Natalie Kitroff

I'm Natalie Kitroff, and as the Mexico City bureau chief for The New York Times, I started looking into the Sinaloa cartel and fentanyl production.

I was trying to understand why this drug was killing so many Americans.

And to do that, I knew that we had to get inside of this criminal organization.

It took us months and months of work and multiple trips to Sinaloa to actually get into this fentanyl lab.

There were a lot of risks involved in the reporting, but people got to have a real inside view into the organization that is making this drug.

And they saw the process with photos and videos and interviews.

This is the kind of work that we're able to do because of our subscribers.

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From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroff.

This is The Daily.

In its escalating campaign against Venezuela, the Trump administration has gone from shooting down drug boats to now trying to seize multiple oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea.

Today, my colleague Anatoly Kermeneyev explains why President Trump is shifting his tactics on Venezuela and what that might tell us about his true ending.

It's Wednesday, December 24th.

Anatoly, Merry Christmas.

Thanks for joining us today.

So the last time we talked to you was when the U.S.

military was ramping up these strikes on boats in Latin America that they claimed were running drugs to the U.S.

We are coming back to you now because over the past few weeks, we've been hearing about this new kind of escalation in the Caribbean, which is the U.S.

seizing ships that have been carrying Venezuelan oil.

So help us understand how you're interpreting this new element to this operation, which has been dramatic in its own right.