Who governs now?

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Now that we’ve tackled the “how,” let’s go to work on what it means.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Joining us for that is retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery. He previously advised Congress and the White House on transnational threats, and now is senior director of the center for cyber and information technology at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

REICHARD: Admiral, good morning.

MARK MONTGOMERY: Hi, thanks for having me again.

REICHARD: Talk about U.S. policy as far as transfer of power in other countries? President Trump cited the Monroe Doctrine.

MONTGOMERY: Well, Mary, thanks. [You know, it's interesting because he cited that. And then Secretary Rubio mostly cited law enforcement as a justification. I generally think this was a legal operation, and with the law enforcement justification, with, clearly, the military being required to enforce the law enforcement requirements. And so the arrest of Maduro on a six year old, or five and a half / six year old indictment was justifiable. And you know, he definitely did pose a threat to the United States again. I believe that the drug threat to United States principally comes through Mexico and fentanyl. But I recognize that Maduro was appropriately accused of running a narco terrorist organization, was eventually designated a foreign terrorist organization, and therefore the arrest was justifiable.

REICHARD: Admiral, President Trump previously said he wanted to work with Maduro on drugs, immigration, and oil. What changed Trump’s approach from negotiating with Maduro to approving his capture?

MONTGOMERY: Without doing this, we really didn't have the leverage to change how he was going. I will say that the President did try a three month pressure campaign here. I mean, he did sanctions, he did drug interdiction through kinetic operations of drug shipping, but then he followed it up with a title 50 covert action attack on a port and the seizure of three to four Venezuelan tankers. So he was trying this escalating maximum pressure campaign. I think he came to the conclusion that the only thing that was going to work was the removal of Maduro.

REICHARD: With Maduro in custody, attentions turned to who will lead the country next. What does the U.S. want and how can it get that done without ground troops?

MONTGOMERY: So again, very different conversations by the President and by Secretary Rubio. I think the President is off base here. He constantly talks about being able to work with the remaining government. Let's be clear. Maduro was a bus driver. He was not like, “Yo, I could be a rocket scientist or I could be president of Venezuela.” He was not the brains behind the conspiracy that's alleged. The brains was the defense minister, Padrino Lopez, in the, in the justice, interior minister, Cabello Rendon, and those two are still in power. Nothing's happened to them. In the Vice President, Rodriguez, she's there too. Again. I think she's a little feckless. I think the actual leaders are the defense minister and the interior minister. Clearly, when we're alleging a criminal conspiracy, they're part of it, so we can't be working with them. So we are going to have to convince those two they're going to do one of three things. One, they're going to flee to Cuba. Two, they're going to get a jail cell next to Maduro in New York City. Or three, they're going to be killed. And a fourth option should not be we'll make a deal with you, and you run the government.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about Maria Corina Muchado, opposition leader who was banned from running for office as she rose in popularity with voters. That, of course, seen as a political move by those in power. Where does she fit into future plans for Venezuela?

MONTGOMERY: Again, a disturbing comment from the President, where he was dismissive of her, saying she didn’t have the respective support of the country, absolutely a bad read of the Venezuelan people. But on top of it, she and the person who stood in for her, Edmundo Gonzalez, one of the two of them, needs to be the elected leader of Venezuela either because there's a recognition that Gonzalez's 2024 victory, or there's a rerack, a very rapid reracking of the electoral process, you know, in January, February, March of this year, and Machado wins an election.

REICHARD: Before this operation, the U.S. seized an oil tanker linked to Russia, Iran, and Cuba. What does Maduro’s detention affect Russia and its allies moving forward?

MONTGOMERY: Well, different for each country. You know, first of all, one thing I do want to note, so President Trump couldn't solve the shadow fleet problem with Russia for two and a half years now, but he suddenly latched on to the right answer for Venezuela very quickly. I mean, he needs to do the same thing unrelated to this. He needs to do the same thing in the case to support Ukraine of bringing the Russian shadow fleet to heal on this very specific one. The biggest loser here is Cuba. Cuba is heavily reliant on the delivery of near free or very low cost fossil fuels to drive its anemic economy. You pull away the free or low cost fossil fuels, and the Cuban economy goes further in the dumpster. So I think they're the biggest loser. I think Iran, like Russia, has a slight benefit if there's less competitive fossil fuels out there, you know, in the shadow fleets illegally delivered, which means that they can probably slightly increase what they bill a customer. On the other hand, they should be a little nervous if the United—that President Trump, you know, suddenly had an epiphany about closing down on a, on a nation's shadow fleet, or the shadow fleet ships servicing an adversary nation's fossil fuel. China, there's a challenge here. China took 80% of Venezuelan fossil fuels. I imagine that they'll be taking 80% again in the near future. It'll just be passing through pay to Besa, the Venezuelan national oil company, will be running things a different way, and it does make China a little more vulnerable to the United States.

REICHARD: Admiral, are there any other American interests we should be paying attention to?

MONTGOMERY: What I would say is, if he does this right, and he ensures that Machado or Mendo Gonzalez have an opportunity to compete in a free and fair election, and he restores democracy to Venezuela. He's sending the strongest possible signal about the U.S. model of governance versus the Chinese or Russian authoritarian model to the other nations of Latin and South America. So I think there's an opportunity here for the President to be a winner. It might be overcome by his penchant for dealing, you know, for wanting a economic or tariff win for the United States, and for him to fixate on the oil issue. But if you were to fix it on the democracy issue, the United States would get a real win in the Western Hemisphere.

REICHARD: Mark Montgomery is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy…now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Thanks so much, really appreciate it.

MONTGOMERY: Thank you for having me, Mary.

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