The United States ATTACKS Venezuela | Arrests President Maduro.

It's 9:00 a.m. on the east coast and if

you're just joining us this morning, we

have major breaking news. [music]

Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro has

been captured by US forces. It

>> was an amazing thing, an amazing job

that these people did, extremely

complex, the the whole maneuver, the

landings, the number of aircraft which

were massive number, the number of

helicopters, a different type of

helicopters.

>> The United States has just captured the

president of Venezuela. The United

States military, without congressional

approval, but with 150 aircraft,

attacked a foreign country to extract

and arrest the foreign president of that

country, Venezuela's Maduro, in just 2

hours and 28 minutes. All without a

single dead American. At most, we had a

damaged aircraft, a helicopter that was

shot at, but it was still deemed

flyable. So, we didn't even leave the

helicopter in Venezuela. and we have

disappeared. So now the question is,

who's going to run Venezuela? What does

this mean? What's going to happen in

markets? What does this mean for oil?

What leadership are we going to see

that's actually going to try to fight

the armed rebel or guerilla groups that

exist inside of Venezuela? And where

does Donald Trump think this leaves us?

Well, a spoiler alert, Donald Trump says

we are going to run Venezuela until a

transition occurs. and if we need to, we

are ready to mount a second stage much

larger attack. But at this point, uh Mr.

Trump or President Trump does not

believe that this is going to be

necessary. And instead, he took to Truth

Social to show us a photo of uh the

arrested president of Venezuela in ear

muffs and a mask and handcuffs with a

bottle of water. So, it looks like uh at

least somewhat he's being taken care of

with a fresh bottle of American water.

Now, this is incredible because first of

all, this was not just a show of force

by America against Venezuela. This was a

slight directly against the Axis of

resistance or anyone who threatens

America. This was a direct middle finger

to China, whose delegates just showed up

4 hours before this raid to negotiate

likely oil deals with Maduro.

Just four hours later, we go raid and

extract the very president that Chinese

delegations wanted to make deals with.

So, this is a middle finger not just to

China, but it's also, frankly, a big fat

middle finger to Russia because guess

who supplied defensive weapons to the

Maduro regime?

Russia. Russia's S300 and BU M2E, which

are long and medium-range defensive air

systems, were basically negligible

against US technology, possibly in part

due to broken Russian supply chains, or

the fact that somehow we basically shut

down the entire power grid in Venezuela

before we attacked. Now, that may have

been due to cruise missiles and direct

strikes, or it could have been a cyber

attack or a combination, but we

basically, as Trump puts it, bumrushed

the president. But the way I see it, we

basically blitzed Venezuela with 150

aircraft launched from over 20 different

bases. We had operators as young as 20

years old, as old as a 49 years old. We

had lower aircraft protected from above

by drones, F-22s, F-18, B1 bombers,

Coast Guard, Marines, Air Force, all

creating the shield above the airspace

of Venezuela above the lowlying clouds.

Helicopters swept in through now cleared

out corridors. Since we destroyed their

defensive artillery, we now had

helicopters swoop in below the cloud

layer through now a safe zone protected

by our aircraft above to attack

Venezuela at 10:01 Eastern time or 2:01

in Venezuela in the middle of the night.

Now again, this is such a show of

strength by America and it is an

embarrassment to Venezuela, who the

Trump administration believes is mostly

propped up by Cuba, Russia, and China.

And it's frankly a middle finger to all

of the allies of Venezuela. So, it's no

surprise that other Latin American

countries are now shaking in their boots

going, "Oh, how could you do this? The

we condemn your attack." But this, make

no mistake of it, was a signal that

America should not be messed with. Now,

let's actually look at this as a factor

of Venezuela for a moment. The United

States has obviously built up the

largest naval deployment in the southern

Caribbean since the Cuban missile crisis

back in the 1960s. And there were really

three options here to deal with Maduro.

Because, as Trump says, Maduro wanted to

try to negotiate, but he just was

unwilling to surrender and relinquish

power. So there were really three

options remaining. Number one, you could

exile him. So you know, pick him up like

a Napoleon and put him somewhere else.

Uh you could extradite him. You could

also politically exile somebody by

having a different power regime take,

you know, power essentially. But that

could be difficult to do. Uh you could

just kill him, just bomb him. or maybe

more humane, you make him stand trial

for his charges and his crimes, which

we'll talk about those in just a moment,

as well as the integration of the drug

drug trade within the Venezuelan

military allegedly. Uh so therefore,

that really leaves the third option,

which is extraditing him, which is

exactly what just happened. We in under

two and a half hours extradited the

foreign leader of a foreign country,

which is pretty dang impressive. Delta

Force and the 160th Special Operations

Aviation Regiment penetrated Karacus.

And frankly, now you've got the wife of

Maduro and himself coming to New York to

face charges. The entire mission was

done in less than 6 hours. The

extraction took less than 2 and 1/2

hours. We struck multiple military bases

inside of Caracus as well as areas south

of Caracus. We also struck local ports

and we've already been detaining oil

tankers in the region. So obviously as

JD Vance says this is a big old PSA for

the world that if essentially you

contribute to narot terrorism you don't

get to avoid justice we will come after

you. Now of course a lot of people are

going to take issue with the fact that

Donald Trump didn't request

authorization from Congress. Marco Rubio

actually directly addressed this and

said that this is not the kind of

mission that you could ask for

congressional approval for because this

was a law enforcement operation by the

Department of War with the Department of

Justice or on behalf of the Department

of Justice. And frankly, they believe

that if they would have told Congress,

somebody would have just leaked it or

worse, somebody could have just bet on

Poly Market. Oh, wait. I guess somebody

bet on Poly Market anyway that Maduro

would be out by January 31st. ended up

making $13,000 on a trade here, 200 or

what do we got here? $172,000 here,

$4,000 here, uh closer to a buck over

here on some of these other trades. So,

somebody made off with a nice, you know,

six figure game gain on on trading the

inside information, but apparently

Congress was not able to insider trade

this one. Just folks within the

administration instead. But anyway,

Donald Trump says Congress has a

tendency to leak uh and not that it

would have mattered much because

Venezuela knew we were coming. They saw

our ships and they were ready for us.

Except they weren't ready for what they

faced, which again is just a really

remarkable show of force by America.

Especially since the CIA and and Trump

had talked about this in his October

press conference, but the CIA has been

on the ground since August collecting

information on Maduro along with the

NSA. They knew what he wore regularly,

what he ate, where he ate, when he ate,

his pets, where he likes to hang out.

They knew everything about where he was

staying to the point where they built a

replica building with the same steel

doors that they would be expected to

blow down to get to Maduro with

blowtorrches or whatever they need to

make sure they could extract him

appropriately with minimal risk to

Americans. Now, obviously, massive

rewards and bounties from Maduro likely

helped collect well intelligence. You

know, it's easy to pay somebody when,

frankly, the economy of Venezuela is

complete poopy dupy. Uh, and this isn't

to be funny. It's really bad. The people

of Venezuela are suffering. This chart

right here, you know, normally we're

like, "Oh, it's good when a chart goes

up and to the right, right?" Well, it's

good for Americans with dollars because

this is a chart showing how many

Venezuela Venezuelan boulevards you

could buy. So their currency you could

buy with one US dollar. Well, one US

dollar has gone from buying 35 of their

currency to buying over 300 of them.

That's because you've got or had an

economy under major strain, falling oil

prices, which represents one-third of

their GDP. 58% of government income

comes from oil money, and US sanctions

with potentially an annual inflation

rate reaching 700% in 2026. So, the

economy is complete trash and the people

are suffering in Venezuela. They just

had their currency lose 90% of its value

in less than two years. The minimum wage

in Venezuela is about 130 boulevards per

month, which works out to about $1 per

month. You probably need about $500 to

feed a family in Venezuela. So, it's no

surprise that 80% of Venezuelans live in

poverty. when the government has

destroyed the economy, yet they lie to

the public by implying that GDP will be

growing at 8% next year and everything

is fine. No surprise why over 8 million

Venezuelans have fled the country. Now,

of course, people are speculating that

this intervention could lead to a

promarket transition, uh, a bullish

catalyst,

>> bullish catalyst,

>> you know, sanctions relief, IMF

engagement, economic stability, but a

lot of that is going to be predicated on

what kind of power vacuum exists and

what kind of takeover uh occurs in

Venezuela. So, we'll have to evaluate

this. Now, obviously, there are going to

be debates about the war powers

resolution in the United States, like

was this strike legal? uh was this

extraction truly an offensive strike

that was uh made due to an imminent

threat to the United States? That's like

legal jargon for saying, well, you know,

are you even able to weaponize the war

powers resolution? Donald Trump debates

this and says, look, every boat that we

destroy avoids the death of 25

Americans. We lose 300,000 Americans per

year to drugs. So, don't worry. This was

a war powers strike. Again, courts will

debate this, but the point is it has

occurred. So, what matters more now is

what's going to happen going forward.

Well, apparently the vice president who

is now being sworn in as the president

of Venezuela, Deli Rodriguez, uh she

clearly stands on a very fragile

position, especially with threats that

Donald Trump is willing to invade again.

She has allegedly told Marco Rubio that

she will do whatever is necessary. Uh

Trump will does recognize that she was

picked by Maduro and that she's

fortunately though so far essentially

willing to do quote whatever is needed

to make Venezuela great again. And now

Trump is going to make sure that not

only America but the Venezuelans can

make a lot of money. Now of course there

are other leaders that are being

considered. For example, uh Vladimir

Lopez who runs the uh you know national

armed forces of Venezuela. You've got

the SP special forces leader Cababo that

that might be an option. Maduro is

believed also to have offered Venezuelan

oil to the United States uh that maybe

the administration will take over and

and sort of work with. Though Donald

Trump has vetoed all these, so it seems

like Trump doesn't really care about the

people involved. Trump's going to do

what Trump wants at this point and

they're looking for essentially somebody

who's just going to say okay. Now, a lot

of people obviously after Hugo Chavez

died of cancer, well technically a heart

attack, but he had cancer. Uh he was

getting surgeries in Cuba to try to save

his life. It didn't work. You know, he's

been in power since the early 2000s,

2002, I believe, to 2013. Then Maduro

came into power. Maduro basically lost

his election in 2024 to Maria Mcado. She

won the Nobel Peace Prize, which Donald

Trump felt slighted by because, you

know, Trump says he solved so many wars.

He should have won the Nobel Peace

Prize. But anyway, uh, MCado, she has

been cheering for the removal of, well,

frankly, Maduro for years since, uh,

2014, she's been a political activist to

try to remove Maduro from power. Uh, and

she's believed to be popularly desired

by the people of Venezuela. She was

actually banned from running against

Maduro by Maduro's Supreme Tribunal,

which basically, you know, he runs. And

so they ended up running a stand-in

candidate uh in the popular election

against Maduro. The stand-in candidate

and Mundo Gonzalez won two times the

votes that Maduro received. But the

government just refused to acknowledge

that election and just installed Maduro

instead. So she argues the goal is to

come to leadership to reclaim democracy.

Though Donald Trump isn't a big fan of

her. I don't know if he feels slighted

because of the Nobel Peace Prize laws,

but he says that she doesn't actually

have the support of the people and it

would be very tough for her. Now,

Venezuela also has weapons problems.

Venezuela is frankly per the foreign

affairs full of armed groups that may

take advantage of this power vacuum. And

so, you really need stability as f fast

as possible to prevent these gangs or

Colombian guerrillas from taking

control. The US has already warmed these

scenarios and there are really three

potential outcomes. One would be some

kind of negotiated solution. This would

be like a Panama invasion of 1989 kind

of negotiated solution where all the

other countries are like look we support

this transition. We don't support the

invasion. We condemn the invasion but uh

and the extraction of the president but

we support the transition. We're mad but

we'll help. You know that that kind of

negotiated solution in the region that

could institute peace. Uh, and then

Donald Trump expects, you know, oil

producers like the current major oil

producer in Venezuela that is US-based,

Chevron, potentially rebuilding

infrastructure and attract extracting

oil wealth out of the country. Donald

Trump suggests that the local economy

will also benefit from this, but Trump

wants to be repaid for the lives that

have been lost in America for the drug

war. Unclear how all of that is going to

balance out, but uh, Brazil, Russia,

Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, China have

already rejected the attack. They see

this as interference in Latin America.

Okay, old news. But best case scenario

one is still some kind of negotiated

solution. Option number two would be

like a Libya style solution which would

be bad. Fractured military, fractured

leadership. You get little power cells.

Uh not good. It's kind of like almost

like a you know a small version of this

would be like the Hamas leadership that

is just a splinter cell of 41 different

cells in the Gaza Strip that have no

unified leadership. Really hard to make

a deal with those sort of groups and

don't tend to lead to lasting peace.

Worst case scenario, you get an

imperialist takeover like uh basically,

you know, some kind of military propped

up by Russia, China, and you just get a

Maduro 2.0. And that's why Trump says

he's going to stay until a proper

transition can take place, and we're

just going to run the country. Now,

Donald Trump doesn't exactly give

clarity on how we're going to run it. It

seems like we're going to run it with

Rubio from the White House and puppets

basically inside of the Venezuelan

government who just, you know, basically

convert, as Donald Trump puts it, and

bow down to what the United States

wants. Uh it's pretty obvious that uh

Donald Trump believes that people are

going to convert because he says if they

don't uh we'll just have to, you know,

launch the second wave. So I think it's

a there's a pretty clear threat that

you're going to disappear if you don't

convert and support the Donald Trump

regime and the administration. So we'll

see. Donald Trump said he watched the

operation unfold. He said that uh you

Maduro tried to run into a safe room.

Sounds like he like live streamed it,

which sounds pretty freaking epic. But

anyway, uh he says uh Maduro ended up

getting bumrushed and we had

blowtorrches. Maduro made it to his safe

room, but he couldn't end up getting the

door closed because we bumrushed him so

fast. We would have gotten through his

door in 47 seconds anyway, so it

wouldn't have mattered, but we didn't

need to get through his door. And even

though they were quote ready for the

United States, we just absolutely

overwhelmed them. So now obviously, you

know, what is the impact of all of this?

Well, I mean, after Operation Midnight

Hammer against Iran and now Operation

Complete Resolve to extradite the

president of Venezuela, uh, you know,

both of these without any American

death, I think there's a pretty big

signal that you probably shouldn't mess

with America. This is a signal not just

to Russia, but also to China and

certainly Iran. Hey, don't even think

about uh messing with America. Don't

think about invading Taiwan. Russia,

you've invested billions of dollars into

Venezuela, and guess what? Oops, that's

gone. Uh, China. You have $60 billion in

loans to Venezuela. Well, we'll have to

think about that. Uh, we've seized oil

tankers that were destined for China.

Iran has provided materials to

Venezuela. Uh, oops. I guess that's

going to be over now. So, I guess your

business partner is now done. I mean,

this is really more than just Venezuela

and drugs. This is a big middle finger

to again China, Iran, and Russia.

So, uh, now the Trump administration is

also threatening Cubans, saying that

Cubans were all over Maduro's guard, uh,

and that the Cubans almost run Venezuela

and that Cuba is failing, so they better

watch out. So, the next threat is

already being laid. But bottom line,

we're obviously going to have to watch

very closely what happens here.

Obviously, there's an expectation that

in the near term, oil markets could

spike, although oil shipments out of

Venezuela have really grown to a halt

anyway. So, any kind of spike in oil

prices should have already occurred

anyway because we've been seizing oil.

Uh, now the belief is that if we rebuild

oil infrastructure in Venezuela, which

could take as long as 2 years, that oil

prices will actually fall and gas prices

will fall. So, yes, could this all be

about oil again? and getting to Donald

Trump's gas targets, of course. But the

goal is to rebuild the infrastructure

and actually generate more oil, which

also reduces the value of oil that can

be sent from Russia to countries like

China. So, this is all linked together

and merged together as a really massive

global operation. These things are all

linked together. And I have to say,

while obviously there are going to be

questions about war powers, I'll tell

you this is this is this just shows you

don't mess with America. And to some

extent, ignoring for a moment the fact

that, you know, Congress and some courts

are going to be pissed. You kind of got

to be a little proud of America to go,

"Oh man, we could pull that stuff off.

It should make people shaking their

boots." Now again, I also know there are

going to be Americans who are like, "How

the hell could a president just do this?

This is like dictatorial." I I I get it,

and I'm not here to be soft on that view

as well. I think that'll be litigated in

courts. But this is the nature of Donald

Trump to act. Uh and then if he's told

not to do something by the courts, then

he's like, "Oh, okay." But the message

has already been sent. It's sort of like

deploying the National Guard in Los

Angeles or Chicago for months only to

months later be told by courts, "You

can't do that. You have to give the

National Guard back to those states of

Illinois and California. Well, Trump's

already sent the message and they think

that was the point here. A big fat

middle finger [music] to anyone who

hates America.

>> Why not advertise these things that you

told us here? I feel like nobody else

knows about this.

>> We'll we'll try a little advertising and

see how it goes.

>> Congratulations, [music] man. You have

done so much. People love you. People

look up to you.

>> Kevin Praath there, financial analyst

and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always great

to get your [music] take.