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From the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the voices shaping our nation's future, we bring you unprecedented all-platform coverage, exploring the stories, sights, and spirit that make up America. | |
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| C-SPAN, official media partner of America 250. | ||
| In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together. | ||
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| Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| Joining us to continue our conversation on Venezuela and what's facing the White House is Niall Stanage. | ||
| He's White House columnist for The Hill. | ||
| Welcome back to the program. | ||
| Good to be with you, Mimi. | ||
| So what is facing the Trump administration now as a result of those operations over the weekend? | ||
| I think an enormous number of questions, primarily. | ||
| I mean, there are obviously questions about the motivations in doing this in the first place. | ||
| But then there's this very clear uncertainty about what exactly the U.S. role is going to be. | ||
| President Trump, of course, said over the weekend they were going to run Venezuela. | ||
| Then Secretary of State Rubio said, well, it's not really running, it's running policy. | ||
| Then President Trump asked last night on Air Force One, who's in charge of Venezuela, and he says, we're in charge. | ||
| What does that actually mean in practical terms? | ||
| How does that operate? | ||
| How does that manifest itself? | ||
| And what is the sort of short to medium term future in Venezuela? | ||
| Now, there were a lot of similarities that people were bringing up with Iraq and how the United States took over running Iraq, essentially running the government, all the services there. | ||
| Secretary Rubio kept saying, not everything is Iraq. | ||
| Let's stop talking about Iraq. | ||
| This is completely different. | ||
| What is the administration saying about that? | ||
| Well, I mean, I think it is fair to say that not every single foreign intervention is Iraq, right? | ||
| I mean, that has its particular specifics, just as Venezuela has its particular specifics. | ||
| The administration's view, and I stress that I'm just stating their view, I'm not defending it or attacking it, their view is that the United States needs to dominate the Western hemisphere. | ||
| This is the quote-unquote Don Rue doctrine, President Trump's take on the Monroe document. | ||
| And it is a very muscular assertion that the United States must control the Western hemisphere and eliminate things that it considers threatening or adversarial or negative in some fashion in that way. | ||
| They are planting this intervention in Venezuela within that framework. | ||
| Now, President Trump obviously was in power before. | ||
| How has his thinking on foreign policy and foreign intervention changed from his first term to now this first year in office of his second term? | ||
| It's a great question. | ||
| Maybe we should get Congresswoman Taylor Greene on to discuss her take on that. | ||
| I mean, Trump in the first term, and indeed through most of his political career thus far, has been ostensibly skeptical of intervention. | ||
| And that, I think, broadly speaking, held true in the first term. | ||
| It is much less true in the second term, not only in relation to Venezuela, but in, for example, the military strikes on Iran that we saw last year, and also in the president's willingness to sort of bang the war drums to some extent in relation to other nations, including Colombia and Cuba. | ||
| I'm not suggesting that he's planning to invade Cuba. | ||
| That's something that has a rather checkered history when American presidents have tried it, and he hasn't said that's what he's trying. | ||
| But this goes back to the element that we were just talking about, the wish to dominate the Western Hemisphere. | ||
| And Nil Sandage of the Hill is our guest. | ||
| If you have a question for him, he will take your calls. | ||
| The lines are Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| The lines are open. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| I don't even know what to call Maduro anymore. | ||
| President, former president, illegitimate leader. | ||
| Nicolas Maduro. | ||
| We'll just stick with Maduro. | ||
| He does appear in a Manhattan court today at about noon. | ||
| What is facing the Trump administration's Justice Department in prosecuting that case? | ||
| Well, they have obviously released or unsealed the indictment that names Nicolas Maduro and his wife and his son and a number of other senior people in the Venezuelan administration. | ||
| I think, Mimi, one thing we should be candid about is that there are still elements of this whole circumstance that we don't really know the answer to. | ||
| One fascinating question to me is, what happens if Nicolas Maduro is acquitted? | ||
| Is that possible? | ||
| He has the right to defend himself, certainly. | ||
| He has the right to argue, for example, that he is the leader of Venezuela and therefore enjoys sovereign immunity. | ||
| That would not be an acquittal, but it would result in the dismissal of the case if he were able to persuade the court of that point. | ||
| So he was a sitting head of state, and he could not be prosecuted. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| That's what sovereign immunity is. | ||
| It's the widely accepted view that you cannot criminally prosecute the head of state of another nation. | ||
| Now, this, I mean, without getting into the legal intricacies of this, the counter-argument is that the United States administration does not recognize Maduro and did not recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela even before the events of the past 72 hours approximately. | ||
| Therefore, he wouldn't be entitled to that. | ||
| But these are some of the whole tightly knotted ball of questions that are around in all of this. | ||
| Now, what significance do you think it was that the indictment does not mention fentanyl? | ||
| Well, I think it's very politically significant. | ||
| I think that, to be candid, President Trump has often sort of fudged the issue of what kind of drugs he's talking about when he talks about the dangers to the United States from drug trafficking from Venezuela. | ||
| Venezuela, according to virtually every expert, is not a significant source of fentanyl whatsoever. | ||
| The vast majority of fentanyl that enters the United States comes from Mexico and comes across the border in that way. | ||
| Venezuela is not even a very major importer or transit point for cocaine into the United States. | ||
| Some cocaine does go through there, most of it destined for Europe. | ||
| But the president has, I think, made the argument for this seizing of Maduro, partly on the basis that he's protecting Americans from being killed by drug overdoses. | ||
| He often implies that that means fentanyl. | ||
| That's just not borne out by the facts in Venezuela's case. | ||
| I want to talk about the current leader of Venezuela, which is Delsie Rodriguez. | ||
| She was Maduro's vice president. | ||
| She did put a post out 11 hours ago on Instagram. | ||
| It's a message from Venezuela to the world and the United States. | ||
| I'm going to read some of it and then have you comment. | ||
| It says, Venezuela reaffirms its commitment to peace and peaceful coexistence. | ||
| Our country aspires to live without external threats in an environment of respect, international cooperation. | ||
| We believe that global peace is built by first guaranteeing peace within each nation. | ||
| It says this later in her letter. | ||
| We invite the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence. | ||
| President Donald Trump, our peoples, and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war. | ||
| This has always been President Maduro's message, and it is the message of all of Venezuela right now. | ||
| And what do you make of that? | ||
| Do you see that as a conciliatory message? | ||
| Well, it's an extremely conciliatory message directed at a nation that has just seized the man who she purports to believe is still the president of Venezuela. | ||
| Extremely conciliatory by those lights. | ||
| One thing I would say about this whole picture, Mimi, is I will preface this by saying I'm not a conspiracy theorist. | ||
| I'm not given to conspiracies, generally speaking, but I think there are a lot of suspicious elements to the way this situation has developed. | ||
| You have the United States seizing the president of Venezuela with fairly conspicuous ease in Caracas. | ||
| You have President Trump then hanging out to dry the main leader of the opposition, Maria Machado, saying that she doesn't really have the respect to lead the country. | ||
| And you have Delsi Rodriguez, purportedly a socialist, socialist nationalist, formerly Marxist, being conciliatory to the United States in this way. | ||
| After first being not conciliatory and demanding the release of Maduro. | ||
| And calling this a barbarism or something to that effect. | ||
| There just seems to be, frankly, a lot of shadiness around this that I think we do need intrepid investigative reporters to dig into a bit more. | ||
| Shadiness as far as you think there might be back deals going on? | ||
| I mean, I think that there is at least a suspicion that there was some tacit agreement between Rodriguez or people close to Rodriguez and the U.S. Let's talk to callers. | ||
| Mario is in Fort Washington, Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
| You're on the air, Mario. | ||
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Hi, good morning. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yes, I would like to add, well, I would like to add my point of view: as being Colombian and living in the United States for over 26 years, I believe the United States is my home, and I do approve the capture of Maduro, but the way it was done, | ||
| it's just not the proper way. | ||
| I mean, we need to have at least the approval from the Congress. | ||
| And I would love for the American people to understand that because of defending The American way doesn't give you guys the right to invade another country. | ||
| Colombia is next. | ||
| And I'm Colombian, and I'm afraid of what's going to happen. | ||
| I have family. | ||
| I got loved ones back there. | ||
| And we don't want any more bad stuff that happened. | ||
| I will appreciate if you guys please understand that there is no right to invade another country. | ||
| It's because nobody has the right to invade another country. | ||
| All right, Mario. | ||
| And to add to his comment, this is Anthony on X. Absent of any occurring or imminent attack on American soil and without authorization from Congress, there is no military combat rule for the president to employ that is legal under the Constitution. | ||
| I think that both your caller and Anthony on X and Mario on the phone raise important points here. | ||
| Look, I don't want to get C-SPAN on hot water. | ||
| I know we're talking about facts, not opinions here. | ||
| But I do think that it's important for those of us in the media to state facts where they plainly exist, even if some people from political positions don't want those facts to be acknowledged. | ||
| What the United States is involved here in Venezuela is clearly an imperialist or colonialist effort. | ||
| President Trump was asked on Air Force One last night, who's in charge of Venezuela. | ||
| He said we're in charge. | ||
| That means that the United States has used its military might to take control of a foreign country. | ||
| President Trump has been abundantly clear that extracting oil from Venezuela is a driving force in that effort. | ||
| You couldn't ask for a more textbook example of what colonialism or imperialism are. | ||
| The use by a larger country of force against a smaller country to take control of it, directly or indirectly, and to exploit its resources. | ||
| That's what's happening. | ||
| And, you know, we might end up having a debate in future days about whether imperialism is a good or a bad thing. | ||
| But we shouldn't flim flam as journalists about saying what it is. | ||
| That's what it is. | ||
| I saw you interviewed the other night. | ||
| I watched it about two o'clock in the morning. | ||
| There was a little thing called C-SPAN, which I don't know how many people were watching. | ||
| Don't worry, you were in prime time too, but they happen to have a little rerun. | ||
| Do you really think that we don't remember what just happened last week? | ||
| Thank goodness for C-SPAN, and we all should review the tape. | ||
|
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Everyone wonders when they're watching C-SPAN what the conversations are on the floor. | |
| I'm about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN. | ||
| There's a lot of things that Congress fights about, that they disagree on. | ||
| We can all watch that on C-SPAN. | ||
| Millions of people across the country tuned into C-SPAN. | ||
| That was a major C-SPAN moment. | ||
| If you watch on C-SPAN, you're going to see me physically across the aisle every day, just trying to build relationships and try to understand their perspective and find common ground. | ||
| And welcome forward to everybody watching at home. | ||
| We know C-SPAN covers this live as well. | ||
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We appreciate that. | |
| And one can only hope that he's able to watch C-SPAN on a black and white television set in his prison cell. | ||
| This is being carried live by C-SPAN. | ||
| It's being watched not only in this country, it's being watched around the world right now. | ||
| Mike said before, I happened to listen to him, he was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade. | ||
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right? | |
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| c-span democracy unfiltered c-span is the official media partner of america 250 commemorating 250 years of american democracy America 250 is traveling the country to honor the voices that define our nation. | ||
| Stories of identity, service, and community. | ||
| Here is one of them. | ||
| The Old North Church was built in 1723 as the second Church of England. | ||
| It is the oldest church building still standing here in Boston. | ||
| It's 302 years old. | ||
| And it was made famous for the role that it played in Paul Revere's ride. | ||
| We see it as launching the revolution with his one-ify land, two-ify-sea signal lanterns. | ||
| However, with three centuries of history, we have a lot more stories that we tell here. | ||
| My name is Emily Spence. | ||
| I'm from Boston, and I am the Director of Education here at the Old North Church. | ||
| There has been a really diverse community that has worshipped here over the years. | ||
| It has been home to wealthy merchants who own these pews, but also poor families, children, black and indigenous people, both free and enslaved. | ||
| Though this was a community that came together to worship and was united in their faith, you'll notice just even through the seating in this church, the box pews, the hierarchical seating with the balcony upstairs, that this was a space that was meant to separate people, separate them by how much money they had, the class that they occupied, but also by their skin color, their perceived race at the time. | ||
| I love being able to bring to life the stories of the Black and Indigenous people who sat in the North Gallery, whose stories for so long were left out and not considered important to the story of this church. | ||
| Over the years, it has been an intentionality in both the historic site and in the congregation to create a more open and welcoming space here at Old North. | ||
| When the church had to close during the revolution, these people lost their community. | ||
| And I think so many of us today can relate to that, having lived through the COVID-19 pandemic. | ||
| I look at the funeral and burial records, and there was so much death in these people's lives. | ||
| I think having a place to come together, to feel united and feel like there was at least a place to grapple with that uncertainty together with a community, that was a big draw for people. | ||
| We hope that today this church, which is seen as a symbol of freedom, people can come here and see their stories and also recognize how complicated and complex the story of this church is. | ||
| One of my favorite times to be at Old North is in the evening just after we've closed. | ||
| It's a really beautiful, peaceful time, and the lighting in the church really just makes this space glow. | ||
| That's when I can really feel the presence and the history that's here. | ||
| I think about all of the people who have been here in this space. | ||
| Some of them who I would love to meet, some of them who I know I would have some pretty heated debate with. | ||
| But I think about all of their stories and the way that they hopefully love this place the way I do. | ||
| And that's what makes me feel really lucky to have this role of helping to steward this place and their stories for the next generation. | ||
| My name is Emily Spence, and this is my American story. | ||
| Coverage of America 250's Our American Story, presented by C-SPAN. | ||
| Up next, Florida Republican lawmakers discuss Saturday's U.S. military operation Venezuela, extracting that country's leader, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Celia Flores. |