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When DEA Administrator Terrance “Terry” Cole told Greta Van Susteren he had looked into Nicolás Maduro’s “eyes of evil,” he wasn’t speaking as a politician — he was speaking as a career lawman who has spent decades hunting the drug networks that destroy American families. Cole, sworn in as DEA Administrator on July 23, 2025, has a long record of operational work in Colombia, Mexico and Central America, and his blunt assessment carries weight because he’s walked the dangerous ground for years.
What happened in Caracas on January 3, 2026 — the operation the Pentagon labeled Operation Absolute Resolve — was the culmination of months of intelligence and pressure on the narco-regime that has bled Venezuela dry and funneled poison to our streets. U.S. forces moved with precision to seize Maduro and begin the process of bringing him to American justice for alleged narco-terrorism and other crimes, a move that has fundamentally changed the landscape in the Western Hemisphere.
Cole didn’t mince words when he described staring down a man who presided over a cartelized state; his response was the reaction of someone who’s seen the downstream carnage — overdoses, cartels, and corrupt regimes protecting traffickers. As DEA Administrator he’s been public about squeezing traffickers and seeing the impact: higher wholesale prices, disrupted routes, and pressure being applied across the region to choke off supply before it reaches American kids. That operational clarity is the kind of leadership the country needs right now.
For too long, America’s enemies and enablers in Latin America have operated with impunity while Washington debated. The capture of Maduro exposes what conservatives have been saying for years: soft-on-crime rhetoric and appeasement only empower tyrants and traffickers. If you doubt the stakes, look at the indictment and the legal steps now underway — this isn’t politics, it’s law enforcement finally being allowed to finish the job.
Make no mistake — this was not an act of bravado, it was an act of protection for the American people. The coordinated strikes and maritime interdictions that preceded the capture have already shown results in seizures and disruption of cartel networks, and the DEA under Cole has been a central player in that pressure campaign. Families crushed by overdoses and communities ruined by cartel violence deserve an administration willing to act decisively, and lawmen like Cole deserve our support.
There will be howls from the global left and diplomatic posturing at the United Nations, but the United States has an obligation to protect its citizens from narco-terrorism and state-sponsored trafficking networks. International outrage won’t bring back the dead or close the border; holding Maduro accountable in a court of law sends the clearest possible message that tyranny and criminality will not be tolerated in our hemisphere.
Terry Cole’s plainspoken description of looking into “the eyes of evil” should steel every patriot who watches the nightly toll of drug deaths and criminal conspiracies. We should rally behind smart, muscular law enforcement and a foreign policy that prioritizes American lives over globalist handwringing — and demand Congress and the courts let the justice process run its course so the cartels’ protectors answer for their crimes. That’s the kind of leadership that keeps hardworking Americans safe.
