I love me some realpolitik 🙂

CNN interview with Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor.

Aired January 05, 2026:

…

TAPPER: So let’s — the question about who is now running Venezuela is one that even members of Congress who are big Trump supporters say they’re not quite sure about. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN’s Manu Raju that he doesn’t know what President Trump meant by his assertion that the U.S. is running Venezuela.

And he said he needs more information. Can you tell us what the President means when he says, is acting President Delcy Rodriguez in charge? Is she running Venezuela or not?

MILLER: Well, what the President said is true. The United States of America is running Venezuela. By definition, that’s true. Jake, we live in a law, I’m sorry, we live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time. The United States —

TAPPER: But are you saying — but in terms of day-to-day operations in Venezuela, that is president, Acting President Rodriguez, right? It’s not some sort of American emissary.

MILLER: No, what I’m saying is, and we’ll keep going here, Jake. So I want to say what I’m saying, and then you’ll follow up. But what I’m saying is just one level above that, which is that, by definition, we are in charge because we have the United States military stationed outside the country. We set the terms and conditions. We have a complete embargo on all of their oil and their ability to do commerce.

So for them to do commerce, they need our permission. For them to be able to run an economy, they need our permission. So the United States is in charge. The United States is running the country during this transition period.

…

MILLER: If you give me the floor for 30 seconds, let me tell you what we are doing here, Jake. The United States, this is this is sort of foundational. The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere.

We’re a superpower. And under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries, but not to us, to hoard weapons from our adversaries, to be able to be positioned as an asset against the United States rather than on behalf of the United States.

TAPPER: Sovereign countries should be able to do what they want to do.

MILLER: The Monroe Doctrine and the Trump Doctrine is all about securing the national interests of America. For years, we sent our soldiers to die in deserts in the Middle East to try to build them parliaments —

TAPPER: But Stephen —

MILLER: — to try to build them democracies, to try to give them more oil, try to give them more resources. The future of the free world, Jake, depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology. This whole period that happened after World War II, where the West began apologizing and groveling and begging and engaging these mass reparations schemes —

Thanks for reading,

Notes:

https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cg/date/2026-01-05/segment/01

The Kennan Memo – The Vague and Unreal Objectives of US Foreign Policy