105: PREVIEW: Venezuela and the State Department Playbook Guest: Mary Kissel John Batchelor discusses Venezuela with Mary Kissel, former senior adviser to the Secretary of State, regarding the Trump administration's offer to speak with Maduro while a fleet was
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Venezuela and the State Department Playbook
Guest: Mary Kissel
John Batchelor discusses Venezuela with Mary Kissel, former senior adviser to the Secretary of State, regarding the Trump administration's offer to speak with Maduro while a fleet was offshore, with Kissel describing this strategy as the "playbook at State," recalling her North Korea experience in the first Trump term, interpreting the move as showing force ("show the guns") before engaging diplomatically.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is John Baster, colleague Mary Kissel, former senior advisor to the Secretary of State, |
| 0:07.2 | commenting on Venezuela and the offer by Mr. Trump's administration to speak to, speak with or hear out Maduro, |
| 0:16.3 | short of kinetic action with that fleet arranged off the shore of Venezuela. |
| 0:22.6 | Mary looks to what she experienced with North Korea in the first Trump term, |
| 0:28.0 | what she calls the playbook at state. |
| 0:30.9 | Here's Mary Kistler to describe what she thinks might be going on in Venezuela now. |
| 0:35.8 | Show the guns and then much more of this later tonight. |
| 0:39.5 | It's not business as usual. |
| 0:42.2 | Unfortunately, there isn't a sense of panic. |
| 0:45.2 | And unfortunately, the public really isn't terribly aware of this. |
| 0:49.3 | They don't like the idea of war. |
| 0:51.0 | But we have seen what Russia has already allegedly done to a part of a train system |
| 0:55.8 | in Poland last Sunday and what they've been doing with drone attacks and intimidation |
| 1:01.9 | of Denmark and other countries. But the fact is that the Europeans are not ready. And you |
| 1:07.6 | mentioned something earlier on about coalitions of the willing. They've been talking |
| 1:11.3 | about coalitions of the willing for the odd two, three years. And this was a big conference led |
| 1:15.8 | in Paris, led by President Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. But so little has comfort. |
| 1:22.8 | They're going for coalitions of the willing because they know there isn't a consensus of support for European political and economic integration. |
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