Background Briefing: October 12, 2025

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And the Nobel Peace Prize Goes to…Maria Corina Machado Not Donald J. Trump 

We begin with the Nobel Peace Prize which Trump lobbied for and expected to get instead going to Maria Corina Machado, the leader of the opposition in Venezuela who should be the nation’s leader since she overwhelmingly won the last election but is now in hiding. We discuss recent backchannel negotiations Trump’s Richard Grenell held with the dictator Maduro’s team which had Venezuela offering generous business opportunities to American oil companies and corporations but with Maduro refusing to step down. We discuss how Secretary of State and National Security advisor Marco Rubio apparently scuttled the initiative in order to launch a military pressure campaign on the failed regime to bring about hoped-for regime change. Joining us is Alejandro Velasco, Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs and Associate Professor at New York University. A historian of modern Latin America focusing on social movements, urban culture and democratization, he is the author of Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela.

 

The Latest Moves by the Shadowy Power Broker Who Owns J.D. Vance, Peter Thiel 

Then we look into the latest moves by the shadowy power broker Peter Thiel who has promoted his protegee J.D. Vance to be a heartbeat away from Trump who is visibly ailing both mentally and physically. We discuss what is behind Thiel’s obsession with the antichrist and a leak from inside of a $trillion campaign fund for a Vance presidency being hatched in Silicon Valley with the possibility of the 25th Amendment being invoked sooner than later and Donald Trump Junior on the 2028 ticket as President Vance’s Vice President. Joining us is Gil Duran, a San Francisco journalist who previously served as editorial page editor of The Sacramento Bee and The San Francisco Examiner. He currently writes the FrameLab as well as the Nerd Reich Newsletters on Substack and regularly contributes to the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications. He served as Press Secretary for Jerry Brown and Kamala Harris when she was the Attorney General of California, and his latest article at The Nerd Reich is “Peter Thiel says Antichrist ‘Wants a Nobel Peace Prize.‘”

 

Thom Hartmann on His Latest Book The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party and a World on the Brink

Then finally we speak with Thom Hartmann, the host of the nationally and internationally syndicated talk show The Thom Hartmann Program, carried on SiriusXM and radio stations nationwide and broadcast in video on Free Speech TV. A four-time recipient of the Project Censored Award, Hartmann is also a New York Times bestselling author of thirty-five books, translated into multiple languages, including The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream, and The Hidden History of American Democracy. His latest book is The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party and a World on the Brink and we discuss his latest article at Common Dreams “Wake Up! Trump is Moving Swiftly to Become the First American Dictator.“

On Saturday October 18th at 5PM, on NO KINGS DAY, Thom will be engaged in a conversation on his new book The Last American President in Long Beach at the Teamsters Local 848 Hall.