PBS News Hour - Full Show - The state of Venezuela after Maduro's capture and devastating earthquakes

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

It was a shocking military operation that removed Venezuela's president from power, followed by a surprising declaration by President Trump that the U.S. was going to run the country. Compass Points moderator Nick Schifrin discusses the remote U.S. leadership and how an earthquake has exposed its flaws with William Brownfield, Rick de la Torre, Laura Cristina Dib and Andrés Martínez-Fernández. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

America's remote control of Venezuela. It was a shocking military operation that removed Venezuela's president from power, followed by an almost a shocking declaration by President Trump. We are going to run the country. Tonight, U.S. leadership from afar and how a deadly earthquake

has exposed its flaws. Coming up on Compass Points. Hello and welcome to Compass Points. It is perhaps easy to forget with everything else going on around the world that the year began with the American removal of Venezuelan Press. President Nicolas Maduro.

It's been seven months since an audacious U.S. raid into the heart of Caracas that turned Nicolas Maduro, the dictator, into a detainee and defendant in a U.S. courtroom. Since then, the U.S. is focused on expanding access to the world's largest oil reserves and supporting Maduro's former strongwoman, acting President Delci Rodriguez. She had a long conversation with Marco and she said, we'll do whatever you need. I think she was quite gracious, but she really doesn't have a choice. That has sidelined opposition leader Maria Karina Machado, despite gifting President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize and the opposition winning the 2024 election that the U.S. says was stolen

by Maduro. And then came the country's most catastrophic earthquakes. The government's response has been inadequate, but the U.S. has maintained its support as the country faces a humanitarian crisis. And here tonight to walk us through what's next. Bill Brownfield is a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. He's now a senior advisor to CSIS. Rick Delatore is a former CIA Caraca Station Chief, and he's the founder and CEO of the Washington-based

lobbying and strategic advisory firm Tower Strategy LLT. Laura Christina Dibb is the director for Venezuela at the Washington Office on Latin America, and Andres Martinez Fernandez is a senior policy analyst for Latin America at the Heritage Foundation. much. Welcome all of you. Appreciate it. Bill Brownfield, Ambassador Brownfield, let me start with you. Why is Venezuela important to the United States and to Americans? Well, historically, it's been one of the most important relationships we've had in the

entire Western Hemisphere. And historically, the reasons have been the importance of oil and gas, Venezuela being far and away, the largest oil and gas producer in Latin America and in the Western Hemisphere outside of the United States. We did a tremendous amount of law enforcement cooperation with them on matters related to drugs, there was a tremendous amount of economic activity with large U.S. companies maintaining a regional presence headquartered frequently in Caracas. It was, for 50 years more, kind of one of the essential relationships that the United States had with Venezuela. And under Maduro, of course, we saw eight million refugees, you know, an immigration issue, and so here we are, Maduro's gone. And And And And, Andres,

we asked you earlier this week, colleague did, about U.S. policy toward Venezuela since Maduro's removal. The official U.S. policy is stability recovery transition. And your answer was, it has been a success. How so? Well, I think that's right. I think when you look at the overall situation, particularly when we compare, as we have to, the current environment with what we saw just before January, we have taken one of the more antagonistic anti-American powers in the Western Hemisphere and turned that into a cooperative, if imperfect, relationship with the regime or the government under Delci Rodriguez.

There's a lot of progress that needs to be made, certainly on the transition towards political openness, restoration of democracy and elections. But when you look at the steady reactivation of the oil sector already, You see signs of the benefits of increased investment and engagement from the United States managing those oil revenues as we are doing very actively with oversight for the first time, really, in decades for Venezuela. And that is opening the door, as we saw very recently with the increased announcements around a transition on the political side, which the administration has since the beginning included within this phased process, that it's the laid out for Venezuela. And now I think as is appropriate, we're going to see that begin to ramp up. Laura, has U.S. policy this year been a success? No, I think the situation is more nuanced than that. After January 3rd, there were some

openings that were created. There was an amnesty law deeply flawed and imperfect, but that led to... Amnesty law, leading to political prisoners under the previous regime being released, but not all of them. Exactly. Not all of them. Only 700 of them, or over 700 of them, were reaffirmed. but there still remains over 500 people detained for political reasons. People that have been part of the repressive apparatus and that have committed gross human rights violations continue to be a part of the government and have actually counted with the support of the U.S. administration in this context.

The economic situation has not changed significantly. And I think Venezuelans had a lot of expectations that their situation was going to change. change. Just in June, the central bank acknowledged that the inflation rate is over 13%. So I think that although there are some openings and people are reclaiming civic space, and there is movement in the political situation after a long period of stagnation, it is far from being a success. Rick, here's this disagreement here. Jump in. What do you think? Well, look, I think it's very admirable what the administration did on January 3rd.

I strongly believe that that operation will go down in history is probably one of the greatest military operations that we've ever conducted, being able to travel hundreds of miles behind enemy territory, go up against a fortified target within a matter of moments, neutralize those threats and safely and securely bring back Maduro and his wife and within a matter of hours have him in a court of justice in the United States.

There's no other country in the world that can do that besides us. In regards to our U.S. relationship, there are some concerns. I certainly saw them when I was in the country in early June right before the earthquake. I think perhaps the administration very early on felt that working with Delsey was probably the best of a bad situation. Certainly once you remove Maduro, you've got to make sure the hospitals are open, that the highways are working, that police are going to show up, right?

And you look around and say, well, who's going to do that? Who's going to manage that? And so you make a deal with the devil and you say, well, you know, let's utilize her capabilities until perhaps in the near future when she's not as such a utility, you know, to the United States and others. But I think that's where things are starting to stall because Delsey is a very smart person. She is a very devouted communist. There's no doubt about that.

She's very much responsible for a lot of the problems and issues. She profited personally from a lot of the corruption and was very well aware and participated in many cases regarding the kidnapping of even U.S. citizens within Venezuela. So you're now dealing with her, and what I think is happening is she's trying to do her best to outlive this administration and to drag her feet on a lot of sings. So when the U.S. actually does call her up, I think she does reply and she does fall in line. But long-term-wise, it's a big question mark as to what her utility is going to be in bringing about democratic change in Venezuela. So let's talk about that long-term, big question. And Bill, I want to ask about whether Delsey is trustworthy as a leader. But let's listen

to what President Trump set down the marker when it came to the opposition, Maria Carriamachado, one of the other options, if you didn't go with Delsey, what President Trump said earlier this year. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect. So, Andreas, that seems to be what the president said earlier this year seems to be the core decision, moment of choosing Delce Rodriguez. Does that perception in the administration still exists today? Well, you know, I think it's important to take the context of that.

And what we're talking about is comments made just after this operation, where we're looking at what is the immediate next steps for Venezuela? And I think part of what the president was referring to is that particularly within the structure of government, the various institutions deeply flawed after decades of being hammered with the socialist regimes propaganda and ensuring loyalty is throughout the ranks, that the idea is of installing Maria Karina,

whether or not she deserves that, I tend to think she does because of the realities of the fraudulent elections, that that would have been a disastrous situation almost immediately, led to a complete shutdown in what little capacities of the government had to enact responses to these kinds of crises. But also, I think it would have been disastrous for her in a lot of ways, as far as her image within the

Venezuela and the Venezuelan people because she would be held responsible. Laura, disastrous? Well, there's a question first. Let's take a step back and discuss how we got here because there's a problem of legitimacy and law still matters or should matter to the U.S. The first thing is that Maduro did not win the July 2020 for elections. So he lacked legitimacy and therefore Deli Rodriguez as vice president lacked legitimacy. The Supreme Court, right after January 3rd, issued a ruling and said that there was an absolute absence,

which is a figure that does not exist in the Venezuelan Constitution. And, grandly, if we take the most lenient interpretation of that ruling, that would have given her until July 2nd. And we're towards the end of July, and there's no election being called. So first, there's an issue of legitimacy. And then on the issue of Marra Corina Mattel, regardless of her political position, closeness or not closest to the administration, she is a Venezuelan citizen. She has a right to participate in elections, and she has managed to harness the majority of the support from Venezuelans. So if there were to be an inclusive process that leads towards a democratic transition, the majority of the opposition needs to be taken into consideration. Bill, how important is there that there needs to be an inclusive process right now?

I mean, Delci Rodriguez was criticized by the Trump administration and previous administrations, and now she's, you know, the useful leader from afar, I guess. Nick, it's not important, it's essential. The truth of the matter is we've been talking about the three-part strategy developed by the Trump administration, and I think heavily by the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, stabilization, recovery, and transition, by which we mean democratic transition. I agree with those who say there has been some good, serious, measurable progress in terms of

stabilization and recovery, much slower in terms of transition, although we're seeing movement in that regard. The reason that this is important is because whatever progress that is made on stabilization and economic recovery is not going to be long-term, until the democratic transition process is brought to some form of closure. And that's where we have not made the same progress. You asked at the very start, is Delsey Rodriguez trustworthy? Paul gave you a simple answer to that.

No. As Rick said, she is a dedicate. He's a communist. I say he's a Marxist-Leninist. She has an objective. That is survival at this particular point in time. She has been very skillful because he is correct. She's a very smart, crafty person in that regard.

She reflects not Mr. Maduro, but his predecessor, Mr. Chavez, in terms of being shrewd. And she has positioned herself, at least so far in a way, that she is still going to be able to influence the outcome of any sort of transition. That, in my opinion, is the problem set that we have to be focused on for the next foreseeable future. So all of this debate has been happening, and then these key policy decisions have to be. have been made and then the earthquake, right? We've got this earthquake, the most catastrophic in Venezuelan history. The government says more than 5,000 have been killed,

18,000 still homeless, and the UN estimates $37 billion in damage. There's been a Bloomberg poll recently that said more than 60% of Venezuelans are disapproving of the government response and disapproving of Delsey Rodriguez herself. So Rick, jump in. How does this expose?

the reality of what's going on on the ground with what the United States wants or expects or is trying to portray as what the government, the acting government in Venezuela's doing. Sure, you know, so I think once the two earthquakes, right, 7.4, one right after the other occurred, it laid bare really the incompetence, the corruption, the inability of the regime in any way

to address the needs of the people. It wasn't like yesterday they discovered that there are earthquakes in Venezuela. There have been earthquakes in Venezuela since, you know, the beginning of time, right? So they never had a preparedness program. And if they did have a preparedness program, that was rated years ago, too. So the resources that should have been available to the people were never there. And then what was, what, I was surprised to see the ability of international press. And kudos to them, to those who made the track and were able to report and show the world

that many of the military and police units that were involved in those recovery efforts were mostly corrupt, horrible stories of them charging victims to dig out bodies and cadavers, rifling and stealing from them. All that became very, very apparent and very clear to the world audience. And then that refocuses now the international community

and says, well, wait a minute, is this the Delci that we're dealing with? Dostado Cabello, who now runs, the, you know, the internal ministries of Venezuela and the military and the intelligence services, you know, he's wanted by, you know, by U.S. authorities. DA put out a $25 million reward on him, right? And here's a person who's now, you know, taking photo ops with the U.S. ambassador and with the leader of Southcom.

And it's kind of that schizophrenic message that then rises to the top. And the administration now has to deal with and address. how they are dealing with it, or at least initially, publicly, is this statement by the top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela. Despite all those problems, he went out to Univision, John Barrett, and said this. I've seen before this earthquake a commitment from this interim government to work with and collaborate with us. They too want a new Venezuela, a better Venezuela. And after the earthquake, this hasn't changed. If anything, their commitment has increased. We're working shoulder to shoulder with our new friends here in Venezuela.

And just how do we interpret that, given that Venezuelans are watching what Rick just described as the inadequacy of the government's response? Well, I think it's important when we look at all the messaging on Venezuela, particularly from the administration, to keep in mind that there's a difference in diplomacy, as the ambassador knows well, between what you say publicly and what you say behind closed doors. And I think part of the reason that the administration has been very cautious with a public messaging and trying to highlight positive progress is because the underlying situation is still very very volatile in a lot of ways and there are

still competing factions within the remnants of the regime which there are real concerns that they could have or could still seek to not only take power but disrupt otherwise operations particularly from the US in Venezuela and I think that's a reality that the administration has very much clearly in mind when it's talking about maintaining some level of confidence in the current arrangement, which has to include, for the moment, the current administration of Dulce Rodriguez. Bill, has the administration been conscious? Yeah, I mean, first in terms of the ambassador, especially, they've Charge. Please believe me when I tell you, no ambassador, no U.S. ambassador, no U.S. ambassador,

anywhere in the world is effective if he or she is not reflecting the views of the government back in Washington. In other words, when an ambassador speaks in public more often than not, what the ambassador is saying is what his or her leadership is suggesting back in Washington. Now, how you choose to express that is a matter for diplomatic skill craft and trade craft. And, you know, I could poke holes in what has been said publicly, but at the end of the day, I understand the objective, and that is to deal with the realities on the ground, to work through a transition which requires working with the existing governing structure in Venezuela. Fine. I could live with that. I am uncomfortable, if I might express an opinion, where that requires literally slowly, slowing down the efforts of the leadership for many years now of the Democratic opposition of Venezuela from being able to do its job. In other words, try to establish a structure whereby the two sides will talk to one another.

Fine, that makes perfectly good sense. But not allowing, I don't want to go that far, but allowing a situation. Do you think the U.S. has been blocking the transition? I intentionally decided to withdraw from that, but to state something that is absolutely unquestionable, and that is the leader and the leadership of the Democratic opposition, the person who won 94% of the vote in an open primary, the person whose candidate for president won nearly 70% of the vote,

for the sole reason that he was Maria Corina Machado's designated representative, that that person has to be at the table, or at least people that she has designated, has to be at the table. That's my concern for the coming future. Let's listen to President Trump describing U.S. policy this week. We have now an incredible relationship with Venezuela. We're taking out millions of barrels of oil.

They're making more money now than they ever made before, ever. Venezuela, the people are so happy that we're there, the jobs, everything's happening, and we're taking out many, many times the money that we spent on the war. Laura, the U.S. is managing Venezuelan oil exports. That's what the president is talking about. What have we seen of that? Is it transparent?

And is there any indication this money is going back into the Venezuela for the Venezuelan people? Yes, thank you for that question, because that allows me to connect it with the previous comments. And I think the U.S. position backing a government that we know is authoritarian and is so corrupt actually undermines the position of the U.S. in Venezuela. And let me go back to the issue of oil. There is unclarity on how much oil is being produced, how much money is the administration in Venezuela of the interim government receiving from the U.S.

And that lack of transparency, we're seeing it on both sides. So let me be clear. The Venezuelan Constitution establishes that the resources underneath the land belong to the Republic, and therefore to its citizens. The executive order from January 9th that creates the foreign deposits fund acknowledges that, and the U.S. then acts as a custodial

for those resources. But that doesn't undermine the obligation that the Venezuelan government, despite its lack of legitimacy, has in terms of providing transparent information. We don't even know how much money, because the central bank has not issued any information on how much has been dispersed from the U.S. to the Venezuelan government. Here in the U.S., the Secretary of State Rubio and also Deputy Kozak in Congress,

they have repeatedly said that this fund or the account is under an audit by KPMG, but so far that information is not public. So what we've called for as an organization here based in D.C. is for the Department of Treasury to issue periodic reports. That would be just the minimum to expect from the administration. Andres, we've got these questions about the transparency of oil money. We've got these fundamental questions that Ambassador Brownfield raises of, hey, to have long-term stability in Venezuela,

we do need the transition. We have an announcement from this week, from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying there's going to be some Venezuela conversations the government there now and another opposition figure, but not Maria Karina Machado. I mean, how important is it from your perspective, or do you even think the U.S. is interested in transition

and how fundamental is that question as we all talk about this long-term stability that we all want for Venezuela? I mean, I think the political transition and the full restoration of democracy and free elections in Venezuela is essential. It's essential, particularly to ensuring that we don't have a return to what has been,

the status quo for two decades, which is the collapse of institutions and accountability and the weaponization of the institutions of the Venezuelan government against the United States and against the region and our stability. So I think that's the reality that Venezuelans have lived with for over two decades makes very clear that this movement of socialism, anti-Americanism, has no future in Venezuela under free and fair elections. And I think that's important, at least not in the way it had. I think that's important to keep in mind.

And why I think also the administration sees that this transition is an essential part of that process politically. The question isn't whether or not we pursue that. I think it's been very clear that the administration recognized that and wants to pursue that and is pursuing that. The question is, how do you go about doing that? And there are questions about how you do that sustainably. We'll have to leave it there. Laura, thank you so much. Rick, Phil Andres, thank you very much for all being here.

And that's all the time we have for now. Thank you at home for joining us. I'm Nick Schiffran. We'll see you here again next week on Compass Points.