“Once Upon a Time in Venezuela” — global media outlets have voiced dozens of different versions of what happened in Caracas, many of which the Director General and Editor-in-Chief of the Georgian Information and Analytical Agency GEORGIAFORM, Director of the Center for Security, Strategic Analysis and Information Policy, Arno Khidirbegishvili, rejects — either fully or in part.

And indeed, the forecasts of the well-known Georgian political analyst, publicist, and journalist have a habit of coming true, as readers have witnessed more than once. The same is true today: the Georgian analyst has his own model of events, which, as always, takes into account the subjective personal factor.

— Mr. Arno, while preparing for this interview with you, we discovered some striking facts. On February 4, 2025 — just two weeks after the inauguration of the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump — you made the following forecast:

“The revolutionary activity of Donald Trump during this short period gives reason to believe that his sculptural portrait will eventually be carved on Mount Rushmore alongside the bas-reliefs of four outstanding American presidents. But on one condition:

1. Trump agrees with Putin on the principles of the postwar structure of Ukraine and halts military assistance to the expired Kyiv regime;

2. Trump fulfills a historic mission — separating the national interests of the United States from those of Great Britain.”

Four months later, in June, you stated:

“The first quarter of the 21st century is coming to an end, and one must acknowledge that the world is still ruled by force rather than justice, by the ‘law of the jungle’ rather than democracy — only now stones and clubs have been replaced by high-tech weapons. The purpose of this force remains unchanged: seizure/control of territories and enrichment.”

Both of your statements proved accurate:

1. The United States carried out an armed seizure of the president of a country larger than one and a half Frances and withdrew from 66 international organizations, half of them under UN auspices;

2. American interests collided with British ones — perhaps for the first time since the discovery of the New World.

Mr. Arno, what actually happened in Venezuela on the night of January 3? Was it good or bad?

Arno Khidirbegishvili:
From a technical standpoint, the special operation to abduct Nicolás Maduro will go down in history alongside Otto Skorzeny’s Operation Oak to free Benito Mussolini and Operation Storm-333, which captured the Tajbeg Palace and eliminated Hafizullah Amin.

As for whether this is good or bad: sabotage and military actions are, of course, always undesirable — though there are situations when they are unavoidable. In any case, this is far better than full-scale war, although sometimes war is necessary too — meaning death in the name of freedom and the lives of future generations. Constant retreat while relying solely on diplomacy is impossible. Afghanistan could not be broken by either the USSR or the United States — was that good or bad?

Playing with open cards, as Trump and Putin are doing today, is better than uncertainty and treacherous intrigues. Saying “I am coming for you” gives the opponent a chance to prepare — it is more honest. Trump warned for almost a year that he would overthrow the Maduro regime. Until the very last day, Trump offered Maduro the chance to leave the country — to go to Turkey — but he stubbornly refused.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, either they were too lazy to properly deploy the Russian-made air defense systems they had purchased, or the regime’s corrupt security forces sold out their president — because Venezuela is a “banana republic,” oil notwithstanding. Trump spent an entire month preparing a high-tech military special operation, bribed elements within the Venezuelan military, and aside from Cuban guards who were killed, no one else suffered. Therefore, accusing the American president of treachery or a stab in the back is unjustified.

 — And how do you view the fact that after the operation in Venezuela, President Trump instructed the Ministry of War — the new official name of the Pentagon — to prepare for a strike on Iran, the seizure of Cuba, and the world’s largest island, Greenland, should bribing Greenlanders fail? Do you also consider this more good than bad?

— At the very least, the United States will stop reproaching others for military actions — first and foremost Russia for its offensive in Ukraine. You see, Trump has already stopped shedding daily “tears” over thousands of victims in Ukraine. He has lost interest in Ukraine because he failed to end the war in two days, as promised during the campaign.

After Venezuela, Trump lost the halo of a “dove of peace” who supposedly ended eight obscure wars and thus deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Europe now realizes that Trump’s America poses a far more serious problem than Putin’s Russia. Trump will take Greenland — an autonomous territory of Denmark, a NATO member — thereby dismantling the North Atlantic Alliance. That would be very good, because Ukraine would be left alone and the war would truly end in two days.

Then Trump will step up to the microphone and declare that he has fulfilled his campaign promise. The U.S. has already almost ceased supplying Ukraine with intelligence and weapons — something Moscow appreciates, limiting its response to Venezuela to a routine Foreign Ministry statement. That is why Russian warships and a submarine did not destroy the U.S. Coast Guard vessel that seized the tanker Marinera — and in return, Russian sailors were promptly released.

— Mr. Arno, the U.S. State Department recently published two slogans on posters: in English, “This is OUR hemisphere,” and in Russian, “DON’T PLAY GAMES with President Trump.” What do they mean? And what does this Washington novelty — speaking to the world this way — signify?

— These posters with their simple slogans are the distilled essence of Trump’s policy — the alpha and omega of his presidential program. I call it THE TRUMP LAW, which has replaced the chaos that reigned in recent years — not the world order agreed upon by Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill after World War II, which effectively died immediately after Stalin’s death.

This did not happen spontaneously. Trump spoke about it from the very first day of his presidency. He prepared seriously, but everyone thought the former showman was joking. He was not. He was shaping public opinion and warning the world — and today, a year later, he has begun implementing what he promised.

It does not even matter whether Trump will manage or have time to fulfill all his promises — to return the Panama Canal to the U.S., annex Canada and Mexico, take control of Cuba and Colombia, or even Brazil, as he did with Venezuela. Reality shows model reality — and under the TRUMP LAW, the world is a show, and the show is Trump. He is a showman not only by vocation but by conviction, as a politician.

Provoking actions and inducing people to participate in them is his worldview philosophy — a tactic used today in global politics only by U.S. President Donald Trump, despite his 79 years. His volatility, bordering on contradiction, is also policy — the TRUMP LAW, built on the principle of show business: the main thing is to spark interest, create a Trump-tsumpa and a trump-pam-pam — whether through sanctions, rallies, tariffs, military intervention, or threats.

What works — where others bend, fear, retreat, and concede — is where U.S. pressure continues. Where resistance emerges, work continues through bribing politicians and military figures, civil society manipulation, preparing a military option, or fomenting an “internal” revolution. The U.S. is now consolidating where it has already succeeded — Venezuela, Ukraine, Zangezur — to prevent Britain, Israel, and France from encroaching.

This is what show means — particularly the Trump show. It is not a circus; it is business and influence. And is politics fundamentally anything else?

— Returning to the two posters: “This is OUR hemisphere” and “DON’T PLAY GAMES with President Trump.” Who are they meant for? Who is the addressee?

— The first slogan tells Great Britain and the European Union that the Western Hemisphere is now U.S. property — just like the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by Trump the “American Gulf.”

The second slogan clarifies the first and is directed at Russia: forget your friends in Latin America — Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil — and do not even think about triggering a “Caribbean Crisis 2.0.” Trump simply rebranded the Monroe Doctrine and the Donroe Doctrine, effectively declaring that everything called “America” — North, South, Central, and Latin America — means the United States and belongs to the United States. According to Trump, the toponym “America” is now synonymous with the USA.

— Everything is clear — except Iran and Syria, which are not in the “Trump zone,” not in the Western Hemisphere…

— There, the U.S. sponsors “Maidan-class” revolutions because nearby is the “51st U.S. state” — Israel, created with Stalin’s assistance. Israel is the sole U.S. outpost in the Middle East. Trump is the “only trump card” not only for Zelensky but also for Netanyahu; only thanks to Trump have they so far avoided accountability for corruption.

There is information that, at Israel’s request, Baku authorized Iran’s multi-million Azerbaijani diaspora to take part in protest rallies. At the same time, the cunning Netanyahu is negotiating with Tehran through Putin.

So let us dump into a large container all last year’s garbage — the bankrupt, fabricated, propagandistic theories of a “multipolar world” and “Western democratic values,” of the “non-existent international law,” “European security architecture,” and “Black Sea regional security concept,” of “rules” and the “crazy Trump who does not know what he is doing.”

These are fairy tales for the poor. The world has always rested on a balance of power — between the West and the USSR, the U.S. and Russia, whose only true allies are Oreshnik, Kinzhal, Poseidon, Sarmat, Avangard, Peresvet, and Burevestnik. Period.

Successful politicians and diplomats have always been those who saw a living human being behind political leaders — with an existential world of their own — not a god or a robot. That is why Stalin not only won that war; he won the second war through diplomacy — defeating Churchill and Roosevelt at the negotiating table and leaving them no alternative but to move in the direction he wanted. Thus he earned their boundless respect.

— And whom does Trump respect?

— Trump respects power. He respects Russia and Putin for military power. He respects China for economic power. The U.S. also possesses military and economic power, which Trump relies upon. And courage cannot be denied him.

For four years after his first presidency, Trump was attacked by Biden’s state apparatus, dragged through courts, threatened with prison, accused of collusion with the Kremlin, and targeted by assassination attempts — yet he stood firm and returned to the presidency. After that, he showed even greater courage by exposing and dismantling the hypocritical Western order — where behind the mask of Euro-Atlantic democratic values flourished corruption and double standards, homosexuality and debauchery, godlessness and drug trafficking, terrorism and illegal migration that flooded Western capitals and exploited European women.

— Mr. Arno, everything you say contradicts what is heard on television and in the media — as always — and this greatly attracts readers, probably because it aligns with their inner feelings. “How simple it all is,” they think. “We would have said the same ourselves.”

— Do you know the problem with the overwhelming majority of modern politicians and political commentators? They are trained within rigid ideological frameworks — from Marxism-Leninism and National Socialism to globalism and George Soros’s neoliberalism, which implies minority dictatorship — and they refuse to break through those walls.

As I wrote in “THE BLINDERS OF WESTERN PROPAGANDA,” their eyes are fitted with blinders, like horses in a race, preventing them from seeing beyond dogma and recognizing the new world, the changes unfolding around them, and most importantly — the human being behind political leaders, with strengths and weaknesses. That is why their predictions have no more chance of coming true than those of a railway fortune teller.

Accustomed to seeing intrigue, subtext, and conspiracies everywhere, these experts have outsmarted themselves. In reality, things are far simpler — simple like Trump, who openly ignores all rules. This “yellow product” still sells, of course, because society craves spectacle more than bread. Scandals, gossip, intrigue entertain the rich and dull the hunger of the poor.

Today, Trump has eclipsed Hollywood with his reality shows, and the U.S. rightfully remains the world’s leading producer of spectacle. And in small Georgia live the world’s biggest consumers of shows, approving Washington’s decisions — although Trump could not care less. That is why before U.S. elections, President Putin stated that he preferred Biden: traditional politicians, even with double or triple bottoms, are predictable and thus incapable of creative surprises.

Trump is different — a businessman and showman, a pragmatist and an aesthete. He seeks profit through deals while adhering to a traditional worldview of harmony between humans and the external world. Trump does not break outdated rules out of whim or for shock value; he replaces them with a new law — THE TRUMP LAW. It is direct and simple, not always refined, often blunt by diplomatic standards.

Trump despises the ceremonies of the rotten British Empire — knights of the Round Table in freezing castles, barely copulating with blood relatives without removing clanking armor. The pomp with which the Anglo-Saxons greeted Trump in London was a fatal mistake — he perceived it as humiliation, a display of British imperial supremacy over the “savages” of the New World. Britain is now paying the price.

Trump’s directness is not Soros’s “transparency.” It expresses reality as it is perceived by the majority of humanity. Upon becoming president, Trump issued an executive order recognizing only two biological sexes — male and female — as created by God, not countless genders as Soros promotes.

The concept of “gender,” introduced by Soros, led to the creation of about 30,000 so-called NGOs in Georgia — alternative power structures funded from abroad. These NGOs form the Deep State, an oppositional shadow authority working to overthrow official governments.

Trump is a defender of Christianity. In February last year, he created a task force to combat anti-Christian bias in federal agencies such as the DOJ, FBI, and IRS. In May 2025, a Religious Freedom Commission was established to prepare a report by July 4, 2026 — the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.

Trump dismantled USAID, calling its leaders “a bunch of insane radicals,” and blocked NED — a severe blow to EED and Georgian NGOs they sponsored. Elon Musk labeled them “criminal organizations that should die,” “a nest of worms funding biological weapons, including COVID-19,” and “radically left, politically biased entities worldwide,” posting footage of the Georgian “revolution” in Tbilisi on October 4 last year. Musk also refuses to recognize his transgender child.

— Mr. Arno, I have never encountered such a portrait of President Trump. What is the aesthetic dimension of Trump? And why did he start with Venezuela?

— Venezuelan oil does not interest Trump — just as Ukrainian rare earths do not. Oil reserves never guarantee security. Venezuela is known not for oil, but for the Miss Venezuela beauty pageant, whose winners dominated Miss Universe and Miss World — competitions owned and organized by Donald Trump from 1996 to 2015.

Female beauty is a powerful force, something Trump understands well. “Europe didn’t give me the Nobel Peace Prize? To hell with them!” Trump thought — and took patronage over Miss Venezuela. Everyone quickly forgot about Maduro’s abduction. Already forgotten.

This is Trump’s aesthetic — an integral part of his politics and management: using female beauty as an irrefutable argument. All three of Trump’s wives were stunning. Look at how many beautiful women are in his team — appointed to the highest offices: Kristi Noem, Elise Stefanik, Tulsi Gabbard, Karoline Leavitt, Pam Bondi — and more. Beautiful women will never betray Trump, and they have proven far more effective than men who lied shamelessly.

— Thank you for your time, Mr. Arno. Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!

Sputnik Georgia
January 16, 2026
Tbilisi, Georgia

P.S.
After the interview, I kept thinking about the phenomenon of Trump — whether I had missed something important. But nothing came to mind except Lermontov’s line:
“He rose against the opinions of the world,
Alone, as before… and slain!”