Jan. 5, 2026 11:29-13:17 - CSPAN
01:47:56
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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Venezuela's Deportation Drama
00:15:28
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| Welcome back to C-SPAN's live coverage of the Trump administration's actions in Venezuela. | ||
| Earlier today, you were watching Senators Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, two Florida Republican senators representing that state on Venezuela. | ||
| On your screen now is from earlier today when Nicolas Madura, the deposed leader of Venezuela, was brought from the Brooklyn jail where he has been held there since the surprise raid this weekend. | ||
| He and his wife and his sons held in this jail transported him from the jail to a New York courthouse. | ||
| He is set to appear at noon Eastern time today to face narcoterrorism charges. | ||
| There's the helicopter taking off and taking him to the courthouse. | ||
| We have live coverage of his appearance today at that New York courthouse, and we're going to bring you special coverage from New York One Spectrum at noon Eastern time. | ||
| Until then, more on the actions by the Trump administration against Venezuela and its dethroned leader. | ||
| These are the charges that the U.S. is alleging against Nicolas Madura, his wife, other family members, and associates. | ||
| Narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, gun and explosives possession, as well as conspiracy to use weapons against the United States. | ||
| Nicolas Maduro was born in 1962. | ||
| He's a former bus driver, turned union leader. | ||
| He assumed the presidency in 2000 after Hugo Chavez's death. | ||
| He's ruled Venezuela by decree since 2015. | ||
| Now, President Trump spoke to reporters about the strikes against Venezuela and the decision to capture the leader and his wife and family. | ||
| This is what he had to say about reiterating that the U.S. is now in control of Venezuela while answering questions from reporters yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
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The next question is: who's in charge of Venezuela right now? | |
| Have you spoken to the newly sworn-in president there, Rodriguez? | ||
| And what are your thoughts on the entire situation when you said the U.S. would run Venezuela? | ||
| We're dealing with the people, we're dealing with the people that just got sworn in. | ||
|
unidentified
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And don't ask me who's in charge because I'll give you an answer and it'll be very controversial. | |
| What does that mean? | ||
| We're in charge. | ||
|
unidentified
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Have you spoken with her? | |
| We're in charge. | ||
|
unidentified
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Have you spoken with her? | |
| No, no, I haven't, but other people. | ||
| Yeah, at the right time, I will. | ||
|
unidentified
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Can the U.S. give Del C. Roderick you guys any guarantees in exchange for cooperating with your administration? | |
| No, but she's cooperating. | ||
| Are you going to demand free and fair elections in the short term in Venezuela? | ||
| Well, it depends. | ||
| You know, what you're talking. | ||
| We have to do one thing in Venezuela, bring it back. | ||
| It's a dead country right now. | ||
| It's a country that, frankly, we would have been if I had lost the election, we would have been a dead country. | ||
| We would have been Venezuela and steroids. | ||
| Venezuela right now is a dead country. | ||
| We have to bring it back, and we're going to have to have big investments by the oil companies to bring back the infrastructure. | ||
| And the oil companies are ready to go. | ||
| They're going to go in, they're going to rebuild the infrastructure. | ||
| You know, we built it to start off with many years ago. | ||
| They took it away. | ||
| You can't do that. | ||
| And you can't do that with me. | ||
| They did it with other presidents. | ||
|
unidentified
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How soon do you think an election can take place in Venezuela? | |
| Well, I think we're looking more at getting it fixed, getting it ready first, because it's a mess. | ||
| The country is a mess. | ||
| President Trump on Sunday taking questions from reporters about who now controls Venezuela. | ||
| From Politico's reporting this morning, they say that Venezuela is now in the hands of Maduro's deputy, Del Codriguez, who was sworn in as acting president in the early hours of Saturday morning. | ||
| More official confirmations of her leadership today in Venezuela as well. | ||
| Now, we want to get your reaction to the actions by the Trump administration. | ||
| There are the lines on your screen. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8921. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8920. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8922. | ||
| And if you are Venezuelan living in the United States, we want to hear from you today as well. | ||
| 202-748-8923. | ||
| Before we get to those calls, though, here's a little bit more from the Trump administration. | ||
| Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday and explained how multiple U.S. agencies will be involved in running Venezuela. | ||
| But, Mr. Secretary, I think there's a lot of questions about who the point people are during this transition. | ||
| President Trump said we're going to run the country. | ||
| So is it you? | ||
| Is it Secretary Hegseth? | ||
| Who are those people who will be running the country specifically? | ||
| Well, it's not running the country. | ||
| It's running policy. | ||
| The policy with regards to this. | ||
| We want Venezuela to move in a certain direction because not only do we think it's good for the people of Venezuela, it's in our national interest. | ||
| It either touches on something that's a threat to our national security or touches on something that's either beneficial or harmful. | ||
| And are you involved in that transition? | ||
| So obviously I'm very involved in this. | ||
| Well, of course, I mean, I think everyone knows I'm pretty involved on politics in this hemisphere. | ||
| Obviously, the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor are very involved in all these elements. | ||
| The Department of War plays a very important role here, along with the Department of Justice, for example, because they're the ones that have to go to court. | ||
| So this is a team effort by the entire national security apparatus of our country, but it is running this policy. | ||
| And the goal of the policy is to see changes in Venezuela that are beneficial to the United States first and foremost, because that's who we work for, but also, we believe, beneficial for the people of Venezuela, who have suffered tremendously. | ||
| We want a better future for Venezuela, and we think a better future for the people of Venezuela also is stabilizing for the region and makes the neighborhood we live in a much better and safer place. | ||
| Secretary of State Marco Rubio on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday clarifying what agencies will be involved in controlling Venezuela. | ||
| We want to get your reaction today ahead of that noon arraignment of Nicolas Maduro, the dethroned leader of Venezuela. | ||
| And we'll get to your calls here in just a minute. | ||
| Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be heading to Capitol Hill today. | ||
| He, along with the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, as well as the CIA Director John Radcliffe, and the Joint Chiefs Chair, General Dan Kaine, they will all be on Capitol Hill today for a briefing with lawmakers at 5.30 p.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| It is a select group of lawmakers that will get a briefing on Venezuela. | ||
| Let's go to Capitol Hill. | ||
| Max Cohen is joining us there. | ||
| He's a Punch Bowl News reporter to talk more about this briefing. | ||
| You scooped, Max Cohen. | ||
| Punch Bowl News did that this briefing will be happening today. | ||
| What do you know? | ||
| How did it come about? | ||
| Yeah, I think there is a great desire among members of Congress of these key committees to get more information about what exactly is happening in Venezuela. | ||
| And there was a lot of clamoring from lawmakers to say what exactly is the United States' role. | ||
| That was a big impudence. | ||
| And the White House also recognized they didn't give traditional heads up about this operation to members of Congress. | ||
| And they said, you know, we have to go to the Hill to explain our actions. | ||
| But I do have to say, the main thing happening right now is just confusion among these lawmakers about is the U.S. running Venezuela? | ||
| Will there be U.S. troops boots on the ground? | ||
| And really, what are the next steps with regards to this operation? | ||
| Sounds like those will be the questions that are asked at this briefing today. | ||
| Who will be in the room? | ||
| Yeah, so we have top committee leaders from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Foreign Affairs Committees, of course, as well as the Gang of Eight, which is the top congressional leaders from both parties who don't serve on these committees but are privy to this intelligence information. | ||
| And I do want to also note that there have been similar briefings over the past number of weeks in the latter stages of 2025 about what the United States was doing in the Caribbean with these boat strikes and with regards to Venezuela. | ||
| And time after time again, Trump administration officials told members of Congress they're not seeking regime change. | ||
| Obviously, that is exactly what happened just this week. | ||
| So there's a lack of trust, I think, among many Democrats and the Trump administration, and we expect that to come up during this briefing. | ||
| On the Democratic side, what is their leadership saying versus rank and file? | ||
| How do they want the party to respond to the Trump administration? | ||
| Yeah, they're walking an interesting tightrope here. | ||
| Obviously, Nicolos Maduro, the deposed leader of Venezuela, is not a popular figure, and all of their statements have made great pains to acknowledge that. | ||
| However, what most Democrats are also saying and their main message is Congress should have been consulted. | ||
| And they do not like that President Trump, as he's done time after time again, is trying to bypass Congress and a lot of his decision making. | ||
| In addition, there's a lot of skepticism about getting involved in a foreign conflict. | ||
| We're seeing a lot of Democrats compare this to the invasion of Iraq, of course, to say, are we really going to put U.S. military members at risk for a country which is far away from our own country and which Democrats allege there's not a significant national security interest into what the United States is doing in Venezuela. | ||
| We showed Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday. | ||
| He also in that interview said, there's not a war. | ||
| We are at war with drug trafficking organizations, not a war against Venezuela. | ||
| What are some possible steps you could see from members of Congress in response to the actions in Venezuela on the floor? | ||
| Is there legislation they are teeing up? | ||
| Yeah, and Senate Democrats are already taking steps to hold votes this week on whether there is an authorization of use of military force. | ||
| Democrats are trying to say, look, we cannot be involved in an armed conflict. | ||
| As you mentioned, the Trump administration is saying this is not a war. | ||
| Democrats see differently. | ||
| But what they're trying to do, Democrats, is force a vote in the Senate and say, look, are we involved in conflict? | ||
| And if we are, the Senate is not going to give its consent to this without being considered. | ||
| We've seen similar votes happen along these lines with regards to the boat strikes, and they've only attracted a handful of Republican votes. | ||
| So from our standpoint now, it seems like this will purely be a messaging vote, and we cannot expect some actual policy change from it. | ||
| Again, Republicans are largely behind what the Trump administration is doing. | ||
| Have you seen any cracks in the GOP front since the actions that were taken just two days ago in that surprise raid? | ||
| I think there's a small number of Republicans who are perhaps more isolationist who say that what the Trump administration is doing is antithetical to what Donald Trump himself ran on. | ||
| These are members like Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are very conservative, no doubt, but also are staking out some anti-Trump issue positions. | ||
| I do want to caution though and say this is a very, very small minority of congressional Republicans. | ||
| The vast majority of Republicans are behind this action. | ||
| They're saying it's necessary. | ||
| They're saying Maduro is someone who needed to go and they're saying this is in within the United States national interests. | ||
| So there are some loud voices speaking out against it, but for the most part, Republicans are behind Trump here. | ||
| Who are some members to watch? | ||
| We were showing our viewers earlier a news conference from Doro, Florida, where Senators Rick Scott and Ashley Moody were with Venezuelan community leaders applauding the Trump administration action. | ||
| Is the Florida delegation the members to watch here in Congress this week? | ||
| Yeah, that's exactly right. | ||
| You know, Florida has a very large Venezuelan immigrant population, many people who are fleeing the Chavez and the Maduro regime. | ||
| So that's going to be a constituency which is in large part very much in favor of what the United States is doing in Venezuela. | ||
| There are also some other traditional Republican foreign policy hawks who I'd watch. | ||
| Those are folks like Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, who are going to be very firmly in favor of this. | ||
| But also on the contrasting side, I think Rand Paul is going to be a Republican who we should also keep an eye on. | ||
| He's been very much against the boat strikes in the Caribbean, and he's also come out very hard against the action in Venezuela. | ||
| Max Cohen, tee up the next edition of Punch Bowl News. | ||
| What's new? | ||
| Well, we're really going to have to wait and see what comes out of this briefing. | ||
| And I think the main thing we're tracking is how angry Democrats will be at what they will allege is the Trump administration lying to them. | ||
| Because time after time again, they've said point blank in these briefings, are you seeking regime change? | ||
| Rubio and Hegseth and folks like that have said no. | ||
| They're going to come at them again today and say, can we trust anything you're telling Congress? | ||
| So that's going to be one storyline. | ||
| And the other storyline, which is not going away either, is the role of Congress in these armed conflicts. | ||
| This is not unique to Trump. | ||
| Many presidents have taken military action without consulting Congress, without a vote on the floor of Congress. | ||
| This is just another step in Congress ceding power to the executive with regards to foreign policy. | ||
| I think our viewers will have a lot to say on those fronts as well. | ||
| Max Cohen, Punch Bowl News reporter, thank you For your time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And we want to get your reaction to what you heard from Max Cohen as well as the other reporting here today while we wait for the arraignment of Nicholas Maduro, the former leader of Venezuela. | ||
| He is set to appear in a federal court in New York after being held in a Brooklyn jail since that surprise raid over the weekend. | ||
| And as you heard from Max Cohen up on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Kaine, they will be briefing lawmakers at 5.30 p.m. Eastern Time, a select group of lawmakers, and we'll have coverage of a stakeout outside of that closed-door briefing. | ||
| In the meantime, Richard in Tampa, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Richard, what do you say about the U.S. actions in Venezuela? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I think it was great. | |
| You know, it's funny how the Democrats have really turned into hypocrites. | ||
| They put up a $50 million reward for his capture, and they didn't do nothing about it. | ||
| That was during the last administration that I believe, I personally believe they stole the election, but that's another story. | ||
| Also, going back to the wall, there's a video that shows not only Harry Reid, but it shows Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton. | ||
| It shows Tim Kaine. | ||
| It shows quite a few of the politicians, including Obama, talking about how we needed a wall. | ||
|
Nancy's Criticism Of Trump
00:04:22
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unidentified
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But then when all of a sudden Trump gets in office and he starts building the wall, they all have a problem with it. | |
| You know, I've heard this over and over, and I really believe it's true. | ||
| If Donald Trump walked on water, they would say he only did it because he couldn't swim. | ||
| I'm really tired of the hypocrites. | ||
| I was a Democrat for the better part of my life. | ||
| I'm 75 now, and I was a Democrat for up to the second term of Obama. | ||
| I voted for Obama, and I'm sorry I did that the first term. | ||
| And I didn't vote for him. | ||
| I voted against McCain because I thought he was a warmonger. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
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And I didn't realize just how bad Obama was going to destroy this company. | |
| All right. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Richard, who agrees with the Trump administration actions in Venezuela. | ||
| Nancy, Fresno, California, Democratic caller. | ||
| What do you say? | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| I am really upset about what's going on. | ||
| We have created our own nation state in Venezuela. | ||
| But more to the point, I'm looking at the charges contained in the indictment. | ||
| And I don't know how we have jurisdiction over this man or his wife. | ||
| Two of the counts have to do with machine gun possession. | ||
| Excuse me, machine gun possession where? | ||
| In Venezuela. | ||
| We don't have personal jurisdiction. | ||
| We don't have subject matter jurisdiction over either Mr. Maduro or his wife. | ||
| I'm not a fan of dictators. | ||
| I'm not a fan of Donald Trump for that reason. | ||
| But we don't have a right to go into anybody's country, snatch people out of their beds, and bring them to our country to prosecute when we don't have jurisdiction. | ||
| The only count that I think will hold up at the grand jury is the one alleging conspiracy to import cocaine into the country. | ||
| By the way, there's no mention in the indictment of Fenton Hill. | ||
| That was the big trading, the talking point, the big lie to Americans. | ||
| There is no, the only allegation that will hold up in a grand jury is conspiracy, because conspiracy contains two people who make an agreement to commit a crime. | ||
| They don't even have to know each other. | ||
| So if you've got five or six or ten people involved in this alleged cocaine importing conspiracy who name Maduro, then he's going to be convicted of conspiracy. | ||
| I think he's going to walk completely. | ||
| All right, Nancy, does it make a difference in your argument that the Trump administration says we do not recognize him as a foreign leader, and they say that he is the head of a drug cartel? | ||
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unidentified
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No, he's the head of a drug cartel in Venezuela, not in the United States. | |
| Also, this head of the of Venezuela is the supreme leader. | ||
| I don't know that that's true, and I don't know this. | ||
| It's our business to take out people we don't like their politics and running other countries. | ||
| A lot of people in the world don't like Donald Trump. | ||
| Believe me, they don't. | ||
| The U.N. Security Council right now is meeting and criticizing the United States for these actions. | ||
| There's a lot of people in the world that don't like Donald Trump. | ||
| Do they have a right to come to the United States, Washington, D.C., and snatch him and take him to their country and prosecute him? | ||
| No, they don't. | ||
| We would be outraged. | ||
| By the way, has Baron Trump enlisted yet? | ||
| Why isn't he boots on the ground? | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| All right, Nancy there in Fresno, California, Nancy talking about the U.N. Security Council. | ||
| An emergency meeting was called today to talk about the U.S. actions in Venezuela. | ||
| We've been live on C-SPAN 2 with that debate happening in New York City at the UN Security Council. | ||
| George, Sun City, Arizona, Independent. | ||
| George, we'll get your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, first of all, the whole story about Manduro being the head of a narco drug cartel, this man had access to hundred millions of gallons, excuse me, 100 billion gallons of oil. | |
| He's selling oil on the black market, selling oil at China, et cetera. | ||
| Why would he even deal with drugs? | ||
| He's making much more money with the oil. | ||
| I think the whole story about drugs and drug cartel is made up for a reason for us to go in there. | ||
|
Border Raids Update
00:08:09
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unidentified
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We've been wanting to go in there for 10 years, not only get the oil, but rare earth minerals. | |
| So it's full of holes, the whole story. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right. | ||
| George there in Sun City, Arizona, and Independent, live outside of the courtroom. | ||
| Right now, we can see a live shot of this New York Manhattan courtroom where Nicholas Maduro is set to appear. | ||
| Now, he'll go inside this courtroom, and cameras are not allowed as far as we can tell from reporting. | ||
| There will be reporters in the room if they can get a seat. | ||
| New York One, Spectrum's New York One, will have live special coverage of this court proceeding at noon Eastern time. | ||
| They will have a reporter in the courtroom, and we will bring you their coverage, Simulcast it, at noon Eastern time. | ||
| Until then, we're getting your thoughts. | ||
| Rodolfo in San Antonio and Independent, we'll hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I am a 67-year-old Mexican slash American, and so I have a deep, deep understanding of what's happening because I moved from El Paso to San Antonio to get away from the border influence where I saw with frequency what the cartels were doing at the border. | ||
| And my wife and I specifically moved to move our kids over here. | ||
| People were shooting from across Juarez into the county court building in El Paso, and young women were being abducted. | ||
| There are killing fields all over Juarez and that northern Chihuahua area. | ||
| And I always wondered as a kid, why isn't somebody taking these people out? | ||
| Because they're just openly doing all these really brutal acts for a long, long time. | ||
| And the jurisdiction thing was always the question, like, how can we stop this? | ||
| And finally, President Trump and his administration decided to do something about this, which should have been done a long, long time ago. | ||
| So I fully agree with what he's doing. | ||
| And it's amazing to me how our Congress is clueless as to what's been happening all this time historically, because I guess big government in America has been so focused on all of these social programs that they've got to manage. | ||
| that they're not able to see outside of our country what's happening in the world at large and right here in our own backyard in our hemisphere. | ||
| Rodolpho, would you? | ||
| So I applaud. | ||
| Would you welcome debate on the House and Senate floors where you could hear from members of Congress from both sides of the aisle debate whether or not the United States should have taken the action that it did in Venezuela? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, no. | |
| No. | ||
| Well, it's a question of debate. | ||
| It's a question of getting the information and understanding what's happening at that, at that, like on the border, all the way from Texas to Florida to Arizona to California. | ||
| All of us who live on the border, we've seen this for decades. | ||
| And it's like, it's not a question of debate anymore. | ||
| It's like it's been happening for way too long. | ||
| And it's like, when are we going to stop this? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, he's taking a delegation of senators to the border on Friday. | ||
| That's reporting from Capitol Hill outlets this morning. | ||
| They'll be going down to the border on Friday. | ||
| And so we can expect some news coverage out of their visit as well. | ||
| Thaddeus in Boca Raton, Florida. | ||
| Hi, Thaddeus. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| Your thoughts on the president's actions in Venezuela, the capturing of their former leader? | ||
|
unidentified
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I think it's awesome. | |
| I think that it was long overdue. | ||
| And over 50 countries have approved of the measure so far. | ||
| You know, it's amazing when you listen to, you know, some of these people that are calling in that there's no drugs in Venezuela and Trump is doing this and Trump is doing that. | ||
| Trump is leading and that's for sure. | ||
| It's just amazing to hear some of these people and what you know some of the stuff that I guess they're reading or getting on their liberal news channels that don't explain really what's going on. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Anthony in Texas, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Anthony. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, how are you? | |
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good. | |
| I just got a few things to say. | ||
| One, I love what President Trump did in Venezuela. | ||
| I got family that are in Paraguay. | ||
| They always talk about the issues of corrupt governments and stuff like that in South America. | ||
| And so quite frankly, I think this is long overdue. | ||
| And so I just want to wrap up my words with this. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| God bless our troops. | ||
| And God bless Donald Trump. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That was Anthony in Texas there, a Republican applauding the Trump administration actions. | ||
| We are waiting outside of the courtroom in New York, and there is a live shot for the arraignment to begin at noon Eastern time. | ||
| We are just moments away here from the arraignment of Nicholas Minduro. | ||
| Now, we are going to bring you New York One's live special coverage at noon Eastern time. | ||
| They will have a reporter in the courtroom, not cameras, but a reporter, and so they'll get some details of the courtroom proceedings when that takes place. | ||
| The judge that will be sitting in on the charges or overseeing the proceeding today was appointed by Bill Clinton. | ||
| He's in his 90s, according to reports this morning. | ||
| And we will learn more from Spectrum New York 1 starting at noon Eastern time. | ||
| Reuters, with their reporting today earlier, Maduro in New York court on U.S. drug charges as Venezuelans grapple with his capture. | ||
| Just some details from Reuters reporting about that raid that took place over the weekend. | ||
| Elite U.S. troops, including the Army's Delta Force, created an exact replica of Maduro's safe house and practice how they would enter the strongly fortified residence. | ||
| The CIA had a small team on the ground starting in August who were able to provide insight into Maduro's pattern of life that made grabbing him seamless. | ||
| With the pieces in place, President Trump approved the operation four days ago, but military and intelligence planners suggested he wait for better weather and less cloud cover. | ||
| At 10.46 p.m. Eastern on Friday, Trump gave the final go-ahead for what would be known as Operation Absolute Resolve. | ||
| Tom, Safford, Arizona, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, hello. | |
| I just want to make a comment that following this story, since it began almost every, you know, I just spent a lot of time listening to everything. | ||
| I caught some perspective that's not being shown on regular major networks, CNN, MSNBC, and I tuned in to BBC. | ||
| And I'm hearing more things on BBC than I hear in the American news media, especially with regards to the people of Venezuela themselves and how they're handling this situation and how they feel about what's going on and their future, especially with the fact that in the past election, Machado won 70% of the, you know, they say 70% of the vote. | ||
|
Viral Washington Post Piece
00:03:29
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unidentified
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Yet our American government is poo-pawing that she even has a legitimate shot to help make the country a better place. | |
| And the other thing that I think is being missed is that still in Ukraine, the ties between Venezuela and Russia and Putin and all the other international countries is kind of taking a sideline that's almost like this is a smokescreen to hide the things that are going on still in the horrible arena of Ukraine. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
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So anyway, BBC has a lot of good stuff if people want to find out. | |
| All right, Tom, and on your point about that Venezuelan opposition leader who did win the Nobel Peace Prize, Politico has noted today that a Washington Post piece is going viral, a claim that President Trump is refusing to support opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for the presidency because she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize this year, an award he has long coveted. | ||
| Here's a quote. | ||
| If she had turned it down and said, I can't accept it because it's Donald Trump's, she'd be the president of Venezuela today, said a person close to the White House quoted in this Washington Post piece that is going viral. | ||
| Rosemary and Rockville Center, New York, an independent. | ||
| Rosemary. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi. | |
| I'm so glad you just brought that up because that's what I want to make points about is that Machado was overwhelmingly elected and denied the presidency. | ||
| I don't understand, except for now, right, with WAPO saying it, that, right, she got the Nobel Peace Prize. | ||
| He didn't, and he's totally jealous and won't install power. | ||
| What is going to happen to Venezuela going forward? | ||
| He says they're going to run the country. | ||
| Marco Rubio yesterday backpedals on that, you know, just saying we're going to do other things and it's all the oil. | ||
| What does that mean specifically? | ||
| Nobody gives us the details, except it just looks like, you know, everybody has said 20 times he mentioned oil on Saturday morning, meaning Trump. | ||
| It just, it just, it stinks. | ||
| It really stinks. | ||
| This country needs to go forward. | ||
| I'm not saying Maduro, you know, shouldn't have been taken out. | ||
| Okay, fine, although the cost of that and everything else that we did, and what's to prevent us from going anywhere else and just taking us leaders from other countries. | ||
| Well, Rosemary, President Trump did, in his discussion with reporters on yesterday, threaten five other countries as well. | ||
| So it sounds like you're concerned about that. | ||
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Exactly. | |
| Right. | ||
| What's to stop him from that? | ||
| Yeah, why can't we just take Vladimir Putin out of Moscow? | ||
| You know, he's the biggest terrorist of all in the whole world right now for four years almost, you know, with Ukraine. | ||
| It's just, it just, the world is such a bad place right now. | ||
| And I just don't think he's making things better except somehow for himself financially. | ||
|
President's Warning Shot
00:15:49
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Ultimately, I think the oil will come to him. | |
| Okay, Rosemary there in New York with her thoughts. | ||
| You're looking at a live shot outside of that Manhattan courthouse where Nicholas Maduro will appear momentarily. | ||
| From reporting on the Trump administration, in 2020, during Trump's first term, Maduro was indicted by U.S. federal court on drug charges, including narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. | ||
| On August 7th, the U.S. Department of Justice and the State Department doubled a reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest to 50 million, accusing him of being one of the largest narcotraffickers in the world. | ||
| And this weekend, the president decided to make a move on Maduro and capture him and his wife, bringing them to New York. | ||
| They've been held in a Brooklyn jail earlier today, transported to this New York courthouse. | ||
| The shot on your screen right now. | ||
| New York One, Spectrum's New York One, is about to begin their live special coverage of the arraignment of Nicholas Maduro here in just moments. | ||
| And we're going to bring you that coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| We'll simulcast what they're covering. | ||
| They have a reporter in the room outside of the courthouse as well. | ||
| And then we'll return to your phone calls. | ||
| Let's go to Spectrum New York News One now. | ||
|
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Before a judge in Manhattan Federal Court any moment now, this morning, Maduro and his wife were transferred to a helicopter for a short flight from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to the Wall Street heliport. | |
| To give you a sense, that's a little under five miles. | ||
| The two were brought to New York after a military operation in Venezuela over the weekend resulted in their capture, and they are expected to plead not guilty to charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy, and other crimes that you see here on your screen. | ||
| We have complete coverage for you today. | ||
| I'm joined in studio by political anchor Errol Lewis and national news anchor Josh Robin. | ||
| Emma Barnett is outside of the detention center, but first we want to begin with Dan Rively, who is outside the courthouse where all the action is happening right now in lower Manhattan. | ||
| Dan, what's the scene out like there? | ||
| His wife, Celia Flores, will be indicted in a narco-terrorism, drunk trafficking, conspiracy case. | ||
| His son, two former government officials, and a leader of the Trendy Arago gang. | ||
| Bit of an audio issue there. | ||
| We're going to try to get back to Dan. | ||
| Let's head out to Emma Barnett, who has also been following this. | ||
| Emma, you had been at the detention center all weekend getting reaction from New Yorkers and protesters alike since this story broke. | ||
| Tell us what you're seeing out there right now. | ||
| This is where Maduro is being held. | ||
| Of course, as I said, he's in court now, but where he's being held. | ||
| Yes, Shannon, on Saturday night, there were hundreds of Venezuelans who were outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, absolutely jubilant. | ||
| They were crying tears of joy. | ||
| They had Venezuelan flags draped around them. | ||
| They were singing songs and dancing because for them, the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was a huge deal, and for them, it was something to celebrate. | ||
| Now, today, there's not as much action here at the Metropolitan Detention Center. | ||
| That action is outside the United States Southern District Court. | ||
| But earlier this morning, around 7:15 a.m., Nicolas Maduro was transported by helicopter from here to that Wall Street helipad and then taken to 500 Pearl Street in order to be arraigned. | ||
| And outside the United States District Court down there, there is a bit of a clash going on between people who are against the decision to capture the Venezuelan president and Venezuelans who are absolutely thrilled about the military operation that captured Maduro. | ||
| Those New Yorkers who are against the capture of Maduro say they are concerned that this could set a global precedent. | ||
| I think it's important to come out today to demand the release and freedom of President Nicolas Maduro and the first combatant, First Lady Celia Flores, and to demand that the U.S. takes its hands off of Venezuela because the U.S. has not had the interests of the Venezuelan people in mind. | ||
| It just wants the oil and the natural resources. | ||
| It's completely outrageous to kidnap the president and first lady of another country and bring them here. | ||
| There's no justification for it and it's an outright act of military aggression. | ||
| Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made his rounds on the Sunday shows and when he was on ABC this week, he said that Maduro was an illegitimate president and he had refused to accept his defeat in Venezuela's 2024 election. | ||
| Maduro also helped manage and lead Cartel de Sol and was an oppressive and brutal dictator, which is why on the other side of the people who are part of the anti-war rally, you see hundreds of Venezuelans who are absolutely jubilant and ecstatic about the fact that Maduro is in U.S. custody. | ||
| They say that American intervention was necessary. | ||
| I'm 24 years old and this regime has been over in Venezuela for 26 years. | ||
| I never saw my country free. | ||
| I didn't grow up in a free government. | ||
| We're here to use our voices, the voices of truth, and we are so ready to see a transition, a peaceful transition in Venezuela. | ||
| And we know that with the U.S. government, we're going to do that. | ||
| We're here to defend our freedom. | ||
| We are here to defend democracy. | ||
| A lot of people say, oh, well, if you're not in Venezuela, you cannot speak. | ||
| But actually, people in Venezuela cannot speak because they can die. | ||
| They can go to prison. | ||
| Now, many of the Venezuelans that I spoke to, their immediate reaction was pure joy. | ||
| And they are also a little bit anxious because we are entering unchartered territory. | ||
| Many of them don't exactly know what it means that Donald Trump says he's going to run the country. | ||
| But nevertheless, they are thrilled that Maduro is no longer in Venezuela. | ||
| Shannon? | ||
| All right, Emma, thank you. | ||
| I want to continue the conversation now with Errol Lewis and Josh Robin. | ||
| Errol, let's start with where Emma was, an infamous detention center. | ||
| In fact, our viewers probably know a lot of the names that have been there, including right now, Luigi Mangioni. | ||
| Diddy was there at one point, and Jeffrey Epstein as well. | ||
| That's exactly right. | ||
| This is the lockup for the federal courts. | ||
| There are terrorists like El Chapo who are held in that very same facility. | ||
| It's controversial because it's not very well run. | ||
| It's come under a lot of criticism because of the physical deterioration of the place. | ||
| It's not a pleasant place. | ||
| Jails are not supposed to be. | ||
| On the other hand, it's not supposed to be a punishment in and of itself. | ||
| This is for New York City not that unusual. | ||
| We've had very high profile. | ||
| I mean, we just ticked off some of them. | ||
| Terrorists, globally known terrorists, narco-traffickers, mobsters, criminals of all sorts, who are tried right in the heart of Manhattan, just a few steps from Wall Street, not far from the World Trade Center site. | ||
| That's where this is going to happen. | ||
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And we are, again, this court appearance now underway. | |
| Nicolas Maduro making this court appearance in Lower Manhattan, as Errol said. | ||
| Josh, joining me on the set. | ||
| Josh, talk about the national significance of this. | ||
| We have seen protests erupt right here in New York City, as Emma showed us. | ||
| There was also jubilants in Dural, Florida, a lot of people showing images there. | ||
| The reaction has really been swift and conflicted, actually, in a lot of places of the country. | ||
| Yeah, I think a lot of people are still trying to process this. | ||
| I mean, frankly, a lot of people don't know a tremendous amount about Venezuela, and it came more into the headlines as the United States was opening up these military operations against Venezuela in recent months. | ||
| The way I see it, there's really a number of arguments to be made pro and con for this. | ||
| Pro, as the president has talked about, this was someone who was indicted already. | ||
| That indictment was kept by the Biden Department of Justice. | ||
| There was a bounty on his head, and the president and his administration actually got him, whereas previously the Biden administration didn't. | ||
| Additionally, Venezuela is a haven for, or has been a haven, for our enemies or our adversaries, China, Russia, Hezbollah, Iran. | ||
| And you can also make the argument. | ||
| Obviously, there are big differences, but for those of a certain age who will remember that the United States did something like this in 1989 when the military plucked out the leader of Panama. | ||
| Obviously, there are some differences, but in that situation, it was applauded by a vast majority of the United States. | ||
| And by the way, that invasion, that taking of the leader of Panama was done without congressional approval, just like this one was done. | ||
| Now, the argument against, there was no congressional approval. | ||
| There is no popular buy-in for this. | ||
| The United States didn't really prep the people for this. | ||
| It invites Russia and China to do the same in its own backyard. | ||
| And that essentially, and I think you're going to hear this more and more, and the president probably didn't make any friends this way. | ||
| He talked repeatedly about this being largely about oil. | ||
| So to a number of people, this just smacks of what the United States has done previously in that part of the world, which is gunboat diplomacy, not fruit this time, not resorts, but actually oil. | ||
| I'm hearing that we're getting Dan Riverly back again. | ||
| He is outside of the courthouse in lower Manhattan after some audio issues. | ||
| Dan, you got us? | ||
| What's it like out there? | ||
| Hi, Shannon. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| All the reporters here are just waiting to happen to find out what happens inside that courthouse where Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores are being arraigned in this narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking conspiracy case. | ||
| Maduro and his wife Celia were indicted alongside his son, two government officials, and a leader of the Trende Aragua gang. | ||
| And indictment details how they use state assets, different parts of the Venezuelan government to facilitate cocaine trafficking around South America into the United States. | ||
| And there's actually one detail of that indictment that touches on New York. | ||
| In the indictment, the Justice Department alleges that Maduro's son, in collaboration with drug traffickers, tried to bring 500 kilos of cocaine into New York, low-quality cocaine that apparently cannot be sold in Miami. | ||
| It was taken off a cargo ship near Miami and then using steel containers to smuggle that cocaine into New York port. | ||
| So that is the nexus here for the city. | ||
| Let's go through the four counts of the indictment against Maduro and his wife. | ||
| One count of narco-terrorism conspiracy, account of cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and a conspiracy to possess those weapons. | ||
| Also, the indictment details the collaboration between Maduro, his family, his allies, and different groups, narco-terrorist groups, from militant groups in Colombia that financed its operations with proceeds from cocaine trafficking, two Mexican cartels, and of course, as I mentioned, the Trende Aragua gang in Venezuela. | ||
| Now, let's take a look at the judge who's overseeing this arraignment, Judge Alvin Hellerstein. | ||
| He is a senior judge in the Southern District. | ||
| He is also 92 years old, and he has been on top of some high-profile cases even recently. | ||
| Let's just take, for example, Judge Hellerstein oversaw President Trump's attempt to move his state criminal case into federal court. | ||
| Hellerstein also just recently ruled against the Trump administration's effort to deport Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act. | ||
| And the judge also is overseeing a narco-terrorism case against Maduro's former intelligence chief. | ||
| Now, we also do know Maduro is being represented by a lawyer, Barry Joel Pollack, who also had another high-profile client, Julian Assange, of Wikileaks. | ||
| Shannon? | ||
| Great, Dan, thank you. | ||
| And I do want to point out, we have another reporter, our reporter, Ayana Harry. | ||
| She is inside the courtroom, this courtroom. | ||
| There are not cameras allowed inside. | ||
| So as soon as that wraps up and she gets those notes, she will bring us the details from inside that arraignment. | ||
| As Josh pointed out earlier, lots of questions remained about the Trump administration's actions and plans for Venezuela moving forward. | ||
| But for now, President Trump is celebrating Maduro's capture and also this arraignment, this indictment. | ||
| Here are some of what he said to reporters on Air Force One yesterday. | ||
| The case is infallible. | ||
| People are so happy with what we've done. | ||
| You know, you go down to Miami, you go down to a lot of places, and they're all dancing in the streets of this country. | ||
| Now, here's a rough, he was a rough man. | ||
| Killed millions of people. | ||
| He killed millions and millions of people. | ||
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For more on the reaction coming out of Washington, I want to bring in our Spectrum News colleague, Taylor Poppalars. | |
| He joins us from outside the White House. | ||
| Taylor, great to see you, as always. | ||
| So as you saw there, Trump celebrating the capture and indictment. | ||
| There is lingering confusion over who is overseeing the nation's foreign policy in Venezuela. | ||
| What do we know so far? | ||
| What do we know right now as for who is playing that active role? | ||
| Yeah, Shannon, this remains very fluid, and we continue to press the Trump administration for clarity because there are two different messages emerging from the administration. | ||
| The president, as folks saw over the weekend when he announced this operation, held a press conference down in Florida. | ||
| He said point blank that in his view, the U.S. government was now going to run Venezuela. | ||
| He reiterated that on Air Force One last night, saying people might think this is controversial, but we are in charge. | ||
| But then you have his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who has been one of the main point people overseeing this entire military operation. | ||
| He's also the president's national security advisor. | ||
| It was mentioned earlier, he made the rounds on the Sunday political shows yesterday, and he said repeatedly that this was not the U.S. government taking over Venezuela, but that the U.S. government was going to essentially be helping navigate this post-Maduro environment, especially having to do with Venezuela's oil economy. | ||
| Also, the president's UN ambassador, Michael Waltz, who was just speaking at the UN not far from where you are a short time ago, he reiterated that in his view, this was a law enforcement operation because the Maduros were facing this indictment and these charges back from 2020, and that the U.S. government was not running Venezuela as a whole. | ||
| So there is confusion because President Trump, of course, is at the top of the hierarchy, and he keeps saying that the U.S. government is running things. | ||
| Those below him who have very direct stakes in this operation moving forward are insisting it's a bit more complex than that. | ||
| But the world is frankly watching because last night on Air Force One, the president named several other countries that he essentially hinted at or fired a warning shot saying the U.S. could get involved in ways similar to what we saw the U.S. military do in Venezuela over the weekend. | ||
| The president talked about Cuba. | ||
| He talked about Mexico. | ||
| He talked about Iran. | ||
| He talked about Colombia. | ||
| He also talked about Greenland. | ||
| So as President Trump marks his first year back in office, one year just later this month, foreign policy continues to consume him. | ||
| And people are not only watching this case play out, they're also watching what this means for U.S. military involvement moving forward and where the Trump administration sees it worthwhile spending time and resources. | ||
| And Taylor, just getting in some updates on the blog from the courtroom that the judge is reading the summary of charges against Maduro right now. | ||
| So again, keeping an eye on all of this. | ||
| Of course, as we mentioned at the top, President Trump did not seek congressional authorization. | ||
| Talk to us about some of the pushback that he is getting from Democrats right now. | ||
|
Venezuela's Diplomatic Standoff
00:15:52
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Yeah, there is a lot of frustration on Capitol Hill. | |
| We actually know that there's going to be a closed-door briefing on the Hill later today. | ||
| Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top administration officials are going to meet with some of the key lawmakers. | ||
| These are the Gang of Eight is the top congressional leaders and the heads of the intelligence committees in both the House and Senate. | ||
| They are privy to the highest class of intelligence, and they're going to finally get a briefing on this. | ||
| We also know some of the other top members of the relevant committees, think foreign relations and armed services, they're also going to get briefed. | ||
| But from Democrats, there is widespread outcry. | ||
| They're not necessarily defending Nicolas Maduro. | ||
| Many of them are very critical of him, but they're saying, in their view, that it's insane that the Trump administration conducted this military operation without briefing Congress, without coming to Congress for authorization, as is usually stipulated by law. | ||
| But as I mentioned earlier, how Secretary of State Rubio keeps calling this a law enforcement operation linked to that 2020 indictment, the Trump administration claims they did not have to clue Congress in ahead of time because this was, in their view, not a law enforcement, not a military operation, but a law enforcement operation. | ||
| But Democrats in Congress are really scrutinizing that. | ||
| We could see in the days ahead resolutions being voted on, things called war power resolutions, where Congress is basically saying to the White House, you need to consult us and you need to come through to us. | ||
| But it really is significant. | ||
| It's a bit in the weeds, but that members of the intelligence committee, the top Democrats, the top Republicans on the Senate and House intelligence committees, they were not made aware of this. | ||
| And over the weekend, many of them were saying after this became public news, they had not been briefed in any way on the Democratic side. | ||
| That's notable and that's going to lead to a lot of scrutiny moving forward. | ||
| All right, Tiller, thank you. | ||
| I want to talk more about these charges with Jeremy Soland and just getting in that he has pleaded not guilty officially. | ||
| That was to be expected. | ||
| Jeremy, talk to us through these charges. | ||
| What should people understand about the charges in this indictment today? | ||
| So it's not necessarily saying everything here is what Maduro has personally had his hands on, meaning he's not accused of necessarily transporting these drugs into the United States. | ||
| It's a conspiracy in large part that he's acting with other, we'll call them bad actors. | ||
| There's something called overt acts, which break out certain elements or certain actions that were taken throughout this conspiracy over a broad period of time, not necessarily in 2024-23, but into the early 2000s, much before this. | ||
| So I think people have to understand it's a wide-arching conspiracy that is alleged to have happened both in Venezuela involving Mexican cartels involving the United States as well. | ||
| There's questions about that have been raised clearly about how can he be here? | ||
| He's a head of state. | ||
| How can our government prosecute someone who's a head of state? | ||
| And I think Errol briefly pointed out we saw Noriega being prosecuted in a similar fashion. | ||
| And there's a somewhat of a blueprint whether or not it's going to be applicable here. | ||
| But now that Maduro is here, I would not expect that the courts are going to say, well, no, let's look and see maybe we should send him home. | ||
| He's here. | ||
| That's not going to change. | ||
| This case is going to move forward and rise and fall on the merits of the allegation and the elements of the pardon me and the evidence that's there. | ||
| I will say this very briefly and quickly. | ||
| What I think will be interesting here, it did not seem to happen now, but there's a 70-day clock which theoretically could tick as a matter of law for speedy trial purposes. | ||
| The prosecutors normally would be aware that this was coming. | ||
| They'd be working with the FBI, for example. | ||
| Go get our man, bring him here. | ||
| They weren't informed. | ||
| So some of these prosecutors must be scrambling as well, even though there was a previous indictment where a lot of this evidence came out. | ||
| So a lot of this is going to be discovery catch up and get a status date to move the case forward. | ||
| Yeah, Jeremy, I would imagine it's also quite complicated and difficult stacking up witnesses for a trial like this. | ||
| You know, some people call them stitches, right? | ||
| People cooperating with the government. | ||
| I mean, that has to have a whole security apparatus that is not the norm for your everyday case. | ||
| Yeah, yes, certainly. | ||
| Having cooperatives is not atypical. | ||
| There's cooperatives in a lot of cases. | ||
| But yes, this is a very unique case on so many grounds. | ||
| We don't have to go through it all now on air, but it is absolutely a situation. | ||
| And that's why one of the sort of tools that the defense might have had and might still consider using is the prosecutors may be ready, in theory, are they ready on everything to the depth that they want to be with such a little amount of notice because they were not part of this secret group of people, we'll call it, who knew this was going to happen and securing the presence of the Venezuelan president. | ||
| So it will be interesting going forward, but it's a frightening pace to be. | ||
| No one wants to be in the Metropolitan Detention Center. | ||
| This is not the halls of governance in Venezuela. | ||
| And there's real state, pardon me, real prison consequences long term for the rest of his life if convicted. | ||
| Yeah, Jeremy, also curious, you know, the fact that we are in New York City for this case, why not prosecute it in a place like Florida where the jury, you know, might be more favorable to the government? | ||
| You know, there's a lot of actions that come back to New York. | ||
| And, you know, the venue that can be picked here is somewhat fluid, but there's a root and a piece of it that comes back to New York, and that's why it's here. | ||
| You know, listen, is it going to be a jury trial? | ||
| Certainly it could be. | ||
| I can't speak and say what's going to happen, but it would shock nobody if there's some sort of workout agreement at some point where the government, meaning President Trump says we want these oil and resources that shouldn't be a part of this legal due process. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| Maybe he goes back to Venezuela and serves part of his sentence, or there's an agreement to try to get a limited sentence here. | ||
| Who knows? | ||
| A lot to figure out and a lot to see happen. | ||
| This is a unique circumstance. | ||
| All right, Jeremy, stand by. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I want to bring Errol and Josh back into the conversation. | ||
| Errol, let's talk more about what this means for the Trump Justice Department. | ||
| The Justice Department has begun crafting an argument that, if you listen to it, is actually somewhat subtle, where they're saying, well, we sent troops in pursuant to executing what in effect was a criminal warrant, that we needed to sort of bring this person here for trial. | ||
| And to the extent that U.S. troops either came under fire or were being interfered with, that's what the point of the military was in being there. | ||
| So that it looks a little bit less like gunboat diplomacy and more like a criminal action. | ||
| That at least brings us somewhat towards justice as opposed to a naked exercise of power. | ||
| On the other hand, there are some real important questions, and this Justice Department is going to be asked those questions. | ||
| One is, there's a pretty clear international rule against going into violating the sovereignty of another country and doing things like seizing their head of state and dragging them out in chains. | ||
| The U.S. is a party to those treaties, and that therefore has the force of law. | ||
| So you have conflicting laws. | ||
| You have international law clearly being violated. | ||
| You have domestic law where it's a little bit more ambiguous. | ||
| The Justice Department is going to have to answer those questions as it moves forward. | ||
| Although, obviously, the facts on the ground, very much as Jeremy said, are really going to dictate what goes on here. | ||
| They have him. | ||
| He's in custody. | ||
| He's in court. | ||
| He's being charged. | ||
| It's a pretty straightforward indictment arguing that cocaine importation and some firearms and weapons charges are what he's being hit with. | ||
| They either have the evidence or they don't. | ||
| So, we're going to be watching this sort of play out on a political track, on an international legal track, and also the domestic laws. | ||
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And I just want to point out as we're getting more notes from the courtroom, Maduro repeatedly asserting that he is still the leader of Venezuela. | |
| Getting to Errol's point, Josh, that this is wildly complicated. | ||
| Talk a little bit more about what Errol was getting to there, the political ramifications of all this. | ||
| When you have members of the House confused and you have the U.S. government saying that we are taking over Venezuela, at least for now, or perhaps not. | ||
| It's a lot of murkiness, yeah. | ||
| Yeah, well, just picking up on what he said, is he actually the sovereign leader of Venezuela? | ||
| Because he stole the last election by everyone's accounts except for his own and his own supporters. | ||
| So, you can make that argument, and that gets into internal Venezuelan politics as well. | ||
| I think that it is hard to entirely separate the concern that Democrats and many others have about this from a polarized environment that we are in nationally. | ||
| Again, and I want to stress that there are differences to what happened in Panama in 1989, the least of which was that Panama has a long-standing relationship with the United States. | ||
| We had many more troops there, so on. | ||
| Then again, Congress was briefed, not Congress itself, leaders of Congress were briefed in 1989. | ||
| Maybe the Trump administration should have done that at the very last minute to four or eight individuals, but there was no vote. | ||
| And again, there was tons of support within the United States back in the 1980s for George H.W. Bush for doing something that's relatively similar. | ||
| You had a leader of a Latin American country who was indicted on drug charges and was plucked out by a military operation. | ||
| It was actually more, it seemed to be more complicated in Panama, but brought the United States for trial. | ||
| So, it's very hard to separate that. | ||
| Additionally, the polarization of what I'm talking about. | ||
| Additionally, how much is this going to affect Americans? | ||
| We're reporting on air that already have gas prices in the United States, and this is even before this was factored in, what happened in Venezuela, which has the most amount of petroleum reserves of any place. | ||
| Gas prices are the lowest they've been since 2020. | ||
| You know, experts say that that price, because of what happens in Venezuela, is probably not going to go down anytime soon. | ||
| It takes a long time for executives and so on and engineers to come in there. | ||
| So, I'm not sure how much this matters on a day-to-day, except for on the very important but perhaps more abstract level, which is do we want, in our name, Americans to be going into another country? | ||
| It certainly will change, by the way, and gratefully, no American troops were killed. | ||
| But if actually we do have to have troops on the ground and some GIs end up getting killed, that certainly would change things. | ||
| Yeah, that's very striking. | ||
| Some of what President Trump has said about their, you know, sort of we're in charge here. | ||
| It sounded like kind of an open-ended commitment. | ||
| Unlike Panama in the 1990s, this is a very violent, very disorganized country in a lot of ways. | ||
| A third of the country has left, creating a regional and even international refugee crisis, all stemming from Venezuela. | ||
| So, this is not going to be a simple operation. | ||
| And the 15,000 troops that are in the region right now are not going to be enough to pacify a country that is twice the size of California with over 30 million people. | ||
| And to the extent that the president has been making comments about maybe we'll do the same thing in Colombia, it starts to lend itself to this kind of fear that there could be a regional commitment. | ||
| And that's the kind of thing we've seen in Iraq. | ||
| We saw it in Afghanistan. | ||
| We saw it a generation ago in Vietnam. | ||
| These are the kind of questions that are going to get raised by the Congress, not simply because they were cut out of the information loop, but because we're opening the door to what could be a real serious commitment. | ||
| And this is how these things start. | ||
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Sure. | |
| Stand by. | ||
| I just want to bring in another person into the conversation to discuss what the events of the past few days mean for Latin America more broadly. | ||
| I want to bring in Alejandro of Alaska. | ||
| He's an associate professor at NYU and a historian of Latin American history. | ||
| Thank you so much for being with us. | ||
| Great to see you. | ||
| Talk about your reaction to what we have seen the last couple of days. | ||
| What is going on through the minds of other leaders, particularly those perhaps not aligned with the U.S. intervention here on Saturday morning? | ||
| In the hemisphere, it's been quite mixed, the response. | ||
| You have some leaders like that of Argentina, or the incoming president of Chile, or in Ecuador, Ron Salon, who have maintained very close ties with the Trump administration and Trump himself, not only actively supporting this, but really celebrating it. | ||
| But then, on the other hand, you have countries like Mexico and Colombia, and very notably Brazil, sounding a deep sense of alarm for what this means, not only in terms of legal precedent, but really what it means about a return to a kind of 20th century policy of interventionism, brazen interventionism in the part of the United States, whether direct or indirect. | ||
| Somebody earlier in your remarks mentioned gunboat diplomacy, and a lot of it looks like this. | ||
| Let's talk about what it also means for geopolitics in Latin America generally. | ||
| I mean, what happened in Venezuela? | ||
| Does it compare to military action in the past? | ||
| And again, Erlon sat with me talking about what it could also open the door to in the future. | ||
| Yeah, obviously there's lots of parallels to be drawn. | ||
| My sense, at least for now, is that we're actually witnessing something pretty unprecedented. | ||
| It's not regime change. | ||
| The regime itself, all of Maduro's inner circle remains in place. | ||
| And they were quickly recognized by Trump and Rubio and others as the de facto leaders. | ||
| So it's not quite a conventional regime change. | ||
| And in fact, people in Venezuela are asking the question, well, what has actually changed from Saturday to today? | ||
| On the other hand, I think that the concern here, as your guest was saying, is that if there is at some point actual troops on the ground in order to defend or protect U.S. interests that would be going in, especially oil interests, how would that dynamic change? | ||
| My own sense is that Trump is not, in fact, thinking in those terms, which suggests that there may still be some bluffing going on in terms of how much they can exert pressure upon the new government in Venezuela. | ||
| And again, I know we don't know what exactly is going on in these private conversations between the president and his cabinet, but where do you realistically see the Trump administration going, their plan for Latin America, our relationship with Venezuela right now? | ||
| Your correspondent in DC, I think, laid it out really well. | ||
| I mean, there's a lot of mixed messages and really in some ways contradictory messages going on. | ||
| Trump really seems to be asserting this idea that not only is the United States going to be running Venezuela, but that there may be much larger hemispheric implications, which of course is sounding, raising the alarm bells of many countries in the region. | ||
| But I think at the end of the day, the question is, is the United States prepared to intervene more robustly in Venezuela? | ||
| My sense is, at least for now, that that's not in the cards, but they do have a massive Damocles sword hanging over the head of the new authorities in Venezuela to say, if you don't do what we say, then we will be prepared to undertake actions like we did this past weekend. | ||
| And at that point, it would be a tit for tat in terms of war power rather than of law. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Stand by. | ||
| I want to bring Jeremy's Land back in, criminal defense attorney and former Manhattan prosecutor for more. | ||
| Jeremy, again, getting notes from the courtroom, both have pleaded not guilty, both Maduro and his wife. | ||
| And Maduro continues to say that he is the acting leader of Venezuela. | ||
| How does that all play into the legal context here, the case against Maduro? | ||
| Yeah, certainly you would expect him to say he's a legitimate leader, but there's this concept here or this principle here of immunity potentially for someone who's a head of state. | ||
| And I'm going to look down for a second at the indictment because it's important because the government is trying to say that he's not legitimate. | ||
| And while he's not legitimate, that's why he lacks that immunity. | ||
| And for example, right out of the gate, it says that the public trust and corrupted once legitimate institution. | ||
| The first paragraph after that, addressing Maduro specifically, he illegally obtained authority and he quoted the institutions. | ||
| Even the next page, it says that he was an illegitimate government. | ||
| So the principle here is we could take you, for lack of a better term. | ||
| You don't have the ability to be immune for your actions that were part of your governmental job and what you did as a governmental leader because you were an illegitimate leader. | ||
| You were not a head of state. | ||
| You don't enjoy those privileges. | ||
| And what you did and how we're going to pierce that veil, if you will, is that you were committing these crimes as sort of in a private way to enrich yourself. | ||
| So it would not have surprised me if when he went in there, he said, I don't recognize the jurisdiction of this court. | ||
| I'm a leader of this foreign sovereign nation. | ||
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Force Versus Justice
00:01:34
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But it's the same principle what he's trying to get at. | |
| You cannot do this to me as a matter of law, but we're here now. | ||
| That's going to fail. | ||
| It's going to move forward. | ||
| And they also were not seeking bail, he and his wife. | ||
| What can you share about that? | ||
| Well, that's pretty clear and obvious. | ||
| He was not getting bail. | ||
| You're not going to put the man on an ankle monitor, not to be too tongue-in-cheek here. | ||
| You're not going to say, give me your passport. | ||
| They blindfolded him, blocked his ears, handcuffed him when they took him out of that country. | ||
| He is going nowhere other than Metropolitan Detention Center, back to court, and maybe if he's housed elsewhere at some period of time until this case is resolved. | ||
| All right, Jeremy, thank you. | ||
| Standby. | ||
| As we continue the conversation here, I want to break down what we just heard from some of our guests with Errol and Josh again. | ||
| Errol, what do you make again? | ||
| Our guest was talking about eventually, and we picked up here last time we were chatting, is if you're going to say, well, if you don't do what I say, there will be consequences. | ||
| It's hard to imagine those consequences not involving U.S. troops. | ||
| Well, that's exactly right. | ||
| I mean, this is about force versus justice, right? | ||
| So you have due process and all of the trappings of due process, and that's what's going on in the courthouse. | ||
| But the president has made very clear that there are going to be some other decisions that are made out of the Pentagon, and those are going to involve force. | ||
| He's been talking about possibly reenacting what we just saw over the weekend in other countries or against other figures, even within Venezuela, saying that we're in charge here, not citing any legal principle whatsoever to say that we're going to run the country, that kind of a thing. | ||
|
Political Turmoil Ahead
00:03:48
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| We know the Wall Street Journal has reported that a delegation of 20 business people is already scheduled to go down in March to look for investment opportunities in Venezuela. | ||
| So there's going to be a lot of political sort of turmoil, not so much in Venezuela, although that will certainly happen, but here in the United States, there's going to be a vigorous debate over whether this is the right thing to do, whether this is leading us to some kind of an occupation and some sort of a quagmire, whether or not this was all only about oil in the first place and not really about drugs or about violence. | ||
| And again, you're talking about a country where there's a very, very high rate of homicide, a very high level of violence going on in the first place. | ||
| This is not going to be as easy, I think, as the Trump administration has portrayed. | ||
| This is not simply capturing a bad guy and putting him on trial in Manhattan. | ||
| That's the start of it, but it's going to go to a lot of different places from here. | ||
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Yeah, Josh, any thoughts on that? | |
| Well, one of the first things I thought of when I heard about this early over the weekend was Cuba. | ||
| I mean, I think this is about hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. | ||
| The Secretary of State has talked about that. | ||
| I think that it is going to be extremely complicated to see how the Trump administration can hang the sword, as the professor said it, over the new administration in Venezuela. | ||
| What will he actually want? | ||
| I guess it's going to be some sort of oil deals that are favorable to the United States. | ||
| I think it's going to be the leaving of Venezuela, of China, Russia, Cuba, Hezbollah. | ||
| It wants a country that's more favorable to the United States. | ||
| And look, you know, you could say that it's immoral, that it's illegal, but it's the natural order of nations. | ||
| This is the United States seeking to have its own power, flexing its own power and its own interests in the Western Hemisphere in particular. | ||
| And a lot of people are claiming that this was a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. | ||
| And I understand that, and there's a legitimate argument to be made. | ||
| You can also make the argument that Venezuela's sovereignty has already been violated, and it wasn't by the United States. | ||
| It was by Maduro, who stayed in power even after handily losing an election, for inviting all of these foreign actors in who are not exactly the beacons of democracy in the world. | ||
| Russia, China, Hezbollah, Iran. | ||
| So if the sovereignty is already going to be violated, then why should it not be from a force that is seen as more benign or certainly more self-interested, which is the United States? | ||
| Again, from a practical point of view, and I think these are really important things for Americans to consider, but on a day-to-day, I'm not sure that this affects gas prices anytime soon. | ||
| And really, people will only be, I think, affected measurably is if there's war, if there's U.S. deaths, and if taxes or something has to be raised because we're now at more war. | ||
| I mean, this is arguably very, very dangerous. | ||
| Why wouldn't Russia and China want to do this in their own backyard now? | ||
| Dan Ribley is outside of the courtroom as we wait for more updates to come out. | ||
| Dan, what's the scene like out there? | ||
| Still protesters, I imagine, behind you. | ||
| Hey, Shannon's always been quite busy all through the morning. | ||
| Not just the reporters from local, national, and international news outlets waiting for the arraignment to begin, checking Maduro's transfer from Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, coming here to Lower Manhattan by helicopter, then the actual arraignment. | ||
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Venezuelan Protests Echo World Leaders' Dilemmas
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And then as the day got underway and the sun came up, you already saw protesters here at pretty much one section far down the block from where I'm standing across the street from the entrance of federal Manhattan court. | |
| Of course, you had a lot of Venezuelan expats who were cheering basically in favor of President Trump's action in Venezuela. | ||
| A few signs I saw that said free Venezuela. | ||
| And then they were met by a smaller but still decent-sized amount of protesters who were, I guess you'd call the anti-Trump protesters, hands-off Venezuela, no war in Venezuela, and quite peaceful if angry. | ||
| A lot of commentary being yelled back and forth between that. | ||
| But it's been really a well-controlled environment. | ||
| The NYPD have basically controlled the chaos that happens when such a high-profile case is underway in Manhattan federal court. | ||
| So again, a lot of reporters here basically just getting the details in as this case, as this arraignment gets underway. | ||
| And we have some notes from the Associated Press. | ||
| They've been updating website with what has been happening. | ||
| So for those limited times that Maduro and his wife Celia can speak to the court, they've been putting that on the wire. | ||
| You hear Maduro saying that I am a decent man, the president of my country saying he's innocent, not guilty. | ||
| His wife Celia also claiming her innocence, saying she is not guilty. | ||
| Both of them have been wearing headsets for English to Spanish translation. | ||
| And in one part, Maduro said that he didn't read the indictment and didn't know if his rights as the judge went through the formalities of the arraignment, Shannon. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And Jeremy, as this court hearing is now wrapping up, again, they typically tend to be brief, about 38 minutes, as we're hearing that it's now coming to a close. | ||
| What do we do from here? | ||
| What comes next? | ||
| So there's going to be the sharing of discovery and the turning over discovery. | ||
| There's going to be a conference date likely going forward. | ||
| It doesn't just go from now to trial. | ||
| That's far, far out. | ||
| I would assume, again, as I mentioned before, some of this discovery is likely ready to go because this is a superseding indictment, meaning a second in time where a lot of the allegations are already dealt with previously, even though these defendants are now first in custody. | ||
| But these are going to be the questions. | ||
| There may be applications or motions to challenge the law and the issues that have been raised here, whether or not the court ultimately follows that, again, use that term, that blueprint from Noriega in terms of how we got here and where this goes forward. | ||
| But it'll be a slower process. | ||
| You're not going to see the sexiness anymore. | ||
| You're not going to have the people repelling, not that they were directly in sort of the Mission Impossible bird-eye view of him being handcuffed and walking out to court from a helicopter. | ||
| That is done. | ||
| Now it's time to do the work and do the work in the courtroom. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Jeremy, stand by. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I want to bring back the panel of Errol and Josh. | ||
| I also want to bring, again, and our viewers from across the country are joining us. | ||
| We have a new mayor here in New York City, Mayor Mamdani, a huge-scale operation by the NYPD and others to make this sort of transport happen. | ||
| Again, even though it is a local story right here in New York City, there are many, many moving parts to this. | ||
| And our new mayor, Mamdani, having this new relationship with President Trump, now having this indictment right here in our city. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| The mayor apparently contacted the president and spoke with him personally. | ||
| If he said what was reported to us, I can't imagine he got a great response from Donald Trump. | ||
| On the other hand, he has political commitments, and so he has to honor those commitments. | ||
| And that means speaking up when he feels that the values of New Yorkers are being violated. | ||
| There are going to be a lot of protesters on the streets because there are a lot of Venezuelans who are here, not just as migrants or as refugees, but as longtime residents of the city. | ||
| There's going to be a lot of protest in action at and around the United Nations, which is also headquartered here. | ||
| So, you know, we're in for it. | ||
| This discussion is going to play out on the streets of New York. | ||
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Yeah, talk about that, Josh, too. | |
| And just in the context of national political figures as well. | ||
| Again, it's a hot topic for our mayor here and city government, but we saw with House Democrats the way they reacted swiftly to this news. | ||
| Yeah, and just picking up what Errol said, some people say it's kind of rich that Momdani came into office vowing to arrest Benjamin Detanahu, another elected leader, like him or hate him. | ||
| A lot of people feel both ways. | ||
| The man was elected and this mayor wants to have him arrested in a foreign country. | ||
| Aside from that, I think that House Democrats are going to be raising the issues that they weren't including on this, that this is a violation of international law, of national law, if this is actually a declaration of war. | ||
| The effect, I wanted to add one more practical effect to individuals. | ||
| I'm just looking now. | ||
| The stock market is doing very well today. | ||
| Energy stocks in particular are up. | ||
| American firms, Chevron is already there, but American firms see a real opportunity within Venezuela. | ||
| I'm not sure that gas prices would go down as much as people might hope. | ||
| They're already at the lowest level since 2020. | ||
| But nonetheless, the question is that people need to be asking is the sovereignty of Cuba had already been breached, many people could say, by other countries that are hostile to interests of human rights, like Russia, like China, like Iran. | ||
| The United States is going in there and trying to keep peace, according to the Trump administration, in its own backyard, which is the Western Hemisphere. | ||
| And you're seeing on your screen their next hearing set for March 17th, so that is the next time we are going to see any legal action here. | ||
| Again, getting some notes from court. | ||
| The attorney for Maduro's wife saying this client sustained, quote, health and medical issues that require attention, saying that she may have a fracture or severe bruising on her ribs and may need a full x-ray. | ||
| Both Maduro and Flores, again, agreeing to remain detained for now. | ||
| Jeremy, if you're still with us, there are attorneys saying that they could revisit a bail application at a later date. | ||
| What do you make of that? | ||
| His attorney also saying there were questions about the legality of the military abduction. | ||
| I guess that is not a total surprise that they are arguing that. | ||
| Yeah, I think right now this is a losing argument. | ||
| You're going to come, first of all, he's likely not having much opportunity to much meet their clients at this point in time. | ||
| They're coming right from custody. | ||
| There may have been some previous relationship, obviously, but not so easy when there's such security to make that application at a later date. | ||
| But it should surprise nobody, nobody, that there was going to be a bail that was going to be set that they can make and have someone sign off to allow them to come out. | ||
| These are people that, no matter what the allegations are, are an incredible risk of flight and not returning to court. | ||
| This was a given. | ||
| What they'll do in writing later on, how they'll approach us, was yet to be seen, but I would expect that that's not going to change even with the best efforts by counsel. | ||
| Let's bring in Emma Barnett. | ||
| She is back at the detention center where Maduro and his wife are being held. | ||
| Again, Emma, that court hearing wrapping up. | ||
| Still, people that are gathering over there, this infamous detention center where he is going to be held in just a bit, once again. | ||
| Yeah, Shannon, people are not outside here, but outside the U.S. Southern District Court, there are a lot of New Yorkers with a lot of opinions, and you can see people who were actually clashing at one point. | ||
| On one side, you had people who were there as part of an anti-war demonstration. | ||
| They are against any kind of American intervention. | ||
| And then on the other side, you have Venezuelan New Yorkers who are absolutely thrilled with this United States military operation and couldn't be happier that America got involved, as they say. | ||
| They've been trying, the country has been trying for the past 26 years to get rid of the Maduro regime, and it has not worked. | ||
| And this, in their minds, was kind of the last and final option and something that many of them have been hoping for. | ||
| I want you to take a listen to what some of those anti-war protesters had to say. | ||
| I'm not sure if we're getting that sound right now. | ||
| I'm not sure if we're getting that sound right now, Shannon. | ||
| But a lot of the people on the anti-war side of this protest were against that American intervention at any cost. | ||
| But on the Venezuelan side, you had people who were screaming at the people on the anti-war side of the barricade, saying that they don't understand what it's like to live under the Maduro regime. | ||
| They don't understand what it's like to go to prison for speaking your mind. | ||
| They don't understand what it's like to live under an oppressive and brutal dictatorship. | ||
| So you have these two sides where there's almost a bit of a disconnect. | ||
| People who are from Venezuela speaking out, celebrating, absolutely thrilled that the United States got involved. | ||
| And on the other side, you have people who are from the United States who do not want the United States getting involved in South America. | ||
| Shannon. | ||
| All right, Emma, thank you. | ||
| Let's bring Taylor Poplars back into the conversation from the White House. | ||
| Taylor, you've been listening to some of the conversations we've been having here. | ||
| Again, politically, quite, quite complicated here. | ||
| We still don't know who is going to be running Venezuela, who is running it right now. | ||
| President Trump continues to say that the U.S. did this very successfully and that there is going to be a success in the region and beyond. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| And there are so many unknowns. | ||
| As of right now, we're not even scheduled to see the president on camera today. | ||
| That could always change. | ||
| We know this afternoon he has what's being billed as a policy meeting in the Oval Office, but that is listed as closed press right now. | ||
| So we're honestly just waiting to see what happens. | ||
| I can't emphasize enough how stunning the president's remarks on Air Force One were last night, not only talking about Venezuela, which he said openly, that if the Venezuelan leaders currently in office, still part of the Maduro regime, don't cooperate, there could be a second military strike. | ||
| I want to read you just some of the quotes he said about other countries. | ||
| He said, quote, Cuba is ready to fall. | ||
| He was talking about Mexico. | ||
| He said, you have to do something with Mexico. | ||
| He was talking about Iran, a completely different part of the world. | ||
| And he said, as protests are ongoing there, if they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they're going to get hit very hard, meaning by the U.S. military. | ||
| He talked about Colombia, saying it's a very sick country. | ||
| And he said of the Colombia's president, quote, he's not going to be doing it very long. | ||
| And then he talked about Greenland and said that he still wants the U.S. to take over Greenland from the standpoint of national security. | ||
| World leaders in every corner of the globe are trying to figure out how serious the president is and whether or not what we've seen unfold in Venezuela over the last 72 hours is kind of a one-off and an isolated incident, or if this is the Trump administration forecasting kind of greater things to come. | ||
| I think it was Josh earlier who was talking about Cuba and he mentioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio. | ||
| For people who may not be familiar with him, but he was of course a former presidential candidate, a former senator from Florida. | ||
| His parents fled Cuba decades ago and he has been acutely tuned in to the politics in Cuba and Venezuela. | ||
| It is very unsurprising he is so involved in this. | ||
| But even over the weekend in announcing this operation, he said that if he was a member of the government in Havana, Cuba, he would be worried moving forward and he would keep an eye on what the U.S. is going to do. | ||
| So there are just so many potential dominoes that could fall moving forward, much less trying to figure out what will happen to Venezuela itself, how involved the U.S. government will actually be, how involved the U.S. military will be. | ||
| And you've spoken a lot about oil companies. | ||
| President Trump has mentioned the term oil a couple dozen times over the last couple of days and said on Air Force One last night that in essence, he had told a lot of U.S. oil executives that this operation or something of this like would be coming. | ||
| So there's a direct economic tie to this. | ||
| There's a direct foreign policy tie. | ||
| And as Josh mentioned, there's a U.S. military tie in terms of boots on the ground. | ||
| There's just a lot of moving pieces that we're trying to get clarity here at the White House every single hour for. | ||
| Well, thank you for breaking it down for us, Taylor. | ||
| I want to go to Ayana Harry, who was inside of the courtroom. | ||
| She is now outside of court with that update for us. | ||
| Ayana, what can you tell us about what you saw in there? | ||
| I mean, Shannon, this is really a pretty stunning turn of events. | ||
| Just 72 hours ago, Nicolas Maduro was the president, the leader of Venezuela. | ||
| But just afternoon, about 12:03 p.m., Maduro was escorted into a courtroom in the courthouse behind me, wearing jail-issue clothes. | ||
| And at one point, Maduro even stood up inside of the courtroom and he said to the judge, I am the president of Venezuela. | ||
| He also went on to say that he had been kidnapped from his home in Caracas. | ||
| And then he went on to plead not guilty to all four counts in this indictment. | ||
| Nicolas Maduro also waived any right to bail at this moment. | ||
| So he is not requesting bail. | ||
| And Maduro will remain in custody, and so will his wife until the next court date in this case, March 17th. | ||
| Shannon, ultimately, this is a case about guns and drugs. | ||
| The indictment filed in this case accuses Nicolas Maduro of working with government allies, notorious gangs, and violent cartels to smuggle thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States. | ||
| And federal prosecutors believe his corruption and his actions began long before Nicolas Maduro was the president of Venezuela. | ||
| I mean, some of these actions date all the way back to 1999 when he was a member of the state government in Venezuela and later the foreign minister. | ||
| I do have a few more details that from the indictment. | ||
| He is accused of working with groups like the Sinaloa Cartel and also Trent de Aragua to traffic drugs into the United States of America. | ||
| So four counts in this case, four counts against Venezuelan, former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, including narco-terrorism conspiracy and also possession of machine guns and destructive devices. | ||
| So again, for now, Nicolas Maduro will remain in the custody of the federal government until at least his next court date of March 17th. | ||
| We also learned a few more things in court today. | ||
| Cecilia Maduro, Nicolas Maduro's wife, her defense attorney said that she did sustain some injuries during this as they were taken into custody and Venezuela, and so she has requested medical attention. | ||
| But for now, both Mr. and Mrs. Maduro will remain in federal custody, Shannon. | ||
| All right, Ayana, thank you. | ||
| And I want to thank you all for watching our live coverage here at New York One across the country at our Spectrum news stations. | ||
| We are going to have much more breaking news ahead, but we are going to bring you back to your local programming right now. | ||
| Spectrum News New York One's live coverage out of New York of the arraignment of Nicolas Maduro, the deposed Venezuelan leader, along with the First Lady, his wife. | ||
| You've been watching New York One's special coverage, part of C-SPAN's live coverage of the U.S. action in Venezuela. | ||
| We're going to get your thoughts on what you heard on the arraignment of Nicolas Maduro. | ||
| Maduro, the court proceedings, and what comes next. | ||
| Democrats, dial in at 202-748-8921. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8920. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8922. | ||
| And Venezuelans living in the United States, we want to hear from you this afternoon at 202-748-8923. | ||
| So, for some details from the court proceedings, you can see a live camera outside of the New York courthouse there, and we are waiting for transportation of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, we presume, back to that Brooklyn detention center where they have been held since they were captured by the United States. | ||
| Nicolas Maduro and his wife pleading not guilty during this arraignment proceeding today. | ||
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Venezuelan Leaders Plead Not Guilty
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| Nicolas Maduro saying, I am a decent man, I am innocent, I am not guilty, and claiming that he is still the president of Venezuela. | ||
| His wife, Cecilia Flores, also saying that she is the first lady of Venezuela. | ||
| Now, she is known also as the first combatant in Venezuela, and she also pleading not guilty. | ||
| Their attorneys, represented by separate attorneys, not seeking bail at this moment, but said that they will put in an application later. | ||
| They also were the attorney for his wife saying that she has health and medical needs that would require attention because of the capturing of the two of them just 72 hours earlier over the weekend, a surprise raid by the Trump administration. | ||
| And we're getting your reaction to all of that. | ||
| You can see the armored vehicle there taking, starting to move away from that New York courthouse. | ||
| Also, we have been covering today part of our live coverage of this story. | ||
| The U.N. Security Council, which held an emergency meeting today on the U.S. actions, it took place around 10 a.m. Eastern time today, and it is still live over on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| The debate is still happening this afternoon, and you can watch our coverage over on C-SPAN 2. | ||
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Nicolas Maduro's Trial
00:03:11
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| Mike Waltz, who is the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, addressed the other officials in the room at this emergency meeting earlier today. | ||
| This is what he had to say. | ||
| This past weekend, colleagues, the United States successfully carried out a surgical law enforcement operation facilitated by the U.S. military against two indicted fugitives of American justice, narcoterrorist Nicolas Maduro and Celia Flores. | ||
| Colleagues, Nicolas Maduro is responsible for attacks on the people of the United States for destabilizing the Western Hemisphere and illegitimately repressing the people of Venezuela. | ||
| As Secretary Rubio has said, there is no war against Venezuela or its people. | ||
| We are not occupying a country. | ||
| This was a law enforcement operation in furtherance of lawful indictments that have existed for decades. | ||
| The United States arrested a narco-trafficker who is now going to stand trial in the United States in accordance with the rule of law for the crimes he's committed against our people for 15 years. | ||
| A similar action was taken in 1989 against Manuel Noriega. | ||
| He was arrested, indicted, convicted in a court of law, served in prison in the United States and in Panama, and the Panamanian people, the American people, are safer for it. | ||
| And undeniably, the region was more stable. | ||
| This law enforcement action was directed consistent with the President of the United States' responsibility as commander-in-chief to protect Americans at home and abroad against a fugitive who is directly responsible for narcoterrorism that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and created destabilizing violence throughout our hemisphere. | ||
| Nicolas Maduro and his co-defendant, Celia Flores, have been transferred here to the United States to stand trial for their crimes. | ||
| Maduro was indicted by a grand jury in the Southern District of New York and faces very serious criminal charges for his involvement in a wide-ranging conspiracy to conduct narcoterrorism, to traffic cocaine and other drugs, and conducting international weapons trafficking. | ||
| The overwhelming evidence of his crimes will be presented openly in U.S. court proceedings. | ||
|
Venezuela's Court Drama
00:06:33
|
||
| That was Mike Welch, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from earlier today during that emergency meeting that was called on U.S. action in Venezuela. | ||
| On your screen now, live coverage of the transportation of Nicolas Maduro to the detention center in Brooklyn following his first court appearance since that surprise raid over the weekend, where he and his wife pleaded not guilty on all charges. | ||
| They claim they are still in leadership in Venezuela. | ||
| He's still the president, he said, of Venezuela, and she claiming in court that she is still the first lady of Venezuela. | ||
| We want to get your reaction to the court appearance by Nicolas Maduro and his wife and what comes next for the United States and Venezuela. | ||
| The president yesterday on Air Force One telling reporters that we are in control of Venezuela. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| We'll go to Brian, who's in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Democratic caller. | ||
| Brian, go ahead. | ||
| Share your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, Brian. | ||
| We're listening to you. | ||
| Your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can hear me. | |
| I'm sorry. | ||
| It's been a while. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Any question, please? | |
| What are your thoughts about the court proceedings and what you learned from Spectrum News New York One's special coverage this afternoon? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So far, I haven't learned anything about the court proceedings because they haven't really said much other than he's pleaded not guilty. | |
| I mean, we all knew that that was going to happen. | ||
| I actually wanted to talk about the situation that you guys were talking about earlier. | ||
| All right, Brian, we're talking about Venezuela. | ||
| What do you think about the president's decision to go in there over the weekend? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Honestly, I don't think anybody has an issue with taking Maduro out of Venezuela. | |
| I think the overall messaging is pretty bad. | ||
| It looks ugly for us as a country because the more and more Donald Trump speaks, the more and more it looks about oil. | ||
| I think he should let Marco Rubio handle this situation. | ||
| I think his messaging is a lot different, but the overall motive is the same. | ||
| I mean, they're pretty much going in there to take his oil. | ||
| And, Brian, you're concerned about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm concerned where it puts us on the world stage. | |
| I'm concerned where we're going with China, Russia. | ||
| If we're pushing our allies away into their direction, I don't think the future is about oil. | ||
| I think the future is about sustainable energy, what China's doing. | ||
| Okay, Brian, I'm going to leave it there. | ||
| Now, the next court proceedings against Nicolas Maduro and his wife, except for March 17th. | ||
| Today's proceedings were brief, 38 minutes. | ||
| The two entering a plea of not guilty. | ||
| They were assisted by their lawyers. | ||
| And according to CNN's reporting, Nicholas Maduro said he had partially spoken to his attorney and not yet fully briefed on the charges, the indictment against him. | ||
| Jose in Sen City Center, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Jose, your thoughts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| You know, I hear so many people talk, but a lot of people have never gotten a weapon and defended the colors of this country. | ||
| You know, I said, I served over 30 years in the special forces. | ||
| And I love President Trump. | ||
| And I think America ought to be grateful that we have such a wonderful president that cares for this country. | ||
| I said, and every move that he's made, and in the court there, I studied administrative justice. | ||
| That's why I got a degree, administrative justice. | ||
| And like I said, Baduro claimed to be the president. | ||
| But like I said, according to the people and the elections, I said, he never won clearly. | ||
| He overtook, took everything by a dictatorship. | ||
| So his presidency is illegitimate. | ||
| I said, so I said, that's going to be when it comes up in the trial, you know, he's going to fall by the wayside because he doesn't have grounds to stand out to be called the president. | ||
| You know, this man is evil. | ||
| I said, you know, what it takes for evil to overtake our country is for us to do nothing. | ||
| I said, no, up to now, we have presidents that are whimps. | ||
| No, Trump, everybody respects Trump's. | ||
| All right, Jose, let me get in another voice. | ||
| We'll go to Matthew in San Antonio, Texas, an independent. | ||
| Matthew, your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so, you know, I'm a young independent. | |
| I look at both sides of everything that is happening. | ||
| And when I woke up, I think it was, forgive me, I think it was Sunday when I woke up. | ||
| I just saw what happened. | ||
| I'm like, oh, gosh, okay. | ||
| So, yeah, I've been keeping up a little bit. | ||
| I wasn't too familiar with what was happening. | ||
| But what I can really say, and what's been coming to my mind, honestly, is that this is honestly like a long time coming. | ||
| It is a long time coming because it is for me. | ||
| Like, I don't, I try not to watch opinionated news. | ||
| I try to go to neutral sources. | ||
| And so what I did last night was I just, I was up late last night. | ||
| I decided I wanted to watch the, I wanted to listen to the BBC. | ||
| And even they were surprised. | ||
| An international company from the United States, they were surprised that people in other countries are now saying that, like, man, why can't the U.S. come into our country and do this? | ||
| Again, I look at both sides. | ||
| I truly believe that Trump is doing this because he wants the oil, but at the same time, they're taking action against this corrupt man, this man that did not want to do anything legally. | ||
| He wanted to do things his way. | ||
| And for him to go to the court and say that, well, I'm the president of Venezuela. | ||
| I was kidnapped, quite frankly, I feel like it's more of a show. | ||
| And so me as a young person, me as an independent, you know, I see this as basically, hey, we're trying to help the people of Venezuela. | ||
|
Congress Briefing Omitted?
00:04:09
|
||
|
unidentified
|
And yeah, there's going to be some there's going to be some things that we're going to try to do to help them and maybe we're going to negotiate with the oil companies and try to get the oil from there. | |
| But at the same time, we're technically helping them from one of the things that we're going to do. | ||
| So Matthew, do you think, though, that Congress should have been involved, that members of Congress should have had a say before the president went into Venezuela? | ||
|
unidentified
|
In my opinion, I don't think it would have mattered because Trump would have done it. | |
| He should have, but I think it would have mattered. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Matthew there in San Antonio, Texas. | ||
| The Trump administration will go to Capitol Hill today to talk to a select few members of Congress. | ||
| They will get briefed by the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the Attorney General Pam Bondi, along with the CIA Director John Radcliffe. | ||
| They will also hear from the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Kaine. | ||
| Now, the members of Congress that will be in this meeting, this closed-door secret meeting, will be those in leadership as well as the committee and ranking members of certain committees. | ||
| There will also be an all-members briefing later in the week. | ||
| Now, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who is the leader of the Democrats in the House, was on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday, and he refuted the Trump administration's justifications for capturing Nicholas Maduro. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| Well, you just heard my conversation with Secretary Rubio. | ||
| I asked him about the administration's decision not to inform Congress ahead of this operation until President Maduro had been captured. | ||
| Secretary Rubio is saying this was not the kind of mission where they could have afforded to notify Congress. | ||
| There were concerns about leaks. | ||
| He made that point. | ||
| President Trump made that point. | ||
| Was the administration justified in this case in not briefing Congress? | ||
| Well, there's been no evidence that the administration has presented to justify the actions that were taken in terms of there being an imminent threat to the health, the safety, the well-being, the national security of the American people. | ||
| This was not simply a counter-narcotics operation. | ||
| It was an act of war. | ||
| It involved, of course, the Delta Force, and we're thankful for the precision by which they executed the operation and thankful for the fact that no American lives were lost. | ||
| But this was a military action involving Delta Force, involving the Army, apparently involving thousands of troops, involving at least 150 military aircraft, perhaps involving dozens of ships off the coast of Venezuela and South America. | ||
| So of course this was the military action. | ||
| And pursuant to the Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, to authorize acts that take place in this regard. | ||
| And we've got to make sure when we return to Washington, D.C., that legislative action is taken to ensure that no further military steps occur absent explicit congressional approval. | ||
| House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries there on NBC's Meet the Press. | ||
| We're going to hear from him again today, 4.30 p.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| He's going to have a news conference on Capitol Hill, and you can watch live coverage here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free video mobile app, and c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Members of Congress are returning to Washington, and they will, a select few of them, get a briefing on Capitol Hill later today, as we told you from the Trump administration on these actions in Venezuela. | ||
| That taking place around 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time. | ||
|
Arraignment Reaction
00:02:47
|
||
| There will be a camera outside of that meeting, so look for our coverage on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| President Trump, on his schedule today, has a closed press policy meeting this afternoon, so we are not expecting to hear from them. | ||
| Should that open up, though, to the press, look for our C-SPAN, look up for that on our C-SPAN networks, C-SPANNOW and C-SPAN.org. | ||
| We are getting your calls here this afternoon in reaction to the arraignment of Nicholas Maduro and his wife in New York. | ||
| They have left the courthouse, put into an armored vehicle, and being transported back to a Brooklyn jail. | ||
| From the Associated Press, it's a facility so troubled that some judges have refused to send people there, even if as it has housed such famous inmates as Migazouk stars R. Kelly and Sean Diddy Combs. | ||
| Opened in the early 1990s, the Metropolitan Detention Center currently houses about 1,300 inmates. | ||
| Emmett in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Emmett. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| First, I'd like to say I'm an old man. | ||
| I've lived under 16 presidents, going all the way back to Hoover, and I think this is the most incompetent president we've ever had in our nation. | ||
| I'm very concerned. | ||
| And I think he's got the most incompetent group of people around him serving him. | ||
| Then I do absolutely think that he should have conferred with Congress about the actions that he's taking. | ||
| He is assuming a role that is not granted to him by the Constitution in so many cases. | ||
| And although I have voted for Republicans in the past, I long for the days of Goldwater and people who would stand up and take a stand for the rights of America. | ||
| That may not happen, but I pray that the Democrats will get some spine that has backbone and will demand the rights of the American people. | ||
| And I definitely feel like that it was a bad decision to go into Venezuela. | ||
| Why not go into Cuba? | ||
| Why not go into a lot of other countries and just take them? | ||
| It sounds like that's what Trump plans to do. | ||
| So with that, I'll close and thank you for taking my call. | ||
| All right, Emmett. | ||
| Well, tune in this week to our coverage here on C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2. | ||
| We'll bring you gavel to gavel uninterrupted coverage of the House and Senate floor where you can expect there'll be some discussion and debate at least during morning hour and special orders that you'll hear in the House from members of Congress concerned about what happened in Venezuela. | ||
|
Maduro Facilitating Dispute
00:04:34
|
||
| On the Senate side, Punch Bowl reporting, faced with unprecedented situation, Democrats are looking to force votes on a war powers resolution as early as possible, although some of their more progressive members are already calling for Trump's impeachment over this. | ||
| The Senate will vote this week on Senator Tim Kaine's war powers efforts. | ||
| So we're Democrats looking to force a vote on that. | ||
| Kevin in Tampa, Florida, Republican, we'll hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, thank you for taking my call. | |
| As a 28-year veteran of the Air Force and served with both the Previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the current one, and Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom. | ||
| I'm quite happy that Maduro is in jail, and so is Venezuela. | ||
| I worked in Miami for almost 10 years. | ||
| I know many Venezuelans, and they are happy about it. | ||
| Why is that, Kevin? | ||
| Why is that, Kevin, based on your experience and what you know? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, he turned, he turned a very well, Chavez started it, and I had a friend who was actually stationed in Venezuela. | |
| And then, as soon as Chavez took power, we brought him home. | ||
| But that was a prosperous and democratic country, a beautiful place to visit, and with rich oil reserves, of course. | ||
| And Chavez and Maduro turned it into a narco-state, as it is called. | ||
| It is unsafe. | ||
| The people are miserable. | ||
| Democrat, or people who speak their opinion are thrown in jail or executed. | ||
| And the country is junk now. | ||
| And so hopefully, they will figure out that they better get their act together and become a more democratic and responsible country. | ||
| And that's better for America. | ||
| That's better for all of Latin America. | ||
| Kevin, how do you respond to critics who have said that the Trump administration officials briefing members of Congress and the media have said that this is about fentanyl, yet the indictment cites cocaine? | ||
| And there are numerous reports that the main sources of cocaine coming in the United States are not coming from Venezuela, but rather other Latin American countries. | ||
| What do you know to dispute that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know much to dispute that. | |
| I do know that there's a certainly most of the drugs come from or through Mexico and Latin America. | ||
| We know that. | ||
| And most of them, we reacted quite strongly under the Bush administration in Colombia and destroyed a big part of their cocaine running operations for a while. | ||
| I had friends who were actively involved in that interdiction, and it worked pretty well. | ||
| Peru seems to be doing fairly well. | ||
| So it's concentrated as far as the people who are facilitating that. | ||
| We know that President Maduro was facilitating that. | ||
| And we know those boats were not fishing boats. | ||
| But just overall, Venezuela is better off without him. | ||
| And all of Latin America is. | ||
| And I don't have a problem with it. | ||
| Can I ask you your thoughts on the military actions, the specific actions? | ||
| Because the Joint Chiefs chair, General Dan Kaine, said that the operation involved more than 150 aircraft launched from 20 bases around the Western Hemisphere, including F-35 and F-22 jets and B-1 bombers. | ||
| With the strikes taking place, U.S. Special Forces made their way into Caracas heavily armed, including with a blowtorch in case they had to cut through steel doors at Maduro's location. | ||
| What do you make of that, that military operation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, it was excellent, and it went very well. | |
| And it didn't cost us a dime. | ||
| The military is on salary. | ||
| They get paid whether they're fighting or training. | ||
| So I'm so happy that we didn't lose any aircraft and any personnel. | ||
| And it just proves how good we are. | ||
| As far as the international outrage or fake outrage, I found it rich at the United Nations, the comments by the Russian ambassador and the ambassador from China when they talked about this. | ||
|
Trump's Whack-a-Mole Presidency
00:02:45
|
||
|
unidentified
|
I guess Russia forgot about Ukraine and China must have forgot about Hong Kong, which is what they did. | |
| They established, you know, tried their own government. | ||
| We are better off without bad guys. | ||
| Trump is going to be playing whack-a-mole. | ||
| He's got three years left. | ||
| He's going to be plain whack-a-mole. | ||
| He did it with Iran. | ||
| He did it with ISIS and Syria, Boko Haram and Nigeria, and he will continue to do so. | ||
| And I don't think Trump really cares much. | ||
| He's going to put a stamp on everything he can while he's in office. | ||
| And personally, if I were in the government in Cuba, I would be making travel reservations. | ||
| Kevin there in Tampa, Florida, Republican caller, Kevin talking about the UN Security Council having an emergency meeting. | ||
| We have live coverage of that on C-SPAN too today. | ||
| They started around 10 a.m. Eastern Time with debate over U.S. action in Venezuela. | ||
| Coming up, more on our coverage of this story, the New York City Mayor Mamdani will hold a news conference today at 2.45 p.m. Eastern Time with New York's governor there, Kathy Hokul. | ||
| We expect that they're going to get some questions about Maduro being held at a Brooklyn prison. | ||
| You can watch on C-SPAN at 2.45 p.m. Eastern Time, C-SPANNOW or C-SPAN.org. | ||
| And then as we said earlier, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, is going to have a news conference at 4.30 p.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| And again, watch that right here on C-SPAN, C-SPANNOW and C-SPAN.org. | ||
| The members of Congress will get briefed by Trump administration officials around 5.30 p.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| There will be a camera outside of that closed door meeting. | ||
| And go to the C-SPAN networks for our coverage of members of Congress and possibly Trump administration officials speaking to reporters before and after that meeting. | ||
| Coming up next, we're going to bring you back to earlier today. | ||
| Senators Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, Republican Florida senators, held a briefing with members of the Venezuelan community about the president's decision to go into Venezuela this weekend. | ||
| If you think about, if you just stop and sit back and think about how many years so many people here have kept this issue alive so we can continue to fight for freedom and liberty in Venezuela. | ||
| So the first thing we're going to do is give everybody in this room a big round of applause because everybody was part of it. | ||
| This only happened... | ||
| President Trump only took this action. | ||
Chapters
- 00:01:22 Venezuela's Deportation Drama
- 00:16:35 Nancy's Criticism Of Trump
- 00:20:43 Border Raids Update
- 00:28:37 Viral Washington Post Piece
- 00:31:51 President's Warning Shot
- 00:47:26 Venezuela's Diplomatic Standoff
- 01:03:03 Force Versus Justice
- 01:04:23 Political Turmoil Ahead
- 01:07:56 Venezuelan Protests Echo World Leaders' Dilemmas
- 01:23:28 Venezuelan Leaders Plead Not Guilty
- 01:24:53 Nicolas Maduro's Trial
- 01:27:50 Venezuela's Court Drama
- 01:34:09 Congress Briefing Omitted?
- 01:38:03 Arraignment Reaction
- 01:40:51 Maduro Facilitating Dispute
- 01:45:11 Trump's Whack-a-Mole Presidency
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