Trump FAFO to Venezuela as Aircraft Carrier group heads to the Caribbean

Summary

The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

Episode: Trump FAFO to Venezuela as Aircraft Carrier group heads to the Caribbean
Date: October 27, 2025
Host: Ben Ferguson

---

Episode Overview

This episode of “The 47 Morning Update” focuses on the escalating U.S. military response to narco-terrorism in the Caribbean, specifically the Trump administration’s decision to deploy an aircraft carrier strike group to waters off Venezuela and South America. Host Ben Ferguson unpacks the Pentagon’s recent announcements, analyzes the administration’s aggressive counter-narcotics campaign, and features commentary from Congressman McCormick, who addresses concerns and justifications for lethal military action against suspected drug traffickers.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. U.S. Military Escalation in the Caribbean

(02:03-06:19)

• Story Headline: The Pentagon has announced the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group to South American waters, escalating the U.S. military presence in the region.
• Purpose of Deployment: To “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States.” ([06:19])
• There are currently over 6,000 U.S. sailors and Marines on eight warships in the area, and the incoming strike group could add nearly 4,500 personnel and nine aircraft squadrons.

2. The Trump Doctrine: Lethal Force Against Narco-Terrorists

(03:30-11:00)

• The Trump administration is conducting rapid, targeted military strikes against vessels suspected of drug trafficking, justified as essential to stop the flow of deadly substances like fentanyl into the U.S.
• Ben Ferguson highlights that these operations have gained intensity, with three strikes in the past week alone, raising the cumulative death toll to at least 43 alleged narco-terrorists since September.

3. Congressman McCormick’s Defense of U.S. Tactics

(04:32-06:19)

• Selection of Targets: McCormick stresses intelligence-driven operations, rejecting the notion that strikes are made on a “hunch.”

  “We don’t take out people just based on a hunch. They get confirmation from real intel on what these boats have on board… These are confirmed targets. These aren’t just we hope they’re bad.”
  — Congressman McCormick [04:32]

• Risk Assessment: Defends lethal force over boarding/jailing, citing the risks to U.S. personnel and the broader public health impacts of the drug trade.

  “Are you willing to risk lives to take somebody who you know is smuggling [to] jail?... The expense and the danger to our troops versus just taking out bad guys who are literally coming here that have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, more than all the wars we’ve ever fought together.”
  — Congressman McCormick [05:22]

• Provides sobering historical context on the impact of the cocaine and fentanyl epidemics on American public health, particularly in African American communities.

4. Political and Strategic Implications

(06:19-12:40)

• The deployment of the carrier and the pace of strikes raise questions about broader U.S. objectives, including the possibility of targeting Venezuelan President Maduro, who is charged with narco-terrorism in the U.S.
• Notable military movements: A pair of U.S. supersonic bombers recently flew up the Venezuelan coast as a show of strength.
• Maduro has interpreted the U.S. actions as an explicit threat of regime change and has mobilized the nation’s defenses accordingly.
• The International Crisis Group’s Elizabeth Dickinson notes:

  “An expression that I’m hearing a lot is drugs are the excuse, and everyone knows that… the messaging here is that the US is intent on pursuing specific objectives and… will use military force against leaders in countries that don’t fall in line.”
  — Elizabeth Dickinson, International Crisis Group [11:30] (Paraphrased by Ferguson)

5. Legal and Doctrinal Framing

• President Trump recently declared drug cartels to be “unlawful combatants,” invoking post-9/11 legal authority to justify military action against them.
• Secretary of War Pete Headset’s chilling vow to traffickers:

  “If you’re a narco terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like Al Qaeda… We will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down and kill you.”
  — Secretary of War Pete Headset [10:55] (Quoted by Ben Ferguson)

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Ben Ferguson on the gravity of the crisis:

  “You listen to Congressman McCormick there. He’s absolutely right, and he’s saying, why would we risk our lives knowing that these are bad guys that need to be taken out?”
  [06:19]

• Congressman McCormick on intelligence and action:

  “...If we had any doubt at all it would be called off. So these are confirmed targets. These aren’t just we hope they’re bad.”
  [04:32]

• Secretary of War’s hardline message:

  “Day or night, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down and kill you.”
  [10:55]

---

Timestamps of Important Segments

• [01:15-02:03]: Transition to main story about U.S. military deployment
• [02:03-04:32]: Context—Democratic skepticism about targeting, introduction of Congressman McCormick
• [04:32-06:19]: Congressman McCormick’s rationale and operational detail
• [06:19-12:40]: Ben Ferguson’s breakdown of Pentagon statements, logistics, political implications, Maduro’s response, and analysis from Elizabeth Dickinson
• [10:55]: Secretary of War’s direct threat to narco-terrorists

---

Episode Tone and Style

Ben Ferguson maintains his trademark, unfiltered commentary and forthright tone, mixing current affairs breakdowns with pointed analysis and select guest soundbites.

---

Summary

This episode dives deep into the Trump administration’s use of military power to combat narco-terrorism in the Caribbean, with a particular focus on Venezuela. Listeners are brought behind the scenes of Pentagon decision-making, are given rationale directly from veterans and lawmakers, and are exposed to the broader strategic and political implications for U.S.-Venezuela relations. The stakes, both diplomatic and humanitarian, are sharply underscored, and the episode closes with a reminder of the administration’s willingness to use military force in unconventional theaters under the banner of national security.

---

Transcript

[Ben Ferguson]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[iHeartRadio Ad Voice]

You know what your customers are doing right this second? The exact same thing. You are listening to me, which, let's be honest, is kind of flattering. But my point Is, ads on iHeartRadio actually get heard in the car, at the gym, on the couch, while people are walking their dogs.

[Congressman McCormick]

Who's a good boy?

[iHeartRadio Ad Voice]

Who's a good boy?

[Ben Ferguson]

You're a good boy.

[Congressman McCormick]

That's right, dude. You're a good.

[iHeartRadio Ad Voice]

So why not make the next ad about you? Get started today. Call 844-844-IHEART or go to iheartadvertising.com that's 844-844, iheart or iheartadvertising.com When I told.

[Narrator of Fiasco Benghazi]

People I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked why Benghazi?

[Ben Ferguson]

The truth became a web of lies.

[Narrator of Fiasco Benghazi]

From prologue projects and Pushkin Industries. This is Fiasco Benghazi.

[Interviewer or Commentator]

What difference at this point does it make?

[Narrator of Fiasco Benghazi]

Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben Ferguson]

They're not great questions today, I must say.

[Congressman McCormick]

We'll see you later.

[Narrator of Fiasco Benghazi]

Thank you.

[Ben Ferguson]

You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson. Good Monday morning. Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update. And we've got one big story for you. The US Military is sending an aircraft carrier fighter group to the waters off of South America. The Pentagon announcing this and making it very clear. Donald Trump and his administration is more than happy to unleash more strikes against terrorist organizations. But first, did you see that gold just hit an all time new high of over $4,000 an ounce. And if you hear that, you're like, are you kidding me? And you're thinking, gosh, I missed my opportunity. Well, I don't know if you missed your opportunity, but my friends at Kurt Elliott Precious Metals, they can answer that question for you. You also may not be paying attention to the incredible gains with silver that are happening right now as well. And that's why I trust the guidance of the team at Kirk Elliott. In fact, I literally just got a hundred ounce bar of silver the other day. And the reason why is because after I talked to the team at Kirk Elliot Precious Metals, they let me understand exactly where I could have a big upside in investing in silver. Now, the other part that I love about them is this. They have transparent pricing. There are a lot of gold companies that you'll hear about if you listen to talk radio or podcasts or watch tv. But do they tell you how the pricing actually works? Well, at Kirk Elliott, they're real simple, just 8% when you buy and and zero commissions when you sell with no hidden fees ever. That is the other reason why I recommend them to all of you. They also don't sell, you quote, rare coins or precious coins that you pay insane markups on and then when you go to sell them, you find out they're really not worth that much. They are a bullion only approach. They focus on investment grade metals. No overpriced collectibles, no gimmicks. That means you get more gold or silver for your money at first fair value when it's time for you to sell. So if you're ready to find out if gold and silver is right for you and your portfolio, then call them and get a plan. You can Visit them at ke-p m.com BEN that's K-E-P m.com BEN or 720-605-3900 at 720-605-3900. Kirk Elliot Precious Metals online at kepm.com it's the 47 Morning Update and it starts right now. Story number one, the U.S. is now sending an aircraft carrier to South America as the narco strikes are intensifying. This as Democrats are claiming that, well, we don't really know if the people on these boats are actually narco terror. Congressman McCormick, who is a veteran that served his country, set the record straight on that on Newsmax with Greta Van Suster. Listen to what he said about these strikes, including the submarine that was blown up earlier this week.

[Congressman McCormick]

A lot of this is due with our intelligence gathering capabilities. Obviously we don't take out people just based on a hunch. They get confirmation from real intel on what these boats have on board. Like he knew with the submarine, for example, ahead, mostly fentanyl bad guys. We knew what gangs they belong to and we take out the bad guys. You had to be very careful in selection when we used to be on floats and we'd have an idea what we're going to take out. Take down a ship that we couldn't even talk about. We had real live intelligence. If we had any doubt at all it would be called off. So these are confirmed targets. These aren't just we hope they're bad.

[Interviewer or Commentator]

Guys, why don't we? There's no effort to contact them and board them. I mean the old days you get contact if they have a flight From Venezuela. You call Venezuela and say, can I board it? Or from Panama, sure, you can ask to abort it. But are we boarding? Are we attempting to board any of these? Or we just make the determination. These are bad and boom, they're gone.

[Congressman McCormick]

And we've done it in the past. Two things can happen. First of all, they can run and they can get away and go back and they go back into international wilders. They're. They're home free. Or they can shoot back and kill our marines and our sailors or SEALs or whomever is trying to board that ship. Now, you have a very dangerous situation. The question is, are you willing to risk lives to take somebody who you know is smuggling jail? Now you're going to put them in jail, in our jail system and eventually get them back there. The expense and the danger to our troops versus just taking out bad guys who are literally coming here that have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, more than all the wars we've ever fought together. When you start combining all the deaths that have happened from fentanyl and overdosing and drugs and the gang wars in the inner cities, if you look at the mortality and morbidity of a male black man in America, and I got this from Dr. Satcher when I was a student at Morehouse, it declined dramatically with the cocaine wars, with crack cocaine. It has only escalated with this sort of warfare that they're basically having on us.

[Ben Ferguson]

You listen to Congressman McCormick there. He's absolutely right, and he's saying, why would we risk our lives knowing that these are bad guys that need to be taken out? Which brings us to the new point. The US Military sending this aircraft carrier to the waters off South America. The Pentagon announcing this on Friday in the latest escalation of military firepower in a region where the Trump administration has unleashed more rapid strikes in recent days against boats it accuses of carrying drugs just like fentanyl. The Secretary of War, Pete Edseth, ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to the U. S. Southern Command region to, quote, bolster u. S. Capacity to detect, monitor and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States. That coming from the Pentagon spokesman Sean Purnell. The USS Ford, which has five destroyers in its strike group, is now deployed to the Mediterranean Sea. One of its destroyers is in the Arabian Sea and another in the Red Sea. A person familiar with the operation told the Associated Press. As of Friday, the aircraft carrier was in port in Croatia on the Arctic Sea. The person who spoke on condition of amenity to discuss sense of military operations would not say how long it would take for the strike group to arrive in the waters off South America or if all five destroyers would make that journey while deploying an aircraft carrier were surge major additional resources to a region that has already seen an unusually large US Military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela. The latest deployment and the quickening pace of the U. S Strikes, including one Friday, raised new speculations about how far the Trump administration may go in operations it says are targeting drug trafficking, including whether it could try to topple the Venezuelan President Maduro, who already has a massive bounty on his head. Now he faces charges of narco terrorism in the United States of America. There are already more, by the way, than 6,000 U.S. sailors and Marines on eight warships in the region. If the entire USS Ford strike group arrives, that could bring nearly 4,500 more sailors, as well as the nine squadrons of aircraft assigned to the carrier. Complicating the situation is also Tropical Storm Melissa, which has been nearly stationary in the central Caribbean, with forecasters warning it could soon strengthen into a powerful hurricane. Now, hours before Parnell announced the news, the Secretary of War headset said the military had conducted the 10th strike on a suspected drug running boat, leaving six people dead and bring the death count for the attacks that began in early September to at least 43 narco terrorists. Headset said on social media that the vessel struck overnight was operating by the Trend Gang. It was the second time the Trump administration has tied one of its operations to the gang that originated in a Venezuelan prison. The strikes have ramped up from one every few weeks when they first began last month to three this week alone, killing a total of at least 43 terrorists. Now, two of the most recent strikes were carried out in the eastern Pacific Ocean and expanding the area where the military has launched attacks and shifting to where much of the cocaine from the world's largest producers is smuggled. Quote, if you're a narco terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like Al Qaeda, headset said in a post. Day or night, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down and kill you. The strike drew parallels to the first announced by the US Last month by focusing on the Trend, which the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization and blame for being the root of the violence and drug dealing that plagues some of the cities. While not mentioning the origin of the latest boat, the Republican administration now says at least four of the boats it has hit have come from Venezuela. On Thursday, the US Military flew a pair of supersonic heavy bombers up the coast of Venezuela in a show of strength. Maduro argues that the US Operations are the latest efforts to force him from office. Maduro on Thursday praised security forces and a civilian militia for defense exercises along some 1200 miles of coastline to prepare for the possibility, he says, of a U S attack, saying in the span of six hours, 100% of all the country's coastline was covered in real time with all the equipment and heavy weapons to defend all of Venezuela's coast if necessary, Maduro said during a government event shown on state television. The US Military presence is less about drugs than sending a message to countries in the region aligned with U.S. interests, according to the International Crisis Group senior analyst for the Andres region, Elizabeth Dickinson. An expression that I'm hearing a lot is drugs are the excuse, and everyone knows that, dickinson said. And I think that message is very clear in regional capitals. So the messaging here is that the US Is intent on pursuing specific objectives and and it will use military force against leaders in countries that don't fall in line. That is what the left is obviously trying to get you to believe. But Headset's remarks around the strikes have recently begun to draw a more direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the US declared after 911 and the attacks and Donald Trump's administrations crack down now on the drug traffickers whose drugs are killing countless Americans. President Trump this month declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and said the US Was in an armed conflict with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the bush administration after 9 11. Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now and for more in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here tomorrow.

[Sophia Bush]

Hey everyone, it's Sophia Bush, host of the podcast Work in Progress. Lexis is a company that believes in the importance of setting a standard. For me, a standard that matters to me is being a friend, being a person, being a coworker who shows up. The standard Lexus has set for themselves is to experience amazing. Lexus benchmarks are feelings, things like exhilaration and joy and amazing can only be achieved by knowing people on a deeper level. It's feeling like your car was designed and built just for you. A machine that makes you feel more human. Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. So experience amazing at your Lexus dealer.

[Grainger Ad Voice]

This is the story of the one As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger, because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs, and next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.

[Narrator of Fiasco Benghazi]

When I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, 9 times out of 10 they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked why Benghazi?

[Ben Ferguson]

The truth became a web of lies.

[Narrator of Fiasco Benghazi]

From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. This is Fiasco Benghazi.

[Interviewer or Commentator]

What difference at this point does it make?

[Narrator of Fiasco Benghazi]

Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben Ferguson]

This is an iHeart podcast.