audio version of the segment here > Time to deal with Maduro
Jay Weber Show transcript 12-2-25
Donald Trump as the president who didn’t want to get us into wars. He’s spent most of his second term settling regional disputes and talking about the seven or eight wars he’s negotiated an end to.
But it’s clear he wants regime change in Venezuela, and that his general stance against foreign wars isn’t going to discourage him from making that happen. The Miami Herald first reported it-
And the trump white house hasn’t denied it. That the president has given Venezuela’s thug dictator an ultimatum: leave now or else.
This allegedly occurred during a phone call between president trump and Nicholas Maduro…who trump hates for several reasons. Including the fact that he’s a narco-terrorist who has used his position to run one of the biggest drug operations in the western hemisphere.
And because he emptied out all his prisons and mental institutions and sent those people here…so Joe Biden and the open borders democrats would stupidly take them…and now they are ‘our problem’.
Trump wants to see regime change for those two reasons, alone, but he also knows removing maduro will make the entire western hemisphere safer and will erase the Russian and Chinese influence in that country before it spreads to more of south America. There are numerous reasons to do this.
But this effort to get maduro to leave peacefully has been going on for some time-and at last report- maduro was offering a ‘transition phase’...of about three years…after which he would leave. Well- no one’s dumb enough to agree to that deal. What happens in three years?
Trump is out of office, and the chances are he’s being replaced by some new, soft socialist leaning democrat dimwit who pivots and leaves Maduro alone, again, as Biden and Obama did.
Then-it was maduro insisting that he’d go peacefully if he got global amnesty for all his crimes. Trump refused that offer, too. And that’s what allegedly led to the ultimatum: leave now or else.
What is ‘or else’? Well, that’s for everyone to discover, but we know that the president and his pentagon have the largest naval and military buildup that we’ve seen in that region in a very long time…. set up just off the coast of Venezuela.
We also know that-on Sunday- president trump told the global community that they should just go ahead and consider Venezuelan air space closed
That would suggest a new escalation in this. It would also suggest that Trump and Hegseth are willing to start shooting drug planes out of the sky and not just go after drug boats at sea.
And for the record? Early polls suggest the American people are solidly with trump on this one: they want this drug trafficking ended and don’t particularly care if the trump administration needs to take a more ‘war like’ stance and just start killing drug traffickers.
Folks, as of Sunday afternoon, radar showed that there was no air traffic over Venezuela, and so, the threat is being taken seriously by other countries and the major airlines, obviously.
Meanwhile, maduro and his allies are falling back on an old chestnut about trump wanting to control Venezuelan oil…and so…that’s what this is about. This is colonialism and an attack on Venezuela for its resources…yada yada…
But anyone who isn’t a dope isn’t buying it. Trump has made his grievances against maduro -on behalf of the US and the west- well known up to this point.
Trump really wants maduro gone. Still, he continues to maintain that he, Trump, will not put US troops on the ground there. And so, any military assault on Venezuela would likely come from the air…and would be targeted at Maduro’s major drug operation.
It’s a great way to dry up the Maduro regime’s money and power: take away any ability for them to continue to be narco-terrorists while pretending to be a legitimate regime.
Most of us have been calling Venezuela a narco-terrorist state…but a few experts that the national review has found are labeling it a ‘cartel state’. Apparently, that’s the vernacular within the Latin-American security and policy community
So that’s two regional experts at the national review. They clearly understand what president trump and his team are trying to do- and why.
It’s a matter of, even if most Americans don’t understand how and why Venezuela and its allies have harmed America and the west over the recent decades- the global policy experts and trump’s team members do.
And unlike the last five presidential regimes- they are feeling the need to act. Especially with Russia and China both being more globally and militarily belligerent. Trump is going to remind us that we’ve got global enemies who never stop planning to destroy us…even if the Obama and Biden regimes were too foolish to see the constant threat.
And what has been interesting here, from my perspective, is to see so many policy experts and trump haters from across the political spectrum- who otherwise can’t seem to find anything that they like about this president…. suddenly praising him for focusing on ‘this’.
And for trying to bring about regime change in Venezuela. In short- anyone who ‘knows anything’ about this- agrees that it would be a huge, huge victory for Trump and the west.
I agree. And i also agree with the editors of the wall street journal who say- if president trump is going to attempt this- he needs to ‘do this’.
As they put it: either president maduro or president trump are left standing after his attempt….and so…Trump can’t fail if he starts this.
I agree with that. And it appears that the Trump team is already too far down this road to simply turn back or give up now.
Then there’s this thought: if you are going to go to war with Venezuela- or something that looks like it-Should the trump administration ask congress to officially declare it a war?
I say ‘no’, because democrats will only stop or frustrate any of his plans…. but I do think it would be a good idea for President Trump to inform both the American people-and congress- what it is he is going to do-and why.
Some Pollyanna’s on the right are insisting trump needs to get congressional approval for a military action like this-
But when no other modern president has done so before ‘they’ launched even more military actions than this? I say- bologna.
Obama doesn’t need to check with congress before overthrowing Libya and then having the CIA move all that weaponry and put it into our allies’ hands in the middle east, but Trump needs congressional approval before he can strike Maduro’s drug huts?
Come on, but it-would-be a good idea for president trump and his team to explain to the American people and our members of congress-why- regime change in Venezuela is so important for u-s and western interests.
I’m someone who keeps up on current events probably better than anyone…and i still didn’t know about half of the regional and global undercurrents at play here- before reading this national review piece from the experts.
It’s a reminder that the average American-and dare I say - average congressmen-has no idea why regime change in Venezuela would be so important.
Come on. If you and I don’t know- do you think Tammy Baldwin or Marc Pocan or Gwen Moore know? Gwen Moore thinks Venezuela is a city in Italy that’s surrounded by water.
You know. Where do they take all of those gondola rides?
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