This is all garbage, and everybody knows it. And if you more- murder more American troops on behalf of your corporate donors, there's going to be political hell to pay. And I guarantee it. The question remains, are we going to war with Venezuela? [00:00:16] Well, Trump's war hawks are all assembling as we speak to plan their next move. According to CNN, Trump is going to hold a meeting in the Oval Office. The guest list includes Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the [00:00:32] Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Keane, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to attend, as well as White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Trump has already attacked very small boats while deploying very large boats. [00:00:52] Here is a graphic representation of the US military presence. 15,000 troops have been sent to the area along with a major aircraft carrier and over a dozen ships in total. The Pentagon is calling it Operation Southern Spear. [00:01:10] Trump also admitted to allowing the CIA to operate in Venezuela. The New York Times reported a few days ago that Trump had spoken directly with Venezuelan President Maduro. When asked about the call, here's Trump's response. [00:01:26] Yeah. The New York Times are looking at you about the phone call with Maduro. Did you- I'm not going to comment on it. The answer is yes. And can you tell us a little bit about- We don't... We can't do that. It's a question and answer- Is your relationship... - Can you say it went well? - I, I have nothing more to comment. Whether he said it went well or badly, I'm not gonna be the president of Venezuela. [00:01:47] Now, some information about the call has been leaked. According to the Miami Herald, Trump issued a, quote, "blunt warning." The US message to Maduro was direct. Safe passage would be guaranteed for him, his wife, and his son only [00:02:03] if he agrees to resign right away. Maduro reportedly refused Trump's request, and that's the last time the two spoke, though Maduro allegedly wanted to continue the conversation. After Trump's announcement on Saturday that Venezuelan airspace should [00:02:19] be considered closed in its entirety, the Maduro government attempted to place another call to Washington but received no response. Trump has also warned that he would be stopping trafficking by land as well as by sea very soon. [00:02:37] And again, another reminder with all of these conversations, Venezuela is not a major player in the global drug trade. Their neighbor, Colombia is, but not Venezuela. Cenk, the question is for you, are we going to war? [00:02:53] So yeah, the question is, is Trump bluffing or not? So if he's bluffing and he pulls up all these warships and he does the angry call and says, "You got only, you know, a short time to live, you better turn yourself in, and we'll give you safe passage for your wife and your kids," et cetera, uh, and if it works and he leaves and then, [00:03:09] uh, ExxonMobil's CEO becomes the new president of Venezuela, I guess all is well, a coup well done. Uh, I'm not in that camp. I don't want that. I think it's ridiculous that we meddle in other people's affairs and not for the benefit of America but for the benefit of corporate donors [00:03:26] who would like that oil, et cetera. Um, but that's where the damage is limited. What if, uh, Maduro calls his bluff and, by the way, he's in the middle of calling his bluff because he said, according to reports, and again, we don't know if this is exactly right or not, [00:03:42] but apparently what Maduro asked for was, no safe passage for many others that are connected to the administration, like the blanket amnesty for anyone that was involved in his government and maybe even, not political control but control over the Venezuelan troops. [00:03:59] So that second part's a joke. If you're in charge of the Venezuelan troops, you're in charge of Venezuela, right? So that's never gonna be given. But the blanket amnesty I don't know about. But he doesn't seem like he's saying, "Oh, okay, Daddy Trump, I'm so scared. Here, I'll run away," right? [00:04:14] So if he doesn't run away and Trump's bluff gets called, if it was a bluff, then what does he do? Well, right now there's a lot of senators asking, including Republican senators, "Hey, what are we doing? We never declared war on Venezuela." And hey, wait a minute, why are we going with- to war with rando Venezuela? [00:04:32] Uh, because of drugs? Okay, I mean, I don't want this to happen under any circumstance, but Mexico and Colombia are 10, 20, 200 times the issue with drugs. China, uh, with, you know, producing some of the parts for fentanyl is an issue. [00:04:48] Uh, Afghanistan is a huge issue. Are we going back into Afghanistan? All those countries are a much bigger, uh, problem in the drug trade than Venezuela is. On the other hand, Venezuela has the largest oil reserve in the world. I'm sure a coinkydink. By the way, barely mentioned in mainstream media. [00:05:03] Like, oh yeah, oh by the way, paragraph 15, largest oil reserve in the world. And according to reports, here comes more of a mystery, Maduro has already said, "Oh, you can take our oil. Just don't kill me," right? [00:05:19] All right. That's already horrific. Like, this is the kind of diplomacy we're doing on behalf of corporations, not us. But again, the damage would be a little bit limited there but we apparently didn't take his offer. So at the end of the day, everybody's scratching their heads, Jordan, [00:05:34] going, "What the hell's going on here? Is he really gonna invade Venezuela?" That sounds mental. But he's definitely threatening to. So what do you think? Do you think he's gonna do it or no? Uh yeah, I absolutely think he's going to do it because it's not about stopping drugs, it's not about protecting the homeland, it's about oil. [00:05:53] And I think you can see, I mean, they're openly admitting it. We, today we had yet another example. This might be something worth covering tomorrow night. It happened shortly before the show. But Representative Maria Salazar of Florida was on CNN today.... [00:06:09] openly celebrating a potential $1 trillion windfall for US oil companies if Maduro is ousted. I mean, they're, they're not even trying to pretend like it's about some abstract concept or notion of freedom or liberty, like they did [00:06:27] in the Middle East in the 2000s. The war on terror, of course, it was a front for oil companies and other, uh, other resources. Here, this, they, they've wanted Venezuela's oil for years, Cenk, and now they're openly saying it on air as the President holds m- cabinet meetings, [00:06:45] or meetings in the Oval Office about declaring war with Venezuela. I, I just, I don't see any circumstance where we don't illegally go to war with Venezuela and conduct a regime change operation to oust Maduro. The, all these p- the big oil has wanted this for years, and Trump [00:07:03] is finally going to give it to him. Yeah. Well, there's two th- things about that. One is, like, if they do it, it'll be an epic disaster. I mean, guerilla warfare in the streets of Caracas? What have we lost, our minds? Why on the God's green Earth would we do that? [00:07:19] Okay, number two is, wait, we're gonna send in American troops? We always assume no one's ever gonna get killed, right? We're mighty America. Our technology is invincible, and we'll just drone them to death, et cetera. But they told us Iraq would be easy and we would be greeted as liberators, [00:07:37] and thousands of American boys died there. So the minute one American troop dies in Venezuela, that is a person, an American citizen, who died on behalf of ExxonMobil, and that's insane and the [00:07:52] American people should not tolerate that. They're openly broadcasting, "We are not doing this for Americans. We don't give a goddamn about you guys. We're doing it for the oil companies and the trillion dollars they're gonna make." And by the way, some very small percentage they're gonna kick back in legalized bribes [00:08:10] to all those people in Congress and to the President, et cetera. One of the biggest donors for Trump in this election cycle was the oil companies. But, but the second thing... So if it was just that, Jordan, easy-peasy, I get it. And, and we... [00:08:26] I've been through this movie before. We've been on air so long, we covered the Iraq War before it began. We were one of the only two shows nationally that said, "Don't go in. It's a trap." And Admiral Ackbar wouldn't listen. So now here we are again. So that's the easy part. The hard part is... [00:08:41] But Grenell, like Richard Grenell, top Trump guy who went to negotiate with Maduro, came back and said, "Maduro will give us the oil." So there's apparently a second thing. What... I don't know what the second motivation is, and I, and I see some people now [00:08:58] in Washington scratching their heads going, "Wait, we all got our bribes. Maduro said he's gonna give us the oil." Not us, of course, but our beloved corporate donors. So where's the question? And I think there's a second question here. It might be just Marco Rubio, like, and it might be people discovering, [00:09:15] "Is this because Marco Rubio wants to topple Venezuela so he can topple Cuba, so he can go brag to his parents?" "Oh, mommy and daddy, I got the big bad communist. We're gonna get our casinos back." Is that what this is about? I, I don't, I don't get it. Or, maybe the original story about how Grenell got them to give the oil [00:09:34] rights or get that concession was not correct for one of those two things. Yeah. I, I think the most likely scenario is that that's not true, the Grenell claim is not true, and they also don't wanna have to worry about, [00:09:49] you know, increased tensions later down the line and maybe Maduro changing his mind, just, for them they've wanted him out. You know, they wanted Chavez out. They didn't get that. They've, they've tried to prop up, uh, people in elections before, [00:10:05] it was unsuccessful. I think they just want to get rid of this bol- like, the extension of this Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, oust Maduro, put in their own figure who will be more, uh, amenable to US [00:10:20] interests and ultimately US oil companies. But- Okay, now- I mean, we definitely, we definitely have to take a break. Yeah. Hold on. I got one last prediction here. If we actually go to war with Venezuela, not if Maduro steps aside or we get some sort of, uh, concession, right, [00:10:36] but we actually start launching bombs and we put guys on the ground in Venezuela, then that's the easiest prediction I'll ever make. It'll end Trump. It'll be an, such a political disaster, uh, that he won't be able to recover from it, 'cause that's the most outrageous mental war that, [00:10:55] that I've ever seen, completely and utterly unnecessary, done 100% because of corruption to help his donors. And once American soldiers start dying, people will be absolutely livid, and including his own base, they'll be more furious than he has any idea. [00:11:14] Like, the, and it's not just about Trump. Washington won't know what hit them if they actually start this war with Venezuela, 'cause everyone knows it's totally based on lies and very thin lies about drugs and fenta- there's no fentanyl coming from Venezuela. [00:11:30] There's barely any cocaine coming from Venezuela. Cocaine is Colombia. Fentanyl is Mexico and China. This is all garbage, and everybody knows it. And if you more, murder more American troops on behalf of your corporate donors, there's going to be political hell to pay, and I guarantee it. [00:11:47] Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.