US Deploys 4 THOUSAND Marines In Venezuela WAR BUILDUP

Now, please.

Easiest 50 mil ever.

Then you see news starts to break that there are secret plans to, wonder, wait a minute, is this, are we gonna do another coup in Venezuela? Is that what's going on here? With Venezuela boots on the ground.

And notice that she does not say no here.

The three U.S. warships that are being sent to Venezuela and there's 4,000 Marines on board. Are you looking at possibility of boots on the ground there?

What I will say with respect to Venezuela, President Trump has been very clear and consistent. He's prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco terror cartel. In Maduro, it is the view of this administration, is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco terror cartel. In Maduro, it is the view of this administration, is not a legitimate president.

He is a fugitive head of this cartel who has been indicted in the United States for trafficking drugs into the country.

So this is sort of like a new gloss on the old regime change effort that has been brewing out of Miami since the 1960s when the Cuban Revolution led to an outflowing of Cubans into Miami. They have been trying to overthrow governments around our hemisphere and using their power, using their influence in the US government to try to do that.

Before that even.

Yes, it really ramps up after Castro. But now they're saying it's actually because of drug trafficking. The irony being, of course, the Latin American right is as involved in drug trafficking as the Latin American left, if not more so. And certainly historically more so.

I was gonna say, you don't even have to say the Latin American right, you could actually just say the American right.

Yeah. And so now the argument that Trump apparently is making is that we need to overthrow the Venezuelan government because of drugs? Like, how's it like, is this an attempt to shoehorn it somehow into America first? Because it like, nobody voted for a war with Venezuela.

I don't know a single person other than actually some of my, maybe some of my family down in southern Florida who are Cubans. They would love to see a war down in Venezuela. And a lot of them are American citizens. There are plenty of- But that doesn't quite count as America first.

No offense, guys.

There are plenty of Venezuelans who would love America to fuel a coup.

Well, the right wing Venezuelans who would love America to fuel a coup. Well the right-wing Venezuelans in South Florida.

Or the right-wing Venezuelans in Venezuela would love to have the United States fuel a coup and provide the kind of rocket fuel for a coup against.

We've been doing that on and off for a very long time.

And this is fundamentally what was supposed to be the distinction between the old Republican Party and the new Republican Party. This is the distinction between America first and America last, as Republicans now refer to the neoconservatives, is that even wars waged for what you considered a just cause against, for example, a legitimate dictator, are no longer America's business if it is not in the vital strategic interest

of the United States, if Americans themselves are not immediately, urgently, directly affected by this conflict. And that's supposed to be the distinction between America first and America last, that precisely the animating principle of the Cold War, which then morphed into the George W. Bush second inaugural speech about how it is in America's interest to promote democracy everywhere. This is exactly what America First is supposed to oppose, all of those, or the entire ideological

strain. And so, yes, I think the narco part of this is how you shoehorn it, both ideologically for somebody like Marco Rubio, who has—and many others on the right who have sincerely reconsidered their prior commitments to democracy promotion abroad. Marco Rubio obviously was a supporter of USAID before he became this bitter enemy of USAID and an impassioned—like, whatever you think of the guy, I can

just tell you, having covered him for a long time, he has come to bitterly detest institutions like USAID. That is a sincere transformation. But you can more easily sort of justify this anti-communist, neoconservatism, or hemispheric strategy is what they would say. A, because it's in your hemisphere, it's not the Middle East.

B, because you could say this is narco-terrorism that comes up to the United States. And so, yes, that's how you end up with also D4, battle plans for Mexico. This is a Rolling Stone report headline. Team Trump is actually drawing up attack plans for Mexico. And I bet you Team Trump loves this headline and is actually not running from this headline at all.

Trump is eager to breach Mexico's sovereignty to attack cartels, officials say. Just don't call it an invasion. That is the subheading on the Rolling Stone piece. So that is exactly how you make this argument fall under the banner of America first. And it's not going to fly with a lot of people, but those are people who are mostly like professional, grassroots, America first activists.

Here's my theory and you as a right wing observer, tell me if I'm seeing this accurately. Trump, I think does get animated by this whole thing where he's gonna go after the cartels in Mexico. Absolutely. He's talked about that a bunch. Strikes, yep. So Rubio has never

met a non right-wing regime in our hemisphere that he hasn't wanted to overthrow. And so Rubio sees Trump saying, oh I'm gonna get the cartels in Mexico and then says to himself, oh I'm going to then link gonna get the cartels in Mexico. And then says to himself, oh, I'm going to then link Maduro to cartels, and then I'm going to piggyback what I really wanna do, which is overthrow the regime in Venezuela,

I'm gonna piggyback it onto this Mexican thing. And the reason I think we can tell that this is clearly a Rubio policy is not just that it's wildly obvious, he's head of the State Department who's wanted to do this kind of thing his entire life, but at the very beginning of the administration, if you remember, Rick Grinnell, a special envoy inside State Department, kind of roving

around the world, was able to free some Americans who were held as political prisoners in Venezuela. He then was on track to free a whole bunch more in a deal that would have involved some sort of like lifting of sanctions on Citgo, which has an America first element to it that is quite obvious because Americans as far as I understand prefer gas prices to be lower than higher. And it's also a like let's put this Cold War stuff behind us. We've tried to overthrow you a whole bunch of times.

It hasn't worked, we don't think that the elections that you held were free and fair, but we're not about messing with the internal politics of countries anymore. You're in power, so let's come to a deal. Rubio steps in and gets crosswise with Grinnell and ends up getting a political prisoner deal that gets some Americans and some legal residents, interestingly, including a guy who killed three people in Spain, gets them out of Venezuela, brings them back to the United States in exchange for the Venezuelans that we had sent to SICAT

in El Salvador getting patrioted over to Venezuela. So his hard line effort that doesn't do anything about gas prices or SITCO or normalizing relations with a government in our backyard, that one triumphs. Then you get this $50 million bounty on Maduro's head. Then you get this, like, we're drawing up secret orders

to do regime change. And then you get these 4,000 Marines and a nuclear-powered flotilla headed to Venezuela to saber-rattle there, which— Right.

And we have that VO. Yeah, we have that VO we can roll. This is D1. This is the military. This is the Venezuelan military prep in response to the announcement.

I think part of this also has to do with Rubio being boxed out from everything else. Whitkoff is running the Gaza file. Trump is based in Whitkoff, running the Ukraine file, although now he's tasked with J.D. Vance and Rubio with taking Russia, Ukraine over the finish line. Rubio doesn't seem terribly engaged with Asia. Rubio really cares about the politics of the Caribbean and South and Central America.

Well, I think that's, I mean, yeah. So what people were just watching on their screen is, according to reports, the Venezuelan government has mobilized, just in the last couple of days, quote, more than four million militia troops, seemingly in response to reports of US naval movements in the region. So that is from Time Magazine. Maduro said, we defend our seas, our skies, and our lands.

We liberated them. We guard and patrol them. No empire will touch the sacred soil of Venezuela, nor should it touch the sacred soil of South America. So, yeah, those three US Navy missile destroyers deployed off the waters, deployed to the waters off Venezuela. And I think, Ryan, with Rubio and a lot of people on the right, you remember as well

as anyone, Rubio recognizing Juan Guaido, and a bunch of Republicans recognizing Juan Guaido as a legitimate president of Venezuela from their perspective. And part of this is that they have these actual personal relationships. And if you're Marco Rubio and your sort of animating principle is looking at what your family, you know, like you know a lot of passionate Cuban anti-communists.

Like South Florida is filled with like a bunch of rich Venezuelans who fled.

But also, yeah, but also Cuban Americans like Marco Rubio.

They've made common cause with the Cuban right, yeah.

Right, but also their identities have been built on this sort of animating anti-communism and it's for deeply emotional, personal reasons. And so Rubio then brings with him decades of personal relationships with anti-communist activists, whether it's Juan Guaido or others in different countries.

And so when you end up in a position of power, all of those people are knocking at your door. And not only do you agree with them, but you're talking to them all the time, you like them, and you're trying to help them out, and they're asking you to help them out. So it just creates this swirl of action that's almost like it's inertia. It's like you don't stop it because as soon as you're Secretary of State, guess who's knocking on your door and wanting that coup that you've always supported when you were

just a senator. So I think a lot of it actually is probably the inertia.

It's also the call coming from inside the house. Like Rubio himself is personally animated by this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was saying like the way that I think of it is even if Marco Rubio decided no, America first is no more coups, blah, blah, blah, I don't even know that he could. I honestly don't even know that he could because the Cold War inertia on the right is so strong

at this point that it would take, I mean, just a feat. It would, like, think of convincing a lifelong anti-communist Cuban to give up on Venezuela, like give up on the Venezuela coup.

I just, and just to underscore how insane it is that Leavitt was asked if there's going to be American boots on the ground in Venezuela and she wouldn't say no.

Right.

And this.

Let's go to the New York Times report that the Rolling Stone report we had on the screen was confirming. The New York Times report was that President Trump has secretly signed a directive, quote, to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that his administration has deemed terrorist organizations, according to people familiar with the matter. So, Rolling Stone then takes that and talks about Mexico. And there's an argument from Trump people that there are certain Venezuelan gangs giving

material support to Sinaloa and cartels in different places. But think about what that means. I mean, this is, as The New York Times says, the order provides an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations at sea and on foreign soil against cartels. U.S. military officials have started drawing up options for how the military could go after the groups.

The people familiar with those conversations said, speak in the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations. So this is not just Venezuela. This is not just Mexico. This is the entire region. They've talked about Haitian gangs at this point. Like, they are... This underscores what you were saying.

This is totally supportive of what you're saying, is that this is... It's not like Marco Rubio being dragged kicking and screaming into fighting the Cold War hemispheric battles. This is Marco Rubio eagerly saying,

I'm in charge now, we're doing some coups. Or maybe we're doing some coups. We're hoping to do some coups, or maybe we're doing some coups. We're hoping to do some coups.

And I think this could badly blow up in Rubio's face.

Absolutely.

If he gets his wish and actually gets some type of confrontation, this is not what anybody wants.

Yep, even people who, again, will agree with you on Maduro. Americans who will agree with you and say, this Maduro guy, he seems shady. Don't love him. Stop the narco trafficking.

You think anybody's gonna get that 50 million?

I think you could get it. I feel like you're a pretty good kid.

He's in Caracas.

Because you came out right away.

You said- Immediately. I know that guy. I've seen him before.

Yes.

I reckon you have.

Interviewed some of his lieutenants.

That's right. Big guest, Ryan, coming up in the next block, who you helped us secure and we're going to talk to.

Son of Marwan Barghouti, who was just, I would say assaulted, but he wasn't physically assaulted. Itamar Ben-Gavir went into Marwan Barghouti's prison cell and berated and threatened him. We're gonna talk to Arab Barghouti's prison cell and berated and threatened him. We're gonna talk to Arab Barghouti, his son, next.

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