The Trump Administration Leads Calls to Unseat Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Trump Administration Leads Calls to Unseat Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela

Podcast: The Political Scene | The New Yorker
Air Date: January 31, 2019
Host: Dorothy Wickenden
Guest: Jon Lee Anderson (Staff Writer, The New Yorker)

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Overview

This episode explores the escalating leadership crisis in Venezuela and the Trump administration's efforts to unseat President Nicolás Maduro. Host Dorothy Wickenden and guest Jon Lee Anderson analyze the roots of Venezuela's collapse, the legitimacy and role of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, historic U.S. interventions in the region, and the dangerous, complex possibilities for what lies ahead. The discussion is candid, historically informed, and laced with a sense of urgency over the humanitarian consequences and regional instability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Venezuelan Crisis: Origins and Magnitude

[03:03 – 05:55]

• Venezuela's decline began under late President Hugo Chávez, whose socialist "Bolivarian Revolution" was fueled by booming oil prices in the early 2000s but left little lasting infrastructure or prosperity.
• By 2014, as oil prices dropped, mismanagement, corruption, and economic incompetence under both Chávez and Maduro left Venezuela virtually bankrupt.
• Anderson underlines the humanitarian cost:
  • Inflation is projected to reach "10 million percent," likened to Weimar Germany's collapse.
  • Mass migration: about 3 million people (nearly 10% of the population) have fled, triggering the "biggest refugee crisis outside of the Middle East" and the largest in modern Latin American history.
• Basic goods are scarce, wages are "turned to dust," and refugees overwhelm neighboring countries, especially Colombia.

2. Maduro’s Fraught Re-Election and Guaidó’s Challenge

[05:55 – 08:13]

• Maduro's 2018 re-election is widely considered fraudulent — key opposition figures were barred from running, turnout was low, and faith in the process was dismal.

• Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, invoked constitutional grounds to claim the presidency on an interim basis, quickly gaining recognition by the U.S., EU, and many Latin American nations.

• Anderson notes the rapid, orchestrated international support for Guaidó mirrors tactics used by the U.S. in other regime change scenarios (e.g., Libya, Panama, Iraq).

  Quote:

  "A great deal of sleight of hand seems to have gone on in the US's embrace of Guaidó..."
  — Jon Lee Anderson [06:49]

3. Regime Change, U.S. Involvement, and Regional Implications

[08:13 – 09:08]

• Anderson frames the U.S. actions as regime change:

  "This is regime change." — Jon Lee Anderson [08:16]

• The Trump administration revives a hardline, interventionist approach, starkly contrasting with Obama's policy of engagement, especially toward Cuba.
• John Bolton’s branding of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba as the "troika of tyranny" signals a return to U.S. "gunboat diplomacy" in Latin America.

4. Polarization, Propaganda, and the Threat of Violence

[09:08 – 10:21]

• Maduro employs authoritarian tactics — imprisoning and repressing opposition, detaining journalists, and overseeing hundreds of deaths at protests.
• Reports estimate "at least 240 citizens killed at marches and 600 political prisoners" [09:34].
• Sharp polarization: The U.S., EU, and allies back Guaidó, while Russia, Turkey, and China support Maduro, evoking a “Cold War 2.0" climate.

5. Danger of Civil War; Caution on War Rhetoric

[11:07 – 12:55]

• Anderson reflects on the risks of full-scale civil conflict. He shares that his attempt at context on Twitter ("You haven't actually seen war yet") was criticized as insensitive.

• The U.S. recognition of Guaidó creates conditions where a split in Venezuela's military could ignite "a civil war."

  Quote:

  "You're now in a dangerous situation whereby by pronouncing Guaidó to be the legitimate government, the Trump administration is in essence setting up Venezuela [for] an internal confrontation... You could have set the stage for a civil war."
  — Jon Lee Anderson [12:35]

6. Venezuelans’ Reactions to U.S. Intervention

[12:55 – 14:18]

• Many suffering Venezuelans welcome foreign intervention, regardless of its history or potential fallout:

  "...many Venezuelans, certainly those tweeting, don't care how much the US is involved in their salvation..."
  — Jon Lee Anderson [13:16]

• The emergence of far-right governments in neighboring countries (Bolsonaro in Brazil, conservative leadership in Colombia) further complicates the regional response.

7. Unpredictable Outcomes and Escalation Scenarios

[14:18 – 16:11]

• Maduro warns that the crisis could become "a war far worse than Vietnam" [14:18]; Anderson notes the regime's tendency toward hyperbole, but warns that violent confrontation or outside intervention remain possible.

• Scenarios include negotiated exile for Maduro, a bloody last stand, humanitarian “interventions” by Colombia/Brazil/U.S., or even covert actions.

  Quote:

  "...we are right now poised at the edge of a vortex in which many, many things are spinning and anything could happen."
  — Jon Lee Anderson [15:49]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis:

  "Inflation will reach 10 million percent... wages have been turned to dust... [about] 10% of the 32 million Venezuelans... have left."
  — Jon Lee Anderson [04:44]

• On the echoes of past interventions:

  "You have something that's never really happened before, but also have echoes of other US interventions in the past."
  — Jon Lee Anderson [07:01]

• On Venezuelans' attitude toward outside help:

  "Twenty years of narco-communists is enough. You know, it's fine, we don't care."
  — Jon Lee Anderson relaying sentiments [13:33]

• On the risks ahead:

  "Where we are right now is poised at the edge of a vortex in which many, many things are spinning and anything could happen."
  — Jon Lee Anderson [15:49]

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Important Timestamps

• [03:03] — The roots and scale of Venezuela’s collapse.
• [06:16] — The case for Guaidó’s interim presidency.
• [08:13] — Explicit definition: "This is regime change."
• [09:08] — Maduro’s use of repression and international polarization.
• [11:16] — Dangers of civil war and the volatility of the military split.
• [13:16] — Grassroots Venezuelan reaction to U.S. involvement.
• [14:18] — Scenarios for how the crisis might escalate or resolve.
• [15:49] — "Poised at the edge of a vortex"—the uncertainty of outcomes.

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Tone and Closing

The conversation balances deep expertise with a sense of gravity and caution, recognizing Venezuelans’ suffering while warning against the perils of simplistic regime change and foreign intervention. Both speakers maintain a sober, analytical perspective even as they acknowledge the destabilizing, unpredictable forces now in play.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about Politics. It's Thursday, January 31st. Dr. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. Over the past three weeks, a crisis of leadership in Venezuela has escalated rapidly, with the Trump administration leading calls for the country to unseat its president, Nicolas Maduro. The US has joined more than 25 other countries in recognizing the opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's rightful president. On Tuesday, Trump approved sanctions that froze billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets. At the press conference announcing the policy, John Bolton, the national security advisor, urged Venezuela's military and security forces to back Guaido.

[C]

Maduro has made clear he will not recognize Guaido or call for new elections. Now is the time to stand for democracy and prosperity in Venezuela. I reiterate that the United States will hold Venezuelan security forces responsible for the safety of all US Diplomatic personnel, the national assembly, and President Guaido. Any violence against these groups would signify a grave assault on the rule of law and will be met with a significant response.

[B]

John Lee Anderson joins me to discuss Venezuela's moment of reckoning and the potential consequences to the region and the United States of the Trump administration's warnings. Welcome, John Lee.

[D]

Thank you, Dorothy. It's a pleasure to be with you.

[B]

I understand that you have a cold, too, so we'll try to stumble through this and make our voices audible.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

So I think we can all agree that Maduro has been an utterly catastrophic leader of his country. Since 2014, when the price of oil dropped, it's been in an almost incomprehensibly severe economic crisis. Tell us a little bit about that. You've been there pretty recently, reporting. What's it look?

[D]

Venezuela was not in great shape in the latter stages of Hugo Chavez's presidency, who was in power for 17 years until he died in early 2013, succeeded by Maduro to a large extent. Hugo Chavez and Maduro's Bolivarian Revolution, as they called it, had been sustained and skyrocketed, if you will, by the rise in oil prices in the early to mid 2000s. So there was this 10 years of economic prosperity, nearly a trillion dollars entered Venezuela's coffers. But by the time of the oil prices plummeting in 2014, there was very, if you looked around Venezuela, there was very little to show for it. A lot of that money had gone to social welfare programs and also to prop up kindred regimes around the region, small Caribbean statelets. A lot went to Cuba as well in this effort by Chavez and his successor Madura, to create, as they called it, a multipolar world, meaning not leaving it alone, to the United States. And they were talking about a new kind of socialism, as they called it, 21st century socialism. Well, it was a bit of a chimera because before and during the socialist experiment of Chavez and Maduro, a lot of money has been raked off from Venezuela's coffers. And if anything, it just continued to pace under Maduro. He's shown himself to be ill equipped to handle the complexities of a state which had virtually expended its reserves and shown real incompetence in managing an economy that's plummeted to the extent that this year analysts believe the inflation will reach 10 million percent, which is up there with the Weimar, Germany and the rest of it. You know, wages have been turned to dust. Basics are not available for many people and plenty of well off Venezuelans have left. But increasingly people of all stripes have left Venezuela over the past five years. About 3 million, in other words, about 10% of the 32 million Venezuelans most of them to the neighboring countries in South America, the majority to Colombia right next door, and causing in effect the biggest refugee crisis outside of the Middle east that the world knows today, and the largest humanitarian crisis crisis in Latin American, modern times or in memory.

[B]

So Maduro's reelection last May has been widely considered fraudulent. And Guaido, who is the new president of the national assembly, has been citing a clause of the Venezuelan constitution saying that until free elections can take place, the power of the presidency is vested in him. Is that correct?

[D]

Yes, that is correct. And the reason why Maduro's reelection in May was widely regarded as fraudulent is because the key opposition leaders were not allowed to run. So, you know, it was a rigged election in that sense. And less than half of the available electorate went to the polls showing widespread apathy and a lack of faith in the system. So you have this, you know, incompetent government which is willfully bludgeoning on, as it were, with a lot of rhetoric about revolution and counter revolutionaries and US imperialism bringing us to the current moment. A great deal of sleight of hand seems to have gone on in the US's embrace of Guaido, this young, apparently quite charismatic young fellow, 35, former engineer, member of the national assembly, that is to say the opposition stacked, rump national assembly, which was defanged and sort of sidetracked by Maduro. And in this pronouncement of his to be interim president, immediately embraced by, you know, Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Rubio, Bolton and indeed the EU and a good number of other Latin American governments, creating a kind of fait accompli, in effect saying there is now a legitimate government, it's this provisional one. So you have a kind of, you have something that's never really happened before, but also have echoes of other US interventions in the past. In the run up to Gaddafi, in to the overthrow of Gaddafi in 2011, there were similar pronouncements and measures taken, freezing the countries, the regime's bank accounts abroad, vouchsafing the legitimacy of an opposition group as the real government. It also happened in the run up to the ouster of Noriega at the end of the 80s and also with Saddam Hussein to a certain extent in 2003.

[B]

So this is regime change.

[D]

This is regime change. So you also have, since the Trump administration came to office, you've had a drumbeat on Venezuela. It was the low hanging fruit of what John Bolton now calls the troika of tyranny, the three socialist regimes. He would like to see Gone from this planet. Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. So we've come 180 degrees from three years ago, Dorothy, when we saw Barack Obama meet and be friendly with Raul Castro in an effort, as he called it, to reset America's relations with the region. We've gone back to a different era of, I would have to say, gunboat diplomacy, in which the United States is asserting itself willfully as the superpower in the region. You know, in a way, there was an inevitability to this. It's difficult to defend regimes like Maduro's.

[B]

Yes, and let's pause just for a second on that, because it is astonishing. He is using all of the tactics of a totalitarian, you know, enlisting his private security forces to jail opposition members. He's detained foreign journalists. He guedo chargesand tell me if this is correctif we know the figures that at least 240 citizens have been killed at marches and there are 600 political prisoners.

[D]

That sounds about right. You know, it's always difficult in a situation like this to know the exact figures. And of course, there's a hell of a lot of what I would used to in the old days, before the term fake news became popular, a lot of black propaganda. You do have the divergence of views. The polarization that's taking place inside Venezuela is, of course, replicated across the world. While we talked about the US and the EU and quite a few of the Latin American states rallying around Guaido, you have Russia, Erdogan of Turkey, oddly enough, and China backing Maduro. So you have elements of Cold War 2.0 there as well.

[E]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial Director.

[F]

I'm Michael Kollori, Wired's Director of Consumer Tech and Culture.

[G]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.

[E]

At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech.

[F]

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[E]

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[B]

Your tweets have been cautionary about Guaido. Tell me a little bit about that and how they've been received in Venezuela.

[D]

Not cautionary so much about Guaido, as about, you know, yesterday I wrote a tweet, probably ill advised, in response to a provocation. Someone was talking loosely about how this was war. And as someone who's covered a lot of wars and watched a lot of societies disintegrate, including Libya, Syria, Iraq and others, I was trying to respond by saying, look, you haven't actually seen war yet. It may be bad, but this is not war. The long and the short of it is that my rather snarky counter provocation, I guess, was seen as disrespectful of the millions of suffering Venezuelans, those in the country and those who had to leave. My point was that what Venezuelans believe is war, the idea that 120 youths who died in the streets fighting Chavez's, rather Maduro's police a year and a half ago represented what amounts to a war, is just not the case. You're now in a dangerous situation whereby by pronouncing Guaido to be the legitimate government, the Trump administration is in essence setting up Venezuela. Depending on the way things can work out for an internal confrontation. What happens if all of the army doesn't stay with Maduro but decides to break away and with arms, oppose their comrades in arms? You could have set the stage for a civil war. But what I learned going back to your question about the tweet is that sometimes it's best not to say anything.

[B]

So, and this is not likely to end well, US intervention, as you alluded to earlier in Latin America, has a long and very sorry history of failure. But I wonder what Venezuelans, how Venezuelans have reacted to Bolton and Pompeo and Trump issuing these very strong warnings.

[D]

You know, I have to say, by and large it seems that many Venezuelans, I can't, I don't have a calculus to say if it's most, but certainly many Venezuelans, certainly those tweeting don't care how much the US is involved in their, as they see it, their salvation to just crib from some of the remarks, you know, 20 years of narco communists is enough. You know, it's fine, we don't care. Let Pompeo and Trump and Rubio and Bolton and Elliot Abrams for that matter, another specter from the past now named the US envoy for Venezuela. You know, let them have their way here. And you also have now an extreme right wing pathology taking over, I think a lot of the electorate next door, Bolsonaro in Brazil or for that matter the very right wing regime also in Colombia. And the Trump administration, not exactly a model of democracy at home or abroad, you know, makes one feel slightly cautious.

[B]

And Maduro is not going to leave quietly. He warned Venezuelans yesterday in a video that was published on social media that the crisis has the potential to create a war far worse than Vietnam, as he put it.

[D]

You know, Venezuelans are great at hyperbole, including Nicolas Maduro, I think, you know, there's a lot of bluster there. In the end, I suspect he would probably willingly get on a plane and fly to Havana. I would imagine, unless he likes Turkey and Erdogan that much, that he would rather go to Istanbul. But yes, it looks more likely that there could be a confrontation now. It could be truncated in a number of ways. Negotiations through careful mediators Mexico's offered itself could provide a solution that we can't see at the moment, and therefore someone like Maduro and his inner circle might decide to leave and allow the country to get on with the transition. Or it could go the other way and you could see a kind of bloody last stand that would be awful for the country. You could also see a series of complex operations. I'm not expecting the US to come in as it did in Desert Storm, but you do have Colombia with the largest standing army after the United States right next door. You know, you could see a situation in which Brazil, the United States and Colombia could together announce humanitarian intervention along the borders, perhaps no fly zones, territory for the government in exile, meaning Guaido, the legitimate government. There could also be a snatch and grab operation since Maduro and some of his inner circle are already under sanctions, some of them accused of crimes like narcotics. All of these things are possible. But the in essence, where we are right now is poised at the edge of a vortex in which many, many things are spinning and anything could happen.

[B]

To be continued. Thank you so much, John Lee.

[D]

You're welcome, Dirith.

[B]

John Lee Anderson is a staff writer and the author of Che Guevara A Revolutionary Life. This has been the political scene from the New Yorker. You can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast app. And find more political analysis and commentary on new yorker.com Feel free to rate and review the political scene on Apple Podcasts. Our theme music is by Russell Gillespie. This program is produced by Alex Barron and Hannah Wilentz. For New Yorker.com I'm Dorothy Wickenden.

[D]

Foreign.

[E]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.

[F]

I'm Michael Kalore, Wired's director of consumer.

[G]

Tech and Culture and I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley is about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.

[E]

And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about a big story. We often at the intersection of tech and politics.

[F]

Right. So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin, Doge, or Elon Musk, we will always explain how these Silicon Valley forces are.

[G]

Affecting Washington and how they affect you.

[E]

Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[D]

From prx.