Episode 13: What's Happening In Venezuela?!

America’s drug crisis did not appear out of nowhere, and this episode of The Reagan Faulkner Show connects the deadly three-wave rise of the opioid epidemic to the growing power of narco-terrorist networks tied to Venezuela. Listeners are walked through how prescription pills, then heroin, and now synthetic opioids like fentanyl have driven overdose deaths into the hundreds of thousands, creating a crisis that Donald Trump vowed to confront head-on as part of his “war on drugs” agenda.​

From there, the episode zooms in on Venezuela as a key hub in this story, spotlighting brutal cartels like Tren de Aragua and the Cartel of the Suns, which is linked to high-ranking military officials and accused of trafficking drugs, people, and weapons across the hemisphere. Trump has long argued that Venezuela is not just a failed state but a full-blown narco-state, with a cartel-run government hiding behind the façade of democracy, and his administration has officially tagged several of these groups as foreign terrorist organizations.​

Finally, the show takes listeners inside the high-stakes showdown between President Trump and Nicolás Maduro, from multi-million-dollar rewards for Maduro’s capture to Coast Guard strikes that have killed dozens of cartel operatives at sea. You’ll hear how an offer for Maduro to safely step aside collapsed after he demanded “global amnesty,” why Trump then moved to effectively close Venezuelan airspace, and what potential land operations or targeted airstrikes could mean for U.S. security and the future of the Western Hemisphere.​

Transcript

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What's up guys and welcome back to the Reagan Faulkner Show. Today I want to talk a little bit about Venezuela. We've seen Venezuela all over the news and I mean really what's happening in Venezuela? Why is Trump closing their airspace and what even is narco-terrorism? We've been hearing that word a lot. So before we dive into Venezuela specifically we're going to talk a little bit about the drug epidemic in the U.S. and the rise of narcotics and opioid abuse within the U.S. as a whole. So going all the way back to 1999 it's really been a major issue with opioids specifically. We've seen about 645,000 deaths just from opioid overdoses. Now in 2023, that's two years ago, there were 105,000 Americans that died from total overdoses. Now this isn't opioids specifically, this is drugs and drug abuse as a total, both legal and illegal. There were 105,000 deaths in 2023 related to this and then 645,000 opioid specific deaths since 1999. So the CDC explains the opioid epidemic as a series of three waves starting back in 1999 when we see these statistics first coming out. So wave one starting in 1999 consisted of just a general abuse of prescription opioids, prescription painkillers, things that the doctors were prescribing to people maybe too much, maybe abusing the system and then we saw innocent Americans, individual Americans abusing those prescription drugs. Now wave two started in 2010 and that consisted of heroin abuse. So we were seeing the proliferation of specifically illegal drug related opioids that Americans were now abusing and then in 2013 we get wave three which is synthetic opioids, specifically fentanyl and substances with traces of fentanyl within it and we're still seeing that today and even the development of new drugs that are stronger than fentanyl which is really insane to think about but it came in three waves. We've seen this since about two and a half decades really just the opioid epidemic in the United States and how it's growing and growing and growing. So in 2023 the CDC reports that opioid related deaths were 10 times that of 1999 and even wilder in 2023 we saw a four percent decrease in opioid related deaths compared to 2022. So the fact that 2023 was 10 times higher in opioid related deaths than 1999 and knowing that 2022 was even higher than 2023 is just absolutely insane to me. So the U.S. has a huge huge huge drug problem, huge problem specifically with opioids and with narcotics and this is coming maybe not primarily but considerably from Venezuela and that's where we see the entire Venezuela issue coming to a head in the news right now. So President Trump as you know he heavily heavily campaigned on eliminating the drug epidemic, solving the drug epidemic, waging war on drugs. These were huge huge campaign platforms that President Trump was going off of back during his election in 2024 and it's something he's been talking about since he first ran in 2016. So upon taking office Trump stepped up and he somewhat accomplished this promise of eradicating the drug epidemic in the U.S. by designating eight cartel groups as designated terrorist organizations. So among these were Trinidad Aragua which if you listen to any of Trump's campaign speeches he talked about this cartel a lot. He talked about how violent they were, how they were narco-terrorists, how many drugs they were bringing into the U.S. He was really really focused on Trinidad Aragua and this cartel actually began as a prison gang in Venezuela back in 2014 and has since spread across South America and into the U.S. Now another one of these cartels is the Cartel of the Sons which is also within Venezuela and is actually made up of many high-ranking military officials within the country which is really really interesting and it's going to come back later in the episode. So these cartels among many others are involved in drug trafficking, human and arms trafficking, and many many other crimes. They are not good organizations, they are violent, they are involved in human rights violations, corruption, and that's why Trump specifically designated these two out of the eight as designated terrorist groups. So President Trump's attempt to crack down on crime, crack down on drugs, crack down on immigration, just cracking down on all of it has come to a head specifically with Venezuela where we see illegal immigration, we see drug issues, we see crime from these cartels, we just see it all and it has culminated between U.S. and Venezuelan relationships and Trump has multiple multiple times, not quietly, even since 2016 Trump and Maduro were beefing when Trump was president the first time. He has accused the nation of being a narco state with a cartel-run government disguised as a democracy. So Trump does not have a very high opinion of the Venezuelan government or of Maduro. He has accused President Maduro of leading and being complicit in many cartels and drug organizations including the Cartel of the Sons which has now been designated as a terrorist organization and he's also refused to recognize the Venezuelan government on many different occasions which has just escalated tensions even more than they already were and that's been over the past year. So in May Attorney General Pam Bondi came out and announced a 25 million dollar reward to anybody that could provide information about Nicolas Maduro, his whereabouts and that could lead to his capture and then shortly thereafter this 25 million dollar reward was raised to 50 million and right after that they also announced a reward for the Venezuelan Minister of the Interior Relations because he accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency of actually being the largest cartel on the globe. So while Trump and his administration were accusing Venezuela and their cartels of being dangerous, of trafficking drugs, of corruption and all these other really really terrible things, they came back and they said actually the United States Drug Enforcement Agency is a cartel and they're the ones that are causing all these issues. It's not us, it's not Venezuela. So we see Venezuela kind of using this victim mentality when they're the ones proliferating all these human rights abuses, all of this death, all of this destruction and so we've seen a lot of this playing out in politics and he said and she said at phone calls and all this but it hasn't just been political. Trump has actually, his administration has moved to resort to military practices and military intervention with Venezuela. So over the last few months, you can't avoid it, you've seen it in the news, we have been, the Coast Guard has been conducting strikes on boats that are being operated by narco-terrorists and bringing in illicit drugs and illicit items into the U.S. So far about 83 individuals, 83 of these cartel members have been killed in these strikes and I think we've conducted 22 strikes if I'm not mistaken. That number could be off a little bit but we've been striking these boats that are carrying just illicit goods altogether, drugs, arms, etc. etc. and as the frequency of these strikes has increased and the shipments themselves have decreased, the U.S. has started talking about the potential for land operations and the potential for airstrikes on specific locations that they have deemed to be either hideouts for the cartels or manufacturing locations for the drugs or things like that. There are specific locations that the U.S. has conducted intelligence on and located and deemed that they may be worthy of an airstrike. So in July the U.S. also sent naval vessels and about 4,000 military personnel to the Caribbean to station them in the event that tensions do escalate and Trump announced about sometime last month that Venezuela's airspace should be considered closed in the event that airstrikes are the route that the U.S. chooses to take when we're in this standoff right now with Venezuela with their president and with the cartels. So back in November, President Trump and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, they had a conversation where they were trying to rectify things and Trump told Maduro that he could step down as president, he could leave the country, the U.S. would ensure that he and his family could safely flee, they could go somewhere else and as long as he steps down as president and stops working within Venezuela politically, we could forget about all this. And Maduro requested global amnesty from every single country on on planet earth, global amnesty for himself and members of his government for any crimes that they did or may have committed. So obviously Trump did not agree with this and obviously Maduro refused to step down because he can't be granted global amnesty and the standoff continues and that was about the point that Trump declared their airspace closed and then he also came out and said that Maduro and other members of the Venezuelan government were designated as members of foreign terrorist organizations. So Trump kind of brought out all the big guns on that one and let Maduro know that he was not playing, that the U.S. is not playing, that they're going to stop the drug proliferation from Venezuela, that they're going to stop the corruption, that it's going to stop and Venezuela is going to stop taking advantage of the U.S. And in response, well not really in response, Maduro has been doing this for a while but he has been arming about eight million Venezuelan citizens over the past couple of months in the event that the U.S. moves forward with land operations, that the Venezuelan citizens can fight against the U.S. military and this is in addition to ramping up the Venezuelan military in preparation if tensions do escalate to the point of land operations and things like that. So right now we're in this standoff and Trump is advocating just for the termination and eradication of drug trafficking completely from Venezuela from their associated cartels and for President Maduro to step down and just stop all of it because Trump believes that Maduro is involved with the cartels and Maduro is claiming innocence and accusing Trump of being this authoritarian, that he's trying to hurt innocent Venezuelans, that Venezuela hasn't done anything, like I said their Prime Minister of Interior Relations is accusing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency of being a cartel, so there's just this back and forth of them acting like teenage girls to be quite honest and just disagreeing on who's at fault. Well we all know that Venezuela's at fault historically, they have been at fault and really for context we see this in the news and people are like oh Trump's so bad because he's doing this to Venezuelan, he's striking votes, well in reality we have had really really a terrible relationship with Venezuela since about 1999 which pretty interesting that we see that's when the drug epidemic started and that's when our relationship with Venezuela kind of went into the tank, pretty interesting timeline there, but the U.S. placed sanctions on Venezuela in 2005 in response to perceived narco-terrorism, so this is not a new thing that Trump has made up, this has been around for the past 20 years, also in response to Venezuela not wanting to help in the global fight against terrorism, not wanting to assist the U.S. in fighting against terrorism, and then also just for their overall anti-democratic and often authoritarian political practices and this all started with the administration before Maduro which was Hugo Chavez, he was elected in 1999 and served until 2013 when Maduro was elected. So the Biden administration, because Trump isn't the only president to ever have to deal with Venezuela, I know it's shocking, we didn't we didn't really see about any other presidents dealing with Venezuela and it shouldn't be a political issue but here we are, so the Biden administration actually offered to reduce some of these sanctions if Maduro would allow for a free and just overall proper democratic election back in 2024 and Maduro won the 2024 election but when they went to look at the votes and went to count the votes there was some evidence that said that his opponent Edmundo Gonzalez actually should have won. So this election really wasn't all that free and all that democratic and all that constitutionally correct for how the Biden administration was advocating it should be in order to reduce those sanctions and even more interesting, Gonzalez was actually exiled from the entire country after this. He was accused of and just kicked out after Maduro took office again in 2024. So definitely some political backlash after that one making their government seem even more corrupt and even more just not just shady to be honest to be to be completely not proper they're just shady over there in Venezuela. So in 2008 we're still having problems with them, we had problems in 2005, we're having problems in 2008. The treasury department's office of foreign assets found that two individuals and two travel agencies were actually financially backing Hezbollah. So these agencies these individuals were in Venezuela they were financially backing Hezbollah overseas the terrorist organization and this was all the way back in 2008. So no wonder they were getting sanctioned for activity with terrorist organizations and not helping fight the global battle against terrorism. They were literally financially supporting terrorist organizations and then in 2018 nearly 2,000 Venezuelans were their visas were revoked and 14 Venezuelan nationals had visa restrictions placed on them because they'd been involved in corruption and human rights violations. So this has been going on for a really really long time. There are a lot of other things that Venezuela has done relating to oil, relating to more corruption, relating to more drugs, relating to more narco-terrorism, government officials being involved in these cartels, high-ranking military personnel being involved in these cartels and the drug proliferation. The list goes on and on and on but we only had time to talk about a couple of these. Now you can go I think it's the U.S. Department of State has a really interesting just history of our relationship with Venezuela and if you want more information I would recommend you go there because it has tons and tons of information. It's really really interesting but as we can see the list of atrocities goes on and on and on and there's just it's been extensive for decades for decades this has been going on for like 25 years 26 years this has been going on and I feel like we're only hearing about it now. Now I know I'm only 21 and there are a lot of people out there that are way older and way wiser than me but I don't remember Venezuela ever being a political issue before and quite frankly I don't think Venezuela should be a political issue. Protecting our communities and protecting Americans should not be political. When there's evidence that there's been drug proliferation, drugs that kill people and we see a drug epidemic in the U.S. and we see Venezuela sitting over here making drugs and having these terrible cartels and we see the cartels coming into the U.S. I mean it looks like a Venezuela problem. It doesn't look like an America problem. Obviously it's a problem that Americans are using the drugs but the drugs are coming from somewhere and it just happens to be Venezuela so stopping the drug epidemic should in no way shape or form be a political issue. Now the past two Venezuelan administrations have shown their loyalty, they've shown it to money, they've shown it to power and they've shown it to corruption. The U.S. has put these sanctions in place for 26 years asking them to please just stop being corrupt, bringing drugs into our country, trafficking weapons, supporting terrorist organizations. I think that those are pretty basic requests and when we see in response to Venezuela they literally try to strengthen their relationships with U.S. enemies, with communist states like Cuba, with terrorist nations like Iran and with corrupt superpowers like Russia. We can't have this. We can't have this so close to America and have them play the victim. Their elite arms and terrorist networks of support, I mean it's terrible. This trafficking of arms, this trafficking of drugs. They have high-ranking military personnel smuggling deadly drugs into our nation. That's killing our family, our friends, our children. They refuse to democratize. They refuse to stop the corruption. They refuse to stop the trafficking of drugs and weapons and like I said some of the organizations are involved in human trafficking as well. They refuse to stop and now they want to play the victim and they want to call America the aggressor and they want to make Trump out to be this bad guy when all other presidents since George Bush, the second Bush, have been doing it too. Everybody's been playing hard and fast with Venezuela and now that Trump's actually making progress and being a little bit harder than past presidents, they want to accuse him of doing something different when all of the presidential administrations of the past 20 years have had a hard policy take with Venezuela. So ultimately, I am against the U.S. getting involved in other nations' conflicts. I'm against the U.S. getting involved abroad. We need to focus at home, especially with our debt right now, with everything going on. You've heard in previous episodes I am very much a proponent of the U.S. remaining an isolationist for right now, focusing on America first, but this is America first because Venezuela won't stop. For 26 years they've had the opportunity to stop and they won't. They just won't stop and it needs to. The drugs gotta stop. The immigration has to stop. The trafficking has to stop. American citizens have to stop dying from foreign narcotics that are coming into our country across our southern border. They have to, like, it just has to stop. We're being invaded by cartels. We're being invaded by drugs and ultimately we're being invaded by a hatred for America because a country that loves America wouldn't do this. They wouldn't ally with Iran. They wouldn't ally with Cuba. They wouldn't ally with Russia if they actually wanted to have a decent relationship with the United States. Now, the drugs are bad because they're causing death, but that's not the only reason why they're bad. They're causing addiction. They're causing homelessness. They're causing a loss of good, capable workers in our job market and they're degrading the family unit. When we see addiction within a family, you see that it causes strain and it causes harm on the family. I mean, if anybody's read Hillbilly Elegy, look at J.D. Vance's family. It's the perfect example. So the drugs are causing death, but the drugs are also causing issues within actual American culture aside from just death. And if we allow these cartels to continue, if we allow them to keep flowing into the U.S. with their drugs and with their guns, we're going to see more homelessness. We're going to see more crime. We're going to see more families fall apart. We're going to see more unemployment and ultimately we're going to see more death, more death from the crime, more death from the drugs, more death from the guns that are being brought in, more death from everything because what they're bringing in is not okay and it's destroying America from the inside out. It's been happening for more than two and a half decades. It's time for it to stop. Trump is keeping his promise of waging war on drugs, on foreign groups that are coming into America, and he's keeping his promise of America first because he's protecting the job market, families, innocent Americans. He's stopping people from overdosing. He's stopping people from getting addicted. He is putting America first. Unfortunately it is by going abroad, but he's tackling it at the source. He's taking out the entire narco-terrorism industry. He's taking out the entire operation rather than dumping tax money into creating more organizations and more public programs to stop drugs and help addicted people and things like that. He's actually going to the source. He's going to the root of the problem and he's trying to take it out and ultimately that's the only way to stop the drug epidemic because if you take out one cartel, some other organization or some other government is just going to fund a different cartel. So you have to take it out at the root and that's why the waging war on drugs hasn't been successful because nobody's tackled it at the root and that's what President Trump is doing by getting this hard and fast line with Venezuela, with the sanctions, with the military operations. He's trying to negotiate and he's trying to stop the drugs from coming into America, stop the cartels. He's putting America first. He's putting families first and he's putting Americans first. We have had enough of this. Ultimately we've had enough. We've had enough death. We've had enough tragedy. It is time for it to stop and as Americans we need to support Trump in this. We really do. Everybody that says America first, this is America first. We've got to support Trump. We've got to back him. We've got to back the war on drugs because we ultimately need to stop letting other countries destroy us from the inside out without repercussions. We've seen it from Somalia. We've seen it from Middle Eastern terrorist groups and terrorist countries and now we're seeing it from Venezuela. So as Americans we really need to support Trump in this. We need to stop with the media game. Stop with the, oh is it legal? Is it not legal? Trump has the authority to do, he's commander in chief. He has the authority to tell the military where to go and what to do, especially if it's a specific threat against the United States, which it is. They are invading us from our southern border, have been invading us from our southern border, now it's closed. Still trying to invade us with drugs and with other illicit goods and with illegal immigration and Trump is nipping it in the bud. He's stopping it and as Americans we need to support him. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Reagan Faulkner Show. I am so excited to bring you content every Tuesdays and Thursdays, but if you want more remember to check us out at the Reagan Faulkner Show on Instagram, TikTok, X and Facebook. And then remember to check us out at the Wilmington Standard as well. Now the Reagan Faulkner Show has new merch on WilmingtonStandard.com, so if you're interested in that be sure to check it out and check us out at ReaganFaulkner.com. Thank you all so much and I'll see you on the next one.