Trump Has No Plan for Venezuela

The David Frum Show

The Atlantic

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum discusses the American seizure of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and President Donald Trump’s deeply flawed thinking about Venezuelan oil. David argues that Trump’s worldview of exploitation and predation is likely to doom his ambitions in Venezuela rather than secure them. David is then joined by the national-security analyst David Rothkopf to examine the U.S. military operation in Venezuela and the Trump administration’s alarming lack of a coherent plan for what comes next. Rothkopf explores what it means for a president to sideline or altogether ignore the National Security Council before launching a major military action. Together, Rothkopf and Frum speculate about possible outcomes of the Maduro operation that Trump appears not to have considered. Finally, David closes with his thoughts on Rudyard Kipling’s “Recessional” and the poem’s warning about national boasting, overreach, and the perils of collective foolishness. Sign up for David Frum’s newsletter alert. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Why do growing businesses love working in Slack?
0:02.8	Let's ask Christia Ari Bikes.
0:04.6	Running things in Slack saves me so much time.
0:07.3	AI summaries save 97 minutes per week.
0:10.4	What say you?
0:11.4	Rocks from Gosney.
0:12.4	Slack helps us build community.
0:13.9	It helps us build connection.
0:15.2	Your partners, vendors and customers all in one place.
0:18.3	Take us on home, Ashley from Carraway.
0:20.2	If we did have Slack tomorrow,
0:22.2	I would explode. Well, let's not let that happen. Visit Slack.com slash podcast to get 50%
0:27.7	of Slack Business Plus. This episode is brought you by Shopify. With Shopify,
0:34.1	2026 is the year you make it happen. It gives you the tools to build your dream store, online and in person.
0:41.4	Plus with marketing built-in, it'll help you reach exactly who you need to.
0:45.9	Join the millions who've already made the leap, like Jim Shark and all birds.
0:50.4	And ring in the new year with Shopify.
0:53.4	Sign up for your £1 per month trial at Shopify.com.uk.
0:57.9	slash Spotify.
1:13.7	Hello and welcome to the David Frum Show.
1:16.8	I'm David Frum, a staff writer at the Atlantic.
1:28.8	My guest today will be David Rothkopf, broadcaster, businessman, journalist, author, but for our purposes today, the preeminent historian of the National Security Council and the foreign policy process in the United States, author of the 2005 book, Running the World,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Atlantic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Atlantic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.