Bradley Thayer

Well, Steve, great to join you this morning.

I think, sure, what the Ford Group is doing is signaling, of course, to Venezuela.

As Brendan has mentioned and Jack mentioned, of course, that's very important to signal to Madero that this could escalate in a way that's not favorable to his interests.

But I see what President Trump is doing is really adding his own corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Steve.

Monroe Doctrine said, of course, we're not going to allow Europeans to interfere in the Western Hemisphere.

Roosevelt added a corollary in 1904 where he said the U.S.

might use military force to keep the Europeans out.

What President Trump is doing is adding his own corollary to Monroe, where he's saying he's not going to tolerate foreign powers, whether they're based in the Western Hemisphere or they're using the Western Hemisphere, to hurt the American homeland.

So it's really a Monroe doctrine which is externally faced, but it's also internally directed.

Because to my mind, what President Trump is doing is laboring so hard to restore the American spirit, to restore American identity, which is so important, under threat, obviously, from political Islam or under threat from drugs.

For example, whether those are the opioids and the synthetic opioids coming from China or other narcotics coming from Latin America.

Absolutely, because of the presence that the CCP has in Venezuela, and not only Venezuela, but there.

So the CCP wants to use, of course, the Venezuelans against us, right?

They want to use Venezuela as a base to hurt us.

Certainly.

And Cuba, too.

We can't forget Cuba and the base that has received some attention, of course, the way the CCP is using Cuba.

No, I see it differently.

I see Trump is adding muscle to the Monroe Doctrine.

What Trump is saying is you're not going to hurt the American people using bases in the Western Hemisphere or using countries in the Western Hemisphere targeting and damaging the American people.