Well, it’s officially been one month since Operation Absolute Resolve successfully removed narco-terrorist Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and put him in a Brooklyn detention center. In some ways, it feels like yesterday, and in others, it feels like a year. I was debating even commemorating the occasion, but I saw the joy of thousands of Venezuelans doing it, and I wanted to share their excitement with all of you.
Plus, I ran across an article earlier with a headline that said something like “One month later, Donald Trump still has no plan for Venezuela.”
I clicked on it, and I realized instantly that it was just anti-Trump propaganda, and though I wasn’t overly familiar with the website where I found it, our managing editor, Chris Queen, let me know that it is definitely a “Never Trump” kind of place, so I’m not even going to link it here.
Propaganda is exactly what it was. First of all, the headline was a lie. Trump has no plan? Do you think he just woke up one day and was like, “Hey, Pete Hegseth, let’s go drop down in Venezuela and take out Maduro!” While the specifics of how it would happen weren’t always there, getting Maduro out of Venezuela has been in the works for a long, long time. Heck, I think Marco Rubio has been planning it himself for years, so I have no doubt that it’s been in the works since at least January 20, 2025.
You don’t embark on that sort of mission with no plan for the aftermath — unless maybe you’re Barack Obama in Libya or Joe Biden in Afghanistan —and Rubio, who is largely in charge, had a plan all along. I have no doubt. He’s also laid it out for us multiple times and did so extensively when he testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations last week. There are three phases:
Phase One: Stability. No one knew how the Venezuelan people would respond to this.
“In the aftermath of the removal of Maduro, the concern was what happens in Venezuela. Is there civil war? Do the different factions start going at each other? Are a million people crossing the border into Colombia? All of that has been avoided. And one of the primary ways that it has been avoided is the ability to establish direct, honest – respectful but very direct and honest conversations with the people who today control the elements of that nation, meaning the law enforcement, the government apparatus, etc.” Rubio said.
Phase Two: Recovery. That nation’s oil is its lifeline. The regime ran it into the ground. The only way to Make Venezuela Great Again is to take steps to fix it.
“Their natural resources are going to allow Venezuela to be stable and prosperous moving forward. And so we created the – what we hope to do is transition to a mechanism that allows that to be sold in a normal way, a normal oil industry – not one dominated by cronies, not one dominated by graft and corruption,” he said.
Phase Three: Democracy.
“…we want to reach a phase of transition where we are left with a friendly, stable, prosperous Venezuela, and democratic, in which all elements of society are represented. By the way, you can have elections. You can have elections all day. But if the opposition has no access to the media, if opposition candidates are routinely dismissed and unable to be on the ballot because of the government, those aren’t free and fair elections. That’s the end state that we went: free, fair, prosperous, and friendly Venezuela. We’re not going to get there in three weeks. It’s going to take some time,” Rubio explained.
Yes, it will take time, and no, it won’t be easy, but Trump and Rubio and many other people are committed. The Venezuelan people who oppose the regime are committed too. After all, we can only hold hands for so long. They will have to step up. And they are.
The anti-Trump article I mentioned also suggested that there has been no progress. No progress at all! It gave examples like “Trump opened up the skies but you still can’t visit” … Please tell me no one is that stupid (with the exception of Margaret Brennan who keeps asking this question of her guests. Bless her heart.)
If you want to talk about progress, I’ll show you progress.
Take a look at this post by María Corina Machado. The caption reads: “Today, on the streets of Caracas. A country determined to be free! 30 days ago this was unthinkable… Freedom for all political prisoners!”
Hoy, en las calles de Caracas.
Un país decidido a ser libre!Hace 30 días esto era impensable…
Libertad para todos los presos políticos! pic.twitter.com/fQA1rwrYDh— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) February 3, 2026
“30 days ago this was unthinkable.” She’s right.
Thirty days ago if you went out in the street marching and shouting and protesting, you’d land your backside in a detention center where you’d be charged with things like “conspiracy” or “terrorism,” tortured, taken to a kangaroo court where you’d receive a 30-year sentence for no reason at all, returned to the torture center, and left with little food, medical care, hygiene, or access to the outside world. Your family and friends would not know where you were or if you were even still alive.
Yet today, hundreds, maybe thousands of people marched through the country’s capital city, calling for freedom and the release of the remaining political prisoners. Many of them were the university students I wrote about a week or two ago in my article Did Trump Embolden Venezuela’s Sleeping Giant?
They’ve been planning for this for days, and they’re brave as hell, but most of them have never lived in a free society. Rosa Cucunuba, for example, a 22-year-old student who is one of their leaders, said that yes, she is scared, and she’s even had to go into hiding at times.
“But in the end, what scares me most is not living in a democracy. I was born and raised in this system,” she said.
🇻🇪 | URGENTE — Los estudiantes venezolanos se acaban de lanzar a las calles.
Se reportan protestas masivas en las universidades después de mucho tiempo. pic.twitter.com/ibJF5ZzvAi
— Agustín Antonetti (@agusantonetti) February 3, 2026
The students were joined by the families of political prisoners and other citizens. I haven’t seen anyone in the media report on any of that. By the way, these were some of the same brave students who got in Delcy “MAGA” Rodríguez’s face last week, calling her a socialist and demanding the release of the political prisoners. You didn’t do that 30 days ago either.
🇻🇪‼️ | URGENTE — Un grupo de estudiantes universitarios en Caracas acaban de interceptar a Delcy Rodriguez y le pidieron en su cara la liberación de todos los presos políticos.
La valentía de estos jovenes es impresionante, frente a toda su seguridad. No les soltemos la mano. pic.twitter.com/CkaOLxWGGZ
— Agustín Antonetti (@agusantonetti) January 27, 2026
I’d say that alone is progress, but in 30 days, we’ve also seen:
- The release of of 344 political prisoners. Still hundreds more to go, but that’s progress.
- The reversal of the nationalization of the oil industry.
- Reduced handouts to China, Cuba, Iran, etc.
- The U.S. Treasury setting up accounts for the oil revenue so it can eventually return to the people.
- Opposition leaders like Machado having a voice again and meeting with Trump and Rubio multiple times.
- Hold-outs like Gustavo Petro and Claudia Sheinbaum are cooperating on other hemispheric pursuits.
- A proposed amnesty bill for political prisoners.
- Delcy, her brother Jorge, and Diosdado Cabello speaking as if they work for the Trump administration.
- Re-opening of the skies over Venezuela so that *eventually* commercial flights can resume.
- American Airlines stepping up to say it will be the first airline to fly to Caracas.
- Cartel de los Soles, one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world, is fractured.
- A phased reopening of the U.S. embassy that shut down in 2019.
- Chargé d’Affaires Laura Dogu arriving in the country recently and already having a sit-down with Delcy on Monday to “to reiterate the three phases that Rubio has outline for Venezuela.”
Hoy me reuní con Delcy Rodríguez y Jorge Rodríguez para reiterar las tres fases que el @SecRubio ha planteado sobre Venezuela: estabilización, recuperación económica y reconciliación, y transición – LFD pic.twitter.com/QoMbqgOf8S
— Embajada de los EE.UU., Venezuela (@usembassyve) February 2, 2026
Not bad for a country that’s been a hellhole for many years.
I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but I’m doing this off the top of my head. And I know a lot of this is stuff I’ve already written about, but that “no plan/no progress” article — and sorting through what media coverage there is today — just kind of got me down. I feel like I can’t counter it enough.
Trump and Rubio are doing something magnificent here, and they’re doing it faster than I expected. Anyone who can’t see that or who can’t at least show some appreciation for it just doesn’t want to give the president credit. The people of Venezuela, from these brave university students to the opposition leaders to the families of the political prisoners are also stepping up, and I know that eventually, they will meet us halfway.
Something remarkable for the history books will be the result, and if it was any other president who initiated it or the students were protesting in favor of socialism instead of against it, I have no doubt that it would be the top story on every MSM website, newspapers, or TV show. Until then, you’ll just have to get it from PJ Media.
We will cover the progress in Venezuela every step of the way, and we’ll do it without running it through some kind of anti-Trump filter. If things go awry, we’ll speak up and say so, but we also want to give credit where it’s due.
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