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Sunday Afternoon News Updates — 1/4/26
By Ben Meiselas
Trump wanted Sunday morning to be a victory lap. Instead, it turned into a public unraveling. As the reality of his administration’s actions in Venezuela ricocheted across the globe, the response was swift and brutal. From Latin American leaders to faith figures to communities here in the United States, people made clear what they think of a president who openly talks about seizing another country’s oil, sidelining democratic opposition, and cutting deals with authoritarians.
Trump’s own words are what lit the fuse. Over and over at his press conference, he said the quiet part out loud: he wants Venezuela’s oil. Not to support will of the Venezuelan people and help free them from regime rule. Oil.
The plan, as it has come into focus, appears to leave the machinery of Nicolás Maduro’s regime largely intact, while excluding democratically elected leaders and transferring control of the country’s wealth to American corporations aligned with Trump’s interests.
That reality has shocked Venezuelan communities, especially in places like South Florida. In Miami, where Venezuelans gathered for celebrations, many initially assumed Trump must have misspoken. Surely, they thought, he didn’t mean he would work with figures still loyal to Maduro. Surely, he didn’t mean to throw the democratic opposition under the bus. But the more Trump talked, the harder it became to deny what was happening.
Trump didn’t misspeak. He meant it.
For months, some of Trump’s most vocal supporters insisted he would install María Corina Machado and usher in democracy. Machado, the country’s leading opposition figure, backed Edmundo González in the July 2024 election, which most observers believe González won decisively (Maduro’s regime had banned Machado herself from running). Machado went out of her way to curry favor with Trump, praising him, echoing his election-fraud rhetoric from the United States, and more. None of it mattered.
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Trump fixed on a different option: Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president and one of the regime’s most powerful figures. U.S. officials reportedly viewed her as more “pliable,” someone who could stabilize the economy while accommodating American oil interests. In other words, someone Trump believed he could work with.
Machado was discarded.
When Trump was asked directly about her, he dismissed her as “a very nice woman” who “doesn’t have the respect” of the Venezuelan people. But that claim simply does not add up. Machado’s backing of González is widely seen inside Venezuela as central to the opposition’s electoral victory. You can criticize her recent conduct. You can debate her political strategy. But pretending she lacks public support is a convenient fiction that allows Trump to justify dealing with Maduro’s inner circle instead.
Within hours, Rodríguez herself issued a statement affirming that Maduro remains Venezuela’s only president. The New York Times described her response as swift defiance, showing that Trump’s fantasy of swooping in and “running” the country faces immediate obstacles.
Headlines abroad describe “America on the warpath,” portraying a United States led by a president acting like a colonial strongman. The Pope weighed in as well, calling for respect for Venezuela’s independence and human rights and warning against occupation.
Trump’s official accounts circulated imagery invoking the Monroe Doctrine, which he has transformed into what he calls the “Donroe Doctrine,” depicting Trump looming over Canada and South America as if getting ready to choose which country he will takeover next.
Trump then dispatched Marco Rubio to TV defend the indefensible. Rubio’s media appearances only made things worse. Asked whether Cuba might be next, Rubio didn’t deny it. He talked openly about the Cuban government as a “huge problem” and suggested more action could be coming. When pressed on whether Congress had approved further operations in Venezuela, Rubio waved the question away, insisting no authorization was needed because this wasn’t a war, just a “precise operation.”
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans gave their typical deflections. Jim Jordan deflected to talking points about a Chinese spy balloon during the Biden administration, ignoring the fact that more such incursions occurred during Trump’s first term and were quietly covered up. When asked how Trump could claim to be cracking down on narco-terrorists after pardoning Juan Orlando Hernández, a convicted drug trafficker tied to massive cocaine shipments, Jordan shrugged it off.
Pressed on what comes next, Jordan’s response was that he trusts whatever Donald Trump decides. So much for a co-equal branch of the government.
Trump lies. A lot. But when h president tells you exactly who he is and what he intends to do, believe him. Trump said he wants Venezuela’s oil. He said he wants to work with strongmen who will give it to him. And he has shown, once again, that he is willing to trample democratic values at home and abroad to get his way. The world is watching. So are the American people.
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