TRIGGERnometry - Why Socialism Never Works - A Warning From Venezuela

00:00:01.000 Up until the 90s, Venezuela was richer than Spain.

00:00:04.000 People don't understand that Venezuela

00:00:06.000 is the largest refugee crisis in the planet.

00:00:09.000 It's nearly 9 million of us who have left our country,

00:00:12.000 nearly a third of the population.

00:00:14.000 How come Iran doesn't have hyperinflation

00:00:16.000 and millions of refugees fleeing?

00:00:18.000 Iran is not a socialist country.

00:00:20.000 In Iran, you can't feed your family or live.

00:00:22.000 In Venezuela, you cannot.

00:00:24.000 Chavez was an international criminal drug dealer,

00:00:27.000 the guy who started it all.

00:00:28.000 What they didn't destroy, because it's not government-owned,

00:00:31.000 is the drug trafficking.

00:00:32.000 It is tied to terrorism.

00:00:34.000 I was talking to one of my cousins,

00:00:35.000 and he was saying that there's Hezbollah training camps.

00:00:38.000 Do you think that there's going to be some kind of military action

00:00:42.000 in Venezuela involving the US?

00:00:44.000 I hope so.

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00:02:05.000 Daniel, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:02:07.000 Thank you for having me.

00:02:08.000 It's great to have you.

00:02:09.000 We want to talk about Venezuela and South America more broadly.

00:02:12.000 Before we do, tell us a little bit about who you are,

00:02:14.000 and we'll get into it.

00:02:16.000 Well, I am Venezuelan.

00:02:18.000 I was born and raised there,

00:02:19.000 and I came to the US in 2016.

00:02:21.000 And I am an economist.

00:02:23.000 I work at the Manhattan Institute,

00:02:25.000 and I speak at college campuses all over the US,

00:02:27.000 warning to Americans about the dangers of socialism

00:02:30.000 and how Venezuela was really destroyed by this evil ideology.

00:02:34.000 And what do you tell them?

00:02:36.000 Well, I tell them that it is a very enticing ideology,

00:02:39.000 and it's one that Venezuelans fell for,

00:02:41.000 that Venezuela is the first and only country

00:02:43.000 that's been destroyed democratically by socialist ideology.

00:02:47.000 That is the same thing that is being promoted here in America

00:02:51.000 by a lot of far-left politicians

00:02:53.000 under the disguise of supposed Nordic socialism or social democracy

00:02:58.000 when really they have very close ties to the Venezuelan regime,

00:03:01.000 and that we need to preserve the American dream.

00:03:03.000 And the only way to do it is to lean in on what made it great,

00:03:06.000 which is free markets, you know, political freedom,

00:03:09.000 all these hosts of American values.

00:03:12.000 And what happened in Venezuela, because,

00:03:15.000 forgive me for saying this, but I do think it's true.

00:03:18.000 Everyone, I think, who doesn't know anything about it,

00:03:21.000 and I probably include myself in that,

00:03:23.000 despite working with someone who's half Venezuelan,

00:03:25.000 kind of goes,

00:03:26.000 well, Latin America, it's all a bit, you know,

00:03:29.000 it's always been crazy left, crazy right, flip-flop.

00:03:32.000 You know, it's all a bit crazy.

00:03:34.000 The economy never works, et cetera.

00:03:36.000 But Venezuela actually has incredible economic potential,

00:03:40.000 as I understand it.

00:03:41.000 And it just, as you say, got ruined by policy.

00:03:44.000 Well, Venezuela not only has great potential,

00:03:47.000 but it had a great economy.

00:03:49.000 In the 1950s, Venezuela was, according to any measure,

00:03:53.000 the fourth highest GDP per capita in the world,

00:03:55.000 meaning the fourth richest country.

00:03:57.000 That's very easy to explain.

00:03:58.000 I mean, World War II destroyed Europe.

00:04:00.000 Africa was very poor.

00:04:01.000 Asia was also destroyed.

00:04:02.000 So which countries were rich?

00:04:04.000 The Swiss, the Americans, the Venezuelans,

00:04:07.000 and maybe the Australians or the Canadians.

00:04:09.000 And Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.

00:04:12.000 So Venezuela powered the Allied war effort in the Second World War.

00:04:16.000 Venezuela then had very much economic freedom,

00:04:19.000 meaning it was easy to start a business,

00:04:21.000 the small government,

00:04:22.000 and limited involvement in the economy.

00:04:24.000 So Venezuela became a hub for investment, for immigration.

00:04:28.000 All my grandparents immigrated to Venezuela in the 50s,

00:04:31.000 from Spain and Italy.

00:04:32.000 From Spain and Italy.

00:04:33.000 Not from some, you know,

00:04:34.000 what people would consider a third world country.

00:04:36.000 We do.

00:04:37.000 You guys are great.

00:04:39.000 That's a good point.

00:04:40.000 That's not what the British are going to Spain say nowadays.

00:04:42.000 But sure.

00:04:44.000 So, Spain and Italy were very poor relative to Venezuela.

00:04:47.000 In fact, up until the 90s, Venezuela was richer than Spain.

00:04:51.000 Up until the 90s?

00:04:52.000 Yes.

00:04:53.000 Wow.

00:04:54.000 People forget, Spain was a very backwards economy.

00:04:55.000 Right.

00:04:56.000 Same as Italy.

00:04:57.000 So Venezuela was able to welcome so many people from all over the world,

00:05:01.000 from Christians from Lebanon and Syria that became great entrepreneurs,

00:05:05.000 Colombians and Chileans seeking freedom and safety.

00:05:08.000 And so Venezuela was great.

00:05:11.000 The problem is that over time, as the state grew, they nationalized oil,

00:05:16.000 and then ultimately the death knell was when Chávez got elected in 1998

00:05:20.000 and implemented really the democratic socialist agenda

00:05:24.000 and became then obviously, as is naturally always does, a socialist dictatorship.

00:05:28.000 Before we get into him and democratic socialism, which obviously is a relevant conversation today,

00:05:35.000 why did people feel, if things were so great, the need to elect somebody who was a democratic socialist?

00:05:42.000 So, well, it's a long history.

00:05:44.000 It starts that Venezuela became a democratic country in 1958,

00:05:47.000 after the dictator back then left after mass protests, you know, a rigged election.

00:05:53.000 And over time, the democratically elected governments of Venezuela, through the second half of the 20th century,

00:05:59.000 grew the size of the state because of the temptation to use oil as welfare,

00:06:04.000 meaning we're going to increase taxes on the oil industry.

00:06:06.000 Ultimately, in 1976, oil was nationalized.

00:06:10.000 And after nationalization, it's very interesting, all of the refineries that Venezuela has,

00:06:15.000 all of the oil infrastructure is pre-1976.

00:06:18.000 Nothing else was built.

00:06:19.000 Everything is pre then, and most of it is now, you know, destroyed.

00:06:24.000 Why? Because the government had no incentive to really invest the oil profits into the business.

00:06:30.000 What they did with the oil profits is buy votes.

00:06:33.000 Because that's the whole problem with the government, right?

00:06:36.000 Even in a democratic, especially in a democratic society,

00:06:38.000 the government has the incentive, or politicians do, to want to win re-election.

00:06:43.000 And guess what? You would rather, you're more likely to win re-election by using the government revenue to give people free stuff,

00:06:51.000 than to actually invest in the things that create long-term growth.

00:06:55.000 Hmm. And Daniel, I think, whilst that is all accurate, I think we're not talking about one part of the puzzle,

00:07:01.000 which was the rampant corruption in Venezuela, and the frustration that it caused amongst ordinary people.

00:07:08.000 Yeah, absolutely. So, well, the thing is, you can't have corruption if the state doesn't have the power over the economy, right?

00:07:15.000 That's how they were able to steal.

00:07:17.000 So even during the democratic period, as they took over the oil profits,

00:07:21.000 the economy stagnated because there was no more investment, everybody was receiving more welfare.

00:07:26.000 It wasn't even about taxes, it was all through the oil industry.

00:07:29.000 And it's true that the politicians, during the democratic period, were involved in a lot of corruption scandals.

00:07:36.000 Corruption scandals that now look like babies in diapers, right?

00:07:40.000 And it's true that by the time the 90s came, Venezuela had been on a long stagnation from the early 80s and late 70s.

00:07:50.000 And the consequence was that people were fed up. They wanted to challenge the status quo.

00:07:54.000 And the only person that gave them that chance, a lot of them felt, not everybody, was Hugo Chavez.

00:08:01.000 And particularly the poor people, because what I experienced in Venezuela, when I used to go,

00:08:06.000 was that there would be this huge strata of poor people, the diminishing middle class, and then rich people.

00:08:15.000 And that was pretty much it.

00:08:17.000 Though I will say, a lot of people exaggerate this inequality.

00:08:20.000 Venezuela, even by the 90s, had a less income inequality than most other Latin American countries.

00:08:25.000 But the other Latin American countries didn't elect a socialist military man that would destroy their country, right?

00:08:32.000 So I think that what is underestimated was the fact that Chavez was very charismatic,

00:08:38.000 so the other countries didn't have that, that's more of a coincidence of things.

00:08:41.000 And the fact that he really had a lot of support from the Cubans.

00:08:45.000 And the foreign interference is really under-discussed.

00:08:49.000 Because Cuba, in the 90s, was going through what's called the Special Period.

00:08:53.000 I don't know if you know about this.

00:08:54.000 The Soviet Union fell, so the subsidies from the Soviets stopped.

00:08:57.000 And the Special Period is the nice way of saying starvation.

00:09:00.000 The Cubans were starving.

00:09:02.000 And the Special Period, not coincidentally, ended in 1999 when Chavez takes office.

00:09:09.000 Because they start getting all the free oil from Venezuela.

00:09:11.000 Literally, free ships of oil that then Cuba would resell in the international market.

00:09:16.000 And it is no coincidence that Chavez was a big fan of Fiel Castro, who knew him.

00:09:20.000 Nicolas Majuro, the current dictator, went to Cuba and was trained in Cuba.

00:09:25.000 Chavez was French, who is now the president of Colombia, Petro.

00:09:29.000 I mean, all of this is connected.

00:09:31.000 Yeah, and what people don't know is that Venezuela also supplied petroleum to London and London buses.

00:09:39.000 Because with the connection with Hugo Chavez and Ken Livingston.

00:09:42.000 I didn't know that.

00:09:43.000 Yeah, which is a fascinating little kind of subtopic.

00:09:46.000 But what's really interesting with Chavez is Chavez gets elected.

00:09:51.000 He sweeps to power on this wave of populist left, of the populist left and the rhetoric.

00:09:58.000 And the fact that we're going to change Venezuela.

00:10:00.000 We're going to make it fairer.

00:10:02.000 For a couple of years, it looked like it might work, didn't it?

00:10:07.000 Well, economically, yes.

00:10:08.000 Because you have to remember, the oil barrel was around $10 per barrel in 1999.

00:10:14.000 By 2008, it was $100 per barrel.

00:10:17.000 I mean, Chavez had a 10x increase in government revenue that was almost exclusively oil.

00:10:23.000 Yet Venezuela did not grow 10x.

00:10:25.000 Venezuela, by 2008, should have been like Dubai.

00:10:28.000 And it was still a poor Latin American country.

00:10:30.000 How can that happen?

00:10:32.000 Because they literally stole all the money.

00:10:34.000 Chavez took over.

00:10:36.000 And a lot of people might say, you know, things were working.

00:10:38.000 But the signs were there from the start.

00:10:41.000 Chavez ripped the Constitution apart in his first year in office.

00:10:44.000 He backed the Supreme Court.

00:10:46.000 He got them to say that because sovereignty lies within the people,

00:10:50.000 we can just host a referendum and rewrite the entire Constitution.

00:10:53.000 And they did.

00:10:55.000 He rewrote the entire Constitution, allowed for re-election.

00:10:58.000 The presidential term was only five years.

00:11:00.000 No re-election.

00:11:01.000 Became six years with re-election.

00:11:03.000 They would change that later to be no limits.

00:11:07.000 They centralized power in the executive branch away from Congress.

00:11:11.000 They abolished the Senate.

00:11:13.000 Took power away from the states.

00:11:15.000 So that the state police obviously couldn't become a militia against him

00:11:19.000 when he would become a dictator later.

00:11:21.000 And so a lot of reforms.

00:11:23.000 And obviously the critical part that destroyed the economy was the nationalization agenda.

00:11:28.000 Chavez began literally walking in the streets of Caracas.

00:11:31.000 And there's videos of these pointing at businesses.

00:11:33.000 Expropiese.

00:11:34.000 Expropriate.

00:11:35.000 It's not yours anymore.

00:11:36.000 It's so beautiful.

00:11:37.000 What's that building there?

00:11:38.000 It's a theater, isn't it?

00:11:39.000 It's a theater before.

00:11:40.000 It's a theater before.

00:11:41.000 It's a theater before.

00:11:42.000 But it's in the hands of the government, right?

00:11:43.000 Yes, in this moment it's in the hands of the government.

00:11:44.000 And this building?

00:11:45.000 It's a building that has private furniture.

00:11:46.000 Expropiese.

00:11:47.000 Expropiese.

00:11:48.000 Expropiese.

00:11:49.000 And that building there on the corner?

00:11:50.000 Expropiese.

00:11:51.000 Expropiese.

00:11:52.000 De acuerdo.

00:11:53.000 Y aquel edificio allá en la esquina?

00:11:54.000 También son edificios que tienen locales comerciales.

00:11:57.000 Bueno, miren.

00:11:59.000 Me decía Jacqueline ahora.

00:12:01.000 En aquella casita que está allá vivió Bolívar recién casado.

00:12:05.000 Esa casita que se ve ahí con dos balcones.

00:12:08.000 Y ahí lo que están unos negocios.

00:12:10.000 Expropiese.

00:12:11.000 Bueno, presidente.

00:12:12.000 ¿Este edificio aquí cuál es?

00:12:13.000 También es un edificio que tiene locales comerciales y propiedad privada.

00:12:18.000 Expropiese, señor alcalde.

00:12:20.000 Expropiese.

00:12:21.000 Expropiese.

00:12:22.000 Expropiese.

00:12:23.000 Tenemos que convertir…

00:12:24.000 Hola, Jorge.

00:12:25.000 ¿Cómo estás?

00:12:26.000 Tenemos que convertir esto en un gran centro histórico.

00:12:30.000 Centro histórico.

00:12:31.000 Que lo es, pero retomar un proyecto arquitectónico histórico del…

00:12:37.000 Estamos en el corazón de Caracas.

00:12:39.000 Caracas, Caracas, la rebelde.

00:12:41.000 ¿Cómo estás tú?

00:12:42.000 One of my best friends from high school, his grandma, owned a bookstore downtown.

00:12:46.000 Chávez came in and took the bookstore of the old lady.

00:12:49.000 Out of nowhere.

00:12:50.000 Jewelry stores, you know, grocery stores, banks, manufacturing companies, electricity,

00:12:55.000 farms.

00:12:56.000 The first really martyr for free enterprise in Venezuela was a man named Jose Brito, who

00:13:03.000 was a farmer, who the government really made the martyr of forever property.

00:13:09.000 He went on a hunger strike because Chávez took his family farm from generations.

00:13:13.000 And he died in the hunger strike and they took his farm.

00:13:18.000 The news doesn't just tell you what's happening.

00:13:20.000 It so often tells you what to think is happening.

00:13:23.000 And these days, the biggest red flag isn't what's said, it's what gets left out.

00:13:27.000 That's why I use Ground News.

00:13:29.000 It's the only site and app that compares coverage from across the political spectrum

00:13:34.000 and highlights which stories are being ignored entirely.

00:13:37.000 See for yourself at ground.news slash trigonometry.

00:13:40.000 Their blind spot feed is one of my favorite features.

00:13:43.000 It surfaces around 20 stories a day that are being overlooked by either the left or the right.

00:13:48.000 It's a simple but powerful way to track media bias in real time.

00:13:52.000 Like this.

00:13:53.000 NIH scientists recently published a declaration criticizing Trump's cuts to public health research.

00:13:59.000 That's a major move.

00:14:00.000 And yet, only 2% of the coverage came from right-leaning outlets.

00:14:05.000 A new study found that 2024 saw the most armed conflicts globally since 1946.

00:14:10.000 A staggering statistic.

00:14:12.000 But you would have missed it if you'd only read left-wing news sources.

00:14:15.000 Ground News gives you the full picture.

00:14:17.000 Headlines, ownership, bias ratings, and context.

00:14:20.000 So you can actually understand what's going on, not just react to what you're told.

00:14:25.000 Head to ground.news slash trigonometry for 40% off their unlimited vantage plan.

00:14:31.000 The same one we use.

00:14:32.000 And start thinking for yourself.

00:14:34.000 Some say the bubbles in an arrow truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth.

00:14:39.000 Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light.

00:14:42.000 Rich, creamy, chocolatey arrow truffle.

00:14:46.000 Feel the arrow bubbles melt.

00:14:48.000 It's mind bubbling.

00:14:50.000 And when you talk about the rampant corruption.

00:14:55.000 So one of my relatives was president of the Bank of Venezuela.

00:14:59.000 The private one, Bank of Venezuela, that was owned by Santander?

00:15:01.000 No.

00:15:02.000 The central bank.

00:15:03.000 The central bank.

00:15:04.000 Okay.

00:15:05.000 Diego Luis.

00:15:06.000 And what happened with him was, and he was a very honorable and a very principled man.

00:15:10.000 And Chavez demanded that Diego Luis hand over the gold reserves of Venezuela.

00:15:15.000 Oh, yeah.

00:15:16.000 And he said, Presidente, I'm not prepared to do that.

00:15:20.000 That is not going to happen.

00:15:21.000 That does not belong to you.

00:15:22.000 That belongs to Venezuela.

00:15:24.000 And Chavez went on his program called Hola Presidente.

00:15:28.000 Yes.

00:15:29.000 Hello, Mr. President.

00:15:30.000 Good morning.

00:15:31.000 Hours.

00:15:32.000 Yeah.

00:15:33.000 And which would take over every TV station for an hour or hours at a time.

00:15:37.000 And he said the words, Diego Luis Fuera, get out, and put him under house arrest until,

00:15:43.000 and intimidated him until he signed it.

00:15:45.000 I didn't know he was your family member.

00:15:46.000 Yeah.

00:15:47.000 Well, now there's going to be a conspiracy theory that trigonometry was actually started

00:15:50.000 with the Venezuelan gold.

00:15:52.000 I wasn't thinking about it until you said it.

00:15:56.000 Trust me.

00:15:57.000 I'm familiar with the internet.

00:15:58.000 You know where the Venezuelan gold is now?

00:16:00.000 It's in Dubai, actually.

00:16:01.000 Really?

00:16:02.000 We know this.

00:16:03.000 It was with the Venezuelan gold that most countries hold their foreign exchange reserves

00:16:08.000 in Switzerland and London and New York City.

00:16:11.000 Chavez said, no, we will need to hold them in Caracas.

00:16:14.000 We can't be, you know, subject to foreign powers.

00:16:17.000 They brought almost all the gold to Caracas.

00:16:19.000 All that gold disappeared.

00:16:21.000 And we know it ended up in Dubai because of TikTok videos of prostitutes and people who

00:16:26.000 are corrupt within the Maduro regime who left.

00:16:28.000 Dubai is the hub of the world for money laundering through gold because there are no questions

00:16:33.000 asked policy if you bring in gold to Dubai.

00:16:35.000 No tax.

00:16:36.000 Then you buy property, sell it, and then it's laundered.

00:16:38.000 And these people showed in the video this table, glass table, with gold bars below the

00:16:44.000 table.

00:16:45.000 Central bank gold is marked with a specific symbol of that central bank.

00:16:51.000 And it was Central Bank of Venezuela.

00:16:53.000 And that's where the gold ended, which makes all sense in the world that it ended there.

00:16:56.000 So, Daniel, this is what I'm wondering.

00:16:59.000 This sounds quite a typical story of a dictator coming to power and becoming corrupt or already

00:17:07.000 being corrupt before he came.

00:17:09.000 Is it really fair to lay the blame for this at the feet of an ideology?

00:17:14.000 I think it absolutely is about the socialism and not about the corruption.

00:17:19.000 Most countries in the world face endemic corruption problems.

00:17:23.000 Do you think Colombia is not a corrupt country?

00:17:26.000 Do you think that the Saudis are not a corrupt kingdom?

00:17:29.000 Or even in Dubai, the sheiks there, the emirs, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping?

00:17:34.000 Yet, why aren't there millions of refugees escaping those countries?

00:17:38.000 Why aren't there people starving on the street?

00:17:41.000 Why isn't there hyperinflation in any of these countries?

00:17:43.000 Because the difference between corrupt countries and socialist countries, which are also corrupt,

00:17:47.000 to an even greater extent because the government has more power,

00:17:50.000 is that Chávez printed money to pay for welfare, expanded welfare tremendously,

00:17:54.000 hurts millions of government workers,

00:17:57.000 so reduced the private sector, nationalized businesses,

00:18:01.000 put price controls that led to shortages.

00:18:03.000 This is very basic economics.

00:18:05.000 If you put a price cap and you can't profit, you don't do business.

00:18:08.000 And that's why I had to line up hours to buy food, to buy medicine.

00:18:11.000 That's why I suffer blackouts, no water in my own apartment for days.

00:18:15.000 That doesn't happen in most corrupt countries.

00:18:19.000 And so it is about socialist ideology, which you might say,

00:18:22.000 well, Daniel, this is not socialism.

00:18:24.000 Well, what is socialism?

00:18:26.000 Socialism is government ownership and control or control over the means of production.

00:18:30.000 What did Chávez do?

00:18:32.000 He took over people's businesses.

00:18:33.000 That is a means of production.

00:18:35.000 The businesses that he didn't take, he controlled through price controls.

00:18:39.000 So Chávez was not only a self-described socialist, but he implemented socialist policy.

00:18:46.000 That's a really interesting point.

00:18:48.000 And I suppose in terms of your warning to the United States,

00:18:51.000 where you are, you know, with the broader West,

00:18:53.000 in terms of some of these ideologies and views becoming more mainstream,

00:18:59.000 is it's interesting.

00:19:01.000 If you look at, you know, recent elections in the U.S.,

00:19:03.000 Zoram I'm Downing, for example, right?

00:19:05.000 You go, well, this guy is not actually advocating for taking controls of the means of production.

00:19:10.000 And the same in the U.K.

00:19:13.000 Socialists in the U.K.

00:19:14.000 They just want free stuff.

00:19:16.000 They don't even do the means of production part of it, at least on the surface.

00:19:19.000 Is that a fair assessment?

00:19:20.000 Who makes this stuff?

00:19:22.000 Oh, I know.

00:19:23.000 Well, you need to seize the means of production of some people to give others free things.

00:19:28.000 Nothing is free.

00:19:30.000 In fact, I call this the high price of free things, because everything has a cost.

00:19:36.000 Everything's a trade-off.

00:19:37.000 The question is, what trade-offs do you want to make?

00:19:39.000 And the trade that Venezuela made under Chavez was, we're going to nationalize all these businesses.

00:19:44.000 Supposedly, the government's going to run them better.

00:19:46.000 And all of them went bankrupt.

00:19:48.000 You could see signs on the highway.

00:19:50.000 This is my favorite one.

00:19:51.000 Sign on the highway between Maracay, where I was born, and Caracas, that says,

00:19:56.000 made in socialism in a big red heart, and the empty fields that they took over deserted.

00:20:01.000 How can you get a deserted field in a tropical country?

00:20:04.000 Only a socialist can do this.

00:20:06.000 How do you not have gasoline in the country with the largest oil reserves in the world?

00:20:10.000 Only in socialism.

00:20:11.000 You know, thankfully, Venezuela is a tropical country, so people could eat the mangoes off

00:20:15.000 the street.

00:20:16.000 Very good mangoes, also.

00:20:18.000 But how can then people say that it's not about socialism, it is about corruption, when

00:20:24.000 this just doesn't happen anywhere?

00:20:26.000 People don't understand that Venezuela is the largest refugee crisis in the planet.

00:20:31.000 It's nearly nine million of us who have left our country.

00:20:34.000 Nearly a third of the population.

00:20:35.000 That is more than Ukraine.

00:20:36.000 That is more than Syria.

00:20:38.000 That is more than Afghanistan.

00:20:39.000 And we don't have, you know, an Islamist takeover, a foreign country invading us, chemical weapons.

00:20:45.000 We don't have an ethnic or religious conflict in Venezuela.

00:20:48.000 We just have a socialist regime.

00:20:50.000 Wow.

00:20:51.000 And this free stuff point is so interesting because you look around Britain and America

00:20:58.000 now, you go, there are a lot of people who are understandably quite frustrated about the

00:21:03.000 fact that things are difficult to buy.

00:21:05.000 Housing is unaffordable for young people, et cetera.

00:21:08.000 And along come these very charismatic people who say, well, the solution to all of this is

00:21:13.000 free stuff.

00:21:14.000 And, you know, and they have a very good answer for where the stuff, we're going to tax the

00:21:18.000 rich, we're going to tax the 1% or the 0.1%.

00:21:21.000 We're going to tax the billionaires.

00:21:23.000 Why are they wrong?

00:21:25.000 I'll say I also want things to be cheaper.

00:21:28.000 I mean, I think housing is unaffordable in New York City, certainly.

00:21:32.000 That has affected me.

00:21:33.000 I mean, I'm not a homeowner.

00:21:35.000 I mean, I'm affected by the same problems that these people complain about.

00:21:38.000 Sure.

00:21:39.000 And I think it's the same problem all throughout the West, especially in the Anglosphere with

00:21:43.000 housing and other issues.

00:21:44.000 The question is, how do we make it affordable?

00:21:47.000 And the answer to that is not we're going to build government housing, because none of

00:21:52.000 the people who really are voting for Mandani, I think, or for socialists all over the world

00:21:56.000 really want to live in government housing.

00:21:58.000 Have you looked at government housing anywhere in the world?

00:22:01.000 This is the US.

00:22:02.000 This is not a Venezuelan problem.

00:22:03.000 Go to the public housing projects in Manhattan or in the Bronx or Brooklyn.

00:22:07.000 It's not a nice place to live.

00:22:09.000 It's the solution to just tell landlords how much they can charge for rent.

00:22:13.000 Well, then they won't build new housing, right?

00:22:16.000 So if you want to build more housing, what is the issue?

00:22:19.000 Why aren't there more apartment projects being built?

00:22:22.000 Because the government prohibits it.

00:22:23.000 It's the government standing in the way.

00:22:25.000 I also want, you know, cheaper rent.

00:22:28.000 I also want cheaper groceries.

00:22:29.000 I want cheaper everything.

00:22:30.000 I want everybody to be wealthy.

00:22:32.000 Imagine if we could have a system.

00:22:34.000 Venezuela could have achieved this, by the way.

00:22:36.000 Like in the UAE.

00:22:38.000 Very low taxes.

00:22:39.000 A very small government.

00:22:40.000 An oil petro state, right?

00:22:41.000 Venezuela could have been that.

00:22:43.000 And how are the citizens of the UAE living?

00:22:45.000 They're living like multimillionaires.

00:22:47.000 And then they bring in so many immigrants.

00:22:49.000 I'm not saying that we need to imitate everything that the UAE does, right?

00:22:52.000 But what I'm saying is that Venezuela could have been that extremely wealthy country.

00:22:57.000 Much wealthier than any Western country.

00:23:00.000 It's such a profound point because the one thing and what really antagonizes me about the left is that Venezuela was their poster boy.

00:23:12.000 It was their poster boy.

00:23:14.000 You know, they were talking about socialism, Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, all the big, big players of the left eulogizing Venezuela and saying this is the socialist dream.

00:23:27.000 Yet when it fell apart, when our people were starving, they were dying, 9 million of us left.

00:23:34.000 They just walked away and they've never mentioned it since.

00:23:38.000 That's right.

00:23:39.000 Now they say, you know, what happened in Venezuela can't happen here.

00:23:43.000 That's not what we want.

00:23:44.000 We want to be like the Nordic countries, right?

00:23:46.000 And then you see the democratic sources of America visiting Cuba, visiting Venezuela, meeting with their leaders, because that's what they really want.

00:23:54.000 And they're just lying to the regular people who vote for them that, you know, we want to be like Norway or something, right?

00:24:01.000 When in Norway, they pay for all their stuff with a 20 percent plus sales tax.

00:24:05.000 I mean, what is the VAT in the UK right now?

00:24:08.000 20 percent.

00:24:09.000 20 percent.

00:24:10.000 I mean, how do you think you fund these public programs?

00:24:11.000 What's the payroll tax?

00:24:12.000 Much higher.

00:24:13.000 Here, combined employer and employee is 15 percent.

00:24:15.000 In Spain, I know, it's over 30 percent.

00:24:18.000 It's the poor and the middle class who pay for all those welfare things because they're not going to move from your country.

00:24:23.000 They're trapped.

00:24:24.000 The rich will move.

00:24:25.000 It's very simple.

00:24:26.000 They're moving to Dubai.

00:24:27.000 They're moving to Singapore.

00:24:28.000 If they start taxing them here, they'll move out of the United States.

00:24:32.000 So.

00:24:33.000 So my my my entire problem is that I fear that young people, especially in the West, are being lied to by these leaders who actually do support the Maduro regime and Chavez.

00:24:46.000 Just like you're saying, Jeremy Corbyn is one of them.

00:24:49.000 And other leaders, even here in the United States.

00:24:52.000 Bernie Sanders, you mentioned.

00:24:53.000 Soren Mamdani has still a tweet up saying that he thinks the elections in Venezuela are not so shabby.

00:24:58.000 The elections are rigged in Venezuela.

00:25:00.000 If you think the elections are not so shabby is because, in my opinion, you want to rig them.

00:25:03.000 There's people like Gregory Meeks in the U.S. Congress.

00:25:05.000 He went to the funeral of Hugo Chavez.

00:25:07.000 These are people who are sitting members of Congress.

00:25:11.000 Bernie Sanders said that the American dream was more achievable in Venezuela.

00:25:15.000 It's never been more achievable in Venezuela, even when it was good.

00:25:19.000 OK, like, no.

00:25:21.000 Bernie Sanders said that bread lines are a good thing in Nicaragua means people want to buy stuff.

00:25:26.000 You know, well, maybe they think about the bagel lines here in New York City and they think that's a good thing.

00:25:33.000 I don't know.

00:25:35.000 So I do think that there are evil people at the top who support these dictatorships.

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00:27:00.000 German engineered for all.

00:27:03.000 Because I just can't believe that you look at Venezuela and if you are honest about it.

00:27:08.000 Truly honest.

00:27:09.000 Because what I want to talk to you, Daniel, is what's it like growing up in a communist country?

00:27:15.000 We've spoken about the economic realities of it.

00:27:18.000 But what's it like growing up under an oppressive regime?

00:27:22.000 Yeah.

00:27:23.000 What happens to you when you criticize Chavez?

00:27:25.000 Or if you're a journalist, I've got my stories from my family, but we'd love to hear yours.

00:27:29.000 Who's?

00:27:30.000 Well, I'll tell you.

00:27:31.000 Growing up, I had a great family, very loving family, but that suffered tremendously.

00:27:37.000 I think that what's interesting about my story is that it's not exceptional.

00:27:41.000 I grew up in a middle class family.

00:27:43.000 My parents owned a gas station in Venezuela.

00:27:46.000 And we used to make maybe $1,000 to $3,000 a month in the early 2000s.

00:27:51.000 That's pretty good.

00:27:52.000 Especially for Venezuela in the early 2000s, you know, before the inflation we've had adjusted.

00:27:57.000 By 2016, when I left, we were making $100 a month.

00:28:01.000 That is the reality we faced.

00:28:03.000 We had cars, you know, I went to a good school.

00:28:06.000 We lived in our own apartment.

00:28:09.000 That was our property.

00:28:10.000 And then we didn't have electricity.

00:28:12.000 And then we didn't have water.

00:28:13.000 And then we had to line up for food.

00:28:15.000 And when we didn't have electricity and we didn't have water, I had to carry up five floors,

00:28:19.000 the water jug on my shoulder as a teenager.

00:28:24.000 You know, good workout.

00:28:26.000 But it's going from a first world country to a third world country.

00:28:31.000 That is what's so painful because all other socialist countries were never so rich as Venezuela.

00:28:36.000 Think about the Soviet Union.

00:28:38.000 The Russian Empire was a terrible place to live.

00:28:42.000 The poorest empire in Europe.

00:28:44.000 Think about China before Mao.

00:28:46.000 Even before Mao, China was a desolate, terrible place to live.

00:28:51.000 Think about Cuba.

00:28:52.000 Cuba was maybe the most okay-ish, but it's still much poorer than Venezuela was.

00:28:56.000 Eastern Europe ravaged by World War II.

00:28:58.000 I mean, how many problems did Eastern Europe have before Soviet socialism?

00:29:02.000 Venezuela was a rich and democratic country.

00:29:05.000 And it became poor because of socialism and became authoritarian because of socialism.

00:29:11.000 And that is why the case of Venezuela is so important for all of us in the West.

00:29:15.000 Because it is what could happen to us.

00:29:17.000 Well, one of the questions that, one of the challenges that some people might put to you,

00:29:22.000 and I genuinely am curious to hear your response because I don't know,

00:29:25.000 but the talking point from a lot of people who are supportive of regimes of this kind is,

00:29:30.000 actually, it's all the gringo's fault.

00:29:32.000 Yes.

00:29:33.000 Right?

00:29:34.000 And I remember this was the narrative about the Soviet Union where I grew up, which is,

00:29:41.000 well, if it wasn't for the evil Americans, our brilliant experiment.

00:29:45.000 And actually, it's funny because towards the end of the Soviet Union,

00:29:48.000 nobody in the Soviet Union said this anymore.

00:29:50.000 Because we knew that this was bullshit, because the whole system is terrible.

00:29:54.000 But that is a talking point that a lot of the supporters of these regimes still wheel out.

00:30:00.000 If it wasn't for the Americans, if the Americans hadn't put the blockade on QB,

00:30:04.000 if the Americans hadn't interfered in Venezuela,

00:30:06.000 if only they'd allowed Venezuela to do what it wanted to do in the way that it wanted to do it,

00:30:11.000 everything would be fine.

00:30:13.000 Is that true?

00:30:14.000 No.

00:30:15.000 And, you know, it's funny because the regime tried to brainwash the population about this.

00:30:20.000 The great enemy was the United States, which Chavez called the Empire.

00:30:24.000 They put graffiti in the streets with an evil Uncle Sam with devilish horns and a tail.

00:30:30.000 Gringo, go home.

00:30:31.000 And I'm like, which gringos?

00:30:32.000 There are no gringos here.

00:30:33.000 But nobody bought it, really.

00:30:35.000 I mean, now people really like the United States.

00:30:38.000 People joke about the U.S. and say, oh, how was the Empire when you come back?

00:30:43.000 You're an imperialist too, you know?

00:30:46.000 That's how we were called.

00:30:48.000 So if really the United States is to blame,

00:30:53.000 how can the socialists explain that the people of Venezuela like the United States and don't think so?

00:30:59.000 Are we all brainwashed?

00:31:00.000 Is that why we all left?

00:31:01.000 We're all brainwashed, right?

00:31:03.000 Are the people inside that haven't left also brainwashed?

00:31:06.000 Because if anything, they have less access to the media.

00:31:09.000 How could they?

00:31:10.000 If anything, is the regime brainwashing us?

00:31:12.000 You asked me about growing up in Venezuela, the media was so censored that when I was 12 years old,

00:31:17.000 before it was even allowed, I opened a Twitter account back when it was called Twitter.

00:31:21.000 I then had to, like, re-upload my ID, you know, the whole process because I opened it as a minor.

00:31:25.000 I opened that to read the news because I couldn't get it from TV or from, you know, the newspapers because they began to be all censored.

00:31:34.000 So the situation is very dire.

00:31:37.000 It is not because of foreign sanctions or the U.S.

00:31:40.000 And the best example to, I think, counter this narrative is actually another country that is sanctioned by the U.S., and that is Iran.

00:31:47.000 If Venezuela is sanctioned, oil dependent, you know, authoritarian, corrupt,

00:31:53.000 how come Iran doesn't have hyperinflation and millions of refugees fleeing?

00:31:57.000 Iran, in many ways, is less free than Venezuela.

00:32:00.000 If you're a woman, you have to wear a hijab.

00:32:04.000 It's suppressive in a social and political way that Venezuela is not.

00:32:08.000 So why aren't millions crossing the border into Turkey?

00:32:11.000 They could do it.

00:32:12.000 To other countries.

00:32:13.000 Azerbaiyan.

00:32:14.000 There's so many Azeri-Iranians.

00:32:15.000 They would feel very well culturally in Azerbaiyan, a very long border.

00:32:19.000 They don't because in Iran, it might be all these horrible things.

00:32:23.000 It's not a good, you know, regime at all.

00:32:26.000 But Iran is not a socialist country.

00:32:28.000 In Iran, you can't feed your family and live.

00:32:31.000 In Venezuela, you cannot.

00:32:33.000 And you cannot, not because sanctions are stronger on Venezuela.

00:32:36.000 They're much stronger on Iran.

00:32:38.000 You can't even send a piece of mail to Iran from the United States.

00:32:41.000 To Venezuela, you can send cash, you can send food.

00:32:43.000 There are companies based in South Florida that send food door to door in Caracas.

00:32:47.000 You give them your family members address.

00:32:49.000 You can travel.

00:32:50.000 I don't recommend that you might get kidnapped by the regime.

00:32:54.000 But there's no limitation.

00:32:56.000 The limitation is on the Maduro regime itself.

00:32:58.000 And that is a good limitation.

00:33:00.000 You should sanction criminals, people who violate human rights, take their properties.

00:33:04.000 Even buildings in New York City were owned by Maduro regime affiliates in Miami, too.

00:33:09.000 So, I think it's just a scapegoat.

00:33:12.000 They always blame someone else.

00:33:14.000 The Cubans have done this as well.

00:33:16.000 The Cuban regime say, you know, it's all because of the embargo.

00:33:19.000 If capitalism is so bad, why do you want to trade with us?

00:33:22.000 If trade is bad, why do you want to trade with capitalist countries?

00:33:25.000 America was the main buyer of Venezuelan oil throughout all of Chavez's term.

00:33:30.000 Then how did inflation go up?

00:33:32.000 How did all these things happen without sanctions?

00:33:35.000 Sanctions in a real serious way against the oil industry that's owned by the government

00:33:40.000 only began in 2019 under Trump, who, by the way, Biden lifted them.

00:33:45.000 Why hasn't Venezuela recovered?

00:33:47.000 If it's the oil price, the oil price recovered a long time ago.

00:33:51.000 Venezuela never recovered.

00:33:52.000 When the oil price goes down, do you see refugees fleeing Dubai and other oil-defendant nations?

00:33:58.000 Are they crossing the desert seeking food and a better life?

00:34:02.000 No.

00:34:03.000 Because it has nothing to do with the oil dependence.

00:34:05.000 It has nothing to do with corruption.

00:34:06.000 It has nothing to do with sanctions and everything to do with socialist policies.

00:34:12.000 And Daniel, so we'll go back to the story of Venezuela.

00:34:16.000 Chavez has been this authoritarian leader, a larger-than-life figure, hugely charismatic.

00:34:23.000 But he developed stomach cancer.

00:34:25.000 He becomes desperately sick.

00:34:27.000 He dies.

00:34:28.000 And then Nicolás Maduro comes in.

00:34:32.000 And there's people going, well, it can't get any worse, can it?

00:34:36.000 Well, Maduro, the thing is, he didn't do anything different from what Chavez did.

00:34:40.000 Maduro continued the same policies of nationalizations, price controls, printing money.

00:34:45.000 And things just became worse naturally, as they always were going to.

00:34:50.000 A lot of people have tried to rehabilitate Chavez and then say, no, this is all because of Maduro.

00:34:55.000 Chavez was an international criminal drug dealer, the guy who started it all.

00:35:00.000 Chavez is the one who put Maduro in charge himself, too.

00:35:04.000 And none of these are saints or good people.

00:35:07.000 And what happened is, think about it, the government owned the electricity, the water sector, the oil sector.

00:35:14.000 And the longer it passes without doing maintenance to, say, electric facilities or water facilities,

00:35:21.000 the more likely something bad is going to happen to them.

00:35:24.000 In Venezuela, we saw, even during Chavez, explosions of refineries.

00:35:28.000 The main refineries, El Palito and Amoy, exploded.

00:35:31.000 That's why there's no gasoline.

00:35:32.000 They exploded because they didn't do maintenance.

00:35:34.000 The water and the electric facilities, explosions, too, because of lack of maintenance.

00:35:39.000 And every time something's happened, you know what Chavez and Maduro would say?

00:35:42.000 Oh, it's Marco Rubio that hacked our system from Florida, from Miami.

00:35:46.000 Imagine now that he's Secretary of State, right?

00:35:49.000 They really are paranoid or try to portray themselves as paranoid.

00:35:54.000 They know it's all their fault.

00:35:56.000 It's all a lie to deceive Westerners that, oh, it's all our fault and they play into this guilt.

00:36:04.000 When in reality, they just want to stay in power forever.

00:36:08.000 They're not even Marxists, I actually think, anymore.

00:36:11.000 I actually think they know socialism is bad.

00:36:14.000 They know socialism makes people poor, but that's why they implement it.

00:36:17.000 Because keeping people poor and dependent on the government is how they stay in power and continue their drug trafficking operation.

00:36:24.000 And so with that in mind, and I'm glad that you touched on the narco trafficking thing, because that's one aspect of the regime.

00:36:34.000 He's been critical of many aspects of the regime.

00:36:38.000 But that's one aspect that Trump has been hypercritical on.

00:36:41.000 So let's talk about that.

00:36:42.000 Yes.

00:36:43.000 So the Maduro regime is what's called a cartel, the cartel of the sons.

00:36:48.000 This all began.

00:36:49.000 I mean, these investigations have been ongoing for over 10 years independently at the Department of Justice.

00:36:55.000 And one of the things Chavez did in the early 2000s is that most countries have cooperation agreements with the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, to stop drug trafficking.

00:37:05.000 South America is a big source of drug trafficking.

00:37:07.000 Why? Because it's mostly produced in Colombia.

00:37:09.000 That's where the U.S. opened military bases there and really fought it hard under the Uribe presidency.

00:37:13.000 And then now under Petro, obviously, it's all gone overboard.

00:37:17.000 But Chavez stopped the cooperation with the U.S. government.

00:37:21.000 And that was purposeful.

00:37:22.000 That's because they thought that that was actually their best revenue source.

00:37:27.000 They destroyed the oil industry, so they ran out of oil to steal.

00:37:31.000 What they didn't destroy, because it's not government-owned, is the drug trafficking industry.

00:37:36.000 And so the generals of the Venezuelan military, this is part of how they remain in power, the military is the cartel.

00:37:44.000 And the military knows that if Venezuela were to become a democratic country, obviously, generals cannot be drug kingpins.

00:37:53.000 No matter who comes to power in an election.

00:37:56.000 And that's why they will never give in power peacefully.

00:37:59.000 That's another discussion that we can talk about.

00:38:01.000 But the point is, they became a cartel.

00:38:04.000 They don't mainly produce the drugs there.

00:38:07.000 It's mostly from Colombia, from FARC, ELN, these other military groups.

00:38:11.000 They bring it through Venezuela.

00:38:13.000 And because Venezuela is a narco state, the government itself endorses this.

00:38:17.000 They use government planes to transport drugs.

00:38:20.000 They use all the state infrastructure to do it.

00:38:23.000 Nicolás Maduro's nephews were captured by the DEA in Haiti with kilos of cocaine.

00:38:29.000 They were brought here.

00:38:30.000 They went to trial.

00:38:31.000 They were declared guilty.

00:38:32.000 And then Biden pardoned them and sent them back.

00:38:34.000 What?

00:38:35.000 Oh, yeah.

00:38:36.000 This happened a few years ago under Biden.

00:38:37.000 It was also part of an exchange for American prisoners.

00:38:40.000 And he released the nephews, the nephews of the dictator.

00:38:44.000 I mean, this is how high up it is.

00:38:46.000 I mean, how close do you want to get?

00:38:47.000 It's his own family.

00:38:48.000 So that is why they do it, because it's a big source of revenue.

00:38:52.000 It's a way to create a clientele of people in power that have the weapons to remain in power.

00:38:58.000 And how much cocaine?

00:39:01.000 Do we know how much cocaine is being trafficked from Venezuela to the United States?

00:39:05.000 So my understanding is that it's about 20% of the cocaine that gets to the United States comes from Venezuela.

00:39:11.000 It's not a majority, but it's a huge portion.

00:39:15.000 But I mean, I don't know how credible it is, the amount.

00:39:19.000 But it really comes from Colombia.

00:39:21.000 That's where it's produced.

00:39:22.000 And then Venezuela helps with the transportation.

00:39:24.000 Part of it also goes to Europe.

00:39:26.000 It's not all to the United States.

00:39:28.000 It goes through the islands of the Caribbean, sometimes on flights, sometimes on boats,

00:39:31.000 like the boats we've seen they've taken in the Caribbean.

00:39:34.000 And then ultimately also through Mexico, right?

00:39:37.000 Well, these boats that have been destroyed by US strikes, are they narco boats?

00:39:44.000 What do we know about them?

00:39:45.000 I am certain that they are.

00:39:48.000 I have no...

00:39:49.000 So one of the things is, right now there's a very likely discussion in the United States

00:39:53.000 over whether this is legal, whether this is good, whether these people need to be brought to trial.

00:39:58.000 Look, I can tell you, at least me personally, as a Venezuelan, I fully support the Trump administration's strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean.

00:40:07.000 And the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans, even posts on their personal social media, jokes about it.

00:40:13.000 They love it.

00:40:14.000 They're like, another one bites the dust.

00:40:17.000 Because this is part of what keeps the regime in power.

00:40:20.000 Now, are the strikes going to overthrow Maduro by themselves, striking boats? No.

00:40:26.000 More would need to be done.

00:40:28.000 But is it a good thing because these people are evil and have destroyed our country? Yes.

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00:41:58.000 Well, there was something strange I found because, look, this episode might go out a fair while after the events that we're discussing.

00:42:08.000 And by this point, it might all be legal or illegal or, you know, whatever.

00:42:12.000 Right.

00:42:13.000 But I just thought it was quite weird the way the media covered it because they were like, well, one of the people who was hit, you know, was a fisherman.

00:42:19.000 And you're going, well, drug cartels will use fishermen to drive boats.

00:42:22.000 No, no, wait.

00:42:23.000 That person who was, by the way, Colombian, that fisherman was a convicted armed trafficker in Colombia.

00:42:28.000 Right.

00:42:29.000 Are you telling me that he reformed himself, went to a drug trafficking route to fish?

00:42:34.000 Right.

00:42:35.000 That sounds fishy.

00:42:36.000 That sounds fishy.

00:42:37.000 But even if that isn't the case, I mean, just because there was one fisherman on a boat doesn't mean it's not a narco boat.

00:42:43.000 I mean, drug cartels probably don't have boat training camps.

00:42:47.000 They just get a guy who has a boat or who knows how to.

00:42:49.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:42:50.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:42:51.000 It's kind of silly.

00:42:52.000 Now, you might say, well, Daniel, but is death really the solution?

00:42:56.000 Right.

00:42:57.000 I'm going to tell you why this is the appropriate strategy.

00:42:59.000 It is the appropriate strategy because the drug trafficking in Latin America and especially in Venezuela and Colombia, it is tied to terrorism.

00:43:07.000 How do you think FARC and ELN, the terrorist designated groups by the United States, not even talking about the Cartel of the Sons yet?

00:43:14.000 Sorry, Daniel, there's a lot of people who won't know what FARC is and won't know what ELN is.

00:43:19.000 So let's just give us a bit of background and then come back to the point.

00:43:21.000 Yeah, the FARC and ELN are Colombian militias that occupy large portions of Colombia, do bomb attacks, kidnap people.

00:43:30.000 They have kidnapped even presidential candidates in Colombia and they extort businesses in the region.

00:43:35.000 And they are funded through drug trafficking.

00:43:38.000 How do you think Hezbollah even gets funding too?

00:43:40.000 Hezbollah also receives money from drug trafficking.

00:43:42.000 That terrorist groups have found out that the most profitable way to make money is drug trafficking and not criminal activity.

00:43:48.000 It's like the mob did the alcohol and the prostitution and all these things together.

00:43:52.000 It's the same thing that terrorists do.

00:43:53.000 So when you strike the drug trafficking, you strike the funding source of terrorism.

00:43:58.000 That's really, really interesting.

00:44:00.000 Another thing I was going to ask you is one of the things that I think is probably under discussed is the extent to which Venezuela is working with hostile regimes to the United States.

00:44:13.000 Absolutely.

00:44:14.000 So Chavez became very good friends with Mahmoud al-Madinejad when he was president of Iran.

00:44:20.000 The Iranians are still very good allies of the current regime.

00:44:23.000 Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping.

00:44:26.000 I mean, Russia and China gave him billions and billions of loans.

00:44:31.000 And then they forget.

00:44:32.000 That's all to prop them up.

00:44:34.000 Because for these regimes, having Venezuela there is both a platform to attack the United States, but also to bother the United States.

00:44:42.000 They know that the drug trafficking kills Americans and harms the West.

00:44:46.000 Why not support them?

00:44:48.000 They know that Maduro and Chavez before him funded communist parties in other countries, including Petro in Colombia, including Podemos in Spain, by the way, the far left party there that is in power.

00:45:01.000 So it is a very cost effective way to just fight an asymmetric war against the West.

00:45:10.000 And, yeah, so I would say it is a big problem.

00:45:15.000 I don't know if you remember when they tried to kidnap the Iranian citizen here in New York City, these armed assassins.

00:45:22.000 The objective was kidnapping, but the other option was assassination.

00:45:26.000 The plan was actually to take her to Caracas, not to Iran directly.

00:45:30.000 It was much closer.

00:45:31.000 That's because the Iranian regime cooperates with the majority.

00:45:34.000 The first lady and the president of Iran came recently to Venezuela.

00:45:38.000 It was a really funny video.

00:45:40.000 You know, she came in a full black burka.

00:45:42.000 And then when she was coming off the plane, Venezuelans put the Star Wars song as she was coming down.

00:45:47.000 Because that's exactly what it is.

00:45:50.000 And that's the tragedy of Venezuela is that it's become completely corrupted, that it's essentially now a vessel for the Iranian regime, but it's also got links to China as well.

00:46:03.000 Well, absolutely.

00:46:04.000 The Chinese supported Chavez with loans.

00:46:07.000 They're still present.

00:46:08.000 I mean, part of how the oil is extracted today in Venezuela is Iranian, Chinese and Russian companies, because the major regime wasn't able to do it themselves.

00:46:16.000 So they're like, hey, let's bring you all of it.

00:46:18.000 So it's really funny when the far leftists in the United States and other countries say that, oh, this is the United States that wants to overthrow Maduro because of the oil.

00:46:30.000 The oil is being taken by Russia, by China and by Iran.

00:46:33.000 What are you talking about?

00:46:34.000 Where do you think the Venezuelan gasoline comes from now?

00:46:36.000 It comes from Iran.

00:46:37.000 Take the oil there, bring the gasoline back.

00:46:40.000 The Iranians, I mean, those are the imperialist countries that interfered in Venezuela.

00:46:44.000 It's Cuba that did.

00:46:45.000 Venezuela wanted to have peaceful, free relations with the United States like it used to be.

00:46:52.000 The refineries all along Texas used to be designed to bring Venezuelan heavy oil and refine it there.

00:47:00.000 That's what they're designed to do.

00:47:02.000 And if anything, the majority regime has destroyed oil production.

00:47:07.000 Venezuela used to produce three and a half to four million barrels a day.

00:47:10.000 It produces less than a million, about half a million.

00:47:13.000 And it represents a very real security threat to the United States.

00:47:20.000 Because I was talking to one of my cousins and he was saying that there's Hezbollah training camps on the island of Margarita.

00:47:27.000 You see now people in burqas, you see a lot of Islamists in Venezuela.

00:47:32.000 And look, people, you might understand that Muslims are immigrating to rich countries because it's a better place to live.

00:47:39.000 Nobody's immigrating to Venezuela because it's a better place to live.

00:47:42.000 How did they show up there?

00:47:44.000 Because they'll work for Iran.

00:47:45.000 That's really simple.

00:47:46.000 It's because of the Hezbollah training camps.

00:47:48.000 Not only that, but the other terrorist organizations I mentioned earlier, FARC and ELN,

00:47:53.000 sought refuge from the U.S. involvement in Colombia inside Venezuela.

00:47:59.000 Chavez protected them.

00:48:00.000 He even has in one of his State of Union addresses saying that FARC and ELN are not terrorist groups.

00:48:05.000 They're just misunderstood people.

00:48:08.000 And not only do they represent a terrorist threat externally to the United States.

00:48:13.000 Venezuela, and I'm ashamed to say this.

00:48:16.000 It actually pains me and upsets me to say this.

00:48:20.000 We represent a threat to the United States internally with gangs like El Tren de Aragua.

00:48:25.000 Absolutely.

00:48:26.000 So Venezuela then after 2020 became a different, greater threat to America and the world.

00:48:32.000 Because now not only was it the drugs, which also increased, but it's also the migration of hundreds of thousands of people.

00:48:39.000 Well, millions all over the world, of course.

00:48:41.000 And among them, really dangerous gang members that you really didn't need to be a genius to identify them.

00:48:48.000 So one of the examples is this woman who crossed the southern border under Biden.

00:48:52.000 She was not sneaking in.

00:48:54.000 She was let in by border patrol.

00:48:56.000 She was checked.

00:48:57.000 You just had to see her picture to know that she shouldn't have been allowed.

00:49:00.000 Okay.

00:49:02.000 Facial tattoos everywhere.

00:49:03.000 This woman was actually a child sex trafficker.

00:49:06.000 And when she came to America, what she did was traffic girls into prostitution.

00:49:10.000 Her nickname was Barbie.

00:49:12.000 This is all in the New York Post.

00:49:14.000 You can read it.

00:49:15.000 See her photo.

00:49:16.000 All the other cases in New York City of gang members and thieve bans, right?

00:49:22.000 Shoplifting gangs.

00:49:24.000 And that is little.

00:49:25.000 They took over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado.

00:49:28.000 I mean, they have done so much, and they have even attempted to assassinate Venezuelan

00:49:33.000 dissidents in other countries.

00:49:34.000 Two Venezuelan dissidents were almost killed a couple of weeks ago in Colombia by an assassin

00:49:39.000 group.

00:49:40.000 They survived, thank God.

00:49:41.000 They killed one in Chile.

00:49:43.000 Their goal is to, it's not that most Venezuelans or even a large, you know, or even a small

00:49:51.000 or significant number are all criminals or whatever coming into the U.S., but that the

00:49:56.000 Venezuelan regime uses the natural migration flow of people who flee them to infiltrate

00:50:03.000 criminals and gang members.

00:50:04.000 Well, this is what I was going to ask you because there was one thing that we didn't

00:50:08.000 have in the Soviet Union because it was an authoritarian, maybe even totalitarian regime.

00:50:12.000 We did not have criminal gangs that were roaming, kidnapping people, trafficking drugs.

00:50:19.000 That, like, if you want to talk about the benefits of totalitarianism, crime tends to

00:50:23.000 be really under control, right?

00:50:25.000 As far as I understand in China, there are no huge gangs that are doing any of this stuff.

00:50:29.000 So how does a country with an authoritarian socialist regime end up having such a strong

00:50:36.000 presence of organized crime?

00:50:37.000 That is such a good observation on your right.

00:50:40.000 Cuba also doesn't have a major crime problem.

00:50:43.000 Venezuela is unique among these socialist nations in that it allowed crime to fester.

00:50:50.000 And I think it was a political strategy.

00:50:53.000 So if you see the charts of all the independent groups of the crime rate, homicide rate, kidnapping,

00:50:58.000 numbers, everything of Venezuela, Chavez got selected and sworn into office, linear increase up.

00:51:05.000 Caracas became one of the cities with the highest homicide rates on the planet.

00:51:09.000 And that was older in my lifetime.

00:51:12.000 It became so dangerous that when I went to parties as a teenager in friends' homes,

00:51:16.000 we would stay overnight because we didn't want to be picked up or do or live in the dark.

00:51:22.000 My own family in the early 2000s were kidnapped in the beach at home.

00:51:27.000 They stole everything.

00:51:28.000 They took our cars.

00:51:29.000 They took our belongings.

00:51:31.000 And so this became commonplace.

00:51:34.000 I have friends who some of them got robbed two times a day.

00:51:37.000 It became a joke at this point.

00:51:39.000 It's like, really?

00:51:40.000 And like when they come, like they already stole my phone.

00:51:42.000 I can't give it to you.

00:51:44.000 So we became used to the crime.

00:51:47.000 That was one of the greatest life, quality of life improvements for me coming to America was being at peace in the street.

00:51:55.000 Not thinking that a man in a motorcycle was going to come next to me in the sidewalk

00:51:59.000 and then point a gun at me and say, give me everything you have and then kill me, perhaps.

00:52:02.000 Yeah, we know how you feel coming from London.

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00:53:47.000 I guess what I'm asking is, is the crime and these gangs that we're seeing, particularly the ones that are infiltrating the United States,

00:53:54.000 is that simply a failure of the Venezuelan regime to assert its authority or is there something more nefarious going on?

00:54:02.000 I think it's more nefarious.

00:54:04.000 I think that the other authoritarian regimes chose to just quash crime and Maduro and Chavez chose not to.

00:54:12.000 Inside Venezuela, the purpose of the gangs was to repress protests.

00:54:16.000 They used these armed groups so that when there were large protests, they would send them.

00:54:20.000 It's called colectivos, collectives. And they would come in moral cycles, dressed in red,

00:54:25.000 and then they would shoot some people, kidnap others, torture them, and defuse the protests that way.

00:54:30.000 And then say, oh, that wasn't the police. It was them with Russian weapons, by the way.

00:54:36.000 I mean, how else do you get weapons in a country where weapons are illegal, right?

00:54:40.000 Well, the weapons are illegal for law-abiding citizens, not for the gang members and the collectives.

00:54:45.000 So that's how it all began. And then these gangs also grew on themselves, right?

00:54:50.000 They controlled the prisons, which are totally packed with people.

00:54:55.000 You know, part of what President Trump has said about the gangs is that Maduro released the people from the prisons.

00:54:59.000 Actually, the problem is that people just didn't go to prison in the first place.

00:55:02.000 The prisons are actually the place where criminals thrive.

00:55:06.000 They have chicken inside the prisons. They have banks. They bring in people from outside.

00:55:11.000 There are several good documentaries of people who go into the prisons, Americans and others.

00:55:16.000 So I think it was a political strategy at the beginning, internal.

00:55:21.000 And then when they saw that people were coming to the United States through the border, they were like, we can exploit this.

00:55:28.000 So the gang members came with them.

00:55:31.000 Do you think that there's going to be some kind of military action in Venezuela involving the U.S.?

00:55:39.000 I hope so.

00:55:40.000 You know, right now, what we're only seeing is striking the boats.

00:55:46.000 Trump has hinted at striking inside Venezuela, the land.

00:55:50.000 Look, why do I say I hope so? Because it's really the only way we see this regime end.

00:55:55.000 This regime will not end because they feel pressure from sanctions.

00:56:00.000 As much as I support it because I don't think they should get to enjoy the financial benefits of what they stole.

00:56:06.000 It's the just thing to do to sanction the regime.

00:56:09.000 But if you want to see a prosperous Venezuela where millions of people are fleeing, where criminals aren't going to other countries, where we're actually exporting oil instead of exporting people, the only way is for Maduro not to be in power and Venezuela become a free country again.

00:56:25.000 And I think it's such a good point, Daniel, and what people don't understand because Venezuela isn't the focus of most people's attention is this is not sustainable either for Venezuela or actually for the United States.

00:56:39.000 And something really does need to be done.

00:56:41.000 Indeed. I mean, we're all paying for what socialism did to Venezuela.

00:56:45.000 We're paying it in higher gasoline prices because there are millions of barrels that are not being produced every day from Venezuela.

00:56:51.000 We're all paying it in crime.

00:56:53.000 I mean, how many people have been killed by gang members from Venezuela in the US?

00:56:57.000 Every time I was in the news, like migrant crime, whatever it's up.

00:57:00.000 I was like, please let it not be Venezuelan.

00:57:02.000 Please let it not be Venezuelan.

00:57:03.000 They're like, Venezuelan.

00:57:04.000 Right.

00:57:05.000 You know, like, oh, please, at least another line American nation.

00:57:07.000 Please, come on.

00:57:08.000 Yeah.

00:57:09.000 So that is not a coincidence.

00:57:11.000 And so we're paying the price.

00:57:14.000 And we would all benefit so much if Venezuela became free, not just Venezuelans.

00:57:19.000 So many people would go back to Venezuela, millions of people.

00:57:22.000 And I think, you know, so much suffering has been done.

00:57:28.000 People starving.

00:57:29.000 So much lost human potential of valuable people that could be innovating and doing good things.

00:57:34.000 It's the same thing with the Soviet Union when it was still a socialist dream.

00:57:38.000 How many smart Russians were there?

00:57:39.000 I mean, Russia has some of the smartest people in the world that couldn't fulfill their potential and innovate for all the world's benefit because of Soviet socialism.

00:57:50.000 And a lot of them are here now and in Israel.

00:57:52.000 Very true.

00:57:53.000 Very, very true.

00:57:54.000 But still, it was a loss of human potential.

00:57:56.000 Of course.

00:57:57.000 Same in China.

00:57:58.000 Same in so many authoritarian countries.

00:58:00.000 And I think President Trump has the opportunity not only to get a huge win on foreign policy, but to do the greatest foreign policy achievement of the U.S. perhaps in many decades.

00:58:11.000 Well, here's a question, Daniel.

00:58:12.000 And look, I think what you're saying I totally get, particularly from your perspective.

00:58:17.000 I also think, and I think you'd agree with me, over the last 20 years, regime change has got a bit of a bad rep, right?

00:58:26.000 And partly, I think, for very good reasons, which is one of the things I think Americans have discovered that, you know, I always try to explain this to our American friends.

00:58:34.000 It's like not everyone in the world is American.

00:58:36.000 So even if you remove the evil guy at the top, they don't necessarily end up in a, you know, social democracy or liberal democracy or democracy at all.

00:58:45.000 So, for example, you know, I think there was a few people who were a little bit too enthusiastic when the Ukraine war, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

00:58:53.000 And they were like, oh, we just need to get rid of Putin.

00:58:55.000 And I was like, well, I agree with you that what's happening is bad and I'm super pro-Ukraine.

00:59:00.000 You remove Putin, I'm not sure you're going to get something better.

00:59:03.000 So, if you were saying, well, it would be better to remove Maduro, I totally get the sentiment, but make the case to me that he's not going to be replaced by Nicolas Paduro and he's even worse.

00:59:16.000 That's very important. And obviously, during the last 20 years, I mean, because of the Iraq war, which was a massive mistake, a trillion dollar mistake, that's a big problem.

00:59:27.000 But people forget that there have been many successful use of forces in U.S. foreign policy in the past, even in Latin America, that led to great prosperity.

00:59:35.000 Tell us about that.

00:59:36.000 Panama, for example. Panama, too, is one of the richest countries in Latin America after the U.S. deposed Manuel Noriega.

00:59:42.000 Grenada. In Grenada, they celebrate Thanksgiving on the day of the U.S. intervention in Grenada.

00:59:48.000 Took one day. Now, Grenada is an island. It's much smaller. Panama had the Panama Canal.

00:59:51.000 I understand it's not the same, but what I'm trying to say is that it can be successful.

00:59:56.000 And it has been successful in recent period, in the 80s.

00:59:59.000 So, what happens in Venezuela is also similar in that we have a democratically elected government.

01:00:05.000 We have an active opposition, something Cuba doesn't have, unfortunately.

01:00:08.000 And so, we have people, you know, a democratic alternative that has massive popular support.

01:00:17.000 And we have a regime that totally depends on drug trafficking.

01:00:21.000 We don't have a country with ethnical religious division, right?

01:00:24.000 We're not going to have an Iraq Shiite versus Muslim war.

01:00:28.000 We're not going to have, you know, these ethnic genocides, right, that happen in Africa.

01:00:33.000 It's a very different situation.

01:00:36.000 And we don't need troops on the ground either, right?

01:00:40.000 That would be a massive mistake because it would be very costly, right?

01:00:42.000 The U.S. is simply not capable of doing that in Venezuela, which is a very large country, larger than Iraq, too.

01:00:48.000 So, what President Trump could do is actually strike at the military facilities of the regime,

01:00:55.000 and even strike at some of the major regime members, such that Maduro gets the message,

01:01:00.000 I need to leave because my life is at risk.

01:01:03.000 And where would he live? The same faith that Bashar al-Assad had.

01:01:06.000 He will go to Russia, probably.

01:01:08.000 I don't think he wants to go to Cuba. It's too poor.

01:01:10.000 So, in China, you know, he probably doesn't want to be in Asia, so he'll probably end up in Russia.

01:01:15.000 And before we move on to our substat where people get to ask their questions to you, Daniel,

01:01:22.000 what would you say to young people who are toying with socialism, who are frustrated, who are angry,

01:01:28.000 who think to themselves, capitalism isn't working for me.

01:01:31.000 We're in the hands of corporations. How bad can socialism be?

01:01:35.000 If you don't want somebody that you hate in the government running your life, like, for example, Donald Trump,

01:01:41.000 then you shouldn't give the government the power that socialist regimes do.

01:01:45.000 Because that's what's going to happen.

01:01:47.000 People that you don't like are going to be in power,

01:01:49.000 and they're going to use the power that you gave to the government against you.

01:01:53.000 And that is what we need to stop, right?

01:01:55.000 And I bet that most of the people who support socialism really dislike President Trump.

01:01:59.000 Well, who do you think is going to be in charge of your healthcare and the government healthcare?

01:02:02.000 Who do you think is going to be in charge of your education and government education?

01:02:06.000 So private property is actually a protection against governments you don't like,

01:02:10.000 against people being involved in your life in ways you don't want them.

01:02:14.000 And I want everybody to have affordable housing, affordable healthcare.

01:02:18.000 Like I said earlier, I want people to be wealthy.

01:02:21.000 And we're already much wealthier than we used to be.

01:02:24.000 We just, you know, lack that perspective.

01:02:25.000 We're wealthier than our grandparents were, than our parents were.

01:02:28.000 Where immigrants find success in America in incredible ways.

01:02:32.000 I have at least, and I know millions of others.

01:02:34.000 So the answer to this is not to tear down everything.

01:02:38.000 It's to understand what are the causes for the problems we suffer?

01:02:41.000 Why are we not building enough housing?

01:02:43.000 Why are groceries perhaps more expensive than they used to be?

01:02:46.000 And then implement policies targeted to those areas.

01:02:49.000 And so what do you think the policies are from a capitalist perspective?

01:02:53.000 From a capitalist perspective, we need to really repeal a lot of zoning, parking requirements,

01:02:59.000 all these government regulations and building.

01:03:01.000 This is why Austin, Texas, builds housing more in absolute numbers than New York City,

01:03:08.000 a city that is ten times larger because there's less regulation.

01:03:12.000 It's a liberal city.

01:03:13.000 It's liberal people living there and moving there, but they just have less regulation so they build more.

01:03:17.000 California has begun understanding this and they've changed their regulations because they know it's an existential threat.

01:03:23.000 On other policies, on labor for example, America is one of the countries that has the most licensing barriers to enter any profession.

01:03:30.000 You need, in most states, more than a thousand hours of unpaid training and over thousands of dollars in courses to become a barber.

01:03:39.000 You need a license in Washington, D.C. and other states and territories to become an interior designer.

01:03:45.000 Is the government trying to protect us from the wrong paint inside our walls, in our homes?

01:03:51.000 This makes no sense.

01:03:52.000 It's about one in five to one in four professions in America need a government license.

01:03:56.000 Look, I'm not saying we need to repeal licenses for doctors and lawyers, but we don't need to repeal most of the other licenses.

01:04:01.000 So that poor people, who are the ones who can't enter the profession, are able to.

01:04:06.000 So that they're not stuck in low paying jobs in fast food or doing something else.

01:04:10.000 The solution is not to increase the minimum wage.

01:04:12.000 The solution is to get better training.

01:04:14.000 The solution is to increase productivity, lower taxes, simplify regulations, the tax code too.

01:04:20.000 We have a great welfare cliff in this country where if you make more than a certain amount of money, you actually are worse off because you lose your Medicaid, you lose your public housing vouchers.

01:04:31.000 So we need to reform this tax and spending system so that the incentives are aligned for people to make more money, work and live better lives.

01:04:39.000 Daniel, thank you so much for coming on the show.

01:04:42.000 It's been an absolute pleasure.

01:04:43.000 And it's obviously been particularly impactful for me.

01:04:46.000 Are you going to cry?

01:04:47.000 Thank you.

01:04:48.000 I'm going to cry, mate.

01:04:49.000 A little cry.

01:04:50.000 What's wrong with you?

01:04:51.000 Not a real man.

01:04:53.000 Can't deal with the suffering of your own people.

01:04:55.000 Exactly.

01:04:56.000 I mean, what happened to Venezuela is really, really sad.

01:04:58.000 So I fully understand.

01:04:59.000 Of course.

01:05:00.000 Of course.

01:05:01.000 And I'm only joking.

01:05:02.000 Now you feel bad now, don't you?

01:05:05.000 Well, I don't know if you remember.

01:05:08.000 When we had an episode on the Soviet Union, I think I actually did cry.

01:05:11.000 So I was only teasing you in a kind of playful sort of way.

01:05:15.000 Yeah.

01:05:16.000 No, of course, it's a very serious issue.

01:05:17.000 Daniel, I thought you were a really, really special conversation.

01:05:19.000 Thank you for coming on, man.

01:05:20.000 It was great.

01:05:21.000 We're going to head over to substack triggerpot.co.uk where Daniel's going to answer your questions.

01:05:25.000 But before we do, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:05:30.000 I think we're not talking enough about the fact that the genders are politically polarized and that especially young women are the ones that are supporting socialist parties all over the world.

01:05:43.000 It's not just an American thing.

01:05:45.000 If you see the results of the elections in Germany, people are saying, oh, the youth are voting for the far right.

01:05:51.000 You know, the young men were, the young women were fighting for the far left.

01:05:55.000 And I fear that that is happening here, too.

01:05:57.000 And I do fear what that's going to do to the genders.

01:06:00.000 It's going to do to family formation.

01:06:02.000 And really, that's what's going to do to the political future of the West.

01:06:06.000 And we need to understand better why are certain groups of the population more attracted to socialist ideas than others.

01:06:13.000 And that is not something that I fully understand yet.

01:06:16.000 Perfect.

01:06:17.000 Well, head on over to triggerpot.co.uk where Daniel's going to answer your questions.

01:06:20.000 What needs to happen to Venezuela to restore it to a more democratic and presumably more prosperous state?

01:06:50.000 The Neil Diamond Musical.

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01:06:55.000 A Beautiful Noise is coming to Toronto.

01:06:58.000 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more featuring all the songs you love, including America, Forever in Blue Jeans and Sweet Caroline.

01:07:07.000 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.

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01:07:19.300 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.

TRIGGERnometry - December 24, 2025

Why Socialism Never Works - A Warning From Venezuela - Daniel Di Martino

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