Up First from NPR - Next Steps In Venezuela, GOP 2026 Roadmap, Greenland and Europe

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

President Trump talks about next steps for Venezuela, calling for U.S. companies to help rebuild the economy even as much of the existing power structure remains in place.Facing tough midterm elections in 2026, Trump tells House Republicans he’s struggling to understand voters and leans into culture-war issues rather than cost-of-living concerns.And European leaders rally around Greenland, pushing back on Trump’s renewed claims that the United States needs the territory for national security.Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Rebekah Metzler, Kelsey Snell, Kate Bartlett, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Alice Woelfle.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.(0:00) Introduction(01:59) Next Steps In Venezuela(05:47) GOP 2026 Roadmap(09:32) Greenland and EuropeLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Nicolas Maduro is out of power, but his regime in Venezuela is still firmly in place. President Trump says the U.S. will run the country and U.S. companies will rebuild oil infrastructure. But what is the actual plan? I'm Michelle Martin. That's Lila Fado, and this is up first from NPR News. President Trump told House Republicans he is struggling to understand voters as his party braces for tough midterm elections. But I wish you could explain to me. What the hell's going on with the mind of the public because we have a, we have the right policy? Does Trump's strategy match what voters say they want?

And European leaders are uniting around Greenland after new U.S. threats to take the territory. Trump says the U.S. needs it for national security. And Europe says Greenland's borders are not up for grabs. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive and up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. Tees and Cs apply. President Trump continues to suggest a lengthy and active U.S. role in Venezuela after capturing leader Nicolas Maduro. Well, he said the U.S. will run Venezuela for a period. Trump has proposed several plans for the future of Venezuela's government and economy with U.S. companies playing a key role. And now apparently Venezuela is handing over oil to the U.S.

NPR's Franco Ordonez joins us now to talk about all of this. Hey, Franco. Hey, Lela. Okay, so many questions about what's next for Venezuela. And it feels like everything is kind of happening ad hoc. Does the president have a plan? I mean, there really are so many questions. The truth is President Trump and his aides are not really clear about the future of Venezuela.

as we've reported, you know, they did not get behind the popular opposition leader, Maria Gordina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, saying she didn't have enough support from the people. And while there have been a lot of calls for new elections in an interview about Venezuela's future, Trump told NBC News it's going to take a, quote, period of time and that the U.S. first needs to, quote, nurse the country back to health again. Okay, so who is running the country then? Who's going to run the country? Well, for now, Trump is backing Maduro's vice president, Delci Rodriguez. And there are also a number of other ministers from the Maduro regime who are still in charge, including his interior minister and his defense minister. I was actually talking with Ambassador John Bolton, who served as national security advisor in the first Trump administration. And he told me that he doesn't see those officials just rolling over for Trump.

I don't think that's what they think they're doing. I think they are still the Maduro regime just without Maduro. And I think it's going to be very hard, much harder than Trump understands, to get them to do what he wants them to do. And Layla, it sure looks like the regime is fighting all it can to hold on, cracking down on dissent in Venezuela, arresting journalists, and others. And I should probably also note that Bolton has become a fierce Trump critic after he was fired from the administration. And more recently, Trump's Department of Justice is prosecuting Bolton for allegedly mishandling classified info. Right. And there are a lot of questions about what Trump means. when he says the U.S. will run Venezuela, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Right now, and while Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been having conversations with Rodriguez, a lot of eyes are also actually on Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, who's also among the group of U.S. officials overseeing Venezuela. Now, of course, Rubio, he's a Cuban-American from Miami, certainly well-steeped in these issues, having worked on them for decades. Miller is better known for his immigration policies, and more recently actually depicting U.S. ruling over the hemisphere by force.

And President Trump has made it clear that a lot of this is about Venezuela's oil, and he made a pretty stunning announcement last night on Truth Social. What did he say? Yeah, I mean, last night Trump announced on social media that Venezuela will turn over 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S. And then the U.S. will sell it at market price with proceeds overseen by him. Is this all above board? I mean, is this legal? I mean, I think the circumstances of which Venezuela is giving this oil are also very unclear. I mean, Trump is saying that U.S. may also subsidize the oil companies to help revive Venezuela's oil industry, which really indicates a much longer-term project for the U.S.

Trump has said it could take less than 18 months to rebuild the Venezuelan infrastructure, but experts say it'll take much longer multiple years to fix the decaying system. Okay, so many questions ahead. I'm sure we'll be talking again very soon. soon. Thank you, Franco. Thank you. That's White House correspondent Franco O'Donias. There is something that Donald Trump can't quite wrap his head around. But I wish you could explain to me what the hell's going on with the mind of the public because we have a, we have the right policy. That was the president speaking to House Republicans on Tuesday.

the possibility of losing the House at this year's midterm elections. He was trying to offer his party a roadmap to win, as he called it. So was he successful? NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro watched the speech and he joins me now. Domenico, good morning. Hey, good morning. So what are the headwinds Republicans are facing at the start of this year? Yeah, I mean, never mind the headline changing action in Venezuela. You know, right at the beginning of his speech yesterday, Trump acknowledged the vulnerable position that he and his part, party are in simply because of history. We want everything. But they say that when you win the presidency, you lose the midterm.

And it's true that midterms are hard on a president's party. You know, on average, they lose more than two dozen seats. And it's worse when a president's approval rating is below 50%. Right. And we know Trump's approval rating, certainly it's been below 50% for a while. Yeah. And he's facing his lowest approval ratings of his second term. And it's been in large measure because of the cost of living. But Trump didn't offer much yesterday in his speech on that. In fact, it took him 48 minutes before he even started talking about the economy at all. And when he did, it was about the stock market being at historic highs. And he touted his tariffs, which have actively raised prices on many things. And people have been telling pollsters for months that they feel

Trump's policies have made the economy worse. So if he didn't talk about strategy on prices, what did he talk about? I mean, his culture issues mostly. That's, you know, hardly a unusual for Trump. He always seems to be weaving back to that as he calls it. He said being against transgender athletes and sports is such a winning issue that he'd save it for the week before the election. He did an imitation of a woman lifting weights. One, he said that his own wife doesn't like. She says it's not presidential, but he went on to do it anyway. He talked about pushing for voter ID laws, immigration and crime, which in his mind are all related, he said, and his attempts at lowering drug prices on weight loss drugs, which he referred to as fat drugs. And he complained a lot about

how he doesn't get the credit he feels he deserves. And he lamented at one point, what have you done for me lately is the way you have to run your life nowadays. Now, Trump was speaking on the same day that Republican Congressman Doug Lamalfa of California died. He was 65. Republicans already had a historically small majority. Will it be even harder now for Republicans to pass legislation? Well, it would if there was a clear legislative agenda from Republicans in Congress, but there really isn't one right now. And a lot of those culture issues are things that Trump has gone around Congress on using executive powers. Now, one area where they could do something would be on health care. Here's what Trump said about that.

You can own health care. Let figure it out. Let the money go directly to the people. Okay, own health care. How feasible is that? Well, Republicans, as we know, have had a long time to quote. figure it out more than a decade. And they haven't been able to. And they've been against extending Affordable Care Act subsidies. But it's one thing to campaign on a slogan like, let the money go to the people. It's very different to be president and to try to legislate on it. So if you're a Republican in a swing district, when the ACA is about as popular as it's ever been, you've got to be scratching your head wondering, what is the strategy? And PR's Domenico Montanaro. Thank you, Domenico.

You're welcome. Heads of state from 35 nations gathered in Paris to discuss Ukraine's future. But the meeting was overshadowed by President Trump's threats to take Greenland. They were supposed to focus on how Ukraine's security and sovereignty will be guaranteed once the war stops. But after watching the U.S. sees Venezuela's president, several countries warned Washington not to go further and to respect the NATO allies' sovereignty. We go to NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris for more. Hi, Eleanor. Good morning, Leila. Good morning. So what did the European leaders say about Greenland?

Yeah, Leila, the issue was looming so large that it risked overshadowing the talks on Ukraine. So before they even got to work on Ukraine, they issued a statement on Greenland. France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain, and Denmark issued a statement stressing that Greenland, quote, belongs to its people and that only Denmark and Greenland can decide the island's future. But the statement did not condemn the U.S.'s aggressive. language or what some see as threats to European sovereignty. No, it spoke of, quote, collective action to protect the Arctic in conjunction with NATO and the U.S. I spoke with Martin Kinsei, who heads the Paris office of the non-partisan think tank, the German Marshall Fund, and he said the Europeans have no choice but to make nice with the Trump administration. Here he is.

The Europeans are not able to take any kind of strong position on any issues related to U.S. foreign policy because Europe depends so much on the U.S. for its own defense and for the future of Ukraine. And to make clear why Europe is so involved here, this is an autonomous region of Denmark. Now, Greenland was top of mind, but was anything accomplished on Ukraine? Yeah, absolutely. This so-called coalition of the willing is really getting down to the nitty-gritty of after the war. They've been meeting since last year to prepare for that when and if it comes. So this coalition is led by France and the U.K., but it also includes non-European, nations like Japan, Australia, New Zealand. And last night, they detailed how an eventual

peace would be reinforced and Russia would be kept from invading again. There would be a high-tech mechanism to monitor a ceasefire on the contact line and troops. France and the UK have committed to boots on the ground to deter a future Russian attack. Let's listen to President Macron. He says there will be a multinational force on air land and sea to bring a reassurance the day after a ceasefire. Macon called it a robust security guarantee for a solid and durable peace. And by the way, the U.S. has also committed support for this force in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine. And the U.S. was represented yesterday at the meeting by President Trump's special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. So it seems like there were actually

two threats the Europeans were concerned about at this meeting. Oh, that's exactly it, Leila. Russia is not the only threat in the room hanging over Europe more and more, the Trump administration. is seen as a threat. Most recently, because of this bellic coast talk about Greenland, Europeans watched a gog over the weekend, Venezuela, as you said. And, you know, it's not the first time President Trump has talked about Greenland, but on Sunday, he called the mineral-rich, world's largest island, quote, so strategic and said the U.S. needs it from a standpoint of national security. Trump hasn't ruled out taking it by force, though Secretary of State Marco Rubio is suggesting the U.S. buy it. I spoke with political scientist Dominique Mouizzi with the Institute

Montagna, and he says Europe is facing actually two enemies. One from Russia, the classical one, and now one from the United States of America. It looks as if Trump, America, betrayed Ukraine, and now is about to aggress Europe. Moiseez says that after perceived backtracking by the Trump administration on support for Ukraine, the continued comments about Greenland suggest an escalator. threat from America. Interesting. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris. Thank you, Eleanor. Thank you. And that's up first for Wednesday, January 7th. I'm Leila Falded. And I'm Michelle Martin. Up First gets you caught up and morning edition takes you deeper. We are live every morning on your local NPR station with reporting, interviews, and the context behind the headlines.

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