President Donald Trump’s raid on Venezuela wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment gamble—it was the culmination of months of meticulous planning. According to accounts, the Central Intelligence Agency had assets on the ground, including a source close to Nicolás Maduro who tracked his movements. Meanwhile, Delta Force reportedly built a replica of the target safe house to rehearse the extraction down to the smallest detail.
Preliminary strikes against Islamic terrorists in Nigeria came first, but January 3 was the moment this long-approved mission finally got the green light. And then something truly astonishing happened: the press showed restraint.
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Both The Washington Post and The New York Times learned about the operation hours before the first airstrikes hit Caracas—and they didn’t publish. For once, the usual race to scoop took a back seat to operational security. In today’s media environment, that may be the most shocking detail of all:
The New York Times and Washington Post learned of a secret US raid on Venezuela soon before it was scheduled to begin Friday night — but held off publishing what they knew to avoid endangering US troops, two people familiar with the communications between the administration and the news organizations said.
The decisions in the New York and Washington newsrooms to maintain official secrecy is in keeping with longstanding American journalistic traditions — even at a moment of unprecedented mutual hostility between the American president and a legacy media that continues to dominate national security reporting. And it offers a rare glimpse at a thread of contact and even cooperation over some of the highest-stakes American national security issues.
President Donald Trump and top administration officials Saturday praised the stunning seizure of the Venezuelan president, which Trump approved at 10:46 p.m. Friday, citing both the lack of American casualties and the total secrecy surrounding the attack.
“The coordination, the stealth, the precision, the very long arm of American justice – all on display in the middle of the night,” Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said.
The New York Times withheld some details in advance about the US Bay of Pigs invasion, and for months delayed a story on national security administration warrantless wiretapping during the Bush administration after White House officials said the story’s publication would endanger American lives.
Last August, American outlets held back reporting that the US was in the process of a prisoner exchange with Russia for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan.
Sure, credit where it’s due—but let’s not get carried away. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The legacy media keeping quiet this time doesn’t suddenly absolve them of being a consistently dishonest enemy of the people.
And while the press, for once, exercised restraint, the same absolutely cannot be said for congressional Democrats. They’ve proven time and again that they can’t be trusted with sensitive information, especially when leaking it might score them political points. That’s precisely why Donald Trump and his national security team were right to keep them completely in the dark.
