Welcome to the beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melbert, wishing you a happy new year as we look at the current state of play.

We begin with the ousted Venezuela leader, Nicholas Maduro. He was in a federal court room in Manhattan today, the product of this controversial Trump administration foreign policy action.

And we're going to report on all of that, the facts,

the law, such as it is, and where we go from here tonight. There is, at minimum, major confusion,

if not outright, revulsion at what the Trump administration has done in the name of the American

people without their input or consent through Congress or any other

way. And there are questions now about the president's motives and plans across the board,

even as many people look at the extraction effort and say, okay, the military did its job. They

understood the assignment. They completed the objective. But what is the purpose

of all this? Well, we begin with what's happening today, of course. This morning, Maduro and his wife

were in federal court in the United States after that extraction that made so much, so much

controversial waves and attention across this weekend. Surely you watch the news you've

heard about it. So you're looking at the courtroom sketches that would be like any other case,

except this is not like any other's case. We can tell you Maduro and his wife pled not guilty

to a set of charges that have basically been developed over the years in the United States

under multiple justice departments. And that includes narco terror and drug trafficking.

Maduro used his appearance in American court today, which is effectively the first time

he's really had a platform to say anything after this unusual foreign policy attack and

use of warlike United States power, to say, quote, I have been kidnapped since

Saturday I was captured at my home in Caracas. A helicopter transported Maduro and his wife

from where they were being held in federal custody in a Brooklyn jail this morning. You can see

that transfer there. The armored van then drove them to the federal

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