November 19, 2025 • 42 mins
Is Donald Trump preparing to take the U.S. to war with Venezuela? What is his gunboat diplomacy really aiming to accomplish and what could it mean for Maduro’s presidency? And as tensions hit a boiling point, a few days ago, America’s largest aircraft carrier was ominously sent to the region.In today’s episode, Matt Frei speaks with America’s former U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams to break down the motives, the risks, and the potential fallout.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Right now, what the US is doing is hitting, you know, a boat
here, a boat there. I don't think that'll do it.
I think you need to hit Venezuela itself for the
military to think, OK, the game's really over.
Maduro is going down. I don't want to go with them.
Hello and welcome to this edition of Trump World.
(00:21):
I'm Matt Fry in Washington. And I'm Anishka Astana in
Trinidad and Tobago. I'm not just here for the
sunshine. I'll explain why I'm here in a
minute, but I just wanted to encourage you to subscribe if
you're enjoying this show. Trump World.
And if you do or even if you don't, but especially if you do,
you will find out what we're speaking about this week, and
(00:41):
that is the extraordinary gunship diplomacy happening off
the coast of Venezuela courtesy of the American Navy.
Now, while we've been focusing on trade tariffs and Epstein and
all these other things, there's been this build up of American
military force off the coast of Venezuela.
And the question is, is this gunship diplomacy, if it's
(01:02):
diplomacy at all, designed to get rid of the regime, The
President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, something that Trump
tried to do in his first term, but this time around, he's using
military force or the threat of it.
And he's very motivated by his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio,
for whom this is a pet project. The reason I'm in Trinidad and
(01:22):
Tobago is we can't actually get into Venezuela right now.
Access for journalists is very, very restricted.
Trinidad and Tobago is Venezuela's closest neighbor on
the Caribbean side. I actually got on a boat staying
very close to shore in a safe place and went as close as I
could. And you could really see how
close Venezuela was just 7 milesacross the water.
(01:44):
And the reason I'm here is that all of this is having a huge,
huge impact on Trinidad and Tobago.
The Prime Minister here, too much anger across the country is
supporting what Donald Trump is doing.
But we've got a situation where there are literally bodies
washing up onto the shores of Trinidad and Tobago.
Trinidadian nationals have been killed by these strikes.
(02:06):
We have the 21st strike on a boat on Saturday.
I think there are 83 people who have now died as a result of
that. People very, very clear to me
that this is a breach of international law.
America isn't part of the International Criminal Court,
but Trinidad and Tobago and the UK are, and there's implications
for that which we will come to when we discuss this.
(02:28):
It has been a really fascinatingfew days talking to people here.
And the reason why people are watching what America is doing,
what Trump is doing with Venezuela very closely, is 1
Venezuela, believe it or not, has the the biggest oil reserves
on the planet of any country bigger than Saudi Arabia.
It is also the second biggest, has the second biggest reserves
(02:48):
of natural gas in the Western Hemisphere.
So it's stuffed with natural resources, something that Donald
Trump would love to get its hands on.
But also this idea of regime change, either through limited
force or a threat of force or perhaps even boots on the
ground, which Donald Trump has said is a possibility.
That is something that people are watching very closely
because it set a a precedent forother actions around the region
(03:11):
or indeed across the world. We're going to speak to Elliott
Abrams a little bit later. He was the Venezuela envoy in
the first Trump administration. He knows a lot about the
country. He knows a lot about Trump's
motives. And we'll try and find out from
him what is actually going on and how this is different to
what they tried to do in the first Trump administration.
But let's just see what Trump 2 point O had to say about
(03:33):
Venezuela. Is there anything you're?
Ready to rule out at this point,Are you ruling out?
U.S. troops on the ground. I don't rule out that.
I don't rule out anything. In these.
Talks with. Maduro, is there anything that
he could? Say or do that would let allow
you to feel like he could stay with your support.
Is there anything that he could say that you would be OK you can
(03:56):
stay as leader? Yeah, the question's a little
bit tricky. I don't think it was meant to be
tricky. It's just that, look, he's done
tremendous damage to our country, primarily because of
drugs, but really because we have that problem with other
countries too. But more than any other country,
the release of prisoners into our country has been a disaster.
(04:17):
He's emptied his Shields. Others have done that also.
Obviously we've been hearing responses from Nicolas Maduro
himself. He has described the strikes in
the sea as serial executions. Actually, there are even some
Republicans in Congress who agree with him that these are
extrajudicial killings. He did this slightly bizarre
(04:40):
thing this weekend when he was talking about this, he suddenly
broke out into a peace song, John Lennon's Imagine.
And Look, clearly, there are bigquestions about Nicolas Maduro's
regime. He is widely considered to have
stolen last year's election. He lost to an opposition leader
who was later given the Nobel Peace Prize.
But he still carried on and seized control of the country.
(05:03):
But massive questions about whatAmerica is claiming is going on
here. They're claiming that by
striking these boats in the Caribbean Sea that they are
trying to stop fentanyl getting into the US.
It's very, very clear from just spending a few days here that
this is not fentanyl that's coming through this particular
(05:24):
route. And many of the drugs are
actually going onto Europe and not going to the US.
He's claimed that Maduro has emptied his jails to let
immigrants come through to the US Obviously, there's a lot
going on here. Matt, you've already mentioned
oil. Tell us what you think.
Why do you think Trump hates Nicolas Maduro so much?
(05:47):
I think we have to go back even a little bit before Trump
because Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, who was the the the
elected, repeatedly elected president of Venezuela, who then
became also a strong man who wasthe predecessor to Nicolas
Maduro, the current president, who was Hugo Chavez's vice
president. Even when Chavez was in charge,
(06:07):
America was very unhappy with Venezuela because Venezuela
became a sort of larger, newer Cuba off, you know, in the
Caribbean, not far from the United States, very much in
America's backyard. He was completely over the top,
unbelievably engaging and hated by successive American
administrations. And he was in charge from 1999
(06:29):
to 2013 when he died, hated because he was the thorn in
America's side. And I remember going to his
funeral in Caracas and the lineswere extraordinary because this
man had promised to lift very large numbers of people who were
living in the the slums around the city of Caracas, which is
potentially a very beautiful place, lift them out of poverty
(06:52):
and give them at least a chance of participating in the oil
riches of Venezuela, which are extraordinary.
This is the country that has big, as I said earlier, bigger
oil reserves stuffed in its ground than Saudi Arabia, the
second biggest gas reserves, natural gas reserves in the
Western Hemisphere. The money that can be made there
is extraordinary. Now, as you said, Maduro is a
(07:14):
dictator. He's he literally stole the last
election. There's just no doubt about it.
Even people quite close to him. As someone admitting, yeah, it
was a bit dodgy and it was a result of that stolen election
contested by a woman called Maria Corina Machado, who won
the Nobel Peace Prize this year.Not Trump, of course, that, you
know, we. So you have sort of three boxes
(07:36):
that are being ticked yet. But box number one, this woman
Machado, who could be running Venezuela, and this is someone
that Trump has congratulated about her Peace Prize.
He's working very closely with her.
She is bought totally into the Trump agenda box #2 you've got
all these natural resources thatTrump was actually very close to
getting his hands on in a deal concocted earlier this year
(07:58):
whereby Venezuela would have literally handed over its entire
natural resources wealth to the United States in even more than
Ukraine was going to do in its minerals deal.
And the third box is that they are highly motivated.
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, is really going after the
Venezuelan regime. I just.
Want to kind of rewind for a minute and try and explain how
(08:20):
Donald Trump is selling this because he's not selling it as
Matt has, just as you have just basically set out.
He's selling it with what soundslike an America First policy.
And many believe that Marco Rubio basically persuaded Donald
Trump because he wants regime change in Venezuela, that it
could be sold in this way. And he's selling it, as, you
(08:42):
know, an operation they're calling it, they've just named
it actually Operation Southern Sphere that will save American
lives. In fact, he argues that every
strike on a boat will save 25,000 American lives.
And you? Fentanyl, right?
Because of fentanyl, Yeah, Although he's, as of yesterday,
I think, started to mention cocaine as well.
But you have to go back to day one of the Trump presidency to
(09:03):
understand what's going on here,because on day one, Donald Trump
signed loads of executive orders, more than anyone had
ever done before On day one of the presidency.
One of them basically designateddrug cartels as foreign
terrorist organizations. And so the idea was that from
that day on, they would treat these organizations a bit like
(09:24):
they treated al Qaeda in the past, IE they could go out there
and they could bomb them out of the skies.
I mean, it's not even got as much oversight as when they went
after al Qaeda because at least when they went after al Qaeda,
A, there had been a kind of military type attack on the US.
And secondly, they got permission from Congress this
time. No, he doesn't bother with
(09:45):
Congress. He just goes ahead.
Now, all of that provided A justification to start bombing
on September the 2nd. And they started striking boat
after boat after boat that was coming from Venezuela.
And look, it is fascinating to be here on the ground in
Trinidad and Tobago. It's only 7 miles away by water.
Boats are coming content continuously across from
(10:07):
Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobagoand I should say without a
shadow of a doubt there is a bigdrug smuggling problem here.
But speaking to people and one of those peoples was a member of
Trinidad's defence forces, he could only talk to me on
condition of anonymity, but he made really clear to me that
it's not fentanyl coming throughhere.
(10:29):
What type of drugs are on the boats?
The. Drugs that mostly include a
green plant, like substance. Marijuana.
Yeah, marijuana. There are lessons and says where
a white pottery substance is found.
Cocaine. Cocaine this.
Isn't really a route for fentanyl.
Not particularly he. Warned the strikes clearly
breached international law do you believe that the boats that
(10:50):
have been struck had drug dealers on them I.
Would like to believe that if a decision was taken to strike
vessels, that decision was basedon sound reliable intelligence
for someone to then decide OK, we are 100% certain.
Do you believe they were 100% certain?
I don't think so. And what one thing that is
(11:11):
really, really interesting and it's really challenging for
Trinidad and Tobago, where the Prime Minister has basically
given Trump the green light. But it's also quite challenging
to the UK. And I've speak been speaking to
like military sources, intelligence sources and also
legal sources about all of this,which is America may not be a
member of the International Criminal Court, but we are.
(11:33):
And if Trinidad more likely actually than the UK provide
intelligence that goes along theline and ends up with one of
these strikes, then they become part of what is known as the
kill chain. And if you are in the kill
chain, then you are liable for what happens at the end of it.
So if we provide intelligence that ends up with a strike,
(11:54):
which I can promise you the UK and Trinidad and Tobago consider
to be unlawful in international law, then you end up liable with
the ICC. Now, there were reports that the
UK was therefore withholding intelligence.
The sources I speak to suggest that we don't have the
intelligence that's really leading to these strikes.
So as yet it's not really an issue for us, but clearly our
(12:18):
government is monitoring this very closely.
People here in Trinidad are really quite worried about the
impact that this could have for them, the knock on effect if
they're providing the US with this intelligence.
And of course, the question really is what do they actually
intend to do in Caracas? That's I'm talking about the
Americans here. And how do they intend to do it?
(12:38):
So the impression is that yes, they want regime change, they
want to get rid of Nicolas Maduro, having actually tried to
do a deal with him along these natural resources earlier in the
year. But how's that going to work?
Because America has a very dodgyrecord with regime change all
over the world, but also in Latin America.
It doesn't tend to go very smoothly with a great outcome
(12:59):
for either side. And when you compare, let's say,
Venezuela to Panama, where they did this in the late 1980s,
Panama is a much smaller country.
Venezuela is 10 times the size. They had thousands of troops
inside Panama. I'm not sure what Trump is
prepared to do with that. And even with a relatively
limited operation like Panama, where they ended up capturing
(13:22):
Manuel Noriega, partly because they he'd taken refuge in the in
the ambassador's residence of the Holy See.
And they blasted the residence with heavy metal music for 10
days. They they captured him.
They put him on trial in Miami. He, he basically died in
custody. But even in that clever, limited
military operation, America lostsomething like 240 soldiers or
(13:43):
so. Is Trump prepared to put boots
on the ground in Venezuela, which is a much more tricky
proposition? He hasn't said so, but he hasn't
ruled it out either. And if you just have this
pressure on the outside, remember that the Venezuelan
regime has been living with American pressure for years.
I mean, they tried something similar in a less concentrated,
focused form in the first Trump administration.
(14:05):
And even before that, Barack Obama wasn't exactly a friend of
of the the Maduro government after he came into office in
2013. And of course it's Venezuela is
not alone. It has friends, you know, the
Chinese are its friends. The Russians have have got
involvement there. You've got I think the N Koreans
knocking around a little bit. I mean, they the Iranians as
(14:27):
well. So they are still part of that,
what the Americans used to describe as the axis of evil.
I don't think this is quite the flashpoint that the Cuban
missile crisis was in the 1960s.I I can't imagine that we would
go that far, but it's not entirely without consequences
for the region. And the question always in risk
is, isn't it, how far is Trump prepared to go in order to take,
(14:52):
you know, to, to, to achieve hisgoals?
Is he how far is he prepared to take these risks?
One other aside, Hugo Chavez, who was this extraordinary
figure who I described earlier in some ways is rather similar
to Trump, because he used to have this program on Venezuelan
state television called Alo Presidente went out on Sunday
night. It was open-ended.
(15:13):
And he used to have to the the cabinet used to have to turn up.
And then there was a live audience and they used to have
to listen to Chavez weave in andout of one subject after
another. And he would read the papers and
kind of leaf through the papers.And then he'd lose his place.
And everyone just had to watch as this guy was, was, you know,
bloviating and, and, and speculating and just boring the
(15:37):
country to tears with his thoughts.
And I have to say, that does remind me a little bit of Donald
Trump's sort of cabinet meetingsor Oval Office gaggles where
everyone just hangs on to every word and they just go on and on
and on. Donald Trump has got a domestic
problem right now, and part of the domestic problem comes from
(16:01):
him focusing so much on foreign conflicts around the world.
I mean, he's fallen out in greatstyle with Marjorie Taylor
Green, who is the kind of ultimate you mean.
Marjorie Traitor Green Marjorie Traitor Green I.
Mean, that's what he's calling her.
You know, she was, she, she is arepresentative who was about as
MAGA as they come. She was a huge supporter of his,
(16:22):
but she started to break away from him on various issues.
Most obvious one, the release ofthe Epstein files.
They have had a complete fireworks fallout.
But I keep noting that one of the things she keeps saying is
you're focusing on foreign policy when actually Americans
are struggling. We've seen the Democrats do
really well in recent elections because of economic situations.
But there is clearly a desire for a very big geopolitical
(16:46):
shift in South America. I mean, if you listen to experts
on this, that the kind of narrative behind it, if you
like, is that America wants to have more dominance in the
Western Hemisphere. We've seen them, you know,
offering plenty of money to friendly governments like Miley
in Argentina, whilst they are trying to pressure the more left
(17:07):
wing socialist governments like Nicolas Maduro.
It is interesting because as we said, you know, twice now Maduro
stole the election. There is not support from him
for him in the country. Most people would like to see
him gone. They voted for the opposition in
last year's election. At the same time, there does not
appear to be support for a invasion, I should say, while
there has been this huge build up of a military might in this
(17:30):
region. I know I'm sitting here in front
of a curtain, but just outside are the waters exactly where
that has been happening. And there are thousands and
thousands of American soldiers nearing the Venezuelan borders.
There is not enough people here to suggest that they're trying
to do what they did in Panama. There's not enough to suggest
that they would go ahead with a proper land invasion.
(17:52):
It's very clear they're trying to scare Maduro, trying to get
him out. Maybe there could be some sort
of land strike is very possible Trump has talked about that or a
kind of targeted thing, allies of Maduro that would make him
want to leave the country. Umm, I, I just wonder if the
American public really has the appetite for America being once
(18:14):
again so focused on something outside of its borders.
And particularly when the argument they've been making and
you can sort of hear Donald Trump shifting on this doesn't
stack up. Fentanyl is not coming on boats
from Venezuela towards the Caribbean and see it is crossing
the border from Mexico. That doesn't mean that there
isn't an opioid crisis in America and it doesn't mean that
(18:36):
there isn't a drug smuggling problem here.
But, you know, and, and also, does striking boats actually
deter people? You know, speaking to that
senior member of the Defence Force here, they thought, yeah,
it might deter them in the shortterm.
People are very, very scared here.
I was out with a fisherman yesterday who has lost more than
half his income because he used to go 30 miles from Trinidad and
(19:01):
Tobago right into those waters close to Venezuela, which is
where the best shark can be caught.
And, you know, shark is a very big delicacy here in Trinidad
and Tobago. Now he doesn't dare to go 10
miles. The catch has massively reduced.
So this guy was saying, look, itwill also deter fishermen.
On the one hand, which Trump Canyou believe, has joked about
fishermen being too scared to gothere.
(19:23):
These are people who are really struggling financially.
And now, you know, their livelihoods are being pulled
from under them. It's also scaring drug gangs.
But what that military source said to me is they are very,
very resourceful. And actually a fisherman who has
been out on these waters for 40 years said bit of hyperbole
here, but said in his opinion, they could strike a million
(19:43):
boats and kill a million people,but the drugs would still come
but. Remember, there's also the
domestic dimension and there always is with Latin American
politics. So we know about the Cuban vote
in the what used to be the swingstate of Florida, which is now
Trump's residence. Of course, similarly there's a
Venezuelan vote and. During the last election, I
spent a lot of time talking to Venezuelan Americans.
(20:06):
They were all Trump supporters. And a lot of them were very
upset that he started deporting Venezuelans as soon he got as he
got back into office, even thosewho didn't have any criminal
records. And, you know, for them, for the
Venezuelan community, that was apromise broken.
But the one thing they really care about, and that really
unites Venezuelans of whatever generation, is that they all
(20:28):
hate Nicolas Maduro, the president.
So I wouldn't be surprised if part of the calculation, but
only one part is let's do the Venezuelans who are feeling are
feeling a bit bruised by what we've done with immigration,
let's do them a favour and try and get rid of Maduro, which is
something they will thank us forforever.
As you know, Cuban Americans would have thanked successive
(20:49):
American administrations if theyhad succeeded in getting rid of
the Castro brothers, which they didn't.
But remember this, Anushka, you get rid of Maduro and if you
don't have a smooth transition to the next, in other words, if
Maria Corina Machado does not manage to create a viable,
coherent, democratic, peaceful Venezuela, big question mark,
(21:10):
then guess what's going to happen.
You're going to have more Venezuelan refugees leaving the
country. There might even be a knock on
effect to Colombia next door andyou have Colombian refugees
heading across Central America. So you could actually make the
problem that they that they set out to solve by putting up a
fence or a wall on the border even worse if you're not
careful, if, if this thing gets out of hand and often these
(21:32):
regime change exercises, as we saw in Iraq, get horribly out of
hand, we. Should also be very, you know,
sceptical of the real motive as as you you have been.
And I totally agree with you. I don't think that Donald Trump
is crying because, you know, an election was stolen in Venezuela
last year. I think what he doesn't like is
(21:52):
that the election was stolen by by a a socialist, so somebody
whose politics are different. But as you say, you know, he was
nearly he was nearly doing a deal with Maduro not that long
ago over Venezuelan oil in whichVenezuela would give up almost
all of it. And everyone I've spoken to here
is really clear that that is themajor, you know, motivation
(22:16):
here. You know, it's not really about
trying to help the Venezuelan people, they would argue.
It's really about trying to remove an anti American leader
and replace them with a pro American leader who will do that
deal. And, you know, just this week,
Donald Trump has said maybe I will talk to Nicolas Maduro, as
we heard earlier. So if he does talk to him, maybe
(22:37):
he's hoping that all this pressure will actually result in
the deal that he wants and then he will back off.
But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that in the meantime,
America is behaving in the way that America has long criticized
regimes across the world for behaving.
It is taking out people on boats.
You know, I met the family of one of the men who was killed, a
(22:58):
guy called Chad Joseph. And I was saying to them, you
know, they, they no one told them, no one informed them that
their, you know, loved one had been killed.
They frantic calls went unanswered.
They found out on social media. And I asked them about the drugs
thing. I mean, they said if he was
involved in drugs, you know, where were his assets, which I
(23:20):
thought was quite interesting because at the very least, the
people who are on these boats, if they are involved in the drug
trade, are largely probably verylow down the chain.
They're not exactly the leaders of drug gangs.
But the but the bigger point is,even if these boats were to be
shown, all of them to have drugson board, you don't just go and
(23:42):
kill people without providing the evidence.
You don't go and kill people without due process.
But yes, I know that that is true.
That's a, it's, it's a very important point.
And I think that's what many people are worried about,
including in this country, although none of them are
members of the Trump administration.
I I mean, the Trump administration would point to
Barack Obama who had a kill listof Islamic, Islamic extremists,
(24:04):
terrorists who were taken out ona very regular basis and it had
to be done. A judge have had to sign off on
the kill list, but we were nevertold who was on the kill list.
People just wound up dead. We were never there was never
any. Do you think that?
This is a quite interesting point though.
Do you think that the War on Terror can be equated with the
war on drugs? I mean, that's, that's basically
(24:24):
what they're saying, you know, the War on Terror, they would
argue I. Think any war on a noun is
always a problem, right? So the War on Terror and the War
on Terror was, you know, led to Guantanamo Bay.
You could argue that, you know, bits of it were Abu Ghraib.
I mean, America did terrible things as a result of conducting
a War on Terror in the same way that the war on drugs, which has
(24:45):
been going on for decades, I mean, started under Ronald
Reagan and Noriega removed by Bush senior.
Otherwise a sort of, you know, the former CIA operative, head
of the CIAA, relatively genteel man compared to his son.
You know, he went after Noriega again, because of drugs.
Now, there may have been more evidence to link Noriega to drug
trafficking back in the day thanthere is to link Maduro to the
(25:08):
drugs cartels selling stuff fromVenezuela.
We don't know because we're not being told.
And again, you always have to remember that whatever Trump
does in this sort of impatient presidential mind is to keep
himself busy and occupied, but also to deflect from something
else. So the Epstein files, the fact
(25:29):
that the cost of living crisis has been made worse by tariffs,
tick, tick, tick. As we discussed just a few weeks
ago in the so-called blue wave when the Democrats won two
States and of course van down hewon in New York.
A lot of that is down to the fact that Trump has not been
able to fix the problems he cameinto office to fix.
So what do you do? You deflect by going on foreign
adventures. What does the MAGA base do?
(25:51):
As you said, they complain. They said America first is about
America first, not let's deal with the Venezuela 1st.
And I think so. He's getting himself into some
hot political water on a number of levels.
We say farewell to Anushka is off to cover another story.
But we say hello to Elliot Abrams, who was the Venezuela
(26:12):
envoy in the first Trump administration, is now a senior
fellow in the Council on ForeignRelations.
Welcome, Elliot. Good to be here.
So a lot to unpack here. What do you think ultimately is
going on with the administrationparking this fleet off the coast
of Venezuela and making, you know, threatening noises to
Nicolas Maduro, killing all these people who they accuse of
(26:34):
fairing drugs to America? Is this about regime change?
Is it about reducing the flow ofdrugs?
Is it about influence in the hemisphere?
What's it about? Well, it certainly is about
reducing the flow of drugs, but you don't need a gigantic
aircraft carrier to do that. So I assume it is also about
(26:56):
getting rid of Nicolas Maduro. Right.
And and of course, you know, youwere in charge of the Venezuela
policy in the first Trump administration and, you know, he
made some very unkind noises about the Trump that is about
Maduro at that time. But what is different this time?
Because it seems to be a very different policy, a more robust
(27:16):
1. Well, it certainly is.
I mean, in the first term, we used, pardon me, diplomatic
pressure, economic pressure, sanctions, but no military
pressure. One thing is different, and that
is that they've now had an election and it was a landslide
defeat from Maduro and there is a legitimately elected
(27:37):
president. The problem is that's probably
the thing that Trump cares aboutleast when you compare it to,
say, drug trafficking. So the major difference is
probably not the explanation forthis change, and I don't really
understand what is. And if you don't understand,
Elliot, we're, we're in trouble,aren't we?
(27:59):
Because, you know, about policy towards Venezuela, you know,
about, you know, policy towards Latin America in the broader
sense. I mean, just tell us about the
thing that we've been discussingon the podcast, which is this
idea that there was a deal to bemade with Maduro between Maduro
and Trump at the beginning of the administration.
And it was around natural resources.
(28:19):
Essentially, Venezuela was goingto hand over almost all of its
oil to America in return for America tolerating Maduro in
power. Did you hear of such a deal?
And what happened to that deal? Yes, Maduro offered something
along those lines. It's not a very compelling
offer. We don't actually need
Venezuelan oil. You know, we did during the
(28:43):
Second World War, but we're pretty much self-sufficient in
oil these days. To the extent that this is about
migration. And that's an issue that we
should really mention. It's pretty clear that while
Maduro is in power and destroying the economy of
Venezuela and repressing the people, they're going to keep
(29:06):
moving out of Venezuela. So if you want that to stop, you
really got to change the regime.But regime change is something
that America has has tried not just in Latin America over the
decades, but also most famously in Iraq.
And it doesn't always go according to plan.
How, If there is a regime changeplan that you can decipher out
(29:29):
of all this, what does it actually look like?
Venezuela is a much better candidate than, say, Iraq or
Syria. You know, when we think of
Syria, we think of and Iraq, Sunnis and Shias and Druze and
Kurds. There are no divisions like that
in Venezuela, first of all. Secondly, Venezuela had about 50
years of democracy. They kicked out a military
(29:50):
dictator in 1958. And then for about 50 years they
had, you know, regular electionsand democracy.
So it's a much better, there's amuch better possibility that
after Maduro, they could return with their recently elected
president to democracy. You can't say regime change.
(30:10):
I mean, this administration hates that term, and they'll
never use it and they'll deny it.
But I think the idea basically is if you could get Maduro and
his inner circle out and then Edmundo Gonzalez, who was
elected president and is in exile in Spain, would go home,
(30:31):
you could start returning Venezuela to democracy.
Because the issue in Iraq was always that, you know, you could
have free and fair elections, sort of, but you don't have the
institutions of democracy to uphold, the democracy to uphold
the result. Did those institutions survive
in a decades of Chavez and Maduro?
(30:53):
Yes and no. I mean, there there is.
There's always been a parliament, but the elections
for parliament were in recent years fixed.
There's always been a Supreme Court, you know, and a court
system, but again, under the control of the regime.
And the question is, how long would it take to restore those?
Again, Venezuela had 50 years ofthis.
(31:14):
It is surrounded by democracies like Brazil, Chile, Peru,
Colombia. So it is, you know, we no
guarantees, but it is a better candidate.
Right. But I guess we're getting a
little bit ahead of ourselves. First of all, to establish
democracy, you've got to, you know, remove the guy who's
currently running the country. Do you really think that, given
(31:36):
what awaits him, Nicolas Maduro is open to some kind of deal
that, you know, sees his removalfrom power or even open to gun
gunship diplomacy, you know, with the USS Gerald Ford parked
off the coast of his country? I just can't imagine that really
working. I wonder if you can you?
Know it is reminiscent of what happened in Panama with Manuel
(31:57):
Noriega. The deal that was offered this
is this is the Reagan administration will quash the
indictments of you if you will leave power and leave Panama.
He said no and ended up in AUS federal prison.
I I think really Maduro was unlikely to accept such a deal
because he's worried about goingto prison himself.
(32:19):
He is an indicted drug trafficker indicted in the US
That's why I think you're going to have to push him out.
You're probably not going to be able to negotiate him out.
And that means getting, among other things, getting Venezuelan
military to push him out, some Colonel someplace to rise up and
(32:39):
say, look at this American powerbeing brought here.
I do think it will require strikes on Venezuela.
That is right now what the US isdoing is hitting, you know, a
boat here or boat there in international waters.
I don't think that'll do it. I think you need to hit
Venezuela itself, some military or or narcotics target for the
(33:03):
military to think, OK, the game's really over.
Maduro is going down. I don't want to go with them.
OK, but some Colonel Summer could be another Hugo Chavez,
couldn't it? I mean that he was some Colonel
somewhere. He ended up taking over the
whole country. Yeah, but now they've got an
elected president. And this is in the context, of
course, of tremendous use of American power.
(33:27):
The Maduro and his regime are reviled all over Latin America
and the days of Latin American, you know, juntas running
countries are over. There isn't a military
dictatorship in all of Latin America.
And, you know, but you mentionedthe Noriega example in I think
it was 1989. I mean, there were American
boots on the ground. That is something that that you
(33:48):
know, that Trump has said and his MAGA movement has said they
really don't want to see, right?And I don't think he's going to
do it. Reagan tried negotiating with
Noriega. That failed.
It was George HW Bush then in 1989, as you said, who invaded
Panama. But that is the kind of thing
Trump hates. He likes, you know, the kind of
(34:09):
thing he did in Iran, a strike and then it's over with no boots
on the ground. I don't think you're going to
see that. And it's interesting that if you
look at this great flotilla, yeah, there are some troops
there, but there are not the numbers that you would need from
Venezuela. He does not intend that, I
think. So if he wants the Venezuelan
people, the opposition of which there are millions, to do the
(34:31):
heavy lifting, you know, as he thought maybe it might be the
case in Iran, well, again, that didn't work.
They didn't do the heavy lifting.
You know, they were either too intimidated or too disorganised
to do so. Do you think that Venezuela is
different because there is a coherent opposition that formed
around the last election that was stolen by the President?
(34:52):
I think it's different. I think that however, you will
probably need something coming from the Venezuelan military to
push Maduro out. I I think the idea that you're
going to get 5 million people out, you know, into this streets
to do this pretty unlikely. Just on the question of, of, of
(35:13):
bombing these, you know, boats, fishing boats that carry drugs,
I mean, in all this stuff, there's no due process of law,
is there? We just have to take it on, you
know, on their evidence that these are boats carrying
fentanyl. And actually Anoushka was on the
ground in Trinidad and, and, andspoke to people there.
You know, they're right across the water from Venezuela.
(35:34):
They said the evidence so far isthat it's, it's actually not,
it's marijuana and it might be cocaine, but it's not fentanyl.
I mean, is there a problem here that America is just doing all
these extrajudicial killings without going to any due process
of law, and that that might set a rather alarming precedent?
Well, I think a lot of Americansfeel that way.
I do think these boats are engaged in drug trafficking.
(35:57):
Fenchville, as you said, doesn'tcome to the US this way.
It comes across the Mexican border.
But this is mostly cocaine. Cocaine does come from Colombia
and Venezuela. These were not fishing boats.
These were not forest boats. This was drug trafficking.
Nevertheless, we've been handling this for years and
years by having the Coast Guard stop the boat and arrest people
(36:20):
and then bring them to court andlet's see if you can can convict
them. This is something new.
Will. Will President Trump get away
with it? Yes, I think he will get away
with it. Do.
You approve. No, I don't approve.
Look, I don't approve of drug trafficking.
I think there's people belongingin jail, but I think they also
(36:42):
need a trial before they're killed is.
There any evidence, as the administration has suggested,
that Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, is the
head of a gang of of a cartel ofa drugs cartel.
Yes. And I think that that his regime
really at the very least protects the drug traffickers
(37:03):
and profits from lives off the profits of drug trafficking.
So I think he's he's in it and Ithink really everyone who
investigates it, he's in it up to his neck.
And is the idea that you, you change Venezuela, you know, you,
you get rid of Maduro, as you said, you know, through the
elements of the Venezuelan military opposition on the
(37:25):
ground, the people who were elected but who had the
elections stolen from them? And does that then send, is it
supposed to send a message to the rest of the continent?
You know, we can do it here. We can also do it over there.
Well, I think it's supposed to send a message to Cuba and
Nicaragua. In fact, Maduro has all of his
years in power been giving somewhere between 30,000 and
(37:46):
50,000 barrels a day of oil to Cuba for free.
Cuban economy is in bad shape. It's not a democratic government
that stopped that subsidy. That regime might fall, too.
And the regime in Nicaragua, I think, is also very shaky.
The economy is very shaky. That would be the kind of
achievement that I think Trump would like in his three years to
(38:07):
go in power. And how important is Marco Rubio
in all this? Because at the beginning of the
administration, there was, as wediscussed earlier, this sort of
vague outline of a deal, resources for for staying in
power in terms of Maduro. And then Marco Rubio gets
involved and it becomes much more aggressive.
Well, I would say the the whole Florida delegation feels that
(38:30):
way. It's a Florida thing.
It's Rubio. It's the White House teacher of
staff Susie Wiles. It's the senators and members of
the of the House of Representatives from Florida.
And again, that that deal with Maduro would have done nothing
on migration, which is another problem here.
So I think, yeah, Maduro, Madurohas the problem that there's
(38:53):
enormous interests of Americans,of Venezuelan Americans, of the
Secretary of State in Venezuela.And I know they're, you know,
obviously they're this administration cares deeply
about illegal migration across the border.
I also know that a lot of Venezuelans that I spoke to in
Florida who voted for Trump, wholoved Trump, are really upset by
(39:15):
the number of Venezuelans in their community have been sent
packing back across the border. Even if they weren't bad
hombres, as the president might say.
Is that something to do with it?You know, keep the Venezuelans
happy because they really want Maduro to go.
If you can do that, then they'llforgive you a few other things
that have gone wrong. And of course, they matter in
Florida because they vote in Florida.
And although Florida's no longera swing state, it could
(39:36):
potentially swing back to the Democrats.
It's complicated because many ofthe Venezuelans in question are
not yet citizens, so they can't vote.
There's a there's a complete contradiction or anomaly here.
On the one hand, the president, the administration is saying
Venezuela's hell. On the other hand, they're
saying go back. It just, you know, it makes no
(39:57):
sense. I don't think very many people
have been sent back. But the ones who are in Florida,
of course, live in a kind of limbo, live in fear that they
might be tomorrow morning. I think that was a frankly, a
terrible move on the part of thepresident.
You want to get rid of Mcguro? Get rid of Mcguro.
They can have a democratic regime help them rebuild the
(40:17):
economy as in Argentina, and then you won't get these
outflows. That's the way to do it, not
grabbing people off the street and sending them back to
Venezuela. And of course, if you try some
kind of regime change or whatever you want to call it,
and it goes horribly wrong and you destabilize the country even
more, instead of creating a safeplace for them to return to, you
(40:39):
might actually trigger an even greater outflow of Venezuelans
that might end up coming to yourcountry, the US.
Well, I think for those reasons and many others, I think the
president should realize, you know, he's halfway down the road
here. Somebody's going to win this.
It's going to be Nicolas Maduro or Donald Trump.
(40:59):
One or the other is going to look triumphant in, you know,
three months, six months. And if the president thinks he
can just sort of change his mindand pull back now and say, oh,
never mind, I don't think that'sgoing to work.
So finally then Elliot, who is going to win this, do you think?
I would bet on Donald Trump. And when?
(41:22):
Well, you can't keep that flotilla including our largest
aircraft carrier in the Caribbean for, you know, for a
year. I mean, I'm thinking maybe not
this year, there aren't that many weeks left this year, but
three to six months I'd say is the window.
Springtime in Caracas. See you there.
(41:46):
OK, Ellen Abrams, thank you verymuch.
It's been a real pleasure. You're welcome.
That's it for this week. We hope you enjoyed the show.
We certainly did. And can I just urge you to
subscribe to Trump World to the podcast.
It really makes a huge difference for us.
And of course, you can always send your comments, your
suggestions about questions to ask or topics to broach or, you
(42:08):
know, comments to make. I mean, we are all members of
Trump World. Let's face it, we're all
citizens in Trump World. So let's make the most of it
from Anushka me. That's it.
See you next Wednesday.
Right now, what the US is doing is hitting, you know, a boat
here, a boat there. I don't think that'll do it.
I think you need to hit Venezuela itself for the
military to think, OK, the game's really over.
Maduro is going down. I don't want to go with them.
Hello and welcome to this edition of Trump World.
(00:21):
I'm Matt Fry in Washington. And I'm Anishka Astana in
Trinidad and Tobago. I'm not just here for the
sunshine. I'll explain why I'm here in a
minute, but I just wanted to encourage you to subscribe if
you're enjoying this show. Trump World.
And if you do or even if you don't, but especially if you do,
you will find out what we're speaking about this week, and
(00:41):
that is the extraordinary gunship diplomacy happening off
the coast of Venezuela courtesy of the American Navy.
Now, while we've been focusing on trade tariffs and Epstein and
all these other things, there's been this build up of American
military force off the coast of Venezuela.
And the question is, is this gunship diplomacy, if it's
(01:02):
diplomacy at all, designed to get rid of the regime, The
President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, something that Trump
tried to do in his first term, but this time around, he's using
military force or the threat of it.
And he's very motivated by his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio,
for whom this is a pet project. The reason I'm in Trinidad and
(01:22):
Tobago is we can't actually get into Venezuela right now.
Access for journalists is very, very restricted.
Trinidad and Tobago is Venezuela's closest neighbor on
the Caribbean side. I actually got on a boat staying
very close to shore in a safe place and went as close as I
could. And you could really see how
close Venezuela was just 7 milesacross the water.
(01:44):
And the reason I'm here is that all of this is having a huge,
huge impact on Trinidad and Tobago.
The Prime Minister here, too much anger across the country is
supporting what Donald Trump is doing.
But we've got a situation where there are literally bodies
washing up onto the shores of Trinidad and Tobago.
Trinidadian nationals have been killed by these strikes.
(02:06):
We have the 21st strike on a boat on Saturday.
I think there are 83 people who have now died as a result of
that. People very, very clear to me
that this is a breach of international law.
America isn't part of the International Criminal Court,
but Trinidad and Tobago and the UK are, and there's implications
for that which we will come to when we discuss this.
(02:28):
It has been a really fascinatingfew days talking to people here.
And the reason why people are watching what America is doing,
what Trump is doing with Venezuela very closely, is 1
Venezuela, believe it or not, has the the biggest oil reserves
on the planet of any country bigger than Saudi Arabia.
It is also the second biggest, has the second biggest reserves
(02:48):
of natural gas in the Western Hemisphere.
So it's stuffed with natural resources, something that Donald
Trump would love to get its hands on.
But also this idea of regime change, either through limited
force or a threat of force or perhaps even boots on the
ground, which Donald Trump has said is a possibility.
That is something that people are watching very closely
because it set a a precedent forother actions around the region
(03:11):
or indeed across the world. We're going to speak to Elliott
Abrams a little bit later. He was the Venezuela envoy in
the first Trump administration. He knows a lot about the
country. He knows a lot about Trump's
motives. And we'll try and find out from
him what is actually going on and how this is different to
what they tried to do in the first Trump administration.
But let's just see what Trump 2 point O had to say about
(03:33):
Venezuela. Is there anything you're?
Ready to rule out at this point,Are you ruling out?
U.S. troops on the ground. I don't rule out that.
I don't rule out anything. In these.
Talks with. Maduro, is there anything that
he could? Say or do that would let allow
you to feel like he could stay with your support.
Is there anything that he could say that you would be OK you can
(03:56):
stay as leader? Yeah, the question's a little
bit tricky. I don't think it was meant to be
tricky. It's just that, look, he's done
tremendous damage to our country, primarily because of
drugs, but really because we have that problem with other
countries too. But more than any other country,
the release of prisoners into our country has been a disaster.
(04:17):
He's emptied his Shields. Others have done that also.
Obviously we've been hearing responses from Nicolas Maduro
himself. He has described the strikes in
the sea as serial executions. Actually, there are even some
Republicans in Congress who agree with him that these are
extrajudicial killings. He did this slightly bizarre
(04:40):
thing this weekend when he was talking about this, he suddenly
broke out into a peace song, John Lennon's Imagine.
And Look, clearly, there are bigquestions about Nicolas Maduro's
regime. He is widely considered to have
stolen last year's election. He lost to an opposition leader
who was later given the Nobel Peace Prize.
But he still carried on and seized control of the country.
(05:03):
But massive questions about whatAmerica is claiming is going on
here. They're claiming that by
striking these boats in the Caribbean Sea that they are
trying to stop fentanyl getting into the US.
It's very, very clear from just spending a few days here that
this is not fentanyl that's coming through this particular
(05:24):
route. And many of the drugs are
actually going onto Europe and not going to the US.
He's claimed that Maduro has emptied his jails to let
immigrants come through to the US Obviously, there's a lot
going on here. Matt, you've already mentioned
oil. Tell us what you think.
Why do you think Trump hates Nicolas Maduro so much?
(05:47):
I think we have to go back even a little bit before Trump
because Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, who was the the the
elected, repeatedly elected president of Venezuela, who then
became also a strong man who wasthe predecessor to Nicolas
Maduro, the current president, who was Hugo Chavez's vice
president. Even when Chavez was in charge,
(06:07):
America was very unhappy with Venezuela because Venezuela
became a sort of larger, newer Cuba off, you know, in the
Caribbean, not far from the United States, very much in
America's backyard. He was completely over the top,
unbelievably engaging and hated by successive American
administrations. And he was in charge from 1999
(06:29):
to 2013 when he died, hated because he was the thorn in
America's side. And I remember going to his
funeral in Caracas and the lineswere extraordinary because this
man had promised to lift very large numbers of people who were
living in the the slums around the city of Caracas, which is
potentially a very beautiful place, lift them out of poverty
(06:52):
and give them at least a chance of participating in the oil
riches of Venezuela, which are extraordinary.
This is the country that has big, as I said earlier, bigger
oil reserves stuffed in its ground than Saudi Arabia, the
second biggest gas reserves, natural gas reserves in the
Western Hemisphere. The money that can be made there
is extraordinary. Now, as you said, Maduro is a
(07:14):
dictator. He's he literally stole the last
election. There's just no doubt about it.
Even people quite close to him. As someone admitting, yeah, it
was a bit dodgy and it was a result of that stolen election
contested by a woman called Maria Corina Machado, who won
the Nobel Peace Prize this year.Not Trump, of course, that, you
know, we. So you have sort of three boxes
(07:36):
that are being ticked yet. But box number one, this woman
Machado, who could be running Venezuela, and this is someone
that Trump has congratulated about her Peace Prize.
He's working very closely with her.
She is bought totally into the Trump agenda box #2 you've got
all these natural resources thatTrump was actually very close to
getting his hands on in a deal concocted earlier this year
(07:58):
whereby Venezuela would have literally handed over its entire
natural resources wealth to the United States in even more than
Ukraine was going to do in its minerals deal.
And the third box is that they are highly motivated.
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, is really going after the
Venezuelan regime. I just.
Want to kind of rewind for a minute and try and explain how
(08:20):
Donald Trump is selling this because he's not selling it as
Matt has, just as you have just basically set out.
He's selling it with what soundslike an America First policy.
And many believe that Marco Rubio basically persuaded Donald
Trump because he wants regime change in Venezuela, that it
could be sold in this way. And he's selling it, as, you
(08:42):
know, an operation they're calling it, they've just named
it actually Operation Southern Sphere that will save American
lives. In fact, he argues that every
strike on a boat will save 25,000 American lives.
And you? Fentanyl, right?
Because of fentanyl, Yeah, Although he's, as of yesterday,
I think, started to mention cocaine as well.
But you have to go back to day one of the Trump presidency to
(09:03):
understand what's going on here,because on day one, Donald Trump
signed loads of executive orders, more than anyone had
ever done before On day one of the presidency.
One of them basically designateddrug cartels as foreign
terrorist organizations. And so the idea was that from
that day on, they would treat these organizations a bit like
(09:24):
they treated al Qaeda in the past, IE they could go out there
and they could bomb them out of the skies.
I mean, it's not even got as much oversight as when they went
after al Qaeda because at least when they went after al Qaeda,
A, there had been a kind of military type attack on the US.
And secondly, they got permission from Congress this
time. No, he doesn't bother with
(09:45):
Congress. He just goes ahead.
Now, all of that provided A justification to start bombing
on September the 2nd. And they started striking boat
after boat after boat that was coming from Venezuela.
And look, it is fascinating to be here on the ground in
Trinidad and Tobago. It's only 7 miles away by water.
Boats are coming content continuously across from
(10:07):
Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobagoand I should say without a
shadow of a doubt there is a bigdrug smuggling problem here.
But speaking to people and one of those peoples was a member of
Trinidad's defence forces, he could only talk to me on
condition of anonymity, but he made really clear to me that
it's not fentanyl coming throughhere.
(10:29):
What type of drugs are on the boats?
The. Drugs that mostly include a
green plant, like substance. Marijuana.
Yeah, marijuana. There are lessons and says where
a white pottery substance is found.
Cocaine. Cocaine this.
Isn't really a route for fentanyl.
Not particularly he. Warned the strikes clearly
breached international law do you believe that the boats that
(10:50):
have been struck had drug dealers on them I.
Would like to believe that if a decision was taken to strike
vessels, that decision was basedon sound reliable intelligence
for someone to then decide OK, we are 100% certain.
Do you believe they were 100% certain?
I don't think so. And what one thing that is
(11:11):
really, really interesting and it's really challenging for
Trinidad and Tobago, where the Prime Minister has basically
given Trump the green light. But it's also quite challenging
to the UK. And I've speak been speaking to
like military sources, intelligence sources and also
legal sources about all of this,which is America may not be a
member of the International Criminal Court, but we are.
(11:33):
And if Trinidad more likely actually than the UK provide
intelligence that goes along theline and ends up with one of
these strikes, then they become part of what is known as the
kill chain. And if you are in the kill
chain, then you are liable for what happens at the end of it.
So if we provide intelligence that ends up with a strike,
(11:54):
which I can promise you the UK and Trinidad and Tobago consider
to be unlawful in international law, then you end up liable with
the ICC. Now, there were reports that the
UK was therefore withholding intelligence.
The sources I speak to suggest that we don't have the
intelligence that's really leading to these strikes.
So as yet it's not really an issue for us, but clearly our
(12:18):
government is monitoring this very closely.
People here in Trinidad are really quite worried about the
impact that this could have for them, the knock on effect if
they're providing the US with this intelligence.
And of course, the question really is what do they actually
intend to do in Caracas? That's I'm talking about the
Americans here. And how do they intend to do it?
(12:38):
So the impression is that yes, they want regime change, they
want to get rid of Nicolas Maduro, having actually tried to
do a deal with him along these natural resources earlier in the
year. But how's that going to work?
Because America has a very dodgyrecord with regime change all
over the world, but also in Latin America.
It doesn't tend to go very smoothly with a great outcome
(12:59):
for either side. And when you compare, let's say,
Venezuela to Panama, where they did this in the late 1980s,
Panama is a much smaller country.
Venezuela is 10 times the size. They had thousands of troops
inside Panama. I'm not sure what Trump is
prepared to do with that. And even with a relatively
limited operation like Panama, where they ended up capturing
(13:22):
Manuel Noriega, partly because they he'd taken refuge in the in
the ambassador's residence of the Holy See.
And they blasted the residence with heavy metal music for 10
days. They they captured him.
They put him on trial in Miami. He, he basically died in
custody. But even in that clever, limited
military operation, America lostsomething like 240 soldiers or
(13:43):
so. Is Trump prepared to put boots
on the ground in Venezuela, which is a much more tricky
proposition? He hasn't said so, but he hasn't
ruled it out either. And if you just have this
pressure on the outside, remember that the Venezuelan
regime has been living with American pressure for years.
I mean, they tried something similar in a less concentrated,
focused form in the first Trump administration.
(14:05):
And even before that, Barack Obama wasn't exactly a friend of
of the the Maduro government after he came into office in
2013. And of course it's Venezuela is
not alone. It has friends, you know, the
Chinese are its friends. The Russians have have got
involvement there. You've got I think the N Koreans
knocking around a little bit. I mean, they the Iranians as
(14:27):
well. So they are still part of that,
what the Americans used to describe as the axis of evil.
I don't think this is quite the flashpoint that the Cuban
missile crisis was in the 1960s.I I can't imagine that we would
go that far, but it's not entirely without consequences
for the region. And the question always in risk
is, isn't it, how far is Trump prepared to go in order to take,
(14:52):
you know, to, to, to achieve hisgoals?
Is he how far is he prepared to take these risks?
One other aside, Hugo Chavez, who was this extraordinary
figure who I described earlier in some ways is rather similar
to Trump, because he used to have this program on Venezuelan
state television called Alo Presidente went out on Sunday
night. It was open-ended.
(15:13):
And he used to have to the the cabinet used to have to turn up.
And then there was a live audience and they used to have
to listen to Chavez weave in andout of one subject after
another. And he would read the papers and
kind of leaf through the papers.And then he'd lose his place.
And everyone just had to watch as this guy was, was, you know,
bloviating and, and, and speculating and just boring the
(15:37):
country to tears with his thoughts.
And I have to say, that does remind me a little bit of Donald
Trump's sort of cabinet meetingsor Oval Office gaggles where
everyone just hangs on to every word and they just go on and on
and on. Donald Trump has got a domestic
problem right now, and part of the domestic problem comes from
(16:01):
him focusing so much on foreign conflicts around the world.
I mean, he's fallen out in greatstyle with Marjorie Taylor
Green, who is the kind of ultimate you mean.
Marjorie Traitor Green Marjorie Traitor Green I.
Mean, that's what he's calling her.
You know, she was, she, she is arepresentative who was about as
MAGA as they come. She was a huge supporter of his,
(16:22):
but she started to break away from him on various issues.
Most obvious one, the release ofthe Epstein files.
They have had a complete fireworks fallout.
But I keep noting that one of the things she keeps saying is
you're focusing on foreign policy when actually Americans
are struggling. We've seen the Democrats do
really well in recent elections because of economic situations.
But there is clearly a desire for a very big geopolitical
(16:46):
shift in South America. I mean, if you listen to experts
on this, that the kind of narrative behind it, if you
like, is that America wants to have more dominance in the
Western Hemisphere. We've seen them, you know,
offering plenty of money to friendly governments like Miley
in Argentina, whilst they are trying to pressure the more left
(17:07):
wing socialist governments like Nicolas Maduro.
It is interesting because as we said, you know, twice now Maduro
stole the election. There is not support from him
for him in the country. Most people would like to see
him gone. They voted for the opposition in
last year's election. At the same time, there does not
appear to be support for a invasion, I should say, while
there has been this huge build up of a military might in this
(17:30):
region. I know I'm sitting here in front
of a curtain, but just outside are the waters exactly where
that has been happening. And there are thousands and
thousands of American soldiers nearing the Venezuelan borders.
There is not enough people here to suggest that they're trying
to do what they did in Panama. There's not enough to suggest
that they would go ahead with a proper land invasion.
(17:52):
It's very clear they're trying to scare Maduro, trying to get
him out. Maybe there could be some sort
of land strike is very possible Trump has talked about that or a
kind of targeted thing, allies of Maduro that would make him
want to leave the country. Umm, I, I just wonder if the
American public really has the appetite for America being once
(18:14):
again so focused on something outside of its borders.
And particularly when the argument they've been making and
you can sort of hear Donald Trump shifting on this doesn't
stack up. Fentanyl is not coming on boats
from Venezuela towards the Caribbean and see it is crossing
the border from Mexico. That doesn't mean that there
isn't an opioid crisis in America and it doesn't mean that
(18:36):
there isn't a drug smuggling problem here.
But, you know, and, and also, does striking boats actually
deter people? You know, speaking to that
senior member of the Defence Force here, they thought, yeah,
it might deter them in the shortterm.
People are very, very scared here.
I was out with a fisherman yesterday who has lost more than
half his income because he used to go 30 miles from Trinidad and
(19:01):
Tobago right into those waters close to Venezuela, which is
where the best shark can be caught.
And, you know, shark is a very big delicacy here in Trinidad
and Tobago. Now he doesn't dare to go 10
miles. The catch has massively reduced.
So this guy was saying, look, itwill also deter fishermen.
On the one hand, which Trump Canyou believe, has joked about
fishermen being too scared to gothere.
(19:23):
These are people who are really struggling financially.
And now, you know, their livelihoods are being pulled
from under them. It's also scaring drug gangs.
But what that military source said to me is they are very,
very resourceful. And actually a fisherman who has
been out on these waters for 40 years said bit of hyperbole
here, but said in his opinion, they could strike a million
(19:43):
boats and kill a million people,but the drugs would still come
but. Remember, there's also the
domestic dimension and there always is with Latin American
politics. So we know about the Cuban vote
in the what used to be the swingstate of Florida, which is now
Trump's residence. Of course, similarly there's a
Venezuelan vote and. During the last election, I
spent a lot of time talking to Venezuelan Americans.
(20:06):
They were all Trump supporters. And a lot of them were very
upset that he started deporting Venezuelans as soon he got as he
got back into office, even thosewho didn't have any criminal
records. And, you know, for them, for the
Venezuelan community, that was apromise broken.
But the one thing they really care about, and that really
unites Venezuelans of whatever generation, is that they all
(20:28):
hate Nicolas Maduro, the president.
So I wouldn't be surprised if part of the calculation, but
only one part is let's do the Venezuelans who are feeling are
feeling a bit bruised by what we've done with immigration,
let's do them a favour and try and get rid of Maduro, which is
something they will thank us forforever.
As you know, Cuban Americans would have thanked successive
(20:49):
American administrations if theyhad succeeded in getting rid of
the Castro brothers, which they didn't.
But remember this, Anushka, you get rid of Maduro and if you
don't have a smooth transition to the next, in other words, if
Maria Corina Machado does not manage to create a viable,
coherent, democratic, peaceful Venezuela, big question mark,
(21:10):
then guess what's going to happen.
You're going to have more Venezuelan refugees leaving the
country. There might even be a knock on
effect to Colombia next door andyou have Colombian refugees
heading across Central America. So you could actually make the
problem that they that they set out to solve by putting up a
fence or a wall on the border even worse if you're not
careful, if, if this thing gets out of hand and often these
(21:32):
regime change exercises, as we saw in Iraq, get horribly out of
hand, we. Should also be very, you know,
sceptical of the real motive as as you you have been.
And I totally agree with you. I don't think that Donald Trump
is crying because, you know, an election was stolen in Venezuela
last year. I think what he doesn't like is
(21:52):
that the election was stolen by by a a socialist, so somebody
whose politics are different. But as you say, you know, he was
nearly he was nearly doing a deal with Maduro not that long
ago over Venezuelan oil in whichVenezuela would give up almost
all of it. And everyone I've spoken to here
is really clear that that is themajor, you know, motivation
(22:16):
here. You know, it's not really about
trying to help the Venezuelan people, they would argue.
It's really about trying to remove an anti American leader
and replace them with a pro American leader who will do that
deal. And, you know, just this week,
Donald Trump has said maybe I will talk to Nicolas Maduro, as
we heard earlier. So if he does talk to him, maybe
(22:37):
he's hoping that all this pressure will actually result in
the deal that he wants and then he will back off.
But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that in the meantime,
America is behaving in the way that America has long criticized
regimes across the world for behaving.
It is taking out people on boats.
You know, I met the family of one of the men who was killed, a
(22:58):
guy called Chad Joseph. And I was saying to them, you
know, they, they no one told them, no one informed them that
their, you know, loved one had been killed.
They frantic calls went unanswered.
They found out on social media. And I asked them about the drugs
thing. I mean, they said if he was
involved in drugs, you know, where were his assets, which I
(23:20):
thought was quite interesting because at the very least, the
people who are on these boats, if they are involved in the drug
trade, are largely probably verylow down the chain.
They're not exactly the leaders of drug gangs.
But the but the bigger point is,even if these boats were to be
shown, all of them to have drugson board, you don't just go and
(23:42):
kill people without providing the evidence.
You don't go and kill people without due process.
But yes, I know that that is true.
That's a, it's, it's a very important point.
And I think that's what many people are worried about,
including in this country, although none of them are
members of the Trump administration.
I I mean, the Trump administration would point to
Barack Obama who had a kill listof Islamic, Islamic extremists,
(24:04):
terrorists who were taken out ona very regular basis and it had
to be done. A judge have had to sign off on
the kill list, but we were nevertold who was on the kill list.
People just wound up dead. We were never there was never
any. Do you think that?
This is a quite interesting point though.
Do you think that the War on Terror can be equated with the
war on drugs? I mean, that's, that's basically
(24:24):
what they're saying, you know, the War on Terror, they would
argue I. Think any war on a noun is
always a problem, right? So the War on Terror and the War
on Terror was, you know, led to Guantanamo Bay.
You could argue that, you know, bits of it were Abu Ghraib.
I mean, America did terrible things as a result of conducting
a War on Terror in the same way that the war on drugs, which has
(24:45):
been going on for decades, I mean, started under Ronald
Reagan and Noriega removed by Bush senior.
Otherwise a sort of, you know, the former CIA operative, head
of the CIAA, relatively genteel man compared to his son.
You know, he went after Noriega again, because of drugs.
Now, there may have been more evidence to link Noriega to drug
trafficking back in the day thanthere is to link Maduro to the
(25:08):
drugs cartels selling stuff fromVenezuela.
We don't know because we're not being told.
And again, you always have to remember that whatever Trump
does in this sort of impatient presidential mind is to keep
himself busy and occupied, but also to deflect from something
else. So the Epstein files, the fact
(25:29):
that the cost of living crisis has been made worse by tariffs,
tick, tick, tick. As we discussed just a few weeks
ago in the so-called blue wave when the Democrats won two
States and of course van down hewon in New York.
A lot of that is down to the fact that Trump has not been
able to fix the problems he cameinto office to fix.
So what do you do? You deflect by going on foreign
adventures. What does the MAGA base do?
(25:51):
As you said, they complain. They said America first is about
America first, not let's deal with the Venezuela 1st.
And I think so. He's getting himself into some
hot political water on a number of levels.
We say farewell to Anushka is off to cover another story.
But we say hello to Elliot Abrams, who was the Venezuela
(26:12):
envoy in the first Trump administration, is now a senior
fellow in the Council on ForeignRelations.
Welcome, Elliot. Good to be here.
So a lot to unpack here. What do you think ultimately is
going on with the administrationparking this fleet off the coast
of Venezuela and making, you know, threatening noises to
Nicolas Maduro, killing all these people who they accuse of
(26:34):
fairing drugs to America? Is this about regime change?
Is it about reducing the flow ofdrugs?
Is it about influence in the hemisphere?
What's it about? Well, it certainly is about
reducing the flow of drugs, but you don't need a gigantic
aircraft carrier to do that. So I assume it is also about
(26:56):
getting rid of Nicolas Maduro. Right.
And and of course, you know, youwere in charge of the Venezuela
policy in the first Trump administration and, you know, he
made some very unkind noises about the Trump that is about
Maduro at that time. But what is different this time?
Because it seems to be a very different policy, a more robust
(27:16):
1. Well, it certainly is.
I mean, in the first term, we used, pardon me, diplomatic
pressure, economic pressure, sanctions, but no military
pressure. One thing is different, and that
is that they've now had an election and it was a landslide
defeat from Maduro and there is a legitimately elected
(27:37):
president. The problem is that's probably
the thing that Trump cares aboutleast when you compare it to,
say, drug trafficking. So the major difference is
probably not the explanation forthis change, and I don't really
understand what is. And if you don't understand,
Elliot, we're, we're in trouble,aren't we?
(27:59):
Because, you know, about policy towards Venezuela, you know,
about, you know, policy towards Latin America in the broader
sense. I mean, just tell us about the
thing that we've been discussingon the podcast, which is this
idea that there was a deal to bemade with Maduro between Maduro
and Trump at the beginning of the administration.
And it was around natural resources.
(28:19):
Essentially, Venezuela was goingto hand over almost all of its
oil to America in return for America tolerating Maduro in
power. Did you hear of such a deal?
And what happened to that deal? Yes, Maduro offered something
along those lines. It's not a very compelling
offer. We don't actually need
Venezuelan oil. You know, we did during the
(28:43):
Second World War, but we're pretty much self-sufficient in
oil these days. To the extent that this is about
migration. And that's an issue that we
should really mention. It's pretty clear that while
Maduro is in power and destroying the economy of
Venezuela and repressing the people, they're going to keep
(29:06):
moving out of Venezuela. So if you want that to stop, you
really got to change the regime.But regime change is something
that America has has tried not just in Latin America over the
decades, but also most famously in Iraq.
And it doesn't always go according to plan.
How, If there is a regime changeplan that you can decipher out
(29:29):
of all this, what does it actually look like?
Venezuela is a much better candidate than, say, Iraq or
Syria. You know, when we think of
Syria, we think of and Iraq, Sunnis and Shias and Druze and
Kurds. There are no divisions like that
in Venezuela, first of all. Secondly, Venezuela had about 50
years of democracy. They kicked out a military
(29:50):
dictator in 1958. And then for about 50 years they
had, you know, regular electionsand democracy.
So it's a much better, there's amuch better possibility that
after Maduro, they could return with their recently elected
president to democracy. You can't say regime change.
(30:10):
I mean, this administration hates that term, and they'll
never use it and they'll deny it.
But I think the idea basically is if you could get Maduro and
his inner circle out and then Edmundo Gonzalez, who was
elected president and is in exile in Spain, would go home,
(30:31):
you could start returning Venezuela to democracy.
Because the issue in Iraq was always that, you know, you could
have free and fair elections, sort of, but you don't have the
institutions of democracy to uphold, the democracy to uphold
the result. Did those institutions survive
in a decades of Chavez and Maduro?
(30:53):
Yes and no. I mean, there there is.
There's always been a parliament, but the elections
for parliament were in recent years fixed.
There's always been a Supreme Court, you know, and a court
system, but again, under the control of the regime.
And the question is, how long would it take to restore those?
Again, Venezuela had 50 years ofthis.
(31:14):
It is surrounded by democracies like Brazil, Chile, Peru,
Colombia. So it is, you know, we no
guarantees, but it is a better candidate.
Right. But I guess we're getting a
little bit ahead of ourselves. First of all, to establish
democracy, you've got to, you know, remove the guy who's
currently running the country. Do you really think that, given
(31:36):
what awaits him, Nicolas Maduro is open to some kind of deal
that, you know, sees his removalfrom power or even open to gun
gunship diplomacy, you know, with the USS Gerald Ford parked
off the coast of his country? I just can't imagine that really
working. I wonder if you can you?
Know it is reminiscent of what happened in Panama with Manuel
(31:57):
Noriega. The deal that was offered this
is this is the Reagan administration will quash the
indictments of you if you will leave power and leave Panama.
He said no and ended up in AUS federal prison.
I I think really Maduro was unlikely to accept such a deal
because he's worried about goingto prison himself.
(32:19):
He is an indicted drug trafficker indicted in the US
That's why I think you're going to have to push him out.
You're probably not going to be able to negotiate him out.
And that means getting, among other things, getting Venezuelan
military to push him out, some Colonel someplace to rise up and
(32:39):
say, look at this American powerbeing brought here.
I do think it will require strikes on Venezuela.
That is right now what the US isdoing is hitting, you know, a
boat here or boat there in international waters.
I don't think that'll do it. I think you need to hit
Venezuela itself, some military or or narcotics target for the
(33:03):
military to think, OK, the game's really over.
Maduro is going down. I don't want to go with them.
OK, but some Colonel Summer could be another Hugo Chavez,
couldn't it? I mean that he was some Colonel
somewhere. He ended up taking over the
whole country. Yeah, but now they've got an
elected president. And this is in the context, of
course, of tremendous use of American power.
(33:27):
The Maduro and his regime are reviled all over Latin America
and the days of Latin American, you know, juntas running
countries are over. There isn't a military
dictatorship in all of Latin America.
And, you know, but you mentionedthe Noriega example in I think
it was 1989. I mean, there were American
boots on the ground. That is something that that you
(33:48):
know, that Trump has said and his MAGA movement has said they
really don't want to see, right?And I don't think he's going to
do it. Reagan tried negotiating with
Noriega. That failed.
It was George HW Bush then in 1989, as you said, who invaded
Panama. But that is the kind of thing
Trump hates. He likes, you know, the kind of
(34:09):
thing he did in Iran, a strike and then it's over with no boots
on the ground. I don't think you're going to
see that. And it's interesting that if you
look at this great flotilla, yeah, there are some troops
there, but there are not the numbers that you would need from
Venezuela. He does not intend that, I
think. So if he wants the Venezuelan
people, the opposition of which there are millions, to do the
(34:31):
heavy lifting, you know, as he thought maybe it might be the
case in Iran, well, again, that didn't work.
They didn't do the heavy lifting.
You know, they were either too intimidated or too disorganised
to do so. Do you think that Venezuela is
different because there is a coherent opposition that formed
around the last election that was stolen by the President?
(34:52):
I think it's different. I think that however, you will
probably need something coming from the Venezuelan military to
push Maduro out. I I think the idea that you're
going to get 5 million people out, you know, into this streets
to do this pretty unlikely. Just on the question of, of, of
(35:13):
bombing these, you know, boats, fishing boats that carry drugs,
I mean, in all this stuff, there's no due process of law,
is there? We just have to take it on, you
know, on their evidence that these are boats carrying
fentanyl. And actually Anoushka was on the
ground in Trinidad and, and, andspoke to people there.
You know, they're right across the water from Venezuela.
(35:34):
They said the evidence so far isthat it's, it's actually not,
it's marijuana and it might be cocaine, but it's not fentanyl.
I mean, is there a problem here that America is just doing all
these extrajudicial killings without going to any due process
of law, and that that might set a rather alarming precedent?
Well, I think a lot of Americansfeel that way.
I do think these boats are engaged in drug trafficking.
(35:57):
Fenchville, as you said, doesn'tcome to the US this way.
It comes across the Mexican border.
But this is mostly cocaine. Cocaine does come from Colombia
and Venezuela. These were not fishing boats.
These were not forest boats. This was drug trafficking.
Nevertheless, we've been handling this for years and
years by having the Coast Guard stop the boat and arrest people
(36:20):
and then bring them to court andlet's see if you can can convict
them. This is something new.
Will. Will President Trump get away
with it? Yes, I think he will get away
with it. Do.
You approve. No, I don't approve.
Look, I don't approve of drug trafficking.
I think there's people belongingin jail, but I think they also
(36:42):
need a trial before they're killed is.
There any evidence, as the administration has suggested,
that Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, is the
head of a gang of of a cartel ofa drugs cartel.
Yes. And I think that that his regime
really at the very least protects the drug traffickers
(37:03):
and profits from lives off the profits of drug trafficking.
So I think he's he's in it and Ithink really everyone who
investigates it, he's in it up to his neck.
And is the idea that you, you change Venezuela, you know, you,
you get rid of Maduro, as you said, you know, through the
elements of the Venezuelan military opposition on the
(37:25):
ground, the people who were elected but who had the
elections stolen from them? And does that then send, is it
supposed to send a message to the rest of the continent?
You know, we can do it here. We can also do it over there.
Well, I think it's supposed to send a message to Cuba and
Nicaragua. In fact, Maduro has all of his
years in power been giving somewhere between 30,000 and
(37:46):
50,000 barrels a day of oil to Cuba for free.
Cuban economy is in bad shape. It's not a democratic government
that stopped that subsidy. That regime might fall, too.
And the regime in Nicaragua, I think, is also very shaky.
The economy is very shaky. That would be the kind of
achievement that I think Trump would like in his three years to
(38:07):
go in power. And how important is Marco Rubio
in all this? Because at the beginning of the
administration, there was, as wediscussed earlier, this sort of
vague outline of a deal, resources for for staying in
power in terms of Maduro. And then Marco Rubio gets
involved and it becomes much more aggressive.
Well, I would say the the whole Florida delegation feels that
(38:30):
way. It's a Florida thing.
It's Rubio. It's the White House teacher of
staff Susie Wiles. It's the senators and members of
the of the House of Representatives from Florida.
And again, that that deal with Maduro would have done nothing
on migration, which is another problem here.
So I think, yeah, Maduro, Madurohas the problem that there's
(38:53):
enormous interests of Americans,of Venezuelan Americans, of the
Secretary of State in Venezuela.And I know they're, you know,
obviously they're this administration cares deeply
about illegal migration across the border.
I also know that a lot of Venezuelans that I spoke to in
Florida who voted for Trump, wholoved Trump, are really upset by
(39:15):
the number of Venezuelans in their community have been sent
packing back across the border. Even if they weren't bad
hombres, as the president might say.
Is that something to do with it?You know, keep the Venezuelans
happy because they really want Maduro to go.
If you can do that, then they'llforgive you a few other things
that have gone wrong. And of course, they matter in
Florida because they vote in Florida.
And although Florida's no longera swing state, it could
(39:36):
potentially swing back to the Democrats.
It's complicated because many ofthe Venezuelans in question are
not yet citizens, so they can't vote.
There's a there's a complete contradiction or anomaly here.
On the one hand, the president, the administration is saying
Venezuela's hell. On the other hand, they're
saying go back. It just, you know, it makes no
(39:57):
sense. I don't think very many people
have been sent back. But the ones who are in Florida,
of course, live in a kind of limbo, live in fear that they
might be tomorrow morning. I think that was a frankly, a
terrible move on the part of thepresident.
You want to get rid of Mcguro? Get rid of Mcguro.
They can have a democratic regime help them rebuild the
(40:17):
economy as in Argentina, and then you won't get these
outflows. That's the way to do it, not
grabbing people off the street and sending them back to
Venezuela. And of course, if you try some
kind of regime change or whatever you want to call it,
and it goes horribly wrong and you destabilize the country even
more, instead of creating a safeplace for them to return to, you
(40:39):
might actually trigger an even greater outflow of Venezuelans
that might end up coming to yourcountry, the US.
Well, I think for those reasons and many others, I think the
president should realize, you know, he's halfway down the road
here. Somebody's going to win this.
It's going to be Nicolas Maduro or Donald Trump.
(40:59):
One or the other is going to look triumphant in, you know,
three months, six months. And if the president thinks he
can just sort of change his mindand pull back now and say, oh,
never mind, I don't think that'sgoing to work.
So finally then Elliot, who is going to win this, do you think?
I would bet on Donald Trump. And when?
(41:22):
Well, you can't keep that flotilla including our largest
aircraft carrier in the Caribbean for, you know, for a
year. I mean, I'm thinking maybe not
this year, there aren't that many weeks left this year, but
three to six months I'd say is the window.
Springtime in Caracas. See you there.
(41:46):
OK, Ellen Abrams, thank you verymuch.
It's been a real pleasure. You're welcome.
That's it for this week. We hope you enjoyed the show.
We certainly did. And can I just urge you to
subscribe to Trump World to the podcast.
It really makes a huge difference for us.
And of course, you can always send your comments, your
suggestions about questions to ask or topics to broach or, you
(42:08):
know, comments to make. I mean, we are all members of
Trump World. Let's face it, we're all
citizens in Trump World. So let's make the most of it
from Anushka me. That's it.
See you next Wednesday.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Male Room with Dr. Jesse Mills
As Director of The Men’s Clinic at UCLA, Dr. Jesse Mills has spent his career helping men understand their bodies, their hormones, and their health. Now he’s bringing that expertise to The Male Room — a podcast where data-driven medicine meets common sense. Each episode separates fact from hype, science from snake oil, and gives men the tools to live longer, stronger, and happier lives. With candor, humor, and real-world experience from the exam room and the operating room, Dr. Mills breaks down the latest health headlines, dissects trends, and explains what actually works — and what doesn’t. Smart, straightforward, and entertaining, The Male Room is the show that helps men take charge of their health without the jargon.