January 5, 2026 • 36 mins
The first hour of today’s show kicks off 2026 with explosive news and in-depth analysis of one of the most daring U.S. military operations in decades. Clay and Buck break down the historic Delta Force raid that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, comparing its complexity to the Osama bin Laden mission. They detail how elite U.S. special operations forces executed a flawless plan involving cyber warfare, blackout tactics, rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, and intelligence precision—resulting in zero American casualties. The hosts emphasize the strategic implications for the Western Hemisphere, noting ripple effects on Russia, China, Cuba, and Iran, and how this bold move reinforces President Trump’s “mess around and find out” foreign policy.
The discussion explores Maduro’s arraignment in Manhattan federal court on drug trafficking and weapons charges, the future of Venezuela post-Maduro, and contrasts Trump’s decisive action with prior Democratic administrations. Clay and Buck highlight the hypocrisy of critics like Chuck Schumer and newly elected NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who condemned the operation as “regime change,” sparking debate over international law and U.S. national security priorities.
Listeners also hear about the collapse of Cuba’s oil lifeline, Venezuela’s economic freefall under socialism, and the potential for renewed prosperity in Latin America. The hosts underscore Venezuela’s former status as the third wealthiest nation in the Western Hemisphere and how socialist policies destroyed its oil production—from 3 million barrels per day to barely 1 million. They connect this to broader themes of communism’s failures, refugee realities, and the overwhelming support among Venezuelan-Americans for Maduro’s removal.
Hour 1 also touches on major domestic wins: the largest one-year drop in U.S. homicide rates, Trump-era economic momentum with 4.3% GDP growth, falling inflation, and lower interest rates. The segment closes with speculation on the Monroe Doctrine’s modern relevance and what this bold foreign policy means for America’s role in global stability.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody to the first twenty twenty six edition of
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. And we have
so many big things talking about. First of all, we
missed you all. We hope you had a fantastic holiday.
It has been great here in the Second Household, and
o'clay and his family had wonderful time.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I hope you had a.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Great holiday, Christmas, New Year, hanaka all the above, and
we are racked in stack for a big show today.
And when I think is going to be the best
year ever of the Clay Travis and Buck Saxon Show,
I just have that feeling. And things are looking pretty fantastic.
I might add for the Trump administration, what a way
(00:41):
to ring in the new year by bringing the thug
of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro to justice. This is a big story.
We're going to get into the details today. Maduro is
currently being trans into into court and there's court proceedings underway.
(01:05):
So this is this is huge. The short version is
that the most daring Special Operations raid since the Bin
Laden raid occurred in over the weekend and this has
now put Maduro into American custody. We will give you
the details of this operation. We will analyze this. The
(01:27):
tactical success and the strategic implications are incredible, an amazing
work here reportedly by Delta Force. That's that's the unit
that is getting their credit for this in the media,
which that they're Tier one just like Seal Team six,
incredible elead operators. But a whole all of the above
(01:49):
approach from different units here involved in this. We'll get
into this some other big stories. I might add, Tim
Walls is not going to run for reelection in Minnesota,
which comes on the heels of the massive, massive viral
Clay expose of the scale this multi billion dollar who
knows how many billions of overwhelmingly Somali immigrant fraud in Minnesota,
(02:15):
which is a big deal. And we'll discuss that. We've
also got the biggest one year drop in the national
homicide rate perhaps ever in twenty twenty five, which is
something we should talk about with the Trump administration. So
we got a bunch of big stories to deal with.
Oh and Mam Donnie in New York, Kami Mamdanni. We
might held him tomorrow, but he's saying some wild things.
(02:36):
I'm very concerned for my beloved Big Apple clay, let,
let's dive into this to take us into this moment. Here,
Trump saying, after they seize Maduro, not a single US
casualty in this raid, involving helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, armada,
(02:56):
off the coast, intelligence operatives. I mean, just everything working seamlessly,
perfectly together. And Trump is saying we're in charge. This
is cut to play it.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
The next question is who's in charge of Venezuela right now?
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Have you spoken to the newly sworn in president there Rodriguez,
and what are your thoughts on the entire.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Situation when you said the US would run Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
We're dealing with the people. We're dealing with the people
that just got sported.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
And don't ask me who's in charge, because they'll give
you an answer and it'll be very Contribuation means we're
in charge.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Clay, I think everybody knows Trump is calling the shots.
Trump is in charge. Huge change in Venezuela. And this
isn't just about Latin America. This is about the Western hemisphere.
They're big global implications, Russia, China, this is this is huge.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I think we can do the whole show today on
the Venezuela impact on the Delta Force badasses. I think
before we even get into the implications, I would imagine
that a lot of people are like me and just
blown away by the incredible organization and just incredible combat
(04:17):
dexterity that was put to brought to bear in this
particular raid.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Think about this.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
We went into Venezuela in the middle of the night,
and they knew we were coming. I was in the
Caribbean for much of the holiday and you would hear
constantly planes buzzing. There was this constant discussion about where
is the aircraft carrier? Where are the American military forces.
(04:47):
So it wasn't as if we suddenly went in and
there was no pre existing idea that we might be
going in.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
They said that they initially had it.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Scheduled what four days before, and had to change it
because of weather. Zero casualties. Now, there may have been
a couple of people who were wounded, so but no
mortal woundings, no loss of life, no loss of material, well,
no American casualties.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
About eighty Venezuelans, I think civilian military, that's what they're saying.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Taken out Certainly, you wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Have wanted to be on Maduro's mostly Cuban personal security detail,
going up against Delta operators who had been training for
months on a mock up of exactly the building that
they had to go into. You got no chance against
those guys. I thought it was, and I saw you tweet.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I think about this more impressive even than when we
went and got Osama bin Laden in terms of the
moving parts and the requirements involved. You know, the challenge
with bin Laden was nobody knew where he was. But
the number of people that actually had to go into
Pakistan right about about if I remember correctly, in order
to be able to get him was relatively small, and
(06:03):
the number of people involved in that raid was too.
This was basically what ten twenty thirty x in terms
of the complexity of the moving parts going into one
of the most populated cities in the world, candidly Caracas,
and just to take out Maduro and do it all
(06:24):
without a significant impact to the American forces at all,
and to send the message buck to Iran, to Cuba,
to frankly probably Russia, any of these bad actors out
there of what we are capable of doing in terms
of organizational capacity and just lethality. I woke up to
(06:48):
it like most people and just said, holy crap, what
an unbelievable stroke. And there are lots of implications coming
from it, but purely from you were involved in the CIA.
Purely from the organizational cuppacities of this is what. Is
there even an analogy of of of an excellent and
successful raid like this that you could make that's anywhere
(07:09):
near the complexity and successful level. I can't even think
of one.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
No, this is this is something that brought together elements
that have never really been used in quite this way before.
I mean, let's let's step back, you compare. The only
thing that's comparable in our recent memory would be the
bin Laden raid and the issues that you deal with here.
You know, the bin Laden raid. Yes, the Pakistani military
(07:33):
response was a concern, but bin Lad now Abadabad was
near a Pakistani military base. But Bin Laden did not
have a battalion of Pakistani military around him in charge
of his security all day. Bin Laden could not call
upon the direction of a of surface to air missile sites.
(07:57):
And I mean Baduro did have control of the national
military of Venezuela. So that's this is a whole level
of risk and complexity beyond what you would see that
in that situation. Uh and and here's here's the breakdown
that we get they made, but Cararak is essentially whole
(08:17):
areas of it. They blacked it out, So that's a
cyber capability. They had mapped out Maduro's day to day
movements to the point where it was reported they even
knew what pets and what outfits he liked to put
on day to day. I mean, that's how close to
Maduro they were. So the intelligence gathering success component of
this was also tremendous, and that that brings to bear
(08:41):
everything human intelligence, you know, sources, individuals, but also what
they can pull out of the sky, electronic signals intelligence.
So the intelligence gathering was flawless. The operational security was
obviously very high on this one. They knew that we
were coming for him at some point. Trump had made
that pretty clear. But exactly when matters a lot, because
(09:01):
he can't just hide in a closet forever, right, so
he's got to be able to move around. He was
on the largest military base Madua was on the largest
military base in Caracas, and we managed to take out
so we bring down their power grid. We managed to
take out their surface to air missile and radar installation
so we could fly rotary wings that would require fixed
(09:23):
wing We probably did, you know, F thirty fives or something,
and then we bring in rotary so modified helicopters and
the one sixty at Special Special Aviation Unit was you know,
the night Stalkers, famed night Stalkers, they were involved in
this too. So they come in with the rotary aircraft
to deploy troops, our Delta Force, who take out without
(09:46):
a single casualty. All of the guys assigned to at
least that we're exchanging gunfire with them to assign to
protect Maduro. We load him and his wife into the
helos and get out of the country without a casualty.
Clay This this can go wrong.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
This is the thing.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
This can go wrong a thousand different ways, and yet
they didn't. They didn't have a single stumble.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Here even buck. It could go wrong with things that
aren't brought to bear by Venezuela, right. You could have
a health character that just has issues. You could have
any number of errors that don't even have to do
with oppositional forces. To have it be this flawless is
I mean, I think it's extraordinary. Now one of the
(10:31):
things that now is brought to bear is what is
the goal now? So Maduro is going to be he's
pled not guilty to drug in weapons charges. Not a
surprise in a Manhattan federal court. That has just happened
in the last few minutes. There are not cameras obviously
inside of that courtroom, but everybody is reporting that he
(10:53):
has been arraigned and pled not guilty. I would imagine
that his wife will also plead not guilty. We have
maybe if somebody can go back and grab it, because
we have a transcript. I know I said, hey, we
should go in, we should take Maduro out, because there
was reaction from some of you when I said a
(11:14):
couple of months ago that this was coming, and I
thought it was a good move. Now the complexity is
going to be how do you start to put in
place a situation such that you don't end up with
Maduro or something worse. People are asking obviously you served
there is this an example of the Iraq situation. I
(11:34):
think the countries are very dissimilar, and I don't think
that there is the same concerns there, but those are
some of the questions that are arising as we figure
out how exactly does this play out going forward.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Maduro was an illegitimate ruler who ruined this country. So
this is a different thing right now. You could say
Saddam Hussein was, and he certainly was a brutal dictator
and did a lot a lot of terrible things, but
there were a lot of people who looked to him
as stability. There were a lot of I mean Iraqis.
(12:08):
If you were a Sunni Iraqi, and this is what
I don't want to get too deep in this. You're
a Sunni Iraqi who had been calling the shots the
Suonis had and then the Shia, who were actually the
majority of the country, all of a sudden, are going
to come into power. You got a lot of concerns
about where that's going. And those concerns were well founded,
as we saw from the civil war that effectively broke
out during the US occupation. In this case, Maduro is
(12:29):
a scumbag narco trafficker, and we're saying and very clearly,
and there's been a lot of conversations going on for
a while. They just also to point out the Biden
administration said that Maduro was a narco trafficker, five million
dollars on him or anybody who could help him get arrested.
They put a twenty five million dollar bounty on his head.
But what's so clear here is this disparity, this this
(12:50):
difference between Democrat and Republican. Democrats will say the things
they have to say to seem to seem like they
are serious on national security. Republicans or Trump will actually
do the thing. Yes, they will do the thing right.
Democrats will say they want to secure the border. They don't,
but they will say that Trump.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Will actually do it.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Democrats will put a twenty five million dollar bounty on
Maduro's head. Trump will actually go and get him, get
his head, so to speak. This is so clear for
everybody to see. And once again the opponents of Trump
on this one. I want more, bring more of this,
We need more, aoc more, mom, Donnie Moore. International law,
(13:31):
what international law says that you can operate a narco state.
You can destroy the country. Eight million people fled Venezuela.
You can flood our country with drugs. But there's no
immunity to flood America with drugs. There's no immunity for
some scumbag to do this, what are they even talking about?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, also they had ready to go as unfortunately they
always do immediate protests over Maduro being arrested, and the
protest of course are paid for and the protesters are
paid to show up. I mean, it's totally a stage
managed production. But contrasting that with people that have connection
(14:12):
to Venezuela, either refugees who have fled Venezuela or people
in Venezuela itself overwhelmingly supporting the decision that was made.
In fact, where you are right now in Miami is
what do we say, eight hundred thousand Venezuelans live in
the United States. I remember having this conversation before we
left for Christmas, and the number one place that is
(14:34):
the largest population is around draw which is where Trump
has the golf course.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
It's probably the highest population concentration.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
So they're more Venezuelan refugees within twenty minute drive of
where I'm currently sitting than anywhere else in the country.
And Clay, this tells you a lot. Miami Herald headline
from the last twenty four hours Miami Herald very left
wing paper, to be clear. After Maduro's capture Venezuelans and
South Florida dream of going home. Yeah, they know, they
(15:05):
know that their country is ruined by this guy, and
they know that Venezuela is actually a great country with
the lot going forward, a lot of resources. What we'll
talk more about this. It was until Maduro, really Chavez,
and then Maduro came along. More on this coming up.
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Speaker 4 (16:20):
You ain't imagining it. The world has gone insane.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Reclaim your sanity with Clay and Buck. Find them on
the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Welcome back in Clay, Travis, Buck Sexton show.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Let me just play this.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Chuck Schumer was angry at Trump for being too lenient
back in twenty twenty. Here's cut seventeen flashback. How about
the hypocrisy He brands about all these things he wants
to do or is doing, but his actions belye his words.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Maybe the best metaphor was his claim.
Speaker 7 (16:59):
To bring the democracy to Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
There was a big policy there. It flopped.
Speaker 7 (17:06):
If the policy was working Juan Guido wouldn't be in
the balcony here.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
He'd be in Venezuela.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
He'd be sitting in the president's palace, or at least
waging a fight to win. He's here, and the president
brags about his Venezuela policy. Give us a break. He
hasn't brought an end to the Maduro regime. The Maduro
regime is more powerful today and more intrenched today than
it was when the president began.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
He should just say sorry, or else he should man
the post himself. You don't have to say this guy
has got nothing.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I do.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Think this is the continued impact of Elon on Twitter.
And we'll talk about this some with Tim Walls in
this siding, he's not gonna run. It's harder for legacy
media to protect their favored people and their favored arguments
because the hypocrisy is just so staggering. Look, hopefully the
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(18:04):
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Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's chalk dot Com.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
My name Clay, Commie Solidity is unfortunately alive and well,
my friends, welcome back to Clay and Buck. So you
have Maduro, and let me just say, Maduro is actually
a fantastic exemplar of a communist because he says things
that make people who don't know better believe that he
(19:18):
cares about the collective. They're going to share the wealth,
everyone's going to have more, and then he just proceeds
to ruin everything, act like a complete thug, terrorize people,
use extreme violence to stay in power and be incredibly
rich himself. That's actually what communists are, do we clear,
(19:38):
when communists get what they want, it is Maduro. Just
look at now, Look at China, look at any place
where there has been a communist system. Same thing in Cuba.
The communists will talk about more wealth for all the people,
but they actually just further impoverish or begin the impoverishment
it depending. I mean, Venezuela was not a poor country
(20:00):
before the commies took over. Venezuela was doing really well
going into the twenty first century, and then they went socialist,
and as we all know, that's a nightmare. But we
got a commie in New York as well, Clay, and
he's very upset. He's very upset about what's going on
here in Venezuela. I have Venezuelans metaphorically and maybe literally,
(20:21):
because they are a people known to enjoy dancing, dancing
in the streets here in Miami. In there's video circulating
of Venezuelan Venezuelans who are here who fled, and many
of them were true asylum seekers or true refugees in
the sense that their assets were seized, Maduro or Chavez
was going to torture them and their families and take
(20:41):
all their stuff. Like that's actual refugee stuff, not just
I want to be in America like the Somali stuff
we're seeing in Minnesota, so I can loot the system
and steal from the nice people that took me in Clay.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
They're all thrilled.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
They're crying about the prospect of what the future of
their country. Well, Mam Donnie, the newly installed yes, he
was elected, much to my tremendous sugar in the newly
installed Kami mayor of New York. Mam Donnie is saying
this play fifteen.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
I called the President and spoke with him directly to
register my opposition to this act and to make clear
that it was an opposition based on being opposed to
a pursuit of regime change, to the violation of federal
international law, and a desire to see that be consistent
(21:33):
each and every day.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
And what was his response to you a conversation.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
I registered my opposition, I made it clear, and we
lefted it.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Then, well, right, he called Trump to register his opposition.
What is he getting A letter from the student council.
You know, is he going to go tell the school
proctor on Trump?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Like, what does he think he's doing here, Clay, Mam,
Donnie is the face of the Democrat Party. Now, this
is what I said. And I feel so bad for
our WR listeners. I love you, guys, but we have
to let you sink into communism in order for the
rest of the country to flourish. And I really do
(22:16):
believe AOC and Mom Donnie as the face of the
Democrat Party in the midterms is going to be very
beneficial for the Republicans overall, and it's going to be
a bigger issue in twenty twenty eight too. Now, Gavin
Newsom is going to try to argue, hey, guys, actually,
I'm the face of the Democrat Party and we're gonna
(22:37):
see that battle. Kamala Harris is going to run, much
to Buck's chagrin. I think he's going to lose a
He's going to lose a bet on that.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
But I think we'll see you stop with stop with
your sausa of celebration over there, buddies.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
She's running. But look, I think in general what you
said is so important. Did you see the graph of
the comparison between Poland and Venezuela over the last thirty
or forty years. I think it was for people who
have not seen that graphic, maybe we can share that
(23:14):
from the Clay and Buck Twitter feed. But Poland was
a much smaller country, a much less successful country than Venezuela. Venezuela,
as we have talked about on this program, was probably
buck the most successful Latin American country in like nineteen
ninety five, right before the rise of Hugo Chavez.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It was the third wealthiest country in the Western hemisphere.
Was the United States, Canada, which, let's be honest, America Junior,
and then Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, that's so, that's what it was.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
And this is why so many people out there who
are listening to us right now all over the country,
who are Venezuelan. This is why they were so die
hard in their opposition to socialism.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Because they lived it.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
They saw a country that was thriving, that has unbelievable
natural riches through oil and gas, and was having, as
you said, the third greatest GNP in all of the
Western hemisphere. And then Chavez came into power and starting
in the late nineties, the wheels came off this economy
(24:19):
and they still have. They stole all of the American assets,
all of the oil companies out there, and all Trump
is saying is We're going to make this country function efficiently. Again,
that's basically the plan is just to have success.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's a number of things you don't get to operate,
you know, with impunity. A narco state that is sending
cocaine into the United States into Europe by the way,
in large numbers as well, you don't get. You just
do that because you say, well, I run this other
little tinpot dictatorship. You know, this is the mess around
(24:58):
and find out for power of Trump, and it's a
brilliant thing. But on the oil production, not just to
give everyone a sense of this, uh, they were.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Doing three million, three million.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Barrels per day okay, produced in Venezuela right around to that,
like ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand, so right around
the end of the twentieth century, three million barrels per day, and.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Then it went down to.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
In Uh. I'm trying to COVID's not.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Really a fair commit.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I think they're doing a million now is the numbers
that I have a million? I was gonna say it's
it's it's a million, and what got down to half
a million during COVID but a million a day.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So their their their production capacity has been annihilated by
the idiots in charge who said they were going to
make the poor people wealthier, they were going to give
people more stuff. The single most important financial asset of
this country has been so grossly mismanaged that you could
you should want to throw all the idiots in charge
(26:02):
in prison just because of that. And then Clay, you
add on to this trenda Aragua is a Venezuelan prison
gang that the narco terrorist regime of Maduro was working
with to one export the drugs, and of course Maduro
then is taking a cut, right and on top of
that they were doing this, they were terrorizing political opposition.
(26:25):
They were Maduro's street thugs, I mean, his actual thugs
from prison became street thugs of the regime who were
being enriched by the international cartel operation that Maduro was
presiding over, which is why Biden had a twenty five
million dollar bounty on Like there's no debate about any
of this.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Not only did they have the twenty five million dollar bounty,
buck they made it.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
In January of this year.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
In January of this year, they made that bounty twenty
five million dollars, and I think Trump took it to
fifty million, because there's that funny aside when they had
the press conference availability where Trump said to Marco Rubio,
Secretary of State, Hey, make sure nobody's able to claim that,
because it went to fifty million dollars in the event
(27:12):
that he were able to be captured.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
But this is why.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
When Kamala shared her shared her take of oh, this
is completely unacceptable, then there's an immediate response. And again
I come back to this is partly what creating a
free marketplace for Twitter has done.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It allows everybody out there.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
To say, wait a minute, just in January, you guys,
I mean, I think we can grab the audio of
Karine Jean Pierre talking about it from the White House
press conference availability there as a press secretary.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
They made it twenty five million dollars just in January.
It's one of the final things they did well.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
But again this is where you see the Democrats just
hope that everybody in America forgets what they have said
about So we played that Chuck Schumer, Chuck Schumer's like, lead,
you know you're not doing enough.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Claim you're gonna do stuff, and you're not willing to
do it.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
They they can't attack this on the merits of the mission,
meaning the tactical success, because you know, you know, and look,
Seal Team six got a lot of love, rightly deserved
a lot of love after the bin Laden raid. It's
Delta's time in the sun right now. Delta is now
getting a lot of credit for being also the absolute
best of the best Tier one operators, you know, the
(28:26):
best UH elite special Operations infantry force that you could
ever ever hope for ever trained, so fantastic for them.
So they can't attack them on the tactical But then
Clay on the strategic side of this, and this is
what I think in part upsets people like Mom Donnie.
It's not the international law thing. It's that this also
hurts the whole axis of America and Trump opposition globally.
(28:53):
This is bad for China, this is bad for Russia,
very bad for Cuba. It's even bad for Iran. Right
these are all places that lose because Maduro is no
longer a stooge for them selling them oil in violation
or just giving it to them the case of Cuba
(29:14):
in violation of US sanctions. This also shows them, like
I said, the mess around and find out foreign policy
of Trump, which Iran learned the hard way with its
nuke reactors, and now Maduro has learned this. This sends
a huge message to China on the Taiwan issue. I
would add that as well. I heard from the President
of Taiwan himself face to face. He told me after
(29:35):
what Trump did in Iran, the Taiwanese were like, you
know what, this guy's not messing around, And I don't
think and they know. The Taiwanese knew that the Chinese
were paying very close attention and going, oh, things are
different now. And I think that's a big lesson here.
But for the the Mamdani Kamis of the world, it's
wait a second, the workers of the world unite stuff.
(29:58):
It's not looking good for them.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I just again, as we start off twenty twenty six,
I don't think twenty twenty five could have gone any better.
You know, four point three percent GDP at the last
GDP that we got two point seven percent interest rate
sorry inflation. Interest rates have come down substantially seventy five
(30:23):
basis point cut. Your mortgages are much more affordable right
now as we start twenty twenty five than they were
at the end of the Biden era. And we haven't
even hardly talked about it. You mentioned it, Buck, but
the biggest decline on record in murders. I'm looking right
now at the Washington Post. You know, they said, oh,
(30:44):
Trump calling out the National Guard is going to have
no impact. Murders went down thirty two percent in Washington,
d C. In twenty twenty five. Thirty two percent down
to about one hundred and twenty five murders in Washington,
D C. That's unprecedented. So there's so much positive momentum
out there. By the way, we should open up phones
(31:04):
eight hundred and two A two to two eight A two.
I bet we got some Special Forces guys out there
that would like to react to what they have seen
from the Venezuela raid. We're going to have our buddy
David Rutherford, who is one of our guest hosts in
the third hour to talk about that. Former seal so
no combat seals, a little bit know something about special operations.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
No doubt.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
We'll talk about all that and just excited to be
back as we are rolling here in twenty twenty six,
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Speaker 6 (32:15):
Play Travis and Buck Sexton telling it like it is.
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Podcast play Travis Bucks Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you
as we are rolling through into twenty twenty six. Excited
to be back with all of you. We hope that
you had fantastic Christmas in New Years with all of
your family, and that you had a spectacular time. And
certainly there is a ton going on out there. What
(32:48):
do you think about Cuba, buck, Because basically the only
reason there is any Cuban economy at all has been
that Venezuela has helped prop them up by giving them
some of that oil that is far more affordable than
it otherwise would be.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And now with the.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Barricade that's basically put up without the oil being able
to get there, Essentially, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, in
that press conference on right after the I guess was
it Sunday? Saturday? I guess right after the raid, said
Cuba's going to collapse too. And I've long thought and
(33:30):
wondered what the rationale has been all the way back
my whole life. But certainly for those of you who
remember the Cuban missile crisis and everything we lived through there,
why in the world have we allowed ninety minutes south
of the Florida Keys for Cuba to effectively be a
failed communist state?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Why have we allowed that to happen?
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Next time you come down to Miami, I'm going to
have you just walk around the streets down here in
little Havana and just say what you said. Because all
the all the Cuban Americans who have defined really Miami
in many ways for decades, they ask exactly that question,
yahich is what that? What the heck is going on?
And they have no love for the regime there, and
(34:14):
if anything, they really wish that their home country were
rather they're there. In many cases their ancestors home country,
uh could be a free and prosperous place. There's no
reason for it not to be.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
They look that they've been essentially trading security forces as
in because remember the KGB trained the Cuban intelligence services
back in the old Cold War era, which is why
the Cuban intelligence services were very aggressive and actually pretty
(34:46):
competent at regime repress, at regime you know, stability repress
and all of that, because they learned from the best,
as in the worst, they learned from the KGB themselves.
They were providing the security for Maduro. So we just
wasted a bunch of or rather Delta Force just wasted
a bunch of Cuban guys standing around with machine guns
(35:07):
to protect Maduro. And they in exchange, the Venezuelan regime
is giving Cuba oil. Yeah, and this is what it
needs to be able to function it. Think about what
goes in the generators, Like, how do they have power?
I mean, it's an island to begin with, and they
don't have the natural resources to do this on their own.
So without that, they're going to be under under enormous pressure.
And I think also, you know, people think of oh Cuba.
(35:30):
And I'm not trying to get crazy here everybody, but
they think of the Bay of Pigs and the disaster.
I mean, I've got a dear friend down here in
Miami who was at the Bay of Pigs, who was
fighting at the Bay of Pigs. They think about that,
and they think about the debacle, the disaster. This could
have been a debacle disaster too clayed Venezuela, and it
was not. It was the opposite. So I think that
puts Cuba on notice. Oh, I think Cuba. Look, if
(35:52):
you have ever been on.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
A cruise ship, Cuba warrids become almost immediately, snap your fingers.
It would become an unbelievable economic growth engine. I mean
Cuba was Las Vegas before Las Vegas existed. I mean,
you used to be able to hop on a speedboat
and be in Havana for dinner.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
It could be one of the premier tourist destinations in
the Caribbean and really for beaches in the world. Honestly,
it could be an incredible place.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
I mean, if you have ever been on a cruise ship,
you will go close enough to see the spires the
buildings of Havana from the cruise ship.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I mean, it is a no.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Brainer that that country should be an American allied source
of economic ingenuity. And I know there's a lot of
people out there listening right now. The Donro doctrine. We'll
talk about it when we come back. What does it
actually mean and what is the impact. Thanks for hanging
with us in twenty twenty six.
Welcome everybody to the first twenty twenty six edition of
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. And we have
so many big things talking about. First of all, we
missed you all. We hope you had a fantastic holiday.
It has been great here in the Second Household, and
o'clay and his family had wonderful time.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I hope you had a.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Great holiday, Christmas, New Year, hanaka all the above, and
we are racked in stack for a big show today.
And when I think is going to be the best
year ever of the Clay Travis and Buck Saxon Show,
I just have that feeling. And things are looking pretty fantastic.
I might add for the Trump administration, what a way
(00:41):
to ring in the new year by bringing the thug
of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro to justice. This is a big story.
We're going to get into the details today. Maduro is
currently being trans into into court and there's court proceedings underway.
(01:05):
So this is this is huge. The short version is
that the most daring Special Operations raid since the Bin
Laden raid occurred in over the weekend and this has
now put Maduro into American custody. We will give you
the details of this operation. We will analyze this. The
(01:27):
tactical success and the strategic implications are incredible, an amazing
work here reportedly by Delta Force. That's that's the unit
that is getting their credit for this in the media,
which that they're Tier one just like Seal Team six,
incredible elead operators. But a whole all of the above
(01:49):
approach from different units here involved in this. We'll get
into this some other big stories. I might add, Tim
Walls is not going to run for reelection in Minnesota,
which comes on the heels of the massive, massive viral
Clay expose of the scale this multi billion dollar who
knows how many billions of overwhelmingly Somali immigrant fraud in Minnesota,
(02:15):
which is a big deal. And we'll discuss that. We've
also got the biggest one year drop in the national
homicide rate perhaps ever in twenty twenty five, which is
something we should talk about with the Trump administration. So
we got a bunch of big stories to deal with.
Oh and Mam Donnie in New York, Kami Mamdanni. We
might held him tomorrow, but he's saying some wild things.
(02:36):
I'm very concerned for my beloved Big Apple clay, let,
let's dive into this to take us into this moment. Here,
Trump saying, after they seize Maduro, not a single US
casualty in this raid, involving helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, armada,
(02:56):
off the coast, intelligence operatives. I mean, just everything working seamlessly,
perfectly together. And Trump is saying we're in charge. This
is cut to play it.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
The next question is who's in charge of Venezuela right now?
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Have you spoken to the newly sworn in president there Rodriguez,
and what are your thoughts on the entire.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Situation when you said the US would run Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
We're dealing with the people. We're dealing with the people
that just got sported.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
And don't ask me who's in charge, because they'll give
you an answer and it'll be very Contribuation means we're
in charge.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Clay, I think everybody knows Trump is calling the shots.
Trump is in charge. Huge change in Venezuela. And this
isn't just about Latin America. This is about the Western hemisphere.
They're big global implications, Russia, China, this is this is huge.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I think we can do the whole show today on
the Venezuela impact on the Delta Force badasses. I think
before we even get into the implications, I would imagine
that a lot of people are like me and just
blown away by the incredible organization and just incredible combat
(04:17):
dexterity that was put to brought to bear in this
particular raid.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Think about this.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
We went into Venezuela in the middle of the night,
and they knew we were coming. I was in the
Caribbean for much of the holiday and you would hear
constantly planes buzzing. There was this constant discussion about where
is the aircraft carrier? Where are the American military forces.
(04:47):
So it wasn't as if we suddenly went in and
there was no pre existing idea that we might be
going in.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
They said that they initially had it.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Scheduled what four days before, and had to change it
because of weather. Zero casualties. Now, there may have been
a couple of people who were wounded, so but no
mortal woundings, no loss of life, no loss of material, well,
no American casualties.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
About eighty Venezuelans, I think civilian military, that's what they're saying.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Taken out Certainly, you wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Have wanted to be on Maduro's mostly Cuban personal security detail,
going up against Delta operators who had been training for
months on a mock up of exactly the building that
they had to go into. You got no chance against
those guys. I thought it was, and I saw you tweet.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I think about this more impressive even than when we
went and got Osama bin Laden in terms of the
moving parts and the requirements involved. You know, the challenge
with bin Laden was nobody knew where he was. But
the number of people that actually had to go into
Pakistan right about about if I remember correctly, in order
to be able to get him was relatively small, and
(06:03):
the number of people involved in that raid was too.
This was basically what ten twenty thirty x in terms
of the complexity of the moving parts going into one
of the most populated cities in the world, candidly Caracas,
and just to take out Maduro and do it all
(06:24):
without a significant impact to the American forces at all,
and to send the message buck to Iran, to Cuba,
to frankly probably Russia, any of these bad actors out
there of what we are capable of doing in terms
of organizational capacity and just lethality. I woke up to
(06:48):
it like most people and just said, holy crap, what
an unbelievable stroke. And there are lots of implications coming
from it, but purely from you were involved in the CIA.
Purely from the organizational cuppacities of this is what. Is
there even an analogy of of of an excellent and
successful raid like this that you could make that's anywhere
(07:09):
near the complexity and successful level. I can't even think
of one.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
No, this is this is something that brought together elements
that have never really been used in quite this way before.
I mean, let's let's step back, you compare. The only
thing that's comparable in our recent memory would be the
bin Laden raid and the issues that you deal with here.
You know, the bin Laden raid. Yes, the Pakistani military
(07:33):
response was a concern, but bin Lad now Abadabad was
near a Pakistani military base. But Bin Laden did not
have a battalion of Pakistani military around him in charge
of his security all day. Bin Laden could not call
upon the direction of a of surface to air missile sites.
(07:57):
And I mean Baduro did have control of the national
military of Venezuela. So that's this is a whole level
of risk and complexity beyond what you would see that
in that situation. Uh and and here's here's the breakdown
that we get they made, but Cararak is essentially whole
(08:17):
areas of it. They blacked it out, So that's a
cyber capability. They had mapped out Maduro's day to day
movements to the point where it was reported they even
knew what pets and what outfits he liked to put
on day to day. I mean, that's how close to
Maduro they were. So the intelligence gathering success component of
this was also tremendous, and that that brings to bear
(08:41):
everything human intelligence, you know, sources, individuals, but also what
they can pull out of the sky, electronic signals intelligence.
So the intelligence gathering was flawless. The operational security was
obviously very high on this one. They knew that we
were coming for him at some point. Trump had made
that pretty clear. But exactly when matters a lot, because
(09:01):
he can't just hide in a closet forever, right, so
he's got to be able to move around. He was
on the largest military base Madua was on the largest
military base in Caracas, and we managed to take out
so we bring down their power grid. We managed to
take out their surface to air missile and radar installation
so we could fly rotary wings that would require fixed
(09:23):
wing We probably did, you know, F thirty fives or something,
and then we bring in rotary so modified helicopters and
the one sixty at Special Special Aviation Unit was you know,
the night Stalkers, famed night Stalkers, they were involved in
this too. So they come in with the rotary aircraft
to deploy troops, our Delta Force, who take out without
(09:46):
a single casualty. All of the guys assigned to at
least that we're exchanging gunfire with them to assign to
protect Maduro. We load him and his wife into the
helos and get out of the country without a casualty.
Clay This this can go wrong.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
This is the thing.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
This can go wrong a thousand different ways, and yet
they didn't. They didn't have a single stumble.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Here even buck. It could go wrong with things that
aren't brought to bear by Venezuela, right. You could have
a health character that just has issues. You could have
any number of errors that don't even have to do
with oppositional forces. To have it be this flawless is
I mean, I think it's extraordinary. Now one of the
(10:31):
things that now is brought to bear is what is
the goal now? So Maduro is going to be he's
pled not guilty to drug in weapons charges. Not a
surprise in a Manhattan federal court. That has just happened
in the last few minutes. There are not cameras obviously
inside of that courtroom, but everybody is reporting that he
(10:53):
has been arraigned and pled not guilty. I would imagine
that his wife will also plead not guilty. We have
maybe if somebody can go back and grab it, because
we have a transcript. I know I said, hey, we
should go in, we should take Maduro out, because there
was reaction from some of you when I said a
(11:14):
couple of months ago that this was coming, and I
thought it was a good move. Now the complexity is
going to be how do you start to put in
place a situation such that you don't end up with
Maduro or something worse. People are asking obviously you served
there is this an example of the Iraq situation. I
(11:34):
think the countries are very dissimilar, and I don't think
that there is the same concerns there, but those are
some of the questions that are arising as we figure
out how exactly does this play out going forward.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Maduro was an illegitimate ruler who ruined this country. So
this is a different thing right now. You could say
Saddam Hussein was, and he certainly was a brutal dictator
and did a lot a lot of terrible things, but
there were a lot of people who looked to him
as stability. There were a lot of I mean Iraqis.
(12:08):
If you were a Sunni Iraqi, and this is what
I don't want to get too deep in this. You're
a Sunni Iraqi who had been calling the shots the
Suonis had and then the Shia, who were actually the
majority of the country, all of a sudden, are going
to come into power. You got a lot of concerns
about where that's going. And those concerns were well founded,
as we saw from the civil war that effectively broke
out during the US occupation. In this case, Maduro is
(12:29):
a scumbag narco trafficker, and we're saying and very clearly,
and there's been a lot of conversations going on for
a while. They just also to point out the Biden
administration said that Maduro was a narco trafficker, five million
dollars on him or anybody who could help him get arrested.
They put a twenty five million dollar bounty on his head.
But what's so clear here is this disparity, this this
(12:50):
difference between Democrat and Republican. Democrats will say the things
they have to say to seem to seem like they
are serious on national security. Republicans or Trump will actually
do the thing. Yes, they will do the thing right.
Democrats will say they want to secure the border. They don't,
but they will say that Trump.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Will actually do it.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Democrats will put a twenty five million dollar bounty on
Maduro's head. Trump will actually go and get him, get
his head, so to speak. This is so clear for
everybody to see. And once again the opponents of Trump
on this one. I want more, bring more of this,
We need more, aoc more, mom, Donnie Moore. International law,
(13:31):
what international law says that you can operate a narco state.
You can destroy the country. Eight million people fled Venezuela.
You can flood our country with drugs. But there's no
immunity to flood America with drugs. There's no immunity for
some scumbag to do this, what are they even talking about?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, also they had ready to go as unfortunately they
always do immediate protests over Maduro being arrested, and the
protest of course are paid for and the protesters are
paid to show up. I mean, it's totally a stage
managed production. But contrasting that with people that have connection
(14:12):
to Venezuela, either refugees who have fled Venezuela or people
in Venezuela itself overwhelmingly supporting the decision that was made.
In fact, where you are right now in Miami is
what do we say, eight hundred thousand Venezuelans live in
the United States. I remember having this conversation before we
left for Christmas, and the number one place that is
(14:34):
the largest population is around draw which is where Trump
has the golf course.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
It's probably the highest population concentration.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
So they're more Venezuelan refugees within twenty minute drive of
where I'm currently sitting than anywhere else in the country.
And Clay, this tells you a lot. Miami Herald headline
from the last twenty four hours Miami Herald very left
wing paper, to be clear. After Maduro's capture Venezuelans and
South Florida dream of going home. Yeah, they know, they
(15:05):
know that their country is ruined by this guy, and
they know that Venezuela is actually a great country with
the lot going forward, a lot of resources. What we'll
talk more about this. It was until Maduro, really Chavez,
and then Maduro came along. More on this coming up.
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Speaker 4 (16:20):
You ain't imagining it. The world has gone insane.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Reclaim your sanity with Clay and Buck. Find them on
the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Welcome back in Clay, Travis, Buck Sexton show.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Let me just play this.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Chuck Schumer was angry at Trump for being too lenient
back in twenty twenty. Here's cut seventeen flashback. How about
the hypocrisy He brands about all these things he wants
to do or is doing, but his actions belye his words.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Maybe the best metaphor was his claim.
Speaker 7 (16:59):
To bring the democracy to Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
There was a big policy there. It flopped.
Speaker 7 (17:06):
If the policy was working Juan Guido wouldn't be in
the balcony here.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
He'd be in Venezuela.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
He'd be sitting in the president's palace, or at least
waging a fight to win. He's here, and the president
brags about his Venezuela policy. Give us a break. He
hasn't brought an end to the Maduro regime. The Maduro
regime is more powerful today and more intrenched today than
it was when the president began.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
He should just say sorry, or else he should man
the post himself. You don't have to say this guy
has got nothing.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I do.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Think this is the continued impact of Elon on Twitter.
And we'll talk about this some with Tim Walls in
this siding, he's not gonna run. It's harder for legacy
media to protect their favored people and their favored arguments
because the hypocrisy is just so staggering. Look, hopefully the
holidays gave you an opportunity to get some energy back.
(18:04):
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Speaker 2 (18:55):
That's chalk dot Com.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
My name Clay, Commie Solidity is unfortunately alive and well,
my friends, welcome back to Clay and Buck. So you
have Maduro, and let me just say, Maduro is actually
a fantastic exemplar of a communist because he says things
that make people who don't know better believe that he
(19:18):
cares about the collective. They're going to share the wealth,
everyone's going to have more, and then he just proceeds
to ruin everything, act like a complete thug, terrorize people,
use extreme violence to stay in power and be incredibly
rich himself. That's actually what communists are, do we clear,
(19:38):
when communists get what they want, it is Maduro. Just
look at now, Look at China, look at any place
where there has been a communist system. Same thing in Cuba.
The communists will talk about more wealth for all the people,
but they actually just further impoverish or begin the impoverishment
it depending. I mean, Venezuela was not a poor country
(20:00):
before the commies took over. Venezuela was doing really well
going into the twenty first century, and then they went socialist,
and as we all know, that's a nightmare. But we
got a commie in New York as well, Clay, and
he's very upset. He's very upset about what's going on
here in Venezuela. I have Venezuelans metaphorically and maybe literally,
(20:21):
because they are a people known to enjoy dancing, dancing
in the streets here in Miami. In there's video circulating
of Venezuelan Venezuelans who are here who fled, and many
of them were true asylum seekers or true refugees in
the sense that their assets were seized, Maduro or Chavez
was going to torture them and their families and take
(20:41):
all their stuff. Like that's actual refugee stuff, not just
I want to be in America like the Somali stuff
we're seeing in Minnesota, so I can loot the system
and steal from the nice people that took me in Clay.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
They're all thrilled.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
They're crying about the prospect of what the future of
their country. Well, Mam Donnie, the newly installed yes, he
was elected, much to my tremendous sugar in the newly
installed Kami mayor of New York. Mam Donnie is saying
this play fifteen.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
I called the President and spoke with him directly to
register my opposition to this act and to make clear
that it was an opposition based on being opposed to
a pursuit of regime change, to the violation of federal
international law, and a desire to see that be consistent
(21:33):
each and every day.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
And what was his response to you a conversation.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
I registered my opposition, I made it clear, and we
lefted it.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Then, well, right, he called Trump to register his opposition.
What is he getting A letter from the student council.
You know, is he going to go tell the school
proctor on Trump?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Like, what does he think he's doing here, Clay, Mam,
Donnie is the face of the Democrat Party. Now, this
is what I said. And I feel so bad for
our WR listeners. I love you, guys, but we have
to let you sink into communism in order for the
rest of the country to flourish. And I really do
(22:16):
believe AOC and Mom Donnie as the face of the
Democrat Party in the midterms is going to be very
beneficial for the Republicans overall, and it's going to be
a bigger issue in twenty twenty eight too. Now, Gavin
Newsom is going to try to argue, hey, guys, actually,
I'm the face of the Democrat Party and we're gonna
(22:37):
see that battle. Kamala Harris is going to run, much
to Buck's chagrin. I think he's going to lose a
He's going to lose a bet on that.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
But I think we'll see you stop with stop with
your sausa of celebration over there, buddies.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
She's running. But look, I think in general what you
said is so important. Did you see the graph of
the comparison between Poland and Venezuela over the last thirty
or forty years. I think it was for people who
have not seen that graphic, maybe we can share that
(23:14):
from the Clay and Buck Twitter feed. But Poland was
a much smaller country, a much less successful country than Venezuela. Venezuela,
as we have talked about on this program, was probably
buck the most successful Latin American country in like nineteen
ninety five, right before the rise of Hugo Chavez.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It was the third wealthiest country in the Western hemisphere.
Was the United States, Canada, which, let's be honest, America Junior,
and then Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, that's so, that's what it was.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
And this is why so many people out there who
are listening to us right now all over the country,
who are Venezuelan. This is why they were so die
hard in their opposition to socialism.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Because they lived it.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
They saw a country that was thriving, that has unbelievable
natural riches through oil and gas, and was having, as
you said, the third greatest GNP in all of the
Western hemisphere. And then Chavez came into power and starting
in the late nineties, the wheels came off this economy
(24:19):
and they still have. They stole all of the American assets,
all of the oil companies out there, and all Trump
is saying is We're going to make this country function efficiently. Again,
that's basically the plan is just to have success.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's a number of things you don't get to operate,
you know, with impunity. A narco state that is sending
cocaine into the United States into Europe by the way,
in large numbers as well, you don't get. You just
do that because you say, well, I run this other
little tinpot dictatorship. You know, this is the mess around
(24:58):
and find out for power of Trump, and it's a
brilliant thing. But on the oil production, not just to
give everyone a sense of this, uh, they were.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Doing three million, three million.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Barrels per day okay, produced in Venezuela right around to that,
like ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand, so right around
the end of the twentieth century, three million barrels per day, and.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Then it went down to.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
In Uh. I'm trying to COVID's not.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Really a fair commit.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I think they're doing a million now is the numbers
that I have a million? I was gonna say it's
it's it's a million, and what got down to half
a million during COVID but a million a day.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So their their their production capacity has been annihilated by
the idiots in charge who said they were going to
make the poor people wealthier, they were going to give
people more stuff. The single most important financial asset of
this country has been so grossly mismanaged that you could
you should want to throw all the idiots in charge
(26:02):
in prison just because of that. And then Clay, you
add on to this trenda Aragua is a Venezuelan prison
gang that the narco terrorist regime of Maduro was working
with to one export the drugs, and of course Maduro
then is taking a cut, right and on top of
that they were doing this, they were terrorizing political opposition.
(26:25):
They were Maduro's street thugs, I mean, his actual thugs
from prison became street thugs of the regime who were
being enriched by the international cartel operation that Maduro was
presiding over, which is why Biden had a twenty five
million dollar bounty on Like there's no debate about any
of this.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Not only did they have the twenty five million dollar bounty,
buck they made it.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
In January of this year.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
In January of this year, they made that bounty twenty
five million dollars, and I think Trump took it to
fifty million, because there's that funny aside when they had
the press conference availability where Trump said to Marco Rubio,
Secretary of State, Hey, make sure nobody's able to claim that,
because it went to fifty million dollars in the event
(27:12):
that he were able to be captured.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
But this is why.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
When Kamala shared her shared her take of oh, this
is completely unacceptable, then there's an immediate response. And again
I come back to this is partly what creating a
free marketplace for Twitter has done.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It allows everybody out there.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
To say, wait a minute, just in January, you guys,
I mean, I think we can grab the audio of
Karine Jean Pierre talking about it from the White House
press conference availability there as a press secretary.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
They made it twenty five million dollars just in January.
It's one of the final things they did well.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
But again this is where you see the Democrats just
hope that everybody in America forgets what they have said
about So we played that Chuck Schumer, Chuck Schumer's like, lead,
you know you're not doing enough.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Claim you're gonna do stuff, and you're not willing to
do it.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
They they can't attack this on the merits of the mission,
meaning the tactical success, because you know, you know, and look,
Seal Team six got a lot of love, rightly deserved
a lot of love after the bin Laden raid. It's
Delta's time in the sun right now. Delta is now
getting a lot of credit for being also the absolute
best of the best Tier one operators, you know, the
(28:26):
best UH elite special Operations infantry force that you could
ever ever hope for ever trained, so fantastic for them.
So they can't attack them on the tactical But then
Clay on the strategic side of this, and this is
what I think in part upsets people like Mom Donnie.
It's not the international law thing. It's that this also
hurts the whole axis of America and Trump opposition globally.
(28:53):
This is bad for China, this is bad for Russia,
very bad for Cuba. It's even bad for Iran. Right
these are all places that lose because Maduro is no
longer a stooge for them selling them oil in violation
or just giving it to them the case of Cuba
(29:14):
in violation of US sanctions. This also shows them, like
I said, the mess around and find out foreign policy
of Trump, which Iran learned the hard way with its
nuke reactors, and now Maduro has learned this. This sends
a huge message to China on the Taiwan issue. I
would add that as well. I heard from the President
of Taiwan himself face to face. He told me after
(29:35):
what Trump did in Iran, the Taiwanese were like, you
know what, this guy's not messing around, And I don't
think and they know. The Taiwanese knew that the Chinese
were paying very close attention and going, oh, things are
different now. And I think that's a big lesson here.
But for the the Mamdani Kamis of the world, it's
wait a second, the workers of the world unite stuff.
(29:58):
It's not looking good for them.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I just again, as we start off twenty twenty six,
I don't think twenty twenty five could have gone any better.
You know, four point three percent GDP at the last
GDP that we got two point seven percent interest rate
sorry inflation. Interest rates have come down substantially seventy five
(30:23):
basis point cut. Your mortgages are much more affordable right
now as we start twenty twenty five than they were
at the end of the Biden era. And we haven't
even hardly talked about it. You mentioned it, Buck, but
the biggest decline on record in murders. I'm looking right
now at the Washington Post. You know, they said, oh,
(30:44):
Trump calling out the National Guard is going to have
no impact. Murders went down thirty two percent in Washington,
d C. In twenty twenty five. Thirty two percent down
to about one hundred and twenty five murders in Washington,
D C. That's unprecedented. So there's so much positive momentum
out there. By the way, we should open up phones
(31:04):
eight hundred and two A two to two eight A two.
I bet we got some Special Forces guys out there
that would like to react to what they have seen
from the Venezuela raid. We're going to have our buddy
David Rutherford, who is one of our guest hosts in
the third hour to talk about that. Former seal so
no combat seals, a little bit know something about special operations.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
No doubt.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
We'll talk about all that and just excited to be
back as we are rolling here in twenty twenty six,
and excited that Price Picks is now available in all
fifty states including California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia. Download the
Price Picks app today. Use my name Clay as the code.
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(31:43):
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When you play five dollars, win or lose, you get
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(32:05):
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Speaker 6 (32:15):
Play Travis and Buck Sexton telling it like it is.
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Podcast play Travis Bucks Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you
as we are rolling through into twenty twenty six. Excited
to be back with all of you. We hope that
you had fantastic Christmas in New Years with all of
your family, and that you had a spectacular time. And
certainly there is a ton going on out there. What
(32:48):
do you think about Cuba, buck, Because basically the only
reason there is any Cuban economy at all has been
that Venezuela has helped prop them up by giving them
some of that oil that is far more affordable than
it otherwise would be.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And now with the.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Barricade that's basically put up without the oil being able
to get there, Essentially, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, in
that press conference on right after the I guess was
it Sunday? Saturday? I guess right after the raid, said
Cuba's going to collapse too. And I've long thought and
(33:30):
wondered what the rationale has been all the way back
my whole life. But certainly for those of you who
remember the Cuban missile crisis and everything we lived through there,
why in the world have we allowed ninety minutes south
of the Florida Keys for Cuba to effectively be a
failed communist state?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Why have we allowed that to happen?
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Next time you come down to Miami, I'm going to
have you just walk around the streets down here in
little Havana and just say what you said. Because all
the all the Cuban Americans who have defined really Miami
in many ways for decades, they ask exactly that question,
yahich is what that? What the heck is going on?
And they have no love for the regime there, and
(34:14):
if anything, they really wish that their home country were
rather they're there. In many cases their ancestors home country,
uh could be a free and prosperous place. There's no
reason for it not to be.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
They look that they've been essentially trading security forces as
in because remember the KGB trained the Cuban intelligence services
back in the old Cold War era, which is why
the Cuban intelligence services were very aggressive and actually pretty
(34:46):
competent at regime repress, at regime you know, stability repress
and all of that, because they learned from the best,
as in the worst, they learned from the KGB themselves.
They were providing the security for Maduro. So we just
wasted a bunch of or rather Delta Force just wasted
a bunch of Cuban guys standing around with machine guns
(35:07):
to protect Maduro. And they in exchange, the Venezuelan regime
is giving Cuba oil. Yeah, and this is what it
needs to be able to function it. Think about what
goes in the generators, Like, how do they have power?
I mean, it's an island to begin with, and they
don't have the natural resources to do this on their own.
So without that, they're going to be under under enormous pressure.
And I think also, you know, people think of oh Cuba.
(35:30):
And I'm not trying to get crazy here everybody, but
they think of the Bay of Pigs and the disaster.
I mean, I've got a dear friend down here in
Miami who was at the Bay of Pigs, who was
fighting at the Bay of Pigs. They think about that,
and they think about the debacle, the disaster. This could
have been a debacle disaster too clayed Venezuela, and it
was not. It was the opposite. So I think that
puts Cuba on notice. Oh, I think Cuba. Look, if
(35:52):
you have ever been on.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
A cruise ship, Cuba warrids become almost immediately, snap your fingers.
It would become an unbelievable economic growth engine. I mean
Cuba was Las Vegas before Las Vegas existed. I mean,
you used to be able to hop on a speedboat
and be in Havana for dinner.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
It could be one of the premier tourist destinations in
the Caribbean and really for beaches in the world. Honestly,
it could be an incredible place.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
I mean, if you have ever been on a cruise ship,
you will go close enough to see the spires the
buildings of Havana from the cruise ship.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I mean, it is a no.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Brainer that that country should be an American allied source
of economic ingenuity. And I know there's a lot of
people out there listening right now. The Donro doctrine. We'll
talk about it when we come back. What does it
actually mean and what is the impact. Thanks for hanging
with us in twenty twenty six.
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Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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