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When Real America’s Voice correspondent Oscar “El Blue” Ramirez joined Steve Bannon’s War Room this weekend, he didn’t mince words. What happened in Venezuela wasn’t just a surprise U.S. military operation, Ramirez told Bannon, it was a line drawn in the sand. The capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores wasn’t only about drugs. It was about ending decades of narco-state corruption, cutting off Cuba’s last lifeline, and sending a warning to Beijing, Tehran, and every global power testing America’s resolve. President Donald Trump’s actions were a live demonstration of the Monroe Doctrine in motion: The Western Hemisphere belongs to the West, and the era of foreign parasites feasting on Latin America’s chaos is over.
Ramirez posted on this weekend:
The Capture That Changed Everything
By Sunday, the world had caught up to the shock of what unfolded early Saturday morning. A U.S. strike team apprehended Maduro, whisking him from Venezuela to New York City, where he is scheduled to appear in federal court on charges of narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, and weapons trafficking.
NBC confirmed that Trump ordered the operation personally, after intelligence reports tied Venezuelan state actors to a spike in cocaine routes feeding into the Caribbean and Central America routes that ultimately fuel the fentanyl epidemic in the U.S.
As Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Meet the Press, this isn’t a war on Venezuela. It’s a war on the cartels and their state sponsors. The Biden Administration once offered a $25 million bounty for Maduro’s capture, Rubio noted. “President Trump did something about it.”
Oscar El Blue’s Frontline View
Oscar El Blue Ramirez, who’s covered cartel activity at the U.S.-Mexico border for years, told Bannon that Latin America has been a playground for criminal regimes for too long. “Maduro’s Venezuela was the anchor point for the hemisphere’s black market,” Ramirez said. “It’s not just cocaine it’s oil, gold, uranium. You can’t separate the drugs from the geopolitics. This was the head of the snake.”
Ramirez added that the operation’s success was being felt from Colombia to Mexico City. “Every trafficker knows what happened in Caracas,” he said. “They know Trump is back in charge, and they’re scared because they’ve never seen the U.S. move this fast.”
Ramirez, who has reported extensively on migrant caravans and cartel networks, said the regional domino effect will be huge. “You can’t move drugs north without Venezuela. You can’t move money through Cuba without Caracas. When Trump took Maduro, he cut the circuit.”
Trump’s Warning to Caracas
In an interview with The Atlantic, President Trump issued a blunt warning to Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed power after Maduro’s arrest: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price.”
That single sentence encapsulated the Trump Doctrine maximum pressure with no apologies. Trump confirmed that the United States will “run Venezuela for the foreseeable future,” not as an occupier but as a stabilizing force to secure oil reserves and eradicate the narco-state infrastructure built over two decades.
While critics in Congress question the legality of the mission, Trump’s supporters call it long overdue. “For years we’ve had a dictator selling cocaine and laughing at American weakness,” one War Room guest said. “Now we have a President who acts.”
Vance Steps Into the Spotlight
Vice President JD Vance has emerged as the key policy voice explaining the broader picture. On X, he pushed back against claims that Venezuela’s drug trade is unrelated to America’s crisis. “If you cut out the money from cocaine,” Vance wrote, “you substantially weaken the cartels overall.”
He reminded followers that Venezuela’s oil industry was expropriated from U.S. companies years ago and used to fund terrorism. “That’s stolen property,” he said. “Maduro’s regime used it to enrich themselves and bankroll narco-terrorist activities.”
Vance’s tone has been firm, unapologetic, and strategic. He’s framing this not as a new war, but as a cleanup a return to American control over its own hemisphere. His focus mirrors Trump’s: protect American interests, secure the border, destroy the cartels, and rebuild deterrence.
Rubio: “This Is Our Hemisphere”
Secretary Rubio’s press statement Sunday drove home what’s now clear policy: “We are not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States.”
He reminded reporters that no congressional authorization was needed for the raid because it wasn’t an invasion it was an enforcement action against an indicted criminal. Rubio said the goal is not regime change but national security: to expel Iranian and Hezbollah proxies, eliminate drug routes, and restore lawful trade in the region.
“This is where we live,” Rubio said. “This is our hemisphere. And under President Trump, the days of weakness are over.”
The Global Shockwave
Predictably, socialist governments in Spain, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil condemned the capture as “a dangerous precedent.” Cuba, watching nervously, fears it could be next. Analyst Michael Paarlberg told NBC that “Rubio’s real focus is Cuba,” noting that closing off Maduro’s regime would choke Havana’s last economic lifeline.
The message from Washington couldn’t be clearer. The United States is reclaiming the Monroe Doctrine not as a relic of 1823 but as the foundation for modern hemispheric defense.
Oscar El Blue’s Final Word
Ramirez closed his War Room segment with a chilling observation. “This is what happens when America wakes up,” he said. “Maduro’s capture isn’t the end—it’s the start. The cartels are on notice, and so are the regimes that protect them. From the border to Caracas, people are finally seeing that Trump means business.”
Here are the full Saturday appearance:
The capture of Nicolás Maduro marks a historic pivot in U.S. foreign policy. It’s the boldest assertion of hemispheric dominance since Reagan took on the Soviets, and it’s being televised in real time. Oscar El Blue called it “the rebirth of the Monroe Doctrine.” Trump just made it clear: the Western Hemisphere belongs to the West again.