Do you disagree with President Trump's ultimate goal of regime change in Venezuela? Okay, so, Jake, do you think Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is about to make a strong case against regime change in Venezuela? [00:00:16] What do you think he's going to say in this clip? Yeah, Chuck Schumer making a strong case period period about anything okay. So that is very very unlikely. But what you are about to see is do the Democrats stand firm? [00:00:32] Generally speaking, at least against the idea of going to war with Venezuela? Or are they secretly in favor of going to war with Venezuela? And after we get past that question, why? What force is getting Democrats to go in a certain direction in this story? [00:00:49] - So let's give you the facts. - Okay. So here is how Schumer actually did respond to Jake Tapper. Look, the bottom line is President Trump throws out so many different things in so many different ways. You don't even know what the heck he's talking about. [00:01:04] You know, obviously if Maduro would just flee on his own, everyone would like that. But we don't know what the heck he's up to when he talks about that. So it's very, very you cannot say I endorse this. I endorse that when Trump is all over the lot, not very specific and very worrisome [00:01:20] at how far he might escalate. Oh, so he said nothing. Well, the question is, who benefits from a regime change operation in Venezuela? You know, who benefits? It is the American corporations. [00:01:35] And that was unveiled by the New York Times, which actually did some excellent reporting on Maria Corina machado, one of the opposition leaders in Venezuela. And they said that Machado has touted an economic plan to American and other investors, [00:01:50] saying that a democratic Venezuela under her movement's control has the potential to generate $1.7 trillion in wealth in 15 years. And in June, she told American corporate representatives. Our message to the oil companies is we want you here. [00:02:08] Certainly we want you here not producing crumbs of a couple hundred thousand barrels a day. We want you here producing millions of barrels a day. So who else benefits from ousting Maduro? Florida politicians like Secretary of State Marco Rubio. [00:02:25] So Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is an important figure in South Florida's Venezuelan and Cuban exile communities who have helped him win past races for the Florida legislature in the US and the US Senate. The crucial voting bloc has loudly called for Maduro's ouster. [00:02:43] So Kurt Mills, the executive director of American Conservative magazine, has argued that even if the regime change effort fails, Trump and JD Vance will be on the hook, not Marco Rubio. So it said, if the administration goes up because Marco Rubio [00:03:00] spearheaded an invasion. That's JD Vance's problem. Rubio can just slip back into politics and pretend he wasn't involved in this and run again in 2032 and 2036. So to bring it all back to Chuck Schumer when he refuses to condemn [00:03:17] a regime change operation, Schumer appears to be on the side of one giant American corporations and two Marco Rubio's political ambitions. Representative Ro Khanna forcefully spoke out against Chuck Schumer, [00:03:32] stating yes, Democrats oppose regime change, War in Venezuela. Instead of wasting trillions on endless wars, we must invest in jobs, health care and housing for Americans. Why is this hard? We need a new generation to lead our party with moral clarity and conviction. [00:03:52] Okay. And, Jake, before I toss it over to you, I feel like I have to say this because there's not a whole lot of Guyanese representation in American media, but my family is from Guyana, which is the tiny country right next to Venezuela, and there is a ton of oil in Guyana. And when they discovered the oil, it reignited an old border dispute [00:04:10] between Venezuela and Guyana that goes back about a century or so to the European colonial days. So Guyana has seen its fair share of American intervention in the past. But currently Guyana has a good relationship with the US. The US is investing heavily in the country and in its oil. [00:04:28] I do wonder if Venezuela is courting the US and its oil companies, at least in part in an effort to finally stake its claim in Guyana. Another thing to consider with all of this is that China is heavily invested all over South America, and Venezuela specifically has ties to Russia. [00:04:46] So the US right now is trying to play catch up if it wants to make South America the new Middle East. And speaking of. They're already using some of the same language from the Iraq invasion to justify what is now going on in the Caribbean, calling the tankers that they're attacking [00:05:02] weapons of mass destruction. And if that doesn't trigger people from 2001, it really should. But beyond that, there is, of course, another consideration. Jake, we know that war is incredibly profitable, and since Trump has been ending wars all over the place, he's got to put some money back into some pockets. [00:05:20] What do you think? Yeah. So first of all, tankers. Oil tankers are weapons of mass destruction. - Now that's what they're saying. - Well, we have a lot of them. Who are we killing with our oil tankers? Although, to be fair, the oil in that in the tankers [00:05:35] are kind of doing mass destruction on the planet through climate change. But I'm pretty sure that's not what Trump means. Okay. This. They're desperate to make up things, to try to start this war with Venezuela. It's insanity. If you don't think that the fact that Venezuela is the largest oil reserve in the world is relevant to why we're starting a war [00:05:53] with Venezuela, you're a sucker. You're incredibly gullible. You'll believe almost anything. Fentanyl. There's almost no fentanyl in Venezuela. There is a tiny bit of cocaine that they do, but there's a hell of a lot more oil. This is obviously obviously about the oil. [00:06:11] And we've invaded now a number of countries that had were top ten in largest oil reserves in the world. I'm sure that the fact that the only countries we invaded are in that list is just another wild, wild coincidence. Okay, so now but the Democrats aren't taking a lot of oil money, [00:06:30] so that's probably not the reason why Chuck Schumer was so equivocal there. So that makes me search for another reason, which we'll get to in a second. But Chuck Schumer's response, I mean, what was that? And he's like, well, I can't endorse this or that because I don't know [00:06:47] what Trump is saying. What the hell is he talking about? No, it's super clear what he's saying. He's saying I'm going to attack them by water when they ask him, are you going to attack them by land? He said, yeah, probably. And and he has been crystal clear that he wants to attack Venezuela [00:07:04] and drive out Garcia. Where's the question? Why is that so hard to figure out? And even if you thought, well, you know what he probably means that is it 80% or 98% or whatever percentage likelihood that he means that. But I'm going to be reserved in opposing him because of that 2% doubt. [00:07:23] Really? No. Why don't you just say, well, if he means attack Venezuela, then he's crazy. He ran on antiwar. That's obviously pro-war. So he's obviously a giant liar. It's about the oil in Venezuela. It's not complicated at all. There's no there's. Oh, I can't tell what he means. [00:07:41] What do you mean, you can't tell what it means? We can all. We all have eyes and ears. We know exactly what he means. So why are you not giving a clear answer here? Forget being strong. He didn't even say no. He didn't even say no to the war. So now the Democrats are the worst. [00:07:57] They're the worst Democratic leadership and why? Remember what they did with Iraq War? All the Democratic almost all the Democratic leaders voted for the Iraq War. So it's Bush and Cheney's war. That's true. And then Biden and Hillary Clinton and John Kerry was like, yes, war. [00:08:13] Yes, yes, yes, yes. Right. So there are always these scum uniparty guys on both sides who are total corporate goons working for the donor class, etc. If this is the dumbest, most unnecessary war I have ever seen. [00:08:30] If they actually like, I still can't believe they're going to launch it because it would be such a needless disaster. It would be. It's preposterous. And it's not just because it's a bad war, but it's because it'll have blowback politically. Anyone who touched this war, the minute we start taking casualties, [00:08:51] if it gets to that, they really are going to do ground troops in Caracas. Are they insane? Are they insane? That is going to be politically supernova toxic. Anyone who was in favor of it or wasn't adamantly opposed to it later [00:09:07] will pretend, oh no, I you know, I was for or against the war with Venezuela before I was for it. Now you're all going to get caught and you're all going to look like Dick Cheney in history. And guys, do they ever do anything for us, ever. For the American people, ever. [00:09:23] I get that ExxonMobil wants you to start this war. I get that your donors want you to start this war. But what does it have to do with us? And if you don't know, we don't get the oil. The companies get the oil at a reduced price, so their profit margins explode [00:09:42] and they make so much more money. Then they sell it to us at the same exact price. We get zero benefit. Even if you wanted to steal their oil, you can't even do that. So ExxonMobil steals their oil, sells it to you at the same price as today [00:09:59] and pockets the difference. See, corporations run our government. We don't run our government. So then finally, when I come back and you see, why do I support Ro Khanna? Because he's saying obvious things and he's almost the only one. And he's almost the only one fighting back. [00:10:16] So you saw that tweet that he has just read. You're super easy and obvious. No, don't go to war with Venezuela. That's crazy. Totally against it. What's hard about that? God, man, it's not just democratic leadership. There's like 90% of Democrats in Congress do absolutely nothing. [00:10:33] You don't even know their names. I don't even know half their names because they literally do nothing. They're the most useless people you've ever seen in your life. Meanwhile, the Republicans are like war, war, war corporate donors. Yes. So you have like a monstrous party and a piece of crap useless party [00:10:49] who goes, oh, okay, I guess so. I don't know what's going on, but let's go to war. Yeah. There's like only 2 or 3 people that ever fight back. So why is Chuck Schumer in favor of this war based on that answer? I don't know. So it made me think. Yes. Wait, does Israel want this war? [00:11:07] Because I can't imagine any other reason why Chuck Schumer or Democrats would be in favor of this maniacal war. Yeah, it really is puzzling how the Democrats are just like, yeah, I guess we'll just do this. You know, for the longest time it was like, why are we attacking these people? [00:11:25] They haven't done anything. That was the rhetoric across, you know, a lot of media and a lot of representatives were saying that as well. And now it's like, okay, like maybe regime change is okay. And, you know, we're following the Dick Cheney playbook here. This is Dick Cheney's legacy. He's not even around anymore. [00:11:42] And we're doing play by play exactly what he did to justify the invasion of Iraq and also Afghanistan. I mean, they're saying that this is going to be a quick in and out mission. We'll just get in, take him out, come back out. It'll be fine. We know we should know from experience, from personal lived experience. [00:12:00] Because, like, how old are any of us that that is not how these things work, right? It is incredibly disruptive not only to the land that we're going and invading, because that is what this is. Let's not sugarcoat it. It is incredibly disruptive to that place. It's not going to work out well for the actual people. [00:12:16] And, you know, it is worth mentioning that a lot of Venezuelans want this intervention from the United States because they are tired of the Maduro government, and they have a lot of reasons to be tired of the Maduro government. But we know that whenever the US gets involved in these things, [00:12:31] it doesn't ever work out well for the people of that country. Or if it does, it's more like a side effect kind of thing. But they're saying we're just going to get in there, in and get out very quickly. But like, we've seen how that, how that, went down in Iraq [00:12:46] and we saw how it worked in Afghanistan. These are still ongoing problems 20 years later that we're still dealing with, that we're still putting money into that we're still sending our troops to. Yeah. So we know that this is not going to go as easily as they want it to. This is all propaganda. [00:13:02] And it's crazy to me that people will hear this and not immediately think back to the early 2000 George W Bush administration. So yes, last two things here. When they say it's going to be easy, it sounds like we're going to be greeted as liberators. I remember we were greeted as liberators in Iraq. [00:13:19] That worked out great. Look, the Venezuelan people might not be in favor of Maduro. They're very likely not in favor of Maduro. They might be very happy to have him leave. But no one's ever happy to be bombed. So, like, if a neo con is telling you. Oh, no, no, the Arabs love being bombed. [00:13:35] We're doing them a favor. Or now the Venezuelans are love. When a bomb is dropped on their family, they love that. They'll throw roses at our feet. Literally the last time they said they'd throw roses at our feet. If by roses, they meant IEDs, I guess that was right. But I don't think that's what they meant. [00:13:50] Okay, so now I want to show you the last time cable news and all of mainstream media went along with the Iraq War. And then afterwards they did the self-flagellation like the Shia, like, oh my God, we were wrong. I can't believe we were wrong. We're gonna get it right next time. So CNN brings out an expert to tell us, about the seizing the oil tanker, [00:14:10] because that seems like a super aggressive move that is meant to escalate, escalate the conflict and lead to war. But that's okay. CNN has learned its lesson. So let's see what the expert has to say. We've had sanctions on Venezuelan oil for since the first Trump administration. [00:14:29] - And and Biden kept them kept them. - So to me, this is absolutely normal. - I mean. - Seizing an oil tanker. Yeah. We've been seizing Iranian oil tankers in the past. We also, according to the law that I've read, [00:14:46] we can that oil is up for forfeiture. So we could keep that. We've kept Iranian oil in the past. So I actually think that this is, less controversial in terms of law and sanctions and what has been, [00:15:02] you know, disputed or not disputed, like I think this is actually a pretty, you know, check the box case. Yeah. Check the box for war. Okay. Calling random things weapons of mass destruction. Check. Saying we'll be greeted as liberators. Check. [00:15:20] And and on and on it goes. She just said it's normal. It's normal. She's like, yeah, of course. Every once in a while, we'll seize an Iranian oil tanker and just steal it, and then we'll take. Now we're stealing Venezuelan oil. And she said they're up for forfeiture. Well, if that oil in that tanker is up for forfeiture because of the [00:15:38] so-called sanctions and the sanctions are us just going, we think you're a bad guy, so we're going to just take all your crap. Okay. Is that a thing? Can other people do that to us? No. It would lead to war. So that's not anywhere near normal. But according to her logic, since sanctions lead to potential forfeitures. [00:15:58] We could literally steal all of their oil. We could steal all of it and go, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Perfectly normal. We had sanctions. We had forfeiture. We stole every single thing in your country because we can steal whatever we want. And CNN will call that perfectly normal. [00:16:14] Well, we're going to war for oil companies. Perfectly normal. Perfectly. What are you guys complaining about? Later, Jake Tapper will write a book about. Nobody could have seen that this was for oil, and it was totally illegal. Yeah. I mean, if it isn't controversial, maybe it should be. [00:16:29] You know, just because something is normal, just because something happens very often, more often than it should, doesn't mean that it's okay or that it should continue. And also, yeah, it is a thing, Jake. It's called piracy, you know, that's it's what we're doing. We're glorified pirates right now or that's how we're acting. [00:16:45] Yeah. Jake Tapper nobody could have seen it wasn't perfectly normal. 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.