What's happening with Venezuela?

Two days ago I woke up and texted our boss Rebecca Lavoie asking if she wouldn't mind if I swapped out our originally planned episode for something else. She said yes, so I wrote this. Civics 101 was not designed to be a news-responsive show, and it will continue to be the place you can turn to for the basics of American democracy, laws, and systems, whether they are in the headlines or not.

But we also believe it is our responsibility to help people understand what is happening right now. So, hi Nick. Hello Hannah. Heads down, thumbs up.

I am Hannah McCarthy. I'm Nick Capodice. And this is Civics 101. And this is your guide to what is going on vis-a-vis America slash Venezuela. Nicholas Maduro and President Donald Trump's plan. Or at least... what we know of it we are going very 101 with this because that is why we exist so first nick what just happened in venezuela well on january 3rd

the United States military conducted a quote-unquote large-scale strike, as they're calling it, in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. As of this point, Venezuela is saying that 40 people were killed, including military and civilians. and the U.S. military captured Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Celia Flores. They put them on a plane, they brought them to New York, and I know that there are federal charges against them. Yeah.

So, anyone wondering what's going on here? Yeah, Hannah, I am. Me. I'm going to do my best. Stay tuned. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full.

owning a home and more. Plus you can count on their great customer service to help when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, progressive casualty insurance company. affiliates potential savings will vary not available in all states or situations

Okay, before we can talk about what just happened in Venezuela and what is supposedly going on, and what else looks like it's going on, I think we need to establish something very basic. Venezuela. What do you know about it, Nick? all right so it is at the very northern tip of south america i know that much next to colombia i know gas prices are about 13 cents a gallon last time i looked and they have a lot of oil

They sure do. They actually have the most, the most oil of any country on Earth as far as we know. And I know that Donald Trump says the Venezuelan government has been purposefully sending a lot of drugs into the United States. That is also what the federal indictment against President Maduro says. Drug trafficking charges, among a few other things. That's the justification for capturing Maduro and his wife and bringing them into the United States.

Anything else you know about Venezuela? Like you said, the president of Venezuela is Nicolas Maduro. I've heard him referred to as a dictator. Even though the Venezuelan government is technically a constitutional republic, like it's got three branches, executive, legislative, and judicial. And I guess the last big thing that comes to mind is Chavez.

Yeah, Hugo Chavez sure does come to mind. And it might actually make sense to start there. Who was Chavez? Chavez is someone who was also referred to as a dictator. He was the former president of Venezuela and he died in 2013. And right off the bat, Nick, I am also going to tell you that there are many people who call Chavez a hero.

And to get to Maduro and not all that much to drugs, to be honest, we have to talk about Chavez and we have to talk about oil. Those oil reserves you mentioned, the same oil President Trump is now promising to, quote unquote, take back. Those made Venezuela one of the wealthiest nations on the planet for a while. Their economy was and is almost entirely dependent on oil. Hannah, did you know that's called a petro state?

Or a petrocracy? The world wants oil. A country has oil, like a lot of oil. Oil becomes their main thing, and that causes problems. It sure can. Power concentrates, corruption spreads. But before things went south, Venezuela had all this oil, giant oil corporations, including United States companies like Exxon, Mobil and Chevron, were down there playing a major role. And then the country went through decades of attempting to nationalize the oil industry. Meaning what exactly?

Meaning, essentially, Venezuela wanted to take control of operations and keep as much oil money in the country as possible. But there was a little problem in the 1970s and 80s re-oil. Any guesses? Yeah. The energy crisis. Long lines at the gas station in that hazy 1970 sunshine. And that energy crisis was caused by a lot of things, like war. Yeah. And if you want an episode on the energy crisis, drop us a line because it is not happening right now. But Venezuela was going through a lot of.

political changes. The government wanted to nationalize those oil operations, gain that economic sovereignty, aka be the ones in charge of the stuff that makes the money. So this combination of taking control and super low oil prices by the 1980s. leaves Venezuela in a pickle. Also, taking over the oil industry left them in big...

time debt to American oil companies. Those companies either got the heck out of Dodge or they struggled to negotiate new contracts. And they also really wanted to recoup the investment they made. in their now lost oil pipelines and rigs, among other things. Now, that is a debt Venezuela has struggled to pay off. The United States also imposed sanctions on Venezuelan oil, which I am not going to get into right now, but which made it even harder.

to sell that oil and to make money and to pay off that debt. All right, Hannah, take a breath and hang on here. When President Trump says Venezuela stole our oil, is that true? No. Venezuela owns its own resources. Foreign companies negotiate contracts with the government in order to have oil operations there. Or if the government and the industry is in turmoil.

they perhaps fail to negotiate those contracts, which is what happened to some U.S. companies in the past. Right. And the political turmoil part? So to the political science and history professors listening, I am so... Sorry, because this is the broadest brush I got here. This is my

Broad Chavez brush. All right. The oil stuff was a mess. The government was blamed. The economy was in trouble. People were hungry. They were starving. There were riots. A military officer named Hugo Chavez attempts a coup. He goes to jail. He gains a lot of support. He already had some. Now he has even more. He gets let out of jail. He runs for president, promises to end poverty, corruption and the old political system. And he wins. And.

He stayed in power a long time, right? Chavez was elected in 1998. And... Uh-oh, my brush is getting even broader. Chavez says the people are in charge. The people have ultimate power, like more power than the legislature and more power than the Supreme Court. And basically, Nick. Basically, there is a constitutional convention with delegates who are almost entirely Chavez supporters. They change the Venezuelan constitution. They...

pretty much overturned the Supreme Court, a lot of firings, a lot of replacements. The legislature is pretty much neutralized. It loses most of its power. Is this why people called Chavez a dictator? Well... You know, this is also why people call Chavez a hero. And again, broad brush why people call Chavez a dictator. Also, Nick, the way people in the U.S. talk about Chavez is not necessarily the way that everyone talks about Chavez.

The new constitution was chock full of human rights, supports for impoverished people, supports for workers. It also made the president very powerful. Chavez stayed in that power for a long time. While he was in power, the economy got worse and worse. There was a lot of corruption. There were, as it turns out, a lot of human rights violations. The oil industry became even more of a mess. And then in 2013, as you mentioned, he died.

And Nicolas Maduro stepped up. Okay, so now we are on to Maduro. We are on to Maduro. Rolling right along here because, again, what on earth is going on, right? But we are going to take a very quick break. Stay tuned. If you're like me, you might still be wearing that same silky dress that you thought was cute in 2016. Because it was cute in 2016. Don't cringe at me. But now it's kind of fraying at the edges and more gray than it is black. And you have to admit that millennial or not.

it might be time for a little update. And then you start to think about that washable silk slip dress from Quince that will satisfy both 2016 you and 2026 you, and maybe, just maybe, 2036 you. And luckily for me, Quince makes quality essentials that last and are priced far below other luxury brands. I'm entering year three with my Quince Italian wool coat, for example, and it is still looking immaculate.

It's also perfectly warm and versatile and takes me from running errands to work meetings to family parties without missing a beat. So if you're thinking about updating your wardrobe for the new year or gifting your family and friends some quality that lasts, refresh those wardrobes with Quince. Don't wait. Go to quince.com slash civics for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash civics to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com slash civics. You're listening to Civics 101. We are talking about Venezuela. What just happened in terms of the United States capturing President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and bringing them to the United States and charging them with federal crimes.

And before the break, we talked a bit about how we got to Maduro as president, right? Hugo Chavez wanted him to be his successor. Maduro won a tight election, so tight that his opponent called for a recount. That recount did not happen. Maduro is not Chavez. Chavez was beloved by many. He was super charismatic and he led this sweeping regime change. And he told the people that they.

were in charge. Maduro inherited a collapsing economy and opposition to his leadership. He cracked down on protests. He killed people. In 2018, he was declared the president again in an unopposed election. But a lot of countries refused to recognize that as legitimate. Maduro jailed or exiled opponents. In 2024, he claimed to have won again, despite evidence that his opponent had won. More political prisoners end up in jail. But Hannah, all of this...

This is not why the United States captured Nicolas Maduro, all of the political oppression. No. Maduro was captured after months of the United States conducting strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking boats and killing over 100 people.

because of federal charges being brought against him by the United States in the form of a federal indictment. That indictment accuses Maduro, his wife and four others, of narco-terrorism. Which, I mean, I can guess, Hannah, but... for the folks in the back. So Maduro was accused of flooding the U.S. with thousands of tons of cocaine and other substances to get himself and others rich, and acquiring and using things like machine guns to do it. Is that true? Well...

You know, there's going to be a trial. There's the truth and then there's the American legal system. Experts say that Venezuela plays a minor role. in trafficking drugs that reach the United States. Most of the trafficked drugs come from countries like Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, or Venezuela's neighbor, Colombia. But we didn't capture the leaders of those territories. No, but I am going to circle back around to that. But no, we captured Maduro. And why were we allowed to do that exactly?

Allowed is tricky because U.S. intervention of this kind has long been scrutinized, criticized and challenged. There are people who say this is an illegal kidnapping. We have, by the way, captured foreign leaders in the past. A lot of people are comparing this one to the U.S. capture of Manuel Noriega. You remember that one? I do. I remember I was in grade school when it happened. That was Panama under George H.W. Bush, right? That's the one.

Noriega was a military dictator in Panama. He was accused of drug trafficking, among other things. The United States captured him in 1989. He was tried. He was imprisoned. The difference there. is that Panama had declared itself at war with the U.S. prior to Noriega's capture. Prior to Maduro's capture, the Venezuelan president told a journalist that he wanted to work with the U.S. on drug policy and oil agreements.

And just real quick, Hannah, back to this allowed thing. How is it that the U.S. can just go in and grab someone? There's got to be some kind of something under that. Well, first I will tell you that... This is almost certainly a violation of international law. There is a United Nations treaty that says that you cannot use military force against other countries without that country's permission, the UN's permission, or, you know, in self-defense, none of which appear to apply here.

But U.S. presidents have claimed in the past that they have constitutional powers that basically kind of float above or outside of international law. That is how Noriega's capture was justified, for example. I will also tell you that Trump is saying that the Monroe Doctrine is one of the reasons the U.S. can do this. Although Trump is now calling it the Donro Doctrine. Yeah, I think I heard that one.

Now, the Monroe Doctrine, I sort of know about. It was the 1800s? 1823. And it's called the Monroe Doctrine, you know, named after President James Monroe. And from what I understand, it was basically a deal that said the U.S. is going to stay out of European conflict and issues if Europe stayed away from countries in the Western hemisphere.

Yeah, not much of a deal, actually, because European nations initially were like, OK, whatever, Monroe. When France put an emperor in Mexico in the 1860s, the U.S. did tell them to get out of there. Eventually they did. And then Theodore Roosevelt came in. With the Roosevelt corollary. The what now? Roosevelt essentially thought the Monroe Doctrine could also mean that we can go in and get involved in unstable Latin American countries.

which ultimately is how the U.S. scored the Panama Canal Zone. And this principle. Of using the Monroe Doctrine to help out American interests, and I don't mean interests like keeping drugs out of the U.S., is the way that a lot of experts are viewing what is going on with Venezuela right now. I mean, you know, oil.

did become a talking point pretty much right away. Something to keep in mind here is that, quote, Western hemisphere part of the Monroe Doctrine. Trump is now suggesting that Colombia needs to watch its back. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is suggesting that Cuba is in play as well. The Cuban government, by the way, has issued a statement telling all nations of the region to quote, remain alert as the threat hangs over all.

Well, okay, we'll just keep watching, I suppose. And because we are not clairvoyants, all we can do right now is talk about Venezuela, right? Because, Hannah, I have one and only one.

Really big question. Go for it. President Trump said the United States is going to run it. Run the country of Venezuela. Explain that one to me. Well, Nick, I can't really. And Trump has not really either. What he has said is that if Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, quote, does what we want, we won't have to send U.S. troops into Venezuela to help. Run the country. Okay, but Hannah, run the country. I know.

Experts do not see a legal basis for this. The phrase violation of international law is coming up a lot lately. As of now, Marco Rubio seems to be the one poised to help. the quote running of the country thing if necessary uh Trump has said that Rubio talked to Vice President Rodriguez and that she was willing to, quote, do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again, unquote. Rodriguez, meanwhile, is saying the U.S. illegally kidnapped Maduro.

and said that Venezuela will never again be the colony of another empire. I feel like I'm kind of harping on a string, Hannah, here about the oil. The oil thing seems to be the thing here. Trump talked a lot about oil. Yeah, you may be hearing in the news quite a bit that despite all of these drug claims, there's been a...

Pivot to oil. Oil is the talking point. Trump has said that U.S. oil companies are going to go and spend billions of dollars to revitalize what is currently a crumbling oil industry in Venezuela. And then they'll get reimbursed and they will make tons and tons of oil money. How that's supposed to happen without a stable government or the ability to guarantee employee safety?

write these contracts, that's not clear. However, Trump has stated that he spoke with American oil companies both before and after both the strike in Caracas and the capture of Maduro and his wife. Even so, There's a lot we don't know. Well, you did your best, McCarthy. I think we gotta leave it there for now. I think we gotta. Would you call that a 101? Definitely not. I know. Maybe like a 201? Eh.

All right, that does it for this episode. It was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with Nick Capodice. Marina Henke is our producer. Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music in this episode comes from Epidemic Sound. If you have questions for us, and I have questions for us,

us, you can always submit it at our website, civics101podcast.org. Stay tuned. We're going to keep watching and we're going to keep trying to figure out what's going on right alongside you. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio. Hello, this is Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast. For the past 10 years, I've been talking to novelists, biographers, and scholars about the greatest books in the history of the world and the men and women who wrote them.

like our recent episodes on Dante and Love, a starter pack of 10 Indian classics, the pop culture that influenced Sylvia Plath, and a talk with scientist and novelist Alan Lightman about the wonders of nature. Join us at the History of Literature podcast wherever you get your podcasts.