Name: Details on CIA assessment produced before Maduro capture
Uploaded: 2026-01-06T23:22:28.938Z
Duration: 2 min 38 s
Description: Prior to the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the CIA was commissioned to produce an assessment modeling potential political leadership scenarios in Venezuela should Maduro cease to be president.

Prior to the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the CIA was commissioned to produce an assessment modeling potential political leadership scenarios in Venezuela should Maduro cease to be president.

Washington

The U.S has launched strikes on sites inside Venezuela, including military facilities and arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro along wife his wife.

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CBS News has confirmed that the CIA was tasked with creating an assessment of possible political leadership scenarios in Venezuela in the event that Nicolas Maduro was no longer president. The assessment, completed before Maduro's capture, was briefed to a select group of senior U.S. administration officials and focused on who could maintain stability in the country during a sudden leadership transition.

According to sources, the CIA determined that short-term stability would most likely be maintained by figures close to the Maduro regime, such as Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who already controlled key state institutions. The Venezuelan opposition, led by Maria Carina Machado, was considered less likely to quickly gain legitimacy, partly due to their presence outside the country.

Details on CIA assessment produced before Maduro capture

CBS News can confirm the CIA was commissioned to produce an assessment modeling potential political leadership scenarios in Venezuela should Nicolas Maduro cease to be president. The analysis, done at some point before Maduro's capture Saturday, was quickly held and briefed to a limited group of senior administration officials. CBS News intelligence and national security reporter Olivia Gazis is here to discuss her reporting on this story. So what did the assessment look like and why did the Trump administration have it done? Sure, Lindsey. So, the CIA routinely prepares what are known as succession scenarios for foreign leaders. It's bread-and-butter work for their analysts, who study foreign governments and game out the question of, if X happens, what comes next? You can assume that these kinds of assessments exist for places like Iran, like North Korea, like Russia, especially on authoritarian systems, where power structures can be brittle when there's a leader in power for so long. And if that leader suddenly disappears, instability can follow, which is what the government wants to game out. What makes this case slightly different is that senior policymakers specifically requested this Venezuela assessment and kept it tightly restricted to a small circle of advisers. Important to note, this wasn't a question of policy—should the U.S. remove Nicolas Maduro or not?—rather, it was, if Maduro were absent, who inside Venezuela is going to be best positioned to keep the country stable in the short term? And, as you mentioned, we don't know exactly when the assessment was commissioned, but we do know that it was briefed to the president and his closest advisers as he was weighing whether to authorize this Operation Absolute Resolve. So did the assessment say anything about what leaders could preserve stability in the region? Sources familiar with this assessment told us that, in the short term, the agency found stability was most likely to come from people who were close to the Maduro system itself and that senior regime figures, including the vice president, now president, Delcy Rodriguez, already controlled the military, the security services, all of the machinery of the government. Meanwhile, the opposition, which, as we know, is led by Maria Carina Machado, was seen as facing a much harder climb to legitimacy domestically, not least because she and much of the opposition are outside of the country. And the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, hinted at that reality on Sunday, saying that Machado isn't currently inside Venezuela and the administration had to be looking at the immediate term. It's not a judgment on who could eventually win a free election someday, whenever elections are held in Venezuela, but it is this recognition that in a sudden leadership transition, control matters, and that's what's playing out with the administration's pick of partnering Venezuela now. Olivia Gazes, thank you for joining on your reporting.

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Details on CIA assessment produced before Maduro capture

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