In the first days of 2026, the headlines are not whispering anymore. They are shouting. President Trump, Maduro, Venezuela, narco terrorism, the war on drugs, the U.S. military, Trump foreign policy, and the fight for freedom are all colliding in real time. And if you care about current events through a biblical worldview, you should be paying attention, because this is not just geopolitics. This is consequences. This is accountability. This is a warning to dictators, terrorists, and the political class that has protected them. I’m Daniel Cohen, and on RLN News and The Daniel Cohen Show on Real Life Network, we are watching a new pattern form: America’s enemies are learning that there is a price for harming the American people, and 2026 is looking like a year of reckoning.

For four years under Joe Biden and the Democrat machine, the world watched America project weakness. The southern border became a pipeline for fentanyl and cartel profit. Terror proxies took notes. Dictators grew bolder. And narco traffickers operated like they were untouchable. But then President Trump returned, and the message became unmistakable: there are consequences.

Maduro dared Trump. He mocked him. He acted like he was shielded by geography and protected by alliances with bad actors. Now, according to the script you just read, Maduro and his wife are in handcuffs, headed for the justice system, and the question is not only “how did this happen so fast,” but “who is next?”

Operation Absolute Resolve and the End of Impunity

Let’s back up and talk about why this moment matters. What the script describes is not a long, grinding war. It is not nation building. It is not an endless occupation. It is a swift strike built on a principle the political class forgot: when a regime becomes a hub for narco terrorism, weapons smuggling, and the poisoning of Americans through fentanyl, it becomes a direct threat.

In the story we are watching unfold, President Trump gives the green light to Operation Absolute Resolve, and within hours, Maduro is captured and brought to face justice. That speed is the point. It sends a message that is louder than any speech at the United Nations. Dictators who rely on delay, distance, and bureaucracy are suddenly forced to calculate risk again.

The Democrats and their media allies immediately reached for the same old talking points. They accused Trump of “gunboat diplomacy.” They claimed it was about oil. They tried to dress moral confusion in moral slogans. But here is what the script exposes: the same political movement that tolerated strongmen for decades suddenly finds its voice when someone finally removes one.

You remember the history. Hugo Chavez insulting an American president at the U.N. Democrats applauding. Obama shaking hands with Chavez. The left treating anti-American propaganda like sophistication. That is not compassion. That is ideological blindness.

And it is not just Venezuela. It is the entire Western Hemisphere. When adversaries like Iran, China, and Russia seek footholds in Latin America, they are not doing charity work. They are positioning. They are building leverage. They are looking for bases of operation. And the point Secretary Rubio makes in the script is clear: America does not “need” Venezuela’s oil, but America cannot allow hostile regimes to control strategic energy infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere and use it to fund terror networks and criminal pipelines.

That is not imperialism. That is sovereignty. That is security. That is protecting American families.

The Democrat Reaction and the Moral Slogan Trap

One of the most telling moments in the script is not a battlefield image. It is the reaction. The Democrat ecosystem instinctively picks the wrong side, again and again, because it is driven more by opposition to Trump than by a consistent moral framework.

They called Maduro illegitimate when it was convenient, then condemned consequences when they arrived. They speak of human rights while defending organizations and narratives that empower terrorists. They want you to believe that strong action is automatically corrupt, and that weakness is automatically virtuous. But victims of tyranny do not live by slogans. They live by reality.

That Venezuelan Jewish woman in the script nails it. Outsiders love to explain Venezuela to Venezuelans and Israel to Jews using phrases that sound morally correct while ignoring the lived experience of people under threat. That same pattern shows up everywhere right now. People who have never lived under socialism preach to those who escaped it. People who have never faced existential danger lecture Israelis about survival. People who have never buried family members from cartel violence minimize border chaos as politics.

The script makes another uncomfortable point: Democrats have trained America’s enemies to assume there will be no serious consequences. That assumption is now collapsing. When Trump says “watch it,” the world understands it is not theater.

That is why Colombia’s socialist leadership is nervous. That is why Cuba becomes part of the conversation. That is why dictators and narco traffickers are suddenly weighing escape plans instead of victory speeches.

This is what deterrence looks like when it is credible.

Iran, Israel, and the Reckoning Spreading Beyond Venezuela

The script pivots from Venezuela to Iran for a reason. These stories are connected. When a narco terrorist dictator falls quickly, it reshapes the psychological map for every regime that survives by fear. Iran is not just a distant foreign policy issue. Iran is a regime obsessed with destroying Israel and undermining America, while its own people suffer under economic collapse and brutal repression.

The details in the script are staggering. Currency collapse. Inflation. Food prices soaring. Protesters killed. Women punished for a strand of hair. And in the middle of that, the regime pours resources into terror and ideology instead of water, electricity, and dignity. That is what totalitarian systems do. They feed the machinery of control and starve the human beings trapped under it.

And when the script references biblical truth about Israel’s endurance, it is not an aside. It is worldview. The point is this: regimes can rage, but they cannot rewrite the covenant purposes of God. The Iranian regime can threaten. Proxies can posture. Campuses can chant. But truth does not bend to propaganda.

Which brings me to one of the most chilling parts of the script: American professors on Zoom calls encouraging revolutionary violence, praising Hamas talking points, and normalizing the ideology that led to October 7 atrocities. This is not “free speech as an abstract concept.” This is the shaping of young minds. This is radicalization packaged as education. And it explains why socialist and Islamist aligned narratives are gaining traction in places like New York City.

When you see leaders talk openly about property as a “collective good,” you are watching Marxism shed the mask. The abolition of private property is not a misunderstanding. It is the point. And when Americans vote for it, they discover too late that ideology always has consequences, just like dictators do.

The script ties it all together with a final development: even as Trump confronts threats abroad, the administration pressures institutions to stop irreversible medical interventions on minors. That is part of the same theme. Boundaries. Reality. Consequences. A refusal to pretend that lies are compassion.

And I’ll end where the script ends: Isaiah 54:17 reminds us that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. That promise is not political branding. It is spiritual assurance. America is not finished, and God is not done.

If you want news, culture, Israel coverage, and current events through biblical truth, watch The Daniel Cohen Show on Real Life Network. Download the free app and watch the full episode at reallifenetwork.com.