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Strength Meets Resolve: What Happens When America Signals Consequences
A cascade of good news stretches from Caracas to Tehran, and the common thread is clarity backed by action. We break down how the fall of Maduro exposed the depth of Cuban involvement, cut a vital oil lifeline to Havana, and sent shockwaves through China’s energy and gold ambitions. When a regime relies on foreign soldiers for personal security, the problem isn’t just optics—it’s a sign of collapsing legitimacy, and the aftershocks can reorder a hemisphere.
We also zoom in on what smart pressure really does. Cuba’s weakened position, reduced oil flow to China, and a recalibrated regional posture all reflect a simple principle: remove adversaries’ leverage, and stability has room to grow. That same principle surfaces in the Middle East, where a firm warning led Iran’s leadership to signal interest in talks after deadly crackdowns on protesters. Deterrence is not an empty slogan; it’s a set of boundaries that, when enforced, make diplomacy possible.
Back at home, norms get tested and reinforced. A Minneapolis hotel that refused service to ICE agents lost its franchise, a rare but important reminder that standards matter beyond politics. And in a twist that defies stereotypes, the UAE cut funding for students to study in the UK over concerns about radicalization, underscoring how even modern, pro-Western states are actively guarding their youth from ideological hardening. Along the way, we tackle the ripple effects on asylum, the meme-fueled campus protests that miss basic facts, and what accountability should look like when lawful operations face organized obstruction.
If this kind of clear-eyed, fact-driven analysis helps you make sense of the headlines, follow the show, share this episode with a friend, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more people find thoughtful conversations grounded in history, policy, and results.
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's Friday at WallBuilders. I love it. It's my favorite day of the week because we get so much good news. It's a great way to go into the weekend. Just knowing that yes, there's a lot of victories happening out there. And most of them, you haven't heard on major media or even a lot of the conservative podcasts out there, so this is really fun. David and Tim, compile these good news stories throughout the week, or sometimes it takes several weeks to even catch up on them and we're going to get to as many of those as we can today, Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton, you're listening to the WallBuilders Show that is of course taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. So, fellas, let's get into some good news as quick as possible. David, what's first?
David Barton [00:00:43] Well, it's a follow-up from Venezuela. Of course, we've had that, and now it's been, what, we're coming up in a couple weeks since Venezuela. And, you know, we talked about, even last week, that I think there was constitutional grounds for what he did, because as he went back, he very rightly, and I think surprisingly, quoted the Monroe Doctrine, not surprising that he quoted it, surprising that anybody was thinking of it today, and he just reasserted the Monroe doctrine, which was written by the Founding Fathers. He said, look, we don't let hostile entities come into our hemisphere and threaten us in our hemisphere. You got to stay in your own hemisphere. And so Venezuela, you know, they're backed by China, they are backed by Russia, they are backed Cuba, they back by all these communist regimes. And he said, no, you're just not going to do that. You're threatening our hemisphere in our way of life. And so that corollary that the Trump Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine, I think was so good. But with that, Venezuela fell, Maduro's brought to the United States. He's now been arraigned here, facing charges here. And it's interesting. I think some of the things that came out after the operation are significant. The fact that those guarding Maduro at his palace, his fortress, his military fort, it was mostly Cubans because he did not trust his own people. Which tells you something about how bad he was as a ruler, that he can't even have Venezuelans protecting him because they wouldn't protect him. He had to get communist Cubans to come in and protect him, and I was struck by the fact that when the operation was all over and done with, most of the deaths that happened on that operation were Cubans. There were Cuban operatives, Cuban soldiers, Cuban officers who were there working with him. And so you have this this huge Cuban influence that now has been crushed. And they've lost a lot of their top leadership as a result of that strike with them trying to defend Maduro. So now what happens is with the oil back under the control of the United States, Cuba gets nearly all of its oil from Venezuela. Well guess what? Cuba doesn't have oil anymore in the way that it used to have. And Trump has told Cuba that you guys, you know, you really need to back off. And he told them they could be next. But he actually said, I don't think we'll have to do anything with Cuba. I think it will fall from within. Because they've lost the imports, they've their oil, they've lost their energy, they've lost a lot of their leaders, they are on quasi-revolution status right now because the people are so discontent. And that would be super cool if that communist neighbor that we have were to fall from within simply because of the failure of Marxist Communism. I think that's great news, but that might happen.
Rick Green [00:03:24] Yeah, so it's literally like a hemisphere fight, right? That he's, you know, and thank you, David. I think it was, I can't remember when we had the program and you talked about the Monroe Doctrine and I learned so much about that and how important it is to, you know, for Trump to have done what he did with Venezuela, but then the ripple effect to all these other nations, just knowing, you know, then specifically Cuba, of course. I mean, it's felt like we couldn't do anything about Cuba for the last, what's it been since Castro took over, would have been what, late 60s or late 50s?
David Barton [00:03:52] Yeah, late 50s, early 60s, 59 through 63.
Rick Green [00:03:55] Yeah, it's just felt like there was, you know, almost we were just inept at doing anything that would make a difference with them. How ironic that he would do this in Venezuela. And it looks like we're seeing more of a crack there than, than, than we've ever seen. Okay. So, let's see, Tim, are we, are we staying in the Western hemisphere with what's where you headed.
Tim Barton [00:04:14] Well, Rick, I'm actually going to stay exactly where we were. Dad, you were making mention of this. It literally is the top article on my stack that Cuba says 32 Cuban officers killed in U.S. Military operation in Venezuela and some of this you already highlighted, but I do want to give a little bit of a breakdown because Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which guys I do feel like it's worth acknowledging some of my favorite memes over the last couple of weeks have been Marco Rubio, uh, wearing different- outfits, uniforms based on all the jobs he's probably going to get assigned. Right? Like the new president of Venezuela or whatever else, it is just, they're wonderful between that and the bloated face of JD Vance, that JD Vans himself posts that the, the meme game is very strong right now on the conservative Republican side. But, Rubio acknowledged and he's again, the Secretary of State, he acknowledged that Cuba's regime has been propping up Maduro and that Venezuelan leaders’ international security apparatus was entirely controlled by the Cubans. Now to add kind of to your point, this is super interesting. Rubio acknowledged that the people guarding, and in fact, I'm going to go down to the next line because he clarifies this, the ones who have sort of colonized, at least inside the regime, are Cubans. It was Cubans that guarded Maduro. He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. Now, that's when you kind of go, huh, why would he not have been guarded by Venezuelans? Well, you can back up to the last election where they did not disclose the actual results of the election. And they didn't reveal what some of the voting locations had done which are supposed to do for transparency purposes it's like actually part of their law and they didn't do it. And the people then got curious there were those that went on the ground and they've started doing polling and what they found is it looked to them like 65 to 70 percent of the nation voted against Maduro. Which could very well be why he was shutting things down and not releasing results, etc. But the reason I say that is it actually then does make a little bit of sense of why you need a communist country that is an ally with you, that as you mentioned, your kind of keeping them supplied with oil to some extent, why that matters. They're keeping you safe so that it protects their interests. But the fact that Venezuelan bodyguards were not guarding him is super fascinating to me. And then this article again kind of highlights what you pointed out, that Trump said he expects Cuba's regime to collapse in the aftermath of Maduro's arrest. Because Cuba will no longer receive income from Venezuela, and that also includes the oil. And Dad, one of the things too, that a lot of people have talked about since the Maduro capture, that the Venezuela oil, and really, we could even talk about gold, because China was trying to replace the US dollar. They wanted to have a gold backed currency. And I think it's estimated that Venezuela has like 10% of the world's gold that is unmined. And so if China had access to that, then they could actually get gold to back their currency, et cetera. And China, estimates are between 60% to 90% of all the oil exports going out of Venezuela were going to China. And so, if it was 90% going to China, you have now put a significant dent in the things going to China. So, there's, again, there's lots of really positive things from a geopolitical perspective. For the stage of what that means for America by weakening our enemies. Not necessarily even strengthening our position by adding more oil, because we had plenty of oil, but by weaking our enemies, it strengthened our position. But this was about Cuba and the fact that Cuba is now weaker for what happened. So this is just echoing exactly what you said. It just happens to be the first article in my stack.
David Barton [00:07:57] Hey, and Rick, before we change, I've got to add something to this because I've got a little, just a little post off X here that's worth throwing in with what Tim said is, all right, so we've got this overthrow of this regime. The Venezuelan people are celebrating like crazy. You know, President Trump has lifted the 600,000 that were here under asylum. They can now go home and Venezuelans are now headed home out of the United States6. They wanna be there, they wanna be back in their country. Who is it that's protesting the overthrow of the Venezuelan government? Amazingly, it's American college students. It's American, this is the one, okay, I don't know how to do this without being meanly sarcastic, but I'm gonna do it anyway. The picture that got me the most on this is American college student protesting the overthrow of Maduro. The sign held by this American college student, no joke. It says, long live Maduro, long live the Bolivian Revolution. Bolivia, I thought he was a leader of Venezuela. Oh no, you're an American student. You don't know where Bolivia is or where Venezuela is. It is, I mean, that's the most stupid sign I've ever seen. They think he's the leader of Bolivia and maybe they were trying to say, well, we Bolivia, it's a neighbor. It's Marxist. I looked just to see if there was any way that that sign might have had meaning. And then the August 2025 elections so, you know, less than a year ago in Bolivia the Marxists got 3.1 6% of the vote and they hold no seats in the national legislature. So, I don't know what long lived the Bolivian Revolution means. There's no revolution going on there. The last revolution they had was 1959. I don't know, American students that are in support of Maduro, American Marxists, this is crazy stuff.
Rick Green [00:10:01] The most important thing that I know about Bolivia is butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid went there somehow, went down there to rob banks, isn't that terrible? Okay. So, so maybe we will leave that the hemisphere when we come back for the break, we'll, we will get to some more good news, but before we go to break, guys, let me just ask you if I'm understanding the Cuban story, right? Cause I wasn't familiar with all this. So were they basically hired mercenaries? I mean, is that essentially what they are? They, they were literally like almost like hired bodyguards that came in?
Tim Barton [00:10:33] That is what we are reading. Correct. There were some Venezuelan police who were also there, but yeah, what it says is that the bodyguards were actually, Cuban military personnel. So Cuban military, again, from a communist nation who were allies, who Venezuela was benefiting Cuba in money or oil, you know, whatever kind of was lumped into that package. And so, it was their military that was protecting Maduro. And again, why to me, that's super ironic is because you would think Venezuela would have their own military, which by the way, they do have some military personnel. And the fact they're not the ones closely guarding Maduro might suggest because there could be some friction in the ranks, maybe some disagreement with what happened and they felt like it was safer to keep actually people from another nation, their nation benefits, their communists are getting paid and the benefits, whatever else. But yes, it was the Cuban military. This article highlights that was actually protecting Maduro.
Rick Green [00:11:39] All right, well, let's get some more good news as soon as we come back. We got a quick break, guys. Stay with us. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show.
Rick Green [00:12:50] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show, good news Friday today and let's see, I think we had, we had the Venezuela story from David, we have the Venezuela and the Cubans from Tim, so I think we’re back to you, David.
David Barton [00:13:01] Well, actually, I threw that little one in it at the end with that thing on the protesters. I've got another little one I'll give, so that will give two halves, so Tim gets a whole out of this. As long as I can do the new math, I can win this thing. This is just another little post, X post, and it deals with the United Arab Emirates, UAE, the country UAE. A Muslim country over in the Middle East area, and they have cut their funding for their students to go to Great Britain to be educated. They're not letting their students go to Great Brit anymore because they say they're coming back from Great Britain radicalized Muslims. And UAE doesn't want radicalized Muslim. And they're getting too much Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. So here you have a Muslim country saying, going to Great Britain, you come back as radical Muslims, we don't want that. That is amazing to me that you have what we've always known UAE is a very moderate, very pro-Western Muslim state. And so that's just great stuff that they're saying we're not going to put up with radicalization of our kids with this Islamist Muslim Brotherhood stuff. So good news out of UAE with what they're doing to protect their kids from radicalization of Muslim Brother and other things, even though it's happening in Europe and the Western world.
Rick Green [00:14:26] And they're, you know, I've never been there, but my kind of vague understanding of UAE is they're probably one of those most modern, right? I mean, they're wealthy and they, I know there's, I only know it because there's sometimes the UFC fights happen over there. And, and I know a missionary that that's over there, so I know a little bit about it, but it does seem to be one of the more, you know, wealthy, modern enjoying basically a lot of Western civilization, right? Over there.
David Barton [00:14:52] Yeah, that's where we went when we were pulling folks out of Afghanistan back in the fall of August of 21.
Rick Green [00:14:58] Oh, that is right. That's right.
David Barton [00:14:59] We went to UAE and we're over there. It is an awesome place. I think the tallest building in the world is there. They had a shopping center that covered like five or six blocks. It was all under, under cover. It's the biggest shopping center in the world. I mean, they are very, very, very modernized, not at all like we think of with a lot of the Middle East. So yeah, they're, they're very Western country.
Rick Green [00:15:24] Interesting. Okay. So, we've been to South America. We've been to the Middle East. Tim, where are you taking us next, man?
Tim Barton [00:15:30] Well, you might as well be the Middle East. We're going to call it Minnesota, but.
Rick Green [00:15:35] That's good. Oh, that's good Set you up for that without even thinking about it. That's fantastic! That's not fantastic, we're laughing not to cry, right?
Tim Barton [00:15:46] Yeah, it's a good joke, and we laugh because it is sad. So all three of us, and probably I would think for many listeners, saw, or maybe if you didn't see videos posted on social media, maybe you read an article, you heard something about it, that there was a Hilton location up in Minnesota that when ICE agents were trying to stay there, and in Minneapolis, which is where all the chaos has been, that Hilton refused them service. And part of what happened is they would. Use their government ID to sign in or to get a discount because Hilton would give a discount if you're a government employee. And when they saw that it was immigration, they said, oh no, you can't stay here. And so then from the, I think it was Department of Homeland Security, maybe it's Kristian Ohm, Trump, somebody from that side of the aisle from the White House said, hey, we're not staying in this hotel. Like no government people can stay there anymore. We're going to find somewhere else to stay. And it really did kind of take me back a little bit because Hilton, not that they don't have, you know, crazy people that might work for them. But I thought, man, as a company, that seems like a weird thing to do as a company, and so more information has come out now, this Hilton location in Minneapolis is independently owned, it is a franchise independently owned, but here's the headline of my article it says Hilton Booting Location That Refused Service to ICE Agents from Franchise. So, the response is that Hilton is saying, hey, if this is the way you're gonna act, you're not gonna be one of our franchises. So, they're removing the Minneapolis Hotel from its system. Again, after all of this has happened, and there's video footage, there's now, there's emails that have been released where the Hilton staff, and actually management. Email saying that, no, you're not allowed to be here. And this is actually a quote from it: we're not allowing any ICE or immigration agents to stay at our property. And that's the email from hotel management, acknowledging this. And so, there's been reports because there was then, you know, the hotel to some extent, and this is, guys, this is that weird situation. Like we saw some of these in like the George Floyd riots, where, you know, people were putting... Things on their windows to try to keep their business from being destroyed or damaged. And I think they've tried to play a little bit of both sides of the aisle, even though initially they were definitely anti-ice, but now they don't want to lose lots of business, but they don't want to get their building destroyed either. So, they said, hey, we're changing our policy. We allow everybody to stay here. And a reporter went in and they said, oh, we're not changing any of our policies, we're not doing any of that. So, they're holding the strong line of not allowing any ICE or Homeland Security agents to be there. And this is why it's great news that Hilton, the parent company, has said you can't be a franchise with us anymore. And they did release a statement where they said Hilton is and has always been a welcoming place for all. We are also engaging with all our franchises to reinforce the standards we hold them to across our system to help ensure this does not happen again. So kudos to Hilton for making sure that their hotels don't drink the crazy Kool-Aid, but it was also nice to see that there was some level of response from Hilton to this hotel in Minneapolis after for sure for them drinking the woke Kool-Aid saying that they would not allow any of these government employees to stay on their property
Rick Green [00:19:35] Have y'all had any sense of, oh, a softening or backing off from Trump or the administration. I mean, you feel like they're holding strong through all of this nonsense, which it feels that way to me. I just don't know if I'm reading. I want to make sure I'm read the, you know, the, the vibes, right. Cause that would be the concern, right? That there's enough of this lawlessness that, that a weaker president would just start saying, it's not worth it or it's, you know, we, we've got to back off or whatever. I haven't sensed that and I just want to check with y'all you know for our audience. What are y'all sensing?
David Barton [00:20:06] Well, when you look at the deportation numbers, they're not dropping, they're still there. And so, the deportations are up, Tom Holman and others are promising high numbers on that. There's nothing that indicates that they're backing away from any way shape measure form.
Tim Barton [00:20:22] Guys, I think the interesting development will be what kind of lawsuits come against maybe some of these mayors, some of these governors that are actually. Encouraging people, right. To, to interfere with, to oppose, you know, obviously this week when there's been so much conversation around the tragic death of that lady, and you know that lots of questions, was it a justified shoot? Was it not? She had broken multiple laws, federal laws, she did not acknowledge commands, was told to get out of the vehicle, her lesbian wife tells her drive, drive, and you see the body cam of the officer when he gets bumped back by the vehicle. You know, there's, there're so much surrounding this, but if, if there's not some level of accountability or allowment for law enforcement to to navigate with these crazy people better. And I'm saying this knowing we don't want law enforcement to turn against US citizens. We don't. But at the same time, there should be a level of accountability where you have to know you can't interfere with ongoing operations. You can't block police. You can do those things. You should be arrested and go to jail for doing those things and if you think they're doing something wrong, you can peacefully protest and then if they say get out of your car, get out of your car, get arrested, go to jail. Like that's part of what happens in a peaceful protest against something you think is unlawfully conducted, but you don't use your vehicle to try to ram people, et cetera, et cetera. So, I think what's gonna be interesting is what happens with these ICE agents. I've already seen some things this week where many of them have been using tear gas in some of these videos I'm watching. So, it seems like somebody's given them a little bit of a green light to engage a little more. If they get up in your space, if they try to block your vehicles, et cetera, and that's a little more aggressive than we saw at the beginning. But if there's not some level of accountability, and I know a lot of people are saying this for the Somalian fraud and so much happening, there has to be accountability at some level, but I think what will be very interesting is what we are seeing with the accountability for these people that are the protesters. And specifically interfering with this. And then again, when you have mayor Frey and, and Tim Walz and all these people that are encouraging the resistance, is there any level of accountability for them and what happens? To me that's, obviously, I think Trump would love to, have some accountability, but also Trump is the one that said he didn't want to prosecute Hillary because he didn't think it was going to be good for America. He really, I think, he really does have America on his heart and he doesn't want to do things that are going to make it worse for America, even though right now he's doing some of the hard things that make it better for America. It's going to interesting what happens with these protesters. What do you guys think?
Rick Green [00:23:17] Yeah, and I think that part of the reason I asked y'all that is because I think that's a good news item, right? That just that he's, he's seeing it through because of course, this was not the first attempt to run over an ice agent. I mean, it's been 60 something, I think, just in the last year or, or, you know, in the 12 months, I mean it's, it, it takes a steely resolve. And I think we had to pray for him to have that. And of course, Hollman and the whole team that, that is overseeing this. So, I just think it's really good news that the team in place now is not the team that was in place. In his first term that you know we have a lot of the administration that was undercutting him, undermining him so we get to celebrate today and that we hear almost nothing like that this time around and all they just seem to be so much better unified. If there is dissent oh I'm sure there's dissension where they debate these things, but they don't they don't undermine the administration. Okay so sorry sorry I took, so that kind of derailed us from good news technically there and let’s see I think we, who had that one that's right you took us to the Middle East in Minnesota. And, so back to where David?
David Barton [00:24:20] This time we're going back to Trump overseas, it's kind of another good ripple down effect of something he did, just as we're seeing ripple down effects from what he did in Venezuela, that there may topple Cuba, et cetera. If you go back to Iran, when he wiped out that nuclear stuff and I ran, and he made it really clear that look, we warned you guys, we told you guys. We negotiate with you guys you guys broke treaties. We're just not putting up with this and we're not going to let you bring nukes in our part of the world. And he spanked him really good. And what's going on now is kind of like when a parent says don't make me get up out of this chair and come over there and separate you guys. And what happening now is you've had all these protesters and Iran. And at first, they were tolerating protesters now they've started cracking down on these hundred protesters killed and so Trump basically said don't made me come over their again and it's interesting that in just the past couple days, Iran's leadership has directly contacted Trump and say, hey, can we have some talks? Can we get together and talk about this stuff? We don't want to have trouble again. And so, I just, I think that's a great, great example of what happens when you show force with resolve, when you keep your word, when you say, I'm not going to tolerate this kind of bad behavior. And it's like the kids are willing to say, okay. I don't like my sibling right now, but I'm not going to punch him in the face anymore. And so, we'll see. We may see some real end to some of this oppression that goes on in Iran simply as a result of what he did in wiping out their nuclear weapons, which I think is great for the world. It's certainly great for that part of the world, that Middle Eastern, extended Middle East region.
Rick Green [00:26:02] Yeah. Have y'all noticed how many times on good news Friday since Trump's been in office, not only are we talking about good news for America, but for the world. I mean, it's like, it literally is around the world. I remember Lance Wallnau saying that a couple of times, just the fact that, you know, he is, he is a president for, you know, improving not only America, but I mean we definitely make America first, but when America is strong, the world is strong. I remember Rabbi Lapin saying that multiple times. Good stuff. Well, gentlemen, I know you've got a lot more good news. We're not going to be able to get to today. So, we'll certainly try to get as much as possible next Friday. And then of course on our website, everybody wallbuilders.show, you can share today's program and pick up some more of that good news there in the list of programs and then wallbuilders.com for everything else. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to the WallBuilders show.
