MAGA man tries to defend Trump’s Venezuela escapades [audio]

But after spewing talking points, Eli in Virginia admitted he didn’t know anything about Trump pardoning the Honduran president--only to later claim it was a “hit job” by Biden, which is false.

There was of course much discussion on my Sirius XM program yesterday about Donald Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of its leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro.

And that’s when Eli in Virginia called, a true MAGA warrior, to challenge my statements. I’d been explaining that, for legal and political cover, Trump presented this at first as a law enforcement operation, because his DOJ in his first administration had indicted Maduro on drug trafficking charges in 2020—though not his wife, who was only indicted in the superseding indictment a few days ago—and I explained how ludicrous that was.

The U.S. has, after all, indicted people around the world who are far more dangerous to the United States—like, for example, the officers of the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) for interfering in the 2016 election, and later attacking critical American infrastructure and hacking anti-doping agencies—but we have not used the military to swoop in and capture them. (The drug trade from Venezuela is modest compared to other countries.) One third of the U.S. Navy was used to block Venezuela to get Maduro, while special forces risked their lives and while 80 people in Venezuela were killed as bombs were dropped, many of them innocent civilians.

No, Trump killed people, risked American military lives and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to remove Maduro in order to get Venezuela’s oil, in adddition to his personal animus. He’s now admitted as much—stopped talking about drugs and is only talking about oil—and hasn’t said anything about democracy. In fact, he’s leaving the Maduro regime in place to continue to oppress the Venezuelan people as he attempts to extract the black gold.

You can listen to the call with Eli here—which is a must-listen if other callers and folks on social media listening to the show are to be believed!—who began by telling me I have TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and then started rattling off military operations of other presidents going back decades.

With facts and details, I debunked his claims about other military missions by both Democratic presidents and Republican presidents—most of which I had opposed, no matter the president’s party—which failed miserably, whether there were boots on the ground or not. And of course, in Iraq, George W. Bush cost the lives of thousands of Americans soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

But the one detail that truly exposed Eli as a fraud who was just spouting talking points was his claim that stopping drugs and their impact on Americans was enough of a reason to get Maduro. When I asked him what he thought of Trump’s pardon of the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, he suddenly had no talking points or facts:

Signorile: And then what about the Honduras president pardoned because he was working with drug traffickers. Donald Trump just pardoned him a few weeks ago?

Eli: Honduras? Yeah, he. I don't know if—I don't know what the circumstances are.

Signorile: How come you don’t know the circumstances? Why is it when I question you people, you don’t know the circumstances of the thing that exposes the bullshit that you’re pulling? See? Come on now, I want you to Google it right now, Eli. I want you to Google it, or I’m going to have my producer Google it, and I’m going to read it to you so that you know the circumstances. Hernandez, the president of Honduras was indicted. And by the way, the investigation was under the first Trump administration [which unsealed incriminating documents against Hernandez in 2019] through the Biden administration.

A frazzled Eli then grabbed for Hillary Clinton. And Joe Biden. But no, I didn’t allow him to distract.

Signorile: I want you to answer how you know all that and you don’t know this? Why don’t you know about this? Why don’t you know? If you care about drugs? Why don’t you know about the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was pardoned on charges of drug trafficking, all of it, and was freed because he happens to be a right winger who Donald Trump likes. That’s it.

He tried wriggling around some more, but I pressed him, “Why did he pardon him?”

Eli: Because he was a political hit job.

“Political hit job"?” I responded. “You didn't even know about this two minutes ago. Now it's a political hit job. Wow, that's pretty amazing!”

And with that I told him his world was crumbling and sent him on his way. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!