Brian Lairer on WNYC.

Well, let's talk about the U.S. military action in Venezuela and what comes next for either country.

Our guest is former New York Times journalist and former bureau chief in Caracas,

and the author of Things are never so bad that they can't get worse inside the collapse of Venezuela. His book

published in 2022, journalist William Newman. William, thanks for your time under these

intense circumstances. Welcome back to WNYC.

Brian, thank you very much. It's great to be back here. Here's Secretary of State Rubio on NBC's

Meet the Press yesterday with Kristen Welker, giving some of the rationale for this and making

clear that it's largely about oil and the presence of U.S. adversaries with Venezuela's oil market.

We don't need Venezuela's oil. We have plenty of oil in the United States. What we're not going to

allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States.

You have to understand, why does China need their oil? Why does

Russia need their oil? Why does Iran need their oil? They're not even in this continent. This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live. And we're not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors and rivals of the United States. Have specific oil companies? We also want to see that oil and the proceeds from it. Hold on.

We want to see the oil proceeds the proceeds from it. Hold on.

We want to see the oil proceeds of that country benefit the people of Venezuela.

All right. So William, to what degree is this a war or intervention or kidnapping or arrest,

whatever people want to call it, for oil?

You know, it very clearly is, Brian.

I don't think that we necessarily could have said that definitively before this whole thing started on Saturday night, or Friday night, I suppose it was.

But Trump in his news conference on Saturday said it very clearly.

He, I believe I counted, he used the word oil 21 times in that news conference, which was about the capture of Maduro, he never spoke the word democracy once.

So they gave, they have given over the last few months his whole shifting menu of rationales

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