Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - War With Venezuela
Aired: 2026-01-06
Duration: 01:11:18


=== Movie About Regime Change (14:56) ===

[00:00:06]  What's up?
[00:00:07]  What's up?
[00:00:08]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:11]  I'm Dave Smith.
[00:00:11]  He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
[00:00:13]  And we got a big one for you today.
[00:00:16]  Real quick, before we start the show, this weekend is me and Rob are back on the road for the first time in 2026.
[00:00:23]  We'll be at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia.
[00:00:27]  So go grab your tickets to that.
[00:00:28]  Still some tickets available, but they are moving quick.
[00:00:31]  So comicdave Smith.com is the website for that.
[00:00:33]  Really looking forward to this weekend.
[00:00:35]  It's going to be fun.
[00:00:36]  Well, speaking of the weekend, over the weekend, since our last episode, we got another war in or something like that.
[00:00:46]  Certainly an active war.
[00:00:47]  If someone did that to the United States of America, we'd certainly call it that.
[00:00:52]  Let's get into it.
[00:00:53]  So I just, you know, I got a lot to say on this.
[00:00:56]  I'm sure you do too, Rob.
[00:00:58]  And my instinct with these things is almost always to go like, hey, let's go over the last 15 years of history in Venezuela real quick, you know, but I just don't, I want to get to all the stuff we want to say.
[00:01:10]  So I don't want to waste too much time with that.
[00:01:12]  But Hugo Chavez took over the country and ruined it and then got stomach cancer and handed it off to Maduro and he continued to ruin it even more.
[00:01:19]  And socialism doesn't work.
[00:01:20]  And also they pissed off the United States of America.
[00:01:23]  And also it's been Marco Rubio's wet dream to get a regime change there.
[00:01:27]  And of course, as you know, we've been blowing up boats and telling lies about drugs and a whole bunch of stuff lately.
[00:01:34]  And of course, me and you have been saying for a while now that you kind of don't know with Donald Trump.
[00:01:42]  Like it's, it's kind of hard to judge.
[00:01:44]  Like, is he going to, is he, you know, is this all just bolster and nothing's ever going to come of this?
[00:01:48]  Is he actually going to invade the country?
[00:01:51]  Is, you know, like, what's what's going to happen here is always unclear.
[00:01:55]  And essentially, I think we're still at that place right now where it's very unclear what, if anything, is actually going on.
[00:02:03]  But what happened over the last few days is that the Trump administration launched a military offensive and they were able to kidnap, extract Madero.
[00:02:19]  And the first thing I got to say about it, which I did post on Twitter and some people got upset by that.
[00:02:31]  This was like the quickest regime change, if you can exactly call it a regime change, that I've ever seen and or read about.
[00:02:39]  And even in other like successful, you know, I think of examples like Panama or something like that, where we got Noriega.
[00:02:46]  There's a much bigger military operation and there was much more of a fight to get him.
[00:02:52]  And so it was, I will say, it was at least a little bit surprising to me because there's obviously Donald Trump has wanted to reduce, has wanted to remove this guy, not just now, but through his first term too.
[00:03:06]  Maybe we'll get into some of that stuff if we have time.
[00:03:09]  If you remember, Rob, and it was in 2019 when persuaded by John Bolton, Donald Trump did that thing where they just announced that Guaido was the president.
[00:03:20]  And the plan was that the entire military and government would just go, okay, that guy's our president now.
[00:03:25]  And none of it happened.
[00:03:26]  It didn't work out at all, which I think Donald Trump is informed by that a little bit in the way he's handling this situation.
[00:03:33]  But anyway, the thought was like, if they just could have kidnapped the guy this whole time, probably they would have done that.
[00:03:40]  I know I've read a lot about different assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein and things like that, where the U.S. simply couldn't do it.
[00:03:50]  And in fact, we needed to invade the country and militarily occupy the country in order to capture Saddam Hussein.
[00:03:56]  Just in terms of the military logistics of it, pretty impressive that they got the guy.
[00:04:02]  And it is something that, you know, people can forget that we do have the most badass military fighting force in the history of the world.
[00:04:10]  And our guys are capable of really impressive operations like this.
[00:04:14]  But then again, the issue has never really been that the American military isn't strong enough to kill leaders or capture leaders or take leaders out or even topple governments.
[00:04:28]  You know, the major problem that we've had is with what comes next after that.
[00:04:33]  And so this, you know, this operation was successfully achieved.
[00:04:38]  And then comes Donald Trump's press conference after that, which we're going to play some clips from in a second.
[00:04:45]  But I'll ask maybe if you have anything on the actual operation itself or Rob, or were you surprised that it was so successful or that it happened when it happened or anything like that?
[00:04:56]  Well, I love a good action movie and I look forward to watching this in theaters in five years.
[00:05:01]  And I like when warfare actually goes against the elites.
[00:05:07]  I'm not a fan of warfare and I don't think that long-term us running around the globe and being imperials is a good long-term strategy, but versus a full ground invasion or sanctions or everything that seems to punish us via inflation and a civilian population over there with death and destruction of their cities, actually just going after the elites, which are usually off the table, is much better.
[00:05:31]  So from like an operational standpoint, going to make a good action movie down the line in terms of better than a full-scale war, that's way better.
[00:05:41]  There's a potential here.
[00:05:42]  And this is a, you know, this is, if you want to go to Donald Trump la-la land, uh, for a long time, you know, they weren't making full use of their oil capabilities and they had a bad leader there.
[00:05:54]  And I guess there's a potential here that we go in and we steal a lot of their oil, but we give them more money than they otherwise would have had, and both people end up in a better place.
[00:06:03]  All that's possible.
[00:06:05]  But on the flip side, you know, we might have just destabilized another region.
[00:06:10]  We might have to go in there and actually have more warfare against cartels or whoever might still have been loyalists to the Maduro regime.
[00:06:18]  I'd like to hear more of what the actual plan is for day two.
[00:06:22]  Well, or the thing about it is right now is like, or we may have done none of this.
[00:06:26]  You know, like, look, I mean, I'm with you.
[00:06:28]  Like, as I said before, it took a ground invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
[00:06:33]  So, okay, we didn't have to do anything like that, but also whatever.
[00:06:36]  And we can get into a little bit going forward.
[00:06:39]  But to your point about this, like there being a movie about this in five years, I mean, not that we know all of the details at all right now, but I was reading, it was reported that he was, because like, from what I understand, he was in like essentially on a military base.
[00:06:56]  You know, it's not like this guy didn't know that he was in the crosshairs of the most powerful government in the history of the world, who's not that far from him, right?
[00:07:04]  Like, if you could picture like in the map in your head, Venezuela being like at the very north of South America, like there's a Cuba in between us and Venezuela.
[00:07:12]  It's not that.
[00:07:13]  So like, it's not as if this guy didn't know that they're coming for him.
[00:07:17]  And from what I heard or what I, it was reported, I read this, we'll find out probably in years whether this is true or not.
[00:07:24]  But evidently he had made it like to his safe room, but just didn't finish sealing it off before the guys got it.
[00:07:31]  So like it was, this probably is a mission that would be something that a movie is built out of.
[00:07:37]  But where things got a bit more interesting, of course, it also should be mentioned that like a bunch of people were killed in this.
[00:07:45]  And there was a series of like bombing campaigns that at least Rubios claimed were all in service of this operation.
[00:07:54]  So, like, you know, I don't know, taking out the guys who would be defending the area or something like that.
[00:07:59]  But they're reporting like something like 80 people got killed.
[00:08:01]  It's not clear at all how many of them were civilians or military or like Cuban intelligence that was defending Maduro or what.
[00:08:12]  But where things got real interesting was at the Donald Trump press conference where he says this.
[00:08:17]  Let's go to the video.
[00:08:20]  Judicious transition.
[00:08:22]  So we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.
[00:08:33]  So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.
[00:08:41]  And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about.
[00:08:47]  We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela.
[00:08:53]  And that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States.
[00:08:57]  Judicious.
[00:08:59]  All right.
[00:09:00]  So, and there was a lot of things that Donald Trump has said since then.
[00:09:04]  But Donald Trump announces after this that we will be running Venezuela until there's a transition to something.
[00:09:15]  What is the transition?
[00:09:17]  That's unclear.
[00:09:18]  How are we running Venezuela when we don't have any boots on the ground?
[00:09:22]  You know, Donald Trump, I don't know if you saw the part, Rob, where someone asked, do we have boots on the ground?
[00:09:26]  And he said, we did have boots on the ground.
[00:09:29]  Like kind of referring to the mission, maybe like there were people on the ground who extracted Maduro, but we don't have boots on the ground anymore.
[00:09:37]  And this is where people are like in la-la land on this whole thing.
[00:09:41]  Like they're going essentially, like with all these wars, they've thrown 50 justifications at us.
[00:09:49]  Every last one of them is bullshit.
[00:09:51]  But now they seem to be going toward the oil.
[00:09:54]  We're going to, we're going to transition to some other government and they're going to what give us the oil or do business with us or maybe we'll just seize the oil and take it.
[00:10:04]  But look, what's the major problem here?
[00:10:06]  Look, I've seen several regime changes in my day.
[00:10:14]  I guess even, I mean, I didn't see it.
[00:10:15]  I was too young and I don't remember it.
[00:10:16]  But even like, I guess you could look to something like Panama and like the Noriega example, where they really did extract that guy.
[00:10:22]  And I don't know that much about Panama, but I think like it wasn't a catastrophe.
[00:10:26]  I think it worked out better than it otherwise would have.
[00:10:28]  They took the guy out.
[00:10:29]  The government collapsed.
[00:10:31]  They had elections.
[00:10:32]  A new government arose.
[00:10:33]  But like, look, there are regime changes like in Libya, where we had, and by the way, I should just point out before I use the examples of North Africa and the Middle East, there's a lot of people pointing out that like, hey, look, that's different.
[00:10:50]  They're Muslims.
[00:10:51]  These are Christians.
[00:10:52]  That's the Middle East.
[00:10:53]  This is South America.
[00:10:54]  There's different traditions.
[00:10:55]  Fair enough.
[00:10:56]  That is true.
[00:10:57]  But just saying, you could have a regime change like you did in Libya, where there was like a no-fly zone and a bombing campaign and you're assisting the rebels on the ground and you're able to topple the leader that way.
[00:11:09]  You could have a regime change like you did in Syria, where we had special forces and the CIA in there and we funded and armed the anti-Assad rebels.
[00:11:18]  And then many years later, he had to flee as those rebels were taking over the city.
[00:11:23]  Okay, you could have regime change like that.
[00:11:24]  But in both those cases, Rob, what you might notice is that you have no say in who the next government is, or in the case of Libya, whether there's a government, I guess, or not.
[00:11:34]  Like you, you don't, in order to actually impose the next government that you want imposed, you almost always have to have a military occupation to do that.
[00:11:45]  In order to take the oil out of Venezuela, I mean, like, look, We heard one military expert was saying that if you look at like Puerto Rico and the surrounding bases and the military mobilizations that we've made over the last few months, there's about 20,000 troops in the region.
[00:12:07]  Again, I'm not a military expert.
[00:12:09]  I can't possibly imagine that that would be enough to do this, to transition to the government that you want.
[00:12:16]  You'd imagine this would have to be like at least 100,000 troops to really effect a regime change in the way that you want to.
[00:12:25]  And as we know, like say in Afghanistan, we had well over 100,000 troops there at one point, and we were able to put in a new government.
[00:12:35]  And the Warhawks swore through their teeth for 20 straight years that this government would stand.
[00:12:40]  And they fell essentially the day that we pulled out.
[00:12:44]  Also, by the way, even with a military occupation in Afghanistan, for much of it, the Taliban still controlled huge portions of the country.
[00:12:52]  By the end, when we didn't have huge numbers, like we had drawn down the number of troops there, the Taliban controlled a majority of the territory.
[00:13:02]  And so even with a military occupation, it's not necessarily that easy to impose your will on a different country.
[00:13:09]  Now, obviously, Venezuela is a very different country than Afghanistan, but I think the principle still remains.
[00:13:14]  Now, on top of this, and this is where I say this might be something that Donald Trump learned from 2019, but in a strange twist, he also marginalized the opposition, said they don't really have the support.
[00:13:28]  And then he's allowing or allowing the vice president to assume the control of the country.
[00:13:36]  Now, the vice president of Venezuela, she is saying that Maduro is still the legitimate leader of the country and that nothing has changed.
[00:13:45]  And she's publicly vowed just yesterday that they will not be the puppet of the United States of America.
[00:13:52]  So my point is this.
[00:13:53]  I hear a lot of people on Twitter, and God damn, we'll get into what a lot of people are saying about this, but they're going right now, like, and I've seen a bunch of them.
[00:14:00]  They go, Dave, I don't know what you're talking about, dude.
[00:14:03]  We literally just had, we didn't lose any soldiers.
[00:14:06]  We had minimum, minimal casualties.
[00:14:08]  We got a communist dictator and we just got $17 trillion in oil for the American people.
[00:14:14]  I've heard people saying, we just liberated the people of Venezuela and got $17 trillion in oil.
[00:14:20]  Except the one problem, Rob, is no, we fucking didn't.
[00:14:23]  We haven't done any of that.
[00:14:25]  And like, I'm just saying, somebody explain this to me and speak slowly so we all understand how exactly.
[00:14:34]  So you're saying, okay, what?
[00:14:36]  The U.S. military is going to invade the country and just start taking their oil.
[00:14:41]  And is the expectation that they're like, they have a military.
[00:14:46]  Not saying it's as sophisticated as ours, but neither was the Iraqi military.
[00:14:50]  And they have a military and they're probably not just going to accept this defiant regime is probably not just going to accept like, yeah, America won because they kidnapped our guy.
[00:15:01]  So now you guys get all of our oil.

=== Oil Companies and Refining (16:50) ===

[00:15:03]  And even if that regime collapses or you install a new puppet regime in there now that you're militarily occupying the country, just in theory, hypothetically, you think you're not going to get guerrilla fighters?
[00:15:16]  You're not going to get an insurgency.
[00:15:18]  They're just going to sit there and take it while you walk in and just openly say, we're raping your country right now.
[00:15:25]  Not even like George W. Bush, where there's a pretense of like we're bringing democracy, but just straight up telling them we're here to take your oil, which by the way, is, as is always the case with these situations, Rob, this was the impetus of the rise of Hugo Chavez to begin with, is that he was like, look, they're all ripping you off.
[00:15:44]  All these Western corporate, all these Western corporations are ripping you off.
[00:15:48]  So screw that.
[00:15:50]  You know, we're going to run a socialist economy on behalf of the people.
[00:15:53]  I mean, they had already nationalized the oil from before him.
[00:15:56]  But regardless, you're like, dude, you guys, you're talking a big game about what you're going to do here, but none of this follows simply from the fact that we could kidnap Maduro, whatever people want to call it, bring him to justice or whatever.
[00:16:10]  The fact that we could take that one guy, none of this demonstrates that we can now go in there and take all of their oil or that we get to steer the direction of the country.
[00:16:19]  And then another thing, Rob, is that even if you insist on elections, it's totally unclear right now who would win those elections.
[00:16:27]  Maduro doesn't seem to be very popular.
[00:16:29]  I don't think he was ever as popular as Hugo Chavez.
[00:16:32]  And people say the last election was illegitimate, which is quite possibly true.
[00:16:37]  But that doesn't necessarily mean that the overwhelming majority of the people are going to vote for like Jeffersonian Republicanism or something like that.
[00:16:48]  We have no idea where they're going to go.
[00:16:50]  And in fact, we do know that at least at one point, Maduro and certainly at one point, Chavez had popular support.
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[00:18:22]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:18:24]  So anyway, any thoughts on any of that, Rob?
[00:18:26]  Yeah.
[00:18:27]  All right.
[00:18:27]  So I mostly agree with you.
[00:18:29]  And before I state why I agree with you, I do want to state a variable, which is I think elites and oligarchs, they just need their piece of the pie.
[00:18:38]  And I think that's true of the people as well.
[00:18:41]  And we changed the warfare dynamics here because in taking out Maduro, I think we signaled to the other guys: hey, you got two options here.
[00:18:48]  You can work with us and we can all make oil money, or you can get taken out.
[00:18:52]  And I think that's just very different than what we usually see with warfare, which is the elites get to sit on top.
[00:18:58]  They kind of continue to make their money and rule on top and just everyone else is punished.
[00:19:02]  So there's a possibility that the new leader and your oligarchs in that country go, hey, we want to take this deal.
[00:19:08]  And because artificially they weren't really able to develop and sell their oil, it's even better for your average citizen there that they're not looking at it as, hey, our country is being raped.
[00:19:18]  So there is, there is a possibility here of we all get along and we sell the oil.
[00:19:24]  With that said, the big variables that one, just Donald Trump saying we're running the country without explaining what that means.
[00:19:32]  I mean, that's cartoonish.
[00:19:33]  A day after you take out a leader, you just go, we're running the country.
[00:19:36]  He didn't fly the military down presence there.
[00:19:40]  Have they agreed to that?
[00:19:41]  What does that mean that we're running the country?
[00:19:43]  Is that we give orders to the vice president and they're running with our orders?
[00:19:46]  The fact that that's totally unexplained is crazy.
[00:19:49]  And then also, I would just think even if you're Chevron or the others and the U.S. is going to back you and maybe they'll even give you the money to go in, it's a very risky investment because you're talking about billions of dollars.
[00:20:00]  It's not 10 years till you get the oil.
[00:20:02]  You don't know that you're not going to end up with another Hugo Chavez situation.
[00:20:06]  And then I think more so than the civilian population, if we continue to go after regimes that are aligned, and this might not even be true in Venezuela, but with cartels, I don't think the cartels are just going to take this sitting down.
[00:20:19]  And I think that's going to be more of the variable of where you're going to need a standing military presence.
[00:20:24]  So I do, I just think that there's a possibility for a little bit more of an upside here.
[00:20:29]  But the fact that Donald Trump doesn't seem to have a plan or state the plan and just declared, well, we're running the show now and don't worry, oil costs are going to cover everything.
[00:20:38]  It does sound like a bit of a long shot.
[00:20:40]  I would probably even go a little bit further than you there and not just say there's a possibility.
[00:20:47]  I think probably the most likely scenario out of this, like I just even now, and I saw people on Twitter who were, you know, who don't agree with me on this shit, who were like poking fun at me and they were like, oh, Dave's going to be losing his mind.
[00:21:01]  He's going to be furious.
[00:21:02]  You know, just like with Iran, I'm not actually nearly as furious as I was about the Iran strike for a few reasons.
[00:21:08]  Number one, Iran was just a different dynamic.
[00:21:12]  It also was, look, there was Israel involved in that one.
[00:21:17]  And, you know, I'm not saying Israel has no involvement in this, but I don't really think Israel's too involved.
[00:21:22]  I think they're probably happy with this, but I don't really think they're the driving factor here.
[00:21:26]  But Israel was the driving factor in Iran and Israel wanted a regime change war there.
[00:21:32]  Like their goal was to suck Donald Trump into a full regime change war.
[00:21:37]  And it seemed like Donald Trump was going along with that plan, at least for a little bit, certainly flirting with it.
[00:21:43]  And also, this is the country next door.
[00:21:47]  This is the country in between Iraq and Afghanistan.
[00:21:50]  And it just seems much more like, oh, look, this could go exactly the same way as that.
[00:21:55]  The truth is that I just, even as of right now, I just find it very hard to believe is Donald Trump is actually going to like invade and militarily occupy Venezuela right now.
[00:22:09]  It seems unlikely.
[00:22:10]  It seems very unlikely to me that in the in the year going into his midterm elections, he would open up that camp.
[00:22:17]  Now, again, he's saying he's going to do it and he did just kidnap the leader of the country.
[00:22:21]  So like you have to treat it as a possibility.
[00:22:24]  But I think the most likely outcome here, like I, just to back up your point, I don't know if you saw, but Donald Trump, he threatened the shit out of this vice president lady.
[00:22:36]  He said that if she doesn't play ball, she will suffer a worse fate than Maduro.
[00:22:40]  And that is a thing that might spook this woman.
[00:22:44]  You know what I mean?
[00:22:45]  And so I think probably the most likely scenario here is that like we get like a few points on a deal.
[00:22:52]  You know what I mean?
[00:22:53]  Like, okay.
[00:22:54]  I mean, I think if I understand, I believe it was Exxon who's always had some access to Venezuelan oil.
[00:23:00]  I believe it was Exxon.
[00:23:02]  Double check me on that, but I believe they've like one of their, they hired one of like, I think Hugo Chavez's friends or something like that.
[00:23:09]  And then he kind of let them still have some access.
[00:23:11]  I wouldn't be surprised if they kind of, you know, this regime stays intact, but they kind of let like some more oil companies come in and get a little bit more of a percentage of the oil money or help them out with the refining a little bit so they can produce more.
[00:23:27]  So like it like a marginal win, not really for the American people, but really for big giant corporations.
[00:23:34]  And all you had to do was kill a few people and threaten them and they get like it's a very, it's very possible that something like that happens.
[00:23:41]  But with all these things, you always do take on that risk.
[00:23:45]  And look, when Donald Trump is sitting there talking about all the shit that he's going to do and then goes and actually does this, you kind of got to listen to him talking shit about the other stuff that he's going to do.
[00:23:58]  Also, one more point in there, Rob.
[00:23:59]  If you remember, it was a few months ago that Donald Trump said that Maduro had already offered him everything he wanted.
[00:24:06]  So by his own logic, even though Marco Rubio is saying shit, that completely contradicts that.
[00:24:10]  But by Donald Trump's own statements, you probably already could have had that without having to do any of this.
[00:24:16]  But what is almost certainly not going to happen is that America gets $17 trillion in oil or that we liberated all of the people of Venezuela.
[00:24:28]  It just, there seems like almost no chance that that's what's happening here.
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[00:25:46]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:25:48]  Well, it seems like even if Maduro was willing to give himself up, Donald Trump wanted a nice show for the military.
[00:25:55]  Yep, he sure did.
[00:25:56]  Here, let's play the video of Donald Trump answering questions.
[00:26:04]  Exxon was involved in Venezuela since the 20s, but left in 2007, according to Google.
[00:26:10]  I thought they still had access there.
[00:26:12]  Maybe I was wrong about Exxon.
[00:26:13]  It might have been one of the other companies.
[00:26:14]  But anyway, it might have been.
[00:26:17]  Who said that the U.S. is going to run Venezuela?
[00:26:20]  So who's in power right now?
[00:26:22]  Well, we're going to be running it with a group, and we're going to make sure it's run properly.
[00:26:26]  We're going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which will cost billions of dollars.
[00:26:30]  It'll be paid for by the oil companies directly.
[00:26:33]  They will be reimbursed for what they're doing, but it's going to be paid.
[00:26:39]  And we're going to get the oil flowing the way it should be.
[00:26:41]  As you know, it was just a minor flow.
[00:26:43]  It was actually a minor flow for what they have.
[00:26:45]  But we're going to run it properly.
[00:26:47]  We're going to make sure the people of Venezuela are taken care of.
[00:26:50]  We're going to make sure the people that were forced out of Venezuela by this thug are also taken care of.
[00:26:57]  You got to just pause there.
[00:27:00]  Sure.
[00:27:00]  So just everything's perfect.
[00:27:02]  The oil companies are already on board.
[00:27:04]  They're going to pay for it.
[00:27:05]  We're running it with a group.
[00:27:07]  I can't tell you who that group is or what that means or how that functions, but don't worry.
[00:27:12]  It's all already perfect.
[00:27:13]  We're running with a group.
[00:27:14]  It's going to be better for the people there.
[00:27:15]  Our oil companies are happy.
[00:27:17]  It's all perfect.
[00:27:18]  You don't need any more information.
[00:27:19]  It's Pete Buttigieg on climate change.
[00:27:22]  Like the identical thing.
[00:27:24]  She goes, oh, we're going to switch to all electric cars, but electric cars are powered by the power grid and we don't have enough energy to power everyone switching to electric cars.
[00:27:32]  That's why we need a better power grid.
[00:27:35]  Yeah.
[00:27:35]  There you go.
[00:27:36]  That's why we're going to do it.
[00:27:38]  We're going to do it and everyone will be taken care of.
[00:27:39]  Everyone will be happy.
[00:27:40]  Okay.
[00:27:41]  That's nothing.
[00:27:42]  Let's keep playing.
[00:27:44]  President, does the U.S. running a country mean that U.S. troops will be on the ground?
[00:27:48]  How will that work?
[00:27:49]  Well, you know, they always say boots on the ground.
[00:27:51]  Oh, so we're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have.
[00:27:54]  We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level, actually.
[00:27:58]  We're not afraid of it.
[00:28:00]  We don't mind saying it, but we're going to make sure that that country is run properly.
[00:28:04]  We're not doing this in vain.
[00:28:06]  This is not, this is a very dangerous attack.
[00:28:08]  This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly, could have gone very badly.
[00:28:13]  We could have lost a lot of people last night.
[00:28:14]  We could have lost a lot of dignity.
[00:28:17]  We could have lost a lot of equipment.
[00:28:19]  The equipment is less important, but we could have lost a lot.
[00:28:23]  And we're going to make sure that this is proper.
[00:28:26]  We're there now.
[00:28:27]  We're ready to go again if we have to.
[00:28:29]  We're going to run the country right.
[00:28:31]  It's going to be run very judiciously, very fairly.
[00:28:36]  And it's going to make a lot of money.
[00:28:37]  We're going to give money to the people.
[00:28:39]  We're going to reimburse people that we're taking advantage of.
[00:28:44]  We're going to take care of everybody.
[00:28:46]  It's very important.
[00:28:47]  We couldn't let them get away with it.
[00:28:48]  They stole our oil.
[00:28:51]  Look at me.
[00:28:52]  We are the socialists now.
[00:28:56]  We're going to institute welfare for the Venezuelan people.
[00:28:59]  Oh, there you go.
[00:29:00]  That's the thing.
[00:29:01]  So, look, I mean, here is, again, as I said, I just, I find it hard to believe that Donald Trump would actually do this because it will be a disaster and that will absolutely destroy his presidency and his legacy.
[00:29:12]  But you're like, we don't have a problem with boots on the ground.
[00:29:15]  It's like, okay, but why is it that all the rest of us do?
[00:29:19]  It's not just because we don't like the idea of boots touching ground.
[00:29:24]  It's because that's how you get our boys killed is putting them over there.
[00:29:28]  That's how you get the idea that you're going to go.
[00:29:31]  Look, people try to say, they tried to say this with Iran too, that, you know, there's no support for this regime.
[00:29:42]  And that there's a long history, you know, of like not being like this in Venezuela.
[00:29:49]  And that before Chavez, they were once a wealthy country, which is true, by the way.
[00:29:53]  They were once like a wealthy country.
[00:29:55]  In fact, I remember this because this was always one of the great examples of just how much socialism always fails.
[00:30:04]  But Venezuela was a richer country than Poland when Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union, which is pretty wild to think about today, right?
[00:30:15]  Venezuela was richer than Poland.
[00:30:18]  And then when the Soviet Union collapsed and Poland went capitalist, they, you know, and then Venezuela went socialist.
[00:30:25]  And now look at it.
[00:30:25]  I mean, look how much richer Poland is than Venezuela.
[00:30:28]  So anyway, yes, they were once a rich country, but look, first of all, there's Venezuela is like an incredibly poor country.
[00:30:42]  I think the poverty rate is like 90% in Venezuela or something like that.
[00:30:45]  They're an incredibly poor country.
[00:30:48]  And of those people fleeing over the last few years, like I think it's a 30 million people in the country or something like that.
[00:30:56]  Of the people fleeing, and they fled by the millions over the last 15 years.
[00:31:01]  It's been a lot of the people who were in the middle class were fleeing because those were the ones who were like really furious about the socialist takeover and the socialist policies.
[00:31:11]  So now minus them.
[00:31:12]  You know, I remember reading about the way Hugo Chavez won his last election because he had been like he was very popular and then he had been sliding in popularity as his policies weren't working out that good.
[00:31:25]  And he had really pissed off like the rich elites and then he had really pissed off the middle class.
[00:31:32]  And so then his answer to that was he just stole more from them and gave a whole bunch of shit to the poor people and then carried the poor vote.
[00:31:39]  And that was enough to be over 50%, you know, because like that.
[00:31:42]  So anyway, just saying, it is not the idea that like we are going to be greeted as liberators and the whole thing will be paid for in oil, which I have heard before.

=== Legal Defense Against Charges (09:21) ===

[00:31:53]  This is preposterous.
[00:31:55]  It's not going to work like that.
[00:31:57]  And so, you know, like if Donald Trump is serious about what he just said right there, which I find it really hard to believe that he's actually going to follow through with boots on the ground here.
[00:32:08]  But if he's serious about that, we are opening ourselves up to a real potential danger.
[00:32:15]  And there's just no reason to do it.
[00:32:17]  He's being, once again, he's just being sneaky and saying nothing because when he says boots on the ground, he's referring to the raid that he just did.
[00:32:24]  So is that boots on the ground that we, the way we understand it, where you're going, hey, we'll put down a military force if we have to, or is he saying we'll continue to do targeted strikes?
[00:32:33]  And he's using his own definition of what boots on the ground means.
[00:32:37]  And whoever wants to oppose us over there will just keep doing secret missions and taking them out.
[00:32:43]  So he's not really committing to we are going to go invade that country and put down a military force.
[00:32:49]  He's just kind of reasserting the fact of, no, we run the country and it's perfectly run because now we run it.
[00:32:56]  What does that mean?
[00:32:56]  How are we running it?
[00:32:58]  Don't worry about it.
[00:32:59]  What happens if anyone opposes us?
[00:33:00]  Well, we'll do boots on the ground.
[00:33:02]  Does that mean soldiers on the ground?
[00:33:04]  Well, you know, maybe.
[00:33:06]  Yeah.
[00:33:06]  Yeah.
[00:33:07]  It's hard.
[00:33:07]  Right.
[00:33:07]  Hard to say.
[00:33:10]  Yeah.
[00:33:10]  It's again, as you said, it's just completely unclear what he's even saying.
[00:33:16]  And I guess that's what Donald Trump likes to do.
[00:33:19]  He likes to be on every side of every issue and then talk like a madman.
[00:33:23]  So you never know what he's going to do.
[00:33:25]  But again, you know, he kind of indicated there, like, we didn't do all this for nothing.
[00:33:31]  I mean, think about how fallacious that line of thinking is, Rob.
[00:33:34]  We could have lost a lot of people back there.
[00:33:38]  And we did.
[00:33:38]  So that means it can't have been for nothing, right?
[00:33:40]  Like, what type of sunk cost fallacy for war is that shit?
[00:33:45]  But like, well, we did all that.
[00:33:47]  So now we got to get something out of it.
[00:33:49]  Well, if that's the attitude, then like, all right.
[00:33:52]  But do you have any type of a plan?
[00:33:55]  Do you have anything resembling a plan?
[00:33:57]  Because you're sure not sharing it with us.
[00:34:01]  All right.
[00:34:01]  Let's, you know, let's play a little bit.
[00:34:04]  Let's go to Marco Rubio, who then went out and did all of the Sunday shows in response to this.
[00:34:14]  So Marco Rubio, let's see.
[00:34:18]  Yeah, let's go to the hold on.
[00:34:21]  Let's see which one.
[00:34:22]  Let's go to the first or the let's do the second clip that I sent Natalie.
[00:34:30]  You're describing the regime as still in place.
[00:34:37]  Curious, because you just described the regime as still in place, essentially.
[00:34:43]  I mean, I'm curious why the Trump administration decided to leave it intact and only arrest Nicholas Maduro and his wife, the person who controls the police, the chief thug, Diaz Dado Cabello.
[00:34:57]  He's the interior minister.
[00:34:58]  He's been indicted by the United States.
[00:35:00]  He was in that indictment administration released.
[00:35:03]  He's a narco-terrorist.
[00:35:04]  There's a $25 million price on his head.
[00:35:07]  He's still in place.
[00:35:09]  The defense minister who has deep ties to Russia, $15 million price on his head, he is still in place.
[00:35:16]  I'm confused.
[00:35:17]  Are they still wanted by the United States?
[00:35:20]  Why didn't you arrest them if you are taking out the narco-terrorist regime?
[00:35:25]  You're confused.
[00:35:26]  I don't know why that's confusing to you.
[00:35:28]  They're still in power.
[00:35:29]  It's very simple.
[00:35:29]  You're not going to go in and grab them.
[00:35:32]  But yeah, but you can't go.
[00:35:33]  You're going to go in and suck up five people.
[00:35:35]  They're already complaining about this one operation.
[00:35:38]  Imagine the howls we would have from everybody else if we actually had to go and stay there four days to capture four other people.
[00:35:44]  We got the top priority.
[00:35:46]  The number one person on the list was the guy who claimed to be the president of the country that he was not.
[00:35:51]  And he was arrested along with his wife, who was also indicted.
[00:35:54]  And that was a pretty sophisticated and frankly complicated operation.
[00:35:58]  It is not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the country.
[00:36:03]  The guy lived on a military base, land within three minutes, kick down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter, and leave the country without losing any American or any American assets.
[00:36:14]  That's not an easy mission.
[00:36:15]  And you're asking me why didn't we do that in five other places at the same time?
[00:36:19]  I mean, that's absurd.
[00:36:21]  I do think this is one of the most daring, complicated, sophisticated missions this country has carried out in a very long time.
[00:36:29]  Tremendous credit to the U.S. military personnel who did it.
[00:36:33]  It was unbelievable and tremendous success.
[00:36:35]  And today, an indicted drug trafficker who was not the legitimate president of Venezuela, who we don't recognize, the Biden administration didn't recognize, 60-something countries don't recognize, the European Union doesn't recognize, and many countries in Latin America don't recognize.
[00:36:50]  He was a convict.
[00:36:51]  He was an indicted drug trafficker.
[00:36:53]  He was arrested.
[00:36:54]  His wife was arrested.
[00:36:55]  Right.
[00:36:55]  But the others who were also indicted are still in the system of courts.
[00:36:59]  The others who were also indicted are still in place.
[00:37:01]  So, all right, let's end that clip there.
[00:37:04]  I just, here's what I thought was interesting, right?
[00:37:05]  So, obviously, ABC Face the Nation lady asks the question all wrong because she's a dummy who just doesn't understand.
[00:37:12]  And it really is baffling.
[00:37:13]  So, she essentially lets Marco Rubio out by just phrasing the question all the wrong way because she goes, How come you didn't do five of these operations, which is retarded?
[00:37:24]  Because, like, as I opened the show by saying, this one was crazy impressive.
[00:37:27]  Like, even with us, with the most impressive fighting force in the history of the world, we usually are not able to pull shit like this off.
[00:37:34]  And so, this was really impressive.
[00:37:35]  So, the idea of doing it five different times is obviously just logistically impossible.
[00:37:40]  But, a different way to ask, but what's also ridiculous is to pretend that you just liberated the people of Venezuela and that now you have all of the oil and that now we're in charge of it.
[00:37:51]  And now we're determining what's happening next with Venezuela when her point is, yeah, you got the one top guy, but you left his entire crew of socialist thugs in power.
[00:38:02]  So, like, what is the plan here?
[00:38:05]  Are you saying that now they're so intimidated by this that they're going to all bend the knee and just submit?
[00:38:13]  Like, because that seems unlikely.
[00:38:17]  Like, again, like I said, it might be likely that, like, you could get them to do a little deal with you in exchange for their safety, but that has nothing to do with all these lofty plans you're talking about.
[00:38:27]  And so, the way for that she should have asked that question is to say, you and President Donald Trump are acting like you just did a whole regime change here and we're occupying the capital city and we're determining that elections are going to happen or not happen, or this person will be temporarily in power.
[00:38:46]  But how are you going to do that when you didn't take out the whole regime?
[00:38:50]  You just took out one guy, which he would have no answer for.
[00:38:54]  Frankly, I'm concerned for my safety, knowing that there are still four narco-terrorists at large, right?
[00:39:00]  Yeah, the narco-terrorists.
[00:39:03]  Isn't it something though, right?
[00:39:04]  Like that the whole thing was sold off of the drugs for so long.
[00:39:10]  Isn't it so ridiculous, Rob, that like, dude, they're charging him with drug dealing and gun control violations or something like that?
[00:39:20]  It's all just too ridiculous.
[00:39:22]  I think that was well, two things stand out to me on that.
[00:39:25]  One is, I think that court case might be a mistake because it doesn't sound, I mean, how do you charge another leader with unlawful possession of a machine gun?
[00:39:36]  That seems like the answer is, is they're saying the legal defense that they're going with is that he's not the leader.
[00:39:43]  Yeah.
[00:39:43]  This is a guy.
[00:39:44]  I mean, that's the other funny thing is just Rubio going international law and all that we heard about Putin and how sanctimonious borders are after this operation.
[00:39:53]  I would think you'd be trying to run from the world stage and the idea of international laws and who's considered to be a leader.
[00:40:00]  I don't think that those are going to be the best defenses in court or the best way of selling what you just did.
[00:40:06]  Yeah.
[00:40:07]  Yeah.
[00:40:07]  No, absolutely.
[00:40:09]  And I think that there's, well, the idea that you could just say, as I've seen many really dim people on Twitter saying or something like that, they'll say like, oh, well, the last election was illegitimate.
[00:40:28]  Therefore, he's not the leader of this country.
[00:40:31]  And you're like, dude, we have so many allies, Saudi Arabia, UAE, allies all over the place, who just straight up don't have elections.
[00:40:41]  It's just straight up don't.
[00:40:43]  Trump's running the country now and he wasn't elected.
[00:40:45]  Well, you know, well, what do you mean?
[00:40:47]  This time he wasn't.
[00:40:48]  I'm just saying, no, no.
[00:40:50]  Trump is currently running Venezuela and he wasn't voted by Venezuela.
[00:40:54]  Well, that's that's right.
[00:40:55]  There's another, right, of course.
[00:40:57]  And so, and of course, uh, um, Donald Trump, you go, he wasn't a president, he was a dictator.
[00:41:02]  He ruled illegally.
[00:41:03]  So Donald Trump illegally launched a war to topple the leader of another country and then also is now leading that country, right, without being elected or whatever.

=== Incoherent War Justification (02:44) ===

[00:41:15]  It's all just completely incoherent and falls apart.
[00:41:17]  But also, by the way, like you almost go, what is the logic here that Donald Trump is on record saying that the 2020 election was illegitimate and that Joe Biden was an illegitimate leader?
[00:41:30]  So like, are you saying that it would have been legitimate for, I don't know, any other country who could to come in and arrest Joe Biden and then put themselves in charge?
[00:41:44]  Just they get to rule the country now because that election was illegal and then they get to just take our natural resources as they as they decide what percentage they're entitled to or something like that.
[00:41:55]  It's just like the whole thing is so incoherent and ridiculous.
[00:41:59]  You also, I'm going to guess that China and Russia don't agree to this definition of him not being the real leader.
[00:42:06]  And so I guess they're abiding by a different international law.
[00:42:10]  And in which case, I guess there's no longer international law.
[00:42:13]  There's Western Hemisphere law.
[00:42:16]  I don't know.
[00:42:18]  Yeah.
[00:42:18]  Yeah.
[00:42:18]  Or something about he keep quoting the Monroe Doctrine, which clearly Donald Trump does not understand.
[00:42:25]  I think Donald Trump thinks, I think Donald Trump thinks the Monroe Doctrine means in our hemisphere, we're allowed to do whatever we want to do, which is not exactly or at all what the Monroe Doctrine is.
[00:42:36]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Massa Chips.
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[00:43:42]  All right, let's get back into the chat.
[00:43:44]  But there's, you know, the idea, like, let me say a couple of things because I see people here.
[00:43:51]  I see people on social media and other, you know, people in news and stuff like that saying that, like, well, hey, there's no such thing as international law anyway.

=== Seizing Boats Continues (08:36) ===

[00:43:59]  It's all bullshit because there's no enforcement mechanism, which is like, that is true to some degree.
[00:44:05]  And I've always kind of said the same thing that international law is kind of made up.
[00:44:09]  But at the same time, the idea that, look, nation states exist, however, any of us feel about that.
[00:44:17]  And that if you're really going to say, well, when nation states make agreements with each other, that don't mean nothing.
[00:44:25]  The agreements mean nothing because there's no enforcement mechanism or something like that.
[00:44:30]  It's like, that's, you think that's a better world?
[00:44:33]  A better world is that if nation states agree that we won't invade each other and we won't topple each other's governments, you could just break that whenever you want to.
[00:44:41]  That is the way the United States of America operates.
[00:44:43]  You know, every president tears up treaties or walks away from treaties that previous presidents have agreed to.
[00:44:50]  And in fact, by the way, that's one of the major reasons, at least stated by Vladimir Putin, why Donald Trump can't bring an end to this war in Ukraine.
[00:44:59]  Because he goes, yeah, we could come to an agreement and then in three years, you're out.
[00:45:02]  And the next guy might just walk away from it.
[00:45:04]  I have no way of, you know what I mean?
[00:45:06]  And he's at least got an argument on that case that, you know, Iran made an agreement with Obama, but then Trump comes in and he tears it up because he don't like it.
[00:45:16]  Or, you know, Russia made an agreement with America, but then George W. Bush tears it up because he doesn't like that or whatever.
[00:45:22]  Like they all just can walk away from whatever deals they want.
[00:45:25]  And that's a terrible way to lead.
[00:45:28]  And I also think, you know, this is, it's so clearly unconstitutional.
[00:45:35]  And I was, you know, I was, I was talking about this on a, on a show the other day that I think hasn't come out yet.
[00:45:42]  But, you know, look, there's, there's a lot of people who I really, really respect and really love who I think are just getting this thing wrong.
[00:45:49]  But the idea that because the Constitution has already been shredded or already been trampled, that we just shouldn't care.
[00:45:57]  Look, the thing is it's so obviously unconstitutional because look, the administration has been gearing up for this for months.
[00:46:05]  There was no imminent threat.
[00:46:08]  There was no like, well, we had to do that.
[00:46:11]  It's not as if the story even is that there was an imminent threat.
[00:46:15]  It's not like we had information that Maduro was about to launch these missiles, which had already been, you know, pointed at us.
[00:46:21]  So we had to do this mission in order to stop that from happening.
[00:46:25]  So in other words, there was all the time in the world to go to Congress, to have this debate, to let the, you know, supposed system of representative democracy work.
[00:46:34]  And then our lead, the elected leaders, you know, get to debate this and whatever.
[00:46:41]  But the bottom line is that that's what the Constitution says you have to do.
[00:46:45]  And I just think there's something like very degrading for all of us if we just accept the fact that, yeah, that don't mean nothing to us.
[00:46:54]  They can violate that anytime.
[00:46:56]  Like the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
[00:46:59]  The Constitution is what created this national government.
[00:47:02]  And if the Constitution is important enough to create this national government, then it ought to be something that the national government is bound by.
[00:47:09]  And just on like a human level, every one of these goddamn politicians in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump included, they get up on stage and they put their right hand on a Bible and their other hand in the air, or the right hand in the air and the other hand on a Bible, and they swear to God in front of all of us that they will defend and preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America.
[00:47:33]  The idea that, like, I'm a spooner in on this, like Lysander Spooner, I don't believe the Constitution is binding to any of us because none of us ever agreed to it, but they did.
[00:47:47]  They all swore an oath to defend it.
[00:47:49]  And so the idea that you would just say, like, eh, well, they get to violate it and launch a war whenever they want to is horrible.
[00:47:57]  It's totally indefensible, if you ask me.
[00:48:01]  All right.
[00:48:01]  Any thoughts on that, Rob, or you want to go to another Marco Rubio clip?
[00:48:04]  Well, on the last Constitution point, while I agree with the broad strokes, I still will take targeted missions that are illegal off of versus full-scale wars that are illegal.
[00:48:17]  Sure.
[00:48:17]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:48:18]  No, that's true.
[00:48:19]  It would have been worse to invade the country without a declaration.
[00:48:23]  Congress is such a joke.
[00:48:24]  Like a couple of weeks ago, they voted down their own authority, which was essentially that he can't launch a war without congressional approval.
[00:48:33]  Well, they tried the War Powers Act failed.
[00:48:36]  Yeah.
[00:48:36]  And that shouldn't even require a vote because that's actually just the way it's supposed to operate.
[00:48:41]  So by the way, it should be mentioned that just to catch Tucker Carlson's back here, and maybe myself a little bit too, but Tucker Carlson, if you remember, what was it two weeks ago, came out and said that Donald Trump was going to announce we're going to war with Venezuela tonight.
[00:48:54]  And then he had like a press conference that night.
[00:48:58]  And then he didn't announce it.
[00:49:00]  And then people were trying to dunk on Tucker Carlson.
[00:49:02]  Like, oh, look, he got his information all wrong.
[00:49:04]  And now in hindsight, clearly, like, no, he basically got the tip right, but the details wrong.
[00:49:11]  And he was off by a couple of weeks.
[00:49:12]  But anyway, I don't think that's a good idea.
[00:49:13]  I apparently have weather delays on the operation, too.
[00:49:16]  So you might have been right.
[00:49:18]  Yeah, I doubt we'll be hearing any apologies from all those people who were talking shit two weeks ago.
[00:49:23]  But anyway, there is that.
[00:49:25]  Here, let's go.
[00:49:26]  Hold on one second.
[00:49:27]  I want to do one more Marco Rubio clip and then got a couple other things to say before we wrap this up.
[00:49:34]  Oh, no, no, no.
[00:49:34]  I'm sorry.
[00:49:35]  Let's go to elections in Venezuela are premature because I found this interesting.
[00:49:40]  Talk about a holistic transition.
[00:49:42]  I think there's a lot of focus on potential elections.
[00:49:46]  How soon will elections be held within 30 days, Mr. Secretary?
[00:49:54]  Elections?
[00:49:55]  Well, look, this is a country that's been governed by this regime now for 14 or 15 years.
[00:50:00]  The elections should have happened a long time ago.
[00:50:01]  The elections did happen.
[00:50:02]  They lost them and they didn't count the votes or they refused to count the votes and everyone knows it.
[00:50:07]  So all of that, I think, is premature at this point.
[00:50:10]  There's a lot of work to be done here.
[00:50:11]  Right now, what we are focused in, let's be realistic here.
[00:50:14]  What we are focused on right now is all of the problems we had when Maduro was there.
[00:50:20]  We still have those problems in terms of them needing to be addressed.
[00:50:22]  We are going to give people an opportunity to address those challenges and those problems.
[00:50:27]  Until they address it, they will continue to face this oil quarantine.
[00:50:31]  They will continue to face pressure from the United States.
[00:50:33]  We will continue to target drug boats if they try to run towards the United States.
[00:50:37]  We will continue to seize the boats that are sanctioned with court orders.
[00:50:41]  We will continue to do that.
[00:50:42]  And there are other things until the thing.
[00:50:45]  This is driving nuts.
[00:50:46]  I thought we're running the country and everything's good now.
[00:50:49]  I'm very used by.
[00:50:50]  This is why I wanted to play this clip because this is Marco Rubio essentially admitting that we've done nothing.
[00:50:55]  We've done nothing.
[00:50:56]  We're right back in the same position that we were is essentially what he's saying.
[00:51:00]  Oh, we're going to keep bombing boats.
[00:51:02]  We're going to keep like we're going to keep the pressure on them unless they do the right thing.
[00:51:07]  Okay.
[00:51:08]  So then we haven't liberated the people.
[00:51:10]  We haven't gotten the oil, right?
[00:51:12]  And again, Rob, it's just, there's no plan.
[00:51:16]  There's just no, oh, we'll keep doing what we're doing here.
[00:51:18]  They won't rule out boots on the ground, but they won't say we're going to have boots on the ground.
[00:51:22]  And again, this is just, it's, it's, this is nothing.
[00:51:26]  Here, let's finish.
[00:51:28]  You think Donald Trump would be better at running the Venezuelan government that we wouldn't have to be worried about narco-terrorists anymore?
[00:51:35]  I wish he was just better at running our government, to be honest.
[00:51:39]  When do they come to liberate the people of America?
[00:51:42]  When does that happen?
[00:51:43]  Here, let's keep playing.
[00:51:46]  We need to see addressed are addressed because ultimately, above everything else, we care about elections, we care about democracy, we care about all of that.
[00:51:52]  But the number one thing we care about is the safety, security, well-being, and prosperity of the United States.
[00:51:57]  And that's what we're going to focus on first and foremost here.
[00:52:00]  And that's what these policies that these changes we need to see made are about.
[00:52:05]  Okay, significant there.
[00:52:06]  You say you will continue to seize boats when necessary.
[00:52:11]  I want to ask you about boots on the ground.
[00:52:13]  Okay.
[00:52:14]  So, yeah, we do care about democracy, but the more important thing is the security of America.
[00:52:21]  And that's why we're going to blow up drug boats from the country that brings us none of our drugs.
[00:52:27]  Like 5%.
[00:52:28]  It's amazing how this administration is not even trying to play the moral card of implementing democracy in other areas.

=== Fentanyl Overdose Crisis (02:43) ===

[00:52:36]  It's just thrown out the window: hey, America, we're taking other people's oil and they're going to like it.
[00:52:42]  You know, I'm glad you brought that up because this was kind of like the final point that I really wanted to make sure we hit on.
[00:52:49]  Because there really is something there.
[00:52:51]  Real quick before that, just saying again, because I know we've mentioned this in the past, but it is really important to go like, look, there's like, I forget the exact numbers.
[00:53:00]  I think they are down, but we've had something like around 100,000 or over 100,000 drug OD deaths a year.
[00:53:09]  And there's about the, if I remember the numbers that I've read on this, I think like something ballpark, about 70% of that is fentanyl.
[00:53:20]  And as we've talked about before, there's, there's a real difference between fentanyl overdoses and other overdoses.
[00:53:29]  And there's, they're different in kind.
[00:53:33]  And there's an interesting like conversation around all of that.
[00:53:37]  But then there's a whole interesting conversation about drugs that we could have at another time.
[00:53:43]  But the like for when I was younger or traditionally, I think even when you were younger, Rob, like traditionally, what we all knew of an overdose to be is like you're essentially, you know, you're a drug addict.
[00:53:57]  You, you do so much of a drug that you raise your tolerance really high.
[00:54:02]  And then you have to do more and more and more and more of the drug in order to get high.
[00:54:06]  And then eventually you have to do so much that it destroys you to get that high and can kill you.
[00:54:11]  You know, that's kind of like what we all knew as a drug overdose.
[00:54:14]  Fentanyl is a very different thing.
[00:54:16]  And there's something really scary about it where because the and not that it's not tragic when someone overdoses like that, but that's almost like akin to suicide.
[00:54:25]  You know, like you, you poisoned yourself until you died.
[00:54:28]  Fentanyl is like some kid wants to take a Percocet.
[00:54:33]  He thinks he's just taking a Percocet.
[00:54:35]  He may not be a drug addict at all.
[00:54:37]  He thinks he's just taking a pain pill that's going to give him a little buzz for a few hours.
[00:54:41]  It turns out there's fentanyl in there and it kills him.
[00:54:43]  Now, that's not akin to a suicide.
[00:54:45]  That's akin to like being poisoned, okay?
[00:54:48]  And that is like 70% of the overdoses.
[00:54:54]  None of that comes from Venezuela, right?
[00:54:57]  So the major new crisis, the major new thing that everybody loves to invoke as they go after this policy has absolutely nothing to do with this at all.
[00:55:06]  You're talking about cocaine, which comes from Venezuela, and a very small percentage of the cocaine on American streets comes from Venezuela.
[00:55:13]  So again, that whole thing is just patently a bullshit pretense for war.

=== Might Makes Right (07:41) ===

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[00:56:19]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:56:21]  But I wanted to talk about your point that Donald Trump, you're absolutely right.
[00:56:26]  There is a naked aggression to what Donald Trump's doing that is different from previous U.S. military adventurism.
[00:56:38]  And that they're not saying, I mean, he is adding all this other bullshit in there too, but primarily it's not like, oh, we're liberating the people.
[00:56:46]  We're bringing democracy.
[00:56:47]  Oh my God, they had nuclear weapons.
[00:56:49]  So we had to stop them.
[00:56:50]  Donald Trump is, at least eventually, after all these other bullshit excuses, going like, no, we're taking the oil.
[00:56:57]  That's what we're doing.
[00:56:58]  And I got to say, I've seen a lot of people.
[00:57:01]  I've been tremendously disappointed in a whole bunch of like popular right-wing, you know, influencers, commentators who have embraced this.
[00:57:14]  They'll say things like, well, the problem with all the terror wars was that they weren't in our interest.
[00:57:23]  That was the problem with those wars.
[00:57:25]  And so, hey, if we can go in here and kill some people in Venezuela and take a whole bunch of oil and then we get that, then that's in our interest.
[00:57:33]  This kind of like really naked might makes right thing.
[00:57:37]  And, well, I will certainly agree that like one of the major problems of the terror wars was that they weren't in our interest.
[00:57:46]  I would also suggest that it's not clear at all that this war in Venezuela is going to be in our interest.
[00:57:52]  But the idea that if it's in our interest, then it's just okay.
[00:57:58]  Like we, we should support just going in and like killing a whole bunch of people in any country and taking all their stuff because screw you, it's in our interest.
[00:58:08]  That is a level of like brutalism and just a complete rejection of morality on any level that is disgusting.
[00:58:19]  And that is bad for your soul.
[00:58:20]  And just though, I would say this at the very least, if you believe that, like if you, if you believe that that's the answer, that if it's in our interest, therefore it's okay.
[00:58:31]  Moral considerations not need be considered fine.
[00:58:38]  Don't ever call yourself a Christian.
[00:58:40]  Now, I don't like to say this because I'm not Christian.
[00:58:42]  You know what I mean?
[00:58:43]  And I don't like when non-Christians lecture other Christians about Christianity, but that's a pretty blatant, easy one, man.
[00:58:48]  Like, if you think that that's the way your government should operate, just straight up take people's shit, kill people if you need to, as long as we win, then we win, then okay.
[00:58:56]  But don't act like you're a Christian in any sense of the word, or for that matter, a Jew or a Muslim or anything, man, because that is just like the idea of having no moral code whatsoever is just incompatible with any of the major religions.
[00:59:10]  And you know, I gotta say, it's a whole lot of the right-wingers who have been very critical of Israel over the last few years, and they love using the moral case when it comes to them.
[00:59:23]  You know, killing Christians was a really big deal when Israel does it.
[00:59:27]  Is it not a big deal when Donald Trump does it?
[00:59:30]  That doesn't matter now.
[00:59:32]  Or just like might makes right.
[00:59:34]  We can take whatever shit you have.
[00:59:36]  Yeah, that's the justification for Benjamin Netanyahu.
[00:59:40]  And like, if that is the case, if you're gonna, if you're gonna make the argument that might makes right, also understand that you now you have no leg to stand on ever complaining about what your government does to you.
[00:59:55]  I mean, all those January 6thers who were tortured in solitary conform in solitary confinement, yeah, DC could do that to you.
[01:00:04]  Everyone who got kicked off of social media, yeah, might makes right.
[01:00:08]  They could do that to you.
[01:00:10]  Washington, D.C., destroying this entire country, hey, they got a lot out of it.
[01:00:15]  Like, right?
[01:00:15]  Isn't this literally exactly the justification for Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein and John McCain and you know, all of them?
[01:00:23]  Yeah, they took your shit and they took it for them and their friends.
[01:00:27]  So, like, I just, I'm appalled by that.
[01:00:30]  I think it's like true.
[01:00:31]  And I got to say, hearing, you know, all this stuff about like, um, the Constitution doesn't matter, might makes right, political power comes out of the barrel of a gun or something like that.
[01:00:43]  You're like, you know, you don't hear any of the founding fathers talk like that.
[01:00:47]  You know, that's not how George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or John Adams or any of them ever talked about nothing.
[01:00:52]  You never read nothing from Thomas Paine like that.
[01:00:55]  You guys all sound like Mao Zedong and Mussolini and some other tradition that is not Americanism.
[01:01:01]  And it's like really sad to me, the idea that so many people would embrace this, especially people that I consider to be like pretty good on some issues at least.
[01:01:10]  And I don't think it's a good long-term strategy either, because if we're going to play that game, other people are going to play that game.
[01:01:18]  And then you just got to continuously invest your earnings back into your military to try and stay ahead of the other people.
[01:01:25]  And then also try and not escalate it towards full-scale war with other nations that are more qualified for that kind of activity.
[01:01:32]  So I don't think.
[01:01:35]  On top of being fucking morally horrible, it's also a bad strategy.
[01:01:38]  And it's also just not American.
[01:01:40]  It's not Americanism.
[01:01:42]  Like, look, as everybody, I think everybody basically knows this, right?
[01:01:45]  But like America, we won the two world wars in the 20th century, however, you feel about those world wars, but we did win them.
[01:01:54]  And the reason why we were like the powerhouse in them was because of our productive capacity.
[01:01:58]  And it was turned into military capacity, right?
[01:02:01]  Like in World War I and World War II, particularly in World War II, we had this huge base of factories that we transitioned.
[01:02:07]  Like you're not making cars anymore.
[01:02:09]  You're making tanks now.
[01:02:10]  And then we could just pump out more than anybody else.
[01:02:13]  Now, who was stronger in World War II?
[01:02:17]  The British or the Americans?
[01:02:19]  How about the French who just let the Nazis come in and didn't even put up a fight?
[01:02:23]  Just let them take over their country or America.
[01:02:26]  Oh, yeah, we were so much better.
[01:02:27]  We were richer and stronger and more able to fight a war because we were economically productive.
[01:02:33]  The British and the French had spent centuries raping all types of foreign countries, being imperialist empires, going around.
[01:02:41]  I guess that's a little redundant, but going around and taking everybody's stuff.
[01:02:44]  But that didn't make them richer than us.
[01:02:46]  That was like the whole experiment in Americanism was like, we didn't have to get rich that way.
[01:02:51]  We didn't have to get rich by going and just taking other people's shit.
[01:02:54]  We got rich by having a free market economy and allowing American ingenuity to be unleashed.

=== Celebrating Tough Guys (06:50) ===

[01:03:01]  And so I just, I don't know.
[01:03:04]  It's a terrible path to go down in every sense, in every sense of the word.
[01:03:10]  And again, I mean, you know, it's just like, I see this all over the place.
[01:03:18]  And I see these people like who just, it's like right-wingers, man.
[01:03:21]  It's like they got this thing that like, no matter how good they seem to be getting, there's like a factory reset button where there's like one explosion and all of a sudden the reset gets hit and they're right back to 2003 retardation again.
[01:03:35]  Like they all become George W retards after one thing blows up.
[01:03:40]  All of them hoisting their mission accomplished banners after one day.
[01:03:44]  It's totally unclear where this is going to the point, Rob, that like it's, it is totally unclear as of right now, the spectrum of where this could go.
[01:03:52]  It's not even like the spectrum is like Panama to Iraq or something like that, right?
[01:03:57]  Like, you know, you topple a government, like maybe it works out like that, maybe it works out like this.
[01:04:02]  It's not even that.
[01:04:03]  The spectrum is from like nothing.
[01:04:06]  Like literally, we just leave the whole communist government in place and we just took the leader and absolutely nothing changes to a military occupation or something like really hard.
[01:04:16]  But the spectrum is this wide and people are celebrating like America, fuck yeah, because we, you know, had a successful mission and all the bravado and the bluster.
[01:04:24]  We've liberated the people and taken the oil and all of like, you have no idea what any of this is going on.
[01:04:30]  And I see, you know, I made, I guess I was sub-tweeting a little bit, but I kind of shared Jack Pasebiak.
[01:04:36]  He had like a real good like little mini doc on the war in Iraq and the clean break strategy and the neoconservatives and Israel and how they all had this project in Iraq and what a disaster it was.
[01:04:46]  Now, pretty sure he wasn't saying that at the time, but 20 years later, he's making a really good documentary about that.
[01:04:52]  And I just wonder like, well, at least I'm sure, at least I could count on a lot of these right-wingers.
[01:04:57]  I'm sure in 20 years, they'll make a really good documentary about how we were right about this.
[01:05:01]  But they'll fucking, and then in 20 years, they'll be mocking us about the next retarded thing that they want to go do.
[01:05:07]  It's just so, you know, it's like, I watch all these guys who are just bad on all this shit.
[01:05:13]  Fucking Dinesh D'Souza dude tweeted at me today.
[01:05:16]  He had the nerve to tweet at me and he tweets a Venezuelan guy celebrating.
[01:05:22]  And he goes, this is what we're for.
[01:05:24]  And I went, oh, yeah, that's right.
[01:05:26]  The people are celebrating.
[01:05:27]  Well, then, case closed.
[01:05:29]  I mean, if people are celebrating, then obviously you made the right, maybe they'll even tear down a statue of him.
[01:05:34]  That's real proof that this thing's good, right?
[01:05:37]  You know how many people celebrated when Saddam Hussein was deposed?
[01:05:39]  They remember the famous image, Rob, of them tearing the statue of Saddam Hussein down in Baghdad.
[01:05:44]  It's like, yeah, he was a brutal dictator.
[01:05:46]  A lot of people didn't like that.
[01:05:47]  A lot of people are happy he's gone.
[01:05:49]  Of course, you understand that and you root for those people.
[01:05:51]  But like when you, when you cheerled the war in Iraq, you have the nerve to say to somebody else, oh, look, they're celebrating.
[01:05:59]  That proves something.
[01:06:01]  I don't think so, man.
[01:06:03]  And it's just, you know, it's, it's wild to see how quickly, like, there is no one.
[01:06:10]  It's just, I don't know.
[01:06:11]  I guess it's just, it's sad.
[01:06:14]  It's sad to watch people so degraded.
[01:06:17]  Like, you know, I'll say it like this, Rob, right?
[01:06:20]  No one.
[01:06:22]  No, you remember like a year ago, maybe a year and change ago, a year and a half ago, you know, when people were like, uh, the Trump supporters were excited for Donald Trump to come back in.
[01:06:32]  Not a single one of them was like, because then we'll overthrow the government of Venezuela.
[01:06:37]  You never met a Trump voter in your life who you went to.
[01:06:41]  And I don't mean like Marco Rubio.
[01:06:43]  I'm just saying like a regular, a real person.
[01:06:45]  You never met one who was like, why are you so excited to support Donald Trump?
[01:06:49]  And they were like, because then we'll be able to bomb Venezuela and capture Maduro.
[01:06:55]  That's what, not one doesn't exist.
[01:06:57]  And in fact, had Kamala Harris, let's just say, campaigned on we're going to have regime change in Venezuela, and Donald Trump were to say, no, that's a stupid idea.
[01:07:11]  I'll keep America out of regime change wars.
[01:07:14]  Every single Trump supporter, all of the ones celebrating this right now, would have said, hell yeah, that's why I'm on Donald Trump's side.
[01:07:21]  And if Donald Trump had come in and said, we're not doing any military engagement in Venezuela whatsoever, all of the Trump supporters would have been fine with that and gone with it.
[01:07:29]  None of you actually wanted this.
[01:07:31]  But then he turns around and goes, we're doing this.
[01:07:33]  And then you tie yourself in pretzels to do mental gymnastics to try to defend this guy who's already spitting your face at every single turn.
[01:07:44]  And then, okay, and this is the last thing I'll, I'll say, Rob, and then I'll give it to you.
[01:07:47]  You could have the last word on this.
[01:07:48]  But I'll tell you, there is one thing that just drives me so goddamn crazy.
[01:07:53]  So goddamn crazy.
[01:07:54]  But then it's when, and again, this is on the level of how degraded people are, how much they degrade themselves, is like when they act tough.
[01:08:04]  They act tough for supporting a military action or a war.
[01:08:09]  You know what I'm talking about?
[01:08:11]  Like where they go, like, ah, yeah, Dave, you're just too much of a pussy.
[01:08:14]  That's why you can't ever take the gloves off and do what needs to be done.
[01:08:18]  You're like, excuse me, you're tweeting right now.
[01:08:21]  You're not tough.
[01:08:23]  You didn't fight anyone.
[01:08:24]  You didn't go over there and do anything.
[01:08:27]  Like, I'm sorry.
[01:08:28]  That is not, it takes the exact same amount of courage to support a war or oppose a war, which is really none.
[01:08:36]  I mean, in some cases, it takes more courage to oppose it, I guess.
[01:08:38]  But like, regardless, it doesn't really take that much courage.
[01:08:41]  You're not a big tough guy.
[01:08:43]  It's like the most pussy shit ever to be celebrating some other tough guys going and doing something tough and then to feel tough because you supported it.
[01:08:51]  And it reminds me, I don't know.
[01:08:53]  I don't know if you did you see this dude, Rob?
[01:08:54]  There was a video of one guy.
[01:08:56]  I don't know the guy, but I guess he was like friends with, I guess he was friends with like Nick Fuentes and Sneeko or them because he goes up to them at the end of the video.
[01:09:05]  But I don't know if you see, it's like a guy with a mustache and he's this guy.
[01:09:08]  And he's, they were at some event and there's like some protest thing, but there weren't, there's only like seven or eight people there.
[01:09:14]  But there's like this short little fat Jewish guy, I think.
[01:09:18]  I'm guessing he's Jewish.
[01:09:19]  That was his look.
[01:09:21]  And then there's this guy.
[01:09:23]  And the guy, the mustache guy, they're like saying something and he's going, he's going beta, beta, beta, just chanting beta at this guy.
[01:09:33]  And then the little fat Jewish guy comes over and slaps the fucking shit out of this guy.
[01:09:38]  Like open hand palm with all his strength, just slaps the shit out of the guy who was going beta.
[01:09:43]  And then the guy goes, whoa, dude.
[01:09:46]  And he walks away.
[01:09:47]  And then he goes up to Nick Fuentes and Sneeko and he goes, I just got punched in the face, man.

=== Viral Hitler Joke (01:26) ===

[01:09:51]  And you're like, no, you didn't, dude.
[01:09:53]  You got slapped in the fucking face.
[01:09:55]  And I'm just saying, like, could you ever imagine the moment, Rob, of just screaming beta at someone and then getting slapped in the face and just from a little fat guy and then taking it like a bitch and walking away?
[01:10:05]  Like, there's just, that's who you are when you're out there talking shit about how you pussies oppose war, but us tough guys support war.
[01:10:14]  Fuck you, man.
[01:10:15]  If you want to go fight in a war and even an unjustified one, all right, there's some toughness to going and fighting in war.
[01:10:22]  Just supporting it, you don't get any of those points.
[01:10:25]  Sorry.
[01:10:27]  Anyway, final thought to you, Rob, and then let's agree.
[01:10:30]  Anyone, if you don't currently follow me, Robbie the Fire, all social media platforms, I just had my stupid Hitler joke go very viral, and that was quite satisfying.
[01:10:38]  I got to write more, even more horrible jokes.
[01:10:40]  That's the goal for next year, because even if audiences don't like it, the internet does.
[01:10:45]  And please go check out Porching Episodes one and two.
[01:10:48]  The critics in the YouTube comments are agreeing that it's a hit.
[01:10:51]  So go get a watch.
[01:10:54]  It's excellent, dude.
[01:10:55]  Both, and I love the Hitler joke too.
[01:10:57]  And of course, come out and see us this weekend in Philadelphia, Helium Comedy Club.
[01:11:01]  Robbie the Fire, Bernstein, and me will be there all weekend.
[01:11:03]  Comic Dave Smith for tickets, comicdave Smith.com for tickets.
[01:11:07]  You got to put in that dot com thing.
[01:11:09]  Actually, if you Google it, it'll probably come up, but whatever.
[01:11:11]  ComicdaveSmith.com.
[01:11:12]  See you in Philly this weekend.
[01:11:13]  We'll be back tomorrow with a brand new episode.
[01:11:15]  There'll be lots more to talk about, I'm sure.
[01:11:17]  All right.
[01:11:17]  Peace.