The View from My Window

Summary

This American Life – "The View from My Window" (January 12, 2026)

Host: Ira Glass
Featured Reporters: Nancy Updike, Anianci Diaz Cortez
Main Interviewee: "Teresa" (name changed for safety), grassroots Venezuelan democracy activist

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Episode Overview

This urgent bonus episode departs from This American Life's usual story structure to offer a firsthand look at the seismic recent events in Venezuela: the U.S. military capture of President Nicolás Maduro. Through a gripping live translation and interview, listeners experience these tumultuous days from the literal window of a veteran activist—her surprise, joy, fear, and, ultimately, her sense of betrayal and uncertainty over the aftermath.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Venezuela on the Brink

• Context ([01:00]): Ira Glass introduces the remarkable events in Venezuela: after disputed elections and international recognition of the opposition victory, the U.S. finally intervenes militarily, ousting Maduro but refusing to install the recognized opposition.
• Election Background: Massive, well-organized volunteer efforts sought to prove the opposition's 2024 victory. Despite clear evidence and international support, Maduro retained power until the U.S. assault.

2. Teresa’s Firsthand Experience: The Night of the Attack

• Living Through the Attack ([04:32]): Teresa recounts the surreal hours as U.S. helicopters descended on Caracas. Her family, up late, rushed to their windows to witness the unfolding military operation illuminated by a full moon.
  • "It was almost like a live action situation... what we're seeing outside our window and the information we're getting is totally communicating with each other." – Teresa ([05:20])
• Mixed Emotions: Joy at seeing change, fear from the violence, worry for the innocent and friends affected, such as one whose house was destroyed.
  • "I felt both invaded and also like they were going after the bad guys." – Teresa ([06:08])
• Immediate Aftermath with Family ([08:28]): Her son "jumping up and down" in excitement; her daughter scouring the news and Twitter for confirmation of Maduro's capture.
  • "We were just trying to understand what was happening... we knew that something big was coming." – Teresa ([09:00])

3. The Moment of Truth: Confirmation and Elation

• Verification ([09:46]): The family's disbelief turned to jubilation when Trump's tweet confirmed Maduro's extraction.
  • "The only thing I felt was: verify, verify, verify... But what am I going to tell you, Nancy? We were happy. We were filled with joy." – Teresa ([09:49])
• Raw Satisfaction and Vindication: Teresa admits to flashes of wanting Maduro to "suffer" as her people had, yet acknowledges the irrationality of vengeance and her overwhelming sense of relief.

4. Unexpected Consequences: U.S. Plans & Political Despair

• Shifting Realities after U.S. Announcement ([10:59]): Trump declares vice president Delcy Rodriguez, a Maduro loyalist, as Venezuela's new leader, sidelining beloved opposition figure Maria Corinna Machado.
  • "Trump dismissed Machado as, quote, a very nice woman." – Nancy Updike ([11:22])
• Revelation of U.S. Priorities ([11:55]): Teresa recognizes painfully that U.S. interests do not align with ordinary Venezuelans.
  • "Trump is... his interests are of his country and of his party... his interests aren't of our people. And that is very, very clear." – Teresa ([12:06])
• Emotional Fallout: Sinking dread among opposition supporters; sense of betrayal as the Maduro regime, minus Maduro himself, remains in power.
  • "We started to just feel this sinking feeling and just feel very, very bad, you know..." – Teresa ([12:55])

5. Media and Misinformation

• Government Media Reaction ([13:49]): Official coverage avoids reality, focusing instead on "circus" and entertainment.
  • "The news says nothing. They do circus. They do music. They don't do anything." – Teresa ([13:52])
• Safety and Surveillance: Teresa reflects on months of anxiety, warning her grown children not to go outside during fear-filled times.

6. An Uncertain Path Forward

• Analyzing U.S. Motives and Risks ([15:49]): Teresa expresses deep worry about the U.S. engaging with members of the previous regime and delaying true democracy.
  • "Whether you give him three weeks or three months, you know, they're not stopping. They're only solidifying their power." – Teresa ([16:02])
• Ongoing Repression: Despite Maduro’s removal, political prisoners remain, journalists are arrested, and daily life is unchanged.
• Optimism Rekindled (by Necessity) ([17:15]): Despite dashed hopes and "political dizziness," Teresa clings to her belief in an eventual democratic path.
  • "Yes, yes, yes. I believe we are on a path to democracy. Why do I believe this? Because. Because I have to. Because this fight can't be in vain." – Teresa ([17:18])

7. What Needs to Happen Next

• A Call for Action ([18:10]): Release of political prisoners and real elections are, for Teresa, the only true measure of progress.
  • "If you hold elections, I guarantee that there will be a new government in place. But that's what has to happen." – Teresa ([18:15])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "It was almost like a live action situation... what we're seeing outside our window and the information we're getting is totally communicating with each other... it was just... Yeah, it was a live event, basically."
  Teresa, recounting the night of the attack ([05:20])
• "I felt both invaded and also like they were going after the bad guys."
  Teresa, on her complex emotions ([06:08])
• "We were happy. We were filled with joy. We were... We were jumping around."
  Teresa, describing her family's euphoria once Maduro’s removal was confirmed ([09:53])
• "Trump is... his interests are of his country and of his party... his interests aren't of our people. And that is very, very clear."
  Teresa ([12:06])
• "We started to just feel this sinking feeling and just feel very, very bad, you know..."
  Teresa, describing the emotional fallout after realizing the opposition was shut out ([12:55])
• "The news says nothing. They do circus. They do music. They don't do anything."
  Teresa commenting on official Venezuelan media ([13:52])
• "We are on a path to democracy. Why do I believe this? Because. Because I have to. Because this fight can't be in vain."
  Teresa, about her continued hope ([17:18])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:15–03:48] – Ira Glass’ prologue and background on the Venezuelan crisis and the episode’s purpose.
• [03:48–08:14] – Teresa’s account of the attack as seen from her window and her family's reaction.
• [08:28–09:46] – Family’s immediate emotional response and efforts to verify Maduro’s removal.
• [09:46–10:59] – Emotional high point—joy at confirmation of regime change.
• [10:59–13:35] – Aftermath, U.S. press conference, and realization of power remaining in regime hands.
• [13:35–15:49] – Media distortion, personal safety, and Teresa’s fears for her children's future.
• [15:49–17:15] – Reflections on U.S. motives, ongoing repression, and personal fears.
• [17:15–18:37] – Teresa embraces hope for democracy, despite the “political dizziness.”
• [18:37–19:30] – Closing notes and context updates from Ira Glass/Nancy Updike.

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Summary & Takeaways

This episode provides an emotional, on-the-ground chronicle from a Venezuelan democracy activist, mapping her journey from elation to disillusionment and, finally, to grim resolve. Despite the chaos, uncertainty, and a sense of betrayal by foreign powers, Teresa’s voice—filled with anguish, gratitude, and determination—encapsulates the complexity and resilience of ordinary Venezuelans during historic change.

For listeners: If you’re looking to understand the personal stakes and raw immediacy behind the headlines, this episode’s intimate window offers exactly that—both literally and figuratively.

Transcript

[A]

This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics with the Coral, directed by Nicholas Hittner, written by Alan Bennett, starring Ralph Fiennes as a choir master in 1916. Yorkshire making music as war rages on.

[B]

Now playing only in theaters.

[A]

Hey, everybody, Ira here. This thing that you're listening to right now is a little bonus episode that we decided to throw down the feed in addition to the new show that we just made, which is called New Lore Drop, which came out at the regular time on the feed Sunday night and should be sitting right next to this bonus episode in your podcast app. Let me take a second and explain what you're listening to right here. When the United States attacked Venezuela last week and captured its president, Nicolas Maduro, I kept thinking about this story that Nancy Updike did for our show a while back about the 2024 election in Venezuela. In that election, there was this massive grassroots effort not just to oust Maduro and elect the opposition candidate, but also they knew that they were going to have to prove that the opposition actually won. And so what that meant is tens of thousands of volunteers around the country planned and trained for months. And then on election day, they not only managed to get a huge turnout going out voting, they also organized this whole thing where they went around and they collected paper copies of the vote totals for most of the voting centers around the country. Okay, so they have these paper receipts, they scanned these vote totals, added them up, put everything online proving that the opposition candidate, Edmundu Gonzalez, beat Maduro and beat him decisively. Their Numbers showed a 2 to 1 victory. People hated Maduro that much. But election authorities declared Maduro the winner. He stayed in power. People protested. Maduro cracked down with mass detentions, over 1500 people. The United nations looked into it and found that many of those detainees were tortured. The world knew who won. Countries around the world, including the United States, went through the opposition's numbers, looked at the receipts, concluded they were solid, and officially recognized Gonzalez, the opposition candidate, as the winner and rightful president of Venezuela. But this past week, as you probably saw, when the United States captured President Maduro, President Trump did not say, okay, here's the guy who actually won the election. Here's the woman who leads the opposition that he's part of, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corinna Machado. Let's finally put them in power. Which made me wonder, what do all those Venezuelans who were part of this big organized movement to vote Maduro out of power and prove that they won, who did all that? So, so, well, what do they think of the events of the last week, what's this been like for them? Are they angry? Do they see any hope that they might get a shot? Well, Nancy Updike and reporter Anianci Diaz Cortez reached out to one of those people and talked to her. She said all kinds of interesting and eye opening things that we have not heard elsewhere in the coverage. So what you're about to hear, you'll hear Ana Yancey interpreting. She's helped us with all of our Venezuela coverage. And what you're going to hear is her live translation recorded during the conversation. So it's not working forward exact, but it's close because this conversation is so of this moment without. It made the most sense to put it out now and not wait for some theme or something. Hence this extra episode this week that you're listening to. Here's Nancy Updike.

[C]

A lot of Venezuelans were expecting some kind of big move. The US had been bombing Venezuelan boats for months. American aircraft carriers and destroyers had been assembling in the Caribbean. It was clear something was about to happen. The woman I talked to, Teresa, had also been expecting. She didn't know what when the attack happened. She was at home in her neighborhood just outside the capital, Caracas, with her family, including her two grown children. Teresa is not her real name. It's still too dangerous in the country for anyone who organized against Maduro. The attack started in the middle of the night. Her time.

[B]

How I experienced it is that, you know, we're on vacation. You know, we're, we're, it was late, but we were up late. We were watching a series on tv, me, you know, the, me and my daughter. And then suddenly, you know, we're watching the series and I hear like a sound, I don't know of a long droning sound that sounded like a plane. And then. I immediately go to the window. I go to the window. You know, I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit far away from the scene. But it was a full moon that night or close to a full moon. So you could clearly see six helicopters with no lights on and a lot of noise through my window. There were six or seven helicopters that were, you know, far away but also really near my house. And it was, it was quite easy to see. So, you know, we, it was, how can I explain it? It was, it was almost like a live action situation where we're like what we're seeing outside our window and the information we're getting is totally communicating with each other. And it was just, it Wasn't like live. It was in vivo. It was basically live. We would get the information on our phone and then we would see it playing out in front of us. We would see it playing out in front of us, and then we would get it on our phone. It was just. Yeah, it was a live event, basically. So, you know, it's a lot of dual feelings or found, you know, mixed feelings. Found feelings. Things, as you say in Spanish. Like, you know, on the one hand, it's like, yes, they're bombarding our country. They're bombarding Venezuela. There's a kind of invasion. But on the other hand, they're. They're going after the bad guys. That was the feeling that they were going after the bad guys. So I felt split. I felt both invaded and also like they were going after the bad guys. Did we feel happy? Yes, we felt happy, Felisis. We felt so happy and grateful. Grateful that. That something was finally happening, that there was movement finally happening. And at the same time worried, of course, that there are people paying for this. You know, a friend, you know, her house exploded. She was fine, but everything in her house, all the windows were broken. The death of a lot of those soldiers also worried me. Like, who was paying that price? And then. So we're sitting there feeling happy and feeling grateful, and then we hear an explosion, like a huge light just exploding near an airport. And, you know, we have a full. A full visual of that too. It just went une splendor, like a lightning flash. There was a kind of expectation. It's not. It wasn't a complete surprise. Like, you know, there was kind of an expectation that something was going to happen. Something. There was something kind of afloat, you know, But I. I did feel like a sense of panic. I would describe it and, you know, that duality of feelings of, like, panic, but also not knowing what's happening and a kind of happiness. And that's when I went upstairs to where my kids were. But that's. I went upstairs and then that's where we were observing everything that was happening. At around 2am this was happening.

[C]

And when you went upstairs, what did you say to your kids and what did they say?

[B]

So when I went upstairs, you know, I saw my son and he. I mean, he was jumping up and down. They arrived. Honestly, I. I was more in shock. You know, my. My daughter, she was, you know, she was stuck to her phone. From that second we were on WhatsApp. We were just like, trying to understand what was happening. But I will say we are, you know, Close enough to have felt the explosion. You know, what we didn't know was if Maduro had been extracted or not extracted. If, you know, who was that or who wasn't dead, that we didn't know. But, you know, my daughter, who's bilingual, was, you know, was following X and following Trump's tweets. So we were waiting for Trump to tweet. And then once Trump tweeted, my daughter translated that, and we knew that Maduro had been extracted.

[C]

So when your daughter saw President Trump's tweet or announcement that Maduro had been and his wife had been taken out of the country, what was your reaction?

[B]

At first, the first moment, the only thing I felt was verified to my daughter. I told her, verify, verify, verify. That's all I want. I want to know, you know, if this is really true, because there's so much fake news and, and so much fake news out there. Even what's real, what's not real. Right. But what am I going to tell you, Nancy? We were happy. We were filled with joy. We were, you know, we were. We were jumping around. I had, you know, I had these feelings of the. The moment we realized it was real, that, you know, I wanted him to suffer, you know, kind of what we've suffered. And, you know, I know that's not very, you know, good of a man. He's not going to suffer like we suffered. He's, you know, sometimes I'm like, he's in good hands. But, you know, we don't have the capacity to be rational in those moments. Just feeling things. And what I felt was satisfaction. Of course, I didn't believe it at first and that this could happen so fast. It was, you know, you know, two hours is a long time, but it was also a short time and without resistance because really, right now in Venezuela, there's nothing to resist with. So that's all we wanted, was the truth. And I don't know how else to put it, but we felt a grand sense of satisfaction.

[C]

That feeling of satisfaction changed over the next day or so after President Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Hagseth and others held a press conference. The United States would run Venezuela. Trump said he barely mentioned Teresa's political hero, opposition leader Maria Karina Machado. Trump dismissed Machado as, quote, a very nice woman. The person Trump did talk about as the new leader of Venezuela was the vice President, Delsey Rodriguez. Trump said she would be in charge. Delsey Rodriguez is a devoted member of Maduro's team. And what Teresa slowly realized is that Maduro's entire government, the government she and tens of thousands of others had organized and voted to change, the whole thing was going to remain intact.

[B]

You know, in the days that did follow that, you know, what is very clear to me and my family is that Trump is. His interests are of his country and of his party and of his people and the people close to him. His interests aren't of our people. And that is very, very clear. So a lot of my time in these days have. Have been spent kind of understanding the decisions of his administration and understanding gringo politics and, like, and what that is. And it's. I'm still trying to understand. I don't totally get it. And there's a lot of decisions that, of course, feel risky to me and not great, but. But it's clear that it's his interest, not ours. But I also wasn't expecting, you know, the other side, which was I began to listen to Marco Rubio and just. We all started to just feel this sinking feeling and just feel very, very bad, you know, and just not really. How can I put it? I don't understand why Trump is is saying this is negotiating with Delsey Rodriguez, you know, Delcey and her brother. You know, it's very risky and dangerous to negotiate with her, and it's a very risky and dangerous play that the United States is doing. It's been so emotional for me to see that play out that I haven't even listened to Maria Corina yet and what she has said. I'm just processing this negotiation of Marco Rubio and the Trump administration negotiating with Vice President Delsey Rodriguez, who's now in power.

[C]

And what is on tv, on the government channels or radio. What are they saying?

[B]

The news says nothing. They do circus. They do music. They don't do anything. They've just taken. Taken it over. So, yeah, it continues to be circus. I just, you know, I. I just want to make clear I have two kids. You know, one may be more politicized than the other or not, but before all this, you know, we. We knew this was coming. We didn't know how it was coming. We didn't know when it was coming, but we knew that something big was coming. And, you know, and for weeks and months now, I've been like, don't be on the street. Where are you? Just completely paranoid and keeping track of them. And, you know, I. I'm just so grateful that how this all happened, when this all happened, that we. We were all at home. But, you know, as I look at them sometimes in Their, you know, in their 20s, and I'm like, they can't even go on the street. They can't go outside. They're spending their youth, their best years, like, living inside with their mother in fear. And so, you know, you know, when I tell you that even as much as Trump scares me, I think Trump needs to come again to get Delsey or whatever, and it really scares me that he's negotiating with her. But just to give you a sense and to also tell you that it will only be, you know, with Delsey Rodriguez, with the person in charge, with this government in charge, it will only get harder to talk to you. It will only get harder to speak with you over time. And, you know, I am but one Teresa, but there are many, many, many Teresas, and it's only getting harder to speak the truth.

[C]

You were saying that you're spending time now trying to understand gringo politics. What do you think? What's your take on what we're doing?

[B]

To be honest, I'm very worried. They're giving so much time to this government, this government that continues to be alive. And whether you give him three weeks or three months, you know, they're not stopping. They're only solidifying their power. Yes, they took away Maduro, but there's the power. The power structure is still alive. Yesterday, they took, I don't know how many journalists. They're still taking political prisoners. The oath that Trump took with us of re. Establishing some kind of semblance of democracy, that's not. Not happening. And for the Teresas like me, the ones on the street, the ones walking the street, I don't know what to tell you. We're tormented. We're worried. Today, today, today, today. Not three days ago, not in a way today. Trump is not doing what he says he has. And Trump still doesn't have power here for four days into this, and we're still seeing more arrest, more impunity, we're seeing more of the same.

[C]

I guess I'm wondering if a democratic election, if a democratic government seems just as far away as it did before this happened, or farther. You see?

[B]

Yes, yes, yes. I believe we are on a path to democracy. Why do I believe this? Because. Because I have to. Because this fight can't be in vain. Because the path for me has to be democracy, because that's what I've invested my life in, in all these years, in. Am I worried? Yes, I've told you, I am worried. I don't think that Trump is taking the best path to me, you know, it's a little bit Mario Politico, which is like, mario, Mario. What is Mario? Dizziness. It's political dizziness. He's, you know, Trump is making us dizzy with politics. And I don't think elections are going to have to happen immediately, but they need to happen. If we held elections right now, we could change this government. My worry, my main worry is the interim, the right now from today to the new elections. So if Trump really has power here, then, you know, then Trump needs to make sure that the political prisoners are free.

[A]

Free.

[B]

They don't all have to come out today. It can be three at a time. You know, that is how you show power. And then you hold elections. And if you hold elections, I guarantee that there will be a new government in place. But that's what has to happen.

[A]

Nancy Updike is one of the producers of our show. Since she did this interview, the Venezuelan government has released some political prisoners. The government of Delcey Rodriguez has been talking about expanding diplomatic ties with the United States. President Trump has said that Venezuela cannot hold elections until the United States can, quote, rebuild the country. This mini episode was put together by Nancy with Ana Yancey, Diaz Cortez, Lars Starcheski, Dorothy Kronik, Helena Carpio, Stone Nelson, Suzanne Gabber and me. We have a whole new regular episode this week. As I said, it's really good. It's fun called New Lore Drop. Keep an eye out for that. It should be in your feed right now. Thanks for listening.

[C]

Foreign.

[A]

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