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** THE WEEKLY REVEAL
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Saturday, January 17, 2026


** A Dictator Deposed—What Now for Venezuela?
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** Cristian Hernandez/AP
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Journalist Mariana Zúñiga woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of explosions and military planes in Caracas, Venezuela. Her WhatsApp chats flashed the news: The ruling dictator, Nicholás Maduro, had just been captured by the US military.

She was surprised and felt uneasy about what was to come.

In the days that followed, Zúñiga would go into the field, despite the dangers journalists face, to report on what the country feels like at this tumultuous moment.

This week on Reveal, we speak with Venezuelans about witnessing this moment of history from up close and afar. For Freddy Guevara, an exiled Venezuelan opposition leader living in the US, there is little confidence in the country’s new leadership.

“They are not moderate at all,” Guevara says. “They are super radical, and they believe they are smarter than everyone.”

And historian Alejandro Velasco explains the role Venezuela’s most valuable resource—oil—has played in the country’s history and relations with the US.
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🎧 Other places to listen: Spotify ([link removed]) , Overcast ([link removed]) , iHeartRadio ([link removed]) , or wherever you get your podcasts.


** America’s New Era of Violent Populism Is Here
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Joel Marklund/Bildbyran

A year ago this month, President Donald Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 people responsible for the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

When Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor who studies domestic political violence, heard about the pardons, he says he immediately thought it was “going to be the worst thing that happened in the second Trump presidency.”

The first year of Trump’s second term has been a blizzard of policies and executive actions that have shattered presidential norms, been challenged in court as unlawful, threatened to remake the federal government, and redefined the limits of presidential power.

But Pape argues that Trump’s decision to pardon and set free the January 6 insurrectionists, including hundreds who had been found guilty of assaulting police, could be the most consequential decision of his second term.

“There are many ways we could lose our democracy. But the most worrisome way is through political violence,” Pape says. “Because the political violence is what would make the democratic backsliding you’re so used to hearing about irreversible. And then how might that actually happen? You get people willing to fight for Trump.”

On this week’s More To The Story, Pape talks with host Al Letson about how America’s transformation to a white minority is fueling the nation’s growing political violence, the remarkable political geography of the insurrectionists, and the glimmers of hope he’s found in his research that democracy can survive this pivotal moment in history.

Find this episode wherever you listen to Reveal, and don’t forget to subscribe:
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** In Case You Missed It
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** 🎧 I Study Fascism. I’ve Already Fled America. ([link removed])
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Former Yale professor Jason Stanley has taken a lot of heat for moving to Canada. Why? Because he studies fascism—and he believes it’s already arrived in the US.

Photo Credit: ANP/Zuma

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** 🎧 Lessons From Trump’s “War” on Chicago ([link removed])
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As ICE continues to terrorize Minneapolis, now is a good time to revisit one of the earlier stops on the Trump administration’s deportation blitz: Chicago.

Photo Credit: Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times/AP

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** 🎧 What Trump’s Venezuela Attack Means for the World ([link removed])
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Foreign Policy’s Emma Ashford examines how the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro could signal a new era of US foreign policy.

Photo Credit: Kyle Mazza/CNP/Zuma

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** 🎧 The Black Market for a Lifesaving Cat Drug ([link removed])

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A fatal cat disease was finally cured, but the treatment wasn’t legally available. So a group of cat lovers created an international black market.

Photo Credit: Krissy Krummenacker/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty

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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Arianna Coghill and edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend ([link removed]) . Have some thoughts? Drop us a line (mailto:[email protected]) with feedback or ideas!

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