All right. We are live for the very first time in 2026. It is good to be back. It is good to see you all. It's good to be live streaming again. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas and New Year's. I find it very hard, by the way, to be off air over the holiday break. The day we went off air, which was like the 17th of december i think the very

next day there was a drop of epstein documents and it took all of my self-control not to do an

emergency live because there's two very important things items pieces of information within those

epstein documents um that we have a lot that that make a difference the analysis. We have a lot, a lot to talk

about over the course of the next couple days. Obviously, capturing Maduro, President Trump's

epic military raid in Venezuela. What is the real reason for capturing Maduro? We're going to explore

that today because there are some spicy theories about why Maduro

was captured in the way that he was. Before we begin, if you would subscribe to the show, I would be

so grateful. You can subscribe on YouTube at YouTube.com slash Liz Wheeler. You can subscribe on Spotify.

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Drop your comments as we go along in the show. Drop them in the live chat. We keep tabs on the live chat. I read as many as I can while we're on air, and I definitely read your comments after we get off air. So let me know what you think, what you're feeling. If you disagree on something, make sure you note that in the comment section so that I see it while we're on air and we can address it.

But I am just, I'm happy to be back. I'm happy to be back. The first week of vacation for me is always, I'm tired from the grind and I'm happy to be on vacation. But man, you get to that second week and the workaholic comes out in me and I'm like, chomping at the bit to get back to it so suffice to say we have prepared

a lot of good content for you in the days and weeks to come a lot of bomb guests so make sure

your subscribe so you don't miss that um okay our guest today by the way is an excellent guest

we'll get to him in just a minute Venezuela what is this really about this overnight 1 a.m. raid that resulted in the capture of

not really president, the dictator of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, one of the most epic military

raids of our time. I usually am on principle against special forces operators, writing books, movies and doing podcasting because I want us to protect how we operate.

But this one would make a pretty good movie.

This one would make a pretty good movie.

But what's the real reason behind it?

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