Title: JOHN KIRIAKOU: There Is NO Good Guy in U.S. Politics
Show: Unfiltered With S.A.M.
Date: 2026-01-21
URL: https://youtu.be/kj_agEYf1yY
Duration: 7:00

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[00:00] I wanted to ask you uh so regardless of the fact that they're saying that you know Venezuela is sitting on the largest oil deposits in the world 300 something plus billion barrels more than Saudis 267 doesn't matter it's how you analyzed it it's for other reasons I think it's for other reasons and look at it this way too the United States literally cannot invade Venezuela why because Venezuela is the size of Germany, France, and Austria combined. And it's almost

[00:34] entirely jungle. There's not an army in the world big enough to invade and occupy and run Venezuela. And so I think what we're going to see is continued pressure on the Venezuelan government, whether it continues to be this government or it becomes a puppet government of the United States. continued pressure for oil um concessions, but there's not going to be an American occupation. It wouldn't make any kind of sense. Uh John. Um the other thing that ran to my mind when this

[01:11] whole thing unfolded was um how for decades when it came to Central and South America starting from the 50s through the 80s um regime change in that part of the world relied on slow, covert CIA operations designed to look like organic popular uprisings. Whereas Trump this time dispensed with that entire playbook straight in. Oh my god. He achieved everything in a matter, you know, operationally in a matter of hours with what previously took months and plausible deniability following, you know. So given that context, how luckily is it that Maduro's arrest

[01:47] could have could only have happened uh with an inside job, someone from his inner circle tipping tipping them off or facilitating access? 100% that's what happened. Okay. 100% that's exactly what happened. As soon as the US put a bounty of $50 million on Maduro's head, you know that people in his immediate inner circle lined up to volunteer to rat him out and turn him over to the US government. Listen, I can tell you Suzy with firsthand

[02:24] knowledge Uhhuh. that when we put a bounty on someone, we pay the bounty. Mhm. We pay it. And I know because I have gone to meetings with $10 million in two giant gym gym bags full of cash to pay off the bounty. I can tell you that we've paid bounties with gold, with diamonds, with dollars, with land. However you want to take payment, we're happy to make the payment.

[02:55] And so as soon as we offered $50 million, we only offered 20 million for Osama bin Laden, $50 million, somebody turned him in. Yeah. And I would I would go so far to say, and this is just an educated guess based on my own experience. I don't have any inside information. I would say there were multiple rats. Not just somebody in Maduro's inner circle, but at least one person in the military as well. at least one person in the military. The military never fought back.

[03:27] There were no US casualties in this operation. None. None. The 80. And at the same time, the Delta forces, they killed 80 people, including 35 Cubans. There were no American casualties. So, how does how do I know that there was this rat? Well, number one, the government said that there was a rat. The the American government said that there was a rat. But number two, and I'll give there are three. Number two, in August, Maduro's personal pilot went public and said that the CIA

[04:02] had approached him. The CIA had offered him $50 million so that when Maduro were to get on the plane to run to Cuba or Russia or Spain or wherever he was going to run, the pilot would land the plane instead in Florida so the FBI could just grab him off the plane. And and number three, we know that Maduro was changing the locations where he was sleeping every single night,

[04:33] just like Saddam Hussein did. Um, so he was not sleeping in the same bed two nights in a row. Well, the Delta forces knew EXACTLY where he was sleeping and they literally physically pulled him out of the bed. So that just spells informant. Yeah. But um regarding the bounty, John, so from where I sit in the Eastern Mediterranean, there's a striking irony in watching the Democrats go crazy and denounce the legality of Maduro's capture when it's the Biden

[05:08] administration that itself placed the bounty, the reward on him back in January '25 for 25 million with Trump bumping it up to 50 million later on in August '25. So it's it which is an unprecedented bounty for a head of state and that should be noted just so Democrats don't yeah, for people to know... Suzy I have I have to tell you a story appropo of this of this comment that you just made. My two oldest sons were in love with fake wrestling WWE Smackdown you know whatever. And so

[05:46] I got tickets to a World Wrestling Entertainment uh show at Madison Square Garden in New York and I took them. They were like 8 and 5 or or 9 and 6 at the time. And we're watching these grown men smash each other against the floor and break chairs over each other's backs. And I said to my oldest son, I said, "I don't think I understand which one is the good guy." And he said, "Well, that's just it, Dad. There is no good guy. That's the situation that we find ourselves in today. You look at

[06:20] Trump, Trump put a $50 million bounty on Maduro. You look at the Democrats, they put a $25 million bounty on Maduro. There is no good guy in this situation. The Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans in being cowboys who want to invade and occupy any country whose leader does not do exactly as he or she is told. So there is no good guy in the Democratic party. And something else.
