Thomas Massie & Ro Khanna Blast Trump on Venezuela Lies — Breaking Points
The bipartisan Massie-Khanna team back on Breaking Points calling out the administration's Venezuela rationale. War powers, regime-change patterns, and what real congressional authorization would look like.
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- So, let's turn to Venezuela. Obviously, we're going to talk about that a little bit with Congressman Ro Khanna, but and Ryan and Emily touched on this a little bit as well as the speculation online
- was building the case for taking taking back our oil from Venezuela was being made there from Donald Trump. Here's what he had to say on the tarmac while
- receiving the troops of dead American soldiers from Syria. Here's what he said on Venezuela. Not going to let anybody go in through that shouldn't be going through. You remember they took all of
- our energy rights. They took all of our oil from not that long ago and we want it back, but they took it.
- They illegally took it. They illegally took the oil. I mean, Ryan did a good job yesterday of just discussing and breaking down this whole
- thing. So, I won't go into the general history and all of that of Chavez and of 1976 and all of that of oil. I will just simply point out the inconsistencies.
- Let's say that you wanted all the oil from Venezuela. Then that leader said you can have all the oil from Venezuela
- and you said, "I'm going to launch a war cuz he refuses to give me back the oil." Would that make any damn sense to any of you? Cuz again, like everyone's trying
- to even retconning 1976 nationalization from Venezuela or Chavez or the fact that Chevron today today is exporting
- oil from Venezuela under a special license granted to them by the Biden administration. Again, let me reiterate that that at this entire time an American oil company continues to export
- oil from Venezuela under Maduro. Even if you accepted all of those ridiculous premises, if the core goal was to get the oil and the leader said you can have
- the oil, then what the hell are we all doing here? And and like that's it's like the press is derelict in their explanations of all of this. Maduro has
- said, "I will give you the oil. I will give you the minerals. All I want to do is kind of stay in power and go out on my own terms and hand power off to my guy." And at the every turn we're like,
- "No." So, even people who are saying it's about the oil, I wish it were about the oil. That would make more sense because if it were about the oil, then we could make a deal. This is about
- Marco Rubio whose family is Cuban and has a lifelong dream who believes in the 1960s domino theory that if we knock off
- Venezuela, then Cuba will be next. That's the level of stupidity that we're all dealing with. Like Florida, Miami occupied government. I saw a tweet from
- a congressman yesterday from Florida and he was like of the Nicaraguan Venezuelan exiles that I represent are deeply supportive of President Trump. I was
- like, imagine if you said that about any other community, you know? My family's Indian. Can you imagine if my whole personality was about [ __ ] Kashmir or
- something? It would be insane. That would be the definition of dual loyalty and of importing your old world grievances to our country. If you want
- to talk about integration, lack of assimilation, I'm looking at people who are still grudged over some revolution during the 1950s. I don't give a [ __ ]
- okay? Whether your family got to keep a plantation in Cuba. And as Tucker famously said, you know, they talk about expropriation. They seem to be doing okay down in South Florida last time I
- checked. They all live in pretty nice houses, just saying, all right? That's fine. Seems to be you're doing well. I'm happy for you. That doesn't mean I need to send my, you know, tax dollars and
- use our military to go into restore the glory of your family down in Venez- Like it's ridiculous. >> There is a piece of this that just still
- as I go over it just still doesn't add up for me with Trump. And and maybe this the answer is that he doesn't really intend to do like direct strikes or
- certainly an invasion that they just want to saber-rattle as much as possible to get as good a deal as possible. I mean, maybe that is maybe that is actually what's going on here and I
- think that's certainly possible. But I I know where I know ideologically where Marco Rubio is coming from, where some of the other Floridians in government
- are coming from. I understand Stephen Miller's interest in this because of his whole like, you know, let's just murder the drug dealers and that consolidates more power for him and gives him more
- power domestically as well. Like I get all of that. I don't quite get the full like last piece of why this was persuasive to Trump. When like you said,
- like it seems like what he would love to do is, you know, yes, saber-rattle and then be able to come out and say, "Oh, we made this deal and look at what it's doing for us, etc., etc." So, maybe that
- is the end point where we end up, but I think we also have to give some credence to Ryan's theory that he floated of like, "Hey, he thinks he actively wants another migrant crisis and caravans
- coming to the border because he thinks that benefits Republicans politically and it also benefits them in terms of getting their like right-wing allies in
- in government in South America as we saw we covered the election in Chile with Juan. >> I think that here's the core argument. This is what I've been told directly
- from arguments in the Oval. The way that it's being presented is, "Mr. President, you have to finish It's just like with George W. Bush and Iraq. You have to
- finish the job. You looked weak because in the first Exactly. That's all it is. It's all just you look weak. Yeah, and they're like, "If you make a deal,
- you're going to look weak because we've gone all out and you recognize this former government." That's it. Is that he has been convinced. This is This is the Rubio strategy is for a while they
- were like, "But he stole the election." Trump's like, "I don't give a [ __ ] he stole the election." You know what I'm saying? My son-in-law's out here making cash money with the Gulf monarchy. You
- think I care about democracy? They're like for a while they're like, "He's really bad on human rights." Trump again is like, "I literally don't care, right? I'm going to sit next to MBS." Then they
- finally landed on he's a drug trafficker, which is very good for a lot of people around him. And then finally, everyone just keeps telling him, "You're going to look weak if you don't back
- down." That's why he refuses to make a deal even though he's a so-called deal maker. I do want to give some props to Maduro, which I never thought I would say in my life. They keep saying, "Bro,
- you got to leave." And he's like, "No, I'm not leaving. You're either going to kill me or you're going to make a deal." And right now we're brushing up against
- even what the Trump administration wants to do from a legal perspective. There's a reason that if everybody goes and reads the Truth Social. It was being presented as a full blockade. It's not.
- So, read what it actually says. He says, "Ever assembled it will get bigger and bigger until such time as they return to the United States the illegitimate Maduro blah, blah, blah. I am today
- ordering a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers." Now, people read that as a total blockade. Here's the thing though, only about 30-something percent of the tankers that
- come in and out of Venezuela are actually sanctioned. The one that was taken down by the Trump administration was previously sanctioned under Iranian
- Hezbollah the Iranian Hezbollah sanctions. That's what the legal authority was. Two tankers left Venezuela yesterday. Now, I'm not saying this isn't going to be
- massively disruptive to the Maduro regime, but it just shows you they're in a bind. They have the law where they are right now where they can try to finagle
- these drug boats and all of that. And Trump keeps saying land strikes are coming. Hasn't done it. The legal pretext for that? Very difficult to
- justify. And Congress, if he actually did do that, may step No, I'm going to say may step in. They haven't stepped in yet. They're giving him a short leash,
- but you know, let's put A6 up here on the screen. I'm excited to talk about this with Congressman Ro Khanna is just yesterday the House of Representatives
- only very narrowly failed in a vote on a Venezuela war powers resolution, which would have stopped all the stuff that we
- see right now. It failed at 211 to 213. If they actually start striking land or striking boats, for example, like real
- like Venezuelan oil tankers and blowing them up or getting into an armed conflict, it's I think that would flip very quickly. You know, the Venezuelan navy, again, why I have to respect
- Maduro, is he keeps calling Trump's bluff. He's like, "I'll take all your migrants. Keep sending them. Send them. I'll take them, right? I'm going to give you what you really, really want." And
- at the same time you're making these threats about my oil tankers. Okay, I'm going to denounce that as an act of piracy. Yesterday he sent the Venezuelan navy to escort the those two tankers
- that I just talked about. So, now we have a decision to make. What's happening here? Are we Are we getting into a gun fight? >> you've got a direct confrontation. >> a real thing that's happening, which
- again, nobody has authorized. Nobody's voted on. This and of course, this is not an excuse. All of this could spiral out of control incredibly quickly. We
- can end up in some USS Maine situation. So, please do not like take this as me saying that they're being cautious. I'm saying that they're in a legal and a difficult political bind. They do not
- want American troops to die. They do not want any American troops ever to set foot on Venezuelan soil. Their best case scenario is a Libya NATO style intervention, which [clears throat]
- yeah, exactly. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, right. Goes without saying. All of that said, they are still in a very tough place where they can't go to
- Congress cuz Congress would vote it down if they really wanted to what they wanted to do. Like full-blown regime change. So, everything is like CIA pressure machinations and Maduro has
- called their bluff every step of the way. They're like, "Give us all your oil." He's like, "Okay." He's like, "Take all of our migrants." "Okay." Except the one thing he won't give on is
- I'm not just going to step down from power. So, he's basically saying, "Kill me or make a deal with me." Yeah. >> And so, I don't know. I mean, look, we might kill him. I I hope I really hope that we don't, but we might.
- >> Well, let's go ahead and bring in Congressman Ro Khanna to talk about all of this and you know, he's been really leading the charge with these war powers resolutions working in a bipartisan manner with Congressman Thomas Massie.
- So, let's go ahead and get to Congressman Khanna. Joining us now Congressman Ro Khanna, great to see you, sir. Good to see you. Always good to be on. Yeah, of course. Let me put back up on the screen, guys, A6 so we can get
- the war powers resolution vote from yesterday, which narrowly failed. 211 to 213. And you've been deeply
- involved in trying to push back against this administration's rogue actions with regard to these drug boats and potential strikes in Venezuela. You had only three
- Republicans join with all of the Democrats save for one, who I believe was Henry Cuellar. And then you also had nine people who inexplicably missed the
- vote, including four Democrats. You know, what did you make of this of this narrow failure? It was a failure of Congress again. I mean, look, the
- American people don't want regime change wars. And there were two war powers resolutions actually that failed. One said stop just bombing boats in the
- Caribbean without clear standards. But the other one that should have easily passed said we don't want to go into Venezuela to have a land invasion and
- topple Maduro. And even that did not pass. And so Congress is really to blame for these endless wars. We we are not
- willing to assert our constitutional authority. Sir, one of the things that we're really puzzled about here is the presentation from the Trump administration where they're trying to
- force Maduro out, but they have not yet moved to any full-blown kinetic action. Just curious from your perspective, at least on land is really what I'm talking
- about against the Maduro regime. There were some speculation about congressional briefings and others being given yesterday. I'm just wondering if you've heard anything about that from
- you and your colleagues. I know you yourself serve on some of the relevant committees. Have you heard anything recently? I was in a classified briefing yesterday about the second strike on the
- boat. And all I'll say about that is that it should be released to the American public. I've made that clear and that I have concerns about these
- strikes in the Caribbean. By the way, we've interdicted or stopped about 10 tons of cocaine coming in while Donald Trump has pardoned the former president
- of Honduras Hernandez who brought in 400 tons of cocaine. So it's total hypocrisy. The
- other concern I have is that they're basically increasing our troop presence in Puerto Rico, increasing the troop presence in Florida, increasing our
- naval presence in the Caribbean, increasing our aircraft carriers, our Gerald Ford carriers there. They they're provoking a war. And if there's one
- incident that takes place, they can blame Maduro and use that as justification to have a regime change war. The American people have rejected
- this. And yet this administration is doing exactly what the American people don't want. I wanted to play a little bit of Congressman Thomas Massie who you've worked really effectively in
- collaboration with across the aisle on some of these foreign policy matters in particular. Let's go ahead and take a listen to the case he made against this
- regime change war. The framers understood a simple truth. To the extent that war making power devolves to one person, liberty
- dissolves. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case and Congress should vote before
- American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America. Let's be honest about likely outcomes. Do we truly believe that Nicolas Maduro will
- be replaced by a modern day George Washington? How did that work out in Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria? Previous presidents told
- us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, that did not exist. Now it's the same playbook except we're told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were
- about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia. And the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez.
- This is about oil and regime change. And unfortunately, Thomas Massie there, one of only three who voted for this war powers resolution. Help us understand,
- why is there so much more support for these regime change wars in Congress than there is among the American people? Well, I could have given the same exact
- speech literally word to word that Thomas Massie did. I mean, he absolutely nailed it. The problem is is several things. One is he pointed out, there are oil interests. I mean, the Koch brothers
- have refineries in the Gulf of Mexico that require and need Venezuelan oil. That oil has been restricted. Their
- profits are being hurt. Second, you look weak. I mean, if you make this argument that we don't want to be for regime change war in the Beltway foreign
- policy blob, they paint you as unserious about national security. Third, they paint you as well, you may be sympathetic to Maduro and he's a terrible leader. Well, yeah, he is a
- terrible leader, but the point isn't whether he's a terrible leader. The point is whether you want to commit American money and American troops to a war that's not going to have a better
- outcome. But it's the same game that what's frustrating is the American public now has seen through it. They keep voting for the president who's
- promises them no endless wars, and yet the Congress seems to be asleep. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really
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