Chapter 1: What bonus episode is being introduced?
Hey, everybody. Ira here. This thing that you're listening to right now is a little bonus episode that we decided to throw down the feed in addition to the new show that we just made, which is called New Lord Drop, which came out at the regular time on the feed Sunday night and should be sitting right next to this bonus episode in your podcast app.
Let me take a second and explain what you're listening to right here. When the United States attacked Venezuela last week and captured its president, Nicolas Maduro, I kept thinking about this story that Nancy Updike did for our show a while back about the 2024 election in Venezuela.
In that election, there was this massive grassroots effort not just to oust Maduro and elect the opposition candidate, but also they knew that they were going to have to prove that the opposition actually won. And so what that meant is tens of thousands of volunteers around the country planned and trained for months.
And then on election day, they not only managed to get a huge turnout going out and voting, they also organized this whole thing where they went around and they collected paper copies of the vote totals from most of the voting centers around the country. Okay, so they have these paper receipts. They scanned these vote totals, added them up,
put everything online, proving that the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, beat Maduro and beat him decisively. Their numbers showed a two-to-one victory. People hated Maduro that much. But election authorities declared Maduro the winner. He stayed in power. People protested. Maduro cracked down with mass detentions. Over 1,500 people
The United Nations looked into it and found that many of those detainees were tortured.
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Chapter 2: What happened during the recent U.S. attack on Venezuela?
The world knew who won. Countries around the world, including the United States, went through the opposition's numbers, looked at the receipts, concluded they were solid, and officially recognized Gonzalez, the opposition candidate, as the winner and rightful president of Venezuela. But this past week, as you probably saw, when the United States captured President Maduro...
President Trump did not say, OK, here's the guy who actually won the election. Here's the woman who leads the opposition that he's part of, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Karina Machado.
Chapter 3: How did Venezuelans organize to oust Maduro in the election?
Let's finally put them in power. Which made me wonder, what do all those Venezuelans who were part of this big organized movement to vote Maduro out of power and prove that they won, who did all that so, so well, what do they think of the events of the last week? What's this been like for them? Are they angry? Do they see any hope that they might get a shot?
Well, Nancy Updike and reporter Ana Yancey Diaz-Cortez reached out to one of those people and talked to her. She said all kinds of interesting and eye-opening things that we have not heard elsewhere in the coverage. So what you're about to hear, you'll hear Ana Yancey interpreting. She's helped us with all of our Venezuela coverage.
And what you're going to hear is her live translation recorded during the conversation. So it's not word for word exact, but it's close. Because this conversation is so of this moment, we thought it made the most sense to put it out now and not wait for some theme or something. Hence this extra episode this week that you're listening to. Here's Nancy Updike.
A lot of Venezuelans were expecting some kind of big move. The U.S. had been bombing Venezuelan boats for months. American aircraft carriers and destroyers had been assembling in the Caribbean. It was clear something was about to happen. The woman I talked to, Teresa, had also been expecting. She didn't know what.
When the attack happened, she was at home in her neighborhood just outside the capital, Caracas, with her family, including her two grown children. Teresa is not her real name. It's still too dangerous in the country for anyone who organized against Maduro. The attack started in the middle of the night, her time.
How I experienced it is that, you know, we're on vacation, you know, it was late, but we were up late. We were watching a series on TV, you know, me and my daughter. And then suddenly, you know, we're watching the series and I hear like a sound. I don't know, of a long droning sound that sounded like a plane. And then, see ya, Teresa. I immediately go to the window.
I go to the window, you know, I'm a little bit... I'm a little bit far away from the scene, but it was a full moon that night or close to a full moon. So you could clearly see six helicopters with no lights on and a lot of noise through my window. Only the silhouette was very clear. There were six or seven helicopters that were, you know, far away, but also really near my house.
And it was it was quite easy to see. So, you know, we it was how can I explain it? It was it was almost like a live action situation where we're like what we're seeing outside our window and the information we're getting is totally communicating with each other. And it was just it wasn't like live. It was live. It was evident. It was a very conflicting emotion.
So, you know, it's a lot of dual feelings or found, you know, mixed feelings, found feelings, as you say in Spanish. Like, you know, on the one hand, it's like, yes, they're bombarding our country. They're bombarding Venezuela. There's a kind of invasion. But on the other hand... They're going after the bad guys. That was the feeling, that they were going after the bad guys. So I felt split.
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Chapter 4: What was the reaction of Venezuelans to the U.S. capturing Maduro?
They've just taken it over. So yeah, it continues to be circus. I just want to make clear, I have two kids. One may be more politicized than the other or not, but before all this, we knew this was coming. We didn't know how it was coming, we didn't know when it was coming, but we knew that something big was coming.
And, you know, and for weeks and months now, I've been like, don't be on the street. Where are you? Just completely paranoid and keeping track of them. And, you know, I'm just so grateful that how this all happened, when this all happened, that we were all at home. But, you know, as I look at them sometimes in their, you know, in their 20s, and I'm like, they can't even go on the street.
O sea, no pueden estar en la calle porque no sabemos quƩ va a pasar. They can't go outside. They're spending their youth, their best years, like living inside with their mother in fear. And so, you know, when I tell you that even as much as Trump scares me, I think Trump needs to come again to get Delcy or whatever. And it really scares me that he's negotiating with her. But
Just to give you a sense and to also tell you that it will only be, you know, with Delcy Rodriguez, with the person in charge, with this government in charge, it will only get harder to talk to you. It will only get harder to speak with you over time. And, you know, I am but one Teresa, but there are many, many, many Teresas, and it's only getting harder to speak the truth.
You were saying that you're spending time now trying to understand gringo politics. What do you think? What's your take on what we're doing?
I'm very worried. I'm very worried that... To be honest, I'm very worried.
They're giving so much time to this government, this government that continues to be alive. And whether you give them three weeks or three months, you know, they're not stopping. They're only solidifying their power. Yes, they took away Maduro, but the power structure is still alive. Yesterday, they took, I don't know how many journalists. They're still taking political...
the oath that Trump took with us of reestablishing some kind of semblance of democracy, that's not happening. And for the Teresas like me, the ones on the street, the ones walking the street, I don't know what to tell you. We're tormented. We're worried.
Today, today, today, today, not three days ago, not in a way today, Trump is not doing what he says he has, and Trump still doesn't have power here. four days into this and we're still seeing more arrests, more impunity. We're seeing more of the same.
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Chapter 5: How did Teresa describe her experience during the attack?
Nancy Updike is one of the producers of our show. Since she did this interview, the Venezuelan government has released some political prisoners. The government of Delce Rodriguez has been talking about expanding diplomatic ties with the United States. President Trump has said that Venezuela cannot hold elections until the United States can, quote, rebuild the country.
This mini-episode was put together by Nancy, with Ana Yancey Diaz-Cortez, Lars Darcheski, Dorothy Kronick, Helena Carpio, Stone Nelson, Suzanne Gabber, and me. We have a whole new regular episode this week. As I said, it's really good. It's fun. It's called New Lord Drop. Keep an eye out for that. It should be in your feed right now. Thanks for listening.