Phil Stewart

And anyway, it was this real surreal moment for me because I was a Latin American studies major in college and I had studied Fidel Castro.

And there he is in his camouflage and talking about Bill Clinton and telling me that I should respect him.

So, yeah.

Well, I think Secretary of State Marco Rubio has put it pretty bluntly.

I mean, he's basically saying that the Cubans should take notice of what happens in Venezuela.

And so if anyone in the region should be really watching this, it's certainly the Cubans, because also they depended so much on the relationship with Venezuela, which the United States almost certainly seems to be moving to sever.

So if the Venezuelans can no longer provide any kind of oil, aid, support, cash, anything to the Cubans, that's going to have a real impact on an island that's already struggling economically.

So I think that what we're, you know, as journalists, what we're trying to do is we're trying to make sense of this, too, because, you know, nobody's seen anything quite like this.

Right.

And so, you know, the closest thing is Noriega.

And that's actually a different situation for a lot of reasons that we don't have to get into.

so you know what we're what we're doing is we're looking at like the national security strategy that the white house issued which says you know which says basically that the monroe doctrine you know this idea that that the that the hemisphere is kind of america's backyard and that the us will um you know look after it as such you know uh and protect its interests there um you know really is the best way i think to to understand what

Well, I think that in the case of Venezuela, you're going to see a lot of pressure on them to cut ties with countries the U.S.

sees as adversaries.

And actually, I was on a trip with Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of War, I guess, that's what he calls it, Pete Hegseth.

The name isn't official yet, so I can't use Secretary of War.

Congress, but the name has been officially – the name has been changed on the building itself.

So it's a tricky one for reporters.

I'm sure.

Which one do you do?