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Dr. Nicole Safire
It's 2026. It's a new year. Maybe it's a new you. It certainly has been quite the news cycle. I don't know if you've been following it or if you're living under a rock somewhere. I mean, I've said for everybody to put your phone away, try to stay off social media, but I assume you haven't actually done that and you have seen all of the headlines. I actually had one of the opportunities of a lifetime. I was guest hosting Fox and Friends on Fox News over the weekend the exact morning that President Trump initiated the military action to remove President Maduro from Venezuela and bring him to the United States to be charged with federal crimes of narco terrorism and others. Now, it was quite astounding being able to cover this live. And not only were we reporting on the facts as they were quickly coming in, but President Trump called in to Fox and friends and allowed us a live interview. We just spoke with him real time for about 40 minutes. It was, I mean, to say it was incredible is an understatement, but because it's such a crucial news cycle and part of what's going on right now, I thought on wellness and mass that we would talk about it. Now, I don't really want to talk about the political side of it. And one of the big reasons, or the one, the main reasons I should say that President Trump indicted Maduro back in 2020 is because of his role in narco terrorism and facilitating the flood of drugs onto US Soil. As we know, over a million US Citizens have died from these drug overdose deaths. Whether it's fentanyl, other opioids, even cocaine and others, all of these areas have played a role in the deaths of U.S. citizens. And President Trump and his America first agenda decided to do something about it. But let's go to Venezuela. We're going to talk about beyond our normal conversations, normal wellness conversation, but I want to talk about how a nation's collapse now, not from war, but from a failed governance and systemic breakdown, can become a massive health crisis in Venezuela. People are suffering, millions have fled. And what will happen now that it looks like the regime is going to change? Now, we are not going to do political rhetoric here today. We're going to talk about human health, human dignity, and I guess what the world owes to the innocent people who can't even get the basics they need to survive right now. Over the last decade, Venezuela, once one of South America's richest countries, thanks to oil, has endured economic collapse, skyrocketing inflation and destruction of the very systems that are meant to protect their health, like hospitals, pharmacies, food distribution centers, clean water, electricity essentially went from one of the richest countries to one of the poorest countries. According to the United nations, nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country since the crisis began. Now, if you don't remember, really, the rise of socialism in Venezuela started about 25 years ago under Hugo Chavez. He then appointed Maduro to be his successor. And, and even though the people of Venezuela have tried to hold elections, they even voted out Maduro. Maduro essentially stayed as a political swatter and said, nope, I'm staying. And under him. The country has suffered so. Millions of people, of course, still reside within Venezuela. They have limited access to food, limited access to medicine, maternal care, vaccines, and just basic clean water. Now, with the recent capture of Nicolas Maduro, the headlines are full of questions like, what's happening next? Is there going to be a regime change? Will it be Maduro's vice president that stays? Will there be a political fallout, tension with other nations? But most importantly, what does this mean for the Venezuelan people? This shift gives us kind of a moment to ask what happens to people, their health, their wellness in times of political upheaval, and what does stability really require? And to be honest, health begins with the basics. When people can't access food, they become more susceptible to infection, chronic disease, children's development can become stunted. Pregnant women suffer complications, if they even have the babies at all. I was looking at some data from various humanitarian agencies that have shown about 23% of Venezuela's population has fled and roughly 2,000 people continue to leave every day in search of basics like food and safety. That's incredible. Almost a quarter of the nation's population needed to leave, not because they're going and retiring someplace better, but because they didn't have access to food and water and they're suffering. So inside the country, there have been reports that are severe shortages of medications like insulin, antibiotics, prenatal vitamins, functioning hospitals and clinics, and just electricity to keep the hospitals and medical clinics running. One NGO worker said, it's not that people don't want to care for themselves or they don't want to seek care. It's that care doesn't exist anymore in Venezuela. So there's really nothing abstract about this. We're talking about real people who over the last couple of decades, but increasingly worsen over the last several years, they can't access care more. Coming up on wellness unmasked, with Dr. Nicole Safire.
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Dr. Nicole Safire
Don't wait.
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Angie Hicks
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Dr. Nicole Safire
While a large number of Venezuelans have fled the country, we're seeing it here in the United States. We obviously saw a lot of people coming across the border over the last several years. Some were claiming asylum, but some obviously were just illegal as well. But in the US alone, there's estimates that roughly like 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants have crossed the border and come into the United States. Now we ourselves are dealing with a little bit of our own crisis of healthcare, rising healthcare costs. Some people in rural America don't have access to adequate healthcare. We already have a very strained health system. So when you have these people who have been suffering in Venezuela, they're coming to the United States hoping they can benefit from our healthcare system and a lot of our other subsidy programs. The reality is some of our programs are tapped out. We don't even get me started about what we're hearing about all the fraudulent claims of Medicare and Medicaid and SNAP and other things. I mean, our system is fraught with fraud. Were tapped out, the Affordable Care act, subsidies have expired, and we don't actually have a health care plan. So the United States cannot handle this influx of migrants that we've received. So what do you have to do? You have to stabilize the country that they came from so that people stop fleeing and hopefully people will be able to go back home and live prosperous, safe lives. That's what President Trump, in my opinion, has been trying to do. Right now, he is saying we cannot continue to take in the migrants of the world. Now, this doesn't say we're going to close down our borders entirely and not take migrants. I mean, the United States was built because of immigration, but by starting at the root and trying to make some of these countries better, that's exactly what needs to happen. Not only will it benefit the countries themselves, but it overall benefits the United States. But looking again back to Venezuela, so sure, Maduro is gone, the regime is going to change. But so what does that mean? Because a change at the top doesn't instantly fix the whole humanitarian catastrophe. People are saying that while Venezuelans may feel hopeful, I mean, we see lots of video coverage of them dancing in the street, and people have been calling for Maduro to be taken down for a very long time. This includes Democrats, too. It's not just Republican and Democrat. Everybody thought he was a bad guy. The destabilization in Venezuela can continue for months or even years, even if institutions are weak and if essential services like health care, sanitation, food distribution, and even jobs, I mean, those can't be restored overnight. Getting the Venezuelan people back to a place of stability, this is going to take time and investment. It's not just about having a different leader. It's going to take a lot more. And with Venezuela's political system today, interim leadership, I don't know, there's an intense disagreement over who it will be, legitimacy, authority, how it's going to even how it's even going to stack up. President Trump has said that the United States is going to help the people of Venezuela. I believe that to be true. I hope that to be true. Because it's going to take more than just a new leader to really build the infrastructure that these people absolutely need. From a health standpoint, while the regime change is a necessary step, it's not enough. They're going to need functioning hospitals with consistent electricity supplies, supply chains for medicines and vaccines, safe water, sanitation and economic stability so families can afford food and care. In other words, you just don't cure a health system by changing the president. Obviously it's a big step because with the prior president or senior self proclaimed president, we weren't able to get in and actually help. The only thing we were doing was taking the people who were fleeing. So the regime change was necessary, but so much work needs to go into it. You're listening to Wellness Unmass. We'll be right back with more.
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Angie Hicks
C Studio for details hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house but you make it a home. And for decades Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros. For the that matter, get all your jobs done well@angie.com@tj maxx feel more you.
TJ Maxx Announcer
Than ever without compromise. Because we never make you choose the quality you want, the styles you crave and the prices you love. It's all at TJ Maxx so you can focus on just being you. With so many finds arriving daily, that means so many ways to show your YouTube unique style. Shop in store and online at tjmax.com and max what makes you you?
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Dr. Nicole Safire
What I'm going to be looking forward to is hearing from potentially the President, the White House, Congress, what are they going to do to help the people of Venezuela? Now, some people are going to say, listen, it's not the United States responsibility to help the people of Venezuela. But I tell you, as I've already laid out, it benefits the United States of America and American citizens to help Venezuela become a stable country once again. Now, I don't want people to have flashbacks to Iraq where we went in in the name of democracy and we stayed way too long and lost far too many lives trying to instill democracy. That's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about here is more of a humanitarian effort. What can we do as a nation to help them rebuild? President Trump has already mentioned the whole oil stuff. I am not an oil expert. I'm not going to get involved in there. But yes, under Maduro and Hugo Chavez, they nationalized their oil and that kind of led them into the ground. A lot of those oil companies then left. Chevron stayed, but they lost a lot of their revenue from oil. So if whatever President Trump, the ultimate dealmaker, is going to do, perhaps you will see these oil companies come back to Venezuela, reinvest in the country by updating their pipelines and whatever it is they need to do to tap into the robust Venezuela oil supply. That investment in the country will help. That will get money flowing again. But it's going to be a little bit more than that, too, from the United States standpoint, and probably the UN the UN should be getting involved here. The whole international community, NGOs, local leadership, health institutions, if everyone can kind of coordinate early on, the rebuilding process can be successful. Prioritizing food distribution, making sure that they have a steady stream of food coming in, restoring childhood medical programs like immunization programs. I know a lot of people don't want to talk about that, but the reality is we have a lot of circulating measles inside the United States right now. And if you look around above and below us, from the north and the south, there are significantly high circulating levels of not just measles, but other communicable diseases. And in these countries that have much lower vaccination rates than the United States, these Communicable diseases, these viruses, some bacteria tend to widely circulate a lot. And when you have people fleeing countries and they're coming into the United States, with them potentially can come some of these communicable diseases. In the United States, we also have declining vaccination rates now. They're still much higher than these other countries. But because we are seeing a decline and because we've seen so much migration, we have the highest number of measles cases and some others than we have seen in a very long time. So if we want to keep people healthy and safe in the United States, we need to make sure that people are healthy in these countries that can be directly linked to us through immigration or directly linked through our borders. The childhood immunization programs of Venezuela are essentially null right now. That's not a priority. They're trying to get their kids food and water. Vaccinations are not top of their list, but it needs to go back to the top of their list. We have to work on rebuilding health infrastructure. And on top of that, we have to look at their water supply, because with a clean water supply, that is how you reduce communicable diseases. You have a lot of waterborne illnesses that make people very sick. They're very contagious. And again, when you have a lot of movement, they can go from one place to the other. You know, a lot of people watch these stories and right now it's all about celebration. And we're not really talking about the suffering of the people of Venezuela. The reality is we don't see a lot of it because we haven't really been able to cover it much in the media. We know that people are suffering, but it's been hidden from us. Just like, you know, a lot of other countries that hide things from the media because they want to portray a better picture than what's really going on. Listen, I watch some of these stories and I know the turmoil and we hear the accounts of people saying all the suffering that's happening in Venezuela and you know, a lot of us want to help. It's not realistic unless, you know, for some people who can actually go there and help rebuild buildings brick by brick or can hand out food or whatever it is, that's wonderful. I think the majority of people, we can't actually do that because we have full time jobs or we have kids or whatever reason it may be. But, you know, there are some things you can do if you, you know, go online. There are some programs to help donate to like Red Cross, certain humanitarian aid efforts. I get very wary of donating to people online because I think there are a ton of scams out there. But I think one of the best things that we can do on an individual level is just to make sure that we are educated about what's going on there. Right now you see a lot of people criticizing President Trump and the removal of Maduro, and they're really doing that because they don't like President Trump. And it doesn't matter what he does, whether he comes up with a cure for cancer or he removes this dictator from a regime who he just completely destroyed an entire country, they're going to criticize him because they don't like him. I applaud President Trump and all of the Department of War for the mission that they carried out. Not because I care about the politic, not necessarily because I care about the politics of it all. Although I do think it's pretty messed up that they've had a squatting president in Venezuela that's kind of driven the country into the ground. But I care because I'm a physician, because I'm a mother, because I'm a human. And I have read for about a decade of the suffering that is happening in Venezuela. And looking ahead, the people of Venezuela, they need more than headlines. They need sustained humanitarian assistance, long term health system rebuilding and just stable governance that prioritizes human welfare. It would be wonderful if there is a czar who's put in place who can oversee what the United States is going to do to help the people of Venezuela by removing Maduro. That's a start, but we have to finish it. It has to be more than that. We can't just walk away and say, now figure it out yourself. People are suffering and it truly benefits the United States if we help Venezuela rebuild their society. According to a recent United nations planning documents, nearly 8 million Venezuelans still need help. Whether it's their healthcare, nutrition, clean water, child protection and million more require supports for just basic services. In 2026, UNICEF aims to deliver primary healthcare, nutrition services and water access to millions of children and families. But funding shortfalls do threaten deeper harm without timely investment. I think the oil industry needs to get in there, needs to help with that investment. And I think the United States and as I mentioned, the entire international community should come forward and help the people of Venezuela. I think the big mark of success will be not when Maduro is convicted, which I anticipate he will be, but when we start seeing the migrants in the United States who fled Venezuela when We see them going back to Venezuela because they want to be back there with their family, and they know being back there is a safe place for them, for their family and whatever else. So for me, that is what I am looking forward to seeing, and that is how I will say this was absolutely a successful mission. Because when people realize being back in Venezuela is a great place to be, that marks the success of this mission. Now, unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen in the next week or month. It may not even happen in the next year. But I'm really looking forward to seeing what President Trump, the White House and the entire administration, how they are going to support the people of Venezuela because they need it. And by the way, it's not just Venezuela. There's a lot of surrounding areas, Colombia and Cuba and other places where people are suffering at the hands of these narco terrorists that are disguised as politicians. It's incredible that over the last couple of decades, the international community has allowed this to happen. We've seen it here in the United States. We've seen lives taken, lives destroyed from all of the drugs coming into our country, whether they're starting in China and they're coming through South America, Central America, whether they start in Central and South America and come through directly through our borders. You know, it's a mixture of all of that. But it's wonderful to see that action is being taken to dismantle these narco terrorism enterprises and really, truly actually declare a war on drugs. We've heard it before, we've heard the rhetoric before, but it actually looks like it's happening. So stay tuned. This will not be over quickly. This is something that we're going to keep an eye on for a while. And all I can say is I'm praying for the people of Venezuela and I really hope people come together to help them rebuild so that they can live a much better and prosperous life. I'm Dr. Nicole Saffire. Thanks for listening to Wellness Unmass. Be sure to listen to Wellness Unmass with Dr. Nicole Safire on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you next time.
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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show (iHeartPodcasts)
Date: January 6, 2026
Host: Dr. Nicole Saphier (Guest Host)
This episode focuses on the massive humanitarian and health crisis in Venezuela, set against the dramatic backdrop of the recent forced removal of Nicolás Maduro and his transport to the United States for narco-terrorism charges. Dr. Nicole Saphier sets out to depoliticize the event, focusing instead on the current and future impacts on the welfare of the Venezuelan people—particularly their access to food, medical care, and basic necessities—and what responsibilities the international community, especially the U.S., might have in stabilizing Venezuela's public health landscape.
[02:10 – 07:58]
[10:20 – 13:59]
[13:59 – 16:25]
[16:40 – 19:20]
[19:20 – 23:45]
[23:45 – 26:01]
On the crisis’ scale:
“Over a million US citizens have died from these drug overdose deaths…President Trump and his America first agenda decided to do something about it.” (Dr. Saphier, 03:10)
On healthcare system collapse:
“One NGO worker said, it’s not that people don’t want to care for themselves... It’s that care doesn’t exist anymore in Venezuela.” (07:40)
On migration burden:
“The United States cannot handle this influx of migrants that we’ve received. So what do you have to do? You have to stabilize the country that they came from.” (11:07)
On U.S. involvement:
“I don’t want people to have flashbacks to Iraq…What I’m talking about here is more of a humanitarian effort.” (16:46)
On rebuilding essentials:
“You just don’t cure a health system by changing the president. But obviously, it’s a big step…” (13:02)
On the purpose of intervention:
“A lot of us want to help. It’s not realistic…One of the best things we can do on an individual level is just to make sure that we are educated about what’s going on there.” (20:46)
The real measure of success:
“…When we start seeing the migrants in the United States who fled Venezuela, when we see them going back…that marks the success of this mission.” (25:12)
Dr. Nicole Saphier maintains a balance of urgency, empathy, and practical optimism. She refrains from overt political partisanship, focusing instead on public health, humanitarian principles, and actionable steps. Her tone is conversational yet data-driven, addressing the American audience as stakeholders—both in Venezuela’s fate and their own society’s well-being.
The episode underscores that Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis is more than a matter of political regime change; it is a public health catastrophe requiring urgent, multilateral intervention. Dr. Saphier repeatedly urges a focus on human dignity, essential basic services, and pragmatic international support, with the ultimate measure of progress being the restoration of stability and the voluntary return of the Venezuelan diaspora.