Transcript of Rep. Pat Ryan Responds to Trump’s Speech on Venezuela Attack

There's been some major fallout since Donald Trump's invasion of Venezuela. We're now hearing from the acting President of Venezuela, Delce Rodriguez, addressing the nation and stating, Venezuela will never be a colony of any nation, adding that Venezuela will only ever have one President, Nicolas Maduro. She seems to be digging in her heels. We'll have to see what happens there. The interior minister as well, who's known as the main henchmen, has been videotaped saying that there's no plan to surrender to Donald Trump at this point. The governors of Maduro seem defiant, but that could be changing rapidly. One of the things that I think went little reported, but that Donald Trump said during that press conference and also told the New York Post, he said, You know many Cubans lost their lives last night. Did you know that many Cubans lost their lives? They were protecting Maduro. That was not a good move. Maduro was being guarded by a contingent of Cuban soldiers, Thomas Van Linn says, and it appears that those Cuban soldiers were killed. We're trying to get more information about Venezuelan military deaths. It seems like there was over a dozen, at least, perhaps more than 90 injured in terms of some other potential diplomatic fallout.

Chinese officials were apparently in Venezuela for talks with Nicolas Maduro when this took place, and a lot of people were saying that that would be an insult to the Chinese diplomats there. More broadly, people are saying, well, what message is this sending now if you're China with respect to Taiwan, or if you're Russia, with respect to Ukraine, if it's now just the law of the strong and US is not acting as any force of good in the world, does that create a permission structure for authoritarians to justify their invasions or their kidnappings of foreign leaders. Another notable development, Donald Trump throwing the main opposition leader, Maria Karina Machado, under the bus. I mean, lots of Venezuelans assume that she would be the person who would be the leader. But Donald Trump said, I think it will be very tough for her to be a leader. She's not respected in the country. She's the main opposition leader. But he just threw her the bus in public, I might add. Here, play this clip.

Are you less aware of the location of opposition leader Machado? And have you been in contact with her?

No, we haven't.

Mr. President. How many head of the team is about Machado? Mr. President, on Monday.

I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect to be the leader.

Nobel Prize winner, the main opposition leader, he's saying she doesn't have the respect in her country. And she was out there praising him before she put out a statement earlier, too, to the Venezuelan people to stand up, and he just says that about her. I want to bring a Democratic Congress member, Pat Ryan, and I'm sure you all know Congress member Pat Ryan. He's been on the show before, but just to give you some background, he served in the US Army as a military intelligence officer from 2004 to 2009, completing two combat tours in Iraq. It's great to have you here, Congress member. I guess first, let me just get your reaction to what took place, and then let's talk about something, some other stuff about this. So what's your reaction to what just took place?

Thanks for having me. Thanks for covering this. And I think you mentioned in my bio, somebody that served 27 months in combat. This is not a good day for our country. Americans are now... We got to be very clear and strong about this. This does not make the American people safer. It does not make America stronger. It certainly tarnishes our reputation. And for those us that served in Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular, on a personal level, this is us clearly starting another forever war, which the American people do not support. It's very clear this is not about drugs. The press conference was stunning in just straight up admitting this is a war for oil, and he is willing to send our blood and treasure, our tax dollars, and our precious young men and women to, quote, run Venezuela, whatever the hell that means, with no plan, clearly, no coordination, as you just talked about, with any of the legitimate or illegitimate leaders on the ground there. So this is a really dark day for our country. And I think anybody that loves this country and the values we stand for has to be outraged. I mean, I am outraged right now.

I was watching this press conference with my two young boys who are four and six, and I had to hold back my rage as my six-year-old asked me, Why are we bombing another country? And that's just... It's also, by the way, sorry, it's the opposite of what Donald Trump ran on, blatantly.

When I was covering this live, Just instinctually, I said this out loud. I said, What I'm feeling right now is what it must feel like to be someone living in Russia who opposes what Putin's doing but is stuck in in that situation because you have Donald Trump basically calling this a special operation, saying that Venezuela stole our oil, and so we need to take back our oil. I mean, it's very Putin-esque language right there. And then Marco Rubio saying, We don't need Congressional authorisation at all because this actually wasn't a military operation. While Donald Trump was saying, We're going to run the country, Rubio says, This was actually just a legal operation where it'd be no different if you were trying to catch a fugitive in Miami. We're just catching a fugitive who happens to be the President. So that's what this was really about. Also, as Pam Bondi is not standing there as well at the press conference. So it just felt very Putin-esque in watching it. And I'm like, unrecognizable what our country is under this Trump regime.

Well, I mean, that dichotomy between those clearly not having their stories straight. Trump saying the quiet part out loud, as he often does, that this is not about drugs, this is about oil. It's about his billionaire big oil cronies that he made a bunch of promises to and getting them access to that oil. I do think, though, sadly and infuriatingly to me personally, this isn't fully outside the character of our country, of both parties, to be honest. A lot of the rhetoric leading up to this echoes the rhetoric leading up to Iraq. Shifting articulations of total bullshit stories of even going to the point of saying that there were, quote unquote, weapons of mass destruction, that drugs should be considered weapons of mass destruction. Using that language brought up to me that imagery of Dick Cheney, this Dardvader-esque imagery of this neocon, we're going to go around the world, and we're going to send our young men and women, including myself, including the people on this memorial bracelet, my fellow soldiers that we lost. We have a record in this country, too, of that. I'm not comparing us, of course, to Putin or authoritarianism, but we need to get this out to the American people that this is about oil and regime change, and that is not a popular thing across the political spectrum and across the generational spectrum in the country.

I do think one important difference, of course, there are checks and balances still. The Republicans in Congress and the House and Senate have refused to use them. But we're going to have another, we're going to have two war power votes coming up this next week in the Senate, and we're pushing for another one in the House. We had two before the holidays, knowing that this was coming. We attempted in the House two different times to put constraints and exercise our constitutional prerogative. And by just a few votes, they failed. A few Republicans even did come and join us on trying to block this war mongering and the starting of another forever war. Now that this situation has changed, we need to force these votes aggressively in the very first days when we're back in DC next week.

Have you spoken with some other members? Do you have a sense of the general sentiment out there, given that Trump just invaded Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro, and there doesn't seem to be a plan of what's next in that press conference. I'm with you. I'm watching that with your children, and you're seeing someone up there blabber about taking their oil, and that our big oil companies are going to get so rich, and then threatening Mexico. Then he threatens Cuba, and he talks about, he says, Don Rohe doctrine. We control the whole Western hemisphere, which is not just a threat to those countries. It's also Canada. It's Greenland. It's all Central America and South America. People feel helpless because they're like, What can we do? I mean, what is there to do where you have people like Magga Mike Johnson and people who are Trump bootliquers who let this up. So what happens next?

I get that, and I'm not dismissing that. But if we take that attitude that we are powerless, which we are not, and I'll talk about what we can do in a second, then we're giving in to exactly what Trump in this regime, in our own regime, increasingly that is the right word, wants to do here. And there are tools that we have. One, I really do believe it's going to be a very hard vote for a bunch of senators and Republican House members now that Trump has stood in front of the American people and not once, not twice, not three times, but 10 times said, We're going to run this country. Just straight saying, We're going to do regime change. We're going to do nation building. We're going to occupy not only a foreign country, but a country that's frankly a mess and been a mess and will cost trillions of dollars and potentially thousands or tens of thousands of American lives and other innocent lives. Now that that's been said out loud, I think the situation is very different. And what will change the calculus for those Republicans, I don't give them a lot of credit for integrity, but if they hear loudly and strongly from their constituents, especially those in more swing districts, it will matter.

We need to flood the phones and email boxes and text messages in every other forum we have in the next few days of every Republican, specifically those, and you know the list, Ben. I can share the list if you need it. I know a lot of people watching already know. But those vulnerable Republican senators and Republican House members that have come out and blatantly, I think, defied and ignored their constitutional responsibilities in this situation and over and over. When it comes to matters of war, and that's what this is, this is the start of a forever war, we need to rise up and just pound them with calls and incoming. And that does matter. I can tell you, when we get those calls, when I get those calls, it matters. And I actually think we have an opportunity and an obligation to do that. So do not feel powerless. Don't agonize, organize. And a lot of my Democratic colleagues and I are already talking about how to build momentum. We don't want to have to do another, essentially, another round of anti-war actions in this country. But unfortunately, that is where we are.

Congressman Pat Ryan, we appreciate you. And thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

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