WSJ What’s News - Big Questions After Trump Says U.S. Will ‘Run’ Venezuela

Episode Date: January 3, 2026

The U.S. is pledging to run Venezuela until there is a transition of power, after capturing President Nicolás Maduro in an overnight raid. WSJ Washington coverage chief Damian Paletta and national security reporter Vera Bergengruen join host Luke Vargas to discuss the significance of President Trump staking his legacy on a potentially complex nation-building project, the uncertain way oil companies fit into the mix, and how the world is reacting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, What's News listeners. It's Saturday, January 3rd. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News Sunday? We're coming to you early this weekend to dig into the big questions following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and President Trump saying the U.S. will be running the country. We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. We've got a lot to cover, so let's get right to it. It unfolded under the cover of darkness in a mission involving more than 150 aircraft and the same special forces regiment that participated in the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. The U.S. staged a raid on Venezuela overnight that culminated in the capture of the country's president, Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro and his wife were extracted from Venezuela aboard helicopters. brought to a U.S. warship in the Caribbean and are being transferred to New York, where he's expected to face trial. The Justice Department today charged him and five others with playing roles in a drug trafficking network and working with groups the U.S. considers foreign terrorist organizations. Maduro has previously denied those charges. But the news doesn't end there, because when President Trump held a press conference in Florida, we learned that even though the mission dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve is over. The U.S. isn't leaving Venezuela.

We can't take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. We've had decades of that. We're not going to let that happen. We're there now, and what people don't understand, but they understand, as I say this, We're there now, but we're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place. Joining us to make sense of the day's events, I'm joined by Wall Street Journal Washington Coverage Chief Damian Paletta

and Journal National Security reporter Vera Bergen Gruen. Damien, let me start with you. It's been quite the day. We woke up knowing we were going to be tackling some big questions involving a military operation, as well as a judicial component here with Maduro and his wife. facing charges in New York, but as soon as that press conference in Florida started, we realized this wasn't the whole of it. There's more going on here, namely U.S. involvement in a foreign country. Right. I think there's only been more unanswered questions as the days

gone on. As you said, we woke up to the news that the U.S. military with law enforcement went in and took the leader of Venezuela and his wife and brought them onto a ship, and the plan is to bring them to New York to stand trial on conspiracy charges, among other things. So that was an incredible moment, even by Trump standards, to go in and take a foreign leader and the leader's wife into custody with a military operation that involved, I think they said, 150 airplanes. So that was an incredible moment. Then Trump says he's going to have this press conference to give a bunch of explanations. At that press conference, he makes clear that the U.S. will now run Venezuela. Now, what that means, no one really knows at this point.

As the press conference went on, he seemed to suggest it could mean more about the U.S. running the energy sector and the oil operations with the U.S. military's involvement. But he also suggested multiple times that it could mean that the U.S. is going to rebuild the infrastructure of Venezuela and be involved almost in the day-to-day operations of quite a big South American country. So this is the kind of thing that has become a huge. huge issue for the United States in the past. It's obviously much easier to get in than it is to get out. And by President Trump suggested that it could be for at least a year or longer, this is going to become a huge, huge storyline, both domestically and internationally, for a long

time to come. Okay. Potentially sweeping intervention here by the U.S. Vera, in terms of the justification we heard from the president, other members of his cabinet about doing this, the case being brought against Maduro and his wife, it's about smuggling drugs, allegedly into the United States and elsewhere. But then, as Damien mentions, this goes into kind of the U.S. running Venezuela, we hear a much bigger articulation of American national security interests. And I want to play a clip of how Trump couched this as part of his America-first strategy. Mr. President, why is running a country in South America first?

Well, I think it is because we want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability. we want to surround ourselves with energy. Vera, break down the argument Trump made there for why this is happening. This is very much in line with what we seen from Trump since he came back into office. He has done quite a pivot to the Western Hemisphere in what he calls hemispheric defense and prioritized a region of the world that's often really overlooked and has decided this is our backyard. It's really important.

And everything that happens in the Western Hemisphere from South America, Central America, is part of our national security. So what he's saying here is, you know, we basically can do whatever we want in these countries because it's directly tied to our national security. But it's been very interesting because we have heard a lot of shifting rationales. And even today, President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the vice president have all kind of articulated different rationales.

In his press conference, Trump kind of made it sound like this is for the good of the people of the country, this is good for the United States. It makes good economic sense because there's all these oil assets that the U.S. once returned. Meanwhile, you have Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that this is only about bringing Maduro to justice in the United States. He faces crimes, right, the narco-trafficking and terrorism crimes that they've accused them of. And we've got Vice President J.D. Vans saying that this is because Maduro didn't stem the flow of drugs and hasn't returned what they say are stolen oil assets. So there's quite a range of justifications. And it really reflects that. the administration has been all over the map since the beginning of Trump's term, while kind of

waffling between ousting Maduro in this really kind of stunning way we saw today and possibly letting him or his inner circle stay in power if it benefits the United States. What do we know about the details here, the U.S. running Venezuela, at times President Trump sort of saying the guys behind me are going to be in charge of this, pointing to the Secretary of State as well as Secretary Hegseth. Do we have a sense of actually what this is going to look like day to day? It didn't even seem clear to anyone

we really spoke with what exactly this is going to look like. One of the most stunning things to me has been that President Trump basically through the opposition leader, Maria Karina Machado, under the bus, that his administration as champion for the last year,

that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has championed for the last year as the people who should take over the country and said that she's basically not up to the task and that she doesn't have the respect and the support of the population. Just to remind our listeners, Machado, you're referencing there the recent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize? That's right. It's the Peace Prize that we know the President himself coveted.

And he's always been a bit lukewarm on her. But as we said, this would have been the logical way to approach deposing Maduro. And now instead, he has kind of opened this all up and doesn't seem to have an idea if we should be running the country. The other element of the next steps for Venezuela is that the American energy and global oil powers might be getting involved there. Trump detailed this a little bit. Let's play another clip from him.

We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country. Damien, your reaction to that. Obviously, an exploitable, potentially very valuable natural resource in Venezuela and off the coast, but lots of unanswered questions here as well. Exactly.

It's a huge opportunity for companies to be able to produce more energy in and around Venezuela. There's a lot more that they could pump out if there was better infrastructure and better operations. But at the same time, it's very fraught for companies to go in with this kind of legally entangled operation here and just start taking over a country's oil production if it's possible that they might get sued, that they might have to give it all back, that whatever President Trump has done does not hold up in either domestic courts or international courts. And so one thing that was not clear from President Trump's press conference or from our initial reporting afterwards is whether the oil companies are on board with this, that's

something that we're trying to sort out as we speak. All right, Damien, hold that thought. We have got to take a very short break. but when we come back, we'll be looking at what precedent exists for the intervention the U.S. is undertaking here, and we will survey the international reaction to today's events and more. Stay with us. Damien, before the break there, you mentioned oil companies possibly needing to weigh the legality of this U.S. intervention.

talk about whatever precedent exists here? President Trump has talked a lot during his different presidential campaigns about the Iraq war and all the issues that came out of that. And obviously, he's a very chilly relationship with the Bush family because of how critical he's been over the U.S. operations during the Iraq war. And so there was a situation there after the U.S. invasion where the U.S. did play a big role in running the government until a new government could be put in place. That took many years.

There were many American deaths. It was seen by people on the left and the right as not handled exceptionally well. And here we have another situation, perhaps, where there's a big, you know, energy interest, where we kind of get into something quickly as a country without a clear sense of what it will take to get out. It's going to be incumbent on President Trump and Secretary Rubio and others to really articulate for the American people and for the international community, what it is the U.S. is looking for,

how they are, in fact, going to run Venezuela, what the financial implications of this will be, both in terms of what Venezuela will be able to retain in terms of their interests, and then what the U.S. might extract itself. And the more they can articulate that, I think the better off they're going to be. Damien, you're there in Washington.

There are a lot of members of Congress who I'm sure would be weighing in on this. They maybe had thoughts this morning on the capture of Maduro, maybe a different reaction now that the U.S. is signaling an intent to remain in Venezuela. What are you hearing? Maduro is very much regarded by Democrats and Republicans is autocrat, a horrible leader, someone that's really bad for Venezuela and bad for, you know, the rest of the world. So no one's going to defend him. The tenor definitely changed, though, after the press conference when President Trump said the U.S. is going to run Venezuela. And that made

a lot of Republicans quite concerned about what the U.S. government's going to be taking on here. And so what we did see were a lot of questions from Republicans asking for answers, you know, congressional briefings, that sort of thing. It's going to be incumbent on the Trump administration to really be clear about how they're going to do this, who's going to do this, what kind of oversight there's going to be, what kind of exposure U.S. military might have. Will there be boots on the ground? President Trump suggested there would be American boots on the ground in Venezuela to protect the energy sector. And so there's going to have to be a real explanation of how that's going to be run and who's going to be in charge of that, I think, before Congress will maybe give them a little more space.

Vera, what sort of international response have we seen to this, both from U.S. allies and U.S. adversaries. And I want to actually play a clip from the Defense Secretary here because he, in this press conference today, made it sound like the U.S. is trying to send a message to other countries. As the president said, our adversaries remain on notice. America can project our will anywhere, anytime. Vera? There's been a pretty strong reaction from a lot of countries in the region, including some of the few allies that Venezuela has, like Cuba and to a lesser extent, Colombia.

But, you know, there's a historical sensitivity. There's a very strong anti-interventionist feeling, often an anti-American feeling in the region. And this began with these deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific that have killed over 100 people and the citizens of many of these countries in the Caribbean and in South America. But now we are seeing the United States doing something that it has done in previous centuries, taking out the leader of a foreign country. And not only that, but saying that it's going to run this country, that it's going to intervene and control its affairs. At the same time, we have seen people like Argentine President Javier Malay and other strong Trump allies, you know, say this is a great day for freedom and supporting this action. In Europe, we've seen, you know, France and some other countries express some discomfort. There's a lot of questions, even among the strongest U.S. allies around the world, about the legality of this.

And what kind of message it sends, for example, to Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the Chinese president about what they can do. in what they consider their spheres of influence across the world. And can the U.S. continue to denounce that? So I think we've seen a range of reactions, but overall, people are quite cautious about this, and nobody really knows what's going to happen next. And in addition to the reaction from U.S. allies and adversaries, there's been obviously a very strong reaction

from the Venezuelan diaspora across the world, including in the United States, especially in Florida. In Miami, people have been going, to some of the heavily Venezuelan neighborhoods. They've been celebrating in the streets. And, you know, they've been waiting for this for a very long time. It reminds me of when I covered the death of Fidel Castro, which, you know, was a really big moment for the Cuban diaspora. And it felt like this turning of the page. At the same time, there is anxiety because it isn't as clean cut as what they expected, which was Maduro will step down. The opposition will come in

and we will figure it out as we go. Now that Trump has basically said he doesn't really support the opposition, and it's unclear if he wants them to take over. It's just really raised a lot more questions about whether they're going to be able to return, to be reunited with their families, and to, you know, rebuild their countries. There's definitely a lot of jubilation today, but, you know, I think the president's presser definitely raised a lot of questions for them as well. Lots of big questions to watch, the role of energy companies. What happens if U.S. troops are in the country and they come under attack? Who steps up, if anyone within Venezuela to rule the country. And Damien, I'll give you the final word, a lot writing on this

politically for President Trump in a midterm election year, really tying his legacy to a foreign intervention. Absolutely. President Trump's poll numbers were already getting weaker and he was under enormous pressure, even by some of his aides, to focus more on issues like the economy and prices and pocketbook issues that really matter to midterm voters. And so now we have this event or the U.S. is going to, according to the president, run another country. The only way this can be successful for the White House is if they sell the American people on why this is in the American people's interest. And so far, I think they haven't done that.

It's going to be really pressing on them to get this explained to the American people and to make it look like it's something that'll be good for the United States. I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal, Washington Coverage Chief Damien Pelletta and Journal National Security Reporter Vera Bergen Gruen. Vera, thank you. Thank you. And Damien. My pleasure.

And that's it for this special episode of Once News Sunday. Today's show was produced by Jess Fenton and Pierre Bienname with supervising producers Tully R. Bell and Chris Sinsley. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back again in your feed on Monday morning. Until then, thanks for listening. Thank you.