Summary: David Rothkopf told The Daily Beast Podcast that while the operation to capture Nicolás Maduro looked tactically successful, the United States appears to lack a concrete plan for governing Venezuela or managing its oil industry after the raid. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty in Manhattan to drug-related charges after their arrest by roughly 200 U.S. Special Operations troops. Rothkopf warned the intervention risks being viewed as illegal coercion rather than a law-enforcement action and described the administration’s posture as a new "Don-roe" or mafia-style foreign policy.
Analyst: Maduro Raid Exposed White House’s Lack Of A Post-Operation Plan
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were escorted by armed federal agents en route to a courthouse in Manhattan on Monday. / XNY/Star Max / GC Images
Overview: The U.S. seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has raised urgent questions about what comes next, with foreign policy analyst David Rothkopf telling The Daily Beast Podcast that the operation was tactically precise but strategically incomplete.
Rothkopf said the military phase—capturing Maduro and flying him out of Caracas—appeared well executed. But he argued that once Maduro was removed, the administration had no clear plan for governing Venezuela, managing its vast oil reserves, or handling the political vacuum that followed.
Key Concerns After The Raid
"As exquisitely planned as the military operation was, the minute that Maduro was put on a helicopter and flown out of the country, there was no remaining plan," Rothkopf told host Joanna Coles. He said U.S. policymakers still lack clarity on who will lead Venezuela, which local actors can be relied upon, and how control of the country’s oil industry would be reconstituted.
"We don’t know who’s in charge in Venezuela. We don’t know who’s on our side in Venezuela. We don’t know what we’re going to do next in Venezuela. We don’t know how we’re going to control the oil in Venezuela. We don’t know which oil companies are going to participate in this in Venezuela," Rothkopf said. "Frankly, I don’t even think they understand really how the Maduro trial is going to play out because a lot of what they’re accusing him of isn’t actually true."
Legal And Operational Details
Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, pleaded not guilty in Manhattan to charges that include conspiracy to import cocaine. According to reports, about 200 U.S. Special Operations forces conducted the early-Saturday operation in Caracas that resulted in the couple's capture. President Trump later acknowledged he had spoken with oil industry executives about the operation but did not inform Congress beforehand.
Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio monitored the Venezuela operation from Mar-a-Lago. / Handout / White House via Getty Images
Political Fallout And U.S. Intentions
After the raid, President Trump reportedly declined to endorse opposition leader María Corina Machado as an interim head of state—reportedly because of tensions tied to a Nobel Peace Prize she accepted—saying instead that the U.S. would "run" the country and consider seizing its oil assets to revive production.
Rothkopf criticized that line of reasoning, arguing it undermines any claim the action was purely law enforcement. "How could it be a law enforcement operation if what we were doing was illegally intervening in a country to illegally kidnap the leader of another country and then essentially conduct what is a giant armed robbery where we’re going to steal the world’s largest oil reserves..." he said. "So what we’re doing actually is a crime. It’s not a law enforcement operation."
Doctrinal Concerns
Rothkopf described the administration’s posture toward Venezuela, and talk of interventions in places like Colombia, Cuba and Greenland, as a new, coercive doctrine he dubbed the "Don-roe" approach—comparing it to a mafia-style assertion of territorial control backed by muscle rather than law.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Rothkopf’s remarks or details of the post-capture strategy for Venezuela.
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