John Lee Anderson (2:15)

Ready.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (2:16)

It's the world's most dangerous morning show today Explained. My name is Ana Vanessa Herrero and I'm an investigative reporter based in Caracas. I am working right now with the Washington Post.

Noel King (2:29)

You know that the US has been attacking boats, alleging that these are drug traffickers bringing drugs from Venezuela. How are people in Venezuela responding to these attacks at sea by the US.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (2:43)

The reaction is not a unified reaction. It's not like the people of the entire countries, for example, marching against or claiming to be in favor of. No. So the situation for Example in Sucre, where this is the coast region where all the boats are allegedly coming from. And I say allegedly because we don't have confirmation from the Venezuelan government. I talked to a couple of fishermen from the area and they're scared, they don't feel safe, that, you know, in their daily shores, their daily life, they're not going to be attacked somehow. But outside of Sucre, the situation is absolutely different. So Venezuelans are really not focusing on the attacks on the vessels, but focusing on the economy.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (3:37)

Everyone has like PTSD right now. Everyone is getting ready just in case we're going to have to suffer. 20, 16, 17 or 18 again. Those years Venezuela experienced hyperinflation of over a million percent economically. We're seeing shortages of basic goods.

Noel King (3:56)

We're seeing the currency spike up every day. It's triple digit inflation and we're seeing it in a free fall. The black market taking over from the official exchange rate. They're trying to have a major devaluation of the currency, take away all savings.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (4:12)

Of the middle class that is well deep inside our, our mem. And now the diplomatic tension is not as important. It's not part of the conversation. It's a little part of the conversation, but most of the conversation revolves around, you know, if I'm going to have enough money to buy food. If something happens, do I, you know, does the money that I have, should I save it, should I spend it, should I buy the gifts for Christmas, what should I do? And every threat affects the markets, affects all investments. But remember, remember the economy was collapsing and last year it started seeing some small changes for the better. Those were because of the cash flow on the streets and because of small investments. You know, people with, you know, some, some sort of money started creating small businesses and the economy was moving, was flowing. It doesn't mean that the economy was thriving. But you know, we, we did see some change, some changes. But now every person has seen some money to invest, is really insecure of doing so because you don't know if, you know, if you spend, we invest, what if tomorrow, you know, the U.S. attacks Venezuela? How can you survive without that money? So now people are trying to save the money that they have just in case something happens. And that is affecting the economy, the day to day economy. I'm not talking about the macro economy, which of course involves oil businesses, trades, which was already affected in the past.

Noel King (5:54)

I can understand how the story of the men in boats, the fishermen you spoke to, becomes small given a much broader economic crisis. I wonder about something else Though President Trump recently suggested that the United States might start land strikes in Venezuela. Do people there fear a land war?

Ana Vanessa Herrero (6:16)

So, of course, just to be clear, my conclusions come from the many conversations I've had with people here on the ground. But of course, I haven't spoken to everyone. From the people I've interviewed and small conversations I've been part of. Okay. The people I've talked to, they do fear something is going to happen. They don't know. Some of them think it's going to be like.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (6:43)

A small, precise attack against some of the Venezuelan political leaders that are now in power. Others think that they might come into Venezuela military from the US and attack Venezuela on the ground. But everyone agrees on one thing. If any of those happen, they do believe it's going to be really quick. This is not going to be a war that is going to last for five years because Venezuela doesn't really have what they need to fight against the US and the aftermath of that would be the end of Maduro's regime. I haven't heard anyone rejecting the idea. And that is really interesting. The thing is that because of the censorship and the harassment that the government has put upon the population, no one dares to speak up. But Petit Comite, in small conversations, you can definitely, you know, hear that no one wants this, but it's a last resort.

Noel King (7:55)

The people that you've spoken to, are they not rejecting the idea because they want Maduro out?

Ana Vanessa Herrero (8:03)

Well, ultimately, yes. You know, most people would like Maduro to resign, but we know so far that is not that. Probably that's not going to happen. Maduro has shown amazing skills and ability to survive all the attacks that he has suffered from abroad and inside of the country. And that is something that is worth the conversation because you're talking about not only a government, a regime that looks like it's really strong, but has people around it that are not willing to break that trust that Madura has given them. People understand that it's not easy, and maybe that is why they're between.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (8:48)

Those ideas. But definitely from the side of the Maduro supporters, now more than ever, they're unified. You know, they have the sense of an external enemy. And finally, because Maduro has been saying this for a long time, our enemy is the US they want to attack.

John Lee Anderson (9:08)

Raise your hand if you want to be a slave, he said to Venezuelans. Raise your hand if you want Venezuela to become a Yankee colony.

Podcast Host/Producer (9:17)

Nobody did.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (9:19)

They want to start a war with Venezuela, but never. It was never like there was never a threat but now there is actually. There's a palpable threat that proves him so right. And his followers are like, okay, now we do see that enemy, and we are going to gather around you to protect the legacy of Hugo Chavez and what we have. And this, again, is the narrative that the government has been using. But I don't see this happening for the rest of Venezuela or for the rest of the people.

Noel King (9:52)

All right, and when Trump makes these threats about Venezuela, how are people reacting? Are people stockpiling food? Are they preparing enough other ways?

Ana Vanessa Herrero (10:01)

It depends on the day. So when, for example, if President Donald Trump writes on social media, for example, as he did, the airspace is closed, get out of Venezuela, the attack is imminent, if that is the sense. You're definitely going to see people buying more food, more water, talking to each other, trying to call people who know people to see if they know something. But if the general climate is peaceful like today.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (10:35)

You can feel the tension, but really nothing is happening, or at least we don't know something's happening. People are just trying to live their daily lives. People are still going to work. We are not seeing people running to the supermarkets whatsoever. Even if they do stock up on food weekly. It's not pandemonium. It's not something that is. You know, you're gonna see on TV people lining up in the supermarkets like they did in 2016 to get something. So it's not the reaction you would expect. It's so confusing. The information is so scarce that people are just, okay, today I'll buy food. Then if nothing happens, I'll just eat it.

Noel King (11:21)

Where is Maduro in all of this? How is he behaving knowing that these threats are coming from the U.S. internally.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (11:28)

We don't really know what's happening, but Maduro is trying to show absolute peace and joy during the Christmas celebrations.

John Lee Anderson (11:38)

Peace forever. Forever. Forever.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (11:42)

He actually said that that was like a national mandate for people to push party all week long because we needed. Well, his followers needed to show the US and the world that they're not worried about anything, because.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (11:59)

He claims this is just a psychological war that they've survived in the past.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (12:06)

He has survived successfully in the past. Pressure not only from the US but internally from the opposition. Protests, demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of people on the streets. And he believes that if he sits down, or at least this is what he is showing. If he sits down and wait, this is all gonna go away. And he has done that in the past. So, you know, that's his strategy. It has worked, and it makes total sense.

Noel King (12:45)

Ana Vanessa Herrero in Caracas. She reports for the Washington Post. Coming what Maduro wants from a reporter who knows him.

Podcast Host/Producer (13:06)

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Noel King (13:34)

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Ana Vanessa Herrero (16:44)

Estar es cuchando a hoy explicado today explained.

Noel King (16:53)

I'm Noel King. John Lee Anderson is a writer for the New Yorker. He knows Nicholas Maduro and has interviewed him.

John Lee Anderson (17:03)

He's a big man. He's about 6 foot 4 or 5. He's at least 250 pounds. He's warm in person. He likes to hug.

John Lee Anderson (17:15)

He'll break into song if he's with the right crowd.

John Lee Anderson (17:26)

He's got that kind of swing. Maduro doesn't have quite the same magnetic Persona that his mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chavez did. You know, there has always been a pretty florid opposition in Venezuela and he has cracked down hard on them.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (17:43)

The opposition says their marches are peaceful while the government accuses them of inciting the violence.

Noel King (17:49)

It's arbitrary detentions, deaths during protests and in detention, torture, enforced disappearances, and sexual and gender based violence. Every day for weeks. He was electrocuted until he passed out. They threatened him by telling him, my children and I would be next if he didn't confess.

John Lee Anderson (18:07)

He comes from the urban left. He was also a left wing union organizer. He had some training in Cuba. He is not a democrat. He sees himself as a revolutionary. I point this out to Americans because I think there's this idea that, you know, obviously it's a kind of touchstone. We all talk about democracy as the, as the ultimate ideal. Well, people who see themselves as revolutionaries in the same Marxist sense do not regard themselves as democrats. They regard themselves as revolutionaries. And it presupposes a different set of assumptions about the way you proceed once you have power. And in the case of Nicolas Maduro and his military comrades who uphold this regime, it is about not giving up power.

Noel King (18:58)

How did he get into power? You said Chavez was his mentor. Did Chavez hand the presidency over? What happened?

John Lee Anderson (19:05)

He did. From a very early time. Maduro made himself useful and very close to Chavez. Maduro became head of the National Assembly. At one point he became foreign minister. He was foreign minister for about six years and then he became his vice president. Chavez discovered that he had cancer in about 2011, early 2012, and privately knew he was dying. And he had a televised moment when he told the Venezuelan nation that he was, you know, he hoped to be around, but if anything happened to him. Elijan Anicola Maduro como Presidenta de la Republica Olivariana. You know, chavez died in 2013 and that's exactly what happened. Nicolas Maduro replaced him in power.

Noel King (19:52)

To look at Venezuela today from the US is to see a country that is an economic basket case. A country that people desperately want to flee because they are so poor. What was Venezuela like? What was happening when Maduro took over.

John Lee Anderson (20:10)

From 2003 or 4, I think it was, until about 2012, 13, you had this worldwide spike in oil prices that brought in about a trillion dollars to Venezuela. It's a massive amount of money for any of the countries of the hemisphere outside of the United States. Venezuela was almost like an extension of the United States. They were, of course there was the poor, there were the poor in the hills and the hinterland was basically undeveloped. But the oil prices in the world, you know, they went up to 100, I think it was $150 a barrel at one point.

Noel King (20:45)

The country grew dependent on imports and the steep drop in oil prices left it unable to pay for even some of the most basic necessities.

John Lee Anderson (20:53)

They dropped precipitously right around the time Nicolas Maduro succeeded Chavez in office. And they went, you know, it went from let's say 120 to 40 or something. You know, it was a real drop in their income. Oil prices went up, Venezuela spent it all. And we're going to continue into the intensification of the hyperinflation that we have at the moment. The effect on Venezuelan society was immediate.

Podcast Host/Producer (21:23)

It doesn't take you long in oil.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (21:25)

Rich Venezuela to find this roadblocks by.

John Lee Anderson (21:28)

People saying they're struggling to get food.

Noel King (21:31)

Long lines of people snaking throughout the city as they wait hours for food, some with nothing to show for it.

John Lee Anderson (21:39)

Madura showed an incapacity, an inability to sort of to turn on a dime. You know, he tried to bludgeon forward using rhetoric and eventually the army or paramilitaries to really push their case and try to acquire power. So it's been this kind of push me pull you very no holds barred, very polarized environment ever since. And look, one doesn't know the ultimate truth, but you know, basically there's a, there's a consensus that he's stolen every election ever since. So ever since then, Madura's sort of been in a corner. There's very little to find in the way of infrastructure and investment. Where did those trillion dollars go? Well, you know, some of it was well intended. There was an effort at a kind of social welfare system that never really existed before. On the other hand, a lot of it was ripped off. There was a huge amount of corruption.

Noel King (22:39)

Who is Maduro's opposition? When and how do they start to form inside of Venezuela?

John Lee Anderson (22:45)

Look, there's always been an opposition to El Chavismo, which is the term given to the political movement that Hugo Chavez founded, so that people that loved him called themselves Chavistas. Over time, you know, they have been effective at grinding down most of the opposition. Now having said that, there's always someone who emerges from the murk and, you know, bares their chest to the regime and shakes their fist. And in the past couple of years it's been this woman, she's been around a while, but she's now emerged as the top dog of the opposition, you know, the kind of saving grace of non Chavista Venezuela, and that's Maria Corina Machado.

Ana Vanessa Herrero (23:35)

Because Maduro has failed so far that he can disappear people. He can put children in jail, accuse them of terrorism, torture them.

Noel King (23:49)

Once we liberate Venezuela, Cuba will follow, Nicaragua will follow. We will have this continent free of communism, dictatorship and narco terrorism for the future.

John Lee Anderson (24:03)

She campaigned vigorously and openly against Maduro, was declared to be illegitimate on fairly specious grounds by the country's electoral tribunal, which is another way they neutralize the opposition. Now she's clever and she's also very connected with Americans and other political groups outside. And so, okay, I'm illegal. Well, fine. And she found a retired former diplomat who wouldn't harm a fly and who nobody in Venezuela barely knew as her straw man candidate. He couldn't be banned because he had done nothing. Edmundo Gonzalez. And he ran in the elections last summer against Maduro, but everybody knew if they voted for him, they were really voting for her and that somehow she would emerge from behind him. And the evidence suggests that Edmundo Gonzalez, fronting for her, won the election.

Noel King (25:03)

But of course Maduro is still the president. I want to bring Trump into this. So Donald Trump takes office in 2016 and he and Maduro seem to genuinely dislike each other.

John Lee Anderson (25:13)

Maduro is not a Venezuelan patriot, he is a Cuban puppet. Donald Trump, Venezuela note how many.

John Lee Anderson (25:25)

Of Venezuela.

Noel King (25:27)

But I wonder, is this just a case of an American president and a Venezuelan president really disliking each other because they have very different goals and ambitions? Or is there something unique about the Trump Maduro relationship?

John Lee Anderson (25:41)

One of the very first meetings, in fact, the very first meeting that Donald Trump in his first term had with Latin American, his colleagues in Latin America, it wasn't with all of them. And I've talked to a couple of them, former heads of state. The first words out of Donald Trump's mouth was I want to invade Venezuela or, or let, let's invade Venezuela, something like that. Like why can't I invade Venezuela? I want to get rid of that guy Maduro. And they, they were shocked and they said, well Mr. President, that's probably not a good idea. I think we can, we can work together to see if we can pressure him to, you know, do this or that. And, and, and it kind of went on from there. So he came into office back in 2017 wanting to overthrow Maduro. You know, Maduro had, had been vilified by the conservative American emigre community.

John Lee Anderson (26:39)

Since, you know, since he took office, as had Chavez before him. They were seen as a new Cuban revolution, the Castro Chavismo. And of course, you know, Trump is mar a Lago, right? And who is around him in Florida? I mean, look at the panoply of characters that are there. You have an extremely conservative political environment. You have Colombian Americans, Venezuelan Americans, Cuban Americans and others who have emerged as we've all seen over the past x many years, as arch conservatives, very effective lobbyists on behalf of the political opponents to anything smelling of the left in Latin America to take an opportunity.

Noel King (27:26)

All right, President Trump wants Nicolas Maduro out. How easy or hard would that be?

John Lee Anderson (27:33)

Who was it? It wasn't Dick Cheney. It was one of the Vulcans promised that getting rid of Saddam Hussein and taking over Iraq, another oil rich state, remember, would be a cakewalk. Well, it certainly wasn't a cakewalk. Now I'm not suggesting that something similar would happen in Venezuela. We're talking about a very different ethos, I guess, or mystique that permeates the self proclaimed revolutionary left, such as it still exists in Latin America around Venezuela. But it has to be said that this government is military. Chavez did a Great deal to inculcate a new generation of soldiers and young officers with ideology that was anti imperialist, therefore anti American, anti Yankee, that kind of thing. And there has been, you know, Cuban advisors in and out of Venezuela for a very long time. And they've worked effectively and continuously in the intelligence services, counterintelligence services, which by all accounts, is one of the reasons why any other coup attempts and conspiracy attempts against Maduro have failed. So there's several scenarios that I could see the Americans trying. Land. What are these land attacks? Well, drone, I suppose. Drone airstrikes against supposed drug transshipment points, which might or might not be, you know, isolated posts in the jungle, or possibly military garrisons where they claim they're colluding with narco traffickers as a way to destabilize or frighten Maduro. You know, option two would be an assassination strike or an attempt to cause real damage, demoralizing damage to the armed forces and the regime itself and thus make it appear weak in the face of the population in the hopes that that population, who, you know, polls would suggest love and cherish Maria Corina Machado, would pour into the streets demanding the ouster of the regime or, you know, would literally flood the palace. Who knows? That's dangerous.

John Lee Anderson (29:46)

I think by now most people believe that even if they were to change Maduro, it wouldn't settle the country. How would Maria Corina Machado simply replace him in power? Would the Americans have to come and form a praetorian guard around her to protect her? I think if you ask most Venezuelans what they would like, they would like Maduro to leave and there not to be any American military intervention. And I don't know that those two are. At the moment, we don't know whether those two are mutually irreconcilable or not.

Noel King (30:24)

That's the New Yorker's John Lee Anderson. Ariana Espudu produced today's show. Amina Elsadi edited. David Tadashore and Patrick Boyd are our engineers. And Laura Bullard and Danielle Hewitt checked the facts. We're doing a little something special for VOX members. Perhaps you recall we have talked about perks associated with your membership. A stead. Hurnton and I are going to be conversating on Vox's new Patreon. We're talking about our favorite stories of 2025. Favorite and some least favorites and what we're going to be covering in 2026. Should you decide to join Patreon, you'll get exclusive access to that conversation. You will also unlock members only video series. So much more and you'll be supporting the work we do here at Today Explained. If you're already a VOX member, do note you have access to Patreon. You just need to sign in. Sign up if you're not a member, go to patreon.com Vox now to join. I'm Noel King. It's Today Explained.

Noel King (31:41)

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