US Hostage Negotiator Who Worked Closely With Maduro Tells 60 Minutes He Didn’t Find Him a ‘Bloodthirsty Maniac’

Former top U.S. hostage negotiator Roger Carstens — who worked with dictator Nicolas Maduro to free Americans held in Venezuela — told 60 Minutes Sunday that he didn’t find the strongman to be a “bloodthirsty maniac.”

CBS News’s Scott Pelley said Carstens convinced Maduro to release 20 American hostages and got to know the dictator during his five years as Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.

“The administration would paint Maduro as a bloodthirsty drug dealer,” Pelley said. “Is that the man you knew?”

“I don’t think so,” Carstens began. “On one way I could say I’m not naive to the crimes that were committed by the regime writ large. And if you are the president of a country, you, of course, have responsibility for what’s…happening in your government.”

Carstens continued, “On the flip side, I would say that being the person in the room with President Maduro, my job was to get Americans back and that’s best done by building a very human relationship. And in doing so, I didn’t find him to be a bloodthirsty maniac. I found him to be a practical person. Someone who wanted to find ways to solve the problems that were faced by his country.”

Carstens said he wasn’t particularly surprised when he heard Maduro had been captured by U.S. forces.

“In a way I wasn’t shocked,” Carstens said. “I think probably as soon as August or September in watching the early military moves and the diplomatic moves take place, it seemed that unless he were willing to make some sort of deal or accommodation with the United States, I felt the possibility of delta force showing up at 2 a.m. was very real.”

He served under Trump during his first term and ex-President Joe Biden between 2020 and 2025.

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that U.S. troops removed Maduro from power and flew him to the United States to stand trial on narco-terrorism charges. The federal indictment against Maduro, his wife, and four others accused them of conspiring to “import tons of cocaine into the United States.”

Watch the clip above via 60 Minutes on CBS News.

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