01-03-26 The Weekend Hour 1: Tour the world through the eyes of Trump’s America First policy

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To night.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of talk.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Show host Michael Brown. Brownie, no, Brownie, You're doing a
heck of a job.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
The Weekend with Michael Brown. Hey broadcasting live from Denver, Colorado.
It's the Weekend of Michael Brown. Have you joined the
program today. It's good to be back in the saddle.
Two weeks off. Wow, haven't done two weeks off in ages.
It was glorious, But I'm glad to be back. Now.
You know the rules of engagement. Sure, I know you
haven't forgotten the rules of engagement because I tell you

(00:28):
I read text messages all the time, but I didn't
look at them for almost a week, maybe ten days.
So I look at him again this morning. And I
appreciate all of you that tuned in, listened to the
program last weekend, listened to the weekday program. I know
we everybody hates fill in hosts. I understand that I
filled in a few times for Jesse, Kelly and a
few other people. And I know that man's Jesse. I

(00:51):
w own. I well, I get it. I totally get it.
If you want to send me a text message, the
numbers three three ones zero three three to three zero
three keyword Mike or Michael. Tell me anything, ask me anything,
and then go follow follow me over on x formerly
Twitter and over there it's at Michael Brown USA, at
Michael Brown USA. So, of course, the thing that we

(01:14):
need to talk about first before we get to everything
else that happened over the past couple of weeks is
what happened last night. We I don't want to say invaded,
we snatched Nicholas Maduro out of Caracas. I get, I
get up this morning and I, you know, I don't

(01:35):
turn anything on because it's Saturday morning, and I'm just
getting you know, throwing some you know, stuff to go
walk the dogs. And I get in the car and
it's still on Fox News and I hear that Nicholas
Maduro is on his way to New York, and I'm like, why, why,
why is he on his way to New York? Why

(01:56):
have they reached a deal or what? No, no, no,
he's he's he's on a cargo plane, handcuff tied to
the bench, and they're taking him to New York for
a trial. He's been indicted, and it's it's simply amazing. Well,
get I'll get into the details. But my first thought
when I heard that we had captured Maduro was going

(02:21):
back to uh oh, what was it called? Operation Let
me think I've got an Operation just Cause? Operation just
Cause was a it was a really large scale US invasion.
It was he was truly an invasion that completely shattered
the armed forces in Panama. And we did that under

(02:44):
George H. W. Bush uh to get Nicholas or not
Nicholas Mdua, to get uh Manuel Norwega. The Maduro operation,
by contrast, was in everything I'm reading a precision decays
petition strike and they're framing it as a law enforcement
rate against the indicted narco terrorist. And I want to

(03:08):
give you this background about Operation just Cause before we
get to what happened last night, because I think some
perspective is good because without the perspective, here is what
you're primarily going to hear from uh well, the left,
Here's here's here's Rachel. I'm sorry, I'm just laughing because

(03:33):
every time I look at it, I should have made
a New Year's resolution, but I don't make New Year's resolutions,
but I should have made a new Year's resolution that
I was not going to laugh at liberal women like
Rachel Maddow, but you know the how it happens to everybody.

(03:54):
It happened to me too, that he may have happened
to you. Somewhere, someone takes a photograph as you're blinking
and you look like you're drug because your eyelids are
about halfway down, or you got some smirk on your
face or whatever. That moment, that split second nanosecond in
time is captured on film. And I'm just looking at
this video clip of Rachel Maddow and I'm sorry, just

(04:18):
it just makes me laugh. But she's really upset. Oh,
you've been following this all morning. What do you make
of this? A very, very big development in a month
long effort against Venezuela.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, I mean, I'm really interested to hear what the
President has to say in his remarks from the White
House that are planned for just a little under an
hour from now.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Ali, I feel like.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
In your heart hearts when you think about what the
United States just did, I think there are very few
Americans right now who have any idea why the United
States littleness? If this was about drug trafficking, then why
did President Trump just pardon the former president of Honduras?
Who was convicted of sending hundreds of ton of drugs

(05:00):
into the United States. If this was about something about
the illegitimacy of Maduro's election, well that's something that the
US is, you know, decrying any other country policing. We
just sanctioned Brazil for having tried to protect itself from
a coup by its former president, jay O Polsonio. I mean,
if it's about gangs, we had the president of Valsalvador,

(05:22):
who is believed by US law enforcement to be very
linked with the notorious gang MS thirteen, which has caused
incredible damage in the hemisphere, including in the United States.
He's invited into the Oval office, and the president says
that he's looking forward to sending homegrown Americans to that
president's essentially you know, jungle concentration camps.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
So all of the purported.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Explanations for what's happened here don't stand up to logical scrutiny.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
But they do. But you have to get out of
your bubble to understand that, and to get out of
your bubble, you have to understand you have to go
back to President Monroe and the Monroe doctrine, and you
have to go even beyond that and understand that this
is part of the America First strategy to first protect

(06:13):
our front yard and our backyard the Western hemisphere. And
this is why one reason why Trump's doing it, But
there are many reasons why Trump is doing this, and
we'll get into those in just a minute. But this
is what you're going to hear from everybody who does

(06:34):
not have the same worldview that Donald Trump does. And
I'm not shocked by that. I'm not surprised by that.
I just accept that as the reality within which we
have to deal because Trump's vision is that we understand
there's you know, Europe is going down the crap hole,
and the Russian Ukraine War is now a war of attrition.

(06:58):
Vladimir Putin is probably not going to do anything in
terms of peace, so that's going to continue on and
on and on, and the mass migration into Europe is
going to continue their GDPs or continue to decrease, so
that part of the world will probably continue to deteriorate.
The Middle East. He understands that the Abraham Accurts are

(07:21):
the seeds for really bringing long term stability in peace
to the Middle East, which is good for us economically,
which is good for our national security, and that if
the Iranian regime can eventually fall because of our blowing
up their nuclear weapon sites, then in the long term,
that's good for that part of the country. So boom lambam,

(07:44):
thank you, ma'am. Go in blow up those new facilities
in Iran and give it time to let it percolate.
And you see what's going in Iran right now with
all of the riots and every province, every single province
in Iran right now has protests all shouting death to
the Shaw and death to the Molus. Now why do

(08:06):
I say death to the Shaw Because the people, the
Iranian people, don't want to go back to dictator rule.
They want to go back to be a thriving democratic
republic like they were at one time prior to the
Shaw taking over and then prior to the Shaw being
deposed and the Iyatolas taking over the Molas. So there
is a there's a revolution going on in Iran right now.

(08:29):
And you notice that as that goes on, everybody the
Milise is just kind of staying quiet because the Saudis
even cutter Kuwait, the Immordis they all understand that the
problem that they every other country in the Middle East
has stems from Tehran, and Trump has led the match

(08:54):
to solve those problems. And all he did was with
some stealth bombers that went over and blew crap out
of their nuke facilities, and that started what we're seeing now.
And I think he's probably with the after the meeting
with Net and Yahoo this past week, he's probably given
Net and Yahoo the green light to do what you
need to do to foment that revolution and perhaps overthrow

(09:17):
the Moullas, which will be a good thing. And you
noticed that Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis and Cutter and
Kuwait and everybody else is remaining quiet because they don't
want to say anything publicly. But they're sitting back there
with their fingers crossed, thinking, oh, we hope this really occurs.
And then let's go to Asia, which we'll do after
the break. It's the Weekend with Michael Brown. Text lines

(09:39):
open three three, one zero three, keyword Mike or Michael.
Let's keep building our perspective about what happened last night.
I'll be right back. Welcome back to the Weekend with
Michael Brown. Glad to have you tuning in. It's good
to be back in the saddle again. We're talking about
the breaking news from overnight of the capture of Nicholas

(10:02):
Maduro and what that means in terms of Trump's vision.
Trump's worldview, his vision for America First, and part of
America First. You can divide into both domestic and international perspectives.
And I want to go through the international perspective first,
because I think most Americans really understand what America First

(10:24):
means in terms of domestic policies, lower taxes, smaller government,
less regulation, blah blah blah, all of those things that
you know conservatives generally advocate for. But many people miss
the larger worldview of what America First means and they
cannot they cannot reconcile in their mind that if this

(10:46):
is an administration that is opposed to regime change, that
doesn't want to get engaged in forever wars, then why
do we did what we did here? Well, let's go
back and let's let's keep keep dividing the world up.
And I started with Europe and I said that Europe
is going down the crap hole, and and indeed it is.

(11:09):
But Trump has given them the roadmap for what they
need to do. If they want to stop that, they
need to stop the mass migration of all the illegal
immigrants coming in from you know, Africa, the Middle East
and everywhere else. They've got to stop that. They need
to deport them. And they've got to spend more of
their money on the more of their gross domestic product

(11:30):
on their own defense as opposed to the United States
providing you know, ninety nine of the support for NATO.
And they also have got to get rid of their
Green New Deal bull crap that they do, because obviously,
you know, if if you want, if you want to
grow and prosper you have to have cheap and abundant energy.

(11:52):
And we know that all this green energy cannot provide
cheap and abundant and reliable energy. So he's given them
the roadmap for what they need to do. So that's Europe.
That's that part of the world. But now let's go
south of there. Same thing is true in Africa. He's

(12:15):
trying to push back on the Chinese influence in Africa
by trying to make trade deals with certain countries, including
perhaps recognizing Somaliland that we might talk about that today
or later. So he's dressing in in Africa all of
which helped support us and our technological growth because of
all the rare earth minerals that they have. Plus he's

(12:37):
really tired of the killing of Christians throughout Africa. Now
let's go to the Middle East. In the Middle East,
he knew that when after October seventh, in the attack
on the Israelis the worst since the whole Holocaust, that
he had to do something to help Net and Yahoo
clean up Gaza and the Hamas and Hesbelah on the

(13:00):
border of Lebanon Hamas in Gaza, So he took the
stealth bombers and blew the crap out of the Uranian
nuke facilities. That was one tactical maneuver that had an
erwhich I which you remember this because this is going
to apply when we finally get over to Venezuela. That

(13:22):
one tactical maneuver had a long term strategic purpose, and
that was to upset the Mollah's regime in Iran, so
that if the people chose to rise up, they could
and they might foment enough revolution that that would top

(13:43):
of the Molas present another shawl from taking over and
return Iran A to a Western civilized like country. With
you know, free and fair elections, representative government, all of
those things that would want. Oh, you'd still have the
monarchies in Saudi Arabia at all, but that would bring

(14:06):
peace to Israel, and that's what the Saudis want. Now. Eventually,
I believe signed the Abraham Accords along with the others,
and suddenly that area of the world will be peaceful,
which is good for us because we no longer have
to worry about that blowing up into a nuclear holocaust,

(14:27):
and it helps us. Also helps us in the entire
world get even more cheap, reliable and abundant energy from
the Middle East, so that transformation is taking place there.
That is part of America first, because that means less
reliance on Russian oil, which might help eventually stop the

(14:49):
war between Russia and Ukraine. Before I leave that part
of the world. One last thing about Russia and Ukraine.
I think Trump is going to have to sooner rather
than later, impose severe sanctions on Russia because there is
beginning to boil up in many of the oblasts in Russia,

(15:12):
a lot of dissent and a lot of unrest and
unease among normal Russians about this war. Oh, if you
listen to state run media in which is like listening
to NBC or CBSRA ABC. If you listen to state
run media out of Moscow, Oh, the public supports it.
But if you listen to the reporters that are freelancing

(15:33):
in Russia, you'll find out that people are beginning to
get upset. All of our boys are being killed, We're
losing millions of people, and the economies in tatters. And
Trump wants to stop that war by putting pressure on Putin.
And one of the things he'd like to do because
Russia has vast amounts of natural resources that would be

(15:55):
good for us if we could eventually have access to
those natural resources, and frankly, based on my experience in Russia,
it would be a good place to do business. So
he wants to bring that war to an end. And
he's got to somehow get Putent to the negotiating table
to really bring the war to an end. And he

(16:16):
may do that with severe sanctions. I think he has
to do it with severe sanctions that would help solve
that problem in the world. Again, redoubts back to the
benefit of an America First policy. Now let's go instead
of going to South America. Next, let's go to Asia.
China's Yes, China is the existential threat to this country.

(16:40):
But China is really a conundrum, and China is really
in a dilemma because China depends upon trade. Now I
set aside for a moment. We know they steal ip
intellectual property. We know that they're communists, We know that
they are human rights abusers, you know, extraordinary. We know

(17:02):
that they're the Chinese Communist Party is awful. And we
know they have their eyes on Taiwan. So Trump's trying
to juggle two things. We still need some stuff out
of China, we still need them as a trading partner,
but we don't want them invading Taiwan because if they
if they invade Taiwan. Now, let let me make something

(17:23):
else clear before I talk more about Taiwan. The People's
Republic Army, the pr a Chin of communist China. The
generals don't want to invade Taiwan. Shi Jing Ping does
for similar reasons that Vladimir Putin wants to take over Ukraine.
It's part of their destiny. But an invasion of Taiwan

(17:48):
is fraught with dangers for Beijing. So Trump's taking actions
to push she back to keep him from doing that.
And that's again part of America First TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Corporation. Yeah, we depend on that company. I'll be

(18:08):
right back.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Too night.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of talk.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Show host Michael Brown. Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing a
heck of a job the Weekend with Michael Brown.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Hey, welcome back to the Beacon with Michael Brown. Glad
to have you with me. I appreciate you tuning in.
I kind of thought just to give you a little
perspective of what I had. There was a story today
in the Wall Street Journal that I was going to
start off with and it's just kind of a way
to kind of ease back into the program and ease
back into work. But oh no, instead Trump has to
go out and snatch Nicholas Maduro out of Caracas in

(18:50):
an amazing tactical success. And so it's completely changed what
I'm talking about today, and then because of the Left
and how their reaction is without even stopping to think
about what does this mean, why is he doing it,

(19:12):
what are the ramifications of it, what's the long term
strategy here? It's just instantaneously anti Trump. It's just the
Trump derangement syndrome just just oozes with them. It's like,
if you want to talk about a pandemic, Well, we
really ought to do is isolate everybody has TDS because
they're clear they clearly can't think. And Rachel Maddow that

(19:34):
I played in that last segment really is an example
of that. She just can't see beyond her hatred of
Trump what the big picture is. And I know I'm
a little biased, but I also think I'm a little
objective because having served at that level of the government,
I kind of understand exactly what strategic decisions are made
and why they're made. And in this case, I think

(19:55):
Trump is fulfilling his America First promise, and part of
that is let's stabilize and reorder the world order, and
let's get America back on top. And let's make America
again the superpower. Because the more powerful we are militarily
and economically, the quieter the rest of the world will be.

(20:16):
And what's more America First than that, because that allows
us to freely trade with anybody we want to on
our terms that help American consumers, that help American businesses.
He's trying to reindustrialize the country, bring things back into
this country, and is somewhat succeeding in that. And you
have to think after you know, since FDR and the

(20:39):
New Deal, it's going to take a while to accomplish that.
So we've been through Europe, we've been through Western Asia
and Russia. We've been through Africa, we've been through the
Middle East, and I wanted to move over to the
to the Indo Pacific, and we were talking about China
and Chiging Ping's efforts to invade Taiwan. Is generals in

(21:02):
the army that he's trying to purge and has been purging.
Some don't want to invade Taiwan because they see it
as a lose lose situation. You can ask any military
expert that the invasion of Taiwan will be a lot
more difficult than the that Hi Genping thinks it will be.
And the most likely scenario is in two given points

(21:26):
of time through a calendar year, when they can cross
the straits of Taiwan and try to invade it with
a normandy like invasion, which should be a complete disaster.
But the other thing that I think most Americans don't
understand TSMC. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation TSMC is I think

(21:49):
the largest, it's certainly the most prominent chip maker in
the entire world. They make the chips that are in
every freaking thing that'll we use. You're refriger your ev
your laptop, your phone, everything that's got some sort of
you know, computer to electronics in it, there's probably a

(22:09):
chip from TSMC in there. Well. One thing that Trump
started initially was let's get tsmcs to start building fabs
in this country. So TSMC is currently in the process
of building billion dollar chip manufacturing facilities outside Phoenix, Arizona,
which is great and I'd like to see even more

(22:31):
of that happen in this country. But TSMC in Taipei,
Taian and other places in Taiwan are still essential to
that company's overall survival. There is a company, and I
forget whether it's out of the Netherlands or Germany. I
think it's the Netherlands that has designed a program that

(22:53):
if China invades Taiwan, that it's almost like a kill switch.
You just go over here to this little light switch
and flip it on and it completely destroys all of
the intellectual property, all of the manufacturing facilities. It just
you know how you can take an iPhone and if

(23:13):
you lose your iPhone or get stolen, you can brick it.
You can turn it into a completely useless piece of metal.
That's what this company in the Netherlands has designed for TSMC,
so that if China invades Boom, they just brick the
entire production facility, including all the all of the IP
that goes along with that. So China is not going

(23:34):
to get what it wants. Of course, they also want
Taiwan for reasons other than just TSMC. But what's Trump doing,
and this is why we're going to eventually get to Venezuela.
Trump just, i want to say, in the past few
months authorize and is in the process of the largest

(23:56):
arms deal with Taiwan in the history of our two countries.
So our national strategy of strategic ambiguity is offset by yeah, okay,
we really don't say whether we would support Taiwan or not.
But don't look at this hand that says, you know,

(24:16):
here strategic ambiguity, because over here, on the other hand,
we're selling them more craft than you can possibly imagine,
so they can defend themselves at the same time that
we're doing that. Japan. Now, if you look at a map,
you'll see that there are Japanese islands. I forget the

(24:37):
name of them, I'm sorry, but they go all the
way down and just within a couple hundred miles of Taiwan. Now,
if China tries to embargo Taiwan, that affects Japanese citizens.
Some of the islands are uninhabited, some are, but nonetheless,
there is a defense agreement between Japan and Taiwan. So

(25:00):
an invasion by China of Taiwan's going to draw in Japan,
and we have a defense treaty with Japan, so we're
going to get drawn into that, as is South Korea,
and of course so is Australia and New Zealand and
the Philippines because they all have national security interest in
the region also, so they're going to come to the
defense of Taiwan. So that's reordering and putting off. You know,

(25:24):
every time every I just laugh every time that Trump says,
you know, you know, President she and I have a
great relationship. Yeah you do, and you're patting him on
the back. At the same time that over here, you're
telling President Lee in Taiwan and the Prime Minister of Japan,
what can I do to help you so you can
defend yourselves against this guy that I've got a great
relationship with. It's it truly is four dimensional chess. And

(25:50):
if he succeeds in the Indo Pacific, which I think
is the most threat to us right now, then that
takes it off the table. That means that, oh, it
stabilizes that, and it keeps China at bay. Remember, China
needs us, not because they own some of our debt,

(26:10):
which they do, they've sloughed off most of it. But
they need us because we're a consumer economy, just as
they need Europe, just as they need all these countries
that they sell they're cheap Chinese crap to so they
need that trade to continue. An invasion of Taiwan would
disrupt that and Trump understands that, so he's playing both

(26:33):
hands in the Indo Pacific. Plus that strengthens US and
protects us now because if you think about everything I
described about Europe in the Middle East and Africa, that
protects us on that side of the world. And now
he's maneuvering to protect us on the Pacific side of
the world, which now brings us to South America. The

(26:57):
Monroe doctrine said, the way to protect America is to
protect the western hemisphere, to protect North and South America
from its enemies, and the Monroe drop. The Monroe doctrine
is being revived in terms of what I would call

(27:20):
the Trump doctrine if he believes the same thing. If
we can protect North America, South America, and we can
preserve that that's also America first, because oh, you don't
think about raspberries or bananas or coffee or all the
other things that we get, or the trade that goes

(27:40):
through the Panama Canal. You don't think about how vital
South American Central America is to us, or you never
think about something that I had to think about a
lot when I was the undersecretary, and that is Mexico.
What happens if Mexico suddenly becomes a failed state, it

(28:00):
becomes a narco state, which I think is pretty much
is close to that now. Anyway, Well, that's bad for
us because that means we have to be extraordinarily vigilant
on the southern border to prevent another invasion of illegal aliens.
So if Mexico fails, that's bad for us. And remember
Mexico is most Americans think of Mexico is just a

(28:24):
great place to go on vacation. What they don't realize
is that Mexico is also natural resource rich. They have
a lot of things, including oil, that we could also use.
So he's trying to and then South America the same thing.
Venezuelan particular oil, Cuba, Cuba, Russia, China all combined together

(28:52):
to essentially put our enemies ninety miles south of Key West,
ninety miles south from Monroe County, Florida. And what Trump
has done in Venezuela is probably, in my opinion, maybe
not tomorrow, but maybe even in a few months. Let's
see this is I would say by springtime, we might

(29:15):
see the communist regime. We might see Raul Castro, a
senile old fart, actually lose power in Cuba, and Cuba
suddenly becomes the Cuba that it was of the nineteen fifties.
And you'll see Marriott and Hyatt in the four seasons.
You'll see the cruise ships, You'll see all the tourism

(29:35):
industry just run into Cuba, and it will turn into
a flourishing economy, and it will push out the Russians,
it'll push out the Chinese. So that gets us to Venezuela.
And before we get to Venezuela, let's go back to

(29:56):
where I started, which was with Operation Cause. Operation Just
Cause launched on December twentieth, nineteen eighty nine. What was
it that's next? I'll be right back, hey, So we

(30:17):
became with Michael Brown. Thanks for tuning in. It's good
to be back in the saddle. Text line, of course,
has always open the number three three Wednesday erroll three.
Use the keyword Micha or Michael go follow me on
x formerly Twitter. It's at Michael Brown USA. So Operation
Just Caused December twentieth, nineteen eighty nine. The objective of
that operation by President George HW. Bush Bush forty one

(30:39):
was removing General Manuel Noriego, but also because he was
under indictment for crimes. But it also had a subset
of purposes, one to protect the Panama Canal and two
to restore a US recognized democratic government in Panama. It

(31:02):
was at the time the largest and most complex US
combat operation since Vietnam. Roughly twenty four to twenty seven
thousand troops attacked multiple targets across Panama in just a
matter of hours. Now the state of goals safeguarding American
citizens ensure continued freedom of transit through the Panama Canal,

(31:25):
neutralizing the Panamanian Defense Forces, capturing Noriega, and installing President
elect Guerrimo and Derra, whose election Noriega had nullified any
This kind of sound familiar. If it does it, you're
not paying attention. Now. That operation quickly overwhelmed the Panamanian

(31:49):
Defense Forces, and it toppled Noriega's regime, and Indara was
sworn in on a US base as the new US
back civilian president. US Airborne Air Assault Special Ops all
those units hit more than two dozen targets on what
you could call a D day. It ranged from the

(32:10):
defense headquarters and their barracks, their airfields and their calm centers.
There was fighting in urban neighborhoods, notably around Panama City,
and it really produced intense destruction and loss of life
because American paratroopers, armor and gunships actually engaged Panamanian forces

(32:30):
in dense civilian areas. Now, the estimates of the Panamanian
casualties vary mainstream media sites, roughly two to three hundred
Panamanian defense forces and more than three in civilians killed.
Human rights groups and some Panamanian sources argued that the

(32:51):
civilian toll may have reached into the high hundreds or
even more. On our side, twenty three US troops will
report had killed hundreds wounded. Now, legally Washington justified or
Bush justified. The administration justified the invasion on grounds of
protecting US nationals, defending treaty right, treaty rights that we

(33:15):
had with the canal, combating drug trafficking, and responding to
nor Ye as a noment of elections. Now, critics to
see if this sounds from the here, Oh wait a minute,
that's a violation of international law. That's a violation of
Panamanian sovereignty. History repeats itself, and if you stick around

(33:39):
long enough, it not only rhymes, but it's like, oh,
this is just a uh, this is just another version.
This is just a remake of Star Wars one. This
is Star Wars twenty two. So even though nor Ye
and I want you to think here, here's what I
want you to just I described this as I described

(34:04):
the operation. I want you to think about what you're
hearing today about the operation in Venezuela, because there are
so many similarities, and over time, if we stick to
our guns, no pun intended, we can have similar outcomes.

(34:25):
Now overthrowing Manuel Noriega pimple faced Norjega. That was the
explicit goal, but the initial assault didn't initially capture him.
He evaded capture for days. He was moving between safehouses.
He then sought refuge. Some of eule Farts might remember this.

(34:45):
He ran to the Vatican embassy in Panama City. So
American forces surrounded the compound, surrounded the embassy, subjected it
to intense psychological operations like loud music, and they finally
took Noriega into custody of on January three, nineteen ninety,
when he finally just gave up. He was flown to
this country stood trial in drug trafficking, rocketeering, money laundering,

(35:09):
and I think other charges. He had been indicted back
in nineteen eighty eight. This was in two thousand, and
the courts ultimately upheld jurisdiction over the case, despite his
defense lawyers arguing about sovereignty, prisoner of war status, the
legality of a seizure blah blah blah blah blah. In effect,

(35:31):
Loriego was treated less as a head of state with
immunity and treated more as a criminal defendant whose narcotics
activities were having a direct effect in this country. Hmmm,
sounds familiar, doesn't it now. The maneial operation obviously differs

(35:52):
in scale, but it mirrors the just cause operation in
its core intent remove a hostile leader it's been indicted
in drug charges, physically bring him into the United States jurisdiction.
He's on his way to New York. So the US
launches a large scale air missiless strike on Venezuela, hits

(36:15):
air defenses, command facilities, regime linked sites. At the time
that they're doing that, which is to neutralize the military.
A special option unit reported to be Delta Force conducted
the raid that seized Maduro and his wife, Celia Flues.
Here's what I want you to know before we take

(36:36):
a break. The legal and the political foundation was set
in March of twenty twenty. Who was the president In
March of twenty oh yeah, Joe Biden a US indictment
accusing Madua of narco terrorism, cocaine trafficking in concert with

(36:58):
Columbia's FARC, which is a terrorist designated organization been for years,
and leadership of the Cartel de la so less another
foreign terrarist organization. Yes, started with Biden, not Trump. Trump
just finished it. I'll be right back.