Today, Explained - Is Venezuela better now?

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

It’s been over four months since the United States overthrew Nicolás Maduro. One Venezuelan says she is grateful for the intervention and is cautiously optimistic for the future. This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Bridger Dunnagan, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Demonstrators demanding better working conditions during a May Day rally in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo by Federico PARRA / AFP via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's been just over two months since the president went to war with Iran, and it's getting really confusing, you guys. We're shepherding ships through the strait. Just kidding, we're not anymore. In hockey, they say, uh, uncle, right? The war is over. We've won this war. This war has been won. J.K., it's not a war.

They don't like the word war. For those of you doing the math at home, we're nine weeks into a four-week war that we won eight weeks ago. The president, by this point, is supposed to need congressional approval to conduct this war, but he's flagrantly bypassing that, like, law? They call it a military operation because that way you don't have a war, you don't have legal problems. But on today, explain from Box, we thought we'd look at the OG Trump II foreign intervention

of 2026. It's been four months since the United States overthrew Nicolas Maduro. We're going to ask if things in Venezuela are better now. Some are saying yes. What's up, y'all? I'm Skyler Diggins, seven-time WNBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years, covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds. Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us.

Estes-Escuade a O'E explicado. Today, Explained. Sean Ramos for him. I got a friend. in Venezuela, and we spoke a day or two after Trump overthrew Maduro back in January. And while everyone I knew was mad the United States was back to its old tricks in Latin America, my friend was happy, like tears of joy happy. So I asked her to join us on the show today to help you understand why. Okay, under Maduro, the humanitarian crisis just, you know, increased. We had like eight months with protests every day.

We couldn't find food, we couldn't find medicines. Actually, my family and I left the country in 2018 just because of that. The military and the police officers had the power to take your cell phones and take a look look at your WhatsApp messages, who have you been calling and your text message to see if you have the name of Maduro, for example, on your cell phone and what we were talking about them. A lot of prisoners, political prisoners, just because you sent a WhatsApp opinion about what was happening, okay? We didn't have any freedom. And we are living in like in a war

because we're trying to survive here in Venezuela with the idea of not even being able to talk about what's happening. If you go to a hospital now and back then, in 2013 when the crisis began, you need to, if you have a surgery, for example, you need to take all the medical supplies, the anesthesia, the gloves for the doctors,

those kids of clothes, you need to take them to the hospital because we have a humanitarian crisis. Right now you can find food, but the idea of not being able to pay for their food is like the same. The minimum salary in Venezuela is 30 cents of a dollar. All the Venezuelans families have had a reason to leave the country.

And I actually didn't want to leave my family, you know, my mother, my sisters, my nephews. I didn't want to leave them. When we left, we returned because I wasn't feeling okay living in another country, being able to work and find food and send money home. I mean, I felt guilty, maybe it's silly to say that, I used to feel guilty when I had an ice cream.

And I was thinking my mom wasn't. I'm sorry, but this is sensitive. It's okay. But that's why he returned. I remember one of the first things you told me after the United States removed Maduro from power and brought him to Brooklyn was, Sean, Obama wouldn't have done this. Obama didn't do this.

Biden wouldn't have done this. Biden didn't do it. Trump is the only one who would do it. And I mean, I guess you're right. But it wasn't like Obama and Biden didn't do anything. They just took this sanctions approach. They took the sort of punishment approach instead of the invasion approach, which a lot of people look at as, you know, interfering with the sovereignty of another country. But you still think you'd rather have Trump interfere with your country's independence and sovereignty than have the sort of Obama-Biden sanctions approach.

Is that right? Yes, that's right. And I still believe that because the sanctions, they're not affecting the government and the proof you can see them. I mean, the sanctions are since 2015, I think. And nothing has changed because the money the government has not just from the oil. And so the people that actually suffers the sanction is the people, the population, us. We are the one who's been suffering from the sanctions because after the sanctions, for example, the food crisis began. we couldn't find food.

Doing that, they just gave oxygen to the government. Has life changed for you under this Rodriguez presidency? Has life changed for your kids? Do they feel less afraid or more free? They do. I do, but they still have to be careful. I mean, like you say. said it's the same government, just they had taken the head.

Okay? But I do believe Venezuela has like a feeling of freedom. Since Maduro left, you can see changes, for example, on the TV and the TV channels, they are now speaking about the government. People are losing the fear of speaking aloud since Maduro was taken. Because I think in between the conversations they have, on the agreements they have, is they cannot keep doing the same

of making more prisoners, only just because they're speaking about the government. So I think life has changed for a few here in Venezuela that have been able to speak aloud. I wouldn't do that yet I wouldn't do that yet I can see that in the environment

you can see people feel free I remember you know when we would talk about Venezuelan politics last year you didn't sound very hopeful and then everything changes at the beginning of this year

and you sounded joyful Are you hopeful for what's in Venezuela's near future? We still don't know what's going to happen. But now I'm living with the hope back again that I'm going to have a country that my kids deserve. I want them to feel proud of Venezuela, of the oil company we have, of the schools we have. I don't know if you know what I mean.

Maybe I'm being too romantic. See, but I want my family back. If you've ever found a Venezuelan in your city and you talk to them, they're going to tell you they want to come back because we're like a motherhood society. We all want to be at Grandma's house. We all the cousins and the uncles and aunts together. And that's what I want for my kids.

I want them to be proud of being Venezuela and being able to reunite with all their families. It's funny, you know, it's such a beautiful dream to have everyone come back. And I hate to bring the President of the United States into your beautiful dream. But it's kind of funny how the two. you have the same dream. You just want all the Venezuelans living in the United States to come back, and he wants all the Venezuelans living in the United States to leave. But we have the same dream.

Maybe he's working more than I am to make that to come through. Of course, I am not agree with what he's doing in the States. You know, when I see his administration, I see mine. I mean, I don't want you to misunderstand my idea of what I want for my country, but what I want for my country is not what I want for yours. I see him and I see Chavez, you know, back in the 2000s. When you have a government that's extreme, that's bad. I mean, he's doing something good for us,

maybe because he wants to get something from us that the only way to get it is using the force. You know? Maybe it's the only way. Probably is the oil. That's not a secret. That was my friend Carla. Let's call her Carla because she's still too afraid to use her real name.

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writer at the Atlantic Missy, we just heard from my friend Carla, who lives in Venezuela and is cautiously optimistic about the restoration of democracy there. You not too long ago published a piece at The Atlantic titled Venezuela seems to be going well? Yeah, the headline of the piece, I think, really captured the surprise that many of my colleagues here at the Atlantic and then many of the Latin America experts that I spoke with for the piece felt three months on from the ouster of Maduro, which was that contrary to a lot of expectations about the potential destabilization of Venezuela, the potential for an Iraq-style armed insurgency or fracturing of the state. Things were pretty quiet in Venezuela.

And in fact, there had been a relatively positive outlook response from the Venezuelan public, now starting from a very, very low place of, you know, kind of things can't get much worse in terms of economic conditions, political conditions for Venezuelans. But they have in the limited polling that's been done since Maduro's ouster on January 3rd, they have expressed cautious optimism or at least a willingness to let some time pass before making a judgment about the overall kind of net analysis of are things better or worse for us in Venezuela. And you referenced polling. So this isn't just people in the media saying things got better in Venezuela. Venezuela, Venezuelans broadly feel that way.

Correct. And I think that that should be the ultimate arbiter. It doesn't matter as much what analysts in Washington or Miami think. It's about the Venezuelans who are in Venezuela. And then obviously the exile community throughout the world who are deeply invested in what happens there can potentially return and help grow the economy, rebuild Venezuelan society after a very traumatic period of repression and economic deterioration. So the polling was very important, and, you know, that could change. I think that really the sense was people were willing to give Delci Rodriguez the interim president some time

and the interim authority sometime to show if they could deliver on the kind of bread and butter issues that Venezuelan see most focused on. And that is starting to have, you know, there are starting to be some improvements there in terms of the economy. It hasn't really affected prices yet, but certainly investment is starting to slowly materialize, definitely far short of what President Trump had envisioned and sort of promised when we heard from him in early January. But, you know, with oil prices where they are and the lifting of sanctions, you know, the kind of resource dependent Venezuelan economy stands to grow if only. from a kind of statistical rebound perspective. And hopefully that'll really begin to trickle down into Venezuelans' pockets. I think the question of political freedoms is going to be very important,

but it didn't seem like it was the primary concern of Venezuelans and the polling that has been done so far. I mean, one of the biggest differences is obviously just that there's someone different in charge. Is Delsey Rodriguez making Venezuela a freer country than Maduro did? That is a complicated question. There have been a number of metrics that you can talk about. When the ouster happened in January, the Trump administration talked about it as kind of a simple law enforcement operation that was executed by the military, which is incredibly unorthodox. Overwhelming American military power, air, land, and sea was used to launch a spectacular assault.

and it was an assault like people have not seen since World War II. They were talking about three phases, and this is what Rubio and the people of the State Department were describing as three phases that they saw for Venezuela. Step one is the stabilization of the country. We don't want it descending into chaos. The second phase will be a phase that we call recovery, and then the third phase, of course, will be one of transition. As part of that recovery stage, they have kind of leaned on the red, Rodriguez, interim authorities to take certain steps.

And primary among those that are kind of, they focused on the release of political prisoners. They backed away from the same level of arbitrary arrests that had occurred under Maduro. There have been some limited kind of mostly economic focused protests or demonstrations that have happened without kind of the same kind of crackdown that you would have expected under Maduro. From teachers to public employees, protests are spreading across Caracas. Their message is simple. They cannot leave on what they earn. These have only been limited steps.

There's so much more that hasn't actually occurred yet, and that includes the full release of political prisoners. For my Venezuela, for all political prisoners, for all those heroes who have given their lives, and whom we have no way to repay for all the dedication and sacrifice they have made for Venezuela's freedom. Remember that although Venezuelan oil exports are really starting to increase and the revenues are really starting to increase, that money goes into a U.S. treasury-controlled account in the United States. And Delci Rodriguez has to submit a spending plan to the U.S. government

and have, in order to get that money going back to Venezuela to pay salaries, to provide public services. So, you know, it is not an autonomous, sovereign situation, far from it. One of the biggest criticisms of this intervention in Venezuela against President Trump has been, you didn't even change the regime. You just put Maduro's number two in power

and there's no commitment to elections, at least in a concrete form. Do we have any idea now that it's, been three, four months when we might see elections? So there has been no official statement either from the interim authorities in Venezuela or the U.S. government. But what I'm told privately is that they are planning for elections to occur by the second half of 2027. However, there is a lot that needs to happen before that. And we haven't seen any public steps to advance those steps, which would include, you know, reform of the National Electoral Commission, an update to the registry of

Venezuelans who have all been displaced all throughout Venezuela. And then, of course, the question of millions of Venezuelans who are now outside the country who would need to be taking part in any sort of credible election. The lack of a plan that has been made public raises questions about the level of commitment that the U.S. administration has to the democracy piece of this. their argument has been, look, if we jumped right into elections, that really would have intensified the potential for civil conflict. And so their bet is on slow incremental change. And they're saying, look, you know, if it has to take a year and a half, two years, that's better than jumping right into elections before the country is prepared. Of course, the fact that the credible

election might be, what, one, two years away. only lends more credibility to this argument that this wasn't about freedom for the Venezuelan people. This was about oil. Now that we're months out, does it feel like this was just about oil? Is that a fair criticism to lobby at the Trump administration? I think that it definitely was about oil primarily for President Trump. It clearly, you know, he, as we put in this article, I think he mentioned oil 19 times in the press conference that he gave the morning. after the Maduro raid.

As everyone knows, the oil business, the oil, the oil infrastructure, oil, oil, oil and oil, build the oil, the oil company, the oil, our oil, we, oil is very dangerous. Oil, the oil business, oil, oil, oil, oil company, the oil, that as it pertains to oil. There have been some more modest deals that have occurred, but the kind of big production deals

in the oil sector have not yet materialized, and I think there's a lot of structural obstacles that need to be overcome. Primary among them is really just the overall trajectory of Venezuela and skepticism among oil investors to jump back in when they don't know who's going to be ruling the country in a year. Like, is it going to go back to a socialist model where they're going to expropriate things again? You know, as Exxon famously said, you know, they had their assets taken not once but twice and it was uninvestable. But also, like, what is this country going to to look like in two years, five years, ten years, because these countries are using very long

timeframes because the investments are so significant and the timeframes are long. It feels so clear that, you know, the quagmire in Iran could have been foreseen. But with Venezuela, it's less clear. There's more of a disconnect, I think, between how a lot of Americans viewed this intervention versus what we're hearing from you. How do you make sense of that? that disconnect between maybe how so many of the American people saw this intervention versus how some of the Venezuelans feel about it. Yeah, I mean, I think neutral to better is kind of what I've seen. The United States has a new Charger de Fair in Caracas, and we're expecting the Venezuelan

embassy here in Washington to open sometime soon. You know, that's a normalization of relations. What does that bring in terms of new investment? or business deals, like, you know, the extent to which will the normalization of economic ties and deepening of kind of a working relationship between the United States and then the interim authorities in Venezuela, will that act as a counter to the pressure to hold elections? Will that actually kind of increase the inertia against elections? I don't know, but I think that that could happen.

All of those things are things that I would be watching. Misdemeanor, Ryan, you can read her work at TheAtlantic.com. Ariana Espuru produced the program today. Amina al-Assadhi edited. Gabriel Donatav kept us truthy. David Tadishore and Bridger Dunagan kept us Mixy. It's today explained.