Glenn Greenwald

The first one is this was never discussed during the campaign.

We just had a major presidential campaign that went on for 18 months, as they always do.

We had presidential debates, campaign planks.

Nobody ever suggested that it was somehow important to our national security or otherwise in our interest to go in and effectuate regime change in Venezuela using our military and our CIA.

That was never discussed.

To the extent anything was discussed, there was a claim, which I agree with, that we have a major problem with fentanyl entering the United States.

I think the big problem is why do so many Americans want to consume drugs?

But in terms of the supply...

Fentanyl doesn't come from Venezuela.

Trump himself said thousands of times, fentanyl comes, their precursors do, from China, and they come through Mexico.

And to the extent he proposed any solution, it wasn't going and doing regime change in Venezuela.

It was barming the drug cartels in Mexico, which we haven't done.

And it suddenly switched to this other thing.

So when you have that, the fact that we have a major election, there's been no real discussion of this, it suddenly happens, combined with the fact that the rationale keeps changing.

Originally, we were told we have to do this because drugs are coming from Venezuela.

As I just said, fentanyl, which is by far the most concerning drug, doesn't come from Venezuela.

Cocaine, a small percentage, 7% to 9%, comes from Venezuela.

These are all, according to government reports under Donald Trump, that his DEA and other agencies prepared.

So...

And also, just because we take Maduro out and leave the government in place doesn't mean that the drug cartels are going to disappear.