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There's no safe like SimplySafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro.

I'm John Lovett.

Tommy D.Tor. Welcome back, guys. Happy New Year. Great to be back.

Welcome to you and welcome to our new compatriots in the southern colonies. In our Basil State. Yeah, who will soon have the honor of pumping crude to fund His Majesty's Palace Renovations. Vice Roy Miller's. A new, a new, a new, a new, a new, a new majesty's palace renovations. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, we get a lot to cover today. We'll get into the

latest with Venezuela and all the other countries that Trump now wants to invade. We'll also talk

about Tim Walz's decision to end his campaign for a third term as governor because of the fraud

scandal that's become the latest Maga Crusade. We'll get into what we've learned so far from the DOJ's release of the first batch of the Epstein files and some other news you may have missed over the holidays. And then Arizona Senator Mark Kelly talks to love it about all the latest news, including Pete Hegset's decision to cut his pension and demote him because of that video he made about following illegal orders.

But let's start with the biggest story of the week.

Donald Trump's campaign to become emperor of the Western Hemisphere,

which follows a well-trodden path of authoritarian who respond to economic and political failures at home

by pursuing imperialist ambitions abroad.

Now we have it right here.

Trump has chosen to start with Venezuela, where he ordered the military to capture the oil-rich country's tin pot dictator Nicholas Maduro,

along with his wife in a raid on Caracas last weekend that has killed at least 80 people.

The former first couple of Venezuela was brought to the U.S.

and arraigned in a lower Manhattan courtroom on Monday where they pleaded not guilty to

various drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges.

And in case anyone still thinks the people of Venezuela have been liberated from Maduro's

...