Trump’s TOP VENEZUELA AIDE TURNS AGAINST HIM on INVASION

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Elliot Abrams, Deli Rodriguez, Dunro doctrine, Vladimir Padrino Lopez
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Edmundo Gonzalez, Elliot Abrams, Maria Corina Machado
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Elliot Abrams, Hezbollah
4. 9:00 – 12:00: Edmundo Gonzalez, Hezbollah
5. 12:00 – 15:00: Elliot Abrams

Notable quotes from "Trump’s TOP VENEZUELA AIDE TURNS AGAINST HIM on INVASION"

• Word for it. Take the words from an interview of Donald Trump's last Venezuelan special envoy, Elliot Abrams, who's come out against the administration and Marco Rubio, and…

  about Elliot Abrams · at 0:08

• Maduro out, bad on leaving the regime apparatus in from top to bottom. And it's not just Deli Rodriguez, it's her brother who runs the national legislature. It's Destado Cabo…

  about Deli Rodriguez · at 1:15

• Like Ukraine and China whatever it wants to do just stay out of the Western Hemisphere. That appears to be the Dunro doctrine that's been espoused by Donald Trump. Look folks, this is what happens when you get a mentally declining president.

  about Dunro doctrine · at 2:16

• Should be demanding the liberation of all political prisoners right now. And we should be supporting Edmundo Gonzalez, who won that election in 2024 with a 70% landslide. I…

  about Edmundo Gonzalez · at 3:33

• A country like Venezuela in our own hemisphere in the sphere of control and the crossroads for Hezbollah, for Iran, and for every other malign influence in the c in the world. That's just not going to exist.

  about Hezbollah · at 7:37

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Elliot Abrams — Person · 6 mentions · first at 0:12
• Edmundo Gonzalez — Person · 2 mentions · first at 3:39
• Deli Rodriguez — Person · 1 mention · first at 1:21
• Vladimir Padrino Lopez — Person · 1 mention · first at 1:31
  Legislature. It's Destado Cabo who's the interior minister that is likely Maduro's number two. It's Vladimir Padrino Lopez who's the head of the military. And it's the Cuban…
• Maria Corina Machado — Person · 1 mention · first at 3:53
  The worst point in the president's press conference yesterday, the insult really to Maria Corina Machado, who is the leader of democratic forces in Venezuela. that's what we…

Concepts & topics

• Hezbollah — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 7:41
• Dunro doctrine — Concept · 1 mention · first at 2:21

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 We know who's in charge of Venezuela. It is US big oil who bought and paid for a president. And you don't have to take my word for it. Take the words from an interview of Donald Trump's last Venezuelan special envoy, Elliot Abrams, who's come out against the administration and Marco Rubio, and said, "Look, we see it. This is about big oil and the Venezuelan bureaucrats going to Mara Lago and trying to get not a replacement regime. i.e. democracy installed in Venezuela but just a compliant regime with with a decapitated Maduro off but everybody else in his apparatus present but have them be compliant and bend the knee not to the Trump administration to big oil and this is Marco Rubio's wet dream he's been trying to take over as secretary of state places like his ancestral homeland Cuba there's a direct link between Marco Rubio, Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia that I'm going to talk about. But what people

1:07 who are independent-minded, who are critics of the Trump administration are saying is the following equation. Good on getting Maduro out, bad on leaving the regime apparatus in from top to bottom. And it's not just Deli Rodriguez, it's her brother who runs the national legislature. It's Destado Cabo who's the interior minister that is likely Maduro's number two. It's Vladimir Padrino Lopez who's the head of the military. And it's the Cuban government all supporting Venezuela as they always have. There's a reason that more than 40 Cubans died in the kidnapping of Maduro because Maduro pays Cuba in oil for mercenaries from Cuba to guard him. Cuba is a is a puppet state of Russia as is Venezuela. So we just picked a fight with a puppet state of Venezuela of Russia basically threatening them to say we're in charge of the Western Hemisphere and by extension by implication seating the Europe eastern and western to Russia and places

2:16 like Ukraine and China whatever it wants to do just stay out of the Western Hemisphere. That appears to be the Dunro doctrine that's been espoused by Donald Trump. Look folks, this is what happens when you get a mentally declining president who every day is worse than the day before mentally who's taken three dementia tests by his own admission in the last 11 months. This is what happens when you have no plan other than what's good for big oil. I'm Michael Popac. You're on the Midas Touch Network. Let's get to the reporting here and support legal AF both at home and abroad. Let's start with Elliot Abrams, the last special envoy for the Trump administration to Venezuela in the first term. He went on CNN. He wrote an op-ed piece taking on the administration.

3:08 Here's a clip from his CNN interview in which he says, "Where is the push for democracy? Where is the plan to reinstall the ex the government in exile who are Democrats? who who are democratic. Where is that plan? And have we just bent the need to big oil? Play the clip.

3:25 First of all, the United States should be demanding uh the expulsion of Cuban and Iranian officials from Venezuela. We should be demanding the liberation of all political prisoners right now. And we should be supporting Edmundo Gonzalez, who won that election in 2024 with a 70% landslide. I thought that was the worst point in the president's press conference yesterday, the uh the insult really to Maria Corina Machado, who is the leader of democratic forces in Venezuela. Uh that's what we should be supporting. The guy who won the election should be president.

4:05 Yeah. The president said the United there was not broad support. There was not respect for Machado, which you're referring to right there. I'm wondering if you think the president also is leveling with the American public about just how difficult this will be to run a country like Venezuela.

4:24 Yeah. You know, nobody else used that word run until he did. And my thought is that that didn't appear in some uh you know paper done through a long inter agency process that it just came out of the president and that nobody else expected to run Venezuela. It would be extremely difficult. You know, it's it's a very big country. It's twice the size of California, uh 25 million people roughly. Um it's too complex for us to run. What we should be looking for is a popular government, a democratic elected government that can begin to rehabilitate the country with our support and support of the other democracies that surround Venezuela.

5:09 That's possible. But the notion that we're going to run it from Washington, uh, I think is implausible and it's just not going to work. Now, Marco Rubio making his rounds as Secretary of State on all the morning talk shows ended up with, you know, the the wheels spun and landed on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan. And she asked him point blank about that Elliot Abrams interview and op-ed piece about the bureaucrats going to Mara Lago along with big oil to get what they want, a more compliant regime, not a democracy. That is a difference.

5:46 Remember, we're supposed to be the leaders of the free world. So, let's play Marco Rubio's half-hearted, feeble attempt to distract the questioning and not answer the question. Play the clip.

6:00 The president used the word oil 20 times in this press conference. You talked about these tremendous oil assets that that Venezuela have has. Um, but the president's last envoy to Venezuela, uh, Elliot Abrams, is publicly arguing that you know better than the policy you're backing. He said, quote, "Vene Venezuelan bureaucrats or US oil executives seem to be coming to Mara Lago and whispering about how easy life would be if we just made a deal with the regime once Maduro was gone." Is that what happened here?

6:34 No. Uh, that's not what happened here. What happened here is that we arrested a narot trafficker who's now going to stand trial in the United States for the crimes he's committed against our people for 15 years. And the person who helped him, of course, his wife who was colllocated with him. So, she was arrested as well. That's what happened here. As far as oil, look, oil is critical not just to fueling economies all over the world. It's critical to Venezuela's future. Their oil industry is completely destroyed. It's destroyed.

6:59 All those oil fields that that used to produce a lot and wealth for their country and their people, those things are decrepit. They're bankrupt. They need to be reinvested in. It's obvious you they do not have the capability to bring up that industry again. They need investment from private companies who are only going to invest under certain guarantees and conditions. That has to go to the benefit of the Venezuelan people. Right now, all of that wealth is stolen. It's stolen and it goes into the hands of oligarchs around the world and the oligarchs inside of Venezuela. A handful of people benefit from it. The people don't benefit from it. On top of that, it's very simple, okay? In the 21st century under the Trump administration, we are not going to have a country like Venezuela in our own hemisphere in the sphere of control and the crossroads for Hezbollah, for Iran, and for every other malign influence in

7:45 the c in the in the world. That's just not going to exist. Now, this let's focus on Marco Rubio's wet dream for a minute, shall we? From my perch in Miami, Marco Rubio is his ancestral home is Cuba. He claims, although there's been some debate, that his family came as a result of the um takeover by Fidel Castro. And in the Miami Cuban community, if you came before Castro or after Castro seems to matter in terms of your pedigree. And there's been a challenge within the Miami Cuban community about whether he did or didn't. His family did or he certainly tells everybody that his family were in exile after Castro and his he really cares about Venezuela and the oil, but he really cares about Cuba, his ancestral home. This is a nothing more than a dress rehearsal for Marco Rubio before he runs for president to try to take over Cuba and change and do regime change there as well. His entire focus for most of his career has been on

8:51 Cuba and not on Venezuela. The problem that most of us have is not that Maduro was kidnapped and lpped off the top of the regime. It's at the apparat not only was the apparatus left in place, it now appears to be an intentional decision by this administration to just have a more docile communist dictatorship that's in favor of big oil rather than install democracy. That's why Marco Rubio had to do his double talk to uh Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation about why he's no longer supporting and why they are strongarmming and holding at at arms length the exile group of Edmundo Gonzalez and the Nobel Prize winner Maria Karina Machado. Why aren't they being installed? Why aren't there any discussions with them? Because they don't want there to be any. because they don't think they're going to be as uh willing to play ball with big oil in the US as the existing apparatus scared out of this wits about a potential

10:00 takeover. That's clear. Listen to the answer where he is reminded that at the top of the administration they supported the legitimate installation of the government of Gonzalez and Machado, but now they seem to be walking away from it because the operation has changed. Play the clip. the opposition leader uh Maria Karina Machado and Mundo Gonzalez won that 2024 election by your own account. They were some of the first people you called when you were secretary of state. You said Mundo Gonzalez is the rightful president of Venezuela. Is that still the US policy? And if so, are you working on a transition to have those elected leaders run the country?

10:40 Well, I think the couple things I have tremendous admiration for Maria Karina Machado. I have admiration for Edm Mundo. We have all those views about what the election that happened the last time and not only us but many other countries around the world. There is that and there's an then but there's the mission we are on right now. We have been very clear from the beginning cuz I still think that a lot of people analyze everything that happens in foreign policy through the lens of what happened from 2001 to 20 you know 15 or 16. The whole you know foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya, everything is Iraq, everything is Afghanistan. This is not the Middle East. And our mission here is very different. This is the Western Hemisphere within the Western Hemisphere. We have a country potentially a very rich country that has cozied itself up under the control of this regime. Has cozied up to Iran, has

11:26 cozied up to Hezbollah, has cozied has allowed narot trafficking gangs to operate with impunity from their own territory. Allows boats with drugs to traffic from their territory. And we are addressing that. And and by the way, for 8 9 million people in the largest mass migration event in modern history have left that country since 2014. That regime is still having an impact on us. That is what we are addressing now.

11:47 When you spoke yesterday, we're we're not just addressing the regime. We are addressing the factors that are a threat to the national interest of the United States.

11:54 So we're not in the democracy making business any longer. We're in the whatever is good for big oil business. That's why regime change here, regime change in Iran 50 years ago and the rest. If Venezuela didn't have oil and wasn't a puppet state of Russia, you think we'd be going in. But it is the diabolical nature because there's only two choices. The Trump administration either has done no planning, or their plan all along, which is what Elliot Abrams, Abrams is saying, was to bend the need of big oil, which bought a president over half a billion dollars worth of fundraising investment in Trump at his request while he ran against Kla Harris, where he sold off and auctioned off to the highest bidder his environmental and energy policy to big oil.

12:47 Um, so that's or those are the only two explanations. And the one that Elliot Abrams is saying is the bureaucrats of Venezuela and the oil companies seem to have the same idea. Don't disturb the status quo. Just soften it up a little bit. Calibrate it to our interest a little bit. And again, it puts a lie to the administration's position that all they're doing is not a war. It's not the Trump's war powers as commander-in-chief, about imminent threats, all right, and clear and present danger. It's about um regime change in favor of oil. They certainly are not. They didn't kidnap him and and get in control of Venezuela in order to enforce an indictment in New York, which was the first thing they tried on on Saturday. Hey, this is just a a Department of Justice by extension operation. Yeah. Where's Pam Bondi? She wasn't even on the stage. The attorney general. Where was Jake Clayton who indicted him in New York? Wasn't

13:56 there. It was all the spooks. It was all the suits. It was all the CIA and the joint chiefs and Marco Rubio and Pete Hegsth. You know who's Marco Rubio whose star is ascended. JD Vances whose star is fallen off the table along with Pam Bondi. We're going to continue to follow it all right here. You're on Midas Touch. Come over to Legal AF and help us in 2026. Continue to expand our reach. We're going global. We have to because Trump's gone global with his Dunroad doctrine. So we have to match it at the intersection of US law, politics, and international law. You know, it's not just following the indictment in New York of Maduro. It's about all of the international conventions and laws that have been or will be breached by Donald Trump. So there's a way to do it. Come on to Legal AF Substack and for we're running a sale 20% off. Help us grow and accomplish our international additional vertical goals for 2026. So until my

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Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Trump’s TOP VENEZUELA AIDE TURNS AGAINST HIM on INVASION"?

In order: 0:00 Elliot Abrams, Deli Rodriguez, Dunro doctrine, Vladimir Padrino Lopez; 3:00 Edmundo Gonzalez, Elliot Abrams, Maria Corina Machado; 6:00 Elliot Abrams, Hezbollah; 9:00 Edmundo Gonzalez, Hezbollah; 12:00 Elliot Abrams.

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Elliot Abrams, Edmundo Gonzalez, Hezbollah, Deli Rodriguez, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Dunro doctrine. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump’s TOP VENEZUELA AIDE TURNS AGAINST HIM on INVASION"?

The episode runs 16 min; the transcript is about 2,578 words in 22 timestamped sections.

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