What happens next in Venezuela?
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The US will "run" Venezuela until a "safe, proper and judicious transition" can be ensured, Donald Trump has said, after US strikes led to the capture of the Latin American country's president and his rendition to New York.
What happens next in Venezuela? There's been celebration and condemnation of America's intervention. We'll hear from in Caracas and also the Colombia-Venezuela border.
Also in the programme: We also hear from a former Trump insider who worked with him on Venezuela, ask a leading international criminal lawyer about the legality of the situation; and we'll hear about weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy.
(Photo shows Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro at the offices of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in New York. Credit: White House's Rapid Response 47 account on X.com)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:14.6 | We are coming to live from our studios in London. |
| 0:18.3 | I'm Lees-Tusset. |
| 0:19.7 | Today, most of our program will focus on the dramatic |
| 0:22.9 | developments of the past day and the urgent questions about what's called the day after. What happens |
| 0:29.0 | now in Venezuela after the U.S.'s extraordinary rendition of Nicholas Maduro and his wife? We'll ask |
| 0:35.7 | who rules in Caracas now after President Trump's |
| 0:38.8 | stunning announcement that the U.S. would, in his words, run Venezuela until there was a safe, |
| 0:45.9 | proper, and judicious transition. And we'll also ask the question many are asking. Is it all legal? |
| 0:53.7 | Let's start with Mr. Maduro himself, the authoritarian ruler who |
| 0:57.5 | came to power in 2013 and insisted on staying in power, even after he clearly lost by a wide margin, |
| 1:05.2 | the elections in 2024. The man indicted in the US for running what was called a corrupt, illegitimate government |
| 1:11.9 | and an alleged drug trafficking network flooding the U.S. with narcotics, charges he denies. |
| 1:18.9 | But the U.S. released this image of him in New York, in handcuffs flanked by guards, |
| 1:24.8 | doing what's called the perpetrator's walk, a walk of shame. |
| 1:29.6 | Good night. Well, Happy New Year. He grudgingly says, and what a year it already is, a defining |
| 1:37.7 | moment, and to use a phrase sometimes used by President Trump himself, made for television. |
| 1:43.8 | The White House has already posted its short film on social media, |
| 1:48.1 | and the voices you're about to hear aren't actors. |
| 1:52.9 | Last night on the order of the President of the United States, |
| 1:58.1 | and in support of a request from the Department of Justice. |
... |
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