It's the Political Fixer Podcast, with your host, Shawna Presley Vercher. Four seemingly unconnected stories that span over a century and across multiple countries around the globe all came crashing together in early January of just this year, 2026. We're gonna talk about what those stories are, exactly how they're connected, and what the heck happened in January that in my opinion may have changed the entire course of our history. Hello everyone, I'm Shawna Presley-Vircher and this is the Political Fixer Podcast. Now normally, when you look at a globe, those boundaries that you see of all of the nations and cities lying within it, those modern borders for all those countries, including our own, exist because of war, colonization, conquest. That's how it was for most of recorded history. Empires were expanded through military force. Colonizing powers carved up land based on what they wanted to acquire with little to no regard for the peoples already there, and treaties to find our borders, largely based on skirmishes that had already been settled on the battlefield. But there were two moments when the world collectively decided that this bloody way of doing things was not sustainable and that something had to change. After World War I, shaken by the scale of destruction, nations came together and created the League of Nations. It was the first serious attempt at an international body designed to preserve peace. Its purpose was simple, but noble. Resolve disputes through dialog, discourage war, and create a collective pressure that would prevent further aggression. But that league was built on creating hesitation. There wasn't a lot of teeth to it. It could condemn violence, but it couldn't prevent it. It could urge restraint, but there was no mechanism in place to insist that it happened. And crucially, there was no formal law against war itself. So when powerful nations later chose force anyway, invading neighbors, annexing territory, expanding their empires, and what would eventually become World War II, the League proved unable to stop them. There were no real consequences, no shared enforcement, and by the 1930s, its authority had eroded altogether, one invasion at a time, until the world once again slid into global war. Fast forward to the spring of 1945. World War II had been raging for nearly six years. Entire cities had been flattened, tens of millions of lives had been lost, and humanity had been pushed to the brink. Nations of the world were afraid, they were exhausted, and this global war was finally looking like it would wind down. Representatives from over 50 countries journeyed to no other than San Francisco, California, with one clear intention in mind, never again. On June 26th of 1945, they signed a document that would become one of the most important legal foundations of our time, the Charter of the United Nations. This wasn't just a treaty or an agreement. It was an attempt to reimagine international relations. The charter begins not with a flex of power, but with a purpose to maintain peace, to respect human dignity, and to ensure that disputes between nations were solved without violence whenever possible. At the heart of this new order was a simple but radical idea. War itself would no longer be considered a legitimate tool of national policy. No longer would the more powerful nations go into the lands of the weaker ones and just take what they want simply because they thought they could. No longer with invasions and conquests be accepted as normal. The charter demanded that all nations, great and small, refrain from the threat of the use of force against one another's sovereignty. That promise is captured in one deceptively simple sentence known as Article 2, paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter. It states, all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of Force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any other manner. Inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. It's at this moment that the world did come together and say, never again, not just with words, but with an actual law. Nations entrusted their sovereignty to each other and to a set of rules that promised that war should be the exception, not the default. It was an audacious experiment to hold powerful states accountable to a shared legal order. But even if, as history would soon show, the law was imperfect, would it hold? Okay, so we had this bold new vision for Earth. What could be more exciting than that? We had a newly signed charter. We had this commitment from over 50 nations to make the world a better place. But what are the consequences if someone broke that law? In other words, or else what? Make me, what did that look like? Practice, it's been a little dicey through the years, but the system was designed to have the consequences of another nation's actions be tiered to kind of level up on punishments as needed. They would start with making sure that aggression was identified collectively. Should we as a world take on this conflict, then the international community would respond together. We weren't going to have. One neighboring nation tackling another neighboring nation without oversight, at least in purpose and ideal. And four should be used as a last resort. And that authority was placed with one body of supervision, the United Nations Security Council. And if a country violated the no war rule, the charter laid out this graduated response or punishment. First, collectively condemn and put political global pressure against your allies. Try to talk them out of it essentially and show them that war was not socially acceptable. The second phase would be economic and political sanctions, things like limiting trade or having travel bans to certain nations. And if all else failed, collective force could be used, but only if it was authorized by the Security Council. And this violence could only be to enforce peace, not as a conquest. And as revolutionary as these ideals were, the charter created a framework, but not a guarantee. There's no official global police force or an outlined automatic punishment. And it could be argued that through the years, the United Nations Security Council has not exactly been even handed. And over the past 80 years, things haven't been perfect. The authors knew at the time this was an imperfect document, but they chose this path anyway, because the alternative of just allowing global war to continue until humanity was completely devastated was far worse. So over the past 80 years, there have been moments when the limits of the Security Council of the United Nations have certainly been tested. And again, there's been isolated violations clearly of the charter itself. But history really hasn't prepared us for a new question that now looms. What happens when one of the most powerful nations on the planet decides to not only openly defy international law, but goes about defaming and even mocking the entire mission of the United Nations, the mission of peace altogether? That is a question we now face today. All right, let's turn the page. That's story one. Let me tell you another seemingly unconnected story that's going to weave into this entire ordeal. It's gonna sound like a little bit of an abrupt segue here, but let's talk about cocaine, shall we? For a long time in America, cocaine was seen as this fringe or elite drug. It was expensive. It was largely only acceptable in very small circles, primarily among the wealthy elites. And it was limited to a few thousand users, not really considered a large scale problem. But in the mid 1980s, all of that changed. Powdered cocaine was transformed into crack cocaine. That made it cheaper to produce, easier to transport and far more addictive. And suddenly a drug that costs hundreds of dollars was now available for just a few dollars a gram. So it poured into the United States and not in small quantities. This was tonnage. So much cocaine entered our country that traffickers had to find ways to sell it faster, cheaper, and in forms that could reach millions of people at once, not just a few thousand. Crack cocaine didn't just create an addiction problem. It reshaped entire neighborhoods. It flooded cities already struggling with unemployment, redlining, disinvestment. The addiction spread quickly and families collapsed in front of our very eyes. Violence followed with underground markets as they fought each other for territory. Emergency rooms were overwhelmed. Foster care systems were flooded. Homicide rates skyrocketed and entire generations were caught in cycles of addiction and incarceration. And this devastation was largely concentrated in black and brown communities, but the ripple effects impacted every corner of America through crime, a public health crisis, and a punitive criminal justice system that has lasted for decades. Cocaine became, in short, one of the most widespread, deepest urban tragedies in our nation's history. Now most of the cocaine consumed in the United States doesn't originate here at home. It starts largely in South America. According to US authorities, roughly nine out of every 10 kilos seized in the Unites States comes through Mexico and Central America on its way north. Honduras, a small Central American nation, was one of the central hubs for cocaine trafficking. At its peak, independent reporting has suggested that as much as 80% of U.S.-bound cocaine at one point moved through Honduras. It's the equivalent of billions of individual doses that flooded American cities and communities. And this wasn't done quietly and behind closed doors. The conspiracy of cocaine trafficking included heavily armed cartel allies and Honduras' own law enforcement. American and Honduran political authorities. Vowed to tackle this problem together, and President Ronald Reagan declared a war on drugs. He pledged foreign cooperation and military involvement, and the United States, after that declaration of the war on Drugs, spent decades funding training, partnering with the Honduran institutions, all in an effort to slow down the flow of drugs into our country. In 2014, Juan Orlando Hernandez... Considered to be an ally to the United States Department of State, became the president of Honduras. At the time of his election, he was seen as tough on crime, a strong U.S. Partner, and as a leader in this war on drugs. During the presidency of Hernandez. U.S. Investigators uncovered shocking evidence. Hernandez himself, the president of Honduras, was a key figure in Honduran drug trafficking. He accepted millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers. Drug money was used to finance his political campaigns and state institutions were used to protect the drug trafficking routes. Federal filings show that Honduran national police and military, armed with machine guns and other weapons, were used to protect the cocaine shipments, not the people, escorting these shipments across their country as they headed farther north towards the United States. Hernandez wasn't fighting to stop cocaine from flooding our streets. He was the reason that the drug trade was functioning so efficiently. For years, federal prosecutors, after finding out this information, moved behind their own closed doors. They built their case quietly. U.S. Prosecutors had tons of evidence. They had testimony, they had wiretaps, they had cooperating witnesses, they had financial records. But Hernandez was still seen as untouchable. I mean, he was a sitting head of state. To the public, he still an ally. And... Like it or not, the information he was sending us about neighboring countries was still useful. He was still considered a cooperative partner. So they didn't let on that they knew anything, and they didn t arrest Hernandez while he was president. So for years, they worked on flipping cartel leaders and collecting testimony, and they waited. In January of 2022, Hernandez's term ended, and within weeks... The U.S. Federal grand jury indictment was unsealed, the United States formally requested extradition, and Honduran authorities, now under a new government, extradited him and he was arrested and brought to the United states. After a three week dramatic trial in New York, a jury found Juan Orlando Hernandez on March 8th of 2024 guilty, and a United States federal judge sentenced him to 45 years in prison. There's one more piece to this drug trafficking puzzle that becomes relevant later on. Once cocaine enters the United States, it has to be distributed to the people who are selling it and then using it. And during the 1980s, Miami was infamous for being the center of the cocaine drug trade. Major international cocaine smugglers were based in Miami and one of the key players in this operation was Orlando Cecilia. Now Orlando Cecelia is in no way related to the Honduran president who was convicted. Cecilia was born in Cuba and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was a child. Now with Cecilia and the help of a number of cartels and kingpins, Miami had hundreds of millions of dollars of cocaine trafficking through the city using largely exotic animal sales. As the cover. So think of it as Scarface meets the Tiger King. Cecilia's organization had a really clever way to get the product from place to place. Before the cocaine was shipped, once it arrived in Miami, it was hidden underneath the floorboards and within the walls of his West Kendall home, a Miami neighborhood. And then when it was ready to be packaged for distribution, they placed the drugs in cartons of cigarettes. It was a scheme that was elaborate but effective and it worked for years. Then in 1987, federal agents launched Operation Cobra, a sting where they seized the West Kendall home and arrested the front man. This operation was considered one of the largest drug cases in South Florida's history and was part of the cocaine cowboy era. There are movies made about the events that happened during this time. And Cecilia himself was indicted and convicted in a federal court for his involvement in cocaine trafficking. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison. That was 39 years ago. So what has happened to Cecilia in the meantime? That's when things get truly interesting and relate to our story today. While many of us were still shaking off the effects of New Year's Eve celebrations, all of these events that I described for you came colliding together in the early morning hours of January 3rd, 2026. The United States launched a major military operation in Venezuela, and that included airstrikes and special forces raiding Caracas, resulting in the capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cecilia Flores. They were flown to New York to face federal charges, including narcoterrorism and cocaine trafficking. Put another way, American troops entered a sovereign nation and according to Venezuela's interior minister, killed over 100 people, capturing and removing their head of state and a family member, all with zero congressional approval and no oversight by that United Nations Security Council that we discussed. These actions have shaken the entire framework of global relations. Maduro and his wife were taken from their home on a Saturday. Throughout the weekend, the American media and the people themselves were learning about what happened, and Congress was learning that this incident took place at all. Not only had no one checked with members of the Senate or the House of Representatives, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when testifying before Congress, assured them. That no such military action was being planned. Now, article one of our constitution states very clearly that only Congress can declare war. Only Congress can raise and support armies. Only Congress, can provide and maintain a Navy, and only Congress makes the rules for the regulation of our land and naval forces. Now, the intent of this section of the constitution is critical and it was further clarified right after the Vietnam War. Congress passed another act called the War Powers Resolution just to make sure that this constitutional role was crystal clear. It requires the president to consult with Congress, quote, in every possible instance before introducing U.S. Forces into any hostility. Then on Monday, January 5th, just two days after the operation in Venezuela, there There was an emergency meeting of the Security Council. Both allies and adversaries came together and expressed their shock and their upset. The French UN envoy said that the operation, quote, chips away at the very foundation of international order. Brazil said that, the bombing and seizure of a head of state crossed an unacceptable line and warned that this is an erosion of the entire charter. Mexico stressed that externally just handling a regime change on your own violates international law regardless of whether or not you disagree with someone politically. South Africa, Pakistan, Iran, Uganda all warned that this selective application of international law risks undermining our entire global security. Here's another quote that arose from that meaning. We cannot allow the United States to proclaim itself as some kind of supreme judge. Which alone bears the right to invade any country, to label culprits, to hand down and to enforce punishments, irrespective of international law and sovereignty. That quote came from the ambassador of Russia. So to express how widespread this condemnation was, we were accused by the people who have recently invaded Ukraine for going too far against international law. With seemingly no one in support of what was going on, we have to ask ourselves, why was such drastic action taken by this administration? And the answer to that varies based on who you ask. Why did we invade Venezuela? Some have suggested that Venezuela participated in drug trafficking, which harms Americans. Therefore, according to this logic, attacking Venezuela is justified. In essence, it's self-defense. Now, even buying that kind of loosely stitched together definition of self- defense, there's a problem with this claim, and it's another part of the United Nations Charter. Article 51 specifically addresses self-defense and it says, there is no rule in customary international law permitting another state to exercise the right of self- defense based on its own assessment of the situation. They have to immediately report to the Security Council if they expect there's going to be a conflict. In other words, you kind of got to ask permission before you do things according to this law. Even in cases of self-defense. Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has argued this isn't a military strike. This wasn't self-defense. This was an attempt to enforce U.S. Law. Now, according to Rubio, Nicholas Maduro and his wife led a criminal enterprise involving cocaine trafficking. He talked about the harm that cocaine has done to our communities. And he was adamant that the United States must bring international drug criminals to justice. So let's unpack that for a moment. First of all, are these claims true? Now, this isn't the first time that this administration has accused Maduro and his wife in drug-related charges. In fact, in March of 2020, when Trump was still in office, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment charging Nicolas Maduro, his wife Celia Flores, and a group of senior Venezuelan officials. Portraying them as the leaders and the managers of the Cartel de los Soles or the Cartels of the Suns. There's just one slight problem that they ran into. There is no such thing as the Cartal de los Soles. No cartel by that name exists. Important bit of information became public, they dropped that part of the indictment and they decided to try again. So these charges that were seen in 2026 are a refiling of the original case citing a fictitious cartel. We don't know what is true and what's not. That is for a trial to reveal itself. But so far, we're not starting on solid footing with these accusations. Now let's look at the second part of this. Even if these accusations are true. Does the United States and this administration in particular hold itself to this high standard of responsibility, that it's our job to internationally apprehend drug criminals from far and wide and hold them accountable? Let's go back to that story of the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, the guy that the Justice Department estimated. Was responsible for nearly 80% of all cocaine that reached our shores. Hernandez was convicted in March of 2024 and was sentenced to 45 years in prison, but he only served 44 months of his sentence. Why? Because he was pardoned by this administration in late 2025. Trump has claimed that Hernandez was treated, quote, very harshly and, quote unfairly. He suggested that Hernandez was targeted simply because he had been a president and has likened it to his own feeling of being victimized as president. And the timing of this pardon is worth noting because 47 announced this pardon in late November of 2025 and the pardon was officially granted days later on December 1st. The Wall Street Journal reported that this decision was made so quickly and unexpectedly within the White House? That most senior staff, including the chief of staff, had no idea about the pardon until after it was announced to the media. Now, coincidentally, the Honduran presidential election was taking place during this time, and 47 had publicly supported one candidate in particular, a conservative candidate, Nari Tito Asfora, who is also a member of the same political party as Hernandez. Support of 47 was not subtle. He mentioned and touted the pardon of his colleague and comrade, Hernandez, and he outwardly made a threat to cut off USAID if Esfora did not win this election. Now, some people are arguing that this is interference in foreign elections, but regardless of the ethics and legalities that we could debate, was it effective? Very much so. After weeks of delayed and controversial vote counts, as Fura was declared the winner and became the newly elected president of Honduras. So we can talk about the motives of the president's actions, but it is a fact that the current sitting president of the United States pardoned a known and convicted international drug criminal, which weakens the claims that the reason we entered Venezuela in the cover of night into the early morning hours is because of this high-minded quest for justice, it is arguably not a sufficient reason that we've outlined to kidnap a head of state and his wife. Let's talk about the third part of this argument, this point that Venezuela was entered because we are looking to take a strong stance against drug trafficking. Taking everything else aside for a moment, if the charges are proven accurate, if we are making a concerted effort to turn a new leaf and starting now, we're actually going to hold international drug kingpens to account with all of that in mind. Is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the ideal spokesperson for a message that the United States has a no tolerance policy against drug criminals. I would argue that that stance might be a bit untrue. We talked about Miami drug dealer Orlando Cecilia. Now Cecilia served about 11 to 12 years of his sentence of 35 years. He was released in around the year 2000. After which he wanted to start his life over again, a new chapter. And his plan was specifically to move back to Florida and to become a real estate agent. Now, this is a tough road to choose because in Florida, one of the strictest regulating states for real estate in the country, a convicted felon who wants to sell real estate has to get his application specifically approved. There's a seven member real estate statewide commission. And they decide these licenses on a case-by-case basis. And Cecilia was now a notorious convicted drug kingpin. He was not exactly a likely candidate for approval. He would need some help if he was gonna make this happen and help did arrive. Cecilia did receive his real estate license thanks to a letter that was personally written by Florida House of Representatives member and his brother-in-law, Marco Rubio. So this claim of being tough on drugs is a bit hard to swallow once you have all of the information. Now, other reasons have been floated. If it's not being tough on the war on drugs, what is it? Why did we strike Venezuela? Why did capture their president and his wife? Maybe it's to take their oil. Maybe we just wanna flex this newly named Department of War that we're so proud of, and maybe it's because we wanna have a new place to dump human beings that ice is swooping up by the hundreds every day. It might be some time before we really learned the true motives behind this operation, but regardless of the motives, was removing Nicolas Maduro from power the right thing to do? The question, did the ends justify the means? One of the biggest defenses presented for the military action taken in Venezuela is that while the tactics may have been flawed, arguably possibly globally illegal, Nicolas Maduro was a bad man and he needed to be removed from power. The ends justify means. But we have to ask ourselves, if we justify removing Maduro because of his methods, Are we comfortable if we hold the same accountability to our own leadership? Maduro has delegitimized elections in his country. He's rejected and discredited his opposition. He's used the courts and the electoral bodies to try to validate the outcome he wanted to see. Our own current president has rejected the legitimacy of elections. He has claimed mass fraud without evidence. He has pressured state officials to quote. Find votes. He has been found responsible for an insurrection to try to delay the certification of an election. Undermining democratic outcomes when power is threatened is something that these two men share. Maduro has prosecuted political opponents. He's used courts to try to entangle his rivals and he has framed any disagreement against him as being criminal or treasonous. Does any of this sound familiar? Because the current sitting president has called for the prosecution of political opponents. He has pressured our Department of Justice to go after them, both publicly and privately. And he has used criminal investigations as campaign threats. He has labeled any critic of his motives or him as a person as threats and enemies, turning our entire legal system into a political weapon. Maduro has weakened his legislature. He has undermined judicial independence and he has replaced institutionalists with loyalists, treating institutions as obstacles rather than as constraints of fairness and justice in democracy. Our current president has attacked courts, judges, our FBI, he has undermigned our intelligence agencies, he has delegitimized Congress anytime they disagree with him and he has outwardly threatened. To just defy and ignore court rulings when they side against him. Maduro has framed his critics as foreign agents. He's used fear as a way to hold on to control. He used rhetoric to consolidate support and blamed external enemies for his failures. Our current president has framed critics as being un-American. He has vilified immigrants, the press, and globalists as threats. To the United States, and he has portrayed himself as the only one who can defend our nation. Loyalty to the leader equals loyalty to the country. Now, I am not indicating at all that they are the same men. I am saying that their tactics are equal or that they should be considered the same. But both men have asserted near absolute presidential immunity. Both men have acted more in the vein of kings than democratically governed and elected presidents. So we have to ask ourselves if Maduro is considered and defined as dangerous because he delegitimized elections, he attacked institutions, he weaponized justice, and he centralized power. What is to stop another country from utilizing those same reasons to attack us? As we continue to debate actions that were taken, whether or not America was justified to seize President Maduro and his wife, we're facing a bigger and scarier question with everything we just outlined. If we can ignore international laws at any time because we feel justified to do so, have we just weakened our entire international framework of peace? Have we just essentially taken a match to the very charter that was designed to prevent global war? And if so, by this attack in Venezuela and the seizure of its president and his wife, did Trump just start World War III? It's a solemn note, but I like to end on something positive, which is we have power here. These events are unfolding every day. The first is the power to become more educated. That was my attempt to do so. I had a lot of questions, so I researched those questions and brought them here for you today. And the other thing is to stay involved. Right now, this administration's power has been left unchecked, because we're giving it permission to do. That's why it's so important to stay engaged politically, to make sure that we elect members of Congress and we nominate judges. Who will adhere to the boundaries of our democracy, not embolden someone who defies them. I challenge each of you to stay involved, stay engaged, and right now make sure that you stay connected. I'm Shawna Presley-Vircher. This has been the Political Fixer Podcast, and I'll see you all soon. The Political Fixer podcast is produced by Reign Media and TBCN, executive producer and host Shana Presley Versher, senior producer Sarah Tuma, director John Casimiro, audio producer Keith Trader. Theme music by SoulShifters. Content is for information purposes only and is the property of Reign media and Shana Presley-Versher. For more Political Fixers content and resources, visit politicalfixer.com.