This American Life - The Americans Outside My Window

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

In this special mini-episode -- an extra episode this week! -- we hear from someone in Venezuela with a very specific take on last week's U.S. attack.

Hey, everybody, Ira here. This thing that you're listening to right now is a little bonus episode that we decided to throw down the feed. In addition to the new show that we just made, which is called New Lord Drop, which came out of the regular time on the feed Sunday night and should be sitting right next to this bonus episode in your podcast app. Let me take a second and explain what you're listening to right here. When the United States attacked Venezuela last week and captured its president, Nicholas Maduro, I kept thinking about this story that Nancy Updike did for a while back about the 2024 election in Venezuela. In that election, there was this massive grassroots effort not just to oust Maduro and elect the opposition candidate.

But also, they knew that they were going to have to prove that the opposition actually won. And so what that meant is tens of thousands of volunteers around the country planned and trained for months. NAN on Election Day, they not only managed to get a huge turnout, going out and voting, they also organized this whole thing where they went around and they collected paper copies of the vote totals from most of the voting centers around the country. Okay, so they have these paper receipts, they scanned these vote totals, added them up, put everything online, proving that the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez beat Maduro and beat him decisively. their numbers showed a two-to-one victory.

People hated Maduro that much. But election authorities declared Maduro the winner. He stayed in power. People protested. Maduro cracked down with mass detentions. Over 1,500 people. The United Nations looked into it and found that many of those detainees were tortured. The world knew who won.

Countries around the world, including the United States, went through the opposition's numbers, looked at the receipts, concluded they were solid, and officially recognized Gonzalez, the opposition candidate, as the winner and rightful president of Venezuela. But this past week, as you probably saw, when the United States captured President Maduro, President Trump did not say, okay, here's the guy who actually won the election. Here's the woman who leads the opposition that he's part of, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Karina Machado. let's finally put them in power.

Which made me wonder, what do all those Venezuelans who were part of this big, organized movement to vote Maduro out of power and prove that they won, who did all that so, so well? What do they think of the events of the last week? What's this been like for them? Are they angry?

Do they see any hope that they might get a shot? Well, Nancy Updike and reporter Anayonzi-D-S. reached out to one of those people and talk to her. She said all kinds of interesting and eye-opening things that we have not heard elsewhere in the coverage. So what you're about to hear, you'll hear Anianzi interpreting. She's up to us with all of our Venezuela coverage. And what you're going to hear is her live translation

recorded during the conversation, so it's not word-for-word exact, but it's close. Because this conversation is so of this moment, without it made the most sense to put it out now and not wait for some theme or something. Hence this extra episode. this week that you're listening to. Here's Nancy Updike.

A lot of Venezuelans were expecting some kind of big move. The U.S. had been bombing Venezuelan boats for months. American aircraft carriers and destroyers have been assembling in the Caribbean. It was clear something was about to happen. The woman I talked to, Teresa, had also been expecting. She didn't know what. When the attack happened, she was at home in her neighborhood just outside the capital, Karakas with her family, including her two grown children.

Teresa's not her real name. It's still too dangerous in the country for anyone who organized against Maduro. The attack started in the middle of the night, her time. How I experienced it is that, you know, we're on vacation. You know, it was late, but we were up late. We were watching a series on TV. me, you know, me and my daughter. And then suddenly, you know, we're watching the series,

and I hear like a sound, I don't know, a long droning sound that sounded like a plane, and then, see ya, Teresa. I immediately go to the window. I go to the window, you know, I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit far away from the scene, but it was a full moon that night or close to a full moon.

So you could clearly see six helicopters with no lights on and a lot of noise through my window. There was six or seven helicopters that were, you know, far away, but also really near my house. And it was quite easy to see. So, you know, it was, how can I explain it? It was almost like a live action situation where we're like, what we're seeing outside our window and the information we're getting is totally communicating with each other. And it was just, it wasn't like live.

It was in vivo. It was basically live. We would get the information on our phone and then we would see it playing out in front of us. We would see it playing it out in front of us. And then we would get it on our phone. It was just, yeah, it was a live event, basically. was evident So it was that it was

a emotion very conflicted, an emotion very incontecida. So, you know, it's a lot of dual feelings or found,

you know, mixed feelings, found feelings, as you say in Spanish, like, you know, on the one hand, it's like, yes, they're bombarding

our country, they're bombarding Venezuela, there's a kind of invasion, but on the other hand, they're going after the bad guys. That was the feeling that they were going after the bad guys. So I felt split. I felt both invaded and also like they were going after the bad guys.

Did we feel happy? Yes. We felt happy. Felices. We felt so happy and grateful. Grateful that something was finally happening, that there was movement finally happening. And at the same time, worried, of course, that there are people paying for this. You know, a friend, you know, her house. exploded. She was fine, but everything in her house, all the windows were broken. The death of a lot of those soldiers also worried me, like who was paying that price. And then so we're sitting there, feeling happy and feeling grateful. And then we hear an explosion, like a huge light, just exploding near an airport. And, you know, we have a full visual of that, too. It just went, a splendor, like a lightning flash.

There was a kind of expectation. It's not, it wasn't a complete surprise. Like, you know, there was kind of an expectation that something was going to happen. There was something kind of afloat, you know, but I did feel like a sense of panic, I would describe it, and, you know, that duality of feelings of like panic, but also not knowing what's happening and it kind of happening,

and a kind of happiness. And that's when I went upstairs to where my kids were. But that's, I went upstairs and then that's where we were observing everything that was happening at around 2 a.m. This was happening.

And when you went upstairs, what did you say to your kids and what did they say? My son was, they got, mom, saw my son and he, I mean, he was jumping up and down. Yagarin, they arrived.

Honestly, I was more in shock. You know, my daughter, she was, you know, she was stuck to her phone from that second. We were on WhatsApp. We were just, like, trying to understand what was happening. But I will say we are, you know, close enough to have felt the explosion. You know, what we didn't know was if Maduro had been extracted or not. extracted if you know who was dead or who wasn't dead that we didn't know but you know my daughter who's bilingual was you know was following X and and following Trump's tweet so we were waiting for

for Trump to tweet and then once Trump tweeted my daughter translated that and we knew that Maduro had been had been extracted so when when your daughter saw president Trump's tweet or announcement that Maduro had been and his wife had been taken out of the country. What was your reaction? Well, at the principle, I said, my wife, verific it, verific it, he'll say, that veritikas, it's a real. Because, as there's a fact new boy. At first, the first moment, the only thing I felt was verified to my daughter.

I told her, verify, verify, verify. That's all I want. I want to know, you know, if this is really true, because there's so much fake news. and so much fake news out there. What's real? What's real? What's not real? Right. But what am I going to tell you, Nancy? We were happy. We were filled with joy. We were, you know, we were jumping around. I had, you know, I had these feelings of the moment we realized it was real that, you know, I wanted him to suffer, you know, kind of what we've suffered. And, you know, I know that's not very, you know,

good of me. And he's not going to suffer like we suffered. He's, you know, sometimes I'm like he's in good hands. But, you know, we don't have the capacity to be, to be, to be, rational in those moments, just feeling things and what I felt was satisfaction. Of course, I didn't believe it at first, and that this could happen so fast. It was, you know, two hours is a long time, but it was also a short time and without resistance, because really right now in Venezuela, there's nothing to resist with. So that's all we wanted was the truth and, and I don't know how us to put it, but we felt a grand sense of satisfaction. That feeling of satisfaction changed over the next day or so. After President Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Haguez, and others held a press conference, the United States

would run Venezuela, Trump said. He barely mentioned Teresa's political hero, opposition leader Maria Karina Machado. Trump dismissed Machado as, quote, a very nice woman. The person Trump did talk about as the new leader of Venezuela, was the vice president, Delci Rodriguez. Trump said she would be in charge. Delci Rodriguez is a devoted member of Maduro's team. And what Teresa slowly realized is that Maduro's entire government, the government she and tens of thousands of others had organized and voted to change, the whole thing was going to remain intact.

in the days it did follow that you know what is very clear to me and my family is that Trump is his interest are of his country and of his party and of his people and the people close to him his interests aren't of our people and that is very very clear so a lot of my time in these days have been spent kind of understanding the decisions of his administration and understanding gringo politics and what that is and I'm still trying to understand. I don't totally get it and there's a lot of decisions

that of course feel risky to me and not great, but it's clear that it's his interests not ours. But I began to listen to Marco Rubio and it's a, but I also wasn't expecting,

you know, the other side, which was I began to listen to Marco Rubio and just, We all started to just feel this sinking feeling and just feel very, very bad, you know, and just not really, how can I put it? I don't understand why Trump is saying this, is negotiating with Delci Rodriguez.

You know, Delci and her brother, you know, it's very risky and dangerous to negotiate with her, and it's a very risky and dangerous play that the United States is doing. It's been so emotional for me to see that play out that I haven't even listened to Maria Corina yet in what she has said. I'm just processing this negotiation of Marco Rubio and the Trump administration negotiating with Vice President Delci Rodriguez, who's now in power. And what is on TV, on the government channels or radio, what are they saying? The news says nothing. They do something. They do circus. They do music. They don't do anything. They've just taken it over. So, yeah, it continues to be circus. I just, you know, I just want to make clear. I have two kids. You know, one may be more politicized than the other or not. But before all this, I just want to make clear. I have two kids. You know, one may be more politicized than the other or not. But before all this, this, you know, we knew this was coming.

We didn't know how it was coming. We didn't know when it was coming, but we knew that something big was coming. And, you know, and for weeks and months now, I've been like, don't be on the street. Where are you? Just completely paranoid in keeping track of them. And, you know, I'm just so grateful that how this all happened,

when this all happened, that we were all at home. But, you know, as I look at them sometimes in their, you know, in their 20s and I'm like, they can't even go on the street. They can't go outside. They're spending their youth, their best years, like living inside with their mother in fear. And so, you know, when I tell you that even as much as Trump scares me, I think Trump needs to come again to get Delcy or whatever.

And it really scares me that he's negotiating with her. But just to give you a sense and to also tell you that it will only be, you know, with Delci Rodriguez, with the person in charge, with this government in charge, it will only get harder to talk to you. It will only get harder to speak with you over time. And, you know, I am but one Teresa, but there are many, many, many, many Teresa's, and it's only getting harder to speak the truth.

You were saying that you're spending time now trying to understand gringo politics. What are you, what are you, what do you think? What's your take on what we're doing? I'm very worried. I'm very preoccupated

that they are more time to this government malanglo that was

to be worried. They're giving so much time to this government that continues to be

alive and whether you give him three weeks or three months you know they're not

stopping they're only solidifying their power yes they took away Maduro but there's the power

the power structure is still alive. Yesterday, they took, I don't know how many journalists. They're still taking political prisoners. The oath that Trump took with us of reestablishing some kind of semblance of democracy,

that's not happening. And for the teresa's like me, the ones on the street, the ones walking the street, I don't know what to tell you. We're tormented. We're worried. Today. Today, today, today. Not three days ago, not into it.

Today, Trump is not doing what he says. he has and Trump still doesn't have power here. Four days into this and we're still seeing more rest, more impunity, we're seeing more of the same. I guess I'm wondering if a democratic election, if a democratic government seems just as far away as it did before this happened or farther, or farther. Yes. Yes. I believe we are on vano. Yes. If we don't have in this, I mean, and if... Yes. Yes. I believe we are on a path to democracy. Why do I believe this? Because I have to. Because this fight can't be in vain.

Because the path for me has to be democracy, because that's what I've invested in my life in all these years in. Am I worried? Yes, I've told you. I am worried. I don't think that Trump is taking the best path. To me, you know, it's a little bit mareo politico, which is like, mareo, mareo, what is Mareo? Dizziness. It's political dizziness. He's, you know, Trump is making us dizzy with politics, and I don't think elections are

going to have to happen immediately, but they need to happen. If we held elections, right now, we could change this government. My worry, my main worry, is the interim, the right now, from today to the new elections. So if Trump really has power here, then Trump needs to make sure that the political prisoners are free. They don't all have to come out today. It can be three at a time. That is how you show power. And then you hold elections.

And if you hold elections, I guarantee that there will be a new government in place. But that's what has to happen. Nancy Updike is one of the producers of our show. Since she did this interview, the Venezuelan government has released some political prisoners. The government of Delseo Rodriguez has been talking about. expanding diplomatic ties with the United States. President Trump has said that Venezuela cannot hold elections until the United States can, quote, rebuild the country.

This many episode was put together by Nancy with Anayansi D.S. Cortez, Lars D.S. Chorchesky, Dorothy Kronick, Helena Carpio, Stone Nelson, Suzanne Gabbard, and me. We have a whole new regular episode this week. As I said, it's really good. It's fun called New Lord Drop. Keep an eye out for that. It should be in your feed right now. Thanks for listening.