Trump's Top Venezuela Aide Turns Against Him on Invasion

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Legal AF by MeidasTouch

Episode: Trump’s Top Venezuela Aide Turns Against Him on Invasion
Date: January 5, 2026
Hosts: Michael Popok (primary speaker in this ep), Ben Meiselas, Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Main Theme:
A critical, in-depth legal and political analysis of the Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela, focused on recent revelations from former Trump special envoy Elliot Abrams. The episode unpacks the influence of Big Oil, regime change priorities, Marco Rubio’s ambitions, the failure to support actual democratic actors in Venezuela, and the underlying geopolitical stakes.

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles explosive new criticism from Elliot Abrams—Trump’s own former special envoy to Venezuela—who has denounced the administration’s recent “regime change” efforts as being driven by Big Oil and entrenched plutocratic interests rather than genuine support for democracy. Michael Popok guides listeners through Abrams’ pointed critique, examines Marco Rubio’s evasive TV appearances, and connects the dots between U.S. intervention, energy interests, and dynamics among Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Big Oil and Regime Change in Venezuela

• Michael Popok opens with a blistering critique:

  “We know who's in charge of Venezuela. It is us, Big Oil, who bought and paid for a president. And you don't have to take my word for it. Take the words from an interview of Donald Trump's last Venezuelan special envoy, Elliot Abrams, who's come out against the administration and Marco Rubio...” [00:00]

• The Trump administration is accused of orchestrating a regime change not to restore democracy, but to empower a “compliant regime” that serves Big Oil.
• The U.S. is said to have only removed President Maduro while leaving core regime operatives in place—Delsey Rodriguez, her brother, Diazdado Cabello, Vladimir Padrino Lopez—thus maintaining the apparatchik and ultimately benefiting oil interests.

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2. Elliot Abrams Speaks Out

• Abrams, in a recent CNN interview and op-ed, laments the shift away from democratization:
  • "Where is the push for democracy? Where is the plan to reinstall the government in exile...Who are Democratic? Where is that plan? And have we just bent the knee to big oil?" [A paraphrase and set up by Popok, 02:10]
  • Abrams calls for the U.S. to demand removal of Cuban and Iranian officials, liberation of political prisoners, and to support Edmundo Gonzalez—the candidate who won the 2024 election (70% landslide)—and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado:

    “We should be supporting Edmundo Gonzalez, who won that election in 2024 with a 70% landslide...The guy who won the election should be president.” — Elliot Abrams [03:33]

  • He criticizes the President’s offhand remark about how “difficult it would be to run Venezuela,” dismissing any notion that the U.S. could or should directly govern Venezuela:

    “It's too complex for us to run. What we should be looking for is a popular government, a democratic elected government that can begin to rehabilitate the country... The notion that we're going to run it from Washington I think is implausible, and it's just not going to work.” [04:41]

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3. Marco Rubio’s Response and Personal Agenda

• Rubio on Face the Nation: Responds evasively to questions about oil interests and accusations from Abrams:
  • “The President used the word oil 20 times in this press conference....Elliot Abrams is publicly arguing that you know better than the policy you’re backing. He said, quote, Venezuelan plutocrats or US Oil executives seem to be coming to Mar a Lago and whispering about how easy life would be if we just made a deal with the regime once Maduro was gone. Is that what happened here?” — Margaret Brennan [06:03]
  • Rubio deflects:

    "No, that's not what happened here. What happened here is that we arrested a narco trafficker who's now going to stand trial in the United States...As far as oil, look, oil is critical...They need investment from private companies who are only going to invest under certain guarantees and conditions. That has to go to the benefit of the Venezuelan people..." [06:34]

• Popok’s Analysis:
  • Rubio is portrayed as viewing Venezuela largely through the lens of his own Cuban heritage and future political ambitions.
  • The Venezuela intervention is described as a “dress rehearsal” for a future attempt at regime change in Cuba:

    “This is nothing more than a dress rehearsal for Marco Rubio before he runs for president to try to take over Cuba and change and do regime change there as well.” — Michael Popok [07:54]

• Rubio’s priorities are questioned—was the intention really democracy or simply swapping out Maduro for a more manageable figure, leaving existing power structures and compliance to U.S./oil interests intact?

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4. Democratic Opposition Marginalized

• Rubio is confronted about U.S. support for democratic opposition leaders Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado:
  • “Is that still the U.S. policy? And if so, are you working on a transition to have those elected leaders run the country?” — Margaret Brennan [10:16]
  • His answer is vague, full of platitudes without concrete commitment:

    “Well, I think a couple things. I have tremendous admiration for Maria Karina Machado. I have admiration. Fred Mundo we have all those views about the election that happened the last time. And not only us, but many other countries around the world. There is that and there's. But there's the mission we are on right now…” — Marco Rubio [10:40]

• Popok underlines that at best, democracy is a secondary concern; the real goal is stability for energy investment:

  "So we're not in the democracy making business any longer. We're in the whatever is good for big oil business." [11:55]

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5. Geopolitical Stakes and the “Dun Row Doctrine”

• Popok frames this as part of a larger Trump-era hemisphere policy (“Dun Row Doctrine”):

  “So we just picked a fight with a puppet state of Russia, basically threatening them to say we're in charge of the Western Hemisphere and by extension, by implication, ceding the Europe eastern and western to Russia and places like Ukraine and China. Whatever it wants to do, just stay out of the Western Hemisphere.” [01:38]

• The episode highlights the risk of U.S. intervention being interpreted as a zero-sum game about resources and superpower spheres of influence.

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6. Legal and Moral Implications

• The episode concludes with a warning:
  • Not just about circumventing international norms for energy interests, but about real legal exposure—from breached conventions to the absence of due process in Maduro’s removal.
  • Popok notes the presence of intelligence and military figures, but absence of DOJ officials in the Maduro “kidnapping”:

    “It was all the spooks, it was all the suits, it was all the CIA and the Joint Chiefs and Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth. You know, whose Marco Rubio, whose star is ascended. JD Vances, whose star has fallen off the table along with Pam Bondi.” [11:30]

• Heavy emphasis on following the legal intersections domestically and globally, not just the news cycle around regime change.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• Elliot Abrams (on CNN):

  • “We should be supporting Edmundo Gonzalez, who won that election in 2024 with a 70% landslide. The guy who won the election should be president.” [03:33]
  • “The notion that we're going to run it from Washington I think is implausible, and it's just not going to work.” [04:41]

• Michael Popok (summary remark):

  • “So we're not in the democracy making business any longer. We're in the whatever is good for big oil business.” [11:55]

• Marco Rubio (on Face the Nation):

  • “Oil is critical...They need investment from private companies who are only going to invest under certain guarantees and conditions. That has to go to the benefit of the Venezuelan people...” [07:13]
  • “[On transition to elected leaders] There is that and there's. But there's the mission we are on right now…” [10:40]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–02:10: Popok’s opening—Big Oil, Trump, and regime change motives; setup for Elliot Abrams’ opposition to administration policy.
• 03:25–05:18: Elliot Abrams’ CNN interview—calls for democracy, opposes U.S. “running” Venezuela.
• 06:00–07:48: Rubio on Face the Nation—evasions about oil influence, focus on narco-trafficking and need for foreign investment; Popok mocks Rubio’s ambitions.
• 10:16–11:55: Brennan challenges Rubio on supporting democratic victors—Rubio’s noncommittal answer highlights deprioritization of democracy.
• 11:55–End: Popok’s summary on legal, geopolitical, and moral concerns; call to follow Legal AF for in-depth legal-political analysis.

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Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: Hard-hitting, often sarcastic, and direct. The hosts are unflinching in critiquing Trump, Rubio, and the broader implications for U.S. foreign policy.
• Takeaway: The Trump administration’s Venezuela intervention is deeply compromised by oil interests and political self-dealing, departing from genuine support for democracy. This episode exposes the mechanics of backroom regime change and the sacrificing of legal and democratic norms at the altar of energy geopolitics and political ambition.

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Transcript

[A]

We know who's in charge of Venezuela. It is us, Big Oil, who bought and paid for a president. And you don't have to take my word for it. Take the words from an interview of Donald Trump's last Venezuelan special envoy, Elliot Abrams, who's come out against the administration and Marco Rubio and said, look, we see it. This is about Big Oil and the Venezuelan plutocrats going to Mar a Lago and, and trying to get not a replacement regime, that is democracy, installed in Venezuela, but just a compliant regime with, with a decapitated Maduro off, but everybody else in his apparatus present, but have them be compliant and bend the knee, not to the Trump administration, to Big Oil. And this is Marco Rubio's wet dream. He's been trying to take over as Secretary of State, places like his ancestral homeland, Cuba. There's a direct link between Marco Rubio, Cuba, Venezuela and Russia that I'm going to talk about. But what people who are independent minded, who are critics of the Trump administration are saying is the following equation. Good on getting Maduro out, bad on leaving the regime apparatus in from top to bottom. And it's not just Delsey Rodriguez, it's her brother who runs the national legislature. It's Diazdado Cabello who's the interior minister, that is likely Maduro's number two. It's Vladimir Padrino Lopez who's the head of the military. And it's the Cuban government all supporting Venezuela as they always have. There's a reason that more than 40 Cubans died in the kidnapping of Maduro because Maduro pays Cuba in oil for mercenaries from Cuba to guard him. Cuba is a, is a puppet state of Russia, as is Venezuela. So we just picked a fight with a puppet state of Venezuela, of Russia, basically threatening them to say we're in charge of the Western Hemisphere and by extension, by implication, ceding the Europe eastern and western to Russia and places like Ukraine and China. Whatever it wants to do, just stay out of the Western Hemisphere. That appears to be the Dun row doctrine that's been espoused by Donald Trump. Look, folks, this is what happens when you get a mentally declining president who every day is worse than the day before, mentally, who's taken three dementia tests by his own admission in the last 11 months. This is what happens when you have no plan on other than what's good for Big Oil. I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network. Let's get to the reporting here and support legal AF both at home and abroad. Let's Start with Elliot Abrams, the last special envoy for the Trump administration to Venezuela in the first term. He went on cnn, he wrote an op ed piece taking on the administration. Here's a clip from his CNN interview in which he says, where is the push for democracy? Where is the plan to reinstall the government in exile? Who are Democrats, who are, who are Democratic? Where is that plan? And have we just bent the need of big oil? Play the clip.

[B]

First of all, the United States should be demanding the expulsion of Cuban and Iranian officials from Venezuela. We should be demanding the liberation of all political prisoners right now. And we should be supporting Edmundo Gonzalez, who won that election in 2024 with a 70% landslide. I thought that was the worst point in the president's press conference yesterday. The insult, really, to Maria Corinna Machado, who is the leader of democratic forces in Venezuela. That's what we should be supporting. The guy who won the election should be president.

[A]

Yeah. The president said there was not broad support, there was not respect for Machado, which you're referring to right there.

[B]

I'm wondering if you think the president.

[A]

Also is leveling with the American public about just how difficult this will be.

[B]

To run a country like Venezuela. Yeah, you know, nobody else used that word, run until he did. And my thought is that that didn't appear in some, you know, paper done through a long interagency process, that it just came out of the president and that nobody else expected to run Venezuela. It would be extremely difficult. You know, it's a very big country. It's twice the size of California, 25 million people, roughly. It's too complex for us to run. What we should be looking for is a popular government, a democratic elected government that can begin to rehabilitate the country with our support and the support of the other democracies that surround Venezuela. That's possible. But the notion that we're going to run it from Washington I think is implausible, and it's just not going to work.

[A]

Now, Marco Rubio, making his rounds as Secretary of State on all the morning talk shows, ended up with, you know, the wheels spun and landed on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan. And she asked him point blank about that Elliot Abrams interview and op ed piece about the plutocrats going to Mar a Lago along with big oil to get what they want, a more compliant regime, not a democracy. That is a difference. Remember, we're supposed to be the leaders of the free world. So let's play Marco Rubio's half hearted, feeble attempt to distract the questioning and not answer the question. Play the clip.

[C]

The President used the word oil 20 times this press conference. You talked about these tremendous oil assets that Venezuela have. Has. But the President's last envoy to Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, is publicly arguing that you know better than the policy you're backing. He said, quote, venezuelan plutocrats or US Oil executives seem to be coming to Mar a Lago and whispering about how easy life would be if we just made a deal with the regime once Maduro was gone. Is that what happened here?

[D]

No, that's not what happened here. What happened here is that we arrested a narco trafficker who's now going to stand trial in the United States for the crimes he's committed against our people for 15 years. And the person who helped him, of course, his wife, who was co located with him, so she was arrested as well. That's what happened here. As far as oil, look, oil is critical not just to fueling economies all over the world. It's critical to Venezuela's future. Their oil industry is completely destroyed. It's destroyed all those oil fields that used to produce a lot and wealth for their country and their people. Those things are decrepit. They're bankrupt. They need to be reinvested in. It's obvious they do not have the capability to bring up that industry again. They need investment from private companies who are only going to invest under certain guarantees and conditions. That has to go to the benefit of the Venezuelan people. Right now, all of that wealth is stolen. It's stolen and it goes into the hands of oligarchs around the world. And the oligarchs inside of Venezuela, a handful of people benefit from it. The people don't benefit from it. On top of that, it's very simple, okay? In the 21st century, under the Trump administration, we are not going to have a country like Venezuela in our own hemisphere in the sphere of control. And the crossroads for Hezbollah, for Iran, and for every other malign influence in the world that's just not going to exist.

[A]

Now this. Let's focus on Marco Rubio's wet dream for a minute, shall we? From my perch in Miami, Marco Rubio is ancestral home is Cuba, he claims, although there's been some debate that his family came as a result of the takeover by Fidel Castro. And in the Miami Cuban community, if you came before Castro or after Castro seems to matter in terms of your pedigree. And there's been a challenge within the Miami Cuban community about whether he did or didn't, his family did or he certainly tells everybody that his family were in exile after Castro and his he really cares about Venezuela and the oil, but he really cares about Cuba, his ancestral home. This is a nothing more than a dress rehearsal for Marco Rubio before he runs for president to try to take over Cuba and change and do regime change there as well. His entire focus for most of his career has been on Cuba and not on Venezuela. The problem that most of us have is not that Maduro was kidnapped and lopped off the top of the regime, it's at the apparatus. Not only was the apparatus left in place, it now appears to be an intentional decision by this administration to just have a more docile communist dictatorship that's in favor of Big Oil rather than install democracy. That's why Marco Rubio had to do his double talk to Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation about why he's no longer supporting and why they are strong arming and holding at arm's length the exile group of Edmundo Gonzalez and the Nobel Prize winner Maria Karina Machado. Why aren't they being installed? Why aren't there any discussions with them? Because they don't want there to be any. Because they don't think they're going to be as willing to play ball with Big Oil in the US as the existing apparatus. Scared out of his wits about a potential takeover. That's clear. Listen to the answer where he is reminded that at the top of the administration they supported the legitimate installation of the government of Gonzalez and Machado. But now they seem to be walking away from it because the operation has changed. Play the clip.

[C]

The opposition leader Maria Carina Machado and Mundo Gonzalez won that 2024 election. By your own account, they were some of the first people you called when you were Secretary of State. You said Edmundo Gonzalez is the rightful president of Venezuela in Is that still the U.S. policy? And if so, are you working on a transition to have those elected leaders run the country?

[D]

Well, I think a couple things. I have tremendous admiration for Maria Karina Machado. I have admiration. Fred Mundo we have all those views about the election that happened the last time. And not only us, but many other countries around the world. There is that and there's. But there's the mission we are on right now. We have been very clear from the beginning because I still think that a lot of people analyze every everything that happens in foreign policy through the lens of what happened from 2001 to 2015 or 16. The whole foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya, everything is Iraq, everything is Afghanistan. This is not the Middle East. And our mission here is very different. This is the Western Hemisphere. Within the Western Hemisphere. We have a country, potentially a very rich country, that has cozied itself up under the control of this regime, has cozied up to Iran, has cozied up to Hezbollah, has. Has cozied, has allowed narco trafficking gangs to operate with impunity from their own territory, allows boats with drugs to traffic from their territory. And we are addressing that. And by the way, for 8, 9 million people in the largest mass migration event in modern history have left that.

[C]

Country since 2014, that regime is still.

[D]

Having an impact on us. That is what we are addressing now.

[C]

When you spoke yesterday.

[D]

We're not just addressing the regime. We are addressing the factors that are a threat to the national interest of the United States.

[A]

So we're not in the democracy making business any longer. We're in the whatever is good for big oil business. That's why regime change here, regime change in Iran 50 years ago and the rest. If Venezuela didn't have oil and wasn't a puppet state of Russia, you think we'd be going in. But it is the diabolical nature because there's only two choices. The Trump administration either has done no planning or their plan all along, which is what Elliot Abrams, Abrams is saying was to bend the need of big oil, which bought a president over half a billion dollars worth of fundraising investment in Trump at his request, while he ran against Kamala Harris, where he sold off and auctioned off to the highest bidder his environmental and energy policy to big oil. So that's. Or those are the only two explanations. And the one that Elliott Abrams is saying is the plutocrats of Venezuela and the oil company seem to have the same idea. Don't disturb the status quo, just soften it up a little bit, calibrate it to our interest a little bit. And again, it puts a lie to the administration's position that all they're doing is not a war. It's not the Trump's war powers as commander in chief about imminent threats. All right. And clear and present danger. It's about regime change in favor of oil. They certainly are not. They didn't kidnap him and get in control of Venezuela in order to enforce an indictment in New York, which was the first thing they tried on Saturday. Hey, this is just a Department of justice by extension operation. Yeah. Where's Pam Bondi? She wasn't even on the stage. The attorney general. Where was Jay Clayton who indicted him in New York? Wasn't there. It was all the spooks, it was all the suits, it was all the CIA and the Joint Chiefs and Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth. You know, who's Marco Rubio, whose star is ascended. JD Vances, whose star has fallen off the table along with Pam Bondi. We're going to continue to follow it. All right here. You're on Midas Touch. Come over to Legal AF and help us in 2026 continue to expand our reach. We're going global. We have to, because Trump's gone global with his Dun Road doctrine. So we have to match it at the intersection of US Law, politics and international law. You know, it's not just following the indictment in New York of Maduro. It's about all of the international conventions and laws that have been or will be breached by Donald Trump. So there's a way to do it. Come to legal AF substack. And for it, we're running a sale, 20% off. Help us grow and accomplish our international additional vertical goals for 2026. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popach. Can't get your fill of Legal af. Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come to the substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called Wait for it Morning af. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AO are there as well. We got some new reporting, we got interviews, we got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.