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Jane Coaston: It’s Monday, January 5th. Happy New Year. I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show wondering if director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard has any thoughts on President Donald Trump’s recent adventures in Venezuela, given her comments back in October. 

[clip of Tulsi Gabbard] For decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation-building. 

Jane Coaston: Maybe this uh regime change incident is different this time, for reasons. [music break] On today’s show, Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene resigns from Congress after a career that played out like a Greek tragedy or comedy, depending on how you look at it. And the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, chastises President Trump for his actions in Venezuela. He’s also probably not super stoked that the newest resident of Brooklyn is Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Let’s start there, with former-ish Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Yes, I know, a lot happened while we were away on break. But it’s essential to begin with the biggest news of the year so far, the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, who were brought to the United States over the weekend. Here’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday. 

[clip of Marco Rubio] We arrested a narcotrafficker who’s now going to stand trial in the United States for the crimes he’s committed against our people for 15 years. And the person who helped him, of course, his wife, who was co-located with him, so she was arrested as well. That’s what happened here. 

Jane Coaston: After months of attacking alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean, President Trump ordered the operation late Friday evening. According to the New York Times, it took less than three hours, during which at least 80 people, including Venezuelan troops and civilians, were killed. After his capture, Maduro and his wife were taken by warship to the United States and then flown to New York, where they will face federal drug trafficking charges. They’re scheduled to appear in court today. There are a ton of questions around how this operation happened and what, if any, legal authority the United States had to capture Maduro in the first place. But most importantly, what happens to Venezuela now? It seems like the Trump administration isn’t really sure either. But at a press conference Saturday, President Trump said that we’re running Venezuela and will be for the foreseeable future. And on Sunday, Rubio didn’t exactly say otherwise to NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker. 

[clip of NBC’s Kristen Welker] Mr. Secretary, who is in charge? Are you running Venezuela right now? 

[clip of Marco Rubio] Yeah, I mean, I keep people you know fixating on that. Here’s the bottom line on it is we expect to see changes in Venezuela, changes of all kinds, long-term, short-term. We’d love to see all kinds of changes, but the most immediate changes are the ones that are in the national interest of the United States. 

Jane Coaston: That’s pretty clear. And while the Venezuelan opposition has backed Nobel Prize winner María Corina Machado as a potential presidential candidate, the Trump administration is supporting Venezuelan vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who is a big backer of Maduro, also the country’s minister of petroleum, which I’m sure is just a coincidence. After all, Rubio explained on Sunday that sidestepping Machado is just about expediency. So to talk more about Venezuela, the prosecution of Madero, and what the hell is going to happen now, I spoke to Juan Sebastian Gonzalez. He’s the former national security council senior director for the Western hemisphere under the Biden administration. Juan, welcome back to What a Day. 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So first things first, what do we know about the United States’ capture of Maduro and his wife early Saturday morning? 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: Yeah, so everybody woke up to the sound or news of US military attacks inside of Caracas, Venezuela. The US says Venezuela under the de facto president Nicolás Maduro became a threat to the United States. You know, the trafficking of drugs, organized crime, corruption, and basically a strategic foothold for China, Russia, Iran. And overnight US special forces carried out a surprise operation. They captured Nicolás Maduro and his his wife Cilia Flores, they flew them out. Maduro is now in US custody in the Southern District of New York and is expected to face charges tied to drug trafficking and to the trafficking of weapons. They describe him as a narco terrorist that’s involved in a conspiracy to move large amounts of cocaine. 

Jane Coaston: Specifically with this military operation, I was reminded of the effort to capture Saddam Hussein or previous efforts where the military operation reportedly took months of planning to execute and was very, like, thorough and well-planned, but is there any clarity so far as to whether or not there’s a plan for what happens now, now that Maduro is in U.S. custody. 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: Not really. Um. I will say I’ve been working in Venezuela for a very long time, and I never thought that special forces would be able to get in there. They’ve been coup-proofing that place for over 26 years. It’s a high denial environment. It is an urban area. So amazing that Delta Force was able to do it. I think the closest historic analogy is is Panama in ’89 and ’90, but Secretary Rubio gave an interview on Face the Nation where my takeaway was they basically either moved away or lied about their intent in Venezuela, which was initially like a democratic project. But right now, the administration is treating it like a strategic and economic takeover problem. It’s unclear what’s going to happen next. They’ve allowed Delcy Rodríguez, who’s the sitting vice president, to remain in power. So this is not regime change, it’s autocrat change, basically. We’re now dealing with Maduro lite. And what Rubio basically said was, they’re going to continue to impose the oil embargo on Venezuela to try to pressure her to do what is right. And by that I think you look at the president’s press conference and it’s, they want the oil and the resources inside of the country, but this could go very much sideways and there really isn’t, they haven’t articulated how the U.S. would do it, but they’re definitely gonna own it because the president has said the U S will run Venezuela for a period and push for a transition. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I was really struck by how this operation seemed to be focused purely on Maduro. You mentioned Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who, you know, the Wall Street Journal said is just as much of a hardened socialist as Maduro was, and is also a big supporter and backer of Maduro, did that strike you that other government leaders weren’t targeted? Even those who are believed to have been part of whatever trafficking operations the government is accusing Maduro of organizing? 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: Yes and no. I was surprised because what the Venezuelan opposition had been calling for was a 100-day plan where 14 of the kind of highest level ranking members around Nicolás Maduro would be removed, that there would be like a security presence by international force to help kind of facilitate the entry of the duly elected leader Edmundo González who won the election in July of 2024. A lot of the commentary around Venezuela was this question of how is the president going to de-escalate from this? You have 10 to 13% of the entire US Navy off the shore of Venezuela. How are they actually going to basically declare victory? And this seems to be an effort by them to have their cake and eat it too, which is they got Maduro, they got their man, they can check the box, they aren’t putting boots on the ground, you know and now they got the oil. What is really, I think, concerning is it seems like they’ve thrown the Venezuelan opposition completely under the bus. And you know it’s unclear to see how that will play out because they haven’t articulated whether they’re actually promote an electoral process, or if they’re just gonna try to deal with, as I mentioned, Maduro lite. Delcy Rodríguez actually has a reputation. I’ve met her, had a couple of interactions with her. She’s probably the most effective administrator and bureaucrat of the bunch. And there was a report, I believe, in the Wall Street Journal where it said that the administration was very surprised and impressed by how she was able to increase oil output despite their oil embargo. So they’re keeping her in place to basically keep the lights on and keep the oil flowing. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, it’s interesting because the government is saying this was a law enforcement action. It originally looked like regime change, and that’s how it sounded for the last couple of months, and that’s how I’m sure people within the Venezuelan opposition took it to be, but now it seems it’s entirely about oil. 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: Oh, absolutely. It’s absolutely about oil. And you’ve seen like statements by Senator Mark Warner, Senator Andy Kim, Ruben Gallegos. They’ve called this out because I think the authority the administration has used is a law enforcement authority to just go in and get their guy, execute a warrant and get this guy out. But, you know, this was a military action where they should actually have gone to Congress for authorization. So it’s a question about, does the president of the United States actually have this authority? And he does not and should never have this authority. 

Jane Coaston: Is there any precedent in the U.S. for this kind of military action against a foreign government? I’m thinking of Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989, who was never elected. He was a dictator. Is there any comparison there? 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: There is in the sense that like it was a law enforcement action to go after a drug trafficker, but you know we didn’t just grab him, we stayed there. We also had a, we owned the canal at that point. It was under our control and we had a huge military presence with over 25,000 Marines in the country. It was a huge undertaking and that’s not what this was. I think what’s interesting here is perhaps if you look at the Iraq analogy on this and you do some comparison, I think maybe there’s a lesson that the administration has learned, which is that the [?] in Iraq was a huge mistake. So here, I think what they’re trying to do is keep the the institution of government running and trying to have their cake and eat it too by by not getting into the country, but by trying to kind of run it from outside by imposing the oil blockade and sanctions. I was joking that everybody in the United States is getting called back to the office, but we’re teleworking the transition in Venezuela. I don’t know how well that’s gonna actually fly. 

Jane Coaston: Maduro and his wife are expected in court today in the Southern District of New York. What charges are they facing? 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: It’s a narcoterrorism drug case. So they’re accused of the possession and trafficking of machine guns and the trafficking of drugs, which is kind of interesting if you compare it to a similar case, which is the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, similar charges, also in the Southern District of New York. 

Jane Coaston: If I recall, that former Honduran president was uh pardoned.

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: He was pardoned. So I think in this case, it’s, you know, each drug trafficker really depends. It just seems like the selective application of law enforcement. 

Jane Coaston: Now I think it’s really worth separating how America and Americans are handling this whole episode and how Venezuelans are, because I know I’ve spoken to some folks who are from Venezuela and I’m wondering if you have too, because a lot of people are celebrating. They are celebrating Maduro’s exit and they are very hopeful about the future. So I’m wondering, one, what have you been hearing from folks in Venezuela and two, what do you make of their hopefulness, their excitement and what the future could look like?

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: I think first of all that the departure of Nicolás Maduro is a bipartisan issue. I think the debate here in the United States is about how to actually do that. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: So I think they’re right to be hopeful on the day that Maduro was taken out. I think that the rug got pulled out from under them after the Trump press conference where he basically I think threw María Corina Machado under the bus. You have some Venezuelans now that are like, I think shocked that the administration is doing this, even though I think Trump has been pretty clearly opening about oil inside of Venezuela and the payoff potentially for for the United States. Then on the other side, you have what we call Maga-zuelans, and those folks, I think, are continuing to delude themselves that this administration will eventually find a way to install María Corina Machado. You saw Díaz-Balart give a press conference, Congressman Díaz-Balart with Congressman Giménez and Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, where they were adamant that María Corina Machado would be installed. So it’s been an interesting break between Rubio um who’s fundamentally a South Florida politician and like some of his I think closest political allies. And to me, I think the conclusion from that is that I think Rubio is a true believer. I think Rubio does want to put María Corina Machado in place. I think, Trump, on the other hand, this is my view, has basically constrained Rubio’s ability to actually do this because he does not want to get stuck into this. And the outcome is going to be if this succeeds and there’s a chance that like Rubio pulls this off, right? They have a transition, everything works, there’s no violence. I think there’s a very low chance of that. Trump gets the victory, he gets the win. If this goes horribly sideways, then Rubio goes under the bus. And so I think Trump is in a great position and Rubio I think has to be able to deliver. 

Jane Coaston: What happens next in Venezuela? 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: Yeah. So the first one, as I alluded to is a I think is a managed transition. That’s probably the best case scenario. The Venezuelan constitution requires that if the president has been removed, dies or is inhabilitated in the first half of his or her term, that they have to have an elections within 30 days. So US pressure could lead to elections or a real transition process that starts. Power is shared or maybe handed off in a way that prevents kind of the revenge killings and the country from breaking apart and Americans get fewer migrants at the border over time, less criminal flow. More stable energy markets. Scenario two, which which seems like the one that we’re in right now is again, Delcy Rodríguez becomes the public leader and the security forces and criminal networks stay in place. Reforms are theater. And what Americans get out of that is continued crime and corruption, spillover, continued migration pressure in a Venezuela that stays unstable, but is managed. The last, and I think a very likely scenario, it’s the worst one is this power struggle turns violent. Armed groups expand, you have not just the military, but you have illegal armed groups all over that country and pseudo paramilitary groups. And the US ends up getting pulled deeper in their involvement because it owns this. You know they break it, you buy it. And so this, I think what Americans get here is a long and expensive foreign commitment, more regional instability, and frankly, like a bigger opening, strategic opening for China and others to play the we do business, the US does chaos card in the Americas. 

Jane Coaston: Juan, thank you so much again for joining me. 

Juan Sebastian Gonzalez: Yeah, thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, former National Security Council Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere under the Biden administration. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Chuck Schumer] Rubio I just heard him in your interview said they’re doing what’s good for the American people. If they want to do what’s good for the American people it should not be some escapade in Venezuela. It should be focusing on lowering the cost of living. 

Jane Coaston: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made clear he’s bringing the affordability message into the new year in an interview Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Congressional reaction to the Trump administration’s military action in Venezuela has basically split along party lines. Democrats acknowledged Maduro’s presidency was illegitimate but largely condemned the action as unauthorized and dangerous. They warned it lacked congressional approval, violated international law, and risked escalating US military involvement abroad. Republicans largely rallied behind the operation, accepting Trump’s argument that the strike was justified as part of executing a U.S. arrest warrant for Nicolás Maduro. Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan defended the Trump administration to Dana Bash on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. 

[clip of Representative Jim Jordan] I trust Secretary Rubio, I trust Secretary Hegseth, I trust President Trump in his making decisions that again are in the best interest of the American people. And frankly, I just trust our military. 

Jane Coaston: Stunning bravery. Later in Jordan’s interview, to be fair, he was very skeptical about a president. 

[clip of Representative Jim Jordan] Contrast the president’s actions, what took place two days ago? What took place when with uh you know Midnight Hammer when he stopped Iran? Contrast that with the previous administration. Contrast that with Joe Biden. Joe Biden let a Chinese spy balloon–. 

[clip of Dana Bash] Alright, lets–

[clip of Representative Jim Jordan] Fly clear across the country. 

[clip of Dana Bash] Lets focus. Lets focus on the president.

[clip of Representative Jim Jordan] And then shot it down. You think President Trump–

Jane Coaston: The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Connecticut Democratic Representative Jim Himes, responded to Jordan’s comments later in the show. 

[clip of Representative Jim Himes] He’s being asked to explain an imperial adventure, right? I mean, you did a pretty good job. An imperial adventure from the guy who was gonna be America first and not get into stupid wars. And his answer is, I trust the president. I trust the president. I trust the President. That is giving the game away because two-thirds of my Republican colleagues in the Congress wake up every single morning and say, what can I do today to prove my loyalty to the president of the United States? And Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, seems to be unaware that our whole system, our whole system, Dana, is set up to provide checks and balances, that the job of a member of Congress is to approach the president, regardless of that president’s party, with skepticism. 

Jane Coaston: That ship sailed a while ago, Representative. Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is officially resigning from Congress today. We’ll remember the far-right lawmaker for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about space lasers causing California wildfires, threatening violence against her Democratic colleagues, and spewing homophobic and transphobic hate. But in recent months, she has been one of the few congressional Republicans willing to criticize certain Trump administration policies. In a lengthy post on Twitter over the weekend, Greene pointed out the hypocrisy of President Trump’s decision to attack Venezuela and forcibly remove President Nicolás Maduro from office. Chief among her critiques is the fact that if this was all really about keeping fentanyl out of the US, it doesn’t make sense to go after Venezuela, which is not actually a major source of fentanyl. Green also said in her statement that she believes the Trump administration’s main motivation for capturing Maduro is to gain control over Venezuela’s oil reserves in order to then, quote, “ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran.” For all of Greene’s many, many, many faults, at least she’s willing to point out that it’s hard to put America first if you’re also running Venezuela. On Sunday, freshly inaugurated New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters that he spoke with President Trump to express his disapproval over the U.S. Military’s capture of Nicolás Maduro. Maduro is now being held in a federal jail in Brooklyn. 

[clip of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani] I called the president and spoke with him directly to register my opposition to this act and to make clear that it was an opposition based on being opposed to a pursuit of regime change, to the violation of federal international law, and a desire to see that be consistent each and every day. 

Jane Coaston: Mamdani also said that this attempted regime change will impact the, quote, “tens of thousands of Venezuelans who call this city home,” and that his focus is on their safety. The new mayor has been busy reversing the work of his predecessor, Eric Adams. Mamdami’s first executive order revoked all executive orders signed by Adams after September 26th, 2024, the day that the former mayor was indicted on federal criminal charges. Mamdani explained the order by saying, quote, “that was a date that marked a moment when many New Yorkers decided that politics held nothing for them but more of the same.” And Turkish airline points. Don’t forget those. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I thought the easiest one would be, one of the easier ones would be Russia-Ukraine. It’s not. And they both have done some pretty bad things. 

Jane Coaston: That was President Trump speaking to reporters on Saturday, admitting that this whole international diplomacy thing is kind of hard. He met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Mar-a-Lago late last month to discuss a 20-point peace plan proposed by Ukraine, which Zelenskyy later said the two sides are mostly in agreement on. This week, Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials are meeting in Paris with representatives from Europe and the U.S. to discuss security guarantees from the peace plan. Those guarantees include the deployment of European-led troops to Ukraine, as well as the U.S. serving as a, quote, “backstop” in the event that Russia attacks Ukraine in the future. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said last month that Russia would not accept a peace plan that allows for European troops in Ukraine. Ahead of this week’s security talks, Zelenskyy also expressed some support for the Trump administration’s capture of Nicolás Maduro, telling reporters on Saturday, quote, “if dictators can be dealt with in this way, then the United States of America knows what it should do next.” Indeed. And that’s the news. [music break] That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, contemplate how Grok AI, Twitter’s built-in chatbot, spent its holiday break making non-consensual sexual images of young women and children, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how the chatbot was producing, quote, “sexualized images of children in response to prompts from users,” which is a violation both of federal law and just every form of human decency, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston. And in case you’re wondering, Elon Musk, who owns Twitter, responded to the mass posting of non-consensual sexualized images by a chat bot on his own website by posting the laugh cry emoji. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Fohr and Chris Allport. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]