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- [00:17]
Host
I'm so annoyed that we started 2026 by. I was relaxing and then a bunch of guys rolled into my secret cave where I play Crusader Kings 3 all under heaven. And then they black bagged me and they dragged me back to the TF studio where I'm being forced at gunpoint to record a podcast.
- [00:34]
Co-host
All of us have been black bagged, flex cuffed, and then dragged in front of our podcasting microphones. Back to work after the holiday. And I have to condemn this as an unprecedented violation of international law that will surely make the world less safe.
- [00:48]
Co-host 2
Well, that's how they're bringing people back to the office. They're just like, you know, if we have to do it, we're kidnapping you and putting you in your cubicle.
- [00:56]
Co-host
I'm a tier 1 anti work from home operator.
- [00:59]
Former Military Guest
You think that they're joking? No, I'm even on this fucking episode. We're all in the goddamn detention cent.
- [01:04]
Co-host 2
We're all wearing our, like. Yeah, we're all wearing our Nike tech.
- [01:07]
Former Military Guest
Kind of a surreal video podcast that we're doing when none of us can see anything because we all have blindfolds on, but we've got those stupid. The great big microphones that every podcaster ever has. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [01:17]
Co-host
I mean, the worst part for Riley was they put him in the gray Nike sweatsuit and he was like, I would never wear this voluntarily.
- [01:23]
Host
Fuck that.
- [01:25]
Co-host
They like, zip up the Nike jacket on you and you're like thrashing against the restraints.
- [01:32]
Host
I'll tell you anything. The worst part, of course, is that I was hoping, hoping that we would get taken by the Lib SEAL special Forces, but we got taken by the CHUD Delta Special Force.
- [01:42]
Co-host
This is the thing, you and I were talking about this beforehand, like Maduro, which is we're going to spend the whole episode talking about Maduro got taken by Delta Force partially because Trump likes them more. And it's interesting, right, because the Navy SEALs obviously also chuds, but under the Obama administration, they were able to sort of market themselves upwards very effectively as like, here is your elite surgical philosopher king Strike package, sir. Right.
- [02:08]
Former Military Guest
Is extremely funny. If you've ever encountered Navy SEALs, which I have, because they're basically. The best way I could describe it is what if the Khmer Rouge were.
- [02:16]
Co-host
Surfers, but they were able to clean themselves up for kind of in order to sell themselves as the guys to do that stuff. And now, of course, it's a different era. Woke is gone. And with Hegseth and with Trump in office, it's now Delta the army guys being like, look how many push ups these guys can do.
- [02:36]
Former Military Guest
Well, yeah, because Hegseth basically has more or less the same amount of milk military experience that I, I have. Except I'm not be like, I'm the fucking warrior king and I'm going to.
- [02:44]
Co-host
Be a secretary Jerusalem cross tattoo.
- [02:47]
Former Military Guest
I'm just a random ass dude fucking who knows how to use microphone preamps and it's. He's also a alcoholic and a psychopath and a violent abuser and. But I does it does make sense. I hadn't thought of that. But it does make sense that I'm Team army, thus I use Team Army's cool guys, thus I use SFOD Delta as opposed to.
- [03:05]
Co-host
I think it's also funny, right, because although those two units might be sort of culturally broadly interchangeable, it's one of the funniest outcomes of this to me would be embedding a kind of like partisan American Janissary class where it's like seals are the woke Special Forces unit and Delta is the CHUD one. And so if you're like, you know, at 1am waking up in a cold sweat hearing helicopters, you have to listen to see whether or not they're playing we are Charlie Kirk out of the loudspeaker or if there's a little sign attached to the side that says in this Black Hawk we believe.
- [03:42]
Former Military Guest
I mean, to be honest with if you want the real annoying military like internal commentary at the time, the bin Laden raid was absolutely not SEAL sort of domain. Like in terms of what Delta is and what they were designed to do, it is 100% that. It's just that there was a guy who was a former SEAL at the head of JSOC at the time. Like if you're going to send people in to do like a direct action raid like this and then immediately egress, like that's 100% Delta. Like the politics of it are fucked to the point where like I'm, I'm, I'm like, this is the most shameful call of Duty level I've ever watched in my life because it seems so fucking surreal, but it's real and it's like an absolute moral crime and I am mortified by it.
- [04:20]
Co-host
We're not going to get woke too, but we might get neolib too. And if we do, I look forward to being black bagged by the lib Special Forces where it's a bunch of guys with plate carriers and Columbia quarter zips underneath. It's like boots on the back of my Neck. And I'm feeling the tread pattern. I'm like, are those sperries?
- [04:37]
Former Military Guest
Well, actually, they're actually going to be. They're a little happier and thus less likely to do some kind of absurd abusing detainees to you because at least they got to leave Fayetteville, North Carolina to go on this mission to black bag you.
- [04:51]
Host
We need to be egressing to the Deloitte Pride float.
- [04:55]
Former Military Guest
It's like, at least I'm not in Southern Pines right now. I can do something cool. I can. I can go to Glasgow and raid a tower block like that Indonesian kung fu movie.
- [05:03]
Host
So in a second, we're actually going to be talking a little bit about the history, context and likely future of American intervention in South America with Janice Silverman, who's a professor of international relations at UFABC in Brazil and on the DSA International Committee co chair as well.
- [05:18]
Co-host
Yeah, that's, that's where we store all. There's like serious stuff. If you're like, why aren't they doing serious analysis of this? Why are they doing bits about seals wearing quarter zips?
- [05:26]
Host
Yeah, that's coming. But first we just want to extend the fell for it again award of the podcast to of course, Maria Corina Machado. That is right.
- [05:35]
Co-host
Yeah, we talk about it on the interview. But like the two most cucked groups in all of this being the kind of Venezuelan dissident democracy pro sort of overthrow movement and Europe. And I appreciate that a great.
- [05:52]
Host
So. But this is. This was a quote. This was actually published by the Nobel Prize Twitter account while, like Mike Vining Jr. Was flying over karate.
- [06:01]
Co-host
Well, a bunch of guys are like fast roping directly onto Maduro's bed. The Nobel Peace Prize Twitter account is like fearless girl.jpg yeah, this is, this is the quote.
- [06:11]
Host
Freedom is not something we wait, we wait for, but something we become. It is a personal choice. And the sum of those choices forms the civic ethos that must be renewed every day.
- [06:20]
Former Military Guest
Yeah, this is the same as my college application essay where it's like, if I tell them I'm gay, I'll definitely get in.
- [06:25]
Co-host
Save the world. My final message.
- [06:27]
Janice Silverman
This is. This is.
- [06:28]
Co-host
This is a level of like, soy in the face of like preposterously epic operator guy I last saw at the end of the movie Sicaria Soy in.
- [06:40]
Former Military Guest
The face of danger.
- [06:42]
Janice Silverman
Oh, my God.
- [06:44]
Host
So this is. This is, I guess Maria Karina Machado in realizing.
- [06:49]
Janice Silverman
Washed that.
- [06:50]
Host
Yeah. In realizing that, like, because Trump got the FIFA Peace Prize and she got the Nobel Prize Peace Prize, Trump saw her as upstaging him and therefore was like, get her out of here. Only the FIFA prize winners allowed to invade Venezuela. The Nobel means nothing. No, she's like on whatever Kamala Harris was on, like, whoever opposes Donald Trump is doomed to talk like that. So, yeah, this is actually from the FT. Mr. Trump had never warmed to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado, who'd organized a presidential campaign in 2024, earning her the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Since Sister Trump's reelection, Machado has gone out of her way to praise him, calling him a champion of freedom, mimicking his talking points on election flag in the United States, and even dedicating her peace prize to him.
- [07:30]
Co-host
It's just, it's so fucking sad to be like, yeah, I want to be, I want to be president and I want to get rid of the dictator. And that obliges me to like hang out with Donald Trump and be like, yeah, the fucking Somali daycare fraud or whatever is very bad, Mr. President. And then after all that, he still doesn't respect you because weirdly, Trump respects strength and this does not project strength. He should have, should have tried being a handsome man. That's the only thing he cares about.
- [08:00]
Host
Yeah, it's not too late, Maria Machado. There is still time. There is still time, Maria Machado. You could be president of Venezuela. You know what you must be.
- [08:11]
Co-host
We're about to find out in real time whether or not T boy swag is enough to work on Donald Trump.
- [08:18]
Former Military Guest
This is the worst Pedro Almodovar movie I've ever seen.
- [08:22]
Host
So we're going to talk with Dr. Silverman just now and then we're going to be back in a little while to do a little bit more sort of speculation on the MAGA Kremlinology, look at different world leader responses and wonder what the going to come next. So without any further ado, I throw to us. So I'm going to take us into the interview portion of our segment by welcoming Janice Silverman, who's a professor of international relations at ufABC in Brazil. DSA International Committee Co chair and all around knower more about of all of the things that we're going to be discussing here on the podcast today. Jana, welcome to the show.
- [09:08]
Janice Silverman
Hi. Great to be here. Thanks everyone.
- [09:11]
Host
Live from perhaps the most remote place we've ever talked to a guest before. To kick us off, I want to read from an article, this is actually from November 19th in the New York Times entitled Trump said to authorize CIA plans for covert action in Venezuela. And I Think the two paragraphs in this article are essentially the essence of what's happening and we can use that to go into a little bit of history. So here are the paragraphs. While Mr. Trump emphasizes Venezuela's role in the drug trade or illegal immigration, when he discusses the issue in public, he's discussed in private the country's huge oil reserves and American companies gaining access to them. Venezuelan officials have told Americans that Mr. Maduro may be willing to step down after a transition of two to three years, according to people briefed in the matter. However, a delay in Mr. Maduro's giving up power is considered a non starter with the White House, which continues to build up in the region. So let's just starting from there, right? We have resources, we have, um. It's a blatant power grab for those resources, the managing the direct management of the governance in another country by the United States. Let's seat this a little bit in history. I think before we started the show, Jana, you mentioned the 1989 ouster of Noriega in Panama. We've also been talking about gunboat diplomacy in the 19th century, comprador regimes in the 1920s. Let's put like the American perception of itself as the main electoral force, if you like, in south and Central America in a historical context.
- [10:32]
Janice Silverman
Sure, of course. So obviously it all goes back a little bit further, right. You know, 1823, which is the December 1823 James Monroe announces his famous doctrine, which again there's is a lot of controversy about it, about how much it really called for direct intervention by the United States in Latin America at that time, or is more just asserting the fact that it was under a sphere of influence and trying to keep out other European imperial powers in time, namely countries like Spain, while Spain was already there, but you know, France, Britain, etc. Fast forward a little bit and you start seeing a sort of more aggressive interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine over time, especially after the United States passes through its own internal conflicts in the 1860s during the Civil war. Right. So this is where you see again these famous cases of gun bloat diplomacy which again tend to happen more in the areas with more geographical proximity to the United States. Right. So we are talking about the Caribbean, we're obviously talking about Mexico, we're obviously talking about Central America and we're obviously talking about Venezuela. You know, and when we mean convo democracy, it literally. Diplomacy, sorry, it literally meant, you know, that the United States sending warships either directly as a government or privatized through other, what they called at the time, filibusters. I know today we use filibuster as a. Has a different meaning, right? But literally filibusters were, you know, these sort of private agents who came in and, you know, invaded countries. This literally happened in Nicaragua and I believe it was the 1870s where it was governed by an American for two years. And I believe it was the TAP government that actually recognized it diplomatically. So this happened in Venezuela, this. And again, it's also important to mention that it wasn't just the United States that was doing this, written did this quite often to mostly to make good on debts, sovereign debts that these countries held. Because again, let's going back a bit further again in the early 19th century, 1810s, 1820s, that's when all these countries were having their wars of independence. You know, Venezuela played an important, particularly important role. You know, it was the home of Simo, the birthplace of Simon Bolivar, which was the, you know, the liberator of most of South America. Right. But these countries entered, these newly independent countries in the 1820s and 30s, entered into massive debt, you know, to be able to pay their armies, you know, establish working governments, you know, hire police, those kind of basic functions, set up schools, etc. Etc. So again, depending on where these countries were located geographically in the region, some had stronger ties, financial and political ties with Britain in particular. Like we're talking Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, and then the ones close to the United States, like Venezuela, like Mexico, like Central America, had their principal ties with the United States. And then fast forward a little bit more, we get to the 1890s. So who comes into the scene that Teddy Roosevelt, right, and he create with the infamous, I would say, Roosevelt corollary, which basically states very clearly that the United States now gives itself the right to preemptively invade countries and take political control over Latin American countries if they discord with the way they are governing themselves, either politically or economically. And that takes its material expression in the Spanish Civil War, right? You know, which is, you know what? I think it lasted about 2, 3 months where the United States comes in, kind of does this trick at tries to say that it was allied with the Cuban independence forces. What in reality, it wants to take, you know, it wants to get the Spanish out and obtain more direct political and economic control over the island. And you have so that they win the war very easily, quickly in, like I said, in about three months, and Cuba becomes nominally an independent country. And there's also an interesting story about that, you know, Cuba, Cuba could have been you know, the 51st or whatever number state it wouldn't have been at the time. But there was a lot of backlash by US politicians at the time because they felt that there were too many Afro Cubans in the island and it would mess up this quote unquote racial balance. The United States to incorporate Cuba as a state. So that's why it was not incorporated, became an independent state nominally. But you had the plat amendment which was incorporated into the Cuban constitution, I believe it was 1902, 1903, which basically said that the United States had a right to again directly intervene in Cuban politics, Cuban affairs, if they discarded with the way that the government was, was handling things, even though Cuba was again a nominally independent state. And so that's when Puerto Rico becomes a colony, in addition to Philippines, Guam, et cetera. So all that to say that. And this is again skipping over Mexico, which would be a whole, you know, hour podcast in and of itself about the history of U.S. mexican intervention. Right. So all that to say that U.S. presence in the region in this sort of aggressive, you know, sort of unilateral perspective has been very, very obvious, you know, I, since the mid 19th century. So what they're doing in Venezuela, long story short, is nothing new.
- [15:52]
Co-host
It struck me that in some ways this kidnapping had more in common with the sort of 19th century, early 20th century interventions than the sort of later 20th century ones. As far as I can remember, it's the first time in many decades that the US has intervened directly in South America as opposed to Central America, rather than through using sort of those own countries, militaries or the CIA sort of overtly like overt American military action. It's sort of like testing my memory for anything this sort of brazen and this resource focused. Do you think that's fair to say?
- [16:30]
Janice Silverman
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean again, if we get to the, we take, you know, again, fast forward again to the mid 20th century. You know, we're at the height of the Cold War and that's when you see a series of very aggressive US interventions. But again, not all those US interventions are explicitly or entirely military. This all starts in the 1950s with the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz, who was the sort of left, the second LA left leading, you know, left leaning president of the, of the country of Guatemala, which was sort of a test of how the US would intervene in years to come in places like Indonesia, Iran and then later Brazil. Brazil becomes the next test in 1964. And what you do is you get this kind of combination of, you know, of they, they set up a military cooperation, they set up sort of think tanks to sort of spread this idea of, you know, anti communism among the intellectuals, among the population in general. And so what you have. And the United States actually goes to the point of actually stationing large gunboats out, you know, right outside of Rio de Janeiro the day of the coup, which happens again on April 1, 1964. But they don't actually have to go in and militarily intervene because the Brazilian army does it for them. And this is kind of a similar pattern that then repeats in places like Uruguay in 1973, Chile in 1973, Argentina, 1976, et cetera. Right. So you are right, you don't see as much. You know, again, it's not that there isn't military intervention, it's just not troops on the ground per se. And to be fair, that's not what we saw either. Right. You know, we saw this sort of quote, unquote, surgical strike happening, which I would say is maybe more akin to what we saw in the operation against Osama bin Laden than a full scale military invention, you know, compared to what we saw in Nicaragua in the, you know, 1870s. Right.
- [18:18]
Co-host
It's interesting to me as well in that if you compare it to the sort of interventions of the 60s and 70s, there isn't a Cold War block there, the kind of threat that Venezuela could pose to the US that's been confected of sort of like drug trafficking or sometimes it's sort of stretched to Iran and Hezbollah as well. There's not anything as sort of like, as proximate as there was with Cuba or with Chile or anyone anywhere else. And it really seems so much more, I don't know, distracted in some ways. It seems so much more like there's no kind of need to legitimize this or claim any kind of legitimacy for it, which is, that's the part that feels like a kind of a throwback to me.
- [19:06]
Former Military Guest
To me also I'm reminded of 1983 in Grenada just because of the fact that that was seen as, I mean, if I recall correctly, even the United Kingdom government privately expressed displeasure at Reagan for having invaded Grenada and overthrow the government and then left, if I remember correctly, not too long after. I also was reminded of Honduras in 2009 where the military arrested Manuel Zelaya. But it wasn't the US military, even though the US does have a presence in Honduras. It was the, you know, the Honduran Supreme Court said that Zelaya's plan for A constituent assembly was illegal and then the military came into his house and arrested him at gunpoint and put him on a plane. And that to me, I was like. But I agree with everything you're saying that it's strange to see the US do this specifically against the head of state out of nowhere. And the times that it's happened in the past, like you were saying, John, it's more like what happened in Pakistan in 2011 versus something that we've seen in the United States in recent decades. It's just kind of. There's something very surreal about it. But I definitely feel like there's this kind of rhyming precedent, if that makes sense.
- [20:11]
Janice Silverman
Yeah. If we're going to look at US interventions in Latin America again, military and non sort of overtly militarily. Right. You know, because I think that was great, Nate, that you just mentioned, you know, the first, I would say kind of US backed coup, because let's call it what it was. Even though that was during the, you know, quote unquote, liberal Obama administration in 2009 in Honduras. You know, let's remember shortly after that, 2012, you had a very rage, you know, sort of strange parliamentary coup that lasted for 24 hours to ouster the only left leaning president in the history of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo. That happened. And then, you know, shortly after that you have the coup against Dilma Rostep in Brazil, which was, you know, the most shocking. Right. And then after that you start seeing this series of, you know, what we call lawfare. Right. Which, you know, where are they learning this from? You know, the Department of Justice. And again, this is not conspiracy theory. You know, there were all the, you know, the leaked text and information that was uncovered, you know, years ago by Glenn Greenwald, showing the direct allusion between, you know, the judge that ended up prosecuting Lula and involved directly in the sort of political movement to Al Jilma in Brazil with the doj. Right. So again, I would say, you know, on one level, you know, that the sh. The. This attack against Maduro was shocking because it was a directly military attack. On a certain level.
- [21:34]
Former Military Guest
Right.
- [21:34]
Janice Silverman
On the other hand, you know, it's not shocking at all. Right. Because they've been doing this, you know, you know, basically for all of us, modern history, under different guises. And getting back to, you know, the issue of motives. Right. I mean, I would say. And again, maybe being an academic, sometimes we tend to overthink things. I think there is a sort of ideological underpinning. I think that's why Marco Rubio in particular is so, you know, gung ho on this and that's why he's got his sights on Cuba next. Right. Even though, you know, the main countries that actually, actually export drugs into the United States, you know, obviously Mexico is a stopping point, but the main producers of drugs, in addition to Colombia are Purdue and Ecuador, which are both ruled by right wing governments right now. So, so I think there is an issue about, you know, US Hegemony being weakened. Right. You know, how has Venezuel survived over the last nine years, know, after being heavily sanctioned and basically being outside of the sort of the world financial system because of US Financial sanctions, they've survived because of Russia and China. Right. H. What is the number one trading partner of literally every country in South America right now? It is China. So I think again, maybe it's not so ideological in, in this idea, you know, battle of ideas between capitalism and quote, unquote, communism, but it is about hegemony, right? It's about the, the ascension of the brick. Right? You know, so it isn't just, you know, obviously, narco trafficking, it's just their grasp straws. It's about oil. I think on a certain level it could also be about, you know, immigration, you know, you know, Venezuela, over 8 million Venezuelans have migrated out of the country again in the last 10 years or so because of the economic crisis caused in part by sanctions. So that's definitely something to keep an eye out also when looking at Cuba and Mexico, but obviously. And it's certainly not about democracy. Right. We all know, you know, Venezuelan democracy is just as flawed as, you know, you know, lots of other partners in the region, your U.S. partners, like El Salvad, like Peru itself. Right. You know, never mind, you know, places in other regions like Saudi Arabia, et cetera, et cetera.
- [23:36]
Co-host 2
This is like a very quick question on my part because I'd like your opinion. I'd really like to hear your opinion about, like, why are like establishment, like media outlets kind of like saying that this is, you know, this at least part of it is like, is a sort of attempt to kind of restore democracy or bring democracy when like everyone in the administration is basically overtly saying, no, it absolutely isn't, like, we are very clear about what we want. And also, so I did see a very compelling case, which I'm not saying is true, but it would be very fitting for this administration to be like, yeah, they went for Maduro because he kept doing the Trump dance and kept mocking him and his drip was too fresh. His girl was too bad, et cetera. I'm not actually unconvinced. That might be one of the reasons why they were just like, fuck this guy. There are lots of other reasons for doing it, but the final straw is him doing the Trump dance better than Trump.
- [24:25]
Janice Silverman
Well, I just watched that Trump dance last night, and I have to say, it is pretty damn cool. So what I would say about that is like, on one level, right. You know, Trump's foreign policy, when it, when it's totally concentrated in him and making these big decisions, it's completely unpredictable. Just like all of his policy. Right. You know, like, I think a lot of it has to, you know, again, he. A lot of it is based on sort of his own personal reactions and opinions, you know, like, like, let's, you know, another example, certainly a lot less drastic. You know, what, four months ago, you know, United States had slapped a ton of tariffs on Brazil, right. You know, that Latin America's largest economy. And then, you know, two months later, yeah, Trump and Lula hook up at the UN General assembly meeting and suddenly they're like best buddies and, you know, less. A few weeks later, you know, almost all the tariffs are gone. So again, you know, I, I wouldn't completely discount the Trump dance theory. Right. You know, but in terms of like, his decision to like pull the trigger. Right. You know, but I think OB in the lead up to it, like, that was not the factor. Right. You know, they can, I mean, let's, let's say, you know, like, on a certain level, the United States has been planning this literally for years, if not, you know, over a decade, you know, like. And again, talking about, not necessarily militarily, again, like talking about interventions by USAID and NED funded programming, you know, to undermine, you know, the, the Chavista project, you know, you know, obviously the economic sanctions causing chaos in the country. Like, these are all things that led up to, you know, this sort of last str. Right, which was the direct military intervention. But again, you know, I think it's more to me, you know, again, this isn't going to solve anything regarding narco trafficking. It's certainly not going to bring back, quote, unquote, democracy in Venezuela, even though, you know, again, I totally agree a lot of like, sort of legacy media has been like repeating that as well as the European Union, Right. It's. It's about the United States reasserting its control. Latin American saying, this is still our backyard. You know, I definitely think it's more about, you know, the Dr. Conroe, Mark doctrine than it is about, you know, like, they're using narco trafficking to kind of appease domestic audiences. But it has nothing to do with.
- [26:36]
Co-host 2
Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day because like, when the inauguration, as in the Trump inauguration happened, like one of the things that he had said in his speech that I think is like really telling of just what this current administration is like. But something that was kind of overlooked was just like how resentful he was about like, what he sort of perceived to be all the ailments of like his movement and, and the fact that he was blaming other people and blaming other countries. This was very much at the heart of his governance in this time, which is about, oh, other countries and other institutions and secret forces are sort of undermining American dominance, American hegemony. And the only way that you can solve them is through force. And so what we're going to do is we're going to try stuff like sanctions, but that will be the last straw in terms of non military intervention. And it's a. Sanctions didn't sort of, as you mentioned, the sanctions were basically unworkable for the most part. They've harmed Americans and they've harmed. I think it probably has had a really big impact on his domestic kind of popularity, even among his own base. And so I do wonder whether the next step of being guided by this resentment is now just like, okay, all the options to do nonviolent bullying, that's off the table and now we're just going to use all of American military power which has been built up over the court. You know, this is not a sort of Trump project in and of itself. Like, you know, as you sort of mentioned, like, Obama and Biden have kind of paved the way for this, but it would make sense for someone like him to be like, okay, well, we just have like all this military power and no one can really stop us. So, like, why is no one using it? Like, it's a completely rational Trump response to like the tariffs kind of not yielding the benefits that he necessarily wanted it to.
- [28:12]
Janice Silverman
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think about, like, how does the US like maintain its quote, unquote exceptionalism. Right. You know, from years it's maintained it through economics. Right. And that clearly, like, that's slipping and it's not coming back. You know, obviously, you know, the sort of competitive advantage that China has due to a number of reasons, not just, you know, low cost of labor, but also, you know, their advances in research and development. You know, like, they spend so much More on science and technology per, you know, per capita in the United States does.
- [28:41]
Host
Right.
- [28:41]
Janice Silverman
You know, and then other forms of US Hegemony, soft power, right. The idea of like using this cultural soft power, you know, above and beyond, like Hollywood, right. Like you can do that, you do that through foreign aid. Right. And Trump completely dismantled U.S. u.S. Aid, right. And in other forms of ways of showing, you know, how the US is like this nice, you know, benevolent hegemon, right. In the world. Although it is important to mention that at, you know, even though 90 or something, you know, over 90% of USAID's programming was completely dismantled, the programming in Venezuela and Cuba was not entirely right. That was put back on the table explicitly by Marco Rubio. And then so what, what is left, you know, if you lose and then political hegemony again? US Is losing its political hegemony through the brick, right? Not ne not. Not because we're necessarily seeing a return to some kind of multilateral world, but certainly bilateral, you know, again with the ascent of China. And so what is the US Left with? Military hegemony. And that's the only sort of type of power that, you know, uncontestedly that the United States still has an upward advantage on than any other country in the world. And so I think I totally agree. Like, like, you know, we can't win over their hearts and minds, so let's just bomb the hell out of them.
- [29:52]
Co-host
I'm curious as well, what you. What you make of the sort of various little reports that have emerged here and this kind of process of negotiation that maybe was happening at some level either with Maduro or with other elements of the Venezuelan government. And that is now kind of happening out in public where the White House is trying to sort of coerce Maduro's vice president into sort of like doing what they want, which seems mostly to be oil focused. And that sort of reminded me again, very sort of like 1920s, 1930s of comprador stuff. And I just wonder what you make of it.
- [30:30]
Janice Silverman
Yeah, I think that was real. Again, to what level those talks were held and advanced is another question. But let's keep in mind also I want to say about three, four years ago in 2021, early 2022, when the United States was kind of confronting really high oil prices or really high oil prices for the United States. And I mean, oil in the sense of gasoline at the pump, right. You know, what consumers are paying, you know, B. The Biden administration entered into talks with the Venezuelans, right. It was interestingly brokered by The Qatari, which is again, another. You know, we could talk about that later. Why them?
- [31:07]
Co-host
You know, this sort of niche they've carved out for themselves.
- [31:10]
Janice Silverman
Exactly. Right. But so. And it actually had some progress, right. You know, like they, they increased the amount of oil that this well could exports the United States to kind of alleviate the pressure, you know, the, the price pressure at the pumps. Right. But then, you know, again, the sort of once that problem gets, quote, unquote resolved, Biden clamps the sanctions back on. And obviously, you know, Trump's continued that. But in that, you know, even though there aren't official diplomatic relations with, you know, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the United States for quite some time now, these informal, you know, channels do exist. I do believe there was some back channeling. And, you know, I think maybe Maduro kind of overplayed his hand or assumed that there would be greater popular resistance or military resistance to any attempt at, you know, military intervention by the United States.
- [32:01]
Co-host
It's striking to me on a sort of a personal level that I feel a little bit aggrieved. Right. And I'm not doing the kind of like two things can be true at the same time thing here. But if you look at other leaders that the US has deposed, if you look at like Allende or if you look at Arvince, to put Maduro, who by my estimation was like especially in the last few years, always kind of a joke in their company now by default is really like, there's something farcical about it to me. And I don't know, do you think I'm sort of justified in that?
- [32:37]
Janice Silverman
Well, again, we're living in the post truth world right now. You know, obviously sort of, you know, this idea of, you know, Maduro was certainly to call Maduro's regime sort of democratic socialist, I would consider an opposed truth. Right. You know, if it was. But at the same time, you know, again, and this is sort of me stepping, stepping back and taking more of a political approach as, you know, a leader of the International Committee of the Democratic Socialist of America. I mean, I don't think it's our role as, you know, socialists within the American empire to be kind of like criticizing or analyzing very deeply, you know, kind of these regimes. Right. Like, our role is to, you know, stop the intervention, stop the sanctions, you know, have a solidarity with the working classes of these, of these countries of countries around the world. Right. But I mean, yeah, clearly you can't put it on the bar with agenda. You know, like he literally, he, you Know, developed autonomous working class power. Right. You know, like Venezuela I think again, you know, under Chavez there was huge advances made in social programs, poverty reduction, you know, minimum wage increases, even food, sovereignty issues. But what happened, you know, Chavez also didn't set, you know, didn't kind of prepare the conditions sort of materially for when the, you know, the Kamar commodities boom would end. Right? And literally two years after Chavez died in 2013, commodities boom and you know, the sanctions start getting slapped on. So you know, the Pedesa, which is the Venezuelan nationalized oil company, can't get access to like the parts and the machinery they need to keep, you know, ramp up production more to compensate for the drop in oil prices. And then everything, you know, that was kind of based on, that wasn't based on ideology but was based on sort of just this capacity of the Venezuelan government to materially provide better ported citizens that completely collapse. And so then Maduro, you know, he starts, you know, I think, I think again a lot of the, the Venezuelan people still follow him legitimately because of this sort of political memory of how their lives materially improved under Chavez in particular. But at the same time like he's not trying to, you know, create independent working class power in the same way that agenda did, you know, without a doubt.
- [34:52]
Host
So what I want to talk a little bit about with the time we have left is the day after. So what is the, what do we think is based on understanding two things. Understanding American intervention in Latin and South America on the one hand and also understanding American attempts at not going to say necessarily nation building because they may just end up governing via like the Vice President for example, like the state may stay somewhat intact. We don't actually know yet really. But what do we think the likely day after looks like for Venezuelan society having just had its government removed?
- [35:25]
Janice Silverman
Well, I would say two things. First of all, all we, we've already seen the day after, right? And what we've seen so far is actually it's surprisingly calm, right. You know, like I think there was, you know, there was a lot of sort of these right wingers wish casting that the so called democrats of Venezuelans inside the country would rise up and you know, overthrow the entire Chavista regime, including the Vice President. That certainly hasn't happened. And we've seen obviously how, you know, what Trump feels about, you know, our wonderful Nobel Peace Prize winner. And then on the other hand, like, yeah, I think know it's still really an open question what can happen ne, you know, sort of in the next weeks or months or even years to come. Unfortunately, as we were talking about kind of the recent history of Latin America, there's also this trend, right, of kind of vice presidents completely sort of abandoning the political projects that they were elected under, right. This obviously happened by Michel Temer, who was the vice president who led the coup against Joe Morrow's death in Brazil in 2016. But that also happened, you know, one or two years later in Ecuador. You know, Len Moreno, who was Rafael Correas, the left wing Rafael Cornea as vice president. He gets elected once, Ra Correa can't run again due to term limits. And he completely, you know, and literally in the space of week, turns on a dime and implements new liberal policies and, you know, and a lot of Rafael Correa tries to indict himself under corruption charges, etc. So all that to say, like, you know, even though Del Rodriguez, the, you know, the current acting president of Venezuela has, has impeccable Chavista credentials, right. You know, she has never in any moment whatsoever shown to not be loyal to the regime. Right. But anything can happen, right? And she has a boot on her neck, you know, very literally. Trump has made it very clear that we'll work with her if she does what we want her to do. So I think there's a lot of difficult choices that, you know, her administration right now is going to have to face. I think the reality is, even though Maduro was, you know, arrested, was under a flagrant breach of international law, you know, I mean, and is going to be tried in the United States in a way that completely undermines any concept of what we call, you know, a sovereign immunity for heads of state, you know, for crimes that are not considered, you know, like you can only basically try a sovereign head of state for free crimes, right. You know, when they're in office, which would be war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, that's why it would be possible to try someone like Netanyahu right now. But you can't try Maduro, especially in a foreign court for crimes committed supposedly in his own country. You know, like we're talking about, you know, possession of arms, possession of firearms. That's not a crime in Venezuela, Right?
- [38:11]
Host
So I mean, any crime in America.
- [38:13]
Janice Silverman
It'S not even a crime in America, right? And that's why I don't live in the United States anymore, among other reasons. But anyway, you know, I think so Madur. But I think all, despite all the, the blame illegality, you know, he's not going to be coming back to Venezuela anytime soon? Maybe not at all. So I think the reality is going to be how is Rodriguez going to respond to these threats? How is she going to be able to kind of thread the needle, right? Is she going to be able to attend, you know, is she going to open up us, you know, to US investment in the oil sector? Which is obviously seems to be, you know, the main interest. Is she going to try to do something in terms of blocking quote, unquote, illegal immigration of Venezuelans to the United States? I think if she does those two things then maybe the United States will kind of like just let her be. Right? You know, but and then the other open question obviously is like, you know, supposedly, you know, again, the left in Latin America thought for a very long time oh, you know, Venezuela is the best prepared country to, you know, confront a US military attack or any kind of attack because again, they have the Kuna movement, they had, you know, a lot of organized popular social movements, unions, you know, women's groups, etc. Community groups, but so far, you know, they take into the streets but they weren't able to prevent the attack. There obviously was probably some kind of leak that, you know, was able to get the, you know, get the CIA, get the DAA in there to be able to, you know, abduct Javes so effectively. So all that to say that, you know, I think again we're going to have to look at the sor of correlation of forces between, you know, popular approach of east of forces versus the pressure of the United States and how Delta Rodriguez is going to thread that ego.
- [39:48]
Host
I mean, do you. And I know we're, we're sort of getting into speculation here, but one possible future outcome is, is as you say, just sort of total capitulation by Delsey Rodriguez. The sort of government carries on as.
- [39:59]
Co-host
Normal, total incoherence of like Maga communism. I.
- [40:05]
Host
But also like for example, there could be like an ongoing sort of low level security crisis as like, let's say you haven't tried to take apart like Chavista institutions, you haven't sort of destroyed a lot of these organized groups that could for example object in quite strong terms to Chevron increasing its staffing from like, I don't know, like 3,000 people in country as was to 20,000, 25,000 to American oil companies taking much more control and much more profit unfortunately, so on and so on. Right. Like I wonder what the prospects are of say for example, a sort of ongoing low level insurgency that gets funded by, you know, every side of it gets funded by different arms of the US Security state. And you end up like, with, you know, the, the DEA's guys fighting the CIA's guys in order to take territory from the DOD's guys.
- [40:55]
Co-host
Turning Venezuela into Syria, you mean?
- [40:56]
Janice Silverman
Basically, yeah, I would say, first of all, I would say that's less possible to turn into a Syria because again, you don't have these, like, ethnic, religious cleavages, et cetera, like you do see in countries like Syria or Lebanon, right? That, that lets the US kind of go in and kind of exploit those differences. Second of all, I think this is where the ideology is going to come into play, right? Like, are the Venezuelan people or the majority of Venezuelan people, you know, the 65% or so living in Venezuela that opposed US military intervention willing to, you know, put their bodies on the line, you know, against US Military, you know, further US Military intervention or economic intervention? I think that remains to be seen. Right. Like we said, you know, we see protests in the street, we see the loyalists, you know, out there, them in, you know, social media, etc. But when push comes to shove, you know, like, I think that, that, that remains to be seen, you know, what, what the reaction not just of the government is going to be, but of the Venezuelan people themselves, especially those kind of organized in these communal movements or union movements, etc. And I have my DOU because again, on one hand, you know, I had the experience, you know, living in Brazil in 2018. I spent some time in the border region between, you know, where the, the northern part of Brazil shares the border with Venezuela in a state called Roraima. And I spent some time there talking with recent Venezuelan refugees, right? Migrants. And, you know, most of them really weren't very ideological one way or the other. Like, they were leaving the country because, like, you know, I was talking to teachers, policemen, you know, even, you know, petroleum engineers who are like, literally their monthly salary because of hyperinflation was only like, letting them buy, you know, three frozen chickens and some, like, cornmeal and they, they couldn't have access to medicine. Right. You know, so, you know, I would say. I would say people are really just looking to survive. Like, I think most people in Venezuela are looking to just kind of turn this page and like, be able to have better lives within the country because there is a huge humanitarian crisis that is undeniable, even though, you know, Maduro has tried to kind of like, paper over that. So I think if, you know, this new sort of US presence, in whatever form it's going to be, you Know, kind of mediated by Rodriguez, it starts to improve the material conditions of people, including access to food and medicine in particular. They're not going to protest against that. But again, this is all speculation, so we'll wait and see.
- [43:19]
Host
And of course, obviously, just to be clear, the thing that would remove the crisis is that, of course, now that there is a friendly US leader, the US would just let them back into the global economy, basically.
- [43:29]
Janice Silverman
Right. But unfortunately, you know, so far no immediate sanctions have been lift and even the European Union has decided not to lift their sanctions in support of democracy until 2027. So, yeah, I think there's going to have to be movement on that.
- [43:44]
Co-host
I think the thing that's most remarkable about all of this and the thing that makes it so unpredictable is that there is a kind of established neoliberal playbook for regime change which has just been for the most part, completely discarded. And so you had this kind of sort of like democracy movement or whatever with Machado that is just now completely sidelined. The European sort of pathway for all of this is also now kind of at the mercy of whatever Donald Trump decides to do or whatever Marco Rubio decides to do. And it's just, I mean, on those two fronts, I feel like it couldn't happen to nicer people. But it's so bizarre from start to finish.
- [44:26]
Co-host 2
Yeah.
- [44:27]
Janice Silverman
I mean, I would say, like, again, you know, world, you know, we can say what we want about Trump, but they have, you know, leaders aren't dumb, you know, Right. They have their eyes open, right. They realize what the complete, you know, failure of the Arab Spring was like. They see, you know, what, that, what, what, you know, Syria turned into, what Egypt turned into, etc. Etc. Right. They saw, you know, the failure of the color revolutions in places like Ukraine. Right. They don't want another Ukraine. So I think this, especially these sort of neo authoritarian right wing governments like the Trump administration in particular, but obviously we can include that Melon and Orban and others. Yeah, they just want to cut to the chase. They want to just, you know, like, let's get what we want and, you know, let, you know, this whole veneer of democracy is really, you know, or like popular participation maybe is not necessary at all.
- [45:14]
Host
Like I said at the time of recording, you know, Ruby. Right. Just to sort of bring this back around, put a little button on it and then transfer back to us. Rubio is, as is saying, elections. Oh, that's premature. No, no, no.
- [45:28]
Co-host
Amidst, amidst both him getting his sort of like mandatory Cuba threatening in, but also Trump Extending this in his to Colombia, to Mexico and maybe to Greenland.
- [45:39]
Janice Silverman
Yeah. Like, when was the last time we had elections in Ukraine? Let's remember that, too.
- [45:43]
Host
Yeah, let's. If you're Mark Carney, you really should be kind of trying to get some technicals built.
- [45:49]
Co-host
Mark Carney employing a bunch of Cuban special forces as bodyguards now that they're out of work. Yeah.
- [45:55]
Host
But one guy's just like, ah, my uncle was the previous guy. You took over from him. Anyway, Jenna Silverman, I want to thank you very much for coming and talking to me US a little bit about the history, local context and likely future of one of the most shocking and downright confusing developments in global politics today.
- [46:12]
Janice Silverman
Thanks. It was a lot of fun and I hope I was able to shed a little bit of light on this very, very crazy and chaotic situation.
- [46:18]
Host
Perfect.
- [46:19]
Co-host
Absolutely. Thanks so much.
- [46:20]
Host
And now back to us for some further speculation on what's going to be happening. See you in a moment.
- [46:42]
Co-host
Wow. Great job, us.
- [46:44]
Host
And this time we actually do know about that because we already did that before recording this part, which is unusual for us. So basically one of the things I want to go back to is just a little bit of MAGA criminology. And there are lots of different ways to sort of thread this needle.
- [47:00]
Co-host
There's so many potential actors here. You can, you can do like Hegseth being like these guys that like, make me feel funny to do pull ups with and deciding to like sort of really throw in heavily with Delta. Or you can look at the kind of MAGA foreign policy.
- [47:15]
Janice Silverman
Right.
- [47:15]
Co-host
Because the kind of like ostensibly anti war maga, like wing that's out, that's washed, it's over. And instead it feels like the patriots in control now are Marco Rubio, because he got what he wanted. He got a regime change in Latin America and he got to threaten Cuba with one.
- [47:33]
Host
And it's very amusing to look at the reactions out of Miami where in the morning they're just like celebrating in the streets.
- [47:41]
Co-host
This is beautiful.
- [47:42]
Janice Silverman
Right.
- [47:42]
Co-host
Because every news organization in the world sent reporters to the same four blocks of Doral, Florida, to interview the wealthiest and most obscenely fascist Venezuelan emigres they could find. This isn't to say that everyone who fled Venezuela is. It's just these guys are. And they're the ones they're talking to. They found the blondest Venezuelans and they went, okay, what's up with this? How are you feeling in the morning? Ecstatic. Fantastic. You know, Trump is a great liberator. He's a great man. And then as the penny drops that they're not really going to do like a regime change per se. They just grabbed one guy and his wife and then they're going to try and like kind of do an occupation by zoom. Call that reaction got more and more confused and a little bit betrayed. Funniest pathway to a Trump assassination. Assassination is somebody who feels like they got Bay of Pigs about Venezuela, which.
- [48:37]
Host
Is like a bunch of like blonde Venezuelans with German last names just like get like doing fucking like tire obstacle courses in like the Louisiana bayou.
- [48:46]
Co-host
Was weird that Donald Trump got perfectly airholed by a car. 98K. But, you know, I guess they had that on hand for a normal reason.
- [48:53]
Former Military Guest
Well, no, I mean, yeah, there's. There's a reason. Every now and again a guy named Juan Carlos Eichmann just happens to buy a long range rifle. You know, like, it doesn't matter.
- [49:01]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [49:02]
Host
I think it's crazy that Juan Carlos Eichman went to go see Avatar 4 immediately after doing Trump. I don't think that makes any sense. I think he's a patsy and he just revealed his location from his. Yeah, exact.
- [49:16]
Former Military Guest
Exactly. It's like he. We can time, like break it down by the seconds he enters into the. To the door dash, dark kitchen. This log rifle.
- [49:24]
Janice Silverman
Yeah.
- [49:24]
Former Military Guest
It's curtains from there.
- [49:26]
Host
Yeah. So, but lately, so we have this like this MAGA criminology where I mean, I think you can always say, right, like someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is surprised and disgusted by this surprising and disgusting action, is and always was a patsy, that everyone who thought that MAGA was about, quote, unquote, no more foreign wars, was a patsy.
- [49:44]
Co-host
Well, they're all cynics and they're stupid at the same time. Right. So she's. She's kind of worked out that there's some hay she can make off of this feel like a kind of splinter, like sort of.
- [49:54]
Janice Silverman
Right.
- [49:55]
Co-host
MAGA ism, I guess of like sort of anti interventionism, which. Sure. But she's out is the main thing. She is out with the big guy. And as the big guy seems progressively more frail, it really seems like you can kind of get some death of Stalin stuff by him a lot more easily.
- [50:14]
Host
Which is, I think we can then say, well, what Rubio did, because it.
- [50:19]
Co-host
Was never like, is he gonna do something? It was, you know, because Trump is the fascist that he is. He is sort of like vino. He does love violence, he loves crime. But it's like, which one? Right. This could just as easily have been Mexico that was one of the things that Hegseth was apparently big on. And I get the sense that it was Rubio who steered things towards Venezuela instead.
- [50:41]
Host
And it's government by like, who's able to like, befriend the dentist that Trump is golfing with that day. Yeah.
- [50:48]
Co-host
Navigate an adult old man's crumbling mind palace. You know, like, it's. It's succession shit is what it is.
- [50:56]
Host
I mean, it's also like, you know, this is. We talk about like Fourth Reich stuff. Like, this is what it would have been like trying to influence the. If you're like, you know, it's like an ambitious young German officer. This is. This is what it would. What it would have been like in like 1970s Lebensraum, Germany, sort of working towards the Fuhrer.
- [51:14]
Co-host
Absolutely.
- [51:15]
Host
Also, like, we talk about like the love of violence. And I want to get also to especially the European reaction after this.
- [51:21]
Co-host
Not to keep cutting you off here. I'm sorry. But like, the other thing about this that I think is funny and partially why I had the thought of woke SEAL team is as much as we can talk about how this is, as we said in the interview, it conforms to the long history of American exercise of military force. But it's different in that it's more brazen. Trump is kind of doing the Trump version of the same thing that Obama did, which is second term. Getting really enamored with special forces guys as just like, this is going to solve all my problems. And it's sort of like where that energy gets directed and who by is an interesting question. But I also think at this point, like, for him, it's tv. He said that as much. He said that, you know, that he was watching it like it was on tv, which is something Obama did with. With the Osama bin Laden thing. And I genuinely think there is a way to make the world safe for America, which is you just get Japanese airsofters to do fake Delta raids for Trump on tv. You give him a busy box. Those guys are really good at replicating the details of gear and stuff. Just have them do that. Give the Japanese airsoft as a Blackhawk and have them entertain Trump with it.
- [52:34]
Janice Silverman
For the next three years.
- [52:35]
Former Military Guest
Truman show, where Trump basically is endlessly entertained by, I don't know, Potemkin, Delta Force, basically. He'll be too enthralled. He won't be able to do anything else and make any more problems for people.
- [52:45]
Co-host
It's a sort of total Baudrillard victory right in the. All of this stuff. Is so choreographed and so stage managed and sort of like all almost ritualized that it may as well not happen. As far as the guys ordering it.
- [53:00]
Former Military Guest
I mean, like seeing video, grainy cell phone footage of MH 60s over Caracas, I feel like you could just do the dark souls fought and wrote. Right. Total Baudrillard victory on that. And it would completely summarize the situation.
- [53:13]
Host
So basically we have, like, yeah, we have the maga criminology, which is like, as ever, right? The interventionists, the neocons are back in charge. The only reason Trump didn't like the neocons was that some of them he found to be personally unpleasant.
- [53:25]
Co-host
Yeah, well, the neocons have had to adopt sort of Trumpian methods. Right. This is sort of something that, like, it isn't necessarily the way they would have done it themselves, but it also seems for them to be working better than the old playbook. So in that sense, Trump is useful to them.
- [53:43]
Host
But I want to also talk a little bit about someone you already mentioned, Nova, the hypercucked Europeans.
- [53:51]
Co-host
The most washed continent on the face of the fucking planet.
- [53:55]
Host
Yeah. Like, you might as well have the European Union Commission seat at the un. It's the chair in the corner of a hotel room at this point. That's just what that is.
- [54:05]
Co-host
And to be clear, right, this isn't because Europeans are pussy. Well, it is, but, like, not in the sense that we're horrified by the abuse of international law.
- [54:14]
Janice Silverman
Right.
- [54:14]
Co-host
Europe loves breaking international law same as everyone. But what it is is that there's a playbook for this stuff. There's a way it's meant to go. There's meant to be a kind of like, credible opposition move. That's what the Nobel Prize was for. That's what, like, there's a. There's a way you're supposed to do this that requires a certain amount of delicacy. And instead of doing that, Trump just kidnapped the guy into a flying black van. Like, and. And so what you're left with is this. All of these kind of stammering statements of, like, well, the United States is our strongest ally, and we're looking into whether or not it was okay that they did that.
- [54:53]
Janice Silverman
Probably it was.
- [54:54]
Host
So, for example, I'll start with Starmer's statement. The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela. We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate president and we shed no tears about the end of his regime. I reiterate my support for international law this morning. Foam finger law.
- [55:09]
Co-host
It's nice to know that the sort of like center right has an equivalent to when leftists say solidarity with X of just being like, you're on your own.
- [55:19]
Host
So we discussed the evolving situation with US counterparts in the days ahead and we seek a safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people. The PM refused to say whether President Trump had broken international law, saying he needs to, quote, establish the full picture. And it's like, I know you have to say that, but it must be at least, I hope he feels at least a little bit embarrassed that the human rights lawyer prime minister of the UK watches like as again, as we establish with Janet in the interview, just like radioactively illegal kidnapping on a, on foreign soil for like thrown together like guns, gun and drug charges, like he's fucking like young thug. And then just saying, oh, we don't know. We don't know if this is actually breaking international law.
- [56:05]
Co-host 2
We need to establish something looking at.
- [56:06]
Co-host
The most illegal thing you've ever seen and going, well, what is truth anyway? And that's why it's a total Baudrillard victory is because now Europe is in this position of being like, well, the meaning of international law is highly subjective. You know, can any of us be said to know something truly?
- [56:24]
Co-host 2
Maybe Starmer really wishes it was him. Maybe he was like, I can also wear a tracksuit.
- [56:30]
Co-host
I would support Starmer being kidnapped by Delta Force. I think I can say that.
- [56:34]
Co-host 2
But I was going to say that, yeah, this is sort of an interesting moment because there's now a non zero chance that the US could just kind of occupy Whitechapel if it believes that it's got a responsibility to take out grooming gangs or whatever and kidnap Keir Starmer as part of that process.
- [56:49]
Co-host
They are to going to kidnap Starmer for like censoring x.com the everything ad or that.
- [56:54]
Co-host 2
Yeah. And then karma can be like, well, actually I quite enjoyed it.
- [56:57]
Janice Silverman
It was, it was, it was, it was a.
- [56:58]
Co-host 2
It was a very nice experience. They were very Delta Force. They're very strong guys. You know, they're very, very.
- [57:04]
Former Military Guest
Yeah, you'll actually find they're quite woke, but not too woke.
- [57:08]
Host
They gave me a nice water on the plane.
- [57:12]
Co-host
Starmer being zipped into the mandatory punis massive Nike tracksuit and he's just like, this is just like playing five aside a thing I do regularly.
- [57:21]
Host
They had adolescence in the in flight video system, which I thought was very important.
- [57:27]
Co-host
Fucking economy class gets worse every year, you know.
- [57:30]
Host
So in the European Union itself, with people like Kajikalis or Ursula Von der Leyen are also saying basically the same statement, which is, we support what you did, but we're worried about it. We support what you did because we know that, you know, Maduro is the designated enemy.
- [57:44]
Janice Silverman
Boo.
- [57:45]
Co-host
Yeah, the most.
- [57:46]
Host
The same.
- [57:47]
Co-host
So again, I'm not a child, right. I understand that all international law operates this way and this is just how states are. But it is a particular humiliation to sort of make Ukraine also be like, yeah, I guess that's crazy. Total support for the US whatever they want. Because they have to say that when like the Russians tried to do this to Zelensky, that's what the Battle of Husk was, was them trying to do this and making the crucial mistake of not having sort of PR agreement from the rest of the Ukrainian government. And it didn't, it didn't go so well. So, I mean, I guess that's the other kind of on the list of like haters and losers here. Russian airborne forces watching this and being like, damn, it's much easier if you like ask first.
- [58:35]
Former Military Guest
Yeah.
- [58:36]
Host
And on top of that as well. Right. You can't ignore the fact that Trump, emboldened by the great TV that this produced and the sort of most hawkish.
- [58:45]
Co-host
Of his administration members, the last movie he saw or about anything, and whose courtier's power is mostly like exercised through which film to show him could be by inclination, he's naturally like a musicals guy. If you showed him like the Apartment or like a screwball comedy, you would get a kind of a good natured Trump. But instead somebody fucking showed him Sicario. And now we have to, now we are all going to get black bagged, every single one of us individually.
- [59:12]
Host
The DOD produced a musical version of Sicario in Colombia. I worked as a prosecutor. That was illegal.
- [59:25]
Co-host
They always make me do the patter songs at productions of Sicario. It sucks.
- [59:31]
Host
I'm just trying to think of another Sicario musical line. No, I think we're good on that one. If you think of any more Sicario musical line, please do just sing them.
- [59:42]
Co-host
Yeah, but not Sicario 2. Just Sicario.
- [59:44]
Host
Yes, Sicario. Well, Sicario 2 is the better musical. Worst movie, so. But you know, because the other, you know, having seen now Sicario the musical, Trump is. Or Trump allies like Stephen Miller's wife are doing the same thing about Greenland. And once again, you like, she's posting American Greenland.
- [60:03]
Co-host
There's a fucking black bag out there. Like you're gonna, you're gonna sort of like fly them out there. They're gonna crash one of the Helicopters, as is tradition. And then like a bunch of guys are going to slip and fall on ice trying to black bag. Hold on one second. Bear with me.
- [60:19]
Host
Still them. Still them. Right.
- [60:20]
Co-host
Prime Minister of Greenland, Jens Frederick Nielsen.
- [60:27]
Host
Yeah.
- [60:27]
Co-host
Who I guess apparently is into narco trafficking or something.
- [60:31]
Host
Yeah. And it's the same line also that's been deployed against Canada, against Mexico.
- [60:35]
Co-host
Jensfred Frederick Nielsen, Serious badminton player. Marty. Supreme Prime Minister.
- [60:42]
Host
And now the question is, you know, which of the. Are you going to show Trump the ball cop Bad cop musical? Like, which Trump musical are you going to show him?
- [60:50]
Co-host
They're going to show him Canadian bacon.
- [60:52]
Janice Silverman
Yeah.
- [60:53]
Host
God. They're going to show him Bob and Doug McKenzie. We got to stop Bob and Doug McKenzie again. And this is sort of focusing on the utter strategic and increasingly economic irrelevancy that is the European Union, which is. What are you going to do about it? Because are you going to equivocate the same way when they do the same thing to Greenland? Are you just going to allow Denmark, one of the most historically Atlanticist European countries, to just get invaded, taken over, because you don't know what else to do?
- [61:21]
Co-host
Probably the answer to that. It's yes. Yeah. That they are going to do that.
- [61:25]
Janice Silverman
Yes.
- [61:25]
Host
That's exactly what they're going to do.
- [61:28]
Co-host
The Danes are going to cope and seethe, I believe, is the calculation. And again, because it's a sort of vulgar exercise of power. The White House knows this and that's. That's so one of the reasons why they're keen to do it.
- [61:40]
Former Military Guest
But then also, the parallels are just, you know, too acute. Can Starmer resist the urge to have his own Falklands moment when he decides to recreate the Falklands by fighting America and Greenland? I don't know.
- [61:52]
Co-host
But I think the. I think the funniest option is we go in on our other military tradition of joining the Americans for no reason, on their military adventures. And it's a joint US UK invasion of Greece, Greenland for no reason, in which, like, two paras get frostbites and we kind of COVID ourselves in glory that way.
- [62:11]
Host
Yeah.
- [62:11]
Former Military Guest
And then we realize our power grid is down because the Danish had Stuxnet on all of the offshore wind terminals. All the turbos just explode. They're like dandelions fucking tunnels going everywhere. No more wind power.
- [62:23]
Co-host
It's like, how's 2026 going? And I'm watching the Danish hypersonic missiles going overhead, heading towards London.
- [62:31]
Co-host 2
Yeah. I also love the idea of, like, the Danish Taliban. Like, I want to know. I want to know what like Danish nasheeds sound like.
- [62:41]
Host
There we go.
- [62:42]
Former Military Guest
I was going to say. Yeah.
- [62:45]
Co-host
Oh my God, the Danish Taliban. I think J.D. vance 100% believes this.
- [62:49]
Former Military Guest
Well, yeah, the problem is, I mean he's just laughing about it too because it's just like they'll try to stamp out Ozempic production, but they'll be able to set up labs in the tribal lands of Denmark, on Jutland. They're making, they're growing, they're growing all the precursors to make Wes Govi and you know, like they'll keep funding terrorism.
- [63:05]
Host
That way, you know. And I wanted to, I just wanted to discuss one more thing before we sort of end off the first episode of the year.
- [63:14]
Co-host
Fucking stupid starts of the year. And I assume this will continue.
- [63:18]
Host
Yeah. Is going back a little bit to some of the claim justifications which we touched on with Janet. Right. Which was most of it is about like trying to oust Chinese influence from, from South America, like trying to remove them as primary trading partners by force. I mean, one thing also to remember is that the last time the US sort of engaged its Monroe Doctrine reflex, it was a growing and increasingly powerful economy that was still desirable to trade with if you were going to trade with anybody.
- [63:45]
Co-host
I think as far as the Chinese angle goes, it's interesting to me, there was a Chinese delegation in Caracas set to meet with Maduro and then the Americans just kidnapped him instead. So adding to the list of hazes and losers, China, China once again falling for the eating the chess pieces strategy. And I think what this means for sort of multipolarity, what this means for Taiwan or whatever doesn't have anything to do with international law because as we know, any state will discard that the second they need to. And nobody's kind of relying on the US obeying it. But I think you can't keep teaching all of your enemies the world over that the only way to succeed is to act recklessly and unilaterally without some of them doing it. And I think that's going to be the big challenge in Chinese foreign policy. Whether that's internally 2 Xi or just sort of like something that he incorporates into his own worldview is you have to just do it. Much like the Nike tracksuit that they sort of non consensually put you in, you have to do it. And if you're not that guy, you have to get someone who is.
- [64:53]
Host
There's like a kind of high watermark of stupid and unpredictable that everybody, that everybody must conform to.
- [64:59]
Co-host
Well, like if you look at the kind of the Chinese policy of like coercion without violence, of like in relation to Taiwan, of doing all of these exercises and being like, oh, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you. But. No, but for real, you do have to do what I say though. And then look at sort of what the US Is doing. It's got to be hard not to feel a little stupid.
- [65:20]
Host
You know, we could have like, we have all these black bags, we make them. Yeah, yeah. But also I wanted to talk a little bit about like some of the goals. Right. Because oil is discussed very frequently. I mean it's discussed by, it was.
- [65:34]
Co-host
By Trump most noticeably.
- [65:36]
Host
Yeah, but the, also like the, the actual economic incentives to take over and scale up Venezuelan oil production on behalf of American companies are kind of odd.
- [65:48]
Co-host
Yeah, they're not great because Venezuela has a lot of like heavy sour oil which is, is difficult to refine. That's something the US is good at. Like this sort of business flow there is the US import cheap shitty oil and sort of refines it. But also after years of sanctions, the Venezuelan oil industry is sort of in pieces. And it's just, it's one of those things where if Trump is saying the war is about oil, you can believe him, but that doesn't mean that it has to make sense economically. It's just something that he believes that can also be wrong.
- [66:22]
Host
I saw this described, which I thought was very interesting as like mercantilism, cosplay.
- [66:28]
Co-host
Yeah, we're going to go there, we're going to get the oil and then you look at what sort of American oil companies feel about this and the answer appears to be pretty ambivalent. Yeah, it's just, it just like you work in Houston in a like an entirely glass walled office that's being air conditioned to death. You're slowly sort of like dehydrating yourself in there and then the federal government kicks your door in and goes, do you want to do the plot of mercenaries to say yes now? Like what?
- [66:55]
Host
Yeah, especially because, right. Like this is something we've talked about recently, which is guess where all the capital expenditure is going, especially in like power generation, is going to like fucking data center. It's like, hey, we're not doing data centers anymore. We're rebuilding the Venezuelan oil industry almost from scratch. And guess what, you're going to do it, by the way, to do it. I was reading this in the ft, as I so often am, is going to take the combined capital expenditure of three major American oil companies. Over a period of 10 years.
- [67:24]
Co-host
I bet they're just thrilled about that.
- [67:26]
Host
Especially at a time of, you know, you know what it is? Invading Venezuela for the sake of the. Of American oil companies. That should have happened. Like, that's a zero interest rate phenomenon. That should not. If from purely that perspective, it was like, where are you in term one doing this? Why didn't, why didn't Rex Tillerson take advantage of zero interest rate? He was too busy doing the sword dance. And so, like, the whole, the whole thing is. It is a crime, it's a stupidity. It is making the world. It's a farce. It's making the world a profoundly more dangerous place. And when I say for no reason, I don't mean for no good reason as there was and cannot be a good reason for this kind of thing. But not even for a reason that makes sense really, when you, when you look at, like, the hegemon, it's just libidinal.
- [68:13]
Co-host
It's tv, you know, it's a guy who kind of understands that oil is a profitable commodity to trade and the Venezuela has a lot of it and enjoys the kind of sadism of seeing a guy who he believes. Believes. Insulted him by stealing his Trump dance get kidnapped.
- [68:34]
Former Military Guest
Yeah, I don't know. It's weird for me because I'm so out of that world now. I mean, I've been out of the military for almost 12 years now, and it's just. It's just hideous. It's just genuinely hideous. Like, Caracas is one of the most densely populated cities in Latin America. And the idea of them, you know, doing airstrikes, probably air defense suppression strikes, but still, like, killing soldiers, killing civilians, doing this completely illegal thing. And that doesn't even, like, not that there could be a good reason for it, but, like, that doesn't even accomplish anything but a spectacle. Like, it's, it's horrifying. It's genuinely horrible. We joke because, like, that's one of the ways you cope with it, but that's not to downplay the seriousness or, like, the absolute moral hideousness of it, man. Like, I don't really have words for it other than like. Like, I can't believe I'm seeing this. And I said it to a friend. Like, it just feels like the recurring theme of our lives, our adult lives, is you wake up and you're like, oh, they did the fucking insane thing that I thought they weren't going to do because they'd be too crazy to do it, but they did it anyway.
- [69:22]
Co-host
I have. I Have a vain hope where I'm like, I should be pessimistic about this, but I'm like, I can't wait for Donald Trump to be brought to justice. I don't know what that looks like, but something.
- [69:32]
Co-host 2
Zoran Mondani is going to kidnap him. That's my thinking. The long game is very much we're building a New York army to kidnap him.
- [69:41]
Co-host
Well, the problem is if you get kidnapped by New York Delta Force, they non consensually put a pair of tims on you.
- [69:47]
Former Military Guest
I was going to say, actually, I think it's the opposite situation is that Zoran Memdani is going to exercise so much charm and softness power on Trump that he's actually going to convince Trump to authorize a Delta Force strike on himself. I mean, really, man, like, you know, we kind of just got to, we believe in restorative justice, but, you know, you kind of got to make amends and you know, but do that in Zoran. Donnie, voice and then Trump basically, yeah, like the fucking 160 sores drop into the White House to carry his ass off. I don't know. Slovenia, who knows?
- [70:16]
Host
I'm taking accountability and I'm not going to do a notes at post fire Micah Wooden. It's danger close djt DJT colleague in a strike. And Mike, those are my initials.
- [70:31]
Co-host 2
But yeah, like you're completely right just in the sense of like, I think there was this more innocent time where it's just like, yeah, they can't be that insane. They won't do that. I mean, it's like, no, they are. And like so much of it is just kind of, I think, I think if there's like a real. We talked about this in the interview a little bit, but like my kind of feeling about or like my sort of understanding of kind of a elite commentators who are desperately still trying to kind of convince themselves that there was sort of a political objective to getting rid of Maduro and it was about restoring democracy. And look, we don't kind of, we see Maduro as illegitimate and look at all these Venezuelans with blonde hair who are celebrating all of this that's happening. We're sort of bringing justice to people. But the reality, I think, is just like, I think the sort of flavor of this administration now, especially as it sort of reaches a point where it is deeply unpopular both internationally and domestically, where so much of the domestic policy, the agenda that they've had isn't working, whether that's in terms of bringing down costs of food or costs of energy, resistance to ice in various cities. I mean, this may be a stretch, but I also kind of think that the whole sort of anti. The conservative, anti woke thing is kind of. We're going to see some interesting moments with that because the end point of last year was a conservative split, which this intervention and this kind of continued or this desire now to just spread American war around South America will kind of continue to ignite, which is a real schism among the American right over Trump's ability to govern, but also the objectives of the people around him. I think that's only going to get worse. And I think the point is being that we are now going to see an administration that is much more guided purely by zero sum games or how they calculate who deserves vengeance and when and how and how severe, how willing are countries as a whole willing to submit to America and its power? And I think the fact that what we've seen is an international system of governance basically never existed, or if it did exist, it just doesn't work anymore. But what is left? I don't know. I guess it comes back to the thing, we're in the time of monsters now and that that's cool because sometimes monsters are fun and interesting.
- [72:45]
Co-host
And I mean, all of this is going to get more intense after the midterms, as seems likely. The Democrats take back the House, Trump gets kind of kneecapped domestically, and he just changes the channel to all Sicario all the time, everywhere. Greenland, I guess.
- [73:02]
Co-host 2
Yeah. So in a very strange way, it'll be like, okay, well now the rest of the world. And unfortunately the rest of the world does include us. I think in the past it was very much like, yeah, yeah, the rest of the world is just Africa or it's like the Middle east or whatever, who cares? But it's like, no.
- [73:19]
Co-host
I hope I get black bagged by the WOKE special forces. I want them to respect my pronouns.
- [73:24]
Host
Yeah. So any case, I think what we're going to see as sort of just bringing it all back around, you know, this isn't the first instance of government by what you want to watch on tv, and it certainly won't be the last. And I think that now the people who are making the TV that they want to watch got basically everything they wanted. Yeah, I think you can. We're going to probably see more of it in the next sort of 6, 12, 24 months. And that the European sort of just close your eyes and wait for Joe Biden to get Joe Biden's porps to get reelected for his second term.
- [73:57]
Co-host
Three years.
- [73:58]
Host
Yeah.
- [73:58]
Co-host
Three more years of this minimum.
- [74:01]
Host
Yeah.
- [74:01]
Co-host 2
And I think. And I think also, like, it's worth noting too, but this isn't just like, watching them. America is, you know, this is now sort of given the. You know, this is given. Not that they sort of needed it, but, like, we're going to see a lot more, you know, countries with military for, like, you know, try and do stuff that we initially thought was just, like, things that were likely to, like, things that could happen but, like, were unlikely to. So, like, you know, look at Taiwan, look at Kashmir. I think that's going to be like, a very interesting thing to observe, especially as you have an India that is, like, basically on a much like the same trajectory as America in terms of just like, why don't we use the military for everything, you know, and Indian Delta, like, Indian equivalent, Delta force, like, they. That's going to be fucking mental. You know, Russia, I think, is another one as well. And, like, you know, the fact that, like, the Americans are just, like, very happy to just, like, admit that Ukraine, like, they just don't care about Ukraine anymore. And, like, the effects that that's going to have on the European Union, like, this is. This is a. I don't want to be hyperbolic, but I kind of, like, have to. This is fucked, man. This is going to be, like, insane. And I feel as if, like, no one's quite kind of prepared for that. And I think a lot of the sort of American, like all the sort of intellect, like intelligentsia, commentators in the States are still just trying to convince themselves that there is some sort of semblance of international order. And all we need is, like, one election to, like, you know, get Trump to. To be sensible, you know.
- [75:22]
Host
Well, I think we're gonna. We're gonna see. We're gonna give odds whether that's gonna happen in the. In the coming months, but. Well, what a way to start 2026. And we'll see you in a few days on the bonus episode which was planned for today, just to be clear. All right. All right, thank you, everybody, of course, for listening, and see you on the Patreon in a couple days. Bye.
- [75:44]
Former Military Guest
Have a good one.
- [75:45]
Host
Bye.