Venezuela power structure remains intact after Nicolás Maduro’s removal, and Frank Gaffney warned Steve Bannon that ignoring it could lead to consequences worse than Iraq.
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This clip aired on January 3, 2026. Transcript begins below and may contain minor errors.
This Could Be Worse Than Iraq
STEVE BANNON (HOST): There’s a very uncertain situation inside the country, and a lot of the bad hombres that ran the country with Maduro still look like they’re in charge or in control. The president says we’re going to step in with Marco Rubio. It looks like Pete Hegseth is involved, and somehow stabilize the country. Is this harkening back to our fiasco in Iraq under Bush, sir?
FRANK GAFFNEY (GUEST): Well, it could be in a way worse, Steve, in the sense that what you’re dealing with really is an existing array of very bad actors. Oscar just mentioned a couple of them. In addition to that, you’ve got the Chinese, the Cubans, the Russians, the Iranians, Hezbollah, and the Cartel de los Soles, which many people think is actually running Venezuela these days. All of that is in place and operating, with a single individual and his wife now removed.
I must say, I’m a little troubled by the president’s comment that Delcy Rodríguez, who was the vice president under Maduro and has now been sworn in as the new president, is somehow acceptable. She’s up to her eyeballs in all of this as well. She’s been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department since 2018 and is widely thought to be implicated, as Maduro was, in the cartel.
So saying that the opposition figure, who is widely believed to have won the last election and was even talked about as a Nobel Peace Prize candidate, doesn’t have popular support, but Delcy does, troubles me. I have the feeling some of this is just a function of suddenly being in the midst of a successful operation, and the rest of it hasn’t been fully thought through.
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