Everyone is rewatching this old TV show after it basically wrote the script for what just happened in Venezuela

US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 and flew him out of the country in handcuffs. After this shocking raid, people online started talking about a TV show from 2019. The show is Season 2 of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, and it seems like it predicted exactly what would happen.

The show didn’t just guess what might happen. It laid out almost the exact same plan that the US just used in real life. According to the Times of India, now everyone is going back to watch it again because of how similar it is to the actual events.

One scene from the show is getting a lot of attention right now. In it, CIA analyst Jack Ryan, played by John Krasinski, talks to a room full of Washington officials about global threats. While people guess Russia, China, or North Korea, Ryan surprises them by saying Venezuela is the real danger. Back in 2019, critics called this scene “war propaganda” and a “neocon fantasy.” Today, it sounds like a real government plan that leaked early.

The scene from 2019 looks exactly like today’s news

In the scene, Ryan asks the room what the biggest threat in the world is. People say Russia, China, and North Korea. But Ryan points to Venezuela instead. He explains that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves on the planet, bigger than Saudi Arabia or Iran. The country also has more gold than all the mines in Africa combined.

Ryan then asks a simple question: how can a country with so much wealth be in the middle of the worst humanitarian crisis in modern history? His answer is that Venezuela isn’t weak. It’s actually dangerously valuable because other countries want its resources.

Ryan warns that a failing state this close to the US could invite other global powers to step in. He compares Venezuela to failed states like Yemen, Iraq, and Syria. While the show’s mention of nuclear missiles was just fiction, the “failed state” label is exactly what the US government is saying today.

Fast forward to January 4, 2026. President Trump used almost the same reasons to justify capturing Maduro. The White House said the raid was needed to stop a “narco-state” run by a drug cartel. Maduro was charged with drug trafficking in 2020, and those charges are now being used against him. You can learn more about how the overnight operation unfolded and what Trump said immediately after.

After airstrikes hit Caracas and other areas, Trump announced that Maduro was captured and brought to the United States. Photos of the handcuffed Venezuelan leader shocked people around the world. This is the most dramatic US military action in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama. 

Trump also said the US would “run” Venezuela for now, including managing its oil reserves until a safe transition happens. He added that major US oil companies would return to fix the country’s broken energy system.

The international response has been intense, with world leaders reacting to Maduro’s capture in sharply different ways. Russia and China have accused the US of overstepping, while some regional leaders have shown support for the operation.