I'm John Batchel with Bill Rajo, my colleague and friend from the Foundation for

the Defense of Democracies,

and we're very pleased to welcome David Shed, who's going to do double duty for us,

because David's the author of a new book, The Great Heist, China's Epic Campaign to Steal America's Secrets,

with his colleague Andrew Badger. That's about Chinese cyber warfare.

China's a major player, major, for the balance of this century and beyond.

We, though, are going to pay attention to the Americas right now because we live here.

This is the Western Hemisphere. And David, as the former acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency,

and before that many years in U.S.

intelligence, has a skill that exceeds his portfolio in the Americas. He's traveled there

widely, understands all these capitals, and they're moving around right now. But Venezuela,

David, your comments about what we see in Venezuela now.

It's incomplete, very difficult.

The president is now talking to the major oil companies about investing private enterprise into rebuilding Venezuela's fields.

I won't characterize any more than that.

The whole hemisphere is on the phone talking, Bogota's talking,

Brazilias talking, Managua's talking, certainly Havana's talking. How do you measure the situation

right now given the chaos, David? Well, I first have to do a shout out to the operation that rendered Nicholas Maduro and his wife

to the Southern District of New York for prosecution for their activities ranging from drug

trafficking and a number of other criminal activities.

So nine days ago, in terms of January 3rd. From there on out, there is,

as you describe, a clear messaging from the administration that the tolerance level for outside

...