Transcript of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is in New York City, faces narcoterrorism charges

Good morning. I'm Ayesha Rosco, and you're listening to a special episode of our Sunday programming. We're bringing you the latest on the extraordinary developments from Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro is now in New York City after being captured by the US. Stay with us. The US operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro took the world by surprise. It happened in the dead night by US troops. We'll tell you how it all went down. And now, President Trump says the US is in charge.

So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.

But what does US leadership in Venezuela look like? Stay with us. We have the news you need.

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In just a few hours, the US captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, and the leader is now in the United States facing criminal charges in New York City. To bring us up to speed, we're joined by NPR's Eida Peralta in Mexico City. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Ayesha.

First, can you remind us, how did this US military operation play out?

Yeah, as US officials describe it, CIA officers were already in Venezuela for months before this operation. This Saturday, the US deployed more than 150 aircraft. They struck radar, air defenses, and military bases in Venezuela. Then, special ops teams swooped into Maduro's compound. The US said it suffered no casualties. Venezuelan authorities say that some military and government officials were killed during the attacks.

Maduro is in the US now. Where exactly is he?

Yeah, he's at a federal detention center in Brooklyn, New York. He arrived in the US by plane, and then he was put on a helicopter which flew right in front of the Statue of Liberty before landing in Brooklyn. The Trump administration released a video of Maduro walking into what appears to be a DEA office. Maduro is wearing a black tracksuit and a beanie, and he He says some words with his usual nonchalance.

Good night.

Happy New Year. Good night. Happy New Year, he says. Maduro is now facing federal charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons charges.

In Venezuela, do we know who's running the government there?

We do. It's Vice President Delci Rodriguez. Last night, the country's top court decided that she is now the interim President of Venezuela. Right before that decree, Rodriguez shared a meeting of Venezuela's defense council. Rodriguez is very much a maduro loyalista. She's been with him for more than a decade, rising through the ranks from communications minister to running Venezuela's intelligence agency. But interestingly, President Trump complicated things yesterday because he said that Rodriguez had spoken at length with Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and that she had agreed to do whatever the Americans wanted. But at this meeting with top Venezuelan government officials, which was broadcast on state television, she did not sound like someone on board with Trump's plans.

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There is only one President in Venezuela, she said, and his name is Nicolás Maduro. Delci Rodriguez also called the US Attacks Barbaric, and she said Venezuelans will never again be any country's colony.

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We are ready, she said, to defend Venezuela. We are ready to defend our natural resources. And of course, she is referring to oil. Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, and President Trump made no secret that US companies want a piece of that business. I think the big question now is whether Delcy Rodriguez actually came to some agreement with the US and whether she will lead Venezuela toward a transition, as Trump said, or whether she will lead a fight against US plans to run Venezuela.

Nicholas Maduro was not a very popular President in Venezuela. Many independent observers say that when Venezuelans went to the polls in 2024, he actually lost. So what has been the reaction of Venezuelans?

For more than a decade, millions of Venezuelans have left the country. We've seen celebrations from that diaspora in cities across the world, from Miami to here in Mexico City to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Inside Caracas, NPR sent a reporter out to talk to people, and we've heard a variety of opinions. There were lots of people who thought a change was long overdue, but they also expressed worry. That reporter found a shopkeeper at a long line at a pharmacy. He was awoken in the middle of the night by explosions, and he was out early buying food and medicine. He was preparing, he said, for what everyone expects will be tough days ahead.

That's NPR's Eader Peralta. Eader, thank you so much.

Thank you, Ayesha.

President Trump threatened Venezuela's President, Nicolas Maduro, for months.

And still, US forces enjoyed the element of surprise when they captured him. Us troops grabbed Maduro from his compound in the middle of the night and flew him away to the US in under three hours. Npr National Security Correspondent Greg Mairi joins us now. Welcome.

Hi, Ayesha.

So the US buildup against Maduro It was very public, but the actual operation was top secret. So what do we know about it?

Yeah, General Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared with President Trump at a press briefing in Florida yesterday. Now, he said the planning included exhaustive work by the CIA and other intelligence agencies to learn as much as possible about Maduro's pattern of life.

After months of work by our intelligence teammates to find Maduro arrow and understand how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets. In early December, our force was set.

The US troops were in place a month ago, but they had to wait for the right moment to launch. This is largely because of weather conditions. You're dealing with the Caribbean Sea, mountainous terrain, lots of frequent cloud cover.

When did the President decide to launch the attack.

Yeah, Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago residence and gave the order a little before 11: 00 PM on Friday night. The US forces then launched 150 planes from 20 different locations. This included bombers, fighter jets, surveillance aircraft, drones. Many of these planes were helping to protect US helicopters that were flying low over the sea, carrying Army Delta Force troops toward Maduro's compound in the capital. Again, here's Dan King.

As the force began to approach Caracas, the joint air component began dismantling and disabling the air defense systems in Venezuela, employing weapons to ensure the safe passage of the helicopters into the target area.

So the helicopters touched down at Maduro's compound just after 1: 00 AM Saturday, and they came under fire, and one of them was hit, but it was still able to fly.

So how did they know where to find Maduro?

So the US forces had trained on mockups of the compound, and they knew where to look for Maduro and his wife. Trump said the couple were trying to flee, and reached a safe room with a heavy steel door, but they couldn't close it. So the US troops seized the couple, it put them on helicopters, and then they flew out quickly. They cleared the Venezuela Coast and were back over the Caribbean by 3: 30 AM, and they landed on the USS Iwojima. Now, Maduro was then put on a couple of flights. He landed eventually in New York. He is now at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.

Does this mean all the US forces have left Venezuela? If so, what will they be doing next?

Yeah, there's no sign of any US troops in Venezuela. But Trump and General Caine said the US forces remain in the region on ships and other places nearby, like Puerto Rico. Trump said they are ready to move in a second wave if they are needed. Now, the President, in both his first term and this term, has been very reluctant to send in troops on the ground, be it in Venezuela or elsewhere. But he said, We're not afraid of boots on the ground. He said that US can't just leave Venezuela or the country would never recover. Then in the remark that really grabbed everyone's attention, Trump said the US would run Venezuela. He said he'd do it with people that were with him at the news conference. He was referring to Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and Pentagon Chief, Pete Hegset, along with Venezuelans as well.

How does the US plan to run Venezuela if there are no American troops or US government officials there?

Yeah, this is far from clear. It seems Trump would prefer not to send the troops back into Venezuela as an occupying force. We should also note that the US Embassy in Venezuela has been closed since 2019. Now, Trump sounded mildly supportive of Venezuela's vice President, Delce Rodriguez, who's now effectively in charge. Trump said she would be willing to do what the US wanted. But shortly afterwards, she went on TV and delivered a very defiant message saying the US had invaded her country and that Maduro was still the country's leader.

What about Maduro supporters in Venezuela? I mean, do we know what they might do?

No, we just don't know what the military and other pro-Maduro groups will do or how they'll respond to his ouster. This is a very divided country. It's one industry, one valuable industry. Oil will need billions of dollars of investments. Trump says US oil companies will jump in, but they will probably want to see some stability before they're willing to make that big investment.

Thank you. That's NPR's Greg Myrie. Thank you so much.

Sure thing, Ayesha.

The Venezuelan leader and his wife could appear in a courtroom this week. They're facing criminal charges brought by the US Justice Department. Npr Justice Correspondent, Kari Johnson, has been following the story, and she's here now to talk more about it. Hi, Kari.

Thank you.

So, Kari, what do we know about the criminal charges against Maduro and his family?

A grand jury in Manhattan Pattyratten first indicted Maduro in 2020 on drug charges, but new prosecutors there added charges and defendants to that older case. Maduro now faces allegations of narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import tons of cocaine pain, and possession of machine guns and other destructive devices. The unsealed indictment described him as misusing government power to promote illegal activity, basically lining his pockets while protecting the violent drug cartels. Us authorities also charged Maduro's wife, Silia Flores, and his adult son. Us attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post that they will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts. That could happen this week. Here's how President Trump described the allegations at a news conference.

The illegitimate dictator, Maduro, was the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking, colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States.

Okay, so those are the allegations. But what's the legal basis for this extraordinary operation by the US government against a foreign leader who was forcibly removed from his own country.

Really a stunning turn of events, and the administration has not so far released any white paper or detailed explanation of its legal rationale, but there are some clues. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio Rubio said Maduro was not the legitimate President of Venezuela. He was referring to questionable elections there that the American government and others have refused to recognize as fair and free from corruption. Rubio also said flooding the US with drugs and detaining Americans in Venezuela posed a direct threat to the United States. Here's more from Marco Rubio.

He is a fugitive of American justice with a $50 million reward, which I guess we save $50 million.

The US government seems to be relying on a Justice Department legal memo from 1989 during the George H. W. Bush administration. That memo paved the way for American law enforcement to make arrests in other countries, even if those actions might violate international law. And that memo was issued before the US captured Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega and sent him to the US to face charges. Noriega was caught 36 years ago, also on January third. Noriega fought back against the US charges and mostly lost, but that legal fight took many years. And then just yesterday, Senator Mike Lee from Utah posted online he spoke with the US Secretary of State, and Rubio suggested military forces in Venezuela were playing a role to protect the US law enforcement agents serving the arrest warrant against Maduro. That's another possible legal rationale the Trump administration may be using here.

The Trump administration is talking tough about drug trafficking in Venezuela, but the President recently pardoned another foreign official for similar crimes, right?

Just a month ago, President Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former leader of Honduras. A jury in New York had found him guilty of misusing his role to help drug traffickers import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the US. Prosecutors in New York say he used drug money to fund his campaign and that he used his power to to protect drug lords. Hernández had been serving a prison sentence of 45 years, but Trump friend and ally, Roger Stone, had advocated for his pardon. And Virginia Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, said in a statement yesterday that this new arrest of Maduro in Venezuela is a glaring hypocrisy. Here's how President Trump responded to that yesterday.

The man that I pardoned was, if you could equate it to us, he was treated like the Biden administration treated a man named Trump. That didn't work out too well for them. This was a man who was persecuted very unfairly.

So, Kerry, what's next?

Military operators put Maduro and his wife on the USS Iwo Jima. Trump posted a photo of Maduro, apparently on that ship, wearing what looks like a gray sweatsuit. They've since arrived in New York, where they could make an initial appearance in court this coming week. The federal courts in New York have handled a lot of high-profile cases, including ones that involve major drug crimes. Now, Democrats in Congress say they want answers about why the administration did this without congressional approval. But Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress. They don't have much appetite for oversight. And American courts typically do not weigh in on these kinds of national security matters.

That's NPR's Kerry Johnson. Thanks, Kerry.

My pleasure.

And that's up first for Sunday, January I'm Ayesha Rosco. Elaina Tworik produced today's podcast. It was edited by Hadeel Al-Shauci, Dee Parvaz, Miguel Macias, and Andrew Sussman. Danny Hensel is the director. Our technical director was David Greenberg, with engineering support from Zoe Van Genhoven, Jay Ciz, and Simon Lazlo Jansen. Our senior supervising editor is Shannon Rhodes. Evie Stone is our executive producer, and Jim Caine is our Deputy Managing Editor. For all the breaking news and many other stories, tune in to NPR. Find your local station at stations. Npr. Org. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Up First, sponsor-free through Amazon Music. Pr's vital journalism and get Up First Plus at plus. Npr. Org. That's plus. Npr. Org.