Jeffrey Sachs: The U.S. is now nothing but a lawless, rogue, dictatorship.

3 January 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhZuTOuwKGA

“Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Attacks Venezuela & Kidnaps President Maduro”

Glenn Diesen, 3 January 2025

Transcript

0:00

Welcome back. We are joined by Professor Jeffrey Saxs to discuss the US attack on

0:05

Venezuela and uh the kidnapping of its president uh Maduro. So, thank you very

0:11

much for coming back on the program. Um, of course. Yes, dramatic events.

0:17

Yeah, it’s quite uh dramatic and this of course was an actual unprovoked attack,

0:22

an illegal attack as well. Uh but the the the capture or arrest as the media

0:30

sometimes refer to it as the president of Venezuela has been also quite dramatic. How are you assessing the

0:37

situation and uh what are the objectives of the United States here?

0:44

Well, clearly this is a a blatantly illegal act. Uh but it’s one in a long

0:52

line of blatantly illegal American actions. And just in the recent days,

0:59

Trump has been threatening uh a new country every day. He bombed Nigeria

1:05

last week. He said that the US would intervene in Iran if the government

1:14

acts against the protesters in a way that Trump doesn’t like. He has invaded

1:20

Venezuela. Uh just uh recently he uh

1:26

created a special envoy for Greenland uh declaring that Greenland will be ours.

1:32

Uh so it’s a threat against Europe, which of course Europe doesn’t even acknowledge or recognize because it’s so

1:41

passive uh relative to the United States. Uh we’re we we are not in a

1:48

constitutional order uh in the United States. We are in uh a an order led by a

1:58

military state. Uh we do not obey the US Constitution. Uh everything is by

2:05

executive decree. When uh a congressman dared to mention the US Constitution

2:12

today, Trump said, “What is he whining about? Uh this is ridiculous.” Uh well,

2:20

this is uh really uh at least what Trump has done is expose the fact that we’re

2:26

at the end of constitutional rule in the United States. What happens when there’s

2:32

a thuggish rule remains to be seen, but in my view, this makes the world

2:39

extraordinarily dangerous. Of course, we’re hardly at the end of the story

2:44

about Venezuela itself. They have arrested a president. Uh but uh this is

2:52

not the end of uh anything. uh the whole

2:57

history of US regime change operations which number probably around 100 such

3:05

operations since the end of World War II um is a record of bloodshed, violence,

3:15

deliberate creation of instability, uh coups, assassinations,

3:21

civil war. So, we don’t know what will come next, but we know that there’s been

3:26

thuggery. It’s also interesting, though it’s

3:32

may maybe I don’t have a definitive count of it, but I’ve not noticed any of the mainstream media in the United

3:39

States even raising a question about this. The

3:44

New York Times, the so-called uh paper of record did not one time in recent

3:53

weeks say, “Oh, it wouldn’t be a good idea to brazenly attack that country.”

3:59

Uh the editorial board was completely silent. As far as I can see, it remains silent. Uh our Congress is more

4:07

abundant. It’s it doesn’t exist uh in fact uh in in any operational sense. So

4:15

I find all of this very dramatic uh and extremely worrisome though I hasten to

4:24

repeat we’re not at the end of the story by any means of what will transpire in

4:30

Venezuela itself. There is a a government in place. There is a

4:35

military. there is a mobilized part of society. There’s lots of guns around.

4:42

Um, this is not a simple smooth takeover by the United States as much as Donald

4:50

Trump might believe.

4:56

…

13:45

Let me say a few things. First, uh all of the various explanations that have been given are blah blah blah blah

13:53

blah. Meaning that they are whatever joke or improvisation the

14:02

United States wants to use for the moment. Uh the US has been trying to

14:07

overthrow the government of Venezuela for 23 years. Uh they tried to coup

14:14

against the predecessor of Maduro, Ugo Chavez. Uh they have announced that

14:21

the US is the enemy uh that Venezuela is the enemy of the United States to put it

14:26

uh more clearly, because this has been a left-wing regime that uh believes that

14:33

Venezuela’s resources belong to Venezuela and that Venezuela does not

14:39

have to follow the US dictates on who controls the oil and who receives the

14:45

rents and so on. And so this is a long story and it’s very important to

14:52

understand. In 2017 in Trump’s first year of office, he said to a dinner

15:03

table of Latin American leaders, “Why don’t I just invade Venezuela?” Uh, two

15:10

of the leaders talked him down from that. I heard from two presidents that

15:16

were there independently about this dinner. That idea of Trump of invading

15:23

Venezuela is eight years in the making. The lead uh uh cheerleader of invading

15:31

Venezuela was Senator Marco Rubio and now uh

15:36

Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And there were celebrations in Florida today

15:43

of uh Venezuelan expats and uh others uh celebrating uh the US action.

15:51

…

22:58

The idea that democracy is peace is an Orwellian idea. Democracy by these leading

23:06

hegimons whether it’s Athens or Britain or the United States has meant war

23:11

almost nonstop. Now Iran is a project

23:18

like Venezuela is a project like Syria is a project. The United States has been

23:24

intervening in Iran since 1953 when it toppled the first uh

23:33

when it toppled a democratic government uh of Mossadegh which had the audacity to

23:40

think that the oil under Iranian ground was actually Iranian. And when

23:49

Mossadegh declared that Iranian oil was Iranian and would be controlled by Iran,

23:55

MI6 and the CIA overthrew Mosedc and installed a police state. When the

24:02

police state fell in 1979, the United States armed Iraq to attack Iran and

24:12

hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. Since that time, the United States

24:17

has tried to uh destroy Iran in multiple ways. Economic sanctions uh repeatedly

24:26

of course that’s why there are protests because the economy is uh in a collapse.

24:32

But the US is the agent of that sanctions regime. Hh when Iran

24:39

negotiated an arrangement to uh absolutely show uh that its nuclear

24:46

program was curbed, uh Trump said no uh we will crush the regime instead. This

24:54

is all at the behest of the Zionist lobby in the United States and Israel, uh

24:59

in in this case. So this is another project they they’re probably chortling.

25:05

Well, look, we’re very, very close right now. We should understand that the

25:10

protests in Iran are part of the script. Uh, I’m not saying people aren’t

25:16

protesting. I’m saying the US has gone out of its way to crush the Iranian

25:21

economy and to crush the regime. And last week, Trump made all of this very,

25:28

very clear. So we I think can expect Israeli bombing soon, or maybe US and

25:36

Israeli bombing soon, uh or some other CIA operation. God only knows. But I was

25:44

saying that for the world, this is alarming. It’s not something just to go

25:51

along with. I don’t think even though as I said the UN really is defunct right

25:57

now, it should not be allowed to die. Uh it needs uh to be brought back to life.

26:06

And while the US will not do that, the rest of the world maybe the rest of the

26:12

world except the western alliance so-called you have

26:18

85% of the world uh that really should

26:24

not want this kind of thuggery. Of course, as an American, I don’t want

26:29

this kind of thuggery, but nobody asked the American people anything anymore.

26:34

This is all a military state that we’re in, that is extra constitutional.

26:44

…

A VIWEWER COMMENT AND RESPONSES TO IT:

@mahmoodrumjahn411

4 hours ago

America is finished!

This act has told the world that America needs to be conquered’

Reply

@dthomas99

Sanction and Boycott USA. Dump everything USA and USD. Bankrupt the war monger USA fast.

Reply

@jamesz80

But who’s going to do that?

Reply

@LostNotFound74

Reply

@standtallvets5386

No Country needs to be conquered, countries need to be cleaned up of all their BS and garbage.

Reply

@easy1253

 @standtallvets5386  No. Hitler — Nazi Germany — needed to be conquered. For the same reason, today’s America also does.

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MY COMMENT: Sachs here states very well the same analysis that I presented earlier today in my “Why I Distrust Trump’s Takeover of Venezuela”.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.