you're talking. We have to do one thing in Venezuela, bring it back. It's a dead country right now.
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C
Spoken with the oil companies going into Venezuela.
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E
I have.
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C
Which ones? Have you any commitments?
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G
All of them.
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F
Miss.
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C
Any commitments from the oil companies?
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D
They want to go in so badly. Short term? Next two weeks. What do you need from Dely Rodriguez?
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E
You're you.
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D
You threaten total access. We need total access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country that allow us to rebuild their country.
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C
Free and fair elections, oil, quote, all the companies want in so badly, we need access to all of it now, regardless of what comes next. In Venezuela, Trump himself has moved on. After revealing all of that, he's issued a litany of threats against more countries far and wide. Asked whether there could be an operation against neighboring Colombia, whose president has been critical of Donald Trump, he said this, quote, it sounds good to me, end quote. As for Greenland, a territory governed by NATO ally Denmark, Donald Trump tells the Atlantic this, quote, we need Greenland, end quote. As for Cuba, Donald Trump says it is, quote, ready to fall. What the Trump administration has in store for the United States of America when it comes to Venezuela and the other countries he's named. So far, we count at least three. In the wake of a stunning military operation, capturing Venezuela's leader is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling's here. He served as the commanding general of the US army in Europe. He's the author of that piece we read from. Also joining us, former United States Ambassador to Venezuela, James Storey. He served in that role from 2018 to 2023. Lucky for us, he is now an Ms. Now international affairs analyst. And with me at the table to keep me honest, senior national security reporter David Rhode is here. He's been covering the story for us all weekend. David, let me do that. If you had a life that kept you away from cable news and you're not following the live blog online, tell us what happened.
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H
On Friday night. The United States military, with a tremendous effort by the CIA, sent in aircraft, took out air defenses across Caracas and special forces were able to snatch President Maduro and his wife. And it was this amazing operation in terms of the level of intelligence they had. They knew they built a replica of the house he was hiding in and practice this thing. So there was definitely someone. The reward for Maduro was $50 million, but there was a source, and the Times reported this, that was saying where he was. So it was an amazing operation. I was woken up at, like many of us here, at 1:30am in the middle of the night. And when the president tweeted out that Maduro and his wife had been captured, it was just stunning. So hats off to the CIA, hats off to the military. An amazing success. And then since then is all the confusion. You just summarized so eloquently.
- [08:11]
C
Well, what? Let's stay then. When it was brilliant and perfect, what was the point? What was the reason? What was the purpose?
- [08:19]
H
The purpose for the Trump administration was essentially that Maduro was not bowing to President Trump's demands and essentially saying leave power. This amassing of all these ships, all the strikes on the drug boats and essentially in the reporting is that Trump was particularly frustrated with Maduro's dancing, that he was sort of defying Trump so openly and not just relinquishing power. So from their sort of view of power politics showing, I think Maduro, but many other countries and leaders that at least in this hemisphere, if you don't listen to Donald Trump, the US could come snatch you.
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C
Ambassador, take us through your analysis of what has happened since that moment and if you disagree with anything David said, jump in on that too.
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G
David Davis, on the money, as always. I mean, the question is, you have a tactical success, what is a strategic play, what's the long term play and what's the objective? Does the objective regime change? Well, as Elliot Abrams pointed out, you have the same regime just under different management. It doesn't appear to be the restoration democracy or a focus on human rights or stopping crimes against humanity or regional stability, but rather access to energy sources. I think it's incumbent upon the administration to lay out what the plan is because if we're in charge, it's interesting that just today they're getting ready to put out, I have a source in the country, their national federal registry is putting out a notice where they're looking for people who supported the US Government in finding Maduro. That would indicate that they very much are cracking down on dissent and looking for people who potentially helped us in this stunning success overnight Friday into Saturday. That doesn't indicate that we're in charge.
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C
Let me come back to you on this idea that the objective is unclear. Didn't Donald Trump tell us what the objective was? He talked to the oil companies ahead of the operation. He didn't brief Congress and he said this, quote, all of them, the oil companies want in so, so, so badly. We need access there to their oil for our oil companies. Isn't he screaming from the rooftops what the policy is about?
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G
Well, he certainly laid it out during his, during his post operation plan. I guess my point is, well, what's the, the objective is to get access to oil. What is the plan to allow those international companies to go into Venezuela? You have the same regime, you have the same failure of having an independent judiciary. There's absolutely, I find it hard to believe, let me put it this way, that publicly traded companies with boards of directors are going to be willing to put billions, tens of billions of dollars at stake inside of Venezuela. Unless there is a clear strategy for restoring the institutions in the country and bringing the country into the democratic fold, I find it very difficult there. Billions upon billions of dollars in arbitration awards currently owed to all these companies. So if you're a ConocoPhillips and you're owed $11 billion, you have an arbitration award for $11 billion because of, because of expropriation, is your board of directors going to say, okay, let's put another 20 billion into Venezuela? I don't know. I find it suspect.
- [11:47]
C
Well, and I guess I'm pressing because I feel like with Trump, sometimes we're looking for a secret when he's telling us the truth out loud. And do you, are you, are you waiting for someone to reveal the real reason or are you waiting for this to unfold and, and what are the people of Venezuela doing and the other neighbors that he's threatened by name again on camera and on television?
- [12:07]
G
I guess I'm waiting for the strategy, waiting for a plan, and waiting for at least the contours of a concept of a plan that indicate how we're going to do this. I know Delsey Rodriguez, I know her very well. And we left behind some particularly unsavory characters in that country, including d' Estadi Cavalier who runs the secret police, let's say, runs these, these thuggish groups of Nicola colectivos, this is semi official motorcycle gang left behind Vladimir Pogino Lopez who runs the military. Maybe that's good for the short term stability, but at the cost of all the other issues that are going on. So if the strategy with the objective is oil, again, I don't see how you get there with the current setup and the governance structure inside of the country. At some point we're going to ask Delsey Rodriguez to do something that Diosdado Cabello is not going to like. She will not do it. And then what do we do about the region? I expected the response from President Lula in Brazil, which is an issue of sovereignty. President Petro of course, sent troops to the border. I think that's a good thing because of the FARC and ELN elements that are in this kind of very, very difficult border area. There's an election coming up in August in Colombia. President Petro is thinking about his electoral chances. But of course, as you laid out, President also talked about Greenland, Nicaragua, Cuba, Mexico, other places, I find it difficult to believe that we're going to have additional operations. I think this was focused, this operation is focused on Venezuela. But the but the president is certainly making a number of statements that again, question the direction in which the administration wants to take this.
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C
General Hertling, you lay out the problems with where we find ourselves today pretty succinctly in your Bulwark piece. I read through some of it, but just tell me what you're looking at today. And as the hours turn into days and Americans wake up in a country where our president can announce that he has launched a successful tactical military mission to retrieve and capture while killing, it sounds like the latest report is upwards of 80 people in the process. Thank God no American men or women were injured that we know of and that he's going to do it again. I mean, I take the ambassador's point that this seems like a mission focused on Venezuela. But again, in 10 years of covering Donald Trump, I've learned that he often hides things right out loud behind podiums, wearing suits and talking into microphones. And he has named Greenland, Colombia, Cuba and quote, maybe Mexico, end quote.
- [14:55]
F
I'll address that piece you just said first, Nicole, if you don't mind, any good commander, military or governmental commander, chief of state, knows that you don't open a second front on your own accord. I think Napoleon taught us that as soon as you start opening a second, third, and in this case, fourth front, you're going to run into all kinds of problems. And he hasn't achieved what he's looking to achieve yet, controlling Venezuela as part of the first front attack yet. You know, you quoted the piece I published today in the Bulwark about the belly button rule, and that was really focused on who's in charge. But it's a companion piece to something I wrote last Friday before the attack about regime change being exceedingly hard and all of the complications that the ambassador and David just talked about, where if you don't have the answers or you don't have the plan to address that, you're going to be in trouble from the very beginning. And if you do have a plan, there should be one person in charge, and we're even arguing about that right now, as you pointed out in your opening. Is it Secretary Rubio? Is it the conglomeration of the four people that were standing behind President Trump? Is it the United States, as President Trump said the other day? Notice he's never said I'm in charge of this because strategically, as the commander in chief, he is in charge. He can assign responsibilities to others, but it's up to him to make it right. And truthfully, I have not Seen, as the ambassador just said, I've seen no plan. I've seen no indication that they know what they're going to do next. This is ad hoc ism at its best. Now, there may be, there may be a plan, and he's just not giving it up to people, especially Congress. But on Saturday morning, he put America's sons and daughters in harm's way. And then Secretary Rubio said it wasn't a military mission, it was support to law enforcement. Well, I got to tell you, when you got a third of the active Navy fleet around the coast of Venezuela and you're putting 150 airplanes in the air and there's a whole lot of explosions going off and you send special operators in to snatch a government official, one government official, when there's multiple ones who are culpable on drug charges, it sure speaks to me of a military mission, even though it's support to a DOJ operation. So these are the kind of confusions that we're seeing right now. And whenever you're talking military operations and putting men and women in harm's way, you better be precise in your language, be precise in your plan and talk about how each one of your battles, and make no mistake, the attack on Saturday morning was one battle of an entire strategy. So there's a whole lot more to go on this whole thing. And one person's got to be in charge. And I think that's Secretary Rubio, although I don't believe he wants to take the mantle of leadership in understanding all the implications that are involved in this kind of operation.
- [18:07]
C
Yeah, I mean, in that one answer I played, Secretary Rubio himself says, why are you fixated on that question? And then goes on to describe it as an issue for the department. He then calls it a law enforcement operation and does anything but say we are spearheading. I mean, they don't even try to make what Trump is saying out loud from podiums the reality, because either they understand it's not feasible or they understand it's not palatable. I mean, here are the poll numbers on a military taking action inside Venezuela. 70% of Americans oppose that, according to CBS polling. And According to Quinnipiac, 63% oppose, 25% support. Trouble hurtling is something we talk about a lot. But when the military goes in to do something that large, large majorities of the American people, seven to three, oppose. That's not good for the military either.
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F
Well, and what I'd say on that, Nicole, and that's an important point to make. And I'm going to keep making it. Members of Congress represent their citizens. And whenever you have a good military operations, you have a first class military, you have good leadership from the commander in chief and you have the support of the people. And yet in this operation, when I heard the president speak on Saturday morning and Secretary Rubio backed him up saying we didn't need to go to the Congress because they leak, well, guess what? They leak because they want their citizens to know what the hell is happening with their sons and daughters. That's the essence of what Congress does. It's not just a governing legislative body. It's representing the people. And when you have those kind of polling numbers where people say we shouldn't be going into this country, you know, it's a representation of Congress that makes it stop. But they weren't even given the opportunity to know what was going to happen.
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C
And maybe, I mean, it's a chicken and egg question for all of us to wrestle with. Maybe they didn't tell them because they knew 70% of the public opposed it. All right, no one's going anywhere. There's much more on this story ahead for us as we've been discussing who Donald Trump did tip off about the US Military invasion and capture before members of Congress is part of this story that we're unpacking today. We'll talk about that with Congressman Jason Crow as well right here at the table. Also, this question, we're not going to let it go, right? Who really is in charge of Venezuela? Well, look at the diverging messages from the Trump administration and trust himself and the global unrest, the questions being asked all around the world in Taiwan and Kiev and other places near and far. All those stories and much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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B
Home to the Rachel Maddow Show. Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more voices you know and trust. Ms. NOW is your source for news, opinion and the world. Our name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress and the truth that you've relied on for decades. We'll continue to cover the day's news, ask the tough questions and explain how it impacts you. Ms. Now, same mission, new name. Learn more at Ms. Now.
- [21:21]
E
This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live. And we're not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be used as a base of operation for our nation's adversaries and competitors and rivals of the United States. You can't turn Venezuela into the operating hub for Iran, for Hezbollah for gangs, for Cuban intelligence agents and other malign actors that control that country. You cannot continue to have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries of the United States.
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C
Okay. I count that as rationale six. And now it's about Iran and Hezbollah.
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H
And it's about oil again. And what's so farcical about that statement is that actually oil production has dropped dramatically in the last decade and particularly the last five years. So it's.
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C
And Rubio said the opposite of that. He said on George Stephanopoulos, we have tons of oil here.
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H
Yes. And it's just. It's such an unclear message to the public. But I guess going back to our earlier conversation, the kind of quiet part out loud would be very simply, Donald Trump wants to revert to this American zone of influence that the United States dominates the Americas. He wanted to take out a leader in the region who challenged his power and scare other leaders. And he's done that. And then the United States gets access to these oil reserves. And there's all. There's kinds of debate about how much. How much. It's heavy crude. It's very hard to refine and sell that. There's a huge amount of investment that has to happen to actually extract the oil. But it's. The quiet part out loud is. And the darkest scenario is simply it's about power. The United States dominating the Americas. And Russia can do what it wants in Europe and China can do what it wants in Asia. And this is this new, you know, the Dun Row, as in the Monroe Doctrine.
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C
Oh, no, I got it. Yeah. Yeah.
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H
This is the new reality.
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C
What is the reality? Ambassador for Taiwan this morning or Ukraine?
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G
Well, I think. David, hit it. You're. You're looking at a return to the late 19th century, early 20th century, and a repudiation of kind of the Bretton woods institutions and this world system that we've enjoyed since the end of World War II. I think it's important to kind of underscore that the national security strategy has a focus on the Western Hemisphere. As a person who spent his career as a diplomat in the Western Hemisphere, I think that's a good thing. I think what happens in the Americas is important to the United States. The most important thing to the United States. Our number one trading partner is Mexico. But it's the type of attention that we're giving it in an abdication of responsibility elsewhere that's concerning to me.
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C
Well, I mean, Mexico and I think Canada is the second. And we are all but at Hostile, frenemy status with both of them. So what is what argues for that even being real, that it's a focus on our own hemisphere, on our own region?
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G
Well, I mean, we're focused on the region. I think he's, he pointed out that his focus is going to be on the region. I guess from your question, we're having a trouble, troubled relations with many of our partners across the region because from tariffs to how the president has decided to act unilaterally in the region instead of multilaterally, which we have generally done in the past. I have a lot of questions here. When it comes to energy, I want to go back to that quickly, if I may. Venezuela has a lot, has a lot of energy, but you're right, it doesn't produce very much at all. And it's going to take significant investment to actually get that back to where it's producing 3 or 4 million barrels, where it was back 20 years ago. I just don't see that happening in the short term.
- [25:07]
C
And to your earlier point, what American company goes in there and makes multimillion dollar investments with our current political volatility? I mean, Trump will be gone in three years regardless of what he prints on a red hat. And who's to say that this policy, the Don Roe Doctrine, is continued by anyone in either political party?
- [25:32]
G
Well, you're looking at $120 billion over 20 years. Those are the best numbers we've had to get this to get Venezuela back on its feet. But again, I go back to it. You know, we had this period of time it feels like we're going back to before 1989, but from the end of Operation Just Cause for 35 years, we haven't invaded other countries in Latin America. We haven't interfered in the internal affairs of other countries in Latin America. Perhaps we're going back to form here where we did that with some regularity. The closest example, the closest parallel to what's happening right now in Venezuela is Panama. But in the case of Panama, it was clearly about democracy in addition to all the other bad things that Manuel Noriega was up to. But we brought back in the person who won the election. And what I found very stark in the president's remarks was that he didn't mention Edmundo Gonzalez at all, who won the last election in July of last year, nor Maria Corino Machado, who won not only the Nobel Peace Prize, but is the leader of the opposition in Venezuela. I think a transition government in Venezuela, which is just the same dictatorial regime under New management is not going to be sufficient for Venezuela to come back into the fold. And this is a country, I think 25% of the people have left that country that is destabilizing to the region. I personally am glad to see Maduro being brought to justice. The question now is, and now what? Because if this becomes just a continuation of the previous regime, that migration problem has not been resolved.
- [27:13]
C
General Hartling, the men and women of the military volunteer to protect our way of life. They have no say in where they are asked to do that, on what battlefield, on what front. But when the commander in chief articulates a rationale, and again, I will quote him, we have to. Well, his ambassador to the UN you cannot have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries. Donald Trump, we told them they're dying to get in there. Donald Trump is telling the world and the men and women of the military that they're being sent into harm's way for oil. How does that go over?
- [27:54]
F
Well, what I'd say, Nicole, I mean, I joined the military over four decades ago, and I was never fighting for things. I was fighting for ideas, ideologies, values, and the people next to me. Listening to Ambassador Waltz say that at the UN I hadn't seen that clip. It just sent shivers up my spine because he has just signaled in that presentation that Russia, when they said they wanted Zelensky out of power in Ukraine and they wanted to take over the Zaporizhzhia power plant and they wanted to take the minerals and the fuel, the oil, out of eastern Iraq, it gives him an opportunity to do that. It tells President Xi in China all of these artificial islands he's placing. And anytime an American or U.S. carrier Strike Group goes through that region to ensure freedom of navigation, that's his territory and they should be out. So it is an application of a rule that is based on transactional business methods versus American values and ideology. And we didn't always get it right. You know that, but we certainly, as a military applied the rule of law, lived by the rule of law, the protection of the, of the Constitution, which represents our nation's values and ideologies that are established through policies. That's what the American soldier fights for. It isn't oil, and it's going to be. I mean, I got to tell you, when I was, the last time I was in Iraq, two of the major Iraqi oil fields were in my area of operation. The Beijing oil refinery in the Kurdish region, their oil fields and, you know, the soldiers were not fighting for whether or not oil was being processed. They were fighting for the freedom and the respect of the Iraqi people after we entered that country.
- [29:52]
C
Mm. Lieutenant General Mark Herling, Ambassador James Storey and David Rode. Such an embarrassment of riches in terms of your expertise. I fear we will be meeting you all on a regular basis. So consider yourselves warned and thank you for starting us off today. After the break. For us, calling out Donald Trump is what our next guest has done for the incalculable damage he has done to America's standing around the world and reputation here and abroad. Congressman Jason Crow joins us next on what he would like to hear from the Trump administration.
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A
Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why Is this Happening? Gia Tolentino, staff writer at the New Yorker, on what this news cycle combined with social media together are doing to our brains.
- [30:38]
B
The things that are fake look extremely real. The things that are real are almost unbelievable. And then the result is this slurry in our mind that causes this permission structure to detach, detach from the material reality of the world.
- [30:51]
A
That's this week on why Is this Happening? Search for why is this Happening? Wherever you're listening right now.
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C
And follow Trump administration has started 2026 in the same way that they spent all of 2025 unleashing chaos, crisis and corruption at levels unprecedented in modern American history. We are back and we are joined by Congressman Jason Crow. I want to hear your take on all of this, but I just want to start with whether or not you were briefed, have been briefed or planned to be briefed.
- [31:33]
E
Nicole, not only were we not briefed, but members of the administration lied to Congress in the months leading up to this operation. As we learn more about the preparations and how this goes back months into late summer, early fall of 2025, there were briefing after briefing after hearing where the admin came in and told us this was not about regime change, this was about drug interdiction and they weren't going to pursue regime change. And we now know the truth, and.
- [32:02]
C
That'S everyone from the Pentagon to the State Department to people that obviously were aware of the elaborate planning that went into Friday night's operation.
- [32:13]
E
That's right. And they hid this because they knew that they couldn't put this to a debate before the United States Congress because they know that the overwhelming majority of the American public does not want to get involved in another quagmire, another nation building disaster. We spent 20 years, trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives. People can't afford health care, they can't afford their housing, they can't afford their groceries. And here we are spending billions of dollars again engaged in trying to run a foreign country.
- [32:43]
C
Well, what is interesting to me is people are still acting like there's a normal process of trying to figure out what the foreign policy is. And Trump has already revealed that there isn't one, that this is about the oil and the oil companies. Here he is again saying that out loud.
- [33:01]
B
Have you spoken with the oil companies.
- [33:03]
C
About going into Venezuela?
- [33:05]
E
I have. Which ones?
- [33:07]
C
All of them from the oil companies.
- [33:10]
D
They want to go in so badly.
- [33:12]
G
Did you speak with them before the operation took place?
- [33:14]
D
Yes, before and after. And they want to go in and they're going to do a great job for the people of Venezuela.
- [33:24]
C
So Donald Trump, in his own telling, spoke to the oil companies, quote, before and after. That was the answer to the question, did you speak to the oil companies? And he said, quote, all of them, end quote. He said he spoke to, quote, all of them before and after the military operation. So someone was brave to just wasn't you?
- [33:39]
E
Well, there you go. I mean, there you have it. This is the Trump foreign policy, if you want to call it that. It is a combination of bullying, just enacting vengeance on people that Donald Trump believes has slighted him and corruption, just trying to line the pockets of his billionaire donors and the largest companies. That explains 90 plus percent of what this administration is doing for foreign policy. It's not about the American working class. It's not about the American middle class. It's not about actually resolving trade imbalances. It's not about helping Ukraine win its fight for democracy and freedom. It's about lining the pockets of Donald Trump and his family and his cronies. And it's about bullying people.
- [34:18]
C
I thought about all of our friends and all the stories we've covered from Ukraine for the last four years. When I listened to Donald Trump, I mean, clearly, if he thinks he can do this because he's president and this is in proximity to the United States of America, then clearly Putin is playing a much stronger hand today than he was last week.
- [34:39]
E
Well, think about the example that this just set. As of Saturday, you have China and Russia looking at what just happened and they're thinking to themselves, why shouldn't I invade Taiwan? Why shouldn't I go after NATO? Why shouldn't I go after Ukraine? Right. The United States is setting an example right now that might makes right that you have a big army. You can just do what you want to your less strong neighbors and take natural resources, take oil, take control, or just take vengeance on people you disagree with. That is the example that this president is setting. And just think about the world that we will live in if that now reigns supreme.
- [35:21]
C
The men and women of the military, thank God, as far as we know, all went in and came out of this operation without any injuries or lives lost. We're understanding upwards of 80 people were killed in this operation. What position have we put the military in?
- [35:40]
E
Well, we have repeatedly put our military in very difficult positions. In the Caribbean, the boat strikes, the second strike on September 2nd, which I believe was an unlawful strike. This president has a complete disregard for what service above self and military service is about. Right. When he talked about on Saturday that he has no qualms whatsoever putting boots on the ground, remember that's what he said. I have no problem putting boots on the ground. We'll do it if we need to. Well, I'm sorry, I'm a three time combat veteran and when a five time draft dodger like Donald Trump bangs the war drums and bangs his chest and acts tough, what it says to me is that some young kid, somewhere, somebody's son or daughter has to pick up a rifle, get into a helicopter and do the tough work. It's never the elites in Washington that have to do the tough stuff. They're always the ones that talk tough and then somebody else has to do it. Well, my job right now is to make sure that those young men and women, our military, are not abused for Donald Trump or any other oil company or any other billionaire donor's interests.
- [36:45]
C
When you think of all of the normal things that presidents do, they Commemorate World War II, they go to the beaches of Normandy and they talk about lives laid down to defeat fascism and the horrors of Auschwitz and Hitler. Is there any precedent for the military being used to, again, to quote Donald Trump for, quote, all of the oil companies who want in there, quote, so, so bad?
- [37:11]
E
Well, I mean, I think there's a very strong argument to be made that Iraq was about oil and energy and I fought in that war.
- [37:17]
G
Right.
- [37:18]
E
And I feel deceived. And let's not underestimate the anger and the resentment of millions of Americans, including me, who were lied to and led astray for Iraq and the thousands that lost their lives as a result of that. The over trillion dollars that the American taxpayer paid for that, the decades of lost opportunity and credibility that we spent in Iraq, are we not learning any of those lessons? Apparently not if you're Donald Trump, the American People deserve better and want something different. They want restraint, of course. They want power and they want strength. But they want it used for good and they want it used only when it needs to be used.
- [37:58]
A
Right.
- [37:58]
E
There is something to be said for restraint. Right. You don't always have to punch back in every instance. That's not our job all the time. And that is a lesson that unfortunately, Donald Trump doesn't care about. And I'm very, very worried about what the next couple of years have in store for us.
- [38:14]
C
Well, and to your point, 70% of all Americans oppose any military intervention in Venezuela. So the country, the country sees it the way you do. There's so much more I want to ask you about, including Pete Hegseth turning up the volume on his attacks against Senator Kelly. We'll talk about that on the other side of a short. As if trying to prove that he can multitask, Pete Hegseth is ramping up the attacks on Arizona Senator Mark Kelly after he and five other Democratic lawmakers, including our guest, Congressman Jason Crow, who have all served in our nation's armed forces or national security agencies, released a video reminding the men and women of the military of their moral and legal obligation to refuse any illegal order. Today, Pete Hegs has announced that he has formally censured Senator Kelly and has begun proceedings to consider whether to reduce Senator Kelly's rank in retirement, which could cause his pension to be cut. Senator Kelly retired from the US Navy as a captain. Pete Hegseth called Kelly's urging of all men and women of the military to refuse illegal orders a, quote, seditious statement. We're back with Congressman Jason Crow. I still just at a strategic level, don't understand why they didn't just agree with the six of you. I mean, have you heard any explanation for why they have been so confrontational about a simple message not to do anything illegal?
- [39:37]
E
Nicole, let's not forget that years ago, Pete Hegseth did agree with us. Actually. There's actually a video of him saying the exact same thing that we said in our video. And of course, Pam Bondi did as well in 2024 in arguments before the Supreme Court. So this is not about substance. This is not about the UCMJ or reminding folks whether we should remind folks about their rule of law obligations or not. I mean, that was our intent for them. This is about using the full force of government to silence political opponents in any dissent. But they have picked the wrong people. And Mark Kelly and me and the others who stood up and did that video. We are never going to back down from our obligation. We're never going to be silenced. In fact, we are more emboldened than ever to stand up and fight for our Constitution or fight for the rule of law.
- [40:25]
C
Senator Slotkin said on our show that she believed they had attempted to open a national security investigation into her using doj. There's some news reporting that that hasn't gone anywhere. Have they tried to come after you and punish you, either criminally or using the Department of Justice?
- [40:42]
E
We have heard the same thing, that Kash Patel and Donald Trump have tried to get the FBI to conduct an inquiry. But listen, there is no.
- [40:52]
H
They're there.
- [40:52]
E
Right? There's no violation of the law. In fact, that's the opposite. We're reminding people to obey the law. We are members of Congress that have the ability to push back on the executive branch. In fact, it's not that we have the ability. We have the duty to do this. It is our duty, it is our job to conduct accountability and to make sure that the executive branch and the president and everybody who works for the president is following the law.
- [41:16]
C
Do you worry that the men and women of the military don't have access to the best legal advice while they're inside active duty?
- [41:24]
E
I'm deeply worried about that. Right. The purging of the JAG officers. These are the military attorneys whose job it is to advise commanders about the Constitution and the law of land warfare and the law of armed conflict and the Genevieve conventions. Many of those people have been purged from the military and replaced with loyalists, which is disturbing in its own right. But think about the position that's putting commanders in as they try to navigate the orders they're given, as they navigate very complicated missions around the world, and not having that type of expert advice about what to do. And I just think about my own experience as I was preparing my platoon for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I sat those paratroopers down and I actually showed them a video. There's a movie called Platoon that some of you might remember. There's a scene in that where they reenact the My Lai massacre. And I showed him that scene, and I walked through a discussion with them about how that happened. How do you lose touch with your humanity? How are you in that situation where fear takes over and grips you and makes you do things that you would not do? How do you forget about where you come from? And that is the obligation of all leaders to prepare our soldiers, our Marines, our airmen, for those types of situations. So they do the right thing. They remember who they are, where they come from and what the law and their morality require them to do.
- [42:44]
C
It doesn't happen without leaders who model that. We're going to turn to you often. It seems like Trump has really harnessed what he views as his military, something he sought to do the entire first term and seems to be carrying out in a second. Thank you very much for your time here.
- [43:01]
E
Thank you.
- [43:01]
C
We have to sneak in a break. We'll be right back. Minnesota governor and former vice presidential nominee Tim Walz today announced that he is ending his re election bid, saying that the scandal over fraud in social services programs in his speech state is what persuaded him to drop out of the race. He said in his announcement this quote, the buck stops with me. And multiple outlets are now reporting that Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is now seriously considering running for governor, though has not made a final decision, with the New York Times reporting that Walls and Klobuchar met on Sunday in Minnesota where he informed her of his plans and she confirmed her interest in running to succeed him. Klobuchar posted on X praising Walz as a true public servant who made a difficult decision but said nothing yet about her own pending decision. We'll stay on top of that story after the break. For us, the Trump administration having trouble explaining and defending just what Donald Trump means when he says we we will run Venezuela. Much more news to come and deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [44:10]
B
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