Today on the Playbook podcast, Nicholas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores will appear in a New York

courthouse to be charged with drugs and terrorism offenses.

All of America wonders what happens next with Venezuela.

And the rest of the world wonders, who's next after Donald

Trump threatened six different nations with military action in one Air Force One gaggle. Hello, I'm Jack

Blanchard. And I'm Dasha Burns. It is Monday, January 5th. Happy New Year, Dasha.

The Playbook podcast is back with me and Dasha.

What a way to start the new year, man.

I thought they might ease into things this year, you know, with a little bit less activity than we saw in 2025.

Apparently not.

It's the 5th of January and already America has embarked on quite an

excursion as everybody knows over the weekend what happened in Venezuela. Actually, the big moment

today we're going to see Nicholas Maduro and his wife in an American courthouse. It's

happening at noon in Manhattan. Maduro and his wife were leaders of a nation on Friday. Now they're appearing in

Manhattan Courthouse after this extraordinary rendition. It's hard to imagine that a little over a year

ago, I was covering Trump on the campaign trail, and he was talking about groceries and how

Melania wouldn't let him buy bacon because it was too expensive. he was talking about groceries and how Melania wouldn't let him buy

bacon because it was too expensive. He was talking about immigration. He was talking about

education and trans issues and all these cultural things in the United States. And if you had told

me in 2024 that at the beginning of 26, it was still less than a year into Trump's first year in office,

that we would be doing regime change in Venezuela and threatening it in a number of other

countries, I would have told you you were crazy. This is stunning.

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