The ladies hosting The View are fans of the Paramount+ series Landman. In November of 2024, they were gushing over the star Billy Bob Thornton. So they might be shocked to hear a brutal critique of their show and them coming out of the mouth of his character Tommy Norris. It came in episode 5 of the second season when Tommy was explaining to his father TL (Sam Elliott) what "The View was all about. Here is their conversation as relayed by Variety: In the episode, Tommy (Billy Bob Thornton) is urging his father, T.L. (Sam Elliott), to kill time around the house by watching a TV show and suggests “The View.” When T.L. admits that he doesn’t know what that is, Tommy explains it as, “A bunch of pissed-off millionaires bitching about how much they hate millionaires and Trump and men and you and me and everybody else they got a bee up their ass about. It’s pretty funny.” T.L. responds, “Don’t sound funny.” Tommy replies, “Well, it ain’t joke funny, it’s like ‘fart in church’ funny, you know what I mean?” T.L. retorts, “That don’t sound funny, either.” Tommy then clarifies, “Well, it depends on your proximity to the fart.” As a television critic Tommy sounds dead on accurate as to his description of The View and its gaseous hosts. Could there be be a Tommy Norris review of Morning Joe coming in the future? "Best Biden Ever" was pretty funny.

A recent interview with Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who is also a reverend, on NBC’s Meet the Depressed makes clear that Washington’s one true religion is power. If articles of Christian faith get mangled along the way, well, that’s secondary. Watch as host Kristen Welker cues Warnock up for another “deplorable”-style remark, this time basically labelling President Donald Trump’s supporters a “plague”: “You said: ‘My faith is not a weapon. My faith is a bridge.’ You also say, quote, ‘Trumpism is a plague on the American conscience.’ How do you square those two ideas for people?” – @kwelkernbc to Senator @ReverendWarnock pic.twitter.com/DwUjQnKrCT — Brent Baker ???? ?? (@BrentHBaker) December 14, 2025 KRISTEN WELKER: Senator, let me ask you about something else that you said in your speech. You said, “My faith is not a weapon. My faith is a bridge.” You also say, quote, “Trumpism is a plague on the American conscience.” How do you square those two ideas for people? RAPHAEL WARNOCK: Yeah, as I point out, I think over the last several years, over the last 50 years and over the last year we have seen a deepening divide between what people need from their government and what government is delivering. There is a kind of corruption, legalized bribery that attends our politics. You see it in the frustrating fight to get basic health care for ordinary citizens. Truly, the wealthiest nation on the planet can afford to provide basic health care to its citizens. We suffer not from a poverty of resources, but a poverty of moral imagination. And I do think that Donald Trump, if he's better at something than anybody else, it's dividing us. And I think it is a distraction and while we are distracted and divided, we have literally witnessed the largest transfer of wealth in American history… WELKER: Yeah. WARNOCK: …from the bottom to the top, and people are fighting- they're seeing their costs for healthcare are doubling while Congress engages in everyday political games. They're seeing their utility costs go up, their grocery costs go up and meanwhile, the president is saying he would rate this economy an A+++. The question for me is, who is he talking about? Clearly his friends, the well-connected, the wealthy- certainly not the people that I see every day in Georgia. Of course, there is no followup from Welker, who received no response to her original question. There is no wide-eyed pointing the pen at Warnock demanding he reconcile his positions. Instead, Warnock was allowed to deliver an ad-hominem attack against the half of the country that supports contrary policy positions. In fact, Welker let out some sotto voce agreement with Warnock halfway through his rant, right at the point when he was denouncing the “largest transfer of wealth in American history from the bottom to the top.” He was presumably referring to the One Big, Beautiful Bill, but the real biggest transfer occurred during Covid. No fact-check from Welker at all, who moved on to the next question. The biggest hypocrisy here is that Warnock was brought on, in part, to talk about how his faith informs his work in the Senate, and in context of a speech given at the Center for American Progress. He tried sticking to that script for a minute but ended up maligning half the country. Reckless words, given the current political climate of left-wing violence. One wonders how Warnock “bridges” his faith with those of his Christian brethren and sisters who voted for ideas that he believes are a “plague”. It would’ve been nice for Welker to ask, rather than just nod along.  

Maggots and blowflies, creatures that feast on dead human bodies, serve highly useful purposes by returning organic matter to the soil and removing potential sources of disease. So, it's possible that Chris Murphy might also be of some social utility -- although it's hard to see him as other than a self-promoting ghoul after a shooting. Even the left-leaning Politico has named Murphy, the Democrat junior senator from Connecticut, as one of "The 7 Most Shameless Attention-Seekers in Congress." And sure enough, just hours after the mass shooting at Brown University, there was Murphy on CNN's State of the Union.  Inevitably, Murphy made his pitch for more gun control. And in doing so, Murphy unleashed a scurrilous accusation against President Trump: "Over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country . . . He has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely in this country." Host Dana Bash is no fan of the Second Amendment. At the beginning of the segment, she made sure to establish her lefty bona fides. When Murphy claimed that "we don't have the leadership in Washington to do anything, anything, to respond to the shooting this weekend," Bash oozed empathy: "We haven't had the wherewithal to do anything in Washington . . . for years and years and years." Even so, Bash seemed at least a bit taken aback by Murphy's accusation against Trump. But her pushback was meek and mild: "That's a pretty big statement. He's in a campaign to make violence more likely?" A "big" statement? How about an outrageous one, Dana? Murphy doubled down: "Of course!" So much for "fact checking in real time"!  Murphy's argument in support of his accusation is that Trump is supporting various measures that supposedly make violence more likely. Central was Murphy's claim that: "[Trump] is restoring gun rights to felons and people who have lost their ability to buy guns . . . He's knowingly restoring gun rights to dangerous people . . . When you give gun rights back to dangerous people, you are going to have an increase in violence." Murphy would have viewers believe that Trump has, across the board, restored gun rights to felons, and in particular, to "dangerous" ones. He's lying, and Bash didn't push back. She turned the focus back to recalcitrant Republicans: "Do you think that there is any appetite for any discussion right now?"   Per Grok and Google Gemini: President Trump has not restored gun rights to all felons. Federal law (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)) continues to prohibit anyone convicted of a felony (a crime punishable by more than one year in prison) from possessing firearms. This categorical ban remains in effect and has not been repealed or universally lifted. The Trump administration has taken steps to revive a long-dormant federal process for individual relief from this prohibition: In February 2025, President Trump issued an executive order directing a review of gun policies to protect Second Amendment rights. The Department of Justice (DOJ), under Attorney General Pam Bondi, published rules and proposals to restart the relief program under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c). This program, defunded by Congress since 1992, allows certain prohibited persons (including some felons) to apply on a case-by-case basis for restoration of federal gun rights. The DOJ emphasizes that relief is for individuals deemed not "likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety," with presumptive ineligibility for violent felons, domestic abusers, sex offenders, and others considered high-risk. Focus is primarily on non-violent offenders (e.g., white-collar crimes, drug possession, or property offenses) who have shown rehabilitation. As of mid-2025, the DOJ has granted relief to a small number of individuals, around 10 reported cases. It is not a blanket restoration — violent felons and those posing ongoing risks remain barred.  Under the proposed "relief from disability" program, several categories of individuals and specific types of felonies would be presumed permanently ineligible for gun rights restoration, absent extraordinary circumstances.  The categories that face this strong presumption of denial include individuals convicted of crimes involving violence. This includes offenses such as: Homicide/Murder Sexual Assault/Rape Kidnapping Burglary Robbery Arson Crimes that involve physical force or an element of violence Threatening or stalking offenses Any firearm-related conviction involving violence Sex Offenders Fugitives from justice Unlawful users of controlled substances Individuals subject to active domestic violence restraining orders Unlawfully present aliens Individuals with recent mental health commitments or adjudications  To label as a scurrilous lie Murphy's accusation that Trump has engaged in a deliberate campaign to increase violence by restoring gun rights to violent felons would be a gross understatement.  Chris Murphy faces a steep path to rise to the social utility level of maggots and blowflies. But in the spirit of the Christmas season, we'll hold out a modicum of hope for him.  CNN State of the Union 12/14/25 9:05 am ET CHRIS MURPHY: Unfortunately, right now we don't have the leadership in Washington to do anything, anything, to respond to the shooting this weekend.  DANA BASH: Yeah, well, we haven't had the wherewithal to do anything in Washington of, I mean, we did a little bit a few years ago, but of means for years and years and years.  . . .  MURPHY: Over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country. He is restoring gun rights to felons and people who have lost their ability to buy guns.  He eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection. And he has stopped funding mental health grants and community anti-gun violence grants that Republicans and Democrats supported in that 2022 bill.  So he has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely in this country. And I think you're unfortunately going to see the results of that on the streets of America.  BASH: That's a pretty big statement. He's in a campaign to make violence more likely?  MURPHY: Of course. I mean, he's knowingly restoring gun rights to dangerous people. He is cutting off grants that have bipartisan support to try to interrupt violence in our cities or to try to get necessary mental health resources to families and children in need. The evidence tells you that when you stop funding mental health, when you stop funding community anti-gun violence programs, when you give gun rights back to dangerous people, you are going to have an increase in violence that is knowable and that is foreseeable. 

CBS’s Margaret Brennan scored an exclusive interview of Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan Vice President-Designate María Corina Machado subsequent to her arrival in Oslo. The interview, however, was a wasted opportunity as Brennan displayed how Trump Derangement Syndrome taints coverage of the potential end of decades of Venezuela’s suffering under a socialist dictatorship most charitably described as evil. The unedited interview, streamed on CBS’s website as well as on YouTube, ran about 21 minutes- just under 17 of which ran on Face the Nation. The broadcast version opens with Brennan whining about Machado’s refusal to discuss details of the operation that extracted her from Venezuela and got her to Oslo: CBS's Margaret Brennan opens the broadcast portion of her interview with María Corina Machado by whining about MCM's refusal to jeopardize her reinsertion into Venezuela. The response you see here is cut in half from the original, and after two passes from Brennan on the… pic.twitter.com/n4GVMRT56Q — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) December 14, 2025 Brennan took two passes at getting Machado to jeopardize her reinsertion into Venezuela, which by necessity will be as intricate, if not more so, than the original extraction operation. The broadcast version only aired the final refusal, omitting the first two questions and first refusal.  The most notable exchange on sanctions and seizures of oil tankers had Brennan suggesting that support for these is akin to supporting hurting the “already impoverished Venezuelan people.” Machado had to calmly walk Brennan through why this is not the case, only for Brennan to reask the question. WATCH: CBS's Margaret Brennan implies that supporting the seizure of illegally sold oil is equivalent to wanting to "hurt the impoverished people of Venezuela" pic.twitter.com/o4UZ7qbQJ5 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) December 14, 2025 Further along in the interview, Brennan tries to press Machado into disavowing military action by the United States, asking how she could reconcile that with her winning a peace prize. Here, Machado takes Brennan to school: “How do you square military action with receiving a peace prize?” – CBS’s @margbrennan to Venezuelan opposition leader @MariaCorinaYA. pic.twitter.com/7Lu6jYlDq0 — Brent Baker ???? ?? (@BrentHBaker) December 14, 2025 Interestingly and as a sort of last word against Machado, Brennan echoes the Maduro regime’s claims. I’ve watched a lot of interviews of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and don’t remember any of them being bracketed with anything said by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Why do so here? First, it’s Trump derangement. Pressure on Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns dictatorship as part of a strategic foreign policy shift must be intrinsically bad because it is initiated by Donald Trump. That’s how it is covered, hence the media insistence on pushing the War Crimes Hoax, for example. Second, current Venezuela policy further exposes the failures of the Obama administration, which did nothing as the illegitimate Maduro stole the 2013 presidential and 2015 midterms. The Obama administration, with the media’s assent, did nothing as Maduro brutally repressed protesters: running some over with light tanks, and throwing others into dungeons where they would never be seen again. All of this, in the interest of Obama traveling to Cuba and offering his limp wrist to dictator Raul Castro- an awful “deal” that the media hailed as transformative diplomacy.  Now that you have an actual freedom fighter trying to throw off a brutal dictatorship that is co-occupied by Russia, China, Iran and needs American help to do so? The American is Donald Trump, so that’s (D)ifferent. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as uploaded to YouTube on Sunday, December 14th, 2025:  MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to María Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader who joins us from Norway where she just received the Nobel Peace Prize. Welcome to 'Face the Nation.’ MARÍA CORINA MACHADO: Thank you very much, Margaret. It's my pleasure. BRENNAN: You face arrest by the Maduro regime. I know you went through extraordinary difficulty just getting out of the country and to Norway. You said you got support from the United States government to do so. Can you tell us what type of support? MACHADO: Actually, I prefer not to give away any details, because I do not want to increase the risk on men and women that helped me to be here. And the regime has been, you know, very cruel against those that in the past have helped other Venezuelans flee the country when they were persecuted. So in this case, I do prefer to protect them as much as possible. BRENNAN: I understand that. The head of the private rescue organization, who said he helped you come out of Venezuela, spoke to my CBS colleague, Lilia Luciano, and said smuggling you out was very high risk because you are so well known. You traveled by land, by sea, by air. He said multiple donors paid for it. Do you know why it was so important to them for you to make it to Norway and receive that prize? MACHADO: Well, I frankly have no idea. And as I say, I am not going to give more information regarding my trip to Norway. But what am I going to say- how important it is for the Venezuelan people. This is a recognition to a nation that has fought tirelessly, courageously against a criminal, narcoterrorist structure and- and I came to receive that prize, that award, and I'm going to bring it back home to the Venezuelan people as soon as possible. BRENNAN: You say you're going back home. I know you sent your own children out of Venezuelan territory in order to protect them, your sons, your daughter. I read you hadn't even seen your daughter in 16 months. That's an incredible sacrifice for anyone. Are they concerned that you plan to return to Venezuela? When are you going? MACHADO: Of course, they are concerned as any other Venezuelan child that has their parents or relatives back in our country, because the regime, as I said, has persecuted, tortured, killed, disappeared, thousands of Venezuelans, and recently it has turned even more violent because, you know when, when a criminal regime is falling apart and they know their days are numbered, they turn even more aggressive, even more violent. Just a couple of weeks ago, a 16 year old girl was kidnapped and taken away to prison just because they were looking for her brother, and since they couldn't find her brother, they took Samantha. So this is the kinds of actions that are currently happening in my country. So yes, my family is concerned, but they know I have said that I will be where I am more useful to our cause, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. BRENNAN: You believe it's important to help the cause from inside the country right now. Can you help us understand what is going on, because we are seeing here in the US an increase in the pressure campaign. More sanctions on Venezuelan individuals and vessels. We saw an armed seizure of a vessel carrying oil out of Venezuela. Selling oil on the black market is really important money for the Maduro regime. Do you endorse this idea of more seizures and possibly even a blockade? MACHADO: Look, I absolutely support President Trump's strategy, and we, the Venezuelan people, are very grateful to him and to his administration, because I believe he is a champion of freedom in this hemisphere. And that's why, and I say this from Oslo right now, I had dedicated this award to him because I think that he finally has put Venezuela in where it should be, in terms of a priority for the United States national security. And we do support these actions, because, Margaret, we are facing, not a conventional dictatorship. This is a very complex criminal structure that has turned Venezuela into a safe haven of international crime and terrorist activities, starting with Russia, Iran, Cuba, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Colombian guerrilla,  the drug cartels operating freely and directed in partnership with Maduro and his regime. And as every criminal structure is- suffers, is when the inflows from their criminal activities are cut. And these, in the case of Maduro regime, comes from the oil black market, to drug trafficking, gold smuggling, arms smuggling, even human smuggling and trafficking. So that's what we believe, it was so important to apply, you know, law enforcement, and we have been asking this for years, so it's finally happening. That's why I believe the regime has its days numbered. BRENNAN: It sounds like you support more sanctions and possibly more seizures of oil, but isn't there a risk that cutting off money will further hurt the already impoverished people of Venezuela? Isn't that a risk? MACHADO: Of course. What we're doing is for the well being of the Venezuelan people. What we want to do is to save lives, but Maduro was the one who declared a war on the Venezuelan people. A war we didn't want. A war we are suffering with hundreds of thousands of killings and forced executions in the last years. And right now, I want to be very clear with the international community, the resources Maduro gets are not going to schools or hospitals. In Venezuela, a teacher earns $1 a day. Pensions are less than $1 a month. Our children go twice a week to school. The sources, the cash the regime gets from these illegal activities goes to buy arms, to pay gang members to spy and infiltrate and to even further increase their illegal narcotics activities and so on. So these resources are not going for, to- towards the people. They're going for corruption and crime. BRENNAN: So it sounds like you want even more seizures and a blockade. Is that correct? MACHADO: We want every legal action through law enforcement a- approach, not only from the United States, also from other Caribbean, Latin American and European countries that further block the illegal activities of the regime. Why? Because we need to increase the cost of staying in power by force. Once you arrive to that point in which the cost of staying in power is higher than the cost of leaving power, the regime will fall apart, and it's the moment where we, you know, advance into a negotiated transition. Which is what in the beginning we offered Maduro when we won the presidential election by landslide last year, but he not only refused that option, but he, as you know, unleashed the worst, most brutal repression wave we've seen in our history. BRENNAN: And 8 million Venezuelans have fled– MACHADO: That's correct. BRENNAN: –since he came to power during that time, but in terms of the diplomacy, President Trump spoke with Maduro himself last month. We haven't seen any evidence though, that diplomacy, a negotiated exit like you mentioned, is happening. Are you seeing diplomatic success? MACHADO: Well, in the last years, Venezuela has seen 17 dialogue initiatives, not once, not twice, 17. Every single time the opposition or our allies or the United States have complied with every single thing we offered, the regime of the country has violated every single thing they offered on their own part. What did they get? They got time, they got legitimacy, they got money, and that's precisely what they think they can get again, once again. But certainly, things have changed very much in the last months, Venezuela is total different country. I mean, Maduro is weaker than ever. The Armed Forces, police are certainly divided and fractured, and our country is united, cohesive, and we finally have the administration, in this case, President Trump with a clear strategy that truly represents a credible threat for the regime. So if we had ever had a chance to finally move ahead into, towards democracy in our country, it's today. BRENNAN: What evidence do you have that the military is weaker than ever? Was your escape proof of that? MACHADO: Well, first of all, we have the evidence that the wide majority of the military want change, and that was- we saw that on July 28, 2024, that the military were ordered to expel our electoral witnesses from the polling stations and to deny our right to the original tally sheets and they disobeyed that order. Even in those polling stations where we know there is a high participation of military, we won by a landslide. More recently, we've seen more and more members of the military finding ways to connect with us, to send messages to, to, to show that they are feeling the same of what the rest of the country is feeling. When, when they, this military go back home, they find their children, their mother, their partners, saying that they are hungry, that they are persecuted, that their families have been divided. They are scared. Yes, they are scared, because repression and persecution in the military is even tougher than on civilians. BRENNAN: So President Trump said that land strikes to stop drug trafficking specifically will start soon. He has been saying that for weeks. Do you know what he is talking about? Has he promised you anything? MACHADO: No, I don't know. And well, if I knew, I wouldn't say it, of course. But it's not the case. We are not involved, and we will not get involved into another nation's policy for their own national security. BRENNAN: But would you welcome U.S. military action? MACHADO: I will welcome more and more pressure so that Maduro understands that he has to go, that his time is over. And I will insist something that I've said several times before, this is not conventional regime change. This cannot be compared to other cases, like countries in the Middle East, we had an election. Regime change was already mandated by over 70% of the population, and what we need is support to enforce that decision. BRENNAN: How do you square military action with receiving a peace prize? Are we at the point it's necessary? MACHADO: What we're fighting for is precisely freedom in order to have democracy and democracy, in order to have peace. And in order to maintain freedom and to achieve freedom, you do need strength. The contrary would be the peace of the dead, in which you have a country under absolute oppression and simply given in. And that's not the case. It's absolutely absurd that you see a regime, a criminal regime like Maduro, that gets support from Russia or from Iran and then as a benefit to unknown people, not to ask support from democratic countries and democratic leaders, that's absolute, absurd. We do not have arms. We have our will. We have the power of organization and the power of love, which at the end, I have to say that peace is ultimately an act of love. BRENNAN: The regime itself has done a number of things. They have revoked TV licenses for journalists to broadcast, broadcast truthfully. He has jailed journalists. The United Nations says the National Guard targeted political opponents, committed sexual violence, tortured people and committed other crimes against humanity. So from where you sit is Maduro stepping down enough? Or do you need the entire regime dismantled? In which case, that sounds like a country in collapse. MACHADO: That's a very good question, because certainly Maduro is the head of the structure, but it's like any other mafia system. You have families or groups that operate and sometimes even compete among each other. There are different degrees in the crimes they have committed, certainly those that have committed crimes against humanity that have been reported by the fact-finding missions of the United Nations should face justice, local justice and international justice. There are other members of the regime or the armed forces that have committed lesser crimes. And certainly we will search for justice, not revenge. But this, I'm going to insist, what we're living right now is chaos. Maduro represent chaos. We're going to put order. And this whole idea, you know, people talking about a risk of a civil war and so on. Whoever says that has no idea at all about what Venezuela is. I mean, we are certainly the most cohesive society in the region, I would dare to say, perhaps in the world. I mean, Venezuelan society has no religious, social, regional, racial confrontations or tensions on the country. 90% of our population want the same, want the regime to go immediately, and we want to work hard to live with freedom. We want no more socialism, but most of all, we want our children back home. BRENNAN: Understood, but respectfully, you also have acknowledged that the drug cartels are exploiting your country, that Russia is exploiting your country, Iran, Cuba, China. Just yesterday, Vladimir Putin spoke with Maduro and said their strategic partnership is growing. Are you concerned here that Russia is going to shore up support for the military and intelligence? MACHADO: Well, I'm, I'm absolutely convinced that Putin wants the world to think that, especially wants President Trump to think that, about that. But I would ask you a question, do you think Putin has resources to spare at this time? Or does he has-something that's more urgent for him to invest those resources. I mean helping a regime that it's going to fall apart anyway, regardless of what he does. I don't think it's a priority for him. Nonetheless, I do not underestimate what the residual actors of Chavismo might be planning to do once we are in a transition to democracy. And that will require very efficient actions to isolate and neutralize those threats. And you know, we've work very hard to understand what's the true nature of our armed forces right now, identifying those military which we believe could be supportive of a tran- transition to democracy and the new gov-- BRENNAN: --Have they pledged that to you? MACHADO: Some of them, yes, and we believe that over 80% of our armed forces would join and support the democratic movement once the transition is in place. BRENNAN: So tell me about that transition. I- we checked and when Secretary Rubio was sworn into office, you were one of the very first phone calls that he made. On day two. MACHADO: Me and President-elect Edmundo González, it was the two of us-- BRENNAN: --That's right, that's right, he's deeply interested. So I'm interested in what has been promised to you if and when Maduro and his regime leave, what kind of support do you need to keep the country together to prevent another refugee crisis? And do you have that pledge from the American government now? MACHADO: We will need a lot of support, advice, information, technology, not only from the United States, also from multilateral organizations, some of which we are already working together. Not only in security issues but power supply, food supply. How do we bring, you know, put order in our financial accounts? How do we restructure our debt? How we open markets for international investment and give security to international investment in oil, in gas, in infrastructure, critical minerals? I mean, Venezuela is unique in terms of the amount of the natural endowments we have. And you know, we're located at three hours by plane from Florida. So it's hard to think, you know, in this shortening of the supply chains that is in the near-shoring process taking place a better ally in the region than Venezuela. And at the same time, you know, turning Venezuela from the criminal hub of the Americas into a security shield for the United States and for the rest of the region, is a top priority for all. So, you know, we have the plans ready. We have the teams ready. We know what we have to do the first 100 hours and the next 100 days. But most importantly, and I want to insist on this, we have the people. I mean, this is something that it's- I've heard once, over and over again all analysis leave the people on the side, when that's the most important force that we have right now. That's why we are where we are right now. And the Venezuelan people want to move ahead once we conquered democracy back, would have cost- has cost us so many lives, so many- so much pain, that you will see the country taking care of it. The people will be the main source of stability. But certainly we look forward for- to cooperation with our main allies. And of course, our main ally will be the United States of America. BRENNAN: Would that include US peacekeeping troops or other troops on the ground? MACHADO: I cannot answer that question right now. I don't think that's the case. There are other countries that have offered support as well in order to strengthen democratic institutions once the government-elect is in place, but that we will have to address that once we have the, you know, the government-elect in place and put in order, bringing order back to our country. And one thing that you mentioned before about the, you know, the refugee crisis, it's going to be exactly the country. The day Maduro goes, you will see 10s of 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of Venezuelan migrants coming back home from the United States and all over the world. I mean, our diaspora is desperate to go back to Venezuela. So even from that perspective, it is a win, win situation to have democracy in Venezuela. BRENNAN: Do you think it is safe for those Venezuelans in America to go back there now? Some temporary protected status was just revoked by the president for more than half a million Venezuelans here. Is it safe for them? MACHADO: Absolutely not. It will be safe once Maduro is gone, and every single citizen will be, you know, leaving freedom and respect in- towards the law. We will bring back rule of law. We will liberate our political prisoners, and everybody will be free to speak out what they feel, what they think, what they want for the future, of- for their own future and their families. BRENNAN: María Corina Machado, we thank you for your time today, and we'll be watching. MACHADO: I thank you, Margaret, for this great opportunity, and God bless Venezuela. Venezuela will be free. BRENNAN: We'll be right back.  

Releasing in 2026, American Spy will be the  memoir of Navy veteran Zachary Young, the man who took CNN to court for malicious defamation and won. The book, published by Harper Collins, was co-written by American Sniper author Scott McEwen and will follow Young through his recruitment and exploits “operating in the hidden world of international espionage,” according to press release obtained first by NewsBusters. During the trial against CNN, Young’s past work with the Central Intelligence Agency and security contractor roles was bared before the world, put under the microscope, and brutally questioned. The memoir seems to be Young’s way to take back control and tell his story on his terms: Mysterious, intense and drawn from real experience, American Spy tells the story of Zachary Young, an American who spent years working under cover in hostile environments and denied areas, operating in the hidden world of international espionage. The book traces Young’s path from early recruitment to missions that placed him in some of the most dangerous settings on earth, often without recognition, protection, or the ability to explain what he was doing, even to those closest to him. Throughout the trial, it was clear that Young was the quiet professional many in the upper echelons of the American intelligence community relied on and knew personally. He went to the places and did the jobs Uncle Sam asked of him to keep the country safe, and at great personal cost: American Spy is a deeply personal account of experience, identity, and the cost of operating far beyond the public eye. “This book pulls back the curtain on a world most people never see,” said Scott McEwen. “Zak lived the life that movies are made from. He operated in places where there are no second chances and where the decisions you make determine who lives and who does not. His story is raw, real, and impossible to forget.” Additionally, “American Spy will be available for pre-order upon release of the cover.”