No Boots on the Ground

Welcome to the Texas Take. I'm your host, Jeremy Wallace, and y'all, I needed to bring in some major reinforcements to start the new year. That, of course, is Congressman Dan Crenshaw. The moment we heard of the actions going on in Venezuela, I knew that I needed to get Dan Crenshaw on this program.

three key reasons one he's a member of the house intelligence committee which gives him great information and access to knowledge that a lot of regular members of congress aren't going to have secondly he's a navy seal like he knows what it's like to run these missions and

the dangers involved in it. And finally, he went to high school in Colombia. This guy knows Venezuela. He knows Colombia. He knows the region. He's been around Ecuador. He knows that whole section. So, Congressman Crenshaw, thanks for coming on the show. And first, I want to get...

straight into the heart of this, which is, you know, you've heard a lot of Democrats questioning the legality and the constitutionality of this crisis. First, tell us about why you think this is legal and constitutional, and then tell us a little bit about... your time in that region and what this change means for Venezuela. Yeah, thanks for having me. The legality, I think, is pretty straightforward. We're executing a warrant.

We're not executing an act of war. We're not even executing an act of aggression against a foreign leader because this guy is not recognized as the leader of Venezuela. whether you're Democrat or Republican, President Biden actually increased the reward money for the capture of Maduro. So, you know, this isn't really a partisan issue, at least it shouldn't be.

It's and it's also different from previous precedents, you know, Noriega being one. And then we talked the constitutionality of what the president is allowed. to do within a certain scope. And you can look back to Obama's actions in Libya. I don't think the Democrats were questioning the constitutionality of that either. And why weren't they? Because we weren't occupying Libya. It was a... a very precise and limited action.

And that's what we're talking about here. There's no occupation with military forces. In fact, there's pretty fantastic cooperation so far in the last three days with the interim government because we have a lot of leverage. And I think they know that we mean business. Maduro was given various chances to leave. He was warned various times. And so, and people should remember, this is a DOJ-led operation supported by the Department of War.

You know, this Maduro was was read his Miranda rights on the on the operation and of course transferred to New York to face due process. In fact, as you know, as the firefight continued for. As they exfilled the target, really, it was American forces protecting Maduro and his wife from incoming fire, placing themselves in between. You know, they treated him as a hostage, would be treated, and because he's under American custody.

So you can't compare this to an Iraq or an Afghanistan and that this isn't like the Department of Defense leading this. Right. This is a DOJ effort. So that makes what that's why these these comparisons Democrats are making. Iraq doesn't quite play with this, right? Correct. Yeah. This is, you know, he is indicted for terrorism charges. You know, they've unsealed the documents for the court case.

There's going to be plenty of evidence shown throughout this trial that shows his interactions and being complicit with groups like the FARC, the ELN, Sinaloa cartel, not just Venezuelan groups, but also these other foreign actors. And of course, they were doing this to prop up their own regime and bring in cash for themselves. So, you know, and again, nobody disagrees with this. This has been a longstanding fact.

And of course, we all know he stole the election, but blatantly, he's not a recognized leader. So yeah, very, very, very different situations than Iraq, Afghanistan. Well, and talk to me about like, you know, again, you grew up partly at least in this region. You saw this region before Hugo Chavez or as Hugo Chavez was winning that first election. I think he won his first election the year you actually graduated from high school.

I remember covering Venezuela as it was doing business in Florida and just kind of the relationships that were developing there before Chavez took office. Tell us a little bit, what was Venezuela in that region like before we saw Chavez? Chavez and then Maduro into what you see now. Yeah, yeah. You know, I can't remember exactly what year Chavez took office, but obviously he was the revolutionary.

And Maduro was his successor. So, you know, a Chavista, as they would call him. Back then, it was still a wonderful country. I mean, going back further. I didn't even know this. My dad told me my grandparents actually did their honeymoon in Venezuela back in 1955. So you're looking at a country that's a vast tourist destination, a lot of Western companies doing business there.

at one point, the fourth largest GDP in the world. And you see over the course of a couple of decades under Maduro's rule that it just continues to fall apart. I mean, socialism... It doesn't destroy a country overnight. It does take some time. And, you know, we've seen the causes of that over the last five, six, seven years. And, you know, what has propped it up, of course, is even worse, which makes it an imminent threat to the United States.

which is in order to prop up this regime, they've been bringing in all of our enemies. The Cubans are effectively Maduro's intelligence and security force. A lot of Cubans died on this operation. The Russians were in there, of course. The Iranians are in Venezuela. Chinese are in Venezuela. So you have a Western Hemisphere country bringing in every enemy in the United States, and it becomes an imminent problem. At one point, you have to do something about it.

Yeah, it's been sad to watch how the country had declined over time because I had been there many, many times. In high school, I took model UN trips to the American school in Caracas. You know, obviously visited my family there when they, when they moved there after I left to high school. So, you know, I'm an oil and gas family. So let's, let's.

moved all over the world. And that's what I was going to say, like point out to people who are listening to the first time, like, why were you there? It's like your family was a oil and gas, you know, family. So you would have been in that region. How long did you live in that, that down in that region? You think? About a year and a half in Ecuador in middle school, and then from 98 to 2002, living in Bogota, Colombia. My parents moved to Caracas, 2003, 2004.

Well, and then address this, you know, you hit on a little bit with the Cuba part. It's like the impact this has to me in the rest of the Western Hemisphere is super important, right? I talked about this earlier this week in the Texas Tech, particularly reference to the Cubans.

the mexican issue and i wanted to get you on the show because i know you've been so aggressive in talking about how you want to change the rules of engagement in terms of how we attack those you know mexican drug cartels who are you know obviously you know

human trafficking and drug trafficking, you know, through Mexico into Texas. Talk to what happens now, you think, from Mexico. We've heard what President Trump had to say about all this, but I'm interested to get your take as a member of Congress who's really worked on this issue. What happens next for Mexico? Do we start doing some strikes on the ground in Mexico now? Does this open the door a little bit more for us to do that? It's a vastly different situation.

In a country like Mexico, our goal is to work by, with, and through the Mexicans and use our leverage to increase that cooperation. Unilateral operations like this one really aren't on the table in Mexico. The president of Mexico is democratically elected. and recognize the leader that we work with quite closely. So it really is apples and oranges. I mean, the real nexus between is the narco-terrorism itself.

I think too many people might believe that there's a complete separation of these cartels. We know the producers in Colombia, the... The people who are trafficking it, the reality is that it all feeds into the real bosses, which are the Mexican cartels who destabilize Mexico and, of course, use those profits too. to make themselves stronger and make their fentanyl trade stronger, which, of course, kills hundreds of thousands of Americans. So it is all...

connected. You'll see a lot of activity of those Mexican bosses really making those trips to Colombia and vice versa. It's a supply chain. But the real power brokers of that supply chain... are the Mexican cartels. Will this help us work with Mexico to get some better cooperation from them to use our military to do this stuff? Because it sounds like we heard from the Mexican president earlier this week that she hasn't given us that permission to do that work.

Do we get the sense that this will help us down the road with them to get them to cooperate a little bit closer with us? I don't know that it helps or hurts. Again, it's a little bit apples and oranges with the political situation in Mexico versus the political situation in Venezuela and versus Colombia even.

So I don't think it hurts it. I don't think it helps it. The Scheinbaum has always said that a red line would be unilateral options by the U.S. Of course, the difference being with Mexico is that... We've seen an enormous increase in Mexican authorities going after these cartels, these labs. And we have an unprecedented amount of cooperation on the intelligence side and military side with them. And that continues to increase. And that's happening by itself, apart from this particular situation.

OK, well, and look, I got to ask this question because there's this seems to be this feud or I don't even know if it's really a feud within MAGA or it's, you know, Democrats talking about MAGA. But like the America first principle is this America first. Is it that we're going to be an isolationist country, kind of like Marjorie Taylor Greene has kind of talked about? Or are we the country that is, you know, is America first more what? Like, I think I hear from you and people like Marco Rubio.

as we talk about like our power overseas still has to be there, right? So where is the line? What does America first mean? And why is this? part of that equation where I think some people might rightfully be asking, shouldn't we just stay out of all these foreign interventions and just stay home? Yeah, no, there's definitely that division, you know, and I think led by the more populous wing like Tucker Carlson, for instance. I mean, we really believe that they're...

It seems to believe that there really is no other world outside the United States and that it's a very naive belief that you can't be involved. And what is that? In fact, a very small world. And America first, I think, according to President Trump, and at least by his actions, is certainly very different from that. It's America leading.

And it's America taking very practical steps that he always wants to be able to point to something that is directly servicing American interests. And I think the... The critique, and perhaps a valid one in the past, is that sometimes it felt like our foreign policy interventions were... We're simply for more of an esoteric goodwill kind of cause as opposed to something that directly pursued our own interests.

Part of that was our leader's inability to explain why we were doing something and why it mattered back home. It wasn't necessarily the case that we were doing dumb things. Again, you can pick your foreign policy decision and we can discuss it. They're all complicated and they all deserve a ton of analysis. But America first means America leading.

and not getting taken advantage of. And when drawing a red line, actually meaning it. And, you know, it means not letting China and Russia and Iran take a foothold in our own hemisphere or anywhere for that matter. By the Tucker Carlson standard, America first basically means China rules the world. And we're just going to have to live with our grandkids are going to have to live with that. And that's that's a very foolish and stupid philosophy.

Yeah, us in Houston who have seen you over the years, we've seen you taking different positions and some in the MAGA universe on Ukraine, on how we handle Syria and when we pull out, when we don't, those types of issues. We've seen that you've had some differences. But you're fully on board with what you just saw in Venezuela, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm fully on board with Holt.

Yeah, every action this administration has taken this past year has been extremely bold and decisive and not resulted in these crazy outcomes like World War III that everybody fears.

Well, look, I don't want to end this program without asking you to talk a little bit about like, look, I don't know anything about Navy SEAL politics. You know, I've never been in SEAL, but like when you guys fight each other, you guys fight each other. It's like, and so I want to, you know.

address i know like there's been this issue with sean ryan who's a very popular podcaster i know i have listeners who listen to him as well as to this show uh i know y'all were supposed to be on the show together at one point that did not work out i did not ask you to sign any waivers to be on the show, to be clear. But I did want to ask you, like, you know, like his his main beef seems to be he thinks he wants says, I want to know why your wealth is increasing if your insider training and.

Congress. So tell them, can you answer those two questions so we can just get over all this? Sure, sure. I mean, yeah, first of all, It's hard to call it a beef because the entire thing is manufactured by Sean Ryan himself and his obsession with me for some reason. I don't know what chip he has on his shoulder. And I don't know why he's such a coward that he chickened out of that interview. He's a very dishonest person.

I posted every email on my Instagrams and Facebook that people can look at it, probably Twitter too, on our back and forth. And they just straight up lied about what happened. I always thought they would. Because what they, I think they probably did a little bit more research as his actual producers did and realized that any question he was going to ask me, whether it was about inside trading or whatever, I was going to have a pretty good answer and he was going to look like a fool.

And so there's a whole number of things. That's why I was excited to go on a show. It's a big platform and it was going to be good to just debunk all of the crazy things that people say. So insider trading is one of them. Uh, getting wealthy is another one of them. I mean, okay, well, I would always ask people where they're getting that from. And they'll always say, well, social media, the internet. All right. Well, there's actually, it turns out, um,

There is some actual numbers that we can go off of. You know, I'll tell you one that'll shock you. You know what my actual realized gains are in the stock market for my entire seven years in Congress? $15,000. You know, it's in my brokerage account right now, $32,000. Unrealized gains, maybe $16,000. So total, if I sold everything, I would have made over the course of seven years, just over $30,000.

I mean, this is one of the weirdest attacks on me ever. And we crunched all those numbers because I had to go back to my bank and get every single statement and get every single detail. Because when we actually, there's a reason this gets confused in the media.

Because when we report a trade, we have to click a... of a range we don't get to we don't even get to report the actual value of the trade we have to click a range between 1 000 and 15 000 so anytime someone reports on it they always report the highest end of the range and then someone else takes that and then just makes up more

nonsense. A lot of it's just made-up lies. As far as getting rich, no. I just chat GPT it because that's obviously probably the most accurate way to even assess what my actual net worth is, which by the way, includes the value of your home, the value of past homes that you've had. I saved up money back on my first deployment in 2008 and bought my first condo. I wasn't rich back then. I didn't come from any money.

I just saved it like a normal human being and over the past 20 years had a steady job. And then I wrote a book, a book that sold really well. So, you know, net worth total, maybe under just under 2 million. So it's not exactly like I've gotten rich and certainly not from Congress where I have to live in two places. It's the opposite, in fact. So it's it's just one of these tired old tropes that like.

You know, unfortunately, people who like Sean Ryan, who just kind of believe anything he hears on the internet, I think, you know, wanted, you know, and he just, I mean, he even made up that I hired this big DJ, Steve Aoki. He just made that up. That never happened. It's just some, you know, there's so many wild accusations out there, but the numbers speak for themselves. None of this is true. Sean Ryan probably, his producers at least, his team had probably figured that out.

As we're getting closer to that interview, I always had a feeling they were going to pull out at the last minute and then try to make up some additional lie as to why they were pulling out. It really is pathetic. I couldn't. It's cowardly, to say the least. Well, and look, I've covered Congress for over 30 years. I've seen most members of Congress see their net values do go up over time when they're in members of Congress.

Some are really extreme, like some really go up, you know, millions and millions and millions of dollars. And there have been some legitimate questions about insider trading in the past. Are they benefiting? You've seen some of the rules put into place to kind of protect that from happening. Like, you know, when you when I look at your reports.

I'm not seeing anything that's outrageous. You know, I'm not seeing like, you know, there are members of Congress with much bigger stock portfolios that I pay a little bit more attention to than yours. No offense. Right. You know, it's just like, but I see people worth hundreds of millions of dollars. who are gaining on the stock market, again, versus most of the normal members of Congress. But again, just to be clear, you're not doing any insider trading whatsoever.

No, I think the FBI would be all over that if there were even a hint of truth to it. And it's a popular issue with voters and my opponents know it. And so they just keep repeating the lie. That's why we sent Sean Ryan. That's why we didn't bother even trying to deal with him. Well, of course, with Sean Ryan in particular, he accused me of threatening to assault him. So, I mean, there's so many lies he's told, it's hard to keep count of them. But, you know, and he was referencing a message.

that we can all read. And so that was actually the, the start of that, of that conflict. It had nothing to do with his, his, his accusations that I'd gotten rich. I don't really care honestly about that. It wasn't really about that. So it's just it's just one thing after the other because it's election season. And and, you know, it is it is what it is. But look, in the end, Sean Ryan got scared. Didn't want to do the interview.

Are you a target on this stuff? It's like, again, we've known each other for a long time now. Just, you know, the shots that Tucker Carlson takes at you, then the Marjorie Taylor Greene things, and then, you know, to see this happen. Are people just taking advantage of the fact that you are better?

known than most members of Congress. You're more recognizable. Is this just people trying to boost their own- You hit the nail on the head. You hit the nail right on the head. It's clickbait. It's clickbait. If you say that about another member that-

It's not as well known. It's not going to get the engagement. And these people only care about one thing, which is engagement. This is why, you know, it's sad that people just trust this sort of podcaster community to such an extent. Obviously, there's some great ones. I could name them. A lot of them are really chasing clicks and they need to get into the most provocative conspiratorial issues possible in order to keep gaining traction. That's just how they make money.

And so, of course, it's that. They claim to be these honest brokers, but there's zero accountability, zero. There's just none. People need to be careful with what they're hearing. Yeah. And the thing I know is, and they don't have the same journalistic standards. Like, you know, obviously in my case, if I see that there's a question about something, you know, with your financial reports, I'm going to first contact you and give you a chance to explain that before I would ever do anything.

what i would publish it or go like you're always going to get that source it doesn't feel like that's what's always happening on our friends on the internet like people just will post things and then after the fact say hey if you want to come on the show and then we can deal with it but like

I'm going to have to verify before you. They try to provoke you and then say, well, why don't you just come on my show then? Why? So you can get more engagement. It's like, I have another job. You know, I have a real job. And so that's exactly what happens. But, you know, the problem is regular media, regular journalism has made a lot of mistakes and it caused distrust in people. And so they started flocking to these other sources of media.

I have to warn everyone, you've got to use your own critical thinking to pick and choose. If someone is saying something, what are they citing? Where are they getting that information? And yeah, there are journalistic standards. Yes. And, you know, most good journalists do adhere to them. A lot don't, unfortunately. And that's what's created that distrust. But I'll tell you who definitely doesn't need to adhere to any standards whatsoever is exactly these type of media figures.

Like, like Sean. And so he can just make something up and then, and then gets upset when I try to hold him accountable for it by telling everyone how he's lied. Yeah. And in a campaign season, he, you know, they clearly know that, you know, it's like, this is the time to strike at.

You know, people, this isn't happening last year. It's happening now for a reason, I'm sure. Right, right. It is a little odd because, you know, the message he was referencing is well over a year old. And it's like, oh, you wait until now.

Oh, and you know, you are close to Dr. Carlson. Huh, I wonder what's going on here. So, you know, people need to see through what's really going on here. Well, I can't thank you enough for joining the program. Thanks for coming on The Texas Take and, you know, helping us sort through all of this stuff happening in Venezuela. What's it going to mean for Mexico? And obviously, you know, what goes forward from here that we'll definitely want to be.

an eye on what you're doing, because I know like you're certainly like, you know, on the Intelligence Committee, I'm sure you guys are going to have a role. I'm assuming getting more information about what's happening in Venezuela and the role of the United States government. Right.

Yeah, look, I mean, and just real quick, what the role is right now is purely in the State Department's hands. There's no plans but boots on the ground because we have immense leverage over the Venezuelan government as it currently stands, and they're cooperating. You know, a deal being struck today on oil. being transferred to the U.S., of course, and then sold at market price. Of course, that money won't just be going to the U.S. Treasury. It'll also be helping restabilize Venezuela.

And, you know, future hope, of course, is that they agree to actually having legitimate elections. So, you know, that's as long as that that's that's that's our goal. And that's that's very open. There's no secrets about that. It's very much in the State Department's hands right now. What a major change the entire Western Hemisphere. Venezuela goes from being a place for 20 years that has been kind of a thorn in what?

three or four presidential administrations to being something that becomes an ally in a stabilized country. Boy, that's a long time. That seems like that changes the entire complexion of what we think of as the Western Hemisphere. It'll be a...

Very big legacy item for President Trump. You know, it won't happen overnight, but President Trump has three more years. So I think we will see success in this. And I think I see a much brighter future for the Venezuelan people, a lot of which are in Houston. Of course, we all know that. Yeah, we have a huge population in Houston for sure. So, hey, thanks a lot again for joining the program and best of luck to the new year. And we will talk to you soon. Thanks, Jeremy.

As I said at the outset of that interview, I wanted Dan Crenshaw on this program because of the role he plays in Congress. He is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. theory is going to put him in an important spot as the White House continues to work with Congress as to what happens next in Venezuela. You know, who's going to be the next leader? Are we going to need troops on the ground? What kind of intelligence resources are we going to need there?

All of that eventually will have to go through the House Intelligence Committee at some point, at least in theory. So I thought it was really important to hear from him directly on all of this. But look, you can hear what all the members of Congress, we actually reached out to everyone.

every single one of the 38 House members and the two U.S. senators about what they think about what just transpired in Venezuela. You know, did they support the removal of Maduro and in the way that it happened? We actually listed all of their responses.

is out at houstonchronicle.com. Check that out, and you can see what your member of Congress had to say about that, at least in the state of Texas. Secondly, I dove a little bit deeper into what this all means for the Western Hemisphere, particularly for... Cuba earlier in the week in the Texas Tech newsletter. I wrote about how Cuba has become so reliant on Venezuela, at least economically, that seeing Venezuela lose Maduro is

going to have a have real implications for the future of Cuba. In fact, in that piece, I quoted, you know, Ted Cruz, the U.S. senator who said like he wouldn't be surprised if. The Cuban communist regime actually crumbled within the next year because of what just happened in Venezuela. So it has long lasting impact. So definitely check out that Texas Tech newsletter. And we're going to have a little bit more on this and everything else that's happened.

in Texas politics. There are a lot of other things going on. We'll have that in a subsequent show here coming up later in the next couple of days as well. But I felt it was important to get this piece out on Crenshaw, given how important and how newsworthy this is. all is right now, what's going on in Venezuela. Thanks again for listening to the program, and I will talk to you all soon.