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00:04Welcome to The Whole Story. I'm Anderson Cooper.
00:06The capture and arrest of Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife last week raised
00:11a number of questions about the legality of the operation, as well as the motivations
00:15behind the Trump administration for his ouster.
00:18The U.S. and Venezuela have a long and complicated history.
00:22They were once allies until the Hugo Chavez years, when the relationship deteriorated
00:27and only worsened under the Maduro regime, which saw an increase in violence and poverty
00:32and corruption. CNN's David Culver has been reporting this week from the border of Venezuela.
00:37And in this next hour, he takes us through everything we know about the events leading
00:40up to the raid inside Caracas, the legal case against Maduro, and what may be next for Venezuela.
00:53The news was sudden and startling. A foreign leader whisked from his homeland in U.S. custody,
01:01headed for America. President Nicolas Maduro and his wife have been captured in a U.S. attack
01:07and flown out of Venezuela. But the plan had been coming together for months, right before
01:14our eyes. The U.S. began this massive buildup of forces in the Caribbean in August, and no
01:20one was quite sure what they were actually doing there. And then the boat strikes began.
01:26The U.S. military carried out a strike in international waters on an alleged drug boat.
01:30Those attacks on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean and in the Eastern Pacific that the
01:36U.S. was using the military to conduct. There were three attacks in September.
01:40And this is a really significant escalation. By the end of December, 35 boats had been destroyed,
01:46and at least 115 people killed. These are people that are killing our population. We're saving
01:52tremendous amounts of lives. We never believed that this was just about drugs. Why not? Well,
01:58first of all, the president's been rightly concerned about the fentanyl crisis. But fentanyl does not move
02:04through Venezuela. It's mostly cocaine. But a lot of the cocaine that comes from that region
02:11and goes through Venezuela ends up in Europe, not the United States. Most of it, actually.
02:17There's a reason for concern, but not the kind of concern that would require you to move 15 or 20
02:23percent
02:23of the U.S. Navy offshore. By October, the Trump administration had amped the military pressure
02:31significantly, sending the world's largest warship toward Venezuela, the USS Gerald R. Ford, along with
02:38its support ships. You don't need the Gerald R. Ford to intercept these boats. The Coast Guard can do it
02:45with small cutters very nicely. Thank you. And thousands of U.S. troops were arriving in Puerto Rico.
02:52Then economic pressure was added on top of military pressure. In mid-December, President Trump announced a
02:59blockade on all oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela. Not going to let anybody going through
03:06that shouldn't be going through. The U.S. would seize two Venezuelan-linked oil tankers in December.
03:12The blockade was really designed to cripple Venezuela's economy. The idea was that this policy
03:18of maximum pressure was going to work and finally make sure that someone within the military or within the
03:26the Venezuelan government would do something against Maduro. And just in case military and economic
03:33pressure wouldn't do the trick, the Trump administration added another element, the CIA.
03:40Beginning in August, the CIA inserted a very small team into Caracas undetected in order to monitor
03:47Venezuelan President Maduro's movements. They managed to track his locations, where he was living,
03:54what he was eating, what he was wearing. And so this was creating a very detailed pattern of life
03:59that the CIA was then able to pass back to the U.S. military so that they could ultimately map
04:06out
04:06where Maduro would be at any given points. The CIA also, according to our sources, actually had an asset
04:13inside Maduro's inner circle that was feeding them information as well. And in late December,
04:19the CIA orchestrated the first U.S. attack on Venezuelan soil.
04:23There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.
04:28This particular operation was carried out by the CIA, which conducted a drone strike on a port facility
04:33on the coast of Venezuela that they believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua
04:39to load drugs onto boats coming from Venezuela and then ship them onward.
04:44It was all designed to make Maduro voluntarily give up power. But publicly, he didn't seem to be
04:51taking any of it too seriously. There were repeated instances of the Venezuelan leader
04:57doing crazy, exaggerated dances. He gets up there and he tries to imitate my dance a little bit.
05:03According to the New York Times, that dancing made the Trump administration believe Maduro was
05:09mocking or dismissing the U.S. president. I don't think Maduro ever dreamed there'd be a snatch and
05:15grab in Caracas. What I was working on this in 2019 and 20, we kept saying all options are on
05:22the table.
05:23But the lesson Maduro would have learned is they weren't really on the table. We weren't going to do
05:29anything military. Behind the scenes, there were conversations with Maduro, including directly
05:35with the president on at least one or two occasions, where by the president's own account,
05:42he told Maduro to leave the country. So the initial order by President Trump to get the mission started
05:50came at 10 46 p.m. on Friday night. Around 2 a.m. local time, which is 1 a.m.
06:03Eastern time,
06:03there began to be a lot of explosions lighting up the sky in Venezuela. Very dramatic images were
06:10coming out from the ground. It turned out to be those explosions from the U.S. drones and warplanes
06:16dropping bombs on these military installations in Venezuela, radio towers, air defense systems,
06:22kind of lighting up the sky in a way that made it seem like the entire city was under attack.
06:28Analyst Phil Gunson lives in Caracas. My wife heard some bangs and wasn't sure what was going on,
06:34thought it might be thunder or maybe an earthquake. And I was actually woken up by a phone call,
06:40a friend of mine calling me to see if I was okay. This operation involved over 150 aircraft.
06:47You can see some of the helicopters approaching in this video posted to social media.
06:52Up to 200 U.S. personnel were on the ground in Caracas as this operation unfolded. Several of
07:00them were very elite Delta Force operators who were the ones who were actually going to go into the
07:05compound and arrest Maduro. Upon reaching that compound, the Delta Force operators actually
07:11encountered a Cuban quick reaction force, which is serving as a kind of security force for Maduro,
07:17and a massive gunfight ensued. No American was killed. The Cuban government has said that more
07:23than 30 of their personnel were killed in the raid. Venezuela's interior minister says at least 100
07:31people died on the ground. Once that firefight was over, U.S. forces, they were able to go into
07:38the compound by blowing open the steel door that was the entryway of that facility. They made their way
07:44into the building looking for Maduro. They found him in just about three minutes time. They encountered
07:49him as he was trying, along with his wife, to hide behind another steel door that was going to lead
07:56into a more heavily fortified area of the compound. A safe room. And as they were trying to flee U
08:03.S.
08:03forces, they actually hit their heads on that steel door and they sustained pretty significant injuries
08:09from that according to our sources. Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, were injured and captured.
08:18We arrived at Maduro's compound at 1.01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. The force successfully exfiltrated
08:27and was over the water at 3.29 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Think about this for a minute. You
08:33have your own
08:34intelligence capability, right? You've been preparing six months for some move that the
08:38Americans were going to make militarily. And you need to tell me that the Americans can fly from
08:42ship to shore, go into country, land, pick up Maduro. No one tipped him off. No one said,
08:50hey, here's a WhatsApp message. They're coming for you, boss. And within two and a half hours,
08:54the Americans can go in, snatch, grab and get out. And just, I mean, that is an incredible operation by
09:00U.S. Special Forces. Once in custody, the couple was taken by helicopter to the USS Iwo Jima,
09:06waiting about 100 miles offshore. It's where this photo of Maduro was taken and posted to social
09:13media by President Trump. This was a really remarkable photo because it showed President
09:19Maduro in a sweatsuit with headphones on and goggles that were meant to disorient him,
09:28make him unaware of his surroundings, and detained by U.S. forces who were clearly holding onto his arm.
09:36The USS Iwo Jima transported Maduro and his wife to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay,
09:42where they were transferred to a 757, which took them to Stewart National Guard Base,
09:48north of New York City. The pair was then taken by chopper to Manhattan for processing.
09:53The DEA agents gave Maduro a perp walk. Good night. Happy New Year. The perp walk was highly unusual.
10:01It's generally against Justice Department policy because the concern is that you're going to
10:08affect his right to a fair trial, that you will essentially taint the jury pool. The couple was
10:15now in New York. But did they get there legally? It's clearly illegal under international law. No,
10:21no, no argument about that. I happen to believe it's illegal under U.S. law and the Constitution.
10:28And I mean, people can Google the Constitution and read that war-making powers reside with the Congress.
10:34There's no question it was legal. I think everyone on the left and the right agrees that he was not
10:38the
10:39legitimate leader of Venezuela. They had an election that Maduro refused to accept the results of.
10:45So he was a drug kingpin running a country, not recognized by anyone. And he was indicted in the
10:53United States. So of course we had the right to do it. Once in New York, Maduro and his wife
10:58learned the charges they are facing. Maduro is facing four charges, narco-terrorism,
11:03cocaine importation conspiracy, as well as two charges related to providing weapons. In the case
11:11of Celia Flores, she's only charged with three of those charges. She's not charged with the
11:15narco-terrorism charge. As for who is overseeing Venezuela while Maduro awaits trial? We're going
11:21to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. When the
11:29president spoke about the operation on that Saturday morning after Maduro was seized, he never mentioned
11:38the word democracy once. We're in the oil business. But he did mention oil. We're going to take back
11:45the oil that frankly we should have taken back a long time ago. More than 20 times. We're going to
11:50rebuild the oil infrastructure. This is not about democracy. We have made no demands about that. He
11:56seemed happy to leave in place the structure that Maduro had created. The Trump administration chose
12:04Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro's vice president, to lead Venezuela instead of opposition leader Maria Corina
12:11Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and whose party is believed to be the real winner of the
12:172024
12:18election in Venezuela. They looked at the opposition and Machado and said,
12:23how in the world is she going to be able to just come in and run a country that is
12:30run by the
12:31military and a military that won't willingly give up? And the only way that would happen,
12:38if we put in Machado in one day, the next day, you'd have to have US boots on the ground
12:44to enforce that.
12:46So you cannot flip a switch and turn it into a democratically run country, even though it should
12:53be. I think you've got the same people largely in charge. But I think they know that the drugs are
12:59stopping. I think they know that they're going to have to work with the United States. And I think they
13:04know what's going to happen if they don't. The dictatorship is in place completely right now
13:08in Venezuela. Millions of people in Venezuela, as we speak, they are in silence and in fear. They don't
13:15feel safe to go out and to express their ideas. The uncertainty has put the whole region on edge,
13:23as we witnessed along the Colombian Venezuelan border. And so here it is now evening, going into
13:28late in the night. And we're about to see some of the many patrols that have sprawled out
13:35across the 1,300 plus miles of border between Colombia and Venezuela. Ahead, Venezuela's black
13:44gold and how it's long colored its relationship with the US.
14:01Near the Venezuelan border, a Colombian city sits at the foot of a mountain range.
14:09And this is a community that's basically a migrant settlement.
14:14Here, we find some of the nearly 3 million Venezuelans who have fled to Colombia in recent years.
14:24Javier Liz is a mother of three who came to Colombia two years ago.
14:29She said life in Venezuela was incredibly difficult, even working. She said you had to make choices.
14:34Do you buy clothes? Do you buy food?
14:35Her home, incredibly modest, but better still, she insists, than life on the other side of the border.
14:43She acknowledges that Venezuela has a lot of resources, obviously oil primarily, but she says
14:48a lot of the money that's made there stays to the upper class and doesn't trickle down to the rest
14:53of the population.
14:59Venezuela's wealth in oil has long coexisted with corruption and deep poverty, wealth that has tied
15:05the US and Venezuela together for more than a century.
15:08US interests have been paired with Venezuelan oil since the beginning.
15:12Newly awarded concessions shared by US companies add to the strategic importance of this oil boom area.
15:19US oil companies rushed into Venezuela after World War I, quickly scaling up their production.
15:27Precious oil makes big news in Venezuela.
15:30The result? Venezuela emerged as a global oil power.
15:35All while the country was under a brutal dictatorship.
15:39For most of the 1950s, Venezuela was ruled by another dictator, Marcos Perez Jimenez.
15:46When Venezuela was under the Perez Jimenez dictatorship, it was very close to the United States.
15:54Washington even gave Perez Jimenez a prestigious US military medal in 1954.
16:00There was a period when the US was perfectly happy to
16:04ignore questions of human rights and work with dictators.
16:09Vice President Nixon arrives in Venezuela, last stop on his South American tour.
16:14May 13th, 1958.
16:17The motor speed stops for traffic. The mob catches up and attacks the cars.
16:22Richard Nixon's car attacked by a mob in Caracas.
16:27They were angry at the US for letting Perez Jimenez take refuge in America after he was overthrown.
16:34Venezuela was going towards democracy.
16:381958 became a watershed year for US-Venezuela relations. The violence against Nixon forced
16:45the US to focus on Venezuela's transition to democracy. And that attention helped pull the
16:51two countries closer together. The end of the Perez Jimenez dictatorship ushered in this really very
16:58successful, stable, super-party democracy.
17:03In 1963, John F. Kennedy welcomed the Venezuela's president, Romulo Bentancourt, to the White House.
17:11The Kennedy administration saw countries like Venezuela as models of democratic countries that are
17:17the future. From Kennedy to Reagan, Washington provided military aid. Under Reagan, the US sold Venezuela
17:2624 F-16 fighter jets. The country, as they saw it, was a trusted defense ally in the region.
17:33We did offer not just military equipment like fighter jets, but we offered a lot of doctrinal training.
17:39And that meant the military institution sort of comprised a Western military culture.
17:44But by the 1980s and well into the 90s...
17:48There has been rising unrest in Venezuela.
17:51Venezuela's economy soured.
17:53A country rich in oil, but in which the army of poor is growing and falling farther behind all the
17:59time.
17:59Even in democracy, Venezuela's government started to become synonymous with corruption yet again.
18:06There were lots of Venezuelans that were suffering and struggling.
18:09And this is the argument that made Chavez so popular.
18:14He was elected in a landslide.
18:16On the eve of the 1998 election, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos sat down with future Venezuelan authoritarian
18:24leader Hugo Chavez.
18:27He wanted to project the image of a democratic leader open to the world.
18:33That was a complete lie.
18:35He created alliances with Russia, but mostly with Cuba.
18:40He admired what Fidel Castro had done.
18:43Castro, I think, probably would have said to Chavez, one good way of staying in power is fighting the US.
18:49So from the beginning of Chavez rule in 1999, there was a very tense relationship with Washington.
18:59Optimistic, Bill Clinton invited Chavez to the White House.
19:02There was this talk about creating this hemisphere-wide free trade.
19:06Interviewing Chavez again two years later, Ramos was met with hostility.
19:13I remember that he put two chairs in the middle of a basketball court.
19:18He surrounded the court with hundreds of people that follow him and that love him.
19:25Chavez rewrote the Constitution and lifted term limits, allowing him to stay in power.
19:30The US President George W. Bush would view Chavez as a threat.
19:35And indeed, when there was an attempted coup in 2002, the United States very quickly and prematurely
19:43recognized the coup leaders as the legitimate government of Venezuela.
19:49The coup failed and Chavez remained.
19:51And after that, he became radicalized.
19:53Relations between the United States and Chavez were never repaired.
19:57He was extremely critical of George W. Bush.
20:00He famously went to the U.N. General Assembly and gave a speech the day after Bush had spoken,
20:08where he said, the devil was here yesterday.
20:11Ayer estuvo el diablo aquí.
20:12Still smell the sulfur.
20:14Huele a sufre todavia.
20:17He directly chose Nicolás Maduro as his successor.
20:22So their dictatorship continued.
20:25Venezuela is at its economic breaking point.
20:31It's a crisis.
20:43Venezuela, 2013.
20:46A 14-year era ends.
20:50Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, he has now passed away.
20:55The Vice President, Nicolás Maduro, made the official announcement.
21:05Maduro, a former bus driver and union organizer, was handpicked by Chavez to be his successor.
21:14After Maduro came into power, very shortly after that, the oil price collapsed.
21:20Look at this chart. Crude oil is sitting at about $54 a barrel right now. Prices have been slashed in
21:26half.
21:27You have this massive decline in energy prices.
21:31So now Maduro takes power.
21:33He does not have the kind of economy or checkbook that Chavez had.
21:37And he can't make investments in social programming.
21:43Less than a year into President Nicolás Maduro's first term,
21:48protesters took to the streets and were met with gunfire,
21:53tear gas, and water cannons.
21:57The demonstrations began two weeks ago.
22:00Thousands of students demanded government action to end violent crime waves in the country,
22:05stem inflation, and bring an end to shortages of necessities.
22:09In the first decade of Maduro's time in office, Venezuela underwent the most
22:16severe economic contraction in peacetime of any country in the modern Europe.
22:27Life under Maduro was grueling for the vast majority of Venezuelans,
22:31Americans with rolling blackouts.
22:34Medicine is in short supply, leaving many with treatable illnesses to die.
22:40Staggeringly long lines for fuel in the most petrol-rich nation in the world.
22:45Hyperinflation and the monumentally steep devaluation of Venezuela's currency, the Bolivar.
22:51The currency is so devalued, some shopkeepers weigh the money rather than waste time counting.
22:59During the Maduro years, there was starvation.
23:03Maduro's citizens reported losing an average of 24 pounds of body weight in 2017,
23:08according to a Venezuelan university study.
23:15Despite all that, in 2018, Maduro told the United Nations General Assembly that the humanitarian crisis was a fabrication.
23:252018 is really, I think, politically a turning point because it's the first time
23:32that it's pretty much widely acknowledged that the government and Maduro has not legitimately won the elections.
23:44More than 50 countries refused to recognize Maduro's 2018 re-election.
23:52I swear to you, I will fulfill my promise and will dedicate myself entirely to recover the economic growth,
24:00to heal our economy.
24:03United States officials called it a sham and an insult to democracy.
24:08Over time, he started banning opposition leaders from running against him, jailing opposition figures.
24:16This is all in the context of torture happening, disappearances. This was a brutal, brutal regime.
24:23He used all the resources that he had in government and in the army to control Venezuelan people,
24:29to control protests.
24:31In February 2019, then Univision anchor Jorge Ramos traveled to Caracas to sit down with the
24:38Venezuelan president.
24:42I remember thinking about my first question because that was going to set the tone and
24:46deciding to ask him about him being a dictator. And I told him, you're not the president of Venezuela,
24:51you're a dictator.
24:57After calling him a dictator, Ramos showed him this video of young people eating from a garbage truck.
25:06I showed Nicolás Maduro, look, this is what you've done. You are responsible for the hunger and
25:11for the poverty of these people. And he just couldn't stand it. So after minute 17,
25:18he stood up and he said, this interview doesn't work anymore. And then he left.
25:25They stole the equipment. They stole the video cards. They arrested us. They deported us.
25:31It was terrible for them because they wanted to project the idea of a democratic government,
25:35a legitimate government. And what they proved is that they were dictators.
25:39When historians look back at the Maduro regime, they will see a period of decay, corruption,
25:48unbearable cruelty, and the degradation of Venezuelan society.
25:55The rule of Maduro is terrible for the people of Venezuela. It's against the interests of the
26:00United States of America. He's invited in Iran and Hezbollah.
26:03While Maduro has consistently denied any ties to the terrorist group Hezbollah,
26:08he's often touted close relationships with two crucial allies, Russia and China.
26:15There are sanctions placed on his regime. And what we see is Russia, China,
26:24China, coming in to fill the breach, taking the opportunity to get into a part of the world
26:33that they see as America's backyard.
26:41One of the great tragedies of Venezuela is the massive exodus that the Maduro years caused.
26:50Just over my shoulder here, this is the Venezuelan flag here in Mexico. And that's because the vast
26:55majority of these folks are from Venezuela. We're talking about one of the largest humanitarian
27:00crises in the world. And you've got millions that are hoping to get into the US.
27:05This is the greatest refugee flow in the history of Latin America. About eight million Venezuelans,
27:12which is a fourth of their population, have fled the country.
27:17But this woman stayed. Maria Corina Machado stands out for her bravery and for staying in Venezuela.
27:26She was able to bring together all the opposition figures and all the opposition movements.
27:33After winning by a landslide in the primary, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was banned
27:40from running in the 2024 presidential election by the Maduro regime. But by most accounts,
27:45she led her party to victory. When the elections happened in 2024, the Carter Center, which was the
27:52only group that was allowed to monitor the elections, says that it had been completely illegitimate.
27:59A majority of Venezuelans voted against this regime. Maduro's regime cracked down on the opposition
28:06and continued to remain and seize power. We see Maria Corina Machado, who is really the heart and
28:12soul of the opposition, head of the opposition, have to go into hiding.
28:16She would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and dedicate it to President Trump.
28:22Maduro started the war. President Trump is ending the war.
28:29And while Machado may not be returning to Venezuela to lead for now, neither will Nicolas Maduro.
28:35I think he's going to spend the rest of his life in jail.
28:52As commuters were making their way into New York City for the first full work week of 2026,
28:59an extraordinary spectacle was happening in the skies above them.
29:02They were flying him on helicopters and taking him on boats. I think it was all for show.
29:09Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, were being moved from a notorious Brooklyn lockup
29:15to a storied Manhattan courthouse.
29:18The imagery was clearly very carefully orchestrated and it worked just as they wanted.
29:25The showmanship aspect of this could be prejudicial to his trial.
29:31Waiting for them outside the courthouse, both pro and anti-Maduro protesters.
29:38The atmosphere was electric because the Venezuelan community in New York turned out in a very big way.
29:51In this extraordinary moment of having Maduro in a courthouse behind us right now in Manhattan.
29:57CNN's Laura Coates was inside the courtroom.
30:01He's a very large in stature man and he certainly did not appear to be accustomed at all to being
30:07manhandled around any room. He seemed to do so with some difficulty. He seemed to have to
30:13hold on to the sides of his chair, almost like a belabored lifting in a belabored sitting.
30:20The fallout from the raid was clear from the moment they arrived. Maduro's wife appearing with
30:26bandages on her head, presumably from the head injuries that she suffered during the operation.
30:31And Maduro himself appeared to have trouble sitting and standing. And according to Maduro's wife's
30:38attorney, she also had significant bruising on her ribs. So they have asked the court for a full health
30:46evaluation before any of this can move forward. That could be an effort to try to get the two of
30:53them relocated from what is a very notorious prison. This is the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
31:00And if you're the Maduro's attorneys, you want to try to get them out of there as soon as you
31:06can.
31:07But despite these injuries, Maduro tried to strong arm the proceedings.
31:12When Maduro was speaking to his attorney, it was clear that he held, if not one, but both reins.
31:20He really was seeming to be clear about what it is he wanted.
31:26Maduro started talking about how he was the rightful president of Venezuela, that he was innocent,
31:31and then turned it into essentially an arraignment, which was not supposed to happen that day.
31:36So you can see how this is going to go.
31:39My initial impression of Maduro at his arraignment is he's going to be a very difficult client to manage.
31:46Something attorney Renato Stabil understands, having defended the former president of Honduras,
31:52Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted on drug charges in the U.S. in 2024.
31:58Defending someone of this stature is different because there are really these historical implications.
32:05And what happens in that courtroom is really going to affect the course of history in a lot of ways.
32:13That will be up to the judge to decide.
32:16Alvin Hellerstein, the judge who's overseeing this case, is 92 years old.
32:19He was put on the bench by President Bill Clinton, and he's done a number of very prominent cases.
32:26Of course, he handled some of the Trump cases in New York.
32:30This judge is well aware of the historical significance of having Nicolas Maduro in a court before him on federal
32:40charges.
32:41And yet it seemed as if he was going to some length to ensure that he wasn't going to treat
32:48this case as a high profile matter, that he was going to treat this case according to what due process
32:55required.
32:55He is not going to be impressed with who the defendant is or impressed with all the media coverage.
33:05John May understands this kind of case.
33:08He was General Manuel Noriega's defense attorney in the 1990s, when the former dictator of Panama was tried in Miami
33:15federal court for drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering.
33:19We're going to show you what it was like when General Manuel Noriega surrendered to United States forces.
33:25Similar to Maduro, Noriega was captured and arrested by U.S. forces in 1990, an apprehension that his lawyers argued
33:33was unlawful.
33:36We argued that the U.S. military had engaged in war crimes in how they apprehended General Noriega in terms
33:48of all of the civilians that were killed.
33:50There are certain provisions of the Geneva Convention and the humanitarian law of war that prohibit certain kinds of activity.
34:02A defense Maduro foreshadowed his very first day in court, proclaiming in Spanish he is a kidnapped president and prisoner
34:10of war.
34:11It was very clear that his strategy early on was that he wanted it very clearly known that he felt
34:21the operation that deposed him was in violation of his rights.
34:29The case law says that no matter how a defendant is brought into the United States, they can still be
34:34tried here.
34:35So whether or not it's legal is really of no consequence to whether or not he can be tried here.
34:41The second big issue, before they even get to the actual charges against him, should Maduro have immunity from prosecution
34:47because he is a leader of a sovereign country?
34:50And that's an issue that the United States government is contesting because they don't recognize him as the sovereign of
34:56a foreign country.
34:56This case might be more difficult in terms of undermining an immunity argument from Maduro.
35:04Not impossible, but more difficult because he believes and has been recognized by other countries as the legitimate head of
35:11state of Venezuela.
35:14Noriega also tried to argue immunity, but his defense didn't work.
35:18He was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
35:21In Miami today, General Manuel Noriega was found guilty on eight of 10 counts of drug trafficking, money laundering and
35:29conspiracy.
35:30For Maduro and his wife, the next step then will come facing the actual charges.
35:35Both have been indicted for drug trafficking and weapons possession.
35:39And the former president is also accused of supporting terrorist organizations in South America.
35:45When you read the Maduro indictment, whether or not they're a layman or a lawyer, and seriously looks at the
35:53allegations, I think are going to come to the same conclusion that I do.
35:58This is a very weak indictment.
36:01It seems very snitch heavy.
36:04In other words, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of concrete, objective evidence behind the charges.
36:09I expect you're going to have a parade of cooperators who have cut deals with the government coming in.
36:15I think one of the interesting things in this case will be the role of the CIA.
36:21There's clearly a CIA asset who was inside his inner circle, essentially.
36:28And the question will be, can prosecutors use that person in this prosecution?
36:35The CIA generally doesn't want its assets or its informants to be used in any criminal case because those people
36:42are undercover.
36:43And the defense strategy, they are going to try to drown the United States prosecution in motions to make sure
36:51that classified documents come out.
36:54No matter how it turns out, guilty or not guilty, most agree it will go on for years.
37:01And Maduro will likely never return to Venezuela again.
37:05I think he's going to spend the rest of his life in jail.
37:09In the court of public opinion, the jury has already decided that he should not be in Venezuela.
37:17In a court of law, his guilt has yet to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
37:25But if the goal was his removal, then the case was already successful for the United States.
37:32With Maduro gone from Venezuela, what comes next for the country?
37:37I think the worst case scenario is probably that the country falls apart.
37:55Explosions rocked Venezuela.
37:57After a large-scale military strike.
38:00President Trump celebrates the operation to capture Venezuela's leader.
38:04After an arrest.
38:05Hard to understate quite what a move this is geopolitically by the Trump White House.
38:10What's next for Venezuela and the world?
38:13The U.S. military, very good at this sort of thing, but they fail repeatedly in what comes next.
38:20We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.
38:28We are in charge because we have the United States military stationed outside the country.
38:35A mi brazo.
38:36Delcy Rodriguez has formally been sworn in as Venezuela's acting president.
38:41For now, Rodriguez and the rest of Nicolás Maduro's power structure remain intact.
38:47That means that in this vast country, it is Maduro's old intelligence and military leaders that will be the enforcers
38:57on the ground.
39:01This is going to be a really tough nut to crack, especially if we don't have boots on the ground
39:07and they don't want us there.
39:12The U.S. did have military boots on the ground in Panama before and after they arrested General Manuel Noriega
39:22in 1990.
39:23One of the benefits of that operation was we actually did help bring to power the democratically elected leader of
39:30Panama.
39:30And today, Panama is a flourishing democracy.
39:33And for the United States, it secured a strategic asset, the Panama Canal.
39:39In Venezuela, the strategic asset President Trump covets is oil.
39:44We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly
39:54broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.
40:03President Trump's declarations about Venezuelan oil echo from the 2003 Iraq War and the U.S. removal of Saddam Hussein.
40:12Oil belongs to the Iraqi people. It's their asset.
40:16But insurgency and chaos prevented oil companies from returning until years later.
40:22The real difference with Iraq is the way we went about it.
40:26We said, let's get rid of everyone who had anything to do with the government.
40:30And we got rid of everybody. And for that reason, it failed in Iraq.
40:36Failure that turned into a nearly nine-year military mission, leaving thousands of American troops dead and tens of thousands
40:43more wounded.
40:45We are going to run the country until such time.
40:48So what does President Trump mean when he says the U.S. will run Venezuela?
40:52I think President Trump used the term run very intentionally because this is not about U.S. governing Venezuela.
40:59I think what Secretary Rubio has reinforced is this idea that the United States is going to run Venezuela because
41:04it's going to completely control Venezuela's economy.
41:08And it's going to leverage its ability to control the economy, to push for political concessions.
41:13They understand that the only way they can move oil and generate revenue and not have economic collapse is if
41:19they cooperate and work with the United States.
41:21Trump announced tariffs on America's top three trading partners.
41:24They charge us, we charge them.
41:26Economic threats, including tariffs and trade wars, have been part of the second Trump administration's arsenal from day one.
41:33An administration that wants to dominate the Western Hemisphere.
41:36And the national security strategy, which came out in November of 2025, was the big blaring siren of where Donald
41:47Trump was taking America.
41:49The strategy states, quote,
41:52The United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.
41:59The Monroe Doctrine refers to President James Monroe's 1823 annual message to Congress, in which he warned European powers not
42:09to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
42:12The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot.
42:20They now call it the Donroe Doctrine, I don't know.
42:23American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again, won't happen.
42:31We live in a world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.
42:39These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.
42:44The day after the raid in Venezuela, the president began naming other countries that could be next.
42:50Cuba is ready to fall.
42:52We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.
42:55And the European Union needs us to have it.
42:59And they know that.
43:00Colombia is run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.
43:05And he's not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.
43:08Pressure was building here in Colombia, just a border away from where Maduro was ousted by the U.S.
43:15What you're looking at here might look like military special forces, but these are Colombia's national police anti-narcotics officers.
43:22And they're prepping for a jungle mission near the country's southern border.
43:26This operation comes at a moment of regional tension.
43:30You can almost feel it at times, with uncertainty in neighboring Venezuela spilling over after the U.S. capture of
43:39Nicolás Maduro.
43:40Despite the uncertainty in the region, there are signs that tensions may be easing.
43:46Days after threatening military action in Colombia, President Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Pedro spoke by phone for the first
43:53time.
43:53And on Friday, President Trump struck a hopeful tone that the U.S. and Venezuela are working well together.
44:02I think the best case scenario for Venezuela is that elections occur, they're free, they're fair, and that there is
44:09a peaceful transition of power.
44:11I think the worst case scenario is probably that the country falls apart and becomes just a chaotic conflagration of
44:21forces fighting each other and mass migration.
44:25August 9.
44:25I think she's the only one...
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