ICE insist upon the Constitutional Command that we shouldn't be using U.S. military in hostilities except for Self-defense from an attack without a vote of Congress. And I insisted upon that with Presidents Obama and Biden and also with President Trump. I view the attack on Venezuela as illegal. Thank you, Senator Kane.
Totally inaccurate, not illegal. You can take executive action, especially on an indicted criminal who we had a $20 million bounty on his head under Biden. It went up to $40 million under this president.
So, why he says stuff that he knows is blatantly untrue? Because it's in the partisan mode, even though we had 11 months until an election, they're still in the partisan mode. Senator Mark Wayne Mullen joined us now, Armed Services and Appropriations Committee. I know there's just been a briefing. A committee, and one of the committees just briefed by Marco Rubio and Pete Hagseth, Secretary of War.
Have you gotten yours yet, Senator? Yes, I actually just walked out of that briefing. It was Chairman Kane, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. You had Director John Rackcliffe there. You had Pam Bondi, Secretary Rubio, and Secretary Hexeth.
And Brian, let me tell you, that was the best briefing, classified briefing, that I have ever been part of. And I mean that sincerely. I've set through hundreds of classified briefings. I've already been briefed on this one previous time, but not quite in depth. Any Democrat that walks out of that and says they were disappointed in the briefing, that says they're not proud of what the American intelligence community and the American military did, they're going to flat be lying to the American people.
It was phenomenal, and we should be very proud that we brought this guy to justice. That was, by the way, Maduro was indicted almost six years ago for poisoning and killing Americans. In 2024, we lost more Americans to drug overdoses than we did U.S. personnel in the Vietnam War. We had a war going on in our streets, and the main guy that was sponsoring it, that was allowing these cartels to have a safe haven in his illegitimate, I wouldn't say illegitimate country, but in his illegitimate position to be the dictator over Venezuela, we brought him to the U.S.
and is holding him accountable. That is great, Brian. Yeah, so what is the school of thought? What did they tell you about the transition?
Now that we're a few days into it, Del Codriguez, the vice president, came out defying, I want a proof of life. I want Maduro back. And then she changed. From the time I ended my show at 10 o'clock Sunday, till I got up to Fox and Friends, there was a new statement. And the statement said, we're here essentially to work with the United States the best we can.
And now we have this cooperation on oil and gas because they can't sell it. They can't refine it. They're all backed up. They have nowhere even to store it. There's no tankers there.
We just caught two other tankers. But what's your sense about Del Codriguez's ability to run that country differently than? Maduro.
Well, she is no friend of ours, and I doubt very seriously when they have elections that she'll be elected to run the country. But this was never about regime change. This was a law enforcement, a law enforcement activity that was to bring Maduro to hold him accountable for his behavior.
Now, what we have, though, is we have a strong leverage now of this oil. Remember, this oil has been sold on the market at a huge discount. I mean, just China alone was taking roughly 400,000 barrels a day. You have Cuba that they were 100% reliant on Venezuela oil, which is why you had a security force there that was protecting Maduro, which obviously a lot of them lost their life doing so. And so the leverage point we have now, excuse me, Brian.
Is the ability to sell this oil for Venezuela at an open market price instead of a discount price and become and help them pay their bills, pay the military, pay the law enforcement, pay sanitary and work or sanitarian workers and keep their lights on essentially.
So we want to work with the Venezuela people. to allow them to have an opportunity to choose their next government. And right now the person that is that person we got to work with, well, she's not a friend, but she has to work with us because she has no choice because in a few days they run out of money. Right.
So in the end, I know it's never easy when the President is taken out of his bed, justifiably, and put into a prison in Brooklyn. But I understand this Interior Secretary Cabello is as bad as it gets, walks around with spikes in his bat, has everyone scared to death, and you got motorcycle gangs going up and down the streets making sure there's no Trump supporters out there and nothing but Maduro supporters. Did they address that at all about how we don't get messed up in this Iraq style, but we somehow provide some type of semblance of freedom to the people? Yeah, I've got to be pretty vague on this because this was classified and until it's declassified or it becomes open source, but I don't want to be the person that causes it to be open source. I will tell you, we're working.
With people inside Venezuela to make sure that the democracy is restored, that there is some type of structure there, which is why you saw the statement that changed in what, less than 12 hours?
So there is a coordinated effort. To bring stability there.
Now, we have no boots on the ground, zero. We pulled everybody that went in, every single person came out, and our assets came out as well.
So, but that doesn't mean that we don't have contingency plans, but I don't think what we're seeing as of right now, Brian, isn't A reason to deploy a contingency plan. Right now, what we're seeing is a country that is stabilizing after 25 years of dictatorship, and they're finding them putting, and they're going to find out the United States is a friend. All the oil that is coming out of Venezuela that was held on, that was being sold on an illegal market and that wasn't going to the Venezuela people. We are now going to control that. Not one dollar is going to be deposited into the U.S.
Treasury. It's going to be used to go back into Venezuela to allow them to become the great nation that they used to be. And I think the Venezuela people, home and abroad, are excited about what's happening and the opportunity for them. This is Ainslie Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus.
A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at FoxnewsPodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.
So, Senator, and you know, I don't know what I don't know.
So, if there's something else you want to relay to the audience that I'm not asking that you think that's unclassified, Please let me know. But I do would like to ask you this. About an hour ago, they announced that the U.S. has seized two tankers, one under a Russian flag. The Russians, I heard, were escorting the ship with submarines.
But when we actually boarded it and took it, even though they asked us not to, and who do they tell us not to, they re-flagged it mid-journey, and we just took it anyway.
So could you tell us anything about that as a member of Armed Services? We did take that ship. They claimed it was theirs. It was not. It was illegally flagged.
As far as the escorts, that is. Um That's I'm trying to be as close to it as I can be. They did threaten something to that nature, but listen, this is the Western Hemisphere. This is the Western Hemisphere of Americas, right? And we are we're the we're the The power in the ocean, and we will protect our backyard.
We've made it very clear that there's not going to be one drop of oil that goes into Venezuela or leaves Venezuela. And everything that does, we're going to take control of it, and then we're going to work with them. Like I said, this isn't to go to be deposited inside the U.S. Treasury. Every drop of oil we take right now under the sanctions that we have them under in the blockade will be deposited, be sold on our open market, be deposited in a separate account, and be written in checks back to Venezuela government to stand that country back up from the years of theft that the Maduro regime had taken from the people and the great nation.
I mean, honestly, I don't know if you've ever been to Venezuela, but it is a beautiful, I mean, it is a beautiful country, and beautiful people have a tremendous amount of pride in their country that has been robbed from them from the Maduro. Regime, and we are there to give them the opportunity to get to the bottom of the bottom. And don't forget Guyana right next door. Maduro was threatening to take that, by the way. We made sure that didn't happen.
So we also know that they had a huge oil discovery, too. Which is going to benefit everybody in the region. Are we going to get our prisoners out? We understand that Venezuela has some prisoners. Is there a plan for that?
Yeah.
Okay. I can't go into it, Brian. But yes. Understood. Absolutely, there is a plan for that.
And the president is very good about going and getting Americans all across the world. I mean, you saw that. The Biden administration, they paid huge amounts of money and traded a Doctor of Death for a WNBA player. And that has caused a tremendous amount of destabilization because the guy is back at work doing what he used to do. And what we saw with President Trump is they are released because of the President's ability to negotiate.
And right now, we don't have to negotiate. We know those prisoners are coming home. Senator, did they go over Cube at all in the briefing? Not really. They talked a little bit about Colombia and Cuba.
Cuba was just the fact that Cuba is, it was being, Venezuela was propping up Cuba, and they know that. And Cuba is in an interesting, peculiar situation, but not militarily wise, not details or anything like that. Talked about Cuba or Colombia a little bit. That's not the same. Venezuela is not the same as Colombia.
I mean, yes, there's a loudmouth elected president that's in Colombia, but we still have, and we've continued to have good working relationships with Colombia. And ever since we helped them come out of the literally the Civil War that they were in with the drug cartels that were operating and taking that country by storm, we've always maintained very good relationships with Colombia.
So the rhetoric coming out of the new president there isn't really that big of a concern to ourselves. This is the worst crisis in their 67-year communist history. They have ration cards, but no rations to hand out. No electricity for an average between 15 and 20 hours a day. They have skyrocketing inflation.
Eggs cost $8. They get pensions on the average of $7 a month.
So there's no way this guy, I mean, this country or this island can survive under this regime.
So I just think we all should brace ourselves for just a collapse. Almost a collapse of that country. The other thing we're looking at is massive protests for 10 straight days in Iran. And we have nothing to do with it. They earned all of this unrest with the lack of water, inflation through the roof.
Billions and billions going to Hamas and Hezbollah instead of to their own country. I'm getting the sense, and I talked to some people this morning, that this is a riot, this is a series, this is unrest like we have not seen. And you talk about problems rippling through the region. Think about the militias. If something happens to that regime, the militias that will not get serviced in Iraq.
Think about Hezbollah and Hamas, who won't get billions. Think about the Houthis that will be cut off from arms if the Ayatollahs fall. I'm sure this has been thought through. Yeah, there's a big picture that you've got to look at this. Yes, Cuba is a failed state, but this is what happens when socialism takes over a free nation.
We know socialism does not work. And you can say your regime in Iran is real close to what's been happening in Cuba.
Now, different religious backgrounds, but it's the same type of dictatorship. You saw what's happened in Venezuela.
So Venezuela's collapsed. Cuba's collapsing. Iran is, it might remember, Iran used to be a huge partner of ours in the 60s and 70s. Businesses were openly operating there. Iran was considered one of our close friends in the region.
And ever since the Shah was overthrown in 1979, now you're seeing this regime finally start to collapse. It's interesting because the timeframes are close to the same. But what people aren't talking about is what's happened to China because of it. Keep in mind: 400,000 barrels a day from Venezuela was propping up China, and they were buying it cheap in a discount. Price.
Iran, there was even more oil coming out of Iran.
Now, because of the unrest, they're not able to get the shipment to China. China only has about 90 days of supply of reserves and oil. When you take Venezuela off the market and you take Iran off the market, and now you have in Russia that they're having to be dependent on, and that's getting very important, very difficult, that backup could be roughly 45 days.
So you're going to see a behavior change in China, too, because they're going to have to go back to the open market instead of buying it at a 25 to 35 percent discount from the open market.
Now they've got to absorb that into their economy, and their economy is trickling.
So you see dictatorships, socialism, communism all around the world right now becoming very destabled because it doesn't work, which is why it's ridiculous that you have Democrats now that are trying to put.
Socialism like Mendami in New York. I mean, because we see that it fails. And when one crumbles, they all begin to crumble. Senator, I can't thank you enough. Just a fountain of information, a lot of breaking news today.
Last question to you is the President's message and the game plan at the midterms. Can you give me three things that Republicans are all on the same page that they're going to look to target to get their message out for the midterms?
Well, we're talking about the kitchen table. It's all about the kitchen table. It's about actually getting health care to work for the American people rather than affordable, unaffordable health care that has been absolutely a failed experiment by the Democrats. We're talking about bringing down the costs of groceries because when our economy grows, inflation comes down. That's why we've seen inflation go from a high of 9.1 percent at the Biden administration to around 2.4 percent.
We expect interest rates to drop. And then it's about energy. If you bring down energy costs, you're also going to bring down the quality of life for the American people.
So if you do those, that's because the economy is coming, we're creating jobs. We've got to stay focused on that what we do, the Trump's economy, works for the American people. And you have to ask, are we better off today than we were before President Trump was in office? The answer to that is absolutely. Are we a safer nation?
Absolutely. Do we have our border secured? Absolutely. Do people around the world respect us? Absolutely.
And it's all because the American people chose to put the Republicans in office. And that's what we've got to stay focused on. And Senator, I'm looking right now to get you into the octagon for the UFC fight at the White House.
So we're just coming, we're looking at a few opponents, and we'll have to have sign off on that. Is that all right? Yeah, I want to sign off of them because they've got to be very unskilled. In order for me to come out of retirement, it's going to have to take somebody that's got less skill than me or no time in the ring. We'll see.
I'm going to find out. I'm pretty sure you can handle yourself. Senator Mark Waymuller, thanks so much. Back on the bank. Thank you, Brian.
