Consider This from NPR - View from Venezuela

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Venezuela dominates the headlines, but very little attention is paid to what life is like inside the country.In September, the Trump administration began a series of strikes targeting what U.S. officials call "narcoterrorists" in small vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Those strikes are ongoing and have killed more than 80 people. Then, in October, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.She's been in hiding since last year, when Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in an election widely seen as fraudulent.Machado is expected to receive her award on Wednesday, in Oslo. And if she does, she might not be let back into her country. Machado, who supports the Trump administration’s campaign in the region, says the end of the Maduro regime is imminent.While the world is focused on Oslo and María Corina Machado's Nobel Peace Prize. We wanted to get the view from inside her country. We speak with a journalist in Venezuela about what daily life is like. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] episode was produced by Karen Zamora & Matt Ozug with audio engineering by Ted Mebane. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

For months now, much of the world's attention has been on Venezuela. In September, the Trump administration began a series of strikes targeting what U.S. officials call narco-terrorists and small vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Venezuela's been very bad, both in terms of drugs and sending some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world into our country. Those strikes are ongoing. They've killed more than 80 people so far. Then in October, Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Carina Machado, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee called her a courageous defender of freedom who refused to stay silent. She has been in hiding since last year when Venezuela's president, Nicholas Maduro, claimed

victory in an election widely seen by the international community as fraudulent. Despite the risk of harassment, arrest and torture, citizens across the country held watch over the polling stations. They made sure the final tallies were documented. before the regime could destroy ballots and lie about the outcome. That is the Nobel Committee Chair, Yergen Vatna Friedness, when announcing the prize. Machado is expected to receive her award in person on Wednesday in Oslo, and if she does, she might not be let back into her country. Machado, who supports the Trump administration's campaign in the region,

says the end of the Maduro regime is imminent. Here she is speaking to NPR in October. You cannot have peace without freedom, and you cannot not have freedom without strength when you are facing a criminal structure. Consider this. While the world is focused on Oslo and Maria Karina Machado's Nobel Peace Prize, we wanted to get the view from inside her country. Coming up, we speak with a journalist in Venezuela about what daily life is like there.

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It's Consider This from NPR. 31 million people live in Venezuela. And right now, with so much of the world focused on the country, we want to get a better sense of what life is like from the millions of Venezuelans living in it in the midst of all of this upheaval. To do that, I spoke with Venezuelan journalist Tony Franchi. He heads the newsletter, Venezuela Weekly. Let me just start with the Nobel Prize. How much do you think people in Caracas will be following the presentation tomorrow? We'll be talking and thinking about that. I think it's a very important topic of conversation here, even though it's not a very public one because of the state of affairs in the country, but many Venezuelans are

expected to see if Maria Corina actually managed to leave Venezuela for Oslo, as she said. I think that's one of the main reasons people are watching and following the news of the prize, but also the fact that these are very big news for us, and many people see them as the result of the struggle and the democratic fight that many Venezuelans have been enduring for the last year in the country after the July 28 elections of 2024. When you talk about a lot of conversations, but not too public about it. Give me a sense of what that looks like. Is that just a side conversation?

Is that just on your phone but not in public on social media? Like what's the best way to understand that and why? So after the elections happened and the opposition managed to prove that their official results were not the one show by the polling station machines. The government proceeded with a bigger crackdown on civil society. And since then, politics have been mostly off the table for many Venezuelans in public places, in social media, in places they can be heard. So it has become more or less a conversation within family or within private circles. In fact, there's reports of journalists, of radio journalists who were fired from their jobs because they reported of the Nobel Peace Prize. So in a way, there's a lot of sense of fear due to repression and a lot of self-censorship in Venezuelans that has forced many of these conversations and topics to more private and intimate spaces.

I want to talk about the election in a moment, but on this topic of what conversation is like and censorship and self-censorship. what is being said or thought and talked about when it comes to all of this U.S. military pressure? Is that front and center or is that also an on the margins conversation? It's especially on the margins because the government also has a heightened sense of paranoia the constant U.S. erring questions and, of course, the warships in the cost. So what we've seen is a mix between people whispering their opinions or what they think and more or less a generalized sense of denial with the situation. For many Venezuelans, the only solution is to keep forward with their lives as a city, especially with rising inflation, especially with an increasingly worse economic situation during the holiday seasons.

So sometimes people wouldn't think that a country that is supposed in the brink of war you can find, I don't know, Christmas fairs or Halloween parties or new stores opening up and people just going to buy stuff there for Christmas. But it's what's happening because for many, the only solution is to just keep on with their daily lives and try to act as nothing is happening because I feel that many Venezuelans won't really consider this to be a bluff until something actually happens. It's been 25 years of constant political upheaval. So for many, it's just, you know, another check in the long list. Yeah. Do you see any physical signs of preparations for any sort of military conflict? Not as much. The government has moved certain assets to the cause.

They have moved machinery to take down planes to military bases. There has been a mobilization of the militia. But beyond that, the city more or less remains perhaps more militarized, perhaps with more than more than life remains the same in Venezuela. At this point, we're having practically weekly incursions of F-18 or B-2 planes from the U.S., and it's just become like another normal thing. we actually had one today and people are just going on with their lives because it's it has already become a weekly thing for more than a few months.

You know, NPR has been trying to report from Venezuela, but has not been granted permission to enter the country. What is one thing about life in Venezuela today that you feel like people listening to this should know that you wish you could tell more people about? Well, I would say firstly that if you see a country with baseball stadiums full of people and people doing Christmas shopping, it doesn't. mean that that country's not in crisis or that that country is not following politics, but rather that countries with crisis, with political conflicts, even with war, people there, they try to

continue their lives as it is. And it's two things that can coexist, despite how bizarre it can look. And on the other hand, I would say that people should sometimes give more voice to Venezuelans and listen to Venezuelans. I feel US media has focused itself mostly on foreign analysts on the country. And there hasn't been much, much space for voices of Venezuelans. And I think that's important, especially because, as I said, many Venezuelans are self-silencing themselves or doing self-censorship. And that is definitely generating a bias in their reporting. So I would say that they should consider that Venezuelans' opinions are more varied and diverse than they think, and definitely many times they will clash with what many in the U.S. think should happen or

think is happening in Venezuela. Well, we were really happy to talk to you about it. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you so much. That is Venezuelan journalist Tony Frangy, joining us from Caracas. Thank you. This episode was produced by Karen Zamora and Matt Ozog with audio engineering by Ted Mebane. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to consider this sponsor-free through Amazon music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get consider this plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.