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Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well, from roof repair to emergency plumbing and more done well. So the next time you have a home project, leave it to the pros. Get started@angie.com hello.
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A
It's great to be back after the Christmas break. I get a sense this year what was really in for Christmas presents was subscriptions to things. Dying out is just giving things. Coming in is giving subscriptions for whatever it is. And I'm not telling you the one I got that. Staying secret why don't you give yourself or your loved one the gift of a subscription to Newscast? It's totally free. All you have to do is go to BBC Sounds and click on subscribe to Newscast. Then our episodes will land on your device every single day of the week when they're ready for you to listen to. And there ends the post Christmas Christmas adverts. Right, today's episode is going to focus on the dramatic events in Venezuela over the weekend where that American military team went in, nabbed Nicholas Maduro, the president and his wife. They have now been seen on camera in New York on Monday as they went for their first appearance in court where they're facing four different charges from the Trump administration. We will discuss what's been happening, what it means, and what could happen next on this episode of Newscast. Newscast.
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Newscast from the BBC Fat boy sliver.
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Me in the classroom doing our violin lessons.
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C
I was the tattletale in the classroom.
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A
Can I have an apology, please?
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C
I trust almost nobody that daddy has.
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A
To sometimes use strong language. Next time in Moscow.
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D
I feel Delulu with no Salulu.
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B
Take me down to Downing Street.
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A
Let's go have a tour. Blimey. Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.
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B
Hello, it's Katrina in the Washington newscast studio.
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C
And it's Lee Stucett also in the studio with Adam.
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A
And joining us here is Vanessa Buschluter, who is the BBC Online Latin America editor. Hello.
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D
Nice to join you.
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A
Also, you've brought a little prop with you, haven't you? Although it's not a prop, it's actually a real document. Just explain what this little blue book on the table is.
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D
So this is a miniature Venezuelan constitution and it's got all the articles of the Constitution in it. And members of the Maduro government like to hold it up when they invoke the constitution institution, which they do quite often. Most recently, Delsey Rodriguez, who was vice president under Nicolas Maduro, held it up and quoted articles 234 and 235 about the absence of the president to justify that she would now become the acting president in the absence of Nicolas Maduro after his seizure by the U.S. okay.
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A
We'Ll dig into the details of that a bit later on. But Lis, you're very good at summing up big international moments. Is there a way to sum up just the drama, the significance of what's happened over the last couple of days?
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C
We are at a defining moment and it is a dangerous moment, to use the phrase used by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. It is a dangerous precedent and it has a name. Donald Trump used it himself in his first news conference hours after it was clear that Nicholas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores had been, had been extracted, kidnapped, as critics would say, from Venezuela. And he said, it's the Dunro Doctrine, in other words, a Donald Trump version of the early 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which means that the United States has freedom of action in its sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. In other words, we will decide what's in our national security interests and take what, do whatever we do to protect it. And that includes, of course, the resources of Venezuela, including the oil. This is a step in a different kind of, well, making up the rules as you go along.
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A
And also, Katrina, I've been struggling to get my false teeth around this. Another word for that is the Trump Corollary. That's what MAGA people do.
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B
Corollary. Corollary, its full title, the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Or as Lise was explaining and the president calls it himself, the Donroe Doctrine. But it was the explanation, actually, that the U.S. ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, used this morning in that emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, exactly as Lise has outlined there, saying, this is where we live, this is our hemisphere. We will essentially do what we need to do here to protect ourselves.
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C
And we should point out that we should have known it was coming because not enough people paid attention. It's very dangerous not to pay enough attention. In the new national security policy, which was introduced at the end of last year, the Monroe Doctrine was explicitly invoked, along with the explanation that American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will not be challenged. And here we are, right from the get go in 2026, the new policy is being implemented.
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A
And also, Vanessa, last time we spoke was on an episode of Newscast in November, just after the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Venezuelan opposition leader. And at the end of that conversation, I asked you, oh, what are all these American warships doing off the coast of Venezuela? That was another big clue.
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D
Absolutely. And I must admit that I thought it was a pressure move. It was grandstanding. It was trying to get Maduro to step down, but of his own accord. And it might have been that at the time, to be fair. But when that didn't work, clearly people in Washington put their heads together and thought, well, how can we increase the pressure? And when that still didn't work, because I think the next step was the naval blockade and the seizure of oil tankers. When that still didn't dislodge Maduro from power, they just went for him and.
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A
Katrina, have you gleaned any more about this daring raid over the weekend? For example, we woke up to the news in the UK on Monday morning that many of the people who died in Venezuela when this raid was happening were actually Cubans, security officials who are protecting Maduro.
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B
Indeed. Yeah, about half of those who were killed actually were Cubans. And the president referring to that last night as well, they were guarding Maduro. And you know, one of the nations that Marco Rubio hinted at, well, explicitly said, really in that first press conference that the US Was looking at next was Cuba. President Trump asked about that last night and said he didn't think US Action in Cuba was necessary. That it would fall by itself, was what he said. Now that that link with Venezuela is broken insofar as President Trump is concerned and the US Is concerned, obviously that is not what we are hearing from the Venezuelans themselves. That national assembly meeting this morning with everyone being sworn into office and a very sort of defiant tone being struck there.
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A
And in terms of what's been happening in the last few hours, we're recording this episode at about 20 past 6 on Monday evening. Lys all day we've been glued to these amazing pictures and I don't want to lapse into the who. It's like a movie cliche. But there was Something very cinematic about the pictures. This big guy, he's tall, being led out of one helicopter into another, like the New York skyline in the distance. Him being flown across the Hudson down to Manhattan from the detention center he was in. It all looked very, very visual.
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C
It's not a cliche in the. In the world that we live in. Adam, President Trump uses that expression without any sense of. Of sh. He commented that when he was watching on a live feed the extradition, the rendition of Nicholas Maduro, he said it was like watching it on the television. And all of this has been a made for television moment. And he has talked about that before. Go back to those hours where everyone was wondering, where is Nicholas Maduro? When is he going to arrive in the United States? And what do we see on American television? The shots of the helicopters flying across the New York skyline, right past the iconic landmark of the Statue of Liberty, Nicolas Maduro has arrived. And then the first walk of shame where the great leader of great. The powerful leader of Nicholas Maduro, President Maduro, is handcuffed in some kind of American garb, flanked my guards, doing what's called the perpetrator's walk. Humiliated. All of these images are to send a strong. You don't have to use force, you just have to send a very forceful signal. See what's happened to him. It could happen to you, too.
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A
And Katrina, in terms of what was happening in court in New York this morning, I mean, those proceedings were wrapping up just as we were sitting down to start recording this episode. What actually unfolded in the courtroom. And I know it was unusual because. Well, unusual in the sense we're used to seeing American trials on tv, but this part of the legal process happens away from the cameras.
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B
Yeah, that part's not unusual at all. We don't usually have people in the courts for this part. I mean, we have journalists in there who relay the information to colleagues outside so we can get it as quickly as possible. But it has wrapped up by now. Both Nicolas Maduro and the first lady, Celia Flores, appearing there. They arrived in kind of prison garb, we're told Their feet were shackled, but their hands were not shackled. They both pleaded not guilty. They spoke just briefly, actually, to confirm their names and that not guilty plea. The first lady saying she was the first lady of Venezuela and she was not guilty, completely innocent. Nicolas Maduro, for his part, when he gave his not guilty plea, said, I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am not guilty. I am innocent of anything mentioned here. Meaning of course, the arraignment and those charges that they're facing. They waived their right to have the arraignment read out in detail, which would have taken a little bit longer, but all in proceedings were wrapped up in less than an hour and. And then we were back to those cinematic shots again of the massive security presence as they made their way back to the detention center. A hearing date has been set for the 17th of March. What we're not clear on is what will happen between now and then, where they will be detained, how they will be held. There's obviously a security element to that with prisoners so high profile as they are, but I suspect we'll learn that as the days progress.
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A
And also, Katrina, people have been talking about the quite poor conditions in the detention centre where the Maduro's were held over the weekend.
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B
Indeed, that's the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, a notorious jail where a lot of very high profile people have been held over the years. Listeners will remember R. Kelly, of course, he was held there. P. Diddy Combs was held there. Ghislaine Maxwell was held there. It's not a place you want to be spending any particular amount of time. And we are told there was some discussion in that brief court appearance today about health issues, perhaps in some kind of effort to get a different place for them to be held, a different detention center. The time of recording. We don't have that information available to us, but obviously you're talking about people here who are used to a tremendous standard of living and tremendous wealth. So considering that's where they were on Friday and where they find themselves today, quite a long distance.
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A
And also, Katrina, when you read the indictment, which is available very easily to read on the Internet, it's an interesting experience. First of all, it's written in quite florid, dramatic language. It doesn't read like this kind of classic legal court document. And secondly, it's very narrow in that it's about these charges of drug smuggling, conspiracy to smuggle drugs, machine gun smuggling, weapons running, and also it's quite vague. And also it doesn't include all this big stuff that everyone's been talking about all weekend about whether Maduro is a massive affront to democracy, whether he's an oppressive dictator, anything to do with the oil industry in Venezuela. It's about those very narrow charges that he's basically a drug kingpin and a weapons runner.
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B
Indeed, it's 25 pages, but just four counts ultimately of Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores, and a number of other Individuals as well are named. Crucially, the vice president, now acting president, is not named in there. But as you say, Adam, it's narco terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and then possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess those as well. But what often happens with the American legal system is the case that will be brought before a grand jury to try and get an indictment of charges against individuals. It can often be a very narrow case. In other words, something that the prosecution know, that they can prove, know that they have evidence on, and that satisfies a number of things within US Law, and that they can prove has jurisdiction in the US has impact and effect on people in the US because central to this, of course, are many questions being asked around the world about the legality of all of this, of the raid, of the removal of Maduro from Venezuela and his detention now in the U.S. yes.
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A
And Vanessa, outside the core in Manhattan, there were lots of Venezuelans protesting and basically saying thank you to Donald Trump for what he'd done. And I hadn't quite realized the sheer number of people who had fled Venezuela. I knew it was happening. I knew there were lots and lots of people and they were going to other South American countries and quite a lot of them were going to the U.S. i hadn't realized it was in the millions, like 8 million.
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D
Eight million, yes. It's a huge migration. And they're scattered all across the world. Most of them are in neighboring countries. So Colombia has taken in several million. Some have ended up in the US but comparably few compared to the numbers that have gone to other South American countries. And of course, these are all people who feel very strongly about developments in their home nation. And many of them will be hoping that the situation changes so that they can go back. And you may have seen placards that some of them were holding up. So there was one little boy, I think it was at a manifestation and a demonstration in Madrid, who held up the sign reading I want to see my grandmother again. So his grandmother is still in Venezuela. He is in Madrid and he hasn't seen her. He may have not seen her ever because he was probably around 7, 8 years old. And that was one thing that Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader, touched on time and time again. She promised people that if they voted for her and when she was barred from running for the person who stood in for her, Edmundo Gonzalez, then she would make sure that these Venezuelan families would be able to see each other again, hug each other again, kiss each.
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C
Other Again, it's so beautiful to hear that because that's not the narrative of this story that we've been hearing for the past 36 hours because it's been couched in terms of, as we've been saying, narco trafficketing going in. America's going to run Venezuela, we're going to go get the oil, we're going to build the infrastructure. Okay, he did talk about benefiting the people of Venezuela, but not your comments just underline that, you know, what we're reporting as a big political security legal issue is a deeply, deeply human and emotional story.
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D
It is. And I just spoke to one Venezuelan who has been living here whose aunt is 98 and whenever he calls her she asks when are you coming to see me? And of course it won't be until the political situation changes. And so, so this 98 year old aunt is pinning all of her hopes on a change. And of course, when you're 98, there's not much time left.
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A
But Vanessa, in the short term, it doesn't look like there is going to be any great political change in Venezuela. Certainly doesn't look like the US Is going to go in and take it over to re quote Donald Trump for the weekend.
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D
That's right. And we don't know. We keep being told that the US is in charge is running it, but what evidence do we have? Have we have seen the inner circle give press conferences. We have seen the son of Nicolas Maduro today had a key role in choosing or in presenting the people who were running for head of the National Assembly. This was done in front of a huge portrait of Nicolas Maduro and everything seemed to go on as it has. And who was the man who was elected as the head of the National Assembly? Jorge Rodriguez. Who is the brother of the current acting president, Delsey Rodriguez.
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A
Yeah. And tell us a bit more about her.
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D
So she has been around for quite a long time. It is said that Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro's predecessor, did not like her and kept her at arm's length. But she has been close to Nicolas Maduro for years and he is, is very suspicious of people. His circle of trust is very small. So the people that he trusts, he keeps putting in positions of power. And so Delsey Rodriguez has held several positions. She has run the economy, the oil industry and most recently she was the vice president. And so she's very much an insider and with her brother who runs the national assembly, of course, a power couple, if you, if you'd like. And the New York Times spoke to US officials before this strike happened, so probably two months ago. And they described her as a moderate because that is what U.S. officials described her as. But I think most Venezuelans took umbrage at that term. They see her as a loyalist, highly ambitious. Yes. And she may be a pragmatist because she's so ambitious and she will want to, to stay in power. And so she may do the US's bidding for a time, but I don't think she's a moderator.
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A
And in terms of what the Venezuelan Constitution says, and you've got a copy of it in your hand right now, I mean, how long can she be in there without elections?
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D
Say so the Supreme Court, which it has to be said is dominated by Maduro loyalists, like so many of the institutions in Venezuela, has declared her the acting president on a temporary basis cases. And according to the constitution, that's for 90 days. Then the national assembly will have to decide whether the absence of the president, that is Nicolas Maduro, is temporary or absolute. So if, for example, if he were to be convicted in this timescale, then they would have to declare an absolute absence of Nicolas Maduro. And then in that case, elections would have to be held within 30 days. But they also have the possibility of extending by another 90 days this temporary absence. So really, you're looking at six months before a decision really has to be taken.
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A
And Katrina, what's your take on how the Trump administration views Maria Corinne Machado, the opposition leader who won the Nobel Prize a couple of months ago? Because people would of lots of people were assuming, oh, she was going to get kind of flown in to, to take over, but that that just hasn't happened.
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B
Well, that's the question, Adam, that has everyone here scratching their heads. And we've spoken to members of Congress, strategists from both parties over the last couple of days as to what they interpret the President was meaning to say there? Because just a few weeks ago when she won the Nobel Peace Prize, and you remember that dramatic sort of escape she made from Venezuela to get to Oslo, and that was kind of with the imprimatur of the us, if you remember, you know, there had been a notification warning that she was traveling in a boat not to attack her boat at the time when the US was attacking boats in the Caribbean. So there was a sense that perhaps there was an element of agreement here. It was said that she was going to go to Washington after Oslo. And then you have President Trump saying in that lengthy press conference she doesn't have the respect of the people she's not ready to lead. So there really isn't a direct answer to that at this point in time. We've had those conversations between Marco Rubio and the now acting President Rodriguez. President Trump saying things yesterday like, she better do what we say or else she'll face a fate worse than Maduro, which gives the impression that they are prepared to work with her in position at this time anyway. Which means then you're not really talking about a regime change as so much as just a change in leadership. Right. So what does that mean for the relationship between the US And Venezuela when President Trump is saying, we will be running Venezuela and the rest of his team are kind of damping that down? You know, there's no impression, given that there will be any military, US Military involvement or anything like that. The oil firms that the President has said, well, he says, we'll go in and fix the infrastructure in Venezuela and take the oil out. There isn't a great appetite from them to do that yet anyway, because the security and the political situation is so unstable.
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A
And, Lisa, moments like this, people make lots of grand statements about what it means for the rest of the world, and they sort of apply this event to lots of other places where it could happen. And everyone sometimes gets a little bit carried away. I'll leave it to you. Do you want to be super grand or super?
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C
You know, we say, don't judge people by what they say, but by what they do. And it's really telling that in the hours after this dramatic military action, within hours, President Trump was also warning Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, warning them that they could be next. In other words, this is the beginning, it is not the end. And then, of course, then he started warning Greenland, and 24 hours, he went into Venezuela. He'd already warned Iran that he would take military action there if they continue to attack and kill protesters. And then when he was on Air Force One, going back to Washington, that he also said again, he was asked about, yes, I'm warning Iran. But one thing about this whole, this whole new, let's call it a new chapter, a new phase, and it looks like Trump foreign policy part two is there is some really interesting differences we've been observing and criticizing. Many have criticized how he sent the real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who knows nothing about Russian politics. He goes in there, has Kremlin translators, talks for hours to President Putin. He goes to the Middle east again. He has no background in the Middle East, East. Now, President Trump has turned to South America and Marco Rubio of Cuban ancestry is now being called the Viceroy of Venezuela. And he got angry yesterday in one of his press conferences where he said, people are always talking about the Middle East. This is not the Middle East. In other words, don't compare this to Iraq or Libya. Almost saying to everyone, I know what I'm doing. This is my area. And I'm thinking, he must finally be relieved because it was this battle between him and Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. He was thinking, I'm the Secretary of State, how come I'm not doing it? But now he has his piece of the pie, if you like, and he knows exactly what he wants to do. And I think this is really interesting. He's always been a hawk and people have been analyzing his body language, the kind of smirks on his face as President Trump announces that we've got Maduro talks about Cuba. And you're thinking, wow, I have waited, my family has waited all my life to do this. And I'm thinking one of the criticisms that had been made in Iraq and Afghanistan post invasion was that the Americans and their allies pushed too quickly for elections. Election was seen as the fix it. Then you could, by doing an election very quickly, never mind you'll bring in the wrong people, you bring in democracy. And we're on our way to leaving nation building this time, I think. Vanessa, what do you think whoever has President Trump's ear has said to him, listen, it's going to be messy at some point, maybe we'll have elections, but we just got to go in and we need a quick fix. President Trump loves a quick win. He wants things to be done quickly. It's not going to be done quickly if suddenly you bring in the opposition. You have to change, bring down the regime. You may have to arrest more people, may even have to be more military Action, action. Let's deal with what we have and see if we can get. What we really want is to basically get the oil, get Venezuela back on its feet and make America great again. At the same time, there is that.
- [26:06]
D
Argument to be made to say that if they had brought in Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez immediately. Now, Maria Corina Machado has the backing of many Venezuelans, as the voting tallies that they collected suggests, and they have been verified by the Carter center and by independent media, but they do not have the backing, for example, of the military.
- [26:28]
C
Exactly.
- [26:29]
D
And so that would have been problematic. And there's also the so called colectivos. These are almost like shock troops. There are civilians who are Very loyal to Maduro. They ride around on motorcycles and really terrorize the population. And they were seen in the aftermath of the strike in some of the poorer areas of Caracas. And so, of course, people did not dare go out on the streets. So. So if you had brought in Maria Corina Machado and del Mundo Gonzalez, there would have been a risk of these people running riot, terrorizing people. And of course, yes, what would have been happening to the military and to all of the other institutions which are run by Maduro loyalists, because remember that he has been in charge since 2013. And before that, a lot of the institutions were already eroded under President Chavez. So there's a lot of, of rebuilding that has to be done, not in the physical sense, not like in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in the terms of the institutions that have been undermined, that are not as robust and democratic as they should have been.
- [27:34]
C
But we should. Before people, less people, think that we're actually tending toward this direction. There is an issue of, and this is one of the charges against Madrid, he's an illegitimate president. It is widely believed that it was Edmundo Gonzalez who won that election in 2024 by landslide. And so a lot of the observations made by European leaders is that there needs to be a transition. And in their mind, I think it's, let's go to the person who really won the election, which is why people are saying, why are you talking about another. We just had an election. We know who won that election. So others would say, well, that's the avenue you should take because we've already gone down this path.
- [28:12]
A
Katrina, looking at another part of the world, just to make this an even spicier episode. Green, is it true that this latest war of words between the Danish Prime Minister and the Trump administration about who gets to keep hold of Greenland, Denmark at arm's length, or the US Was sparked by a tweet posted by the wife of one of Donald Trump's aides.
- [28:35]
B
Yeah, Katie Miller. So if, if people haven't seen it, it's. She posted basically an outline of Greenland and it had the American flag sort of superimposed on it. There were a number of tweets from other members around as well, high profile people, and I mean, let's not forget comments made by the president and members of the administration as well, I think all fueling a controversy that has been there since the very early days of this second administration of President Trump. But, you know, he was asked about it after the Danish prime minister and others had made remarks yesterday. He was asked Again, about it traveling from Mar a Lago to Washington on Air Force One last night. And he said, we need Greenland for US national security.
- [29:22]
A
It's so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.
- [29:29]
C
We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you.
- [29:36]
B
And that was what he said, which, you know, if you're sitting in Greenland right now, which is an ally of the US There is a US Base there and there has been for decades now. But also it is, by virtue of its relationship with Denmark, a NATO country, territory. You know, that's a very risky and concerning situation to those in Greenland and those in Denmark right now.
- [30:04]
C
This is a very, very different part of the map. So you look at Venezuela, who are the allies of Maduro, China, Russia, Iran, one of the ambitions of the United States is to take them away from the oil industry, from the trade, from and Cuba, of course, away from the security services. You go to Greenland, as Katrina said, a NATO ally, a member of the European Union. So look how forceful the reaction. Even Sir Keir Starmer, who has, who has, you know, fudged his reaction to what happened in Venezuela, they've come out and said, absolutely not. Greenland is not yours for the taking. And so there will be limits. There will be the, let's go back to the rule of law, international rule of law, territorial integrity and sovereignty. It's going to be a very different matter in Greenland. And may I just hasten to add, if we're talking about the Western hemisphere, in between the United States and Venezuela and the others is my country, Canada, which of course, Trump would like to have as the 51st state. So he may want to do it, you know, to act the way he, he feels is in America's interest. But other countries will also have a lot to say and a lot that they could do.
- [31:15]
A
And also I noticed a lot of commentators jumping to what does this mean for, for China? And I think the interesting thing I realized today is, okay, China's imports of Venezuelan oil account for 4% of their imports of oil or their usage of oil. So actually, it's not a big deal for China, resources wise, but that doesn't mean it's not a huge deal for Venezuela.
- [31:34]
C
It is a big deal for Venezuela. And how are they going to pull. It's not going to be easy. And again, you know, people are saying, okay, you know, back to our discussion about, you just remove Maduro, who's the symbol of Chavismo and okay, sending a clear message to Delsey Rodriguez. You see the writing on the wall as President Trump, the thing about presidency always says the quiet part out loud. You basically have to do what I tell you to do or you could face the same. Or in fact, he warned even worse. But what about the hardliners in the military? The hardliners in those allies who have been, as Vanessa was saying, have been left in place. They may not want to cave in. They may want to stand their ground. And that is another scenario that could be really messy. They may want to keep their alliance or with long standing alliances with Russia, with Iran, with China, you know, the smooth transition. The option scenario is that Delcio Rodriguez will convince Jorge and the others. Okay, listen, let's just go along with it. You know, otherwise, you know, our future, the future Venezuela is on the line. Let's just do it for now. Hopefully it'll be good for Venezuela. But Vanessa, you will know more. It could work out in another.
- [32:46]
D
And I think one thing that we should really stress is that when Donald Trump talks about that is our oil and it was stolen from us, he's not referring to Maduro stealing it or even Chavez. This goes back to 1976 and a president that was not left wing. So this nationalization happened 50 years ago. And I pulled out a New York Times article from the time from 1975 when this move was announced. And there was no outcry. There was no outcry in the US saying, oh my God, they're stealing our oil. It was actually said in that article that 97% of the people who worked in those facilities and those oil fields at the time were Venezuelans and the US would get compensated. So yes, of course, in the 1920s and the 1930s, the Venezuelan oil industry was built up with American know how and American input put. But back when it was nationalized, it was already mainly run by Venezuelans.
- [33:48]
B
When we're talking about oil, and particularly as it pertains to China, I've been speaking to some people representing the oil industry here and they think President Trump's aspirations there are much, much bigger than the oil that's currently being taken to those Chinese refineries that, you know, only a tiny percentage of the oil reserves in Venezuela are actually being extracted at this point. And that's what he wants to really grow and, you know, extract to the benefit of the Americans.
- [34:17]
A
So interesting. Vanessa, thank you very much. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks to you too.
- [34:22]
C
Thank you. Such a, it's a really. Such a. To say it's interesting is is too much of an understatement because it's very consequential too.
- [34:31]
A
And Katrina, thanks to you.
- [34:32]
B
Too thanks to you, Adam. See you soon.
- [34:38]
A
And that's all for this episode of Newscast. And if you hadn't had a chance to listen to the Christmas episodes of Newscast, I highly recommend them. There are a couple of episodes rounding up the best bits of our 25 hour podcast, a thon for children in need. There were two episodes of Old Newscast about how Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party in 2015, and another two episodes of Old Newscast about how Donald Trump became the Republican candidate for president in 2016. And we all know how the that played out over, well, almost. Well, in fact, it is a decade now because it's 2026 now. So that's my final recommendation in this episode of Newscast. Thank you very much for listening. Bye bye. Newscast.
- [35:19]
B
Newscast from the BBC.
- [35:20]
D
Well, thank you for making it to the end of another Newscast.
- [35:23]
C
You clearly ooze stamina.
- [35:26]
D
Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds?
- [35:29]
C
And then, without having to do anything.
- [35:32]
D
Else, our meandering chats will miraculously make its way to your phone.
- [35:47]
A
At the BBC, we go further so you see clearer. Through frontline reporting, global stories and local insights, we bring you closer to the world's news as it happens. And it starts with a subscription to BBC.com com giving you unlimited articles and videos ad free podcasts, the BBC News channel, streaming live 24. 7 plus hundreds of acclaimed documentaries. Subscribe to trusted independent journalism and storytelling from the BBC. Find out more at BBC.com. join.