Special Edition: Venezuela, U.S. Power, & What Comes Next
The NewsWorthy
Erica Mandy
4.7 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A dramatic U.S. move to arrest Nicolás Maduro has put Venezuela in the global spotlight and raised big questions about power, precedent, and what comes next.
In this Special Edition, longtime U.S. diplomat Ambassador Kevin Whitaker — who spent time working across Latin America — offers historical context, analysis of the current moment, and perspective on what to watch for next.
From the raid of Maduro to America's plans involving drugs and oil, this episode provides a deeper understanding of the situation than we have time for in our daily news roundups.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today is Saturday, January 10th. A dramatic move by the U.S. to arrest Nicholas Maduro has put Venezuela at the top of the headlines and the center of a much bigger global debate. |
| 0:10.2 | Today, we're going deeper than we have time for on our daily show with the help of our guest, Ambassador Kevin Whitaker. |
| 0:15.5 | He's a longtime U.S. diplomat who spent more than four decades in the Foreign Service. |
| 0:19.1 | He was a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas years ago and was also the U.S. ambassador to Colombia. He's now a senior fellow at the nonpartisan think tank, the Atlantic Council. Today, he's sharing insights and analysis on what message the capture of Maduro sends to the world, what this moment means for the U.S., as well as Venezuela and the rest of Latin America, |
| 0:38.1 | and what to expect next when it comes to drugs, oil, and future conflicts. |
| 0:44.3 | Welcome to the Newsworthy special edition Saturday, when we sit down with a different |
| 0:48.1 | expert or celebrity every Saturday to talk about something in the news. |
| 0:51.6 | Don't forget to tune in every Monday through Friday for our regular episodes where we provide |
| 0:55.7 | all the day's news in less than 15 minutes. |
| 0:58.4 | I'm Erica Mandy. |
| 0:59.2 | It's now time for today's special edition Saturday. |
| 1:04.8 | Ambassador Kevin Whitaker, thank you so much for joining us here on The Newsworthy. |
| 1:08.4 | It's my pleasure. |
| 1:09.7 | So first, just help set the scene for us. How extraordinary or not is the arrest of Nicholas Maduro in modern U.S. foreign policy and, you know, in the moment we're in today? Maduro and his wife, they had had indictments handed down against them, and so they were subject to arrest. It is not at all typical to use the U.S. military to execute arrest |
| 1:28.7 | warrants, and it's certainly not typical to have chiefs of state be arrested, although both of |
| 1:33.1 | those things have happened. For example, the former president of Honduras ended up being arrested |
| 1:37.3 | at a certain point, although not by the U.S. military. And in 1989, the U.S. invaded Panama, |
| 1:43.7 | arresting the then dictator Manuel Noriega. |
| 1:47.1 | And I do want to talk a little bit more about those later. |
| 1:50.0 | But for now, what message do you think Maduro's arrest sends to the rest of the world today |
| 1:54.9 | about how America is willing to deal with foreign leaders that it considers illegitimate or criminal? |
| 2:00.1 | I think the principal message that's being |
... |
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