US Navy Deploys near Venezuela

We don't have time for that. Now. It's the start of the second hour on Monday. So it's Metal of Honor Monday time. Same thing every Monday. At this time, we take a medal of honor citation, we read it. We remember the men, we honor them, we honor their deeds. We have to tell our children about these men and the things they did. And remember we accept suggestions. If you have ones you like, ones you're related to. Once

you just enjoy whatever. It's not just love hating death threats you can send into Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. So we're gonna do too tonight. This guy says Jesse, I went to Washington with my daughter on her fifth grade trip. That's so cool. You got to go. I didn't get to go. I wanted to go when my kids went. Chris, you're never gonna pay for it when your daughter gets told enough anyway, we stopped by the National Vietnam War Memorial and searched for a specific name,

First Lieutenant Douglas B. Fournette. He was from my hometown of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Before you get to the two to ten loop, bridge will see a dedicated marker to this warrior. He came from a hard nosed family. His brother Rocky was such a fierce defensive back of mcnee's State that the coach made him wear a black helmet so the offense knew where he was on the field at all times. Love what you're doing. Every Monday, I take my daughter Mollie to a Monday night activity and

we get to bond together listening to medal of Honor Monday. Gosh, that's freaking cool. Love your brother be well. So without further ado born and as you heard in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Vietnam veteran Douglas Bernard Fournette, Let's find out what he.

The right flank man suddenly discovered an enemy Claymore mind covering the route of advance and shouted a warning to his comrades. Realizing that the enemy would also be alerted, First Lieutenant Fournette ordered his men to take cover and ran uphilled toward the mind, drawing a sheath knife as he approached it. With complete disregard for his safety and realizing the imminent danger to members of his command, he used his body as a shield in front of the mind.

As he attempted to slash the control wires leading from the enemy positions to the mine. As he reached for the wire, the mine was detonated, killing him instantly. Five men nearest the mine were slightly wounded, but First Lieutenant Fournette's heroic and unselfish act spared his men of serious injury or death. His gallantry and willing self sacrifice are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon him himself, his unit in the

US Army. And just to let you know, in case you don't, a claymor mind is a terrifying thing. They are. They're full of ball bearings. I have a little bit of experience with them. And look when we trained with them, they were intimidating because you know what they do when they go off. You know what they do. To throw yourself in front of one that you know the enemy holds the clacker, you set them off for the clacker, the enemy holds the controls and you throw yourself in

front of one is awesome, man, awesome. Douglas Bernard Fournette. Now for our second one. This one also came in. It was a recommendation from a Marine Master Sergeant who I'm not going to read his name. I don't want to get him. I don't want to get him in trouble. Jesse, if you've not already used this warrior for Medal of Honor Monday, please do so, PFC. And you're gonna have to bear with me. On the name Ca ho Ohannohanno, CA ho Ohannohanno. That's just his last name, caho ohann Ohanno.

I'm assuming that's Hawaiian samowing something like that. My favorite Medal of Honor recipient. This guy says, so he was Oh yeah, look at that. Born nineteen thirty accredited to Hawaii, is what they say. It was. So without further ado, also, Army, let's do the second Medal of Honor citation for an Anthony T. Ca ho Ohannohanno. And I'm sorry if I screwed up the pronunciation on that, I'm stupid.

a numerically superior enemy force launched a fierce attack. Because of the enemy's overwhelming numbers, friendly troops were forced to execute a limited withdrawal. As the men fell back, Private first class ca Ho ordered his squad to take up more defensible positions and provide covering fire for the withdrawing

friendly force. Although having been wounded in the soldier in the soldier in the shoulder during the initial enemy assault, Private first class Caho gathered a supply of grenades and ammunition and returned to his original position to face the enemy alone. As the hostile troops concentrated their strength against his emplacement in an effort to overrun it, Private first class ca Ho fought fiercely and courageously, delivering deadly accurate

fire into the ranks of the on rushing enemy. When his ammunition was depleted, he engaged the enemy in hand to hand combat until he was killed. Private first Class caho Ohanohanno's heroic stand so inspired his comrades they launched a counter attack that completely repulsed the enemy. Upon reaching Private first Class caho Ohanohanno's emplacement, friendly troops to governed eleven enemy soldiers lying dead in front of the emplacement and two inside it killed in hand to hand combat.

Private first Class coho Ohanohanno's extraordinary heroism and selfless devotion to duty are in keeping with the finest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself the seventh Infantry Division in the United States Army, and we will play taps in honor of both of these gentlemen. To now, it's amazing how often those Korean War ones go that way, of the numerically superior enemy force overrunning the lines. I've read more Korean books than I can count, and that's

just the Korean War. You take a hilltop, the Chinese, because they were mostly Chinese, would mass up more bodies than you could kill, and they would send in waves of them and they would just overrun you. And then you'd have to counterattack and take it back. And then they would counterattack and take it back. And there were a lot of very brave men who did a lot of very brave things in Korea. Like I've told you before, it is called the Forgotten War, and it really truly

is the Forgotten War. Look into Korea, Look into Korea. If this stuff interests you, fascinates you, you want to learn about the fighting they did over there, the heroes who fought their way through that place and then had to fight their way out of it. Go pick up a book or watch a documentary. I think there's a good one on Amazon if I remember it called Chosen. It's on Amazon or Netflix, but it's called Chosen about the Chosen Reservoir. Highly recommend it. Uh, I don't remember if

it's a kid friendly or not. It could be. Chris said, probably not, No, it could be. I don't remember. So kids, ask mom and dad. It is the Jesse Kelly Show. A wonderful, wonderful Monday. Just did Medal of Honor Monday. Remember we have Brandon Wiker coming up ten minutes from now, gonna get us educated on what exactly is happening in Venezuela. So Trump said something earlier today that has the right apoplectic and upset. And don't get me wrong, I'm I'm

upset two but I understand. You ever have those situations in your life where you're mad but you get it, You're mad, but you get it. He said this, it's a.

it's really really bad. And everyone's mad at Trump today about that. We're going to allow six hundred thousand. Then we're going to allow six hundred thousand in. I'm mad too, So let me clarify. That's that's really bad. It's really bad. However, remember when Trump was talking with Zelenski on the first meeting where it blew up in the White House, where

Zolensky lost his mind starts freaking out. Remember what Trump told him, you don't have the cards, You don't have the cards, and Zolensky had to be like a stupid, angry little troll, I'm not playing cards. That Everyone knows what Trump was saying, including Zelensky. What does he mean by that? You don't have leverage. Ukraine doesn't have any leverage. You can't militarily defeat the Russians. You're not in possession of the territory the Russians have taken. You don't have leverage.

You can want it, you can scream that's wrong, but you don't have it. All right, So let's have a frank talk about where we are as a country right now. China produces ninety percent of the pharmaceuticals that people take in the United States of America. Nine zero, not nine, not nineteen ninety. That's a tiny, tiny example of how much we have to have cooperation with China. And so, don't get me wrong, they have to have cooperation with

us too. But it really comes down to this. If I have to make it extremely simple, China makes the stuff, we buy the stuff. That's the terrible relationship we are in. You can hate that and I hate it. You can say we have to change that, and we do. But you know, wish in one hand, grap in the other, and see which one fills up first. As my dad used to tell me all the time, you can't wish away where we currently are. We we don't have all the cards. We have some cards. We have cards, There's

no question about it. We have some cards. Look, I'm gonna talk to Brandon Wykert next. I'm gonna flat out ask him how much of the world's rare earth minerals does China have control over versus how much we have control over. Imagine, imagine if China owns sixty seventy percent of the rare earth minerals and I think it's at least that high'ma I'm gonna confirm it with Brandon Wickert in a moment. What if it's seventy percent. Now keep in mind, when we say rare earth minerals, what does

that even mean? Like everyone loves that term, Now, what does that even mean? We are talking about the things you have to pull out of the ground to make the modern things. Your country, your economy, and most definitely your military need to keep running. You want your military to be as modern as the next. You have to have that in the ground. What if China owns it all and I know they own a big chunk of it,

I'm not happy. I'm not happy that this is where we are, and I'm certainly not happy that we're allowing six hundred thousand Chinese spies into the country. I think that's suicidal and insane. I don't like it either, but I understand it. I understand we don't hold all the cards here. You know, it's a not a huge story, but a little bit of a story that Canada, Canada is backing off. You know, Canada was talking really tough, we were talking about tariffs, and Canada started flexing. They

have a bunch of comedies up there in charge. Now, poor Canadians to it sucks for them. Canada bends the need at Trump's will and drops the tariffs on US goods. That's from today. Why, well, we have all the cards. If you're Canada, you don't have that leverage. If we pull the trigger on you when it comes to tariffs, you're finished. You can hurt us a little so we can smash Canada's budget. We can smash their budget, we can smash their economy into a fine powder. So they

had no choice. It's all about leverage. We are not in that same situation with China. Yes, China needs us to buy a lot of stuff, there's no question they need us too. But we are in We're in a Mexican standoff right now. Okay, we can't afford to smash them because they can smash us back guaranteed, guaranteed. This was negotiated Jiji and Ping. Okay, you want this. You don't want that. You're taking six hundred thousand spies students. Sorry, I misspoke. Sucks. I hate it. That's the way it is.

It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful Monday. The work week is just beginning. I can tell how happy Chris is about it. Anyway, I'm happy because Brandon Wikert's about to educate us on some things, as he often does, joining me now, wonderful author National security man Brandon Wikert, Hey, Brandon, why is the Navy going down to Venezuela?

And ever since the two thousands it has been run by either Hugo Chaves, who died in twenty thirteen, and then after that it was his right hand man, Nicholas Maduro, who took over. They have funded drug cartel operations. They're a narco terrorist regime. They have funded human trafficking. They have sent Trende Aragua, which is a paramilitary force, into

the United States through our broken border. And there may or may not be some evidence that their company, run by Venezuelan national Smart Mattic, may be involved in the Philippines and other countries in manipulating the votes. It's an election counting machine software and in fact the CEO is currently indicted I believe, in a Miami court. So there's a lot of problems with Venezuela. We've had going back several decades. Every president has talked about how much of

a problem it is. But because it's an oil producer, we are in a bind. We need to have business relations with Venezuela. But the regime as it stands hates the United States.

the licenses. It's easy, quick access to oil. All we have to do is pay the Venezuelan's off and they'll look the other way while we mine for it. We drove for it, and Marco Rubio was saying, hey, that money is directly feeding these organizations in Venezuela that are sending drugs, human traffickers, illicit arms, trendy iragua into the United States through are broken southwestern border. We got to cut him off, so there was a temporary cutoff about

two months ago. It was a big fight. Trump sided with Rubio, and many people, myself included, believe this was part of a larger move to slowly build up a regime change operation. Don't forget Also Venezuela's regime has allowed the Chinese, the Russians, and even Iran into our hemice

fear for the last twenty years. And also Venezuela. If you deal with Venezuela, you take care of that regime, then Trump has a clearer shot at taking the Panama Canal zone, which is something that he has wanted to do. Venezuela is a complicating factor in that mission as it's currently run. So that's the logic. Now. I don't know if that's what we should be doing, but that is the logic behind I think what Trump is doing.

It's even different from how Mexico's cartels operate. In Venezuela, the regime and the cartel is one. And then of course there's also Trende Aragua, which, as I said, it's described as a prison gang in Venezuela that has these sort of transnational ties. In fact, Trende Aragua is a paramilitary force. I live in Florida. I deal a lot with Venezuelan expats. All of them tell me TDA Trende Aragua is a paramilitary force that Maduro deploys to go

after things like Thennezuelan political dissidents in America. So that's what Venezuela is doing. And a lot of the Cartel of the Suns actually does business and supports the Colombian cartels. They do business and help out with certain Mexican cartels, all as part of this feeder program to get their product and the human traffic up into the broken southwestern border with the United States.

The Russians are allowed to base nuclear capable Blackjack bombers in Venezuela. They have repeatedly landed them there over the last decade. They're in fact talking about sending these Shahad one thirty six Iranian made drones that the Russians use in Ukraine. The Russians are talking about sending them over

to Venezuela to fight the Americans the Chinese. They have these massive contracts for access to Venezuela's oil and rare earth minerals, and obviously they like to stabilize America's leading

role in the Western hemisphere. It's also part of China's control of the Panama Canal as well as their major presence in the Caribbean Sea, which is basically now a Chinese lake, and so Venezuela is in the middle of all is the epicenter of all of this, inviting the American enemies into our hemisphere to undermine us that regime.

How are they militarily At some point in time, as you said, they were one of the wealthiest countries in the world. What kind of military are we dealing with here.

the people's militias. And Maduro is claiming he's mobilizing four point five million of these these militia men to fight Los Gringos. I'm very skeptical that he can mobilize that many. And even if he can, you know this, this kind of reminds me of the Fediyen in Iraq. They really weren't that impressive at the end of the day. Obviously, I Rock itself was a disaster, but actually knocking out Saddam was was pretty straightforward. I think the same thing

is true of Maduro. I would just posit if the Trump administration is playing its cards right, it needs to remember it's not dealing with a jihadi type leadership that wants to go meet their maker by fighting the death. They're dealing with basically a narco criminal gang that just wants the biggest slice of the pie they can get.

If the Trump administration flexes its muscle with these military maneuvers off of Venezuela's coast and signals to some element of Maduro's government, we will leave you in place as long as you hand over Maduro and let us get

the oil. I think that's a deal that some ambitious person or group working under Maduro might go for, and it could be relatively bloodless because you know, it is a jungle war, even though I don't think they're militarily on par with even say the WHO these in certain ways, a jungle ground war could get very dicey, especially because I mean numbers matter. Four point five million guys. If they can get anywhere near that, that's going to be a problem for us, but I think there's a way

we might be able to do this relatively bloodlessly. I just hope the Trump administration is, you know, reaching out to certain people in the in the regime who might be willing to part ways with Maduro in exchange for remaining in them remaining in power.

Chinese own major infrastructure. They have a huge footprint in the Panama Canal zone. Now in peacetime. That's it seems relatively you know, insignificant because ships are still going through

and whatnot. But with the Chinese managing the two sides of the Panama Canal and the locks of the Panama Canal, the Chinese could easily sabotage them in the event that a war between the United States and China broke out, and that could seriously cripple our ability to move naval forces and other assets from one side of the North the North America the Americas, you know, the Atlantic side to the Pacific side, and vice versa, which would complicate

our ability to deploy forces, say to help protect Taiwan from a possible Chinese invasion.

setting aside my distaste for black Rock. It didn't go anywhere because ultimately China has figured out that they have ninety percent of the world's rare earth mineral supply under their control, and all they have to do is whisper to Trump that we're gonna cut you off like they did in April, and Trump will give them whatever they want, which is one of the reasons why he's dropped his calls to reclaim the Panama Canal Zone. Now I don't

think he's abandoned this mission. I think he's actually finding ways to basically completely surround the Panama Canal Zone and then choke it off from Chinese control. One of those ways would possibly be by taking Venezuela. He possibly has Colombians now on his side, and we could basically create a sort of encirclement of those two Chinese ports in Panama and maybe squeeze them and if necessary, bake them.

But I mean, well, see this is very dicey, and as long as China has those rare earth minerals under their belt, we're not going to do much to them.

get you know this, this is a theory. I suspect that we probably have a Virginia class nuclear powered attack submarine operating off the coast that brings additional Tomahawk land attack CRU's missile capability and probably the ability to launch special forces elements from that submarine. So we've got a small flutilla there. And that's to say nothing of what the Trump administration is talking about doing with the Mexican

drug cartels. So we are we are rapidly ramping up our force presence in our hemisphere for the first time in decades.

But I would do it. If I could scuba dive from it, it would be sweet. Now I've seen enough Navy Seal movies. I think I could do it. What, Chris. They even have the little things where I don't know what they call them, but the little things that have the propeller where it basically swims for you. I don't have to keep up with the seals. I'll just get an extra one of those. I can do it.