Members of Congress were briefed yesterday that a war is coming, and it'll be announced in the address to the nation tonight at 9:00 by the president. I who knows, by the way, if that will actually happen, I don't know. And I never want to overstate what I know, which is pretty limited in general. [00:00:16] But a member of Congress told me that this morning. War with Venezuela is imminent, according to Tucker Carlson, who made that statement on Judge Andrew Napolitano show this morning. But Tucker's comments aren't the only indication that the United States [00:00:33] is headed for more war. In fact, just yesterday, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he is implementing a complete blockade of oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela. I'm going to give you some excerpts of what he wrote. [00:00:49] He says that Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will not only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before. Until such time as they return to the United States of America. [00:01:07] All of the oil, land and other assets that they previously stole from us. So they need to return the oil that they stole from us. They didn't steal any oil from us. That's a complete lie. Venezuela is an oil rich country. They didn't steal anything. [00:01:22] Obviously, Trump is just throwing anything he can at the wall to justify a ridiculous war that we should not be involved in. Now, the he also writes that the illegitimate Maduro regime is using oil from the stolen oil fields to finance themselves drug terrorism, [00:01:40] human trafficking, murder and kidnaping. Can we just pause for a second? We are aiding and abetting a genocide in the Middle East right now. That's what we're funding. I don't think Trump has an ounce of morality, [00:01:56] and he certainly lives in a house made of glass and should not be throwing stones about what other countries are up to when we have been funding terrorist groups in the Middle East. We certainly did that in Syria recently, when we're providing the weapons [00:02:13] that have been dropped on the homes, the schools, the hospitals, refugee camps of the Palestinian people. We're aiding and abetting Israel as they're empowering settlers as they steal homes from Palestinians in the West Bank. Like, what are you even talking about? You want to talk about criminality? [00:02:31] Why don't we take a look at what we as the United States aid and abet on a daily basis? But let me continue with the rest of what he had to say. For the theft of our assets and many other reasons, including terrorism, drug smuggling and human trafficking, the Venezuelan regime has been designated [00:02:49] a foreign terrorist organization. I was led to believe that Trump was totally okay with human trafficking. I mean, he was looking out for his buddy Epstein, engaging in the cover up of the Epstein files. All of a sudden, Trump is worried about human trafficking. And of course, he's throwing anything he can at the wall to justify what's about [00:03:07] to happen, according to Tucker Carlson. Nonetheless, his conclusion was to announce that he is ordering a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela. [00:03:22] So let me just be clear that Trump might be surrounded by morons, but not everyone surrounding him is a moron. In fact, his chief of staff, Siouxsie Wiles, is actually a pretty smart and strategic woman. Now I feel that she enables Trump's worst tendencies. [00:03:40] But with that being said, during a recent interview with Vanity Fair, which was just published yesterday, she said, quote, he wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries. Uncle. Meaning this isn't about drug smuggling. [00:03:55] This isn't about human trafficking. This isn't about, you know, Trump's personal morality and wanting to hold Maduro accountable. This is about regime change. He wants Maduro gone. In Trump's first term, he tried on two separate occasions to overthrow Maduro [00:04:12] and install some guy named Juan Guaido. Dopey dude that no one had any interest in. He failed in his first term, but now he is using our resources. And when I say our resources, I'm talking about a country that's drowning in $38 trillion in debt to essentially carry out a regime change war, [00:04:33] because he's interested in the oil, too. That's the other part of this. That's a huge part of this. So last week, the Trump administration illegally seized a Venezuelan oil tanker. We covered that on this show. Well, his announcement on Truth Social makes it clear that he plans [00:04:49] to do a lot more of that. And the intention to stop Venezuela from being able to export oil, their main export. It's all meant to destroy their economy. And the people who really suffer in the end are normal, everyday civilians in Venezuela who didn't ask for any of this, who didn't do anything wrong. [00:05:08] But Trump doesn't care about them. He cares about them as much as he cares about the Palestinian lives that have been slaughtered by our special ally. So let me give you the details on that. Back in 2019, there was a study published in the center for Economic and Policy Research. [00:05:24] The authors were, Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs. By the way, Jeffrey Sachs is just a treasure. So if you come across one of his interviews on YouTube or anywhere else, please watch, because he's very knowledgeable about world events, wars, things like that, and he's just a wonderful person. [00:05:43] But with that in mind, his 2019 study looked into the impact of economic sanctions specifically on Venezuela. And here's what they found. It is important to emphasize that nearly all of the foreign exchange that is needed to import medicine, food, medical equipment, [00:05:58] spare parts and equipment needed for electricity generation, water systems, or transportation is received by the Venezuelan economy through the government's revenue from the export of oil. In fact, let me pause for a second and say that Venezuela, [00:06:18] its leaders at least did not make great decisions when it comes to their economy because they stopped manufacturing things kind of like us, but even worse on their end. And basically they import much of what they need. The only real thing they export is oil. [00:06:34] So when they were in a very severe inflationary period, it was due to the fact that oil prices dropped significantly and they had no choice but to import things because they're not manufacturing or making anything in Venezuela. You know, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but not by much. [00:06:51] And so I don't want to make this appear as though I'm defending what's happening in Venezuela. The point that I am trying to make is that we really have no business going to war with them. They are not a national security threat to the United States at all. You can have two thoughts in your mind at the same time. [00:07:09] You can be against Nicolas Maduro. You can be against their system of government. Whatever you think, I don't really care. But you could also be against going to war and risking the lives of our soldiers with Venezuela. Anyway, the study concludes that thus any sanctions that reduce export earnings [00:07:27] and therefore government revenue thereby reduce the imports of these essential and in many cases, life saving goods. But that's the point. That's what Trump is trying to do. He doesn't just want Maduro to cry, uncle. Oftentimes, when the federal government implements these types of sanctions, [00:07:45] it's meant to maybe spark an uprising, you know, unrest within the populace in Venezuela. Now, Trump also loves to say the quiet part out loud. And if you pay close attention to them, you can recall that back in June of 2023, [00:08:03] he said this. How about we're buying oil from Venezuela? When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over. We would have gotten all that oil. It would have been right next door. But now we're buying oil from Venezuela. So we're making a dictator very rich. [00:08:21] Can you believe this? So in the summer of 2023, he talks about how we shouldn't be buying oil from Venezuela. We should just take it. We should just take it. It gives you a sense of what his real motives are. And then a little less than a year later, Politico wrote a piece about his [00:08:38] April fundraising meeting with oil, with oil company executives. And here's what they wrote. Trump asked oil industry executives last month to donate $1 billion to aid his campaign to retake the white House. And what did they get in return? [00:08:54] Well, the oil industry executives had some specific asks, they wanted to end the Biden administration's pause on new natural gas export permits. Mission accomplished. Expansion on the number of offshore drilling lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. [00:09:10] Mission accomplished. Trump also promised to slash the Biden administration's tax credits for EVs. Mission accomplished. But clearly, that wasn't all they asked for. And $1 billion is a lot of money. So Trump wants that oil. He wants regime change. [00:09:28] It has nothing to do about solving the very real problems we're dealing with in this country as it pertains to drug trafficking and addiction, and fentanyl and meth are the two top targets that I wish our federal government was focusing on, but they're not. Finally, I want to end on a speech that Congressman Thomas Massie [00:09:48] gave on the House floor. Let's take a look. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America. [00:10:04] Let's be honest about likely outcomes. Do we truly believe that Nicolas Maduro will be replaced by a modern day George Washington? How did that work out in Cuba, Libya, Iraq or Syria? Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass [00:10:23] destruction that did not exist. Now it's the same playbook, except we're told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia, and the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez. [00:10:40] - This is about oil and regime change. - He's absolutely right. And while the oil companies that stand to benefit from this, from this war will certainly privatize their gains, they are planning to, you know, [00:10:57] socialize the losses. And the losses in this case could potentially be the loss of literal American soldiers human lives. It's wrong. And I'm happy to see a growing number of Republicans speaking out against it, [00:11:15] because it's all it's all a scam. It's not about helping us. It's not about solving some of our very real issues. It's about helping oil companies and overthrowing a leader that our government doesn't like. I think we've had enough of that. [00:11:30] 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.