Trump (Villainously) Ends a Dictatorship

<p>In this explosive episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins react to one of the most stunning geopolitical events of 2026: President Trump’s daring operation to remove Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela — without a single U.S. casualty.</p><p>We dive deep into why this was a masterclass in pragmatic, America-First foreign policy: promoting Maduro’s own vice president to avoid chaos, securing massive U.S. oil investments, and sending a chilling message to dictators worldwide. We explore the massive celebrations across Venezuelan and Latin American communities, the furious (and often astroturfed) backlash from the global left, the Pope’s controversial stance, and why this may have permanently shifted Latino voters toward Republicans.</p><p>From hilarious memes and Russian cope to the terrifying implications for Kim Jong-un, Cuba, and beyond — this is the full breakdown of how Trump just changed the world... again.</p><p>If you love bold foreign policy analysis, pronatalism, cultural commentary, and unfiltered takes, subscribe and join the conversation!</p><p><strong>Episode Transcript:</strong><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> [00:00:00] the even more terrifying thing about this, if you are say Kim Jong-un or something right now is. Who Trump put in power after this, that it was his second in command. Yeah. Because if you are Kim Jong-Un or something like that, you’re gonna be like America. You’re not gonna like, just take me out.</p><p>Like you wouldn’t get what you want, then you wouldn’t get a full regime change, you know? And then Trump needs to be like, no, no, no, no. Is there anyone else in this country with a lot of power that would like to see you gone? Because we can give them your job. What about that guy over there? He’s wearing a lot of medals and he is like, well, he’s been my most loyal supporter for X many.</p><p>Mm-hmm. But if you weren’t there anymore and he had everything you have now, and that’s the most terrifying thing to any actual dictator in a negotiation. Oh</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Trump not saying. Oh, we’re gonna replace your government with a capitalist government. [00:01:00] It’s who’s the next most powerful person in the room?</p><p>Would you like to know more?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Hello, Simone. Today is a difficult day to be an American.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Oh,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> there is news that Trump built a time machine, had someone go back in time and kidnap Hitler. Europe is in arms. They are furious. The left apoplectic. How dare he do this to an upstanding German citizen?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> The nerve, the Geneva conventions.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Exactly.</p><p><strong>Speaker 2:</strong> I just got three things to say. God bless our troops. God bless America, [00:02:00] and.</p><p>Okay. Absolutely insane. Follow up to this. So every day before I post my episode, I post it into an AI to see what it thinks of the episode and the AI that I put it into is grok, which has the ability to search the internet. In this time, the AI assumed I was discussing a fictional event. It says this transcript,</p><p>it’s reacting in real time to a completely fictional alternate history scenario. Donald Trump in early 2026. Authorizes a lightning fast delta force raid that captures Nicholas Maduro alive with zero US casualties. Then deliberately installs Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as the leader instead of the opposition.</p><p>Maria Corona Machata. , And , it’s so insane. It’s so insane. It assumes, . The [00:03:00] Malcolm goes hard on the, , Pope Vatican in this fictional world for sighting was Maduro out of reflective anti-Americanism? , even though the entire premise is fabricated as of January 20, 26, Maduro is still in power.</p><p>No US raid has occurred. , What I love here is it couldn’t even imagine. It didn’t even think to look. Did this happen? Did this happen? And when I called it out on this, it goes in my defense events like a US president authorizing a zero casualty delta force rate to snatch a foreign leader alive.</p><p>Sounds like something out of a Tom Conci novel or high concept podcast thought experiment. Especially given the geopolitical sensitivities and historic , , precedents. It’s the kind of bold, unilateral action that feels too unbelievable without hard confirmation. So my initial presumption lead towards it being hypothetical or satirical.</p><p>Oh my God. Oh my God.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> No, this has been really interesting and I think that this [00:04:00] event is going to push a lot of the LA larger Latin American community, which had largely been pushed against Trump due to ICE raids. Which, you know, a lot of them had somebody who they knew who’s been affected by them. And you know, you had more than 50% of Latin American men vote for Trump in the last election cycle.</p><p>Unfortunately, I think it just like one fell swoop. The left might be handing them Latin Americans back as a voting block, because just as you know, you might say, well, a lot of Latin Americans know somebody who had their lives upturned by ice raids. Pretty much every Latin American also knows somebody who had their life destroyed by Maduro.</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah. Like even if you are not Venezuelan, for example, we lived in Peru and then we would get grocery deliveries from a. Venezuelan refugees. We would take Uber rides from Venezuelan refugees and we would hear their stories. We had job applicants who were Venezuelan refugees, like we were surrounded by it.</p><p>Well, so</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I think that this is [00:05:00] what people miss and I wanna, I wanna talk about this, right? Yeah. ‘cause this is not a local to Venezuelan issue. No, we didn’t. Piss off Venezuelan refugees. When you try to stand Maduro, the u the American left. And this shows like when, when Zora Ani is doing this, when you know any, any of these figures are doing this, the pope is doing this, right?</p><p>Mm-hmm. It just shows me that these people like genuinely are completely disconnected from the Latin American community. Or they would know how verboten it is. To take a, this stance and I’ll explain to our viewers why. Because if you’re not really in with the Latin American community, you might not know why every Latin America or, or a huge chunk of the Latin American community is extremely anti medora.</p><p>Mm-hmm.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> So.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> You know how in the United States we’ve been complaining about that giant immigrant wave that’s causing us all of those problems? Oh, so bad, so terrible. The i, the Venezuelan refugee wave drugs that are potentially being made in Venezuela now, no. The [00:06:00] drugs are actually made more distributed.</p><p>I don’t think that’s a good reason for doing this. There’s a lot of trick made in Colombian stuff too, but of the Venezuelan, and keep in mind, a third of Venezuela. Left their country as refugees of that third, only 14% went to the United States. 85% went to much smaller surrounding Latin American countries.</p><p>Hmm. Latin America has been collectively, especially people from South America, have been living alongside these Venezuelan refugees for a very long time.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Moreover than that. The way that they relate to these refugees is not the way America relates to these refugees. So Latin America more broadly especially South America, has been a bit of a game of musical chairs for the past few decades.</p><p>One country’s economy would collapse. They’d get a dictator. They’d have a huge refugee population that would go live in another country. [00:07:00] Now, when Peru’s economy crashed and when Columbia’s economy crashed, you know who was doing well during those periods? Oh, Venezuela. So a lot of them went to live in Venezuela, and Venezuela was very good to them during that period, or at least treated them with a degree of hospitality.</p><p>So when Venezuela’s economy crashed these countries and the, the huge refugee wage started coming in, they were like, this causes some problems for us, but they were there when we needed it. We have to be there when they need it.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Mm-hmm. Right.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> This is very different from the situation we’re dealing with the United States now.</p><p>They all ended up hating Venezuelan refugees eventually. They overstayed their welcome. It was a longer crash than they expected, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But it meant that they got to know these people. And when I say know these people, as Simone said, we lived in Peru. We have a, also a huge Latin American audience.</p><p>Our last company was entirely staffed with Latin Americans [00:08:00] other than us. Our new company, our fab reality fabricator, the AI chat engine. Everyone who works on it other than us is Latin American with one of them being Venezuelan, by the way, living in Venezuela right now. Right. Like I’m talking to him about this and he’s like, oh yeah, you know, I had family members who were killed by the regime.</p><p>Stuff like that. Oh my gosh. I mean, most people have we’ll, we’ll get into like the death numbers, but they were killing you know, you, I think it was well over a hundred people a day at, at, at certain points. They, it was, they were griping children. Like it was terrible. They had a, a systemic like sex violence thing where they would take women and imprison them and then they’d have to trade sex for food in the prison system.</p><p>Oh,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Oh. You</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> regime was genuinely horrifying. Okay. I</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> didn’t know about that. I, yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, ‘cause I just worked with like the, the, the travel agencies and the airlines and the payment processors that we worked with in Venezuela, and they were just like outta the powers out again. Like, I just thought it was just terrible infrastructure.</p><p>The [00:09:00] government didn’t work anymore. But you’re this, you’ve seen the videos</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> of the giant armored vans running over people on the street.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> No.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> What.</p><p>I was looking for videos of this to post, and then I realized they were all going to get this video flagged and taken down, so you don’t want to see it anyway.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah, so they did a protest and they just had these giant armored tank things run through giant crowds of protestors fast, like driving through them over and over again.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Oh, just kind of mowing them down? Just, yeah,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> that was a, they, they, they, yeah. No, that was really, really horrifying. And if you Oh gosh. Spoke against them, you’d be arrested. Your family. Yeah. And kids were arrested too. A lot of children were arrested.</p><p><strong>Speaker 5:</strong> Venezuela and Venezuela, people are criticizing Trump for what he did in Venezuela.</p><p>Minor were tortured. Girls were forced to prostitute themselves in prisons just to get food. Where were all of you then? Where were all of you liberals? Where were all of you? Where were all of you? You said nothing. You did nothing. But now you suddenly care about international [00:10:00] law.</p><p>I mean, now you all talk about human rights. Maduro didn’t lead Venezuela. He kidnapped an entire country., We’re thankful. You can divide politics all you want, but don’t tell Venezuelans. Do not tell Venezuelans how to feel about being free from dictatorship.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So really horrifying. Really horrifying. We’re gonna get to all of that.</p><p>We’re gonna get to all that. But what I wanted to point out here is we’re not speaking of this as people who like, don’t know what we’re talking about. We used to split our time between Miami and Peru. Right. So we’ve lived in the environments where these communities are. Well, and</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> specifically we didn’t even live in Miami.</p><p>We lived in Doral, also known as Doral. Zu, yeah. It was like the Venezuelan contingent of the Miami area,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> our previous companies. Dominant market. We were actually like the dominant travel provider in Venezuela. We would regularly have employees do trips to Venezuela and meet with all the people that we had in Venezuela.</p><p>Like it was like we were really connected with Venezuela. Like Venezuela was [00:11:00] our in the Venezuela community was like our. Bread and butter for years, right? If you look at the, the, the images that you’re seeing now of these giant crowds cheering, if you, you, you see this in Venezuela. You see this in Times Square.</p><p>You see this in Miami, you see this in New York, you see this in Argent, you see this in Spain, in Madrid. This makes sense for these communities. But what I wanna talk about. Before I go into all the memes, before I go into all the, the hilariousness about this, ‘cause there is a lot of hilariousness about this, is I wanna talk about the thing that you’re probably not getting as much, which is what’s happening now, what’s gonna happen next for the country what Trump seems to be signaling so.</p><p>What Trump has signaled is that he wants Maduro’s, former second in command. I don’t know if you’re staying on top of this, Simone trusted vice, the</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> vice, the female vice president.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. Hardcore socialist to take over and run things. Not Nobel Prize lady and Nobel Prize lady is shocked about this.</p><p>Well,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Marco Rubio’s answer to that was like, well, I don’t, she’s out of the country like these, the people that [00:12:00] we really like just aren’t in Venezuela right now. Was his answer If memory serves well, so I think that I don’t, I mean, I don’t think that’s like a, a feasible answer. They can just fly her in, but.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So I wanna talk about why he made this decision from my perspective and the intelligence of this decision.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Mm-hmm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I think it was an incredibly mature is I guess the word that, that, that best fits this decision. Mature and pragmatic. So right now. Head of Venezuela is taken out, right? You have the rest of the government continuing to operate, right?</p><p>Mm-hmm. So suppose Trump comes in and he says, we are gonna replace the candidate, the top person with somebody who has dedicated their entire life to rooting all of you out of. Right. Making sure all of you lose your jobs, lose your positions of power, lose your military commands when you put it</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> that way,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> free all of the dissonances who have been against you from the prison camps and [00:13:00] everything like that.</p><p>Mm-hmm. How are people gonna react to this No serious. Like what, what’s gonna happen? What’s gonna happen? I’ll tell you what happens. Mm-hmm. The existing military says, oh, well we need to resist this. We maybe even need to counterstrike the United States. You know, ship fleet. We need to abduct American civilians potentially to teach America a lesson.</p><p>Mm-hmm. We need to you know, all of that. Right. Like it’s, it’s, it’s a bad situation. Right. Well, and even,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> even independent of the military, the Trump administration knows all too well how hard it is to govern with an antagonistic deep state. So. Mm-hmm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well, and, and, and you, what if you try to put up a, a, you know, so you, you have that whole situation.</p><p>Yes. Worse, what you could have is, suppose he just takes out Maduro and he doesn’t say who he wants to run the country, and he sort of leaves it up for grads. Maybe you people have a revolution, maybe you don’t have a revolution. Right. Or, or worse, he’s like, we would like this other lady, Nobel prize lady.</p><p>But we’re not gonna put her in a position to power [00:14:00] ourselves. We’re not gonna do a military occupation of Venezuela, which I don’t think anyone in America wants, right? No. So then what do you have? You have a revolution in the country, right? I And, and, and revolutions. Nobody wants a revolution, right? I don’t care how bad an existing regime is.</p><p>Revolution is almost always worse for the everyday person. Totally. Yeah. And people are going to die en mass in a revolution. It’s gonna be horrible. Right. No, as suppose this other thing happened. Now, this lady had already gone on being like, oh, it was a horrible Amir and aggression. She said a lot of bad things about Trump after this.</p><p>But Trump said when he made this, that he’s had decisions, suppose her and the, you know, democracy lady, Nobel Prize lady. And he said that this lady has more friends in positions of power, which is true, and she has more supporters in the country right now, of course, which may not be true. But I really think this is what he meant.</p><p>If you, if you peel back the reality of it, this [00:15:00] lady is a cold political operator who’s been doing this for a long time. Other lady is a sky high idealist, right? Who wants, a, a, a beautiful, wealthy, you know, free everything future for her country. And those people don’t generally make the best decisions in positions of power.</p><p>Mm-hmm. Whereas the ruthless pragmatists do. Now the second thing I’m gonna note here, it’s a lot of people have noted it seemed oddly easy for Trump to capture Maduro, right? Like, we didn’t lose any military equipment. We didn’t lose any troopers. Russian bots are seizing over this ‘cause this is what they wanted to do in Ukraine.</p><p>One was saying like, oh, you know, it’s clearly they had help from the inside. You know this, this isn’t a big thing to be proud of. And then everyone underneath him was like, that’s what you tried to do. You just. Failed at it. Yeah. Right. Like, that’s how you do this when you’re doing this. Right. But I think that we have some idea of who that help may have been this [00:16:00] whole Trump saying, oh, this lady’s lovely.</p><p>I’ve talked a lot with her. Why is Trump talked so much this lady? Oh. And then this lady immediately being like, this was horrible. How could the United States do this? Are you guys gonna do anything in retaliation? No, actually, we’re signing a bunch of oil deals with them now. I, I think, I know, I think everyone knows Nice who may have been our mole operating this.</p><p>I think we may have had many a mole in this operation, but I think we know who one of them was. And that’s how you do this. That’s how you do a correct regime change. Yeah. You go to someone like her and you go, look, and I was, I was talking with the you know, VIPs because we do our meet and greet and everything about this, and I go look, and I basically predicted where this was gonna go.</p><p>Right. I, I thought they tried to, at least for Optus, get the know all price lady more involved. But I said, really most of what they’re going to do is try to keep the existing government structure in place as much as possible. Mm-hmm. And the reason they’re going to do that is because then people don’t have a reason to fight back.</p><p>But even more these existing government people can be like. Yeah, I [00:17:00] mean, it’s bad that you took Maduro and you violated our sovereignty and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But. You know, it is true that he made a number of miscalculations, and I think I can probably do things a bit better and it’s gonna be much, much easier with all that American oil money coming in, because if you don’t know why Venezuela was so poor, it was.</p><p>Two reasons. The biggest reason was not the sanctions. It was that their oil plants didn’t function. There’s tons of places in the world that we sanctioned but still managed to sell their oil, like Russia. The reason why Venezuela couldn’t do it is because they instead of investing in repairing the oil facilities that they privatized, which they needed to do repair, upgrade, repair, upgrade, they just always steal and grift that money.</p><p>That was what the government did and the repairs never happened. And now it’s at like. 2.1% capacity or you mean</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> nationalized, right? Not privatized. Oh,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> sorry, nationalized. It’s at like 1.5% is capacity or something like that. I think it, it might even be like [00:18:00] 0.5%. Like basically none of the rigs even work anymore.</p><p>Oh my gosh.</p><p>And so, we’re sending in our oil companies now, which Trump has already talked about. To invest billions into the country, right? Like American companies. Now, this isn’t gonna cost America anything. ‘cause now these companies are worth more, right? Mm-hmm. Like they’re investing because it increases their valuation and their American companies, which is fantastic.</p><p>It’s a virtuous cycle, right? And then all of these existing political operators get to say, Hey, look at how much better I’ve made your life since Maduro left. Like, look at how much better things are, right? We’ll, we’ll maintain some semblance of the socialized system. It just won’t be as extreme as it was so before.</p><p>And that’s easy to do now that we have all this money. Now this doesn’t get Trump looking like a big coming in hero. Like I think many people would like, I think many people think he snubbed Nobel prize lady because she got the Nobel Prize and he didn’t. I don’t believe that at all. She don dedicated her Nobel Prize to him.</p><p>She spoke very highly of him. She spoke against the community. I think he’s talked to her. He talked to the other lady and he just went with the lady who he thought would lead to [00:19:00] less likelihood of revolt in bloodshed. And I think that that was. Ultimately, if your concern is for the people of Venezuela, he made the right choice.</p><p>Yeah, it’ll take longer to heal. A lot of bad people who did bad things will stay in position of power. But if your pure calculation is. I want as few Venezuelans to die as possible, and I want the highest probability of a stable increase in the in, in the, in the region as possible. This was the pragmatic call, and it was a call that required a sacrifice on behalf of Trump.</p><p>Now, the next thing that comes after this is really interesting to me is now that we know that we can do this, like mm-hmm. Trump war bop style strategy. We talked about this in our foreign policy video. Now that we know that we can do this. Well, why don’t we just do this to everyone we hate? Right? Like they’re already Cuba was like, well, should Cuba be worried?</p><p>And Cuba is like a big problem in Venezuela. ‘cause Cuba basically took [00:20:00] over Venezuela, like Cuban operatives took over all the Venezuela and like intelligence positions, and then a lot of high level positions. So Venezuela was actually sort of a vassal state of Cuba at this point. Right. Really?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I’d read a like.</p><p>I’d read about that a little bit, but honestly, I, I, I purposefully have not read up a much about Venezuela because just, it makes me so depressed after so many years with our business just trying to make things work and dealing with people there, and I’m like, I just don’t wanna, I don’t wanna know anymore.</p><p>It’s so bad. It’s so bad. So what was going on? What, why? Well, like was Maduro actively in some kind of collaborative. Project with</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Cuba? No, it’s more that Cuba is just slightly more intelligent and had better systems than Venezuela did, and used it to put people in positions of power and milk, Venezuela of all this money.</p><p>Okay, so</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> you’re basically saying that Cuban operatives were embedded within the Venezuelan government and, and. Making deals that [00:21:00] favored Cuba and, and aligning with Cuba Yes. In ways that were perhaps more advantageous to Cuba than they were to Venezuela.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. Venezuela was a milking farm for Cuba. I mean, keep in mind who you’re talking with, Maduro, who was a former, you can’t say the</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> word milking farm anymore in our modern society.</p><p>Right,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> right. After the morning Star and milking farm after. After the incident. Simone, I mean, just keep in mind the two heads of these two countries, right? Uhhuh, you’ve got Maduro, who’s a Buffoonish bus driver before he comes into power or without the one before him. Yeah. And then on the other side you’ve got Fidel Castro who, yeah.</p><p>Grew up a, a, an ultra rich kid. Went to all of the best education opportunities, you know, classist much Malcolm. I’m just saying, you know, one’s run by a capitalist who just happened to be in aist. Position? No, just country for all it’s worth. I mean, but anyway, I want to continue with what happens next?</p><p>So, Greenland, you’re next, by the way. I love it that Trump was like, well, we really need to focus on Greenland now, and Europe is freaking out. But could we do this in [00:22:00] Columbia? Could we could, there’s, there’s, because they’ve even talked about doing it in Columbia. So if I was gonna be like, where would I do this?</p><p>Where would I not do this? Do this in Cuba if we need to, but there’s just not a lot of the reason to do it in Cuba. It’s not really in our financial best interest to do it in Cuba. We can’t really milk Cuba for anything in the way we can milk Venezuela, which has both gold and oil by the way. And.</p><p>Cuba’s not an active threat to us anymore, so I just don’t even know if it’s worth it. The main reason to do it to Cuba is for votes to further solidify the Cuban American voting Block which is a large and already right-leaning voting block, and it’s been a wet dream for many of them for many years.</p><p>I mean, Rubio is salivating at the chance to do this. But again, that’s not really pro-America, right? Like getting Venezuelan oil with no casualties. That’s pro-America, right? But Cuba, whatever. The other thing that’s interesting about this game, the one you’re</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> looking for too, is America First, which was a core element of the Trump administration’s strategic initiatives or a strategic direction when it comes to global policy going [00:23:00] forward.</p><p>I have to ask, and of course Trump is being asked about this as well, is, well, how is this American first? Why is this America first? But I do think that a, a big part of the national security strategy that many people weren’t really paying attention to was that. The America First strategy also involved a shift toward interest in the American continent, away from the Middle East, away from, yeah.</p><p>Venezuela</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> is an active threat to the United States. To have a country that hostile to us, that close to us and, and be that big is, is not nice. Like it’s, and, and Russia and China. There’s a famous video of the guy online who’s just like, I love what he is saying. He’s, he is a Venezuelan who’s like, he was talking to a reporter and the reporter is like, well, d you know, America is just here to take all your, your oil. And he goes, what do you think China and Russia were here for? Are Tilos or some like classic Venezuelan edition or Alpos or something? Not familiar.</p><p><strong>Speaker 6:</strong> que los gringos solo quieren el [00:24:00] petróleo y los gringos solo quieren sus riquezas. O sea, a esas personas. Les pregunto que querían los rusos y los chinos durante tanto tiempo la receta de la arepa .</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And, and I thought this is true. I was like, what?</p><p>You know, they put a, a murderous psychopath in power. Right. You know? And, and what I also love is Trump didn’t even put like a capitalist in power. He’s like, nah. Yeah, just another. It’s socialist, right? Just keep the</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> vp. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. That’s, that’s how you, that’s how you do South American cues. You don’t need to put the, the fascist in power every time, you know?</p><p>We didn’t, we didn’t understand this in the sixties, so like, Columbia, don’t do it in Columbia. Columbia is a, yeah. What’s wrong with Columbia? Since when was</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Columbia in falling apart?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Cuba, no reason to do it. Greenland would be hilarious. Yes. And just be f*****g funny. And Greenland for the lulls. Yes.</p><p>Greenland for the lulls. Just take the president of Greenland, arrest him. Everyone would be confused. Like, what, what do we even do now? Right? No, but I would do it to Greenland, literally for the mean [00:25:00] potential. But outside of that, for the trolls, you know, Denmark, who, who they’re all about trolls. You gotta do it for the trolls.</p><p>Right. I ran. Do not do this in Iran. That’s a bad idea. They’re doing it to</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> themselves. It’s fine.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well, Iran’s trying to do it themselves. They won’t just let Iran die on its own. It’s, it’s irrelevant. But I wanna go over some of the memes, some of the reactions to this, because I think they’ve been really edifying right.</p><p>One of the, the funniest scenes that came outta this, I dunno if you saw this Simone, but a New York Times reporter called Trump at 4:30 AM just nine minutes after the Maduro thing was announced. Wow. And he picked up, her answer was in three rings. Oh,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I’m, I’m sure he’s just, you know, I mean, he, I, this was certainly an all-nighter for him.</p><p>It could not have not been, you know.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> But I thought it was it just shows how accessible Trump is to people, right? Like, and he is, like, his White House has even been accessible to us. Like we’ve done, you know, going over there, doing consulting for them and [00:26:00] stuff like that. Like, they’re fantastic when they have people with ideas, they want to talk to them, and I, I really appreciate that about them.</p><p>Next one here. Somebody saying, I haven’t seen a single of Venezuelan angry, and it’s a lot of Venezuelans partying,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> which of course, of course. Yeah, that’s true</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> actually. I, I would expect given, because I’ve been trying to watch leftist coverage of this, I would expect them to have surfaced a, an reg aggrieved, Venezuelan at this point, you know?</p><p>I would wanna find one if I were covering this from that angle. I’ve not yet seen one, which is actually quite interesting.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well, I mean, I, there’s all these memes of like leftists putting their hands over like white women with like blue hair putting their hands over like brown women’s mouths and being like, let me explain.</p><p>I know, I think I know a little bit. Let me tell you how, why Trump freeing you from a dictatorship was bad. It’s and keep in mind when [00:27:00] people are like, oh, this was a, the, the president of another country. No, he wasn’t a president of another country. He didn’t win the election, right. He’s a, a, a guy who stole, like, stole a country and its resources and kept its people as sex.</p><p>Slaves. Right? Like that’s basically what he did. Like, that’s, that’s the reality of on the ground, Venezuela. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Speaker 7:</strong> Yo creo que nadie que entiende la emoción, pero desde mis siete años me tocó vivir en un país donde me arrebataron mi infancia. Me levantaron todo y lo que está sucediendo el día de hoy es increíble. Es increíble. Es consentimiento demasiado grande.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And if you look at the left wing protests one thing that’s been pointed out is there are ties to what is it? China, it appears that they found like smoking guns, that a [00:28:00] lot of the left wing anti protests of this, like in New York and stuff like that, were funded by China.</p><p>And if you look at their signs all over the us, they’re all using the same type font, which seems to, they just going to</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> the same printer and you know, mass produced, essentially</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> distributed completely AstroTurf. I mean, that’s what the leftists are. And this is the thing, if you look at the people protesting this because there were major protests in France.</p><p>There were major protests in the uk. Really what you’ll notice is. All of the protestors are either white or Middle Eastern. And I think that this really goes to show when we’re talking about who are the real allies. If you look at the video we did yesterday where we point out that both America and Latin America are frontier cultures made up of European colonists.</p><p>And we are, our cultures are incredibly similar to each other. Hmm. And that at the end of the day, like we may like riff on each other occasionally but we have a collective enemy, right? And that collective enemy are the Karens. And, and it is this [00:29:00] new Islamist regime that is rising throughout Western countries.</p><p>Interesting thing that a lot of people pointed out in regard to this is not not forgetting that Delta forces tried the same tactics in a much weaker Somalia in 1993 and got blown out of the sky by RPGs 18, killed 73 wounded. What happened in Venezuela is nothing special, rather an internal agreement of Maduro surrender and stand down of the military.</p><p>So this is oh oh seven, you know, obviously a Russian guy. And all the comments are hilarious on this. People were like, the Americans completed all their objectives for this mission. How many Russians died in the Ukraine without completing any missions? Oh God,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> no. I mean, seeing people. I don’t know.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And then a bunch of people are also like, like, this just isn’t true. But I, I love how Ru butt hurt all the Russian, like trolls and bots are about this, because it just, there was a bunch of Russians recently who were saying like, there’s been some like Russian propaganda saying like. Oh, Trump is [00:30:00] backing down from Venezuela because now he knows he can’t mess with real countries like us, right.</p><p>Right. They, they, they basically, I implying that like, we control Venezuela, America’s afraid of us, or, or Venezuela, and Trump is scared of us. Right. And of course they’ve got a lot of egg on their face right now, knowing the other thing that’s</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> been Reddit. No. One of our, one of the. Our favorite like, sources of ideas a listener to the podcast, I don’t know if I’m allowed to name you if you’re listening but he, he sent me a, a Reddit post from 34 days ago where someone wrote people treat special forces like they’re space Marines.</p><p>No, a dozen guys are not going to infiltrate a hostile country and take out the leadership. Unless the state and defense department is going to be okay with a dozen seals getting their heads chopped off on CNN later. I mean, they made an edit. They wrote edit. They are in fact space Marines, and they are, they shall know.</p><p>No fear. Like a lot of people are just. No, it’s been great. A lot of people too, are discussing the prediction markets because I’ve been, [00:31:00] I check to see if there’s anything interesting for the podcast Poly Market, like every other day or so. And it had been a, a big thing on Poly market for a while. Like, will will there be some kind of military conflict in Venezuela?</p><p>Will Maduro be out? And there’s been a lot of discussion on how some, someone, a couple people made a lot of money. On this bet, because most, yeah, the, the odds were not in favor of Maduro being right before.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Very interesting. Well, if you’ve been involved in that military operation, that’s a Oh my</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> gosh.</p><p>Yeah. There’s no laws against that either. I wanna</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> play this Call of Duty campaign. Right. Like this sounds, this sounds like a cool, like the old Rainbow Six strike game. Like, I love that game. I, I can’t believe they don’t make games like the old rainbow sixes anymore.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Hmm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> That whole like genre when it extinct, but to to continue with something here that I thought was really interesting.</p><p>So this is a post by Asda Normie and it’s who organized and funded the pro Madero demonstrations. I was up when news broke. The [00:32:00] US forces had possibly had a military strike on Caracas. Immediately I knew where to look next, not for confirmation from the Pentagon, but for signals. So she talks to you about her first story about Fox News in my new role as Senior editor of Investigation.</p><p>Oh, she works. For, for Fox News now anyway what they discovered as US forces captured Maduro, a paralleled operation began almost instantly in the United States. Rapid coordinated information and street mobilized campaign by a network of self-described socialists, Marxists, and communist organizations.</p><p>Mm-hmm. Most of which operate as nonprofits that do not have to pay taxes. For three years, since October 7th I’d been seeing the same thing at protests after protests, Venezuelan flags showing up at anti-Israeli rallies, not randomly, not organically, always alongside the same slogans, the same organizers, the same faces.</p><p>That’s when I knew it wasn’t about Gaza or Venezuela, or Peace when activists protested, so blah, blah, blah. I don’t wanna go into all this ‘cause it’s like four pages here. But she goes [00:33:00] into arguing that this is just completely astro turfed. That’s wild.</p><p>But anyway for other ones here, there was of course the fantastic and, and the places where you’re seeing really large anti-American protests are places like France. Which I think shows how sort of invaded their country already is because if, if you look at the, the, the nature of these protests, I mean, you, you can tell who’s doing the protesting and who wants Venezuela to continue to be under the the boot of people like Maduro, who,</p><p>And, and note Hamas here issues a statement to the US about kidnapping Maduro.</p><p>They’re like, don’t run into another country and illegally kidnap people. Which is obviously very rich. A lot of people have been saying it’s very rich that Han Mond one pretended that he was like, informed by, by someone about this. Like, he’s like, I received a briefing. Oh, his</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> deputy mayor told him about it.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And I was like, you didn’t receive a breeding, you, you read about it while you were on the [00:34:00] toilet. And Trump would’ve had the honesty to tell us that.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I don’t know, was like, I don’t know. The deputy mayor was just on x like the rest of us. And I guess Mom, Donnie just can’t even bother to do that.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Of course people love the richness of him saying, you know, you can’t go in and arrest foreign leaders when he’s saying he would do the exact same thing to Netanyahu previously.</p><p>This is in Netanyahu, if he went to Manhattan. But still, you know, also Elon, I don’t know if you’ve seen Elon’s reaction to this giving starlink for free to across Venezuela. Which is, which is very fun.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Wow.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Oh, oh. This is one of the most interesting things that I learned. And I, it actually hasn’t been sur circulated that much, but apparently Trump gave Maduro a final chance to step down.</p><p>He refused. CIA, had assets inside Venezuela since August, including a source in Maduro’s inner Circle. Oh, I wonder who that was. Trump deleted. Why do you think Maduro</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> didn’t take the 50 million and run.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Nobody took the money, but I think she got something more than 50 million.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> No, no, no. I’m saying Maduro.</p><p>They, they offered [00:35:00] him, they were also just like, we’ll give you the money, like you can, I thought they, I don’t know,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> maybe they didn’t. But look, there was the 50 million</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> reward, but they were also like, Maduro, we’re gonna give you mini, like we will set you up. We know they didn’t, didn’t pay out the money</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> because Trump said, and I don’t think Trump has the self-control too.</p><p>Keep it quiet. If we did pay out the money, said, wow, we saved a lot of money today. No, no. Yeah, no.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I I, I’m mixing it up. There was a 50 million reward and Trump was like, yeah, well, we don’t have to pay that out, like save that much money. But they, he had also mentioned in the press conference how Maduro had repeatedly been offered.</p><p>They would, they would, if you would just leave the country, we’ll set you up, you’ll be all like, you’ll live very comfortably. Just go why do you think he did it? Like, I don’t understand that. ‘cause if I were Maduro I would be like, yeah, my days are numbered. Especially if the United States is like, you know, or, or forthcoming for you.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So I think you gotta remember, Maduro thinks that China and Russia have his back and he doesn’t realize just how weak China and Russia are these days.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Well, maybe not weak, but like. I [00:36:00] think they just didn’t care that much.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. And I think that that was a huge miscalculation on his part.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah. I think a, a theme I’ve seen come up in random places recently is that.</p><p>A lot of people in, in various scandals and things that have played out over the past 10 years, who thought that they were, they were doing something with, with coverage from another party that was like more powerful than them, just got utterly. Left in the dust by that party when like sort of the bill was up for payment.</p><p>Yeah. And I think that’s something that people should keep in mind in their lives in general. I also</p><p>point out like</p><p>if someone richer or more powerful than you is like, no, no, no. Do this thing for me. I’ve got your back. Don’t worry. Whatever it takes, do, do this thing. They’re not gonna, if they’re more powerful than you, they owe you nothing and they have no need.</p><p>Aside from honor, and please, people aren’t honorable anymore.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well also keep in mind, even if Maduro took the deal, there’s a lot [00:37:00] of Venezuelans who want this guy tortured and dead, right? Like, well, no,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> but I’m sure the deal would’ve prof, like it would’ve been some kind of witness protection, like you will live in luxury, but somewhere else and under a totally different name, and maybe with like plastic surgery.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Whatever. Anyway, so the point here being CIA had assets since August Trump delayed action to exhaust diplomacy despite pressure to strike Earlier final coordination included Rubio HEGs, desk Ratcliffe and Steven Miller a rare weather window of an open Friday night, which is why it launched then.</p><p>Congress kept in the dark until the last moment and Delta force reached the Presidential palace at, at 2:00 AM. The US forces took in return fire and Maduro was running for a hard and safe room, which he failed to reach. And across, apparently</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Trump was watching this all maybe on an iPad, like it was a TV show.</p><p>He was like, he was describing it as like, just like tv. It’s great. I love the way Trump talks about that. He makes things so accessible. Like you understand the lack of, of actual romance of these things where like, they’re sitting in a room in [00:38:00] Mar-a-Lago, like, I don’t know, watching a TV or something watching people’s body cams.</p><p>It’s delightful.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So the, the protests are being organized by a group called The People’s Forum, which is received 20 million from Neville Signum, a financier with well-documented CCP ties. So that’s who’s organizing this stuff. I just, I just cannot get over this hands off Venezuela stuff I keep seeing</p><p><strong>Speaker 13:</strong> Free.</p><p>The next time you as a Latin American see a trans flag or a Palestinian flag, I want you to remember what you’re seeing at these protests when people tell you that these are harmless ideologies, these are ideologies. That are willing to sacrifice an entire [00:39:00] country of people just so that they don’t have to introspect.</p><p>That is what they fundamentally represent. If you notice these protests, you know what you don’t see. You don’t see a single American flag. Okay.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I mean, their parents even 75 years ago, were only going once a year. So the church isn’t meaningfully seeing that much of a difference. And there are these very strong Catholic communities that are growing in the United States and elsewhere that are very high fertility, that are having a lot of kids.</p><p>And that even though they, they may not be. Like fully aligned with the Vatican. They kind of are their own thing. They, they nevertheless represent the future of Catholicism. Yeah. And work in parallel with the Vatican, kind of using it when it, when, or using elements of the church, the, the larger church bureaucracy when convenient for them and then doing their own thing when not, and building strong communities.</p><p>And I think there’s really something to be said for that. And I think it’s quite interesting and I’m excited to see. I [00:40:00] guess through the eyes of our children and great grandchildren. ‘cause I mean, it’s gonna take a long time for all this to play out, but what happens to Catholicism over time? But it is definitely a religion to watch.</p><p>I mean, it has been for, you know. 2000 years maybe.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I, the reason I bring this up is I was surprised at this. I, I thought that the Vatican would not go that far. I thought that they would like , I sometimes think I’m straw manning them or something. Like they’re not actually that anti-America that they would literally stand mad Maduro.</p><p>And again,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I mean, but that’s, I feel like that’s, that is the out of touch v again, that’s just doing, its. Thing. It’s kind of like that, you know that uncle at dinner who says something off color at the Thanksgiving Day table, and you’re like, that’s just, that’s just Uncle James. You know? Like, it’s fine.</p><p>That’s just Uncle James being Uncle James. Yeah. Like he does that sometimes, you know, like, we’re, we’re fine over here. We’re we’re good people. All right. Just don’t worry about it. He’s, he just, you know, he’s off doing his thing. He’s got a lot of [00:41:00] money. All right. You know, he posts good parties.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> it, it looks so bad.</p><p>It looks so absolutely horrible to, and I’m, and again, I’m, I’m talking here about the wider Latin American community. I just have to guess that these people have no Latin American friends or like, I, I don’t understand. Like, what is your take on this?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> It’s so hard to say. I really. I mean, of course, I, I, I am not surprised by the left condemning him and by the EU condemning him.</p><p>This is a, a presidential administration acting unilaterally without acts of Congress, without all this approval. This idea that one country can just go in and take out someone claiming to be president of another country. It disrupts a lot of what people thought. You know, they, they expected to be consulted on this.</p><p>You know, people are very insulted by that. Yeah. But you didn’t [00:42:00] ask Congress. How</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> did you ask Congress about something this</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> you don’t like? That’s the thing, and, and I, I really appreciate the Trump administration has just. Stopped, like, I think during the first administration they attempted to do things the correct way.</p><p>Like, okay, we’re gonna work through the departments, we’re gonna try to pass the legislation, we’re gonna do the things. And now they realize it’s just never gonna happen if you do it that way. And so they’re, they’re doing it their own way. And, you know, well, you want to stop me. All right. Well try to stop me and then, oh, okay.</p><p>You. You know, you use the judicial branch to, to block me. Alright. Well I kind of like how Andrew Jackson with the various actions was just like, okay, well. What Army, you know, we, we’ve come back to that, but I’m also trying to point out that there is historical precedent. The Trump administration is not the first to act unilaterally and even disregard other, other branches of government.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. But the left is</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> always going to have the orange man bad reaction. If suddenly [00:43:00] Trump decried like actions against Gaza as as genocide, I feel like the left would suddenly have to be like. Well, well, actually Gaza is no. Like, they would have to, they would have to change. Well, the</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> left, after he ended the Gaza war, the left had to be like, we didn’t care about that to begin with.</p><p>That that wasn’t a big deal. That was not a big deal. That does not deserve a Nobel. But I mean, I feel like</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> if Trump suddenly started standing Gaza, then they would be like, well, I don’t know about that. Or like, I dunno, they have to, there’s, they cannot agree with, with Orange Man. So.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well, what I found really interesting is that the Colombian president and the Mexican president boast decried this you know, I, that, that is not, I, obviously they’re both very unpopular right now and leftists.</p><p>And so I can understand why. So how is this</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> a surprise to you?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well. Even with their own people again in, unless you are just fantastically wealthy, which it might be the case, maybe the wealthy people in these countries [00:44:00] are shielded from having to interact with Venezuelans. But normal people in these countries interact with Venezuelans all the time.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> And I Right, but I mean, well, I, I also like, basically, if you are not very, very comfortable in your alliance with the Trump administration at this time, and you are in the Americas. I think you were now aware of the fact that if the Trump administration really thinks they can win points, you know, if it’s a 90 to 10 issue among normal people that you know, you would get switched out, then you might get The other thing about this before I</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> go further on other things is.</p><p>This operation has a huge side benefit for Trump and America more broadly which is that it vastly increases our hand in all forward looking international negotiations.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Oh, why? Just because people are like, well, they, they know that if we don’t get a deal that we like, we’re just gonna take something anyway.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. People didn’t know that just being kidnapped in the middle of the night was an option before, [00:45:00]</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> like, this is So Bob based diplomacy though, like the, the, the, they’re following the strategy document just as we said they would, which is, Hey, we’re gonna warn you, just like with our kids, we warn them, we say, Hey.</p><p>Don’t do that. You know, you could really get hurt doing that. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. And then like, if they, if they do not respond and continue to do the thing, and you saw Trump try to give him an out, he delayed it. Like they, he delayed had so many warnings,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> which shows that he was being incredibly pragmatic and incredibly thought out and incredibly of safe in the way he did this.</p><p>But I think the even more terrifying thing about this, if you are say Kim Jong-un or something right now is. Who Trump put in power after this, that it was his second in command. Yeah. Because if you are Kim Jong-Un or something like that, you’re gonna be like America. You’re not gonna like, just take me out.</p><p>Like you wouldn’t get what you want, then you wouldn’t get a full regime change, you know? And then Trump needs to be like, no, no, no, no. Is there anyone else in this country with a [00:46:00] lot of power that would like to see you gone? Because we can give them your job. What about that guy over there? He’s wearing a lot of medals and he is like, well, he’s been my most loyal supporter for X many.</p><p>Mm-hmm. But if you weren’t there anymore and he had everything you have now, do you really think he’d come to save you? And that’s the most terrifying thing to any actual dictator in a negotiation. Oh</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Trump not saying. Oh, we’re gonna replace your government with a capitalist government. It’s who’s the next most powerful person in the room?</p><p>Why don’t I have my staff have a private meeting with them? Yeah, like you do the negotiations with one guy, then you do the negotiations with the next most powerful person in the country. Then you’re like, let’s see who breaks first. Which is no, I</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> guess that that really was a smart move to, to promote from within and also to not go in and try to state build, because I think we’ve all seen how that goes.</p><p>Don’t, don’t [00:47:00] put your own people in, just let them. Handle it yourselves. Don’t, don’t encourage revolution. Just yeah. Just basically show what happens when you don’t comply with us. And align their incentives more with reform. Yeah. From, from within. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And I think that was really smart. Now the, the one that really got me on this</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> almost because I would love, ‘cause I feel like the, the next in line with the, the Kim dynasties is his sister or his daughter.</p><p>Either, which would be great.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. Always somebody willing to, to collaborate on this stuff would be delighted.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Would be delighted, be</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> like, and, and, and, and the, and the thing is, is they get such an easy win. You’re like, not only will I take you out, not only will I put your, your daughter in command, but I will release all sanctions and start investing billions in your country immediately after that.</p><p>Making them look really good.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Like,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> and I feel like already, like they have such a different look. Like, I think [00:48:00] she. The daughter that is like recently went on Ozempic, like she’s on a whole new look. She’s, I mean, she’s been high fashion. Like all, all the, all the like high female figures in North Korea have, are like very subtle, high fashion like very expensive designer shoes and bags.</p><p>But I mean, they’re, they’re very clearly pretty westernized. I don’t know, I just feel like it would be a really interesting directional change.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Okay. Well,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> hmm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So, the thing that really got me on this, ‘cause often I am, I feel like I straw man the Vatican, right? Like, I’m like, oh, the Vatican is like anti-US on every policy measure.</p><p>And, and, and generally aligned with the forces of global evil. Like they, they, they, to me, I joked in the last episode and the thing that I added, it’s always weird to me talking to like one of our. Like really nice, like Catholic friends, because I really like Catholics as people. I like Catholics as people even more than like, Jesus Catholics</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> are so awesome,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> but the, the Vatican is just always evil.</p><p>Like, it, [00:49:00] it’s like an evil maxing organization and I don’t always expect them to like, it’s like, sir, we have a problem with pedophiles throughout our organization. Well, let’s cover it up and reation them. You know, or, you know, I talk about them being involved in like socialist coups and stuff like that, and constantly saying we need to let in infinite immigrants to our country.</p><p>And even saying that to Italians when they, nobody’s perfect one point.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Come on Malcolm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> But, but the Pope, who by the way popes have been many, many pictures was Maduro Popes love Maduro Pope’s all about Maduro, right? Yeah, but the</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> most recent Pope, no, he said in</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> response to this, the current Pope said in response to this, okay, it is with deep concern that I am following the events in Venezuela.</p><p>The good of my beloved Venezuelan people prevail over every other consideration. This must lead to the overcoming of violence and the pursuit of pathways of justice and. I pray for all of this and I invite you two in trusting our prayer for the intercession of our [00:50:00] Lady Komoto and the Saint Jose Gregorio Hernandez and Carmen Rendez hashtag Pray Together and he’s giving basically of</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> corrupt socialist dictators or what.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I clearly, he’s on the Maduro side. He’s like, the US should not be doing that. That’s what I read from this, this vague posting is, is this is a condemnation of the United States in our actions, and it should make sense. The Pope was a staunch ally of Maduro and his regime. And, and the Vatican was. And I, I love some of the comments on this.</p><p>The Vatican offers platitudes while America delivers liberation. Your call for peace functions as a shield for a socialist tyrant starving his own flock. The church once understood that evil must be destroyed. Now it offers cover to butchers under the guides of diplomacy. And then another post here, Pope Leo, Leo, the</p><p>14th woke up and decided to do a little bit of vague posting. Please let us know when you’re ready to stop [00:51:00] divining through the clouds. May go to quotes from the Bible basically saying you’re not supposed to do this. Like John 1629 in one curr, 14, nine. And it’s it, and he wasn’t posting complaints when, you know, Maduro is running people over with cars or treating his population as rape slaves.</p><p>He’s, he is offering this when we. Go in and clean up the mess. Right? And, and keep in mind that if the Vatican wanted to be a force for good in the world, they could be like the Vatican in a deeply Catholic country like Venezuela. It could have gone into the country and said, Hey like, we need to work this out.</p><p>You weren’t actually elected. Can we do so? Like, let’s, let’s try to work this out with this person. Let’s come up with a peaceful resolution. Here’s how we can help you. The Vatican could have played the negotiator in this. They could have. Fought for the forces of good. They could have fought against the mass tortures and the mass rapists and the mass, everything.</p><p>But no, it is the removing that situation, which is the threat to the world order that they have established. And I [00:52:00] just and I joked in the other episode is, you know, we like our, our, our Catholic fans, but it’s a bit like knowing that one of our fans like works for Hydra or something and you’re talking to them and</p><p>they’re like, oh yeah, the red skull. Well, you know, the top of Hydra’s really corrupt these days and they’re always getting into crazy stuff. I don’t really listen to them anymore. And. You know, they, they, most, most hydro henchmen aren’t really that into the, the red skulls ideology anyway. We would just really believe in the organization, it’s roots, it’s history and, and you’re like, you, you point to the history, you know, it’s like the, the, the.</p><p>What, what, what, what? But I, and I joked with that episode. I love that this is what we think that our, like Catholic followers look like going to, Roman mass.</p><p><strong>Speaker 23:</strong> [00:53:00] Quit</p><p>By the way, I feel at this point I’m almost trying to dare press to say something about this because. I cannot believe that I can say this. Many things antagonistic about a religion and culture on our show, and yet, the news media won’t touch it yet. A person can say Islam can be questioned on their door and they get arrested.</p><p>Or if I said one, one. Billionth of this against Jewish people, I would be literally dragged outta my house. Like this is crazy. How much no one cares What you say about Catholics.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> But the point being is that I don’t get it. Like I I I do not get how even in Latin America, and we, we are seeing mass Latin American deconversion from Catholicism right now.</p><p>For people who don’t know. While it may look like you have a big conversion wave because for whatever reason, I wanna do a separate episode [00:54:00] on this, a lot of intellectual influencers. Are converting to Catholicism. If you look at the actual masses they’re losing eight converts for every one person who converts in, which is dramatically higher than any other Christian.</p><p>Sorry, that number was an underestimation. It’s 8.4 lee for everyone who converts in. When you contrast that with Protestants, where it’s 1.8 levers per convert,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> But the I think a, the argument that you’ll hear from a lot of Catholics, including many of our fans, is. Those people who are allegedly deconvert are also like they were functionally never Catholic to begin with. Maybe they were born Catholic and their parents took them to church once a year and they went to church once a year.</p><p>And then eventually on surveys they just started saying, yeah, I’m not really. Really Catholic. And because Catholic started off with so many people who were just culturally Catholic for a long time,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> that makes a lot of sense now that</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> it’s no longer cool and also no longer normative. People are just no longer reporting on surveys in large and larger numbers.</p><p>But functionally, the church isn’t really. Seeing any [00:55:00] loss. These weren’t people who were actively contributing or to, or involved in the community to begin with.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> By the way, Chicago’s teacher Union, if you’re worried about your kids, and you should be, if they’re in school, well, are</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> are they coming out about Venezuela because that’s, oh yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> The Chicago’s teacher Union had an emergency Chicago protest. No War on Venezuela.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Because student outcomes really have to do with what is happening in Venezuela, and there is no war in Venezuela. They should be the whole point.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> What, what’s really disgusted me is they’re all like, we’re doing this to protect the Venezuelans and it’s like our Venezuelan students and stuff like that.</p><p>Right?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Meanwhile, the kids, the kids sitting in the classrooms, I don’t, I, yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. Oh, there’s a really heartbreaking, one of the, the mom who went to one of these protests who’s like a Venezuelan mom and freaking out on them,</p><p><strong>Speaker 11:</strong> Qué le pasó? Están así? Qué pasó? 26 años, 26 años. Llevamos esperando ese momento. [00:56:00] Ustedes vienen los que los que dicen llamar la paz</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> and you can really see the pain in her face that they are protesting this. Oh, what?</p><p>She’s just</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> like, do you not understand what you’re saying? Yikes. What, what is she?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> She, oh, she’s just going over like what her and her family have been through, you know? Oh. Like she’s trying</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> to explain to them why they should be stoked about.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well, yeah, because they’re like, how dare you do this for at least Madora.</p><p>Like obviously these people are like terrified of Madora being released. I’m just really impressed with the Trump administration. I I, I think the next person we really need to do this to is Tim Waltz. So we can save, save. What, what is he governor of from the Somalian scammers. What? Tim Waltz, governor Tim Waltz.</p><p>Oh, that he’s not gonna run again? No. That we need to extradite him. Oh. To a place where we can charge him from his compound, you know. Oh, oh my gosh. That needs to be that. I, [00:57:00] I, I love, I, I I, it is just so cool that this is on the table now, that the Trump administration was able to carry this out, that they have handled this so pragmatically.</p><p>And I think a lot of people’s lives are going to slowly but, but hopefully get a lot better as a result of this. Yes. And it will fundamentally both change Latin America, but I also think. Change the a Latin American. And if, if, if you’re wondering, if you’re like, come on guys, you can’t have an entire Latin American community feel a forever debt to a political party and lose them forever, right?</p><p>It’s like, I’d like to introduce you to the Cuban American population. You may not realize just how long this betrayal is going to sit with the Venezuelan American population.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Hmm. Anyway, I can’t believe</p><p>that happened. Again, the timeline, this timeline, this [00:58:00] timeline. It’s a good timeline.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Crazy. I like this.</p><p>Anyway. Love you, Simone. I love you too, and I’m glad that we live in this world. And somebody tried to assassinate JD Vance with a hammer. I don’t even, I’m not even gonna do like a thing. Like I don’t even think that this, I don’t care what his ideology was. He’s clearly too stupid. If you try to assassinate the president, the vice president of the United States with a hammer,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> the one and only.</p><p>A murder scene I’ve ever seen in my life though, is with a hammer. I will never see a hammer and not see the murdered body that I saw. I, I told you about this before that like we had this career day in like middle school where we got to go to an Oakland. Courthouse and like talk with lawyers and judges and learn about the justice system.</p><p>They took a bunch of kids to see somebody. We had a pizza party in one of the courtrooms and there was a, there was a board and I, I can’t remember if it was like a clerk or someone else who was, you know, giving us a little talk over our pizza lunch. But they were like, oh yeah, [00:59:00] we just had a murder trial in here.</p><p>Do you wanna see the evidence poster? And ev of course, we’re all like, yeah. And he flips it over and it was, it was the, the, the murder victim who had been taken out by a hammer. So yeah, baby Simone traumatized. I’m not traumatized. I, I, it wasn’t disturbing to me in the moment. I, I don’t know if it’s like an autism thing.</p><p>I didn’t know I was autistic at the time, but like part of me is just like. I mean, it was it dead? Like I just, I mean, you’re, you’re going to evaluate hammers differently after you see what a hammer can do to the human head.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> All right. Alright, well, it’s been good talking to you. This is a spectacular day.</p><p>This is I, I’d say a better day for, for the world than the end of the Gaza War. You know, truly this one,</p><p>At the end of the day, the Gaza War was about freeing a tiny handful of hostages from a country that most of the rest of the world didn’t really care about that much in a conflict. , Venezuela is a country [01:00:00] that tons of the world, especially if you’re in America or in American, , and I mean north, south to Latin, you know, central, , has connections to, it was about freeing an entire country of hostages.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> honestly, like the EU and all these countries that are having a conniption with us, it’s great for them too, because now they get to go to their constituencies and pontificate about how.</p><p>Absolutely horrible. The Trump administration is so everyone gets, everyone gets gr for the mill. Everyone gets, you know, and in the end, Venezuelan citizens within the country. Well, it strengthens Latin</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> America. It strengthens America because we can lower the amount of refugees, drugs, and stuff like that coming into our country.</p><p>Yeah. It, it strengthens the Republican party. It strengthens its right wing causes. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> The only loser is our, is our poor travel business. Everyone getting so mad about their canceled flights, the refunds and the logistics around that.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I’m sorry, Simone. I know you’re doing a</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> [01:01:00] lot. But all for a greater cause.</p><p>Not that our customers would recognize that in some cases, some people, most people are very understanding. Some people are not. I mean, you know, God forbid. But they cancel your flight when the countries and disarray, but whatever, whatever. Love you. Oh yeah. There was, they made a big blackout, didn’t they?</p><p>Or did it something like that. Yeah, they did.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Tactically, Trump bragged about it. He was like, you, you don’t</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> wanna be flying</p><p>when that’s happening. No. Just, I just, I mean,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I feel like Trump feels like he got a new toy and his administration is thinking how to play with it, right? Like it’s delightful.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah. We could do this.</p><p>We could just take Randall Try. Gotta take Yeah. Like, yeah. Who else can Who? Let’s do it again. Do me, do me.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Do</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> me?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> No, everyone in the administration that’s got of guy, you know, as I said, like Rubio desperately wants to freak Cuba. He’s like, me. My turn, my turn. Can we do a Cuba? Can we do a Cuba? [01:02:00]</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, seriously.</p><p>Okay. All right. I love you. Bye bye. Bye.</p><p>Which one would you like to do next? We can do inter nationalism or we do? No, we’ll do your</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> one. Okay.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I’ll see you in there. Favorable.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I assassinate him. Looks like a dweeb. He looks like a dweeb beer version of JD Vance. Oh,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> no.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Looks like a version of the JD Vance meme. Actually.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Oh, maybe that’s why he wanted to to to end him is because it was insulting to him that someone stole his look.</p><p>You know who wore it better? That kind of situation. I could totally see it. You know, sometimes it just, someone takes your look and, and you’re mad about it. Totally understandable. It’s rough when someone takes your look. I love your future day sweater. It’s delightful. Great.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> It’s for future dates. See, it’s not a [01:03:00] Christmas sweater.</p><p>It’s a future day sweater. Yeah, our kids saw the future police for the first time last night, and I am livid at my wife because she had the camera the entire time and took still pictures instead of a single video. It did. I sent you a video. Oh, you did? Was it on On WhatsApp? WhatsApp. Oh, I was looking on the photo app.</p><p>[01:04:00]</p> <br /><br />This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe</a>