Ben Rhodes

We arrested this one drug dealer.

We, you know, you release this one Iranian.

We let go of some political prisoners.

But you basically would keep the regime in place, play for time.

And then, you know, let's see how it goes.

Yeah, Trump may have to put U.S.

boots on the ground to protect the oil companies if they're really going to get in there.

And I'm just wondering how the American people are going to feel about deploying a bunch of troops to secure like Chevron interests in Venezuela that will be funded by American taxpayers paying to rebuild Venezuelan oil fields.

What is the benefit of this operation?

Nicholas Maduro is not like some key piece of the international drug trade, right?

So it's not like you really did anything in the international drug trade.

What is actually, there's a lot of risk of greater violence, civil war, state collapse, all these things we talk about.

The benefit that Trump articulates is purely oil, but that's going to take years to rebuild that oil infrastructure, billions of dollars that the American people have to spend, and probably the deployment of U.S.

troops to secure that oil infrastructure.

So I'm not sure what the win is in this.

Yeah, but it just shows the disregard that they have for it because essentially they know that when they get in a court of law and they actually have to prosecute Maduro, they can't make shit up because then the case will get thrown out.

But they can make shit up to send an armada to the Caribbean.

Think about that.

They're not worried about lying to the whole world to justify invading this country, lying to the American people, lying to Congress.

But they do know they can't lie to a judge because he might toss the case.