Latin America & the US: Reaction to Events in Venezuela; Echoes of the War on Terror; Maduro Paraded in NY; Anniversary of Capitol Insurgency Passes Unremarked

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio in conversation with journalist Julia Tilton from The Daily Yonder, the US's only national news organization for rural people and places.  

Transcript

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:02

Hi everyone and welcome back to Latin America Correspondent with me, Jon Bonfiglio. Uh we're back for another episode in our regular series on the relationship between Latin America and the USA, which it seems has taken a bit of a hit. And uh as usual, I'm joined by journalist Julia Tilton from the Daily Yonder, the US's only national newspaper for rural people and places. Of course, Julia, there is something of an elephant in the room. We've been talking leading up to this for a few months ago, for a few months now, but it's it's kind of happened. Maybe we can just start. Where where were you when you found out?

Julia Tilton: 0:38

Yeah, so of course, Jon is referring to the US strike on Venezuela and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Um they are currently being held in a jail cell in New York City and are facing a whole host of charges uh here in the United States, um, things like drug trafficking uh among them, which of course Jon and I have discussed before. Um I was enjoying my New Year's weekend, um, and you know, I I try not to check the news notifications too much um over the weekend and and things like that, but it was pretty impossible to ignore as it felt like every major US news outlet um was reporting on the story, um, and it's been sort of a deluge since then.

Jon Bonfiglio: 1:31

It was definitely a wow moment. I was up all that night. I got I I first found out because I got a phone call at 1 a.m. Um and actually I didn't answer the phone call. Um normally when people call me to make an an appearance in the middle of the night, then they often sort of send me a message afterwards. So I basically just sort of uh ignored the call or cancelled the call and then checked my messages, and there was just a message saying, Was I available for to do uh radio show in the UK? Um and I honestly I I I wasn't really interested in it. I didn't know the news at this point, so I just said uh I knew I was gonna be on about something else later on the day, so I just sort of replied and said, Look, I'm already on this other show, so I don't think it's gonna work for you. And the reply came back within seconds saying, No, this is breaking news. You can appear on as many shows as you like, and then I checked what was happening, and then of course, um it was clear that all hell was breaking loose, and then a couple of hours after that I did a couple of slots just talking about the sort of the strikes and the missiles and that kind of stuff, and then a couple of hours after that it became clear that Maduro had been captured, and at that point it was like the story had changed um completely. Uh obviously a lot happened there, Julia. But what was what was and what is your reaction to the events of January the third?

Julia Tilton: 2:52

Yeah, you know, I the the news cycle continues to churn, and I'm sure by the time this is uploaded there will be more developments in this ever-developing story. Um, but now that we've had, you know, a couple of days to to sort of sit with it and reflect on it, um, I have been thinking a lot about the parallels to the early days of the war on terror in the United States. I know this is something that we've talked about before on this podcast, but as someone who grew up during the war on terror in the early 2000s and had some of my formative experiences with understanding just how the United States fits into the global picture and how the media covers that. Um, of course, during the US involvement in the Middle East, namely in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm I'm really struggling not to make comparisons between that time and and today. Um, and I know that our focus on this podcast is Latin America, but as we've discussed before, I think that the rhetoric and the justification that are being used to defend US actions, and I mean, let's be really plain here, unprovoked military aggression in Venezuela are like pages torn from that early 2000s playbook when the US was first invading Iraq. Um, and you know, over the years, the real motive behind that US involvement in Iraq was born out, that being an interest in the country's vast oil reserves. But at its start, the perceived intent, at least among the American people, was connected to fighting terror. The attacks of 9-11 were still very fresh in the American psyche. Um, and I think what's interesting is that at least at the start, there was a real backing from the American people. But what's pointedly different about Venezuela is that that same backing from, you know, everyday Americans largely does not exist. Um, Reuters just conducted a poll in the last 24 hours with Ipsos that found that only one in three Americans approves of the US military strike on Venezuela and capture of Maduro. And 72% are worried that the US will become too involved in the country, um, which again, hard not to draw parallels. So this poll was conducted on Sunday, January 4th, so the day after, and then on Monday, January 5th. And again, you know, we live in this hyper-polarized, hyper-partisan time. Um, Reuters found that 65% of Republicans here in the US back the military operation ordered by Trump, compared to just 11% of Democrats and 23% of independents. Um, I've been listening to a lot of radio coverage over the past couple of days. And on an NPR podcast this morning, I thought uh this young protester who was being interviewed outside of Maduro's court hearing, which I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit more, um, but he was being interviewed. Um, he was protesting the U.S. involvement in Venezuela, and I thought he put it he put it pretty succinctly when he said that this is basically a ploy to capture oil and foreign resources of a country to serve the same companies here in the US that come back and bribe our politicians, that make us poor, that steal our resources, and that pollute our environment. Of course, referring to the US fossil fuel industry. So, all of this to say that maybe this time around in 2026, the leaders of the US are being much more forthright about their motivations, right? Like it's not taking years to bear out what is the real intention behind these acts of aggression. Like it's on the front page, it's oil. Um, but at this point, I'm just not sure that that's a motivation that's really resonating with everyday people here in the US.

Jon Bonfiglio: 6:47

I mean, it's pretty remarkable because obviously we've been saying for months now that of course it's oil in the face of these ongoing questions, repeated questions, which we've spoken about, you know, what almost every interview has been a you know, but what is actual what is Donald Trump's actual motivation? Um and then for at the press conference a few hours after the action, the military action in Venezuela, for it just to for him just to come out and just say yeah, no. I mean, we he'd already said a few times before we knew because of the sort of the the embargo and the seizure of the vessels that that was clear, the fact that we were gonna keep it and sell it. But him just coming out and just saying, you know, it's oil, I think was um was a really stark moment, in particular because when we go back to the war on terror, which you mentioned before, at that point, of course there were motives, but there was also at least a kind of pretense. There was a lip service being paid to sort of international norms that you at least had to pretend that it wasn't about oil, but it was about something else. But the sort of the flagrancy here of just being able these the arrogance, the swagger of being able to say, No, this is what we're doing here and not to shield it around anything, I think is pretty remarkable and tells you something as well about this administration and how and what it fit sort of feels it it it it it it's unlike previous administr administrations, it doesn't have any an iota of interest in taking anybody else along with it. Far from it, if we're looking at obviously sort of the existential crisis that NATO is suffering at the moment, not just with Ukraine and the US position on Ukraine, but also Greenland, um it's almost like um it's very happy to position itself against all of its traditional allies, and it is um it's something of a particular point in history. You know that there's this thing quite often history looks back and recognises something latterly um as regards its sort of historical import. It was very clear from the moment during the actual moment, so this was happening on Saturday, 3rd of January, that this was a key moment in history where uh maybe everything didn't quite change as regards Latin America because of course we're used to what is on average um or has been on average since the early twentieth century, um one intervention, one military or covert intervention uh roughly every 18 months or two years in in Latin America. But again, the scale and the sense in which this was done and is being done um I think is is a is a just changes absolutely everything. How is the US media covering this, Julia?

Julia Tilton: 9:40

Yeah, I mean with respect to Greenland, I I think I can get into this, but it's it's really striking to me how the US media coalesces around the information that Trump provides. I think we could spend a whole other conversation talking about how Trump has changed the media ecosystem and and is contributing to the change of the media ecosystem in the United States. But notable here that the news of the strike came from a Trump post on Truth Social, right? It didn't come from a legacy media organization. And so the media's coverage, you know, as they all swarm to get pieces of the story, doesn't really stray from the narrative that Trump is putting out. It doesn't ask probing questions, it doesn't dig deeper. And in fact, I was struck listening uh in the past 24 hours to the New York Times did a special episode of its daily podcast, which typically comes out you know, Monday to Friday during the work week. Um, but they did a special episode on Sunday, which was titled Inside the U.S. Operation to Oust Venezuela's president. Um, and you know, it dug into the hour-by-hour details of Operation Absolute Resolve, including, you know, the months of preparation that the Trump administration and the Pentagon were putting into this operation. Um, and in my mind, it's a it's a tricky balance when it comes to media coverage, because on the one hand, it's you know, it's information that's valuable and certainly it's, I would imagine, somewhat tantalizing to you know, New York Times listeners who want to feel like they're in on all of the juicy details. But at the same time, it also feeds into this gamification of US power and and also this otherization of a sovereign nation. Like it it sort of separates what happened with its consequences. Um and it's not disconnected in my mind from the fact that at least in the US media market, it's been really quite difficult to pin down a casualty count from the US raid. How many people were killed in the strikes on Caracas? For anyone who watched the images of the US launched fireballs that were gleaming across the dark night sky in the early hours of Saturday morning, it's really not a stretch of logic that people were probably hurt when those strikes landed and blew up buildings. Yet the coverage here in the US seems to treat that as kind of an afterthought.

Jon Bonfiglio: 12:17

Yeah, and it didn't even what was I think s stark was that um media coverage didn't even say we don't know the casualty uh casualty count yet. It just completely ignored the fact that there might be a casualty cam, given what took place. Um and that sort of has emerged uh laterally be beyond that. Um and it all took place so quickly as well, of course, within a few hours. Um Nicholas Maduro and his wife um Celia Flores were in New York. Um also just the way that I I actually think that there's there's a decent chance that this is gonna um be a mistake by the Trump administration, but that um the way in which these individuals are now being paraded again, I've said a number of times that you you can't understand any of this without understanding that these are televisual made for television opportunities. But the sort of the the the parading of these of the individuals of Maduro and his wife, um uh a alongside DEA agents, like very marked as well. The fact that this constant um forced narrative that these are drugs charges and this is a law and order offence that these uh they are being held up on is of course spurious at best and lacking any sort of um intellectual rigour. Um but uh yeah, the speed with which it all took place, and of course, within forty-eight hours, the the first arraignment at a court at a New York court in um in your New York jurisdiction in um in Manhattan, the very same jurisdiction which had held uh Juan Orlando Hernandez, uh former president of uh Honduras, who would be who was only a month ago pardoned by Donald Trump for drugs offenses uh for which he was serving 45 years in prison.

Julia Tilton: 14:11

Yeah, that's interesting. And just as you were describing the images of Maduro being like perp walked in New York City, it brings to mind the last time a public figure was given that treatment, and it sort of rose into the cultural consciousness here in the United States was Luigi Mangioni, who was, of course, convicted of murdering the United Healthcare CEO. Um, I believe in 2024, it's kind of hard to keep track of the years. Um, but you know, the the sort of attention that those images granted him and really the sympathy that those images granted him and and his sort of symbolism within US culture, um, it's just it it reminds me of that, this sort of, you know, everything is a video, everything is an image, um, it's really striking, um, particularly against the backdrop of of protests and um again the the coalescing of the media to sort of follow every move here.

Jon Bonfiglio: 15:14

Yeah, and I th and I think a potential mistake or a pet a potential miscalculation is lies in the fact that there is, and I'm not I don't want to trivialize this in any way, shape, or form, but there is undoubtedly a comic element to Maduro's um physicality, in particular his size, um how he holds himself, how everybody around him is so much smaller than than he is, but also the fact that as as a sort of an ex-dictator, he he sort of is is clearly straddling this very um fine line between you know wanting to tell everybody that they're idiots, um, but also being sort of deferential and actually not wanting to keep it in. So, like um not necessarily addressing the judge, but actually on his way in and out of court and stuff, um declaring to people that he's a prisoner of war, that he's illegal illegally being held, and and so on. He's he's not somebody who's gonna shut his mouth. And I I suspect that sooner rather than later, I mean of course um court appearances are gonna take that's the uh their time, so we're not gonna see him again until March at the next arraignment. But I would suspect that we're probably gonna have some kind of media blackout around him over the course of the next few months, because there is going to be this sort of uh th the the ridiculous clowny nature, surreal, unreal nature of what's taken place is multiplied by Maduro's physical presence and how he addresses the court and those around him, and that's not going to be something which follows uh the narrative path which Donald Trump wants it um um to follow. So yeah, I I suspect that something is going to shift uh slightly slightly there. Of course, uh today, the day that we're recording this, Julia is January the 6th, and uh right across US media the US media landscape, there is pretty much zero mention of the fact that this is the anniversary of the um Trump supported uh encouraged attack on the Capitol.

Julia Tilton: 17:22

Yeah, so that's that's absolutely right. It was five years ago today that uh violent protests took over the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Um, at the same time as Congress worked to verify results of the 2020 election, um, where U.S. voters elected Joe Biden over Donald Trump, who was serving his first term at the time. Um, among the rioters were leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, which are two white supremacist militia groups in the United States. Um, according to the internet, it is the only attempted coup directed toward the federal government in the history of the United States, which feels um like a heavy sentence. Um the FBI estimates that there were between 2,000 and 2,500 people, many of them who were armed, who actually entered the Capitol building during the attack. Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick was assaulted by rioters and he suffered um strokes and died the day after the attack. And at least 140 other officers were injured. Four of them later died by suicide. And the Capitol building itself also sustained significant damage. Um, as I mentioned, Trump was still in office during his first term at the time, and he is, as John just said, largely thought to have provoked the rioters. Many had gathered on the ellipse, which is a little green space just on the other side of the National Mall, right by the White House. Um, these protesters were gathered for a Trump rally where he repeatedly claimed falsehoods about the results of the 2020 election, saying that it was stolen when in fact he had lost to Joe Biden. Um flash forward to 2025 on Trump's first day in office during his second term, he then pardoned some 1,600 of those rioters who were charged and faced jail time as a result of the violence that occurred in 2021. I was reflecting on this day and thinking about I spent about a year and a half living in Washington, DC. Um, and while I was there, I had the opportunity in the summer of 2024 to tour the U.S. Capitol with former New Mexico representative Heather Wilson, who is a Republican who served from 1998 to 2009. Um, and the way that it works is that if you have been a member of Congress, you have access to the Capitol building for a lifetime, and you have the privilege to give um, you know, guided tours to groups of friends and colleagues. Sort of at your leisure. And so I was lucky enough to be invited on one of these tours with a group of Wilson's friends and colleagues, many of whom worked in government or still work in government. And although she wasn't in office during the January 6th riots, many of the people on the tour were staffers and aides to members of Congress who had served until 2021. And I remember there's a point on the tour when you have to leave your phone outside and you go into the Senate chamber. And I I will never forget some of these staffers who had like a visceral reaction to being in that room, being in the Senate chamber, because they remembered what that day was like, you know, in 2021 on January 6th. And they shared stories while we were in the chamber of receiving texts from the people that they reported to, the members of Congress, who thought that the nation was under attack and who thought that they might not make it out of that room where we were sitting alive. Like that visceral fear, which I don't think is really reflected in media coverage and certainly is not, you know, the lead story today. As John and I were discussing this weekend's events, I predicted that in light of the news cycle, um the five years since January 6th, 2021 story would be buried. And that's mostly true. There has been some scant coverage here and there, including an Axios rundown, which maybe we can link to, um, of a White House webpage that appeared this morning that attempts to relitigate the attack that happened five years ago and calls it a democratic fabrication, um, and then blames then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Jon Bonfiglio: 21:47

Thanks, Julia. Just as you're as you were speaking about um the events on uh January the sixth, it just reminded me of the old Milan Kundera phrase that the struggle for freedom is the struggle for memory against forgetting. Thanks so much. Look forward to talking to you.