The Capture of Maduro… Arrest or Act of War?

A headline-grabbing raid, a revolution-in-the-making, and a “beige” prime minister walk into the attention economy… who wins the story?  

Farzana and Doug unpack three global flashpoints through a PR and narrative-control lens: the shock capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and the split-screen battle between “law enforcement” framing versus “illegal act of war” backlash; Iran’s surging unrest as the rial collapses alongside a fractured top-level message (empathy from President Pezeshkian, crackdown language from Ayatollah Khamenei, and a mobilizing call from exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi); and the UK’s debate over Keir Starmer’s “beige” leadership, whether voters truly want competent quiet or charismatic spectacle in a 24/7 scroll-and-click media world.

Listen For

00:37 How did the Maduro raid become a communications battle overnight?
01:33 Why did calling Maduro a “narco-terrorist” change the debate?
04:57 Does winning the domestic narrative matter if the world disagrees?
07:56 How is Iran’s leadership sending mixed signals during unrest?
13:05 Is quiet leadership still viable in today’s attention economy?

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Chapters

• 0:37 How did the Maduro raid become a communications battle overnight?
• 1:32 Why did calling Maduro a “narco-terrorist” change the debate?
• 4:58 Does winning the domestic narrative matter if the world disagrees?
• 7:56 How is Iran’s leadership sending mixed signals during unrest?
• 13:04 Is quiet leadership still viable in today’s attention economy?

Transcript

Farzana Baduel (00:04):
Three big themes today. We are going to start off with Venezuela and then that is where the mission may be over, but the narrative fight is only just beginning. We are going to then head over to Iran where the economy seems to be having a lot of trouble. And the real story is a fractured message from the top. Now, finally, we are going to then head back to the UK and talk about the beigeness of Keir Starmer and what quiet leadership looks like in the twenty four seven attention economy with flashing lights. Doug, where do we start?

Doug Downs (00:37):
What an amazing week. We wrapped up last week. We had a heavier focus on Iran and we closed off the show and little did we know so much was in planning to happen in Venezuela. It was absolutely amazing. Last Saturday morning, we all woke up to a reality that few thought was possible. Nicolas Maduro and his wife were suddenly in US custody in New York. This was a lightning fast Delta Force raid in Caracas, and really it caught me completely by surprise. The physical mission was already over by the time we woke up Saturday, but the global communications battle was just beginning. To break down the comms here, there are those who say this is bad, and there are those who are saying this is good. In the this is good camp, the Trump administration and leaders like Argentina's Javier Milei have branded this as a surgical law enforcement operation.
(01:33):
Now, in the US, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is the primary architect of the message. He has been leaning heavily on Maduro's 2020 narcotics indictment, telling the world, "Hey, we did not invade a country. We executed a warrant on a narco terrorist." Now, by using legal terminology like indicted criminal instead of head of state, Rubio is successfully appealing to a domestic audience that values law and order while bypassing the traditional war powers debate. Conversely, in that this is bad camp, it is led by a powerful alliance of international critics and Democrat leadership at home. On the global stage, Russia, China, and the UN Secretary General are framing this as international kidnapping. But the most biting PR critique is coming from the Congressional Democrats like Senator Tim Kaine and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Their narrative is not defending Maduro, it is attacking the method. They are labelling the raid a sickening return to imperial adventures and an illegal act of war carried out without congressional approval.
(02:36):
While Marco Rubio says he executed a warrant, the Democrats are telling their audience that the administration lied to their face about seeking regime change. For them, the PR goal is to frame the White House as a rogue actor that has abandoned the rules based order and risked a forever war for Venezuelan oil. So I always like to know how the people feel. How are Americans responding? Well, extremely split in some ways. Overall, approval of the capture right down the middle. Should the president have gotten Congress to approve first? Two thirds say yes. Here is why I think, my opinion, that these numbers show that Rubio is winning the narrative right now. The Democrats are arguing the raid was an illegal act of war, but Rubio has successfully labelled Maduro a narco terrorist, and that is the term that has been used by both parties. And the Democrats' constitutional argument makes them look like they are defending a drug kingpin right now.
(03:35):
Rubio has trapped his opponent in a narrative where their only defence is a technicality, the Constitution. While his defence, the war on drugs, is a moral one. For the Democrats to turn this around, they need to reframe the narrative. And just one additional note, Farzana, media critics like Margaret Sullivan have noted that the early coverage from CBS and ABC, they have been using Rubio's vocabulary to describe this indicted criminal narco terrorist. And when they are using your words, that shows you are winning or at least have an edge in the comms battle.

Farzana Baduel (04:09):
Well, I mean, how do we start with just unpacking that from a PR lens? So first of all, we are not in Kansas anymore. This is not a story of right and wrong, but more a fight for agenda control. And I think from a PR perspective, of course the raid may be over, but the contest is really who gets to define it and what that raid was and that sort of story that is wrapped around that is going to then preserve its place in history. Now, Rubio answers something very crucial that all PR people know is that the first story is often the strongest story. And he did not describe it as foreign policy or military action or regime change. He described it as law enforcement. And I thought that was very clever, very classic framing because he pulls the event into a category that Americans already emotionally understand.
(04:57):
Very simple, arrest the bad guy, execute the warrant, protect the public, move on. And you win that frame early, and then you force your opponents to argue from within. And so here is the part that I think everyone is missing is everyone is thinking about actually domestic agenda control is very much important obviously to the White House, but that is only half the battle. And so what you are having is this sort of dichotomy of perceptions. You have got how does it play out from a domestic audience and how does it play out internationally? And so the other aspect is the international reputation. But one thing I wanted to ask you, Doug, do they care? I mean, does it even matter? I mean, tell me, does it?

Doug Downs (05:36):
I do not think they do. I do not think America cares what the outside world thinks right now. Part of America, part of America.

Farzana Baduel (05:43):
So I guess the operation plays well at home and looking at the stats, it clearly shows that it does. The global story is not really about warrant being executed. It is very much America grabbing a head of state in another country. That language obviously travels fast, especially in Moscow, Beijing, the United Nations across the world. And then so whilst the White House can win the domestic narrative, it can then lose globally. But again, if they do not care, they do not care. It is not an outcome that they are looking for. And because once you normalise these extraordinary actions, you make it easier for other states to copy the method and claim the justification. So everyone is obviously talking about, well, how are you going to justify it when China wants to assert its sphere of influence over Taiwan and Russia and Ukraine? And so where is that sort of moral argument, that ethical argument, that rules based order?
(06:35):
But again, if they do not care, they do not care. And so it is not really a debate about whether the capture is good or bad and how it plays out internally and globally, but it is also a question of fundamentally, do they care? And when we are working in PR, you set your goals firsthand. You also set your agenda, your messaging, but also your audience, you determine your audience. And sometimes we may be shouting around the world that this is wrong, but fundamentally, if we are not the target audience, we are not relevant.

Doug Downs (07:04):
All right. The other story I know we wanted to tackle, I have been so fascinated by Iran since we started covering this last ... I have been digging into ... Sorry, I have been doing it online. I have not been taking studies, but I have been looking at the history of Persian, the history of Iran to understand the protest because we are in this media vacuum. And I am embarrassed for my former craft how poorly the international media, the ones from whom we expect more, I am embarrassed by how poor a job they have done. As the Iranian rial collapses, the streets are igniting, but the story is the jarring PR disconnect between the president, the supreme leader, and now a resurgent exiled opposition. And that is the key. What started out as a strike in the Grand Bazaar is now a nationwide uprising. The triggers are economic, at least they were at the beginning.
(07:56):
Skyrocketing prices for basics like rice and wheat, that will push people into the streets. But the response from the top has been very split. We are actually seeing a classic good cop, bad cop routine, and it is being played out through official state rhetoric. President Masoud Pezeshkian is currently attempting a conciliatory tone. He has publicly tasked his officials to listen to what he calls the legitimate concerns of the protestors. This is a rare attempt at empathy based crisis management. He is trying to validate the grievance to keep the government's brand from completely breaking with the public, but the bad cop has now entered the room. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has broken his silence and he is taking a much sharper rhetorical path. He is now pivoted to a relabelling strategy. He is not calling the people protesters. He is calling them rioters and enemy mercenaries. Now, by shifting the vocabulary from protest to riot, he is signalling to the security forces that the time for dialogue is over.
(09:00):
Adding a third layer to this messaging war, the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi is now issuing his first direct call to action through a video message in Farsi. It is all being played out on social media, quite frankly. He is moving beyond mere support and is actively organising coordinated protests. What makes this even more complex from a comms angle is the perceived media blackout in the West. While social media has been flooded with video of the Grand Bazaar shuttering and security forces clashing with citizens, major outlets like the BBC and the New York Times have been criticised for being slow. Even a comedian John Cleese has jumped into the fray on X saying he is ashamed of the BBC's coverage. In the world of PR, when reputable news sources stay quiet during a historic event, it creates a massive information vacuum, one that is currently being filled by unverified social media reports and competing propaganda.
(09:58):
Farzana, I spend my nights watching the hockey game on TV, looking through my phone and, "Oh my God, look at the size of that protest. I cannot pronounce the name of that province, but oh my God, it looks huge." And then someone in the comment says, this is from four years ago in Kurdistan or something like that. But that is how I spend my nights is trying to figure out what is real and what is not from Iran when what looks like could be another revolution is happening before our very eyes.

Farzana Baduel (10:28):
And Iran is fascinating. And I have always been fascinated. My grandfather was actually the military adviser to the Shah of Iran. And I always sort of grew up understanding that about Persian culture. I think my father learned Farsi so that he can understand the poetry. Now, what we are seeing in Tehran is really a three way communications war and each actor is playing a different game. We have President Pezeshkian who is doing classic crisis containment. He is trying to keep the government sort of public facing brand intact by validating the grievance, signalling empathy and dialogue because he is speaking directly to population. So a bit of hedging, his bets there. You have the Ayatollah Khamenei, who is the spiritual leader, is doing something completely different. He is not really addressing and empathising with a public sentiment. He is instead relabelling the protestors as rioters and sort of enemy mercenaries. And also it is that sort of cons trigger that is really telling these security operators, treat this as an enemy operation with little empathy.
(11:27):
And that is really agenda controlled through language. And why is language so important, particularly in these situations is because you could reframe the agitators, either freedom fighters or protesters as rioters or indeed the enemy. And when you start using words like enemy, what you are really doing is using words to justify state violence and force. So words are often the foot soldiers before violence that comes in a way is sort of manufacturing consent for what is coming. Now, we then have the son of the Shah of Iran and he is positioning himself as the hero of the story. The protests are in a way, it is very classic Joseph Campbell. For those who do not know, he is a well known architect of the hero's journey. And it really talks about how across the ages, across cultures, ultimately stories sort of underpin similar architects and archetypes rather. And there is a certain sort of journey.
(12:26):
And you have got the inciting incident, which is the protests. You have got the bad guy, the bad archetype, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and then you have got the classic hero's journey in play. And of course, that shifts in terms of who is a bad guy, who is a good guy, depending upon the lens that you are looking at. Now then you have got to layer in the Western media dynamic. Now, major outlets are appearing somewhat slow, cautious, but you also have some practical matters is that it is not always that you are going to have a Tehran correspondent on the ground who is going to tell you everything that is happening. So you do have a structural issue with a lot of media reports. And you are seeing a bit of an information vacuum. And in crisis comms, when you have a vacuum, it always gets filled and usually by very emotionally compelling content that may not always be true.
(13:05):
And so that is how misinformation gains authority because it arrives with certainty while the responsible voices sort of arrive with hesitation. Now, let us go on to closer home territory. The UK, we have had a critical gaze on Prime Minister Keir Starmer. And I remember actually when he first became our prime minister, the New York Times ran a story. I think it was the 50 shades of beige. And since then, that word beige been rumbling along. And I do not know what is wrong with beige. Maybe I am beige, I do not know. But I do not think they just mean beige as in he is beige in terms of his skin colour.

Doug Downs (13:44):
Be flavourless? Yeah,

Farzana Baduel (13:46):
He is great. And personally, I love beige. Anyway, so everyone has been ... So all of a sudden that term has been propping up again. I saw it in The Spectator and a number of other sort of news outlets where they are talking about him just being a little bit too vague, a little bit too beige, a bit sort of dull. And then of course across the pond, you have got bombastic President Trump. And so you are beginning to think that actually, do you think that actually British politicians, they need to be a bit more performative, a bit more entertaining? Do you think charisma actually is what wins in the public sort of theatre? I mean, we had our prime minister, Boris Johnson, he was very charismatic. Also Nigel Farage, very charismatic. You have got Polanski, who is the leader of the Greens. Again, very charismatic. And so what happens with these politicians that do not have that inbuilt charisma?
(14:39):
Do we elect charisma? Is it very much this sort of animal instinct that we want as political leaders as opposed to that sort of rational brain having a look at the policy? What is your thoughts, Doug, as you are looking across the pond and looking at British politics?

Doug Downs (14:55):
Looking at British politics, yeah. Beige is one word, vanilla seems another. Well, for one, the UK chose beige. It was their preferred colour. They wanted lack of personality at the time, right?

Farzana Baduel (15:10):
Yeah, we wanted boring actually after all the drama before we wanted boring. And I wonder if it is useful, Doug, for you to just ... We could take the temperature of how the Brits are feeling about Keir Starmer.

Doug Downs (15:19):
How far is he in his term? Is he one, two years in his term?

Farzana Baduel (15:22):
He is just, poor thing. He is just a year in. And so he is disliked 54 percent. It is pretty high. One of the most unpopular leaders in the West.

Doug Downs (15:32):
Oh my gosh.

Farzana Baduel (15:33):
Yeah. Macron is the only one who is beating him in terms of unpopularity. So he is really having some problem now. And it is, what do people want? Do they want entertainment

Doug Downs (15:45):
Or

Farzana Baduel (16:04):
Yeah. But maybe Eti voters nowadays, we are just a glorified Netflix audience. We just want to be entertained. And when we are bored, we just want them out. And maybe we are just drama kings and queens. We just want drama. I mean, even us Brits, we are tuning into the US politics. I mean, who needs Netflix, honestly?

Doug Downs (16:22):
There has to be a line between sensationalism or life and character and sound boring business as usual, right? Because I actually want sound boring business as usual in the background with maybe a bit of humour on top of that. And finding that balance is what I would want, I think I want in a leader. At the same time, they are fighting for headlines. And the truth is, it comes down to us and our habits. And our habits are to scroll on our phones and look for a sensational clickbait and follow the clickbait and people are trying to mislead us with false information. We are always looking for that stuff. So they are fighting amongst that noise and they need to create a bigger headline to do it. And sound boring or beige seldom bursts off the screen. David, we missed you. I hope you are back next week in safe travels in the US.
(17:15):
As always, thank you to our superstar producers, Emily Page and Solomon eBay. The Week on Spun is a co production of Curzon Public Relations, Folgate Advisors, and Stories and Strategies podcasts. You can get the recordings on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and our final thought for today from the Persian poet, Rumi.

Farzana Baduel (17:35):
My favourite.

Doug Downs (17:36):
Mine too. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Have a great weekend.