Who will be the next long-term head of Venezuela?
Late last night I wrote a draft for this post, and in it I said the following:
Was Maduro’s VP Delcy Rodriguez the mole? Did she cooperate to bring him down? It’s a weird thought and I doubt it’s the case, but it nevertheless occurs to me as a possibility. After all, she knew the US wanted Maduro, and she knew she was next in line, and she knew she’d get points for helping the US bring him down, and she almost certainly had access to information about his movements. Is her reward that they’ll give her a chance to run the country, if she plays ball with the US?
Now I see this:
Delcy Rodriguez has been formally sworn in as new president of Venezuela, amid strong rumors that she cooperated with the CIA to oust Maduro. …
She’s quickly expressed her willingness to cooperate with the United States on the future of Venezuela, in a significant shift in tone following Maduro’s Friday into Saturday morning ‘shock’ abduction by US special forces.
“We consider it a priority to move towards a balanced and respectful relationship between the US and Venezuela,” Rodriguez wrote on Telegram Sunday.
And more than that, her following words convey willingness of Caracas to bend the knee: “We extend an invitation to the US government to work together on a cooperation agenda, aimed at shared development, within the framework of international law, and to strengthen lasting community coexistence,” she stated.
I’m not even going to opine on what I think will happen, because I think it’s way too early.
Here’s Rubio on the subject of what comes next:
And from commenter “TJ,” this seems pretty important, if true:
Apparently, the Venezuelan Constitution has a proviso in the event of unforeseen interruption of top leadership. First, the Vice President now controls their government. Second, he or she must declare an election within 45 days.
When I checked, I found the following, which somewhat resembles it:
Venezuela’s Supreme Court late Saturday ordered Vice President Delcy Rodriguez to become the country’s interim leader, after the United States seized President Nicolas Maduro and whisked him out of the country. …
The judges stopped short of declaring Maduro permanently absent from office, a ruling that requires holding elections within 30 days.
And back in NY, Maduro says he’s innocent, the head of Venezuela, and a prisoner of war. The judge in the case is 92-year-old Alvin Hellerstein, who is an Orthodox Jew and was appointed by Bill Clinton.
The report of MAGA’s fracture may be greatly exaggerated …
… and although the cracks are not imaginary, we don’t know if they’re deep fissures or only surface flaws.
In this Tablet article, Michael Doran seems to think they’re deep and probably fatal to MAGA. The piece is very long and I confess I gave up reading it long before the end. I already know a great deal about the Fuentes/Carlson wing that takes up a large portion of its analysis, but the piece seemed to be short on figures that would tell us how much influence these groups really have.
As I said, the article is very long, but all I could find on that topic was a throwaway couple of lines:
Since the October 27 Carlson–Fuentes interview exploded across Rumble and flooded onto X, posts branding Trump a “Zionist puppet” or recasting Ukraine aid as “globalist war funding” have racked up millions of impressions, often outpacing sober defenses of Trump’s big-tent project. Holocaust-denying memes outrun statements by government officials. Musk’s new location-tagging features have already exposed a swath of “America First” accounts as foreign operators—Pakistanis, Indians, Nigerians—posing as domestic populists. It was a brief reminder that a trend line on X is not the voice of the American electorate.
And yet it seems the assumption of Doran’s article is that X is the voice of the American electorate.
I’ve written several times on the subject, and I certainly don’t know the answer as to how big the MAGA splinter group is. But I see no indication that Doran is making a serious effort to tackle the question.
In no surprise at all, Tim Walz withdraws from Minnesota governor’s race
Even Walz could read the writing on the wall, although he wasn’t happy about it:
On Monday morning, we learned that Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) is dropping his reelection bid.
Walz released a statement Monday morning confirming reports that he was dropping out of the race and later held a press conference.
During the press conference, he apparently just read his previous statement, and took no questions:
He again accused Republicans and President Donald Trump of exploiting the crisis politically. He again accused the White House of demonizing Somali communities and withholding child care funds.
He again insisted his administration had aggressively tackled fraud, fired bad actors, locked down programs, and put the right people in charge. And he again cast himself as the adult in the room, reluctantly abandoning politics so he could focus on governing.
This clears the way for Amy Klobuchar to run for the office; my guess is that she’ll run and she’ll win:
Klobuchar didn’t comment on her future political plans in a statement Monday. But the senator, commenting on the governor’s move to combat the fraud scandal full time rather than to seek another term in office, said, “Walz made the difficult decision to focus on his job and the challenges facing our state rather than campaigning and running for re-election.”
The senator has won all four of her Senate elections by wide margins, including a nearly 16-point re-election in 2024.
Selfless Tim Walz.
As soon as I saw that the NY Times was focusing on the Minnesota fraud cases, I realized that the Democrats wanted Walz out of the race. On December 1 I wrote:
But still, the [Times’] highlighting of Walz’s role surprised me. My guess is that the Times would like him to refrain from any more participation in national politics, he was such a disaster in 2024. I have no evidence for this; it’s just a hunch.
And of course, because the Times is basically the Democrats’ propaganda organ, that meant that the Democrats wanted Tim out. They got what they wanted.
It is astounding to me that Walz came fairly close to becoming VP.
Late start today
Spent a ridiculous amount of time dealing with “customer service” type issues. But here I am.
Open thread 1/5/2026
Plisetskaya:
More on Venezuela
It seems this was the culmination of months – or more? – of planning, with signals and warnings for Maduro to go into exile or else. Now we see the “or else.”
There are also rumors that it’s all staged and Maduro cooperated. I definitely don’t think that’s the case.He almost certainly could have absconded to one of his sponsor states instead. They may not be paradises, but they’re better than US prison.
Trump is now saying that we’ll be running Venezuela till the new government takes over:
We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. So we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition, and it has to be judicious, because that’s what we’re all about.
We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela who are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country as their homeland.
We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela, that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind for decades. We’re not going to let that happen. …
We are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave if we needed to do so.
I figured they had a plan at the outset. But what is that plan, how long will it take, and will it be successful? Trump’s not a big one for lengthy neoconnish nation-building endeavors, but does this threaten to become that? There’s a president and/or VP waiting in the wings in exile, Machado and Gonzalez who actually were elected in the previous election in Venezuela, as was widely acknowledged at the time. So if anyone is the legitimate leader of Venezuela, it would be one or both of them. But how can their installation be facilitated? The regime itself, minus Maduro, will almost certainly want to hang onto power, or at least some of the cast of characters will (I listed them in my previous post on the subject).
We’re learning a bit more about the action itself, from Chairman John Daniel Caine:
“This operation, known as Operation Absolute Resolve, was discreet, precise, and conducted during the darkest hours of January 2, and was the culmination of months of planning and rehearsal, an operation that, frankly, only the United States military could undertake.”
Chairman Caine continued.
“This particular mission required every component of our joint force with soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and guardians, working in unison with our intelligence agency partners and law enforcement teammates in an unprecedented operation, we leveraged our unmatched intelligence capabilities and our years of experience in hunting terrorists, and we could not have done this mission without the incredible work by various intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA and NGA.”
There’s a very interesting post at Althouse covering the different takes of the WaPo and NY Times on this:
I’m [Althouse, that is] reading “Trump’s bold capture of Maduro was a victory for America. What’s next?” by The Editorial Board of The Washington Post. That’s the front page headline. Inside it’s “Justice in Venezuela/The next challenge is setting the country up for long-term success.”
The editorial ends: “For years, Maduro was a symbol of the false warmth of Latin American collectivism. Now he should spend the rest of his life in a humane American prison. His downfall is good news.”
That’s astounding on two levels. The first is that it seems to contain elements of praise for Trump, and the second is the rather obvious reference to the inaugural speech of the odious Mamdani (I covered that in this post, where Mamdani is quoted as having said: “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism”).
The Times is not as pleased as the WaPo:
Anyway, the WaPo editors seem rather positive about Trump’s action in Venezuela. The mood at The New York Times is different: “Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Is Illegal and Unwise.” It ends:
“We will hold out hope that the current crisis will end less badly than we expect. We fear that the result of Mr. Trump’s adventurism is increased suffering for Venezuelans, rising regional instability and lasting damage for America’s interests around the world. We know that Mr. Trump’s warmongering violates the law.”
It doesn’t violate the precedent I discussed in my earlier post, the Noriega case. Jonathan Turley also doesn’t think it violates the law; I hadn’t seen his comment when I wrote my earlier piece, but here it is:
The administration is acting within the navigational beacons of the Noriega case. And by the way, for all these Democrats objecting, the authority that Trump could cite is Barack Obama. Barack Obama vaporized a US citizen without a criminal charge. One would think that if a president could do that, and I don’t remember Democrats objecting en masse that you could arrest someone for trial with an existing indictment.
You can see some photos of Venezuelans around the world celebrating.
And it’s been announced that Maduro has landed in NY:
The aircraft believed to be carrying Nicolas Maduro has touched down at Stewart Airport in Orange County, New York, Saturday afternoon, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Maduro is now expected to take a helicopter to New York City, accompanied by the DEA. He will then head by motorcade to a location in New York City for processing before he’s held in jail, sources said.
Mamdani’s rogues gallery of appointments
Mamdani’s appointees so far are about as expected. A sampler:
On Friday, the new mayor named Ali Najmi to chair his Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, which picks judges for family and civil courts and interim appointees for criminal courts; Najmi is big on making the bench more “diverse.”
Mamdani outright ordered the committee to find more diversity picks and to get public defenders and other anti-prosecution types more involved in judicial selections: Expect the city’s courts to become even more eager to put criminals back on the streets.
But what sounds even worse is this character:
The day before, [Mamdani] picked Cea Weaver to run his Office to Protect Tenants: She’s a proud radical who has called for the city to force private landlords out of business so it can seize their buildings; that’s partly why she praises his rent-freeze plans as likely to “deepen the crises” in the housing marketplace.
She’s spent years advocating unabashed Marxism: “Elect more Communists,” ran a tweet from December 2017; “Seize private property,” another in June 2018.
Plus this one:
Ramzi Kassem will serve as City Hall’s chief counsel; he recently defended Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil and before that an al Qaeda terrorist who pleaded guilty to planning a major terrorist attack on a French ship.
As a student at Columbia in 1998, Kassem wrote an article blaming “European Jews” for all the problems in the Middle East; he was a top Biden adviser on immigration, when the main policy was to let everyone in, no questions asked.
Perhaps Tucker Carlson could become press secretary. He’s already auditioned for the job:
“Is the incoming mayor a fan of Israel? Does he want America to fight its wars? Not particularly. But a Jew hater? That’s a different conversation. We’ve never seen anything to suggest he falls into that ugly camp. Because he doesn’t,” Carlson wrote.
He noted that Mamdani rejected that he was antisemitic during the campaign, but said it didn’t keep people from “slandering him as some sort of dark force plotting to install the Fourth Reich in America’s largest city.”
NOTE: Speaking of Mamdani, I was wondering what he’s said about Maduro, and I found this weaselly answer from his campaigning days:
The US captures Maduro
That’s a sentence I didn’t expect to be writing. And yet it’s true:
Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were captured by US forces during a “large-scale” nighttime military operation early Saturday, President Trump announced.
“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement. Details to follow.”
You can find more information in this Instapundit post, including the fact that China didn’t seem to have anticipated this, and the following:
I’m with some Cubans right now and they’re literally crying tears of joy.
Venezuelans are celebrating all over the globe too.
If anyone thinks this military operation was a bad idea you have NO idea how many votes we just gained for the midterms.
Trump is now the absolute hero of the Latin Americans.
I have little doubt that most Venezuelans, both refugees and those still in that long-suffering country, are happy. And people of Cuban descent in the US? Likewise. Secretary of State Rubio is, of course, one of those Americans of Cuban descent, who issued this statement a while back:
Before the U.S. captured and indicted Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was “NOT the president of Venezuela.”
In a post on X from July 2025, Rubio made clear the Trump administration’s stance on Maduro’s authority in the country, adding that “his regime is NOT the legitimate government.”
“Maduro is the head of the Cartel de Los Soles, a narco-terror organization which has taken possession of a country. And he is under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States,” Rubio wrote.
Recently the reward for Maduro’s capture was upped to fifty million dollars. Will someone receive it? Intelligence had to have been very good to be able to pull this off.
The left will be very upset by this action, to say the least.
The legal precedent seems to be the capture of Noriega in 1989. To refresh your memory:
Noriega’s relationship with the U.S. deteriorated in the late 1980s after the murder of Hugo Spadafora and the forced resignation of President Nicolás Ardito Barletta. Eventually, his relationship with intelligence agencies in other countries came to light, and his involvement in drug trafficking was investigated further. In 1988, Noriega was indicted by federal grand juries in Miami and Tampa on charges of racketeering, drug smuggling, and money laundering. The U.S. launched an invasion of Panama following failed negotiations seeking his resignation, and Noriega’s annulment of the 1989 Panamanian general election. Noriega was captured and flown to the U.S., where he was tried on the Miami indictment, convicted on most of the charges, and sentenced to 40 years in prison, ultimately serving 17 years after a reduction in his sentence for good behavior. Noriega was extradited to France in 2010, where he was convicted and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for money laundering. In 2011 France extradited him to Panama, where he was incarcerated for crimes committed during his rule, for which he had been tried and convicted in absentia in the 1990s. Diagnosed with a brain tumor in March 2017, Noriega suffered complications during surgery, and died two months later.
Noriega’s dictatorship was marked by repression of the media, an expansion of the military, and the persecution of political opponents, effectively controlling the outcomes of any elections.
The parallels are not exact, but they certainly exist and include a stolen election. One big difference is that the capture of Noriega (Bush I was president) involved “27,000 soldiers, as well as 300 aircraft,” which is a far cry from what happened in Venezuela in the wee hours of this morning.
The case at bar [1990] presents the Court with a drama of international proportions, considering the status of the principal defendant and the difficult circumstances under which he was brought before this Court. …
On February 14, 1988, a federal grand jury sitting in Miami, Florida returned a twelve-count indictment charging General Manuel Antonio Noriega with participating in an international conspiracy to import cocaine and materials used in producing cocaine into and out of the United States. …
As is evident from the unusual factual background underlying this case, the Court is presented with several issues of first impression. This is the first time that a leader or de facto leader of a sovereign nation has been forcibly brought to the United States to face criminal charges. …
In sum, because Noriega’s conduct in Panama is alleged to have resulted in a direct effect within the United States, the Court concludes that extraterritorial jurisdiction is appropriate as a matter of international law. […] Jurisdiction over Defendant’s extraterritorial conduct is therefore appropriate both as a matter of international law and statutory construction. …
Rather than supporting Defendants’ overall position pressed under the Geneva Convention, this Article appears to recognize the right to prosecute asserted by the Government. The Article refers to “prisoners … prosecuted under the laws of the Detaining Power” (i.e., the United States) and for acts “committed prior to capture.” Further, the benefits of the Convention shall be afforded the POW “even if convicted.” The indictment charges the Defendants with violations of the laws of the United States allegedly committed between December 1982 and March 1986 – well before the military action and apprehension by surrender.
The mullahs must be very unhappy; Iran is a big ally of Maduro’s. I doubt they’re feeling especially safe today. I wonder whether the Venezuela strike was partly an effort to “persuade” them it might be in their interests to step down.
This not-so-surprising group of nations has condemned Maduro’s capture:
Iran, Colombia, Hezbollah, and Russia condemned the military operation performed by the United States in Venezuela on Saturday, where US special forces troops captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, while major US allies like Germany, Spain, and Italy said they were following the situation closely.
Iran, an ally of Venezuela, said that the military attack on Venezuela was “a blatant violation of its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Hezbollah stated that it “condemns the terrorist aggression and American thuggery against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” and “further affirms its full solidarity with Venezuela – its people, presidency, and government – in confronting this American aggression and arrogance.”
A very important question is: who will succeed Maduro? We don’t know at present:
A contender who could replace Maduro is Edmundo González, who was recognized by the U.S. as the winner of the disputed 2024 presidential election.
Maduro’s party nevertheless claimed victory and the country’s highest court upheld his re-election. An arrest warrant was later issued for González, and he fled to Spain amid concerns for his safety.
Meanwhile María Corina Machado, the true opposition leader and head of the Vente Venezuela party, could also take over. Machado overwhelmingly won a 2023 presidential primary, but was blocked from running for president by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice.
Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and appeared in Oslo after escaping Venezuela. She had been in hiding since 2024.
There are other contenders, of course:
Diosdado Cabello emerges as the most feared and influential figure in the regime. La Nación describes him as the longtime number two of Chavismo, with sweeping control over party machinery and the propaganda apparatus. …
Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly and one of Maduro’s closest political operators, is another senior figure positioned for any succession scenario. …
Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s vice president, is described as a central political operator within the regime and part of a powerful governing duo with her brother Jorge. …
Ivan Hernández Dala heads Venezuela’s military counterintelligence service (DGCIM) and commands the presidential guard, making him one of the most feared figures in the security apparatus. His control over internal repression gives him significant leverage in any power struggle. …
Vladimir Padrino López, Venezuela’s long-serving defense minister, is portrayed by La Nación as the backbone of the military establishment and the guarantor of Maduro’s survival.
Where are they now?
Maduro didn’t have many allies among Western nations, and so it will be interesting to see what Europe ends up saying about this action against Maduro.
Open thread 1/3/2026
Speculation on Victor Davis Hanson’s health problems
I’ve been a VDH fan for a long time, and the news that he’s been facing an enormous health challenge, including a major surgery, is concerning. Many people are offering prayers and good wishes for a full recovery, and I join them.
Because the news hasn’t included many details or a diagnosis, a lot of people are speculating on what disease Hanson may have. I join in the speculation here, despite my having no medical credentials whatsoever and no information other than what I read in the media. So take what I have to say with a huge caveat: it’s just a guess.
Much if not most of the speculation concerns various forms of cancer, but I’m offering another possibility: a severe case of sarcoidosis. I knew someone once who received that diagnosis, and so I’m mildly familiar with what it is.
Sarcoidosis fits some things that were said or already known about Hanson: lung symptoms can be prominent, it is a rare disease but more common in farmers (and Scandinavians, which I believe is Hanson’s ethnic background), and it is diagnosed by biopsy in many cases. Most people do not need surgery and mild cases may not even need treatment. But severe cases – in which lungs are damaged – can require lung surgery or even a lung transplant:
Sarcoidosis surgery isn’t a cure but is used for diagnosis (biopsies), treating severe complications like fungal balls (aspergilloma) or blockages, and, in rare, end-stage cases, organ transplantation (lungs, heart, liver) for life-threatening damage, significantly improving quality of life but carrying risks like infection or rejection. Procedures range from minimally invasive camera-assisted lung biopsies (VATS) to major surgeries, aiming to relieve symptoms or prevent further deterioration, especially when medications fail or organs are failing.
Hanson is older than the typical person diagnosed, and the illness is somewhat more common in women and he’s not a woman. As I said, this diagnostic possibility is totally speculative on my part.
The MSM jumps into action … against Nick Shirley, maker of the viral video about Minnesota daycare centers
Your intrepid reporters are on the job:
… [Some in] our present liberal media … seem more concentrated on trying to debunk what Shirley was exposing than on finding out the facts.
CNN had a correspondent confront Shirley outside of one of the daycare centers, asking him about his story, as our sister site Townhall reported. Shirley said he stood by his story, but he invited them to do their “own analysis.”
“So we can make our own analysis?” Whitney Wild responded. What a concept.
They then showed their correspondent, Wild, saying they were looking into the claims. She said they “reached out” to several of the centers that Shirley had visited, “Only one answered and said they are a legitimate business.”
Well, I guess everything is cool, then. They say they’re good, so it must be true.
More at the link.
Meanwhile, as might be expected, Nick Shirley has gotten death threats:
Shirley described the threats during a Dec. 31 appearance on the PBD Podcast, and said he was warned he would be “Kirked,” a reference to the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. …
Shirley appeared shaken as he described the toll the threats had taken, particularly the calls received by his family. …
Shirley maintained that his investigation was about financial accountability, not politics.
“I didn’t make this a right-or-left issue,” he said.
But to the left, everything is a right-or-left issue. If it reflects badly on the left, it must be “debunked” and the messenger, and his family, are fair game for threats of violence and for actual violence. The idea is not just to punish that person, but to have a chilling effect on other challenges to the leftist “narrative.”