Big Questions After Trump Says U.S. Will ‘Run’ Venezuela

Vera Bergengruen (0:00)

You're about to make a trade. Which you do you listen to?

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

Is it get optioning those options?

Vera Bergengruen (0:07)

Or let's do a little research.

Luke Vargas (0:11)

Learn more at finra.org/tradesmart. 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 US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and President Trump saying the US will be running the country.

SPEAKER_4 (0:37)

We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.

Luke Vargas (0:45)

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 US staged a raid on Venezuela overnight that culminated in the capture of the country's president, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro and his wife were extracted from Venezuela aboard helicopters brought to a US warship in the Caribbean and are being transferred to New York, where he is 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 US 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 US isn't leaving Venezuela.

SPEAKER_4 (1:48)

We can't take a chance if 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 they say this, we're there now. But we're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place.

Luke Vargas (2:18)

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 Bergengruen. Damian, 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 US involvement in a foreign country.

Damian Paletta (2:48)

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 US 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's 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 US 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 US running the energy sector and the oil operations with the US military's involvement. But he also suggested multiple times that it could mean that the US 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 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 story line both domestically and internationally for a long time to come.

Luke Vargas (4:17)

Okay, potentially sweeping intervention here by the US. 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 Damian mentions, this goes into kind of the US 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.