Right now, what the US is doing is hitting, you know, a boat here, a boat there. I don't think that'll do it. I think you need to hit Venezuela itself for the military to think, OK, the game's really over. Maduro is going down. I don't want to go with them. Hello and welcome to this edition of Trump World. I'm Matt Fry in Washington. And I'm Anishka Astana in Trinidad and Tobago. I'm not just here for the
sunshine. I'll explain why I'm here in a minute, but I just wanted to encourage you to subscribe if you're enjoying this show. Trump World. And if you do or even if you don't, but especially if you do, you will find out what we're speaking about this week, and that is the extraordinary gunship diplomacy happening off the coast of Venezuela courtesy of the American Navy.
Now, while we've been focusing on trade tariffs and Epstein and all these other things, there's been this build up of American military force off the coast of Venezuela. And the question is, is this gunship diplomacy, if it's diplomacy at all, designed to get rid of the regime, The President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, something that Trump tried to do in his first term, but this time around, he's using military force or the threat of it.
And he's very motivated by his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, for whom this is a pet project. The reason I'm in Trinidad and Tobago is we can't actually get into Venezuela right now. Access for journalists is very, very restricted. Trinidad and Tobago is Venezuela's closest neighbor on the Caribbean side. I actually got on a boat staying very close to shore in a safe place and went as close as I could. And you could really see how close Venezuela was just 7 miles across the water.
And the reason I'm here is that all of this is having a huge, huge impact on Trinidad and Tobago. The Prime Minister here, too much anger across the country is supporting what Donald Trump is doing. But we've got a situation where there are literally bodies washing up onto the shores of Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidadian nationals have been killed by these strikes. We have the 21st strike on a boat on Saturday. I think there are 83 people who have now died as a result of
that. People very, very clear to me that this is a breach of international law. America isn't part of the International Criminal Court, but Trinidad and Tobago and the UK are, and there's implications for that which we will come to when we discuss this. It has been a really fascinating few days talking to people here.
And the reason why people are watching what America is doing, what Trump is doing with Venezuela very closely, is 1 Venezuela, believe it or not, has the the biggest oil reserves on the planet of any country bigger than Saudi Arabia. It is also the second biggest, has the second biggest reserves of natural gas in the Western Hemisphere. So it's stuffed with natural resources, something that Donald Trump would love to get its hands on.
But also this idea of regime change, either through limited force or a threat of force or perhaps even boots on the ground, which Donald Trump has said is a possibility. That is something that people are watching very closely because it set a a precedent for other actions around the region or indeed across the world. We're going to speak to Elliott Abrams a little bit later. He was the Venezuela envoy in the first Trump administration. He knows a lot about the
country. He knows a lot about Trump's motives. And we'll try and find out from him what is actually going on and how this is different to what they tried to do in the first Trump administration. But let's just see what Trump 2 point O had to say about Venezuela. Is there anything you're? Ready to rule out at this point, Are you ruling out? U.S. troops on the ground. I don't rule out that. I don't rule out anything. In these. Talks with. Maduro, is there anything that
he could? Say or do that would let allow you to feel like he could stay with your support. Is there anything that he could say that you would be OK you can stay as leader? Yeah, the question's a little bit tricky. I don't think it was meant to be tricky. It's just that, look, he's done tremendous damage to our country, primarily because of drugs, but really because we have that problem with other
countries too. But more than any other country, the release of prisoners into our country has been a disaster. He's emptied his Shields. Others have done that also. Obviously we've been hearing responses from Nicolas Maduro himself. He has described the strikes in the sea as serial executions. Actually, there are even some Republicans in Congress who agree with him that these are
extrajudicial killings. He did this slightly bizarre thing this weekend when he was talking about this, he suddenly broke out into a peace song, John Lennon's Imagine. And Look, clearly, there are big questions about Nicolas Maduro's regime. He is widely considered to have stolen last year's election. He lost to an opposition leader who was later given the Nobel Peace Prize. But he still carried on and seized control of the country.
But massive questions about what America is claiming is going on here. They're claiming that by striking these boats in the Caribbean Sea that they are trying to stop fentanyl getting into the US. It's very, very clear from just spending a few days here that this is not fentanyl that's coming through this particular route. And many of the drugs are actually going onto Europe and not going to the US.
He's claimed that Maduro has emptied his jails to let immigrants come through to the US Obviously, there's a lot going on here. Matt, you've already mentioned oil. Tell us what you think. Why do you think Trump hates Nicolas Maduro so much?
I think we have to go back even a little bit before Trump because Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, who was the the the elected, repeatedly elected president of Venezuela, who then became also a strong man who was the predecessor to Nicolas Maduro, the current president, who was Hugo Chavez's vice
president. Even when Chavez was in charge, America was very unhappy with Venezuela because Venezuela became a sort of larger, newer Cuba off, you know, in the Caribbean, not far from the United States, very much in America's backyard. He was completely over the top, unbelievably engaging and hated by successive American administrations. And he was in charge from 1999 to 2013 when he died, hated because he was the thorn in
America's side. And I remember going to his funeral in Caracas and the lines were extraordinary because this man had promised to lift very large numbers of people who were living in the the slums around the city of Caracas, which is potentially a very beautiful place, lift them out of poverty and give them at least a chance of participating in the oil riches of Venezuela, which are extraordinary.
This is the country that has big, as I said earlier, bigger oil reserves stuffed in its ground than Saudi Arabia, the second biggest gas reserves, natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere. The money that can be made there is extraordinary. Now, as you said, Maduro is a dictator. He's he literally stole the last election. There's just no doubt about it.
Even people quite close to him. As someone admitting, yeah, it was a bit dodgy and it was a result of that stolen election contested by a woman called Maria Corina Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Not Trump, of course, that, you know, we. So you have sort of three boxes that are being ticked yet. But box number one, this woman Machado, who could be running Venezuela, and this is someone that Trump has congratulated about her Peace Prize.
He's working very closely with her. She is bought totally into the Trump agenda box #2 you've got all these natural resources that Trump was actually very close to getting his hands on in a deal concocted earlier this year whereby Venezuela would have literally handed over its entire natural resources wealth to the United States in even more than Ukraine was going to do in its minerals deal. And the third box is that they are highly motivated.
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, is really going after the Venezuelan regime. I just. Want to kind of rewind for a minute and try and explain how Donald Trump is selling this because he's not selling it as Matt has, just as you have just basically set out. He's selling it with what sounds like an America First policy. And many believe that Marco Rubio basically persuaded Donald Trump because he wants regime change in Venezuela, that it
could be sold in this way. And he's selling it, as, you know, an operation they're calling it, they've just named it actually Operation Southern Sphere that will save American lives. In fact, he argues that every strike on a boat will save 25,000 American lives. And you? Fentanyl, right? Because of fentanyl, Yeah, Although he's, as of yesterday, I think, started to mention cocaine as well.
But you have to go back to day one of the Trump presidency to understand what's going on here, because on day one, Donald Trump signed loads of executive orders, more than anyone had ever done before On day one of the presidency. One of them basically designated drug cartels as foreign
terrorist organizations. And so the idea was that from that day on, they would treat these organizations a bit like they treated al Qaeda in the past, IE they could go out there and they could bomb them out of the skies. I mean, it's not even got as much oversight as when they went after al Qaeda because at least when they went after al Qaeda, A, there had been a kind of military type attack on the US. And secondly, they got permission from Congress this
time. No, he doesn't bother with Congress. He just goes ahead. Now, all of that provided A justification to start bombing on September the 2nd. And they started striking boat after boat after boat that was coming from Venezuela. And look, it is fascinating to be here on the ground in Trinidad and Tobago. It's only 7 miles away by water.
Boats are coming content continuously across from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago and I should say without a shadow of a doubt there is a big drug smuggling problem here. But speaking to people and one of those peoples was a member of Trinidad's defence forces, he could only talk to me on condition of anonymity, but he made really clear to me that it's not fentanyl coming through here. What type of drugs are on the boats? The. Drugs that mostly include a
green plant, like substance. Marijuana. Yeah, marijuana. There are lessons and says where a white pottery substance is found. Cocaine. Cocaine this. Isn't really a route for fentanyl.
Not particularly he. Warned the strikes clearly breached international law do you believe that the boats that have been struck had drug dealers on them I. Would like to believe that if a decision was taken to strike vessels, that decision was based on sound reliable intelligence for someone to then decide OK, we are 100% certain. Do you believe they were 100% certain?
I don't think so. And what one thing that is really, really interesting and it's really challenging for Trinidad and Tobago, where the Prime Minister has basically given Trump the green light. But it's also quite challenging to the UK. And I've speak been speaking to like military sources, intelligence sources and also legal sources about all of this, which is America may not be a member of the International Criminal Court, but we are.
And if Trinidad more likely actually than the UK provide intelligence that goes along the line and ends up with one of these strikes, then they become part of what is known as the kill chain. And if you are in the kill chain, then you are liable for what happens at the end of it. So if we provide intelligence that ends up with a strike, which I can promise you the UK and Trinidad and Tobago consider to be unlawful in international law, then you end up liable with
the ICC. Now, there were reports that the UK was therefore withholding intelligence. The sources I speak to suggest that we don't have the intelligence that's really leading to these strikes. So as yet it's not really an issue for us, but clearly our government is monitoring this very closely. People here in Trinidad are really quite worried about the impact that this could have for them, the knock on effect if they're providing the US with this intelligence.
And of course, the question really is what do they actually intend to do in Caracas? That's I'm talking about the Americans here. And how do they intend to do it? So the impression is that yes, they want regime change, they want to get rid of Nicolas Maduro, having actually tried to do a deal with him along these natural resources earlier in the year. But how's that going to work? Because America has a very dodgy record with regime change all over the world, but also in Latin America.
It doesn't tend to go very smoothly with a great outcome for either side. And when you compare, let's say, Venezuela to Panama, where they did this in the late 1980s, Panama is a much smaller country. Venezuela is 10 times the size. They had thousands of troops inside Panama. I'm not sure what Trump is
prepared to do with that. And even with a relatively limited operation like Panama, where they ended up capturing Manuel Noriega, partly because they he'd taken refuge in the in the ambassador's residence of the Holy See. And they blasted the residence with heavy metal music for 10 days. They they captured him. They put him on trial in Miami. He, he basically died in
custody. But even in that clever, limited military operation, America lost something like 240 soldiers or so. Is Trump prepared to put boots on the ground in Venezuela, which is a much more tricky proposition? He hasn't said so, but he hasn't ruled it out either. And if you just have this pressure on the outside, remember that the Venezuelan regime has been living with American pressure for years.
I mean, they tried something similar in a less concentrated, focused form in the first Trump administration. And even before that, Barack Obama wasn't exactly a friend of of the the Maduro government after he came into office in 2013. And of course it's Venezuela is not alone. It has friends, you know, the Chinese are its friends. The Russians have have got involvement there. You've got I think the N Koreans knocking around a little bit. I mean, they the Iranians as
well. So they are still part of that, what the Americans used to describe as the axis of evil. I don't think this is quite the flashpoint that the Cuban missile crisis was in the 1960s. I I can't imagine that we would go that far, but it's not entirely without consequences for the region. And the question always in risk is, isn't it, how far is Trump prepared to go in order to take, you know, to, to, to achieve his goals? Is he how far is he prepared to take these risks?
One other aside, Hugo Chavez, who was this extraordinary figure who I described earlier in some ways is rather similar to Trump, because he used to have this program on Venezuelan state television called Alo Presidente went out on Sunday night. It was open-ended. And he used to have to the the cabinet used to have to turn up. And then there was a live audience and they used to have to listen to Chavez weave in and out of one subject after another. And he would read the papers and
kind of leaf through the papers. And then he'd lose his place. And everyone just had to watch as this guy was, was, you know, bloviating and, and, and speculating and just boring the country to tears with his thoughts.
And I have to say, that does remind me a little bit of Donald Trump's sort of cabinet meetings or Oval Office gaggles where everyone just hangs on to every word and they just go on and on and on. Donald Trump has got a domestic problem right now, and part of the domestic problem comes from him focusing so much on foreign conflicts around the world. I mean, he's fallen out in great style with Marjorie Taylor Green, who is the kind of ultimate you mean.
Marjorie Traitor Green Marjorie Traitor Green I. Mean, that's what he's calling her. You know, she was, she, she is a representative who was about as MAGA as they come. She was a huge supporter of his, but she started to break away from him on various issues. Most obvious one, the release of the Epstein files. They have had a complete fireworks fallout. But I keep noting that one of the things she keeps saying is you're focusing on foreign policy when actually Americans
are struggling. We've seen the Democrats do really well in recent elections because of economic situations.
But there is clearly a desire for a very big geopolitical shift in South America. I mean, if you listen to experts on this, that the kind of narrative behind it, if you like, is that America wants to have more dominance in the Western Hemisphere. We've seen them, you know, offering plenty of money to friendly governments like Miley in Argentina, whilst they are trying to pressure the more left wing socialist governments like Nicolas Maduro.
It is interesting because as we said, you know, twice now Maduro stole the election. There is not support from him for him in the country. Most people would like to see him gone. They voted for the opposition in last year's election. At the same time, there does not appear to be support for a invasion, I should say, while there has been this huge build up of a military might in this region. I know I'm sitting here in front of a curtain, but just outside are the waters exactly where
that has been happening. And there are thousands and thousands of American soldiers nearing the Venezuelan borders. There is not enough people here to suggest that they're trying to do what they did in Panama. There's not enough to suggest that they would go ahead with a proper land invasion. It's very clear they're trying to scare Maduro, trying to get
him out. Maybe there could be some sort of land strike is very possible Trump has talked about that or a kind of targeted thing, allies of Maduro that would make him want to leave the country. Umm, I, I just wonder if the American public really has the appetite for America being once again so focused on something outside of its borders.
And particularly when the argument they've been making and you can sort of hear Donald Trump shifting on this doesn't stack up. Fentanyl is not coming on boats from Venezuela towards the Caribbean and see it is crossing the border from Mexico. That doesn't mean that there isn't an opioid crisis in America and it doesn't mean that there isn't a drug smuggling problem here. But, you know, and, and also, does striking boats actually
deter people? You know, speaking to that senior member of the Defence Force here, they thought, yeah, it might deter them in the short term. People are very, very scared here. I was out with a fisherman yesterday who has lost more than half his income because he used to go 30 miles from Trinidad and Tobago right into those waters close to Venezuela, which is where the best shark can be caught.
And, you know, shark is a very big delicacy here in Trinidad and Tobago. Now he doesn't dare to go 10 miles. The catch has massively reduced. So this guy was saying, look, it will also deter fishermen. On the one hand, which Trump Can you believe, has joked about fishermen being too scared to go there. These are people who are really struggling financially. And now, you know, their livelihoods are being pulled from under them. It's also scaring drug gangs.
But what that military source said to me is they are very, very resourceful. And actually a fisherman who has been out on these waters for 40 years said bit of hyperbole here, but said in his opinion, they could strike a million boats and kill a million people, but the drugs would still come but. Remember, there's also the domestic dimension and there always is with Latin American politics. So we know about the Cuban vote in the what used to be the swing state of Florida, which is now
Trump's residence. Of course, similarly there's a Venezuelan vote and. During the last election, I spent a lot of time talking to Venezuelan Americans. They were all Trump supporters. And a lot of them were very upset that he started deporting Venezuelans as soon he got as he got back into office, even those who didn't have any criminal records. And, you know, for them, for the Venezuelan community, that was a promise broken.
But the one thing they really care about, and that really unites Venezuelans of whatever generation, is that they all hate Nicolas Maduro, the president. So I wouldn't be surprised if part of the calculation, but only one part is let's do the Venezuelans who are feeling are feeling a bit bruised by what we've done with immigration, let's do them a favour and try and get rid of Maduro, which is something they will thank us for forever.
As you know, Cuban Americans would have thanked successive American administrations if they had succeeded in getting rid of the Castro brothers, which they didn't. But remember this, Anushka, you get rid of Maduro and if you don't have a smooth transition to the next, in other words, if Maria Corina Machado does not manage to create a viable, coherent, democratic, peaceful Venezuela, big question mark, then guess what's going to happen.
You're going to have more Venezuelan refugees leaving the
country. There might even be a knock on effect to Colombia next door and you have Colombian refugees heading across Central America. So you could actually make the problem that they that they set out to solve by putting up a fence or a wall on the border even worse if you're not careful, if, if this thing gets out of hand and often these regime change exercises, as we saw in Iraq, get horribly out of hand, we. Should also be very, you know,
sceptical of the real motive as as you you have been. And I totally agree with you. I don't think that Donald Trump is crying because, you know, an election was stolen in Venezuela last year. I think what he doesn't like is that the election was stolen by by a a socialist, so somebody
whose politics are different. But as you say, you know, he was nearly he was nearly doing a deal with Maduro not that long ago over Venezuelan oil in which Venezuela would give up almost all of it. And everyone I've spoken to here is really clear that that is the major, you know, motivation here. You know, it's not really about trying to help the Venezuelan people, they would argue.
It's really about trying to remove an anti American leader and replace them with a pro American leader who will do that deal. And, you know, just this week, Donald Trump has said maybe I will talk to Nicolas Maduro, as we heard earlier. So if he does talk to him, maybe he's hoping that all this pressure will actually result in the deal that he wants and then he will back off.
But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that in the meantime, America is behaving in the way that America has long criticized regimes across the world for behaving. It is taking out people on boats. You know, I met the family of one of the men who was killed, a guy called Chad Joseph. And I was saying to them, you know, they, they no one told them, no one informed them that their, you know, loved one had been killed. They frantic calls went unanswered.
They found out on social media. And I asked them about the drugs thing. I mean, they said if he was involved in drugs, you know, where were his assets, which I thought was quite interesting because at the very least, the people who are on these boats, if they are involved in the drug trade, are largely probably very low down the chain. They're not exactly the leaders of drug gangs.
But the but the bigger point is, even if these boats were to be shown, all of them to have drugs on board, you don't just go and kill people without providing the evidence. You don't go and kill people without due process. But yes, I know that that is true. That's a, it's, it's a very important point. And I think that's what many people are worried about, including in this country, although none of them are members of the Trump administration.
I I mean, the Trump administration would point to Barack Obama who had a kill list of Islamic, Islamic extremists, terrorists who were taken out on a very regular basis and it had to be done. A judge have had to sign off on the kill list, but we were never told who was on the kill list. People just wound up dead. We were never there was never any. Do you think that? This is a quite interesting point though. Do you think that the War on Terror can be equated with the
war on drugs? I mean, that's, that's basically what they're saying, you know, the War on Terror, they would argue I. Think any war on a noun is always a problem, right? So the War on Terror and the War on Terror was, you know, led to Guantanamo Bay. You could argue that, you know, bits of it were Abu Ghraib.
I mean, America did terrible things as a result of conducting a War on Terror in the same way that the war on drugs, which has been going on for decades, I mean, started under Ronald Reagan and Noriega removed by Bush senior. Otherwise a sort of, you know, the former CIA operative, head of the CIAA, relatively genteel man compared to his son. You know, he went after Noriega again, because of drugs.
Now, there may have been more evidence to link Noriega to drug trafficking back in the day than there is to link Maduro to the drugs cartels selling stuff from Venezuela. We don't know because we're not being told. And again, you always have to remember that whatever Trump does in this sort of impatient presidential mind is to keep himself busy and occupied, but also to deflect from something
else. So the Epstein files, the fact that the cost of living crisis has been made worse by tariffs, tick, tick, tick. As we discussed just a few weeks ago in the so-called blue wave when the Democrats won two States and of course van down he won in New York. A lot of that is down to the fact that Trump has not been able to fix the problems he came into office to fix. So what do you do? You deflect by going on foreign adventures. What does the MAGA base do?
As you said, they complain. They said America first is about America first, not let's deal with the Venezuela 1st. And I think so. He's getting himself into some hot political water on a number of levels. We say farewell to Anushka is off to cover another story. But we say hello to Elliot Abrams, who was the Venezuela envoy in the first Trump administration, is now a senior fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations. Welcome, Elliot. Good to be here.
So a lot to unpack here. What do you think ultimately is going on with the administration parking this fleet off the coast of Venezuela and making, you know, threatening noises to Nicolas Maduro, killing all these people who they accuse of fairing drugs to America? Is this about regime change? Is it about reducing the flow of drugs? Is it about influence in the hemisphere? What's it about? Well, it certainly is about reducing the flow of drugs, but you don't need a gigantic
aircraft carrier to do that. So I assume it is also about getting rid of Nicolas Maduro. Right. And and of course, you know, you were in charge of the Venezuela policy in the first Trump administration and, you know, he made some very unkind noises about the Trump that is about Maduro at that time. But what is different this time? Because it seems to be a very different policy, a more robust 1. Well, it certainly is.
I mean, in the first term, we used, pardon me, diplomatic pressure, economic pressure, sanctions, but no military pressure. One thing is different, and that is that they've now had an election and it was a landslide defeat from Maduro and there is a legitimately elected president. The problem is that's probably the thing that Trump cares about least when you compare it to,
say, drug trafficking. So the major difference is probably not the explanation for this change, and I don't really understand what is. And if you don't understand, Elliot, we're, we're in trouble, aren't we? Because, you know, about policy towards Venezuela, you know, about, you know, policy towards Latin America in the broader
sense. I mean, just tell us about the thing that we've been discussing on the podcast, which is this idea that there was a deal to be made with Maduro between Maduro and Trump at the beginning of the administration. And it was around natural resources. Essentially, Venezuela was going to hand over almost all of its oil to America in return for America tolerating Maduro in power. Did you hear of such a deal? And what happened to that deal? Yes, Maduro offered something
along those lines. It's not a very compelling offer. We don't actually need Venezuelan oil. You know, we did during the Second World War, but we're pretty much self-sufficient in oil these days. To the extent that this is about migration. And that's an issue that we should really mention. It's pretty clear that while Maduro is in power and destroying the economy of Venezuela and repressing the people, they're going to keep moving out of Venezuela. So if you want that to stop, you
really got to change the regime. But regime change is something that America has has tried not just in Latin America over the decades, but also most famously in Iraq. And it doesn't always go according to plan. How, If there is a regime change plan that you can decipher out of all this, what does it actually look like?
Venezuela is a much better candidate than, say, Iraq or Syria. You know, when we think of Syria, we think of and Iraq, Sunnis and Shias and Druze and Kurds. There are no divisions like that in Venezuela, first of all. Secondly, Venezuela had about 50 years of democracy. They kicked out a military dictator in 1958. And then for about 50 years they had, you know, regular elections and democracy.
So it's a much better, there's a much better possibility that after Maduro, they could return with their recently elected president to democracy. You can't say regime change. I mean, this administration hates that term, and they'll never use it and they'll deny it. But I think the idea basically is if you could get Maduro and his inner circle out and then Edmundo Gonzalez, who was elected president and is in exile in Spain, would go home, you could start returning Venezuela to democracy.
Because the issue in Iraq was always that, you know, you could have free and fair elections, sort of, but you don't have the institutions of democracy to uphold, the democracy to uphold the result. Did those institutions survive in a decades of Chavez and Maduro? Yes and no. I mean, there there is. There's always been a parliament, but the elections for parliament were in recent years fixed.
There's always been a Supreme Court, you know, and a court system, but again, under the control of the regime. And the question is, how long would it take to restore those? Again, Venezuela had 50 years of this. It is surrounded by democracies like Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia. So it is, you know, we no guarantees, but it is a better candidate. Right. But I guess we're getting a
little bit ahead of ourselves. First of all, to establish democracy, you've got to, you know, remove the guy who's currently running the country. Do you really think that, given what awaits him, Nicolas Maduro is open to some kind of deal that, you know, sees his removal from power or even open to gun gunship diplomacy, you know, with the USS Gerald Ford parked off the coast of his country? I just can't imagine that really working. I wonder if you can you?
Know it is reminiscent of what happened in Panama with Manuel Noriega. The deal that was offered this is this is the Reagan administration will quash the indictments of you if you will leave power and leave Panama. He said no and ended up in AUS federal prison. I I think really Maduro was unlikely to accept such a deal because he's worried about going to prison himself. He is an indicted drug trafficker indicted in the US That's why I think you're going to have to push him out.
You're probably not going to be able to negotiate him out. And that means getting, among other things, getting Venezuelan military to push him out, some Colonel someplace to rise up and say, look at this American power being brought here. I do think it will require strikes on Venezuela. That is right now what the US is doing is hitting, you know, a boat here or boat there in international waters.
I don't think that'll do it. I think you need to hit Venezuela itself, some military or or narcotics target for the military to think, OK, the game's really over. Maduro is going down. I don't want to go with them. OK, but some Colonel Summer could be another Hugo Chavez, couldn't it? I mean that he was some Colonel somewhere. He ended up taking over the whole country. Yeah, but now they've got an
elected president. And this is in the context, of course, of tremendous use of American power. The Maduro and his regime are reviled all over Latin America and the days of Latin American, you know, juntas running countries are over. There isn't a military dictatorship in all of Latin America. And, you know, but you mentioned the Noriega example in I think it was 1989. I mean, there were American
boots on the ground. That is something that that you know, that Trump has said and his MAGA movement has said they really don't want to see, right? And I don't think he's going to do it. Reagan tried negotiating with Noriega. That failed. It was George HW Bush then in 1989, as you said, who invaded Panama. But that is the kind of thing Trump hates. He likes, you know, the kind of thing he did in Iran, a strike and then it's over with no boots on the ground. I don't think you're going to
see that. And it's interesting that if you look at this great flotilla, yeah, there are some troops there, but there are not the numbers that you would need from Venezuela. He does not intend that, I think. So if he wants the Venezuelan people, the opposition of which there are millions, to do the heavy lifting, you know, as he thought maybe it might be the case in Iran, well, again, that didn't work. They didn't do the heavy lifting.
You know, they were either too intimidated or too disorganised to do so. Do you think that Venezuela is different because there is a coherent opposition that formed around the last election that was stolen by the President? I think it's different. I think that however, you will probably need something coming from the Venezuelan military to push Maduro out. I I think the idea that you're going to get 5 million people out, you know, into this streets
to do this pretty unlikely. Just on the question of, of, of bombing these, you know, boats, fishing boats that carry drugs, I mean, in all this stuff, there's no due process of law, is there? We just have to take it on, you know, on their evidence that these are boats carrying fentanyl. And actually Anoushka was on the ground in Trinidad and, and, and spoke to people there. You know, they're right across the water from Venezuela.
They said the evidence so far is that it's, it's actually not, it's marijuana and it might be cocaine, but it's not fentanyl. I mean, is there a problem here that America is just doing all these extrajudicial killings without going to any due process of law, and that that might set a rather alarming precedent? Well, I think a lot of Americans feel that way. I do think these boats are engaged in drug trafficking. Fenchville, as you said, doesn't come to the US this way.
It comes across the Mexican border. But this is mostly cocaine. Cocaine does come from Colombia and Venezuela. These were not fishing boats. These were not forest boats. This was drug trafficking. Nevertheless, we've been handling this for years and years by having the Coast Guard stop the boat and arrest people and then bring them to court and let's see if you can can convict them. This is something new. Will. Will President Trump get away
with it? Yes, I think he will get away with it. Do. You approve. No, I don't approve. Look, I don't approve of drug trafficking. I think there's people belonging in jail, but I think they also need a trial before they're killed is. There any evidence, as the administration has suggested, that Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, is the head of a gang of of a cartel of a drugs cartel.
Yes. And I think that that his regime really at the very least protects the drug traffickers and profits from lives off the profits of drug trafficking. So I think he's he's in it and I think really everyone who investigates it, he's in it up to his neck. And is the idea that you, you change Venezuela, you know, you, you get rid of Maduro, as you said, you know, through the elements of the Venezuelan military opposition on the ground, the people who were elected but who had the
elections stolen from them? And does that then send, is it supposed to send a message to the rest of the continent? You know, we can do it here. We can also do it over there. Well, I think it's supposed to send a message to Cuba and Nicaragua. In fact, Maduro has all of his years in power been giving somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 barrels a day of oil to Cuba for free. Cuban economy is in bad shape. It's not a democratic government
that stopped that subsidy. That regime might fall, too. And the regime in Nicaragua, I think, is also very shaky. The economy is very shaky. That would be the kind of achievement that I think Trump would like in his three years to go in power. And how important is Marco Rubio
in all this? Because at the beginning of the administration, there was, as we discussed earlier, this sort of vague outline of a deal, resources for for staying in power in terms of Maduro. And then Marco Rubio gets involved and it becomes much more aggressive. Well, I would say the the whole Florida delegation feels that way. It's a Florida thing.
It's Rubio. It's the White House teacher of staff Susie Wiles. It's the senators and members of the of the House of Representatives from Florida. And again, that that deal with Maduro would have done nothing on migration, which is another problem here.
So I think, yeah, Maduro, Maduro has the problem that there's enormous interests of Americans, of Venezuelan Americans, of the Secretary of State in Venezuela. And I know they're, you know, obviously they're this administration cares deeply about illegal migration across the border. I also know that a lot of Venezuelans that I spoke to in Florida who voted for Trump, who loved Trump, are really upset by the number of Venezuelans in their community have been sent
packing back across the border. Even if they weren't bad hombres, as the president might say. Is that something to do with it? You know, keep the Venezuelans happy because they really want Maduro to go. If you can do that, then they'll forgive you a few other things that have gone wrong. And of course, they matter in Florida because they vote in Florida. And although Florida's no longer a swing state, it could potentially swing back to the Democrats.
It's complicated because many of the Venezuelans in question are not yet citizens, so they can't vote. There's a there's a complete contradiction or anomaly here. On the one hand, the president, the administration is saying Venezuela's hell. On the other hand, they're saying go back. It just, you know, it makes no sense. I don't think very many people have been sent back. But the ones who are in Florida, of course, live in a kind of limbo, live in fear that they
might be tomorrow morning. I think that was a frankly, a terrible move on the part of the president. You want to get rid of Mcguro? Get rid of Mcguro. They can have a democratic regime help them rebuild the economy as in Argentina, and then you won't get these
outflows. That's the way to do it, not grabbing people off the street and sending them back to Venezuela. And of course, if you try some kind of regime change or whatever you want to call it, and it goes horribly wrong and you destabilize the country even more, instead of creating a safe place for them to return to, you might actually trigger an even greater outflow of Venezuelans that might end up coming to your country, the US.
Well, I think for those reasons and many others, I think the president should realize, you know, he's halfway down the road here. Somebody's going to win this. It's going to be Nicolas Maduro or Donald Trump. One or the other is going to look triumphant in, you know, three months, six months. And if the president thinks he can just sort of change his mind and pull back now and say, oh, never mind, I don't think that's going to work.
So finally then Elliot, who is going to win this, do you think? I would bet on Donald Trump. And when? Well, you can't keep that flotilla including our largest aircraft carrier in the Caribbean for, you know, for a year. I mean, I'm thinking maybe not this year, there aren't that many weeks left this year, but three to six months I'd say is the window. Springtime in Caracas. See you there. OK, Ellen Abrams, thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure. You're welcome.
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