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Opening Arguments

The Dumbroe Doctrine

Opening Arguments

Opening Arguments Media LLC

Law, Opinion, Politics, News, Liberal, Legal, Supremecourt, Harvard, Atheist

4.33.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

OA1222 - Actual sane coverage of Trump's kidnapping of a foreign leader PART 1

OA NYC correspondent Liz Skeen joins Thomas and Matt for this emergency episode recorded the day after the US bombed Caracas in a truly unprecedented military operation to kidnap Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife and transport them to Brooklyn to stand trial on federal narco-terrorism charges. We field dozens of patron questions as we try to understand how any of this could possibly be legal. How does this situation compare to the charges against former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, and how is Trump’s record on narcotrafficking these days anyway? What is in this indictment, and what kinds of defenses might Maduro have? Is the federal government going to let this defendant pay his lawyer? Should a federal court be able to consider that this defendant was illegally abducted from his country by the US military while acting as the head of state of a sovereign nation?  What kinds of consequences could there be for Venezuelans in the U.S.?  And what can we--and the world--do to stop Trump from doing anything like this again? 

  1. 2020 SDNY indictment of Nicolas Maduro et al

  2. 2026 superseding indictment 

  3. United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992)

  4. “Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation To Override International Law In Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities,” Assistant Attorney General William P. Barr, Office of Legal Counsel (June 21, 1989)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

Transcript

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0:00.0

Remember when it used to just be the conspiracy theory that it was about the oil? And now he's like, uh, it's about the oil? Trump has pardoned now more narco-traffickers than any president in U.S. history.

0:32.2

Hello and welcome to an emergency opening arguments. This is preempted what I had planned, but I think it's probably probably worth it. I'm joined by not one expert here, but two as we've got. Matt and Liz, the old Gigi crew assembled. How's it going, Matt? How's it going, Liz?

0:49.9

Hey, hey, I'm very excited to have an excuse to get together and talk about the single most important thing that the Trump administration has done and this Trump administration.

0:57.8

Oh, wow.

0:58.2

You think this is the single most important thing that the Trump administration is done?

1:01.3

Globally, I think so.

1:02.9

I don't know.

1:03.6

I would say, I would honestly say defunding USAID and the total switch of moving, you know, just totally cabinet, like just totally

1:12.5

carving out the State Department and making the Department of War effectively our Department

1:17.0

of Diplomacy and to the extent we have any foreign aid. I actually think that's more consequential.

1:21.2

I mean, that did kill more people.

1:22.9

It's true. Yeah, I was going to say the report was that it was killing a lot of people.

1:26.4

So, well, I'm going to go with that, which it was killing a lot of people. So, well, we can quote on that.

1:27.7

So I'm going to go with that, which is the only thing that I am optimistic about in our conversation today is that this is like not even close to, in my view, one of the worst things the Trump administration has done in the last year. Oh, wow. Maybe we'll get a little bit of a panel style debate. Speaking of, I never do this, but because this was such a crazy thing, I decided to watch some media. And I watched the Sunday shows, which was supposed to be, the Sunday shows are supposed to be like the better echelon of, because I can't do the cable. It's just impossible. It's too stupid. I can't do it. But the Sunday shows, you know, especially like the PBS one, boy, I got to tell you, I don't know if they've changed or what, but they're also worthless. Like I used to think that was like better, but it's just worthless. And I actually worry, and the reason I bring it up is from watching those shows, and I don't know if this is because of this particular event or because of the very format and kind of incentives

2:21.4

of... From watching those shows, and I don't know if this is because of this particular event or because of the very format and kind of incentives of our media has just constantly doing the manufactured consent thing.

2:26.9

But after watching those shows, I don't even know how much people are going to give a shit about this.

2:32.5

Because they just put it in the format of, well, we got, uh, uh, Rubrio and we'll ask

2:38.1

Rubio a few times. Hey, what's the legal authority to do this? And it'll be like, oh, well, you know, we got the, we're, we got court orders and, uh, we're, we're quarantined the ships and not letting him,

2:47.4

oh,

2:48.2

really, what's the legal authority?

2:49.3

And then I'll try a few more times.

2:51.1

And they're like,

...

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