I don't have any sympathy for drug dealers trying to import product into our country. But at the same time, I guess you might ask the question, where does it end? Are we the world's policeman, international policeman, or are we going to be blowing people up off the coast all around the world trying to interdict? [00:00:16] Really? I'm not sure we have the finances to be the world's policeman. We sure don't. In fact, our national debt, you know, has a lot to do with the fact that we love to start wars and we love to fund conflicts abroad. And Senator Rand Paul, of course, is cautioning the Trump administration [00:00:34] after its decision to strike a Venezuelan boat that allegedly was carrying Venezuelan drug traffickers. Now, I say allegedly because we don't know if that's true. There hasn't been any evidence presented to us. And rather than intercept the boat that they might suspect contains drugs and [00:00:52] drug traffickers, they just did a strike and killed 11 people. And let's be clear, the likelihood that this is really about drug trafficking is a little ridiculous to me. When you have Trump administration officials whispering about regime change [00:01:10] in Venezuela, and if you can recall in Trump's first term he attempted to do a coup in Venezuela not once but twice, to install a puppet leader, Juan Guaido. Now about the strike itself, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that Trump wanted [00:01:26] to strike the boat instead of intercepting it, that it was Trump's decision to do that instead of interdicting it. On the president's orders, we blew it up, and it'll happen again. Maybe it's happening right now. So look, even if you happen to love the Trump administration [00:01:44] and you love everything they're up to and what they're doing, are you not a little bit concerned when you have a government that could just point to anyone or anything, call them a terrorist, accuse them of being drug traffickers and then kill them. [00:02:00] And do you ever wonder about, you know, the consequences, the long term consequences of acting like this on the international stage? Nonetheless, the New York Times had this fascinating sentence. Pentagon officials were still working Wednesday on what legal authority [00:02:15] they would tell the public was used to back up the extraordinary strike in international waters. So when you see the type of multi-polar world we're now living in where you have some real big players on the international stage, you have China, Russia, India, Iran getting together for a summit in China. [00:02:36] China's showing off their new military capabilities. We should be a little bit worried, because America isn't going to get away with just bullying and carrying out all sorts of war crimes. [00:02:51] There will be consequences for the American people based on the belligerence that we're currently experiencing with the Trump administration. Now, again, that strike killed 11 people. And it's about regime change. This is not really about fighting, you know, the drug war [00:03:06] or doing something about fentanyl. Besides which, fentanyl doesn't come from Venezuela. Cocaine does. We have a fentanyl epidemic in this country. So I don't know how killing 11 people randomly in international waters is going to solve that issue. But prior to the U.S. Striking that Venezuelan boat, the U.S. [00:03:22] Engaged in a military buildup off the coast of Venezuela. So Washington has dispatched three destroyers with an amphibious squadron carrying 4000 Marines to waters off Venezuela. Its rationale is to supposedly disrupt drug cartels. [00:03:39] But in Venezuela, obviously, they believe that this is really a challenge to its sovereignty and their security. They do believe that this is really about regime change, probably because Trump had already tried this not once, but twice in his first term. And Trump's deployment, by the way, also included 2200 Marines. [00:03:55] Really, we're going to deploy Marines to Fight drugs. Sounds weird. Not really typical of what usually happens. And Axios also reports that the Trump administration, a Trump administration official, told them that this is 105% about narco terrorism. [00:04:15] But if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying. Yeah, so it's not about narco terrorism. It's about killing Maduro and doing a coup. Yeah. And by the way, there is currently a at first there was a 50 million know there is a $50 million bounty for Maduro. [00:04:33] Trump took a $25 million bounty and upped it to $50 million. Now, Axios also had this amazing quote from a Trump adviser leaving Maduro in power in Venezuela is like making Jeffrey Epstein the head of a daycare. So it's very clear what their actual objectives are. [00:04:49] - Jake. - Yeah. Oh, Jeffrey Epstein, you mean the the guy you, the government and you Trump administration are covering up his crimes. That guy. Okay. Yeah, I got you. All right, so on August 7th. Yes. Trump doubled it to 50 million. I just want you to think about. [00:05:05] I know in American politics and media, nobody ever thinks about reciprocity. Right. But so we just got that dirty terrorist. Of course, somebody here will pay you $50 million to murder the leader of Venezuela. Imagine if Iran said, oh, yeah, we'll pay $50 million to for anyone to murder Trump. [00:05:23] What would we say? You know that everyone in American media would say terrorists, right? Obviously terrorists. So but what we get to do it, like Israel gets to kill the entire Houthi cabinet and the prime minister, and we get to kill, Maduro, which is there's no laws anymore. [00:05:41] So I'm going to come back to that because that's the central issue here, and it's a giant problem. Okay. So number two Marines are for, ground action. There there's no reason to bring Marines unless you're going on the ground. Yep. Okay. [00:05:57] And they're an amphibious squadron. So you their job is to get through the water and onto the ground. So why did you bring them? So this look, since they tried to do a coup attempt twice on him already in the first Trump term. [00:06:13] This is not complicated. They're obviously trying to topple Maduro. And Venezuela is a relatively small country when it comes to the drug trade. Colombia's much larger, Mexico is much larger, and it goes on and on. Right? So if you are targeting drug trafficking, you would not pick Venezuela. [00:06:31] You would pick other countries, especially because they have nothing to do with fentanyl, right. So now could the massive oil reserves, in fact, the largest oil reserves in the world are in Venezuela. Could that have something to do with this? And remember, the US government doesn't work for us taxpayers. [00:06:50] If we topple Venezuela, there will be a lot more, calamity there, and we'll get more immigrants coming to the border. We won't get any of the oil money. It will have no positive effects for us at all. But the oil companies will get the oil for a lot cheaper. [00:07:08] They'll get it for cheaper. But I think there's also something else at play here. Because China relies on Venezuela for a huge portion of its oil. - And now there's. - A way of kneecapping China as well. So that's right. The US doesn't like anyone not obeying their orders. [00:07:26] Right. So they're like, look, if we want to cut off oil to wherever it might be, China, Cuba. And apparently Marco Rubio has a personal grievance against Maduro because he's thinking he thinks that he's working with the Cubans. So he's like, oh, anybody working with the Cubans? [00:07:41] I'll murder them because we're for freedom. So, but bottom line is, yeah, we want to control the oil of Venezuela because it's not Venezuela's oil. Oh, and that's been the problem with US policy towards Latin America this entire time. This guy, man, he's destroying like, the future of this country [00:08:00] in so many different ways. But I just want you to take this all in, okay? We're already $37 trillion in debt. He just worsened that situation by passing the so-called big beautiful bill, which will increase our debt considerably because it's going to take in less revenue [00:08:17] for the federal government because it's massive tax cuts for the rich, obviously. Okay. But then on top of that, he's starting brand new wars. We are bankrolling a genocide in Gaza. We're probably going to bankroll the annexation of the West Bank. Not only is that immoral, even if even if you happen to be one of those people who [00:08:34] doesn't see Palestinians as human beings. First of all, I hate you, and I think you're a disgusting person. But put that aside for a second. If you only care about yourself or only care about this country, we're going to bankroll that. We're going to pay for that. I mean, how much of our hard earned money, how many, how many of our resources [00:08:53] are going to be sucked out of this country in order to enrich defense contractors, in order to help Israel, whatever, with whatever objectives they have in basically dominating the Middle East. I'm so sick. I hate our politicians. I hate our government, I really do. This is why probably I've like grown [00:09:14] some like admiration and affection for some libertarians, like people like Dave Smith, because it's like, what are we paying our taxes for? At this point, what are we paying our taxes for? Right? You're seeing social services get cut, public services get cut, and we're still paying taxes. [00:09:31] How much of that money actually goes to benefit our lives? - Seriously? - Yeah. So there's other issues too. How is this anti-war? Come on. This is an anti. He's starting a brand new war. This is a brand new war. That's what he's doing. Are we going to go to war with Iran too? Because Israel wants us to. [00:09:46] They're not done with that. It's ridiculous. So when I saw that they were trying to murder Maduro and take over Venezuela, I thought, I wonder what Maduro did to Israel. So I don't think this one has to do with Israel. Okay, so but like, that's such a rare exception that we have to note. [00:10:05] Hey, this particular war is actually not Israel. Okay. Everything you thought about why we invaded Iraq in 2003 is what you should think about this war with Venezuela, okay? Because it wasn't about oil in Iraq, okay? It was about doing Israel favors. That's what that war was about. [00:10:22] Okay. And Israel was more reliant on Iraq's oil than we were. So it wasn't about the oil. This war with Venezuela, they want to topple that regime. They want to, you know, capture the largest oil reserve on this planet. And it's so utterly irresponsible and stupid. [00:10:37] - But here we are. - Yeah. And then, guys, now back to the most important point out of all of this stuff, which is we're creating lawlessness. And that is a for the state of humanity, a disaster. Because once we say, look, I mean, the most important thing [00:10:52] that Anna read you was that initial part where they said they're still trying to figure out an excuse for why they did it. - Illegal? - Yeah. - Explanation? - Yeah. If you are figuring out the law after you violated it, like like, oh, let's murder people and then figure [00:11:11] out if we were right to kill them legally. You've got it massively backwards. And obviously what you're saying is I don't care about the law. I'm going to come up with some sort of legal excuse. Literally, in this case, they're admitting it later after I already killed them. [00:11:26] Okay. So now, we and unfortunately, again, back to Israel for one second. Israel thinks we're above the law and we can kill anyone we like. We don't have to listen to international law. We can commit war crimes. And there's never any consequences because we're bigger than you [00:11:41] and we have a bigger military. Yeah. But first of all, it's going to create chaos because then Venezuela is going to go, okay, if there's no laws anymore and anybody can kill anyone in international waters. Hey, I didn't like the leader of Nicaragua. They had a boat out there with 200 people on it. I killed them all. [00:11:57] - So what? - So let me. So what? There are no laws anymore. Jake, you're making such a good point. Like this is the most important point in this story. Okay, yeah. The lawlessness. And I know this is going to sound counterintuitive or weird, because right now, Trump is in charge. And what Trump is doing is wrong. Clearly, I think it's wrong. [00:12:14] That's what this whole commentary has been so far. But I want to just take a moment to talk about what a massive, steaming pile of crap Joe Biden is. Okay? Because if you can recall when he was still president, I made the argument that allowing Israel to carry out the war crimes it was [00:12:33] carrying out without ever checking them, without ever using your leverage as the American president, without denying them weapons. What you are doing is you're taking a crap on international laws. You're degrading them. You're debasing that entire system that was set up. [00:12:53] And when you open that door and risk the possibility of someone like Donald Trump becoming president again, which is exactly what the Democrats did. What do you think is going to happen? Yeah, yeah, Joe Biden is one of the worst American presidents. [00:13:09] Really? Okay. One of the worst presidents in American history because of what he enabled and the consequences that we are suffering as a result of that. Yeah. So, first of all, he ran when he has dementia. So he let Trump walk into the white House, turned into an epic disaster [00:13:28] when he couldn't talk at the debate, as you all know. So he said that he was going against Trump to protect democracy in the international order. So by letting Trump walk back into the white House, he hurt the cause of democracy. And then, he then allowed Trump to say, hey, [00:13:45] you let Israel break any law you want. Why can't we break any international law we want? They're in international waters, I don't care. You're supposed to normally first stop them and see if they let you board them. That's how you indict someone and that is what is legal. [00:14:01] And they're like, no, we didn't ask to board the ship. We didn't ask who they were. We didn't ask anything. And by the way, initially they said they were going to Trinidad. Then Trump said they were going to America. So then Rubio then changed his story to, yeah, I guess they were going to America. They're obviously lying. [00:14:17] They're lying, and they're saying, we're allowed to murder anyone we like in international waters. Other countries will use that against their foes. They will use it against us. And then soon no one will be listening to international law. And we'll be back to the time we were before World War Two. [00:14:32] And you know what happened then? So there was a reason why we passed those international laws. Because humans are not good with chaos. We get scared, we get violent, and then and then anarchy breaks out. And that's exactly what we're risking here. [00:14:47] Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.