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Speaker 1: Dear let you know USA listener. Before we start, you

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Speaker 1: should know that if you want to listen to this

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Speaker 1: after you do that, then click play. Let's go to

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Speaker 1: the show. Last Saturday, January third, in Karakas, Venezuela, a

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Speaker 1: woman we're gonna call Avela was peacefully asleep when suddenly

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Speaker 1: she was woken up at around two am by a

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Speaker 1: strange rumbling in the sky. There were airplanes flying overhead.

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Speaker 1: She tells her husband something's happened, and then she hears

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Speaker 1: an explosion. It was like a movie, she says. The

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Speaker 1: windows in her house rattled, her baby woke up. Her

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Speaker 1: hands were shaking because she has no idea what's going on.

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Speaker 1: So now she goes outside much and that's when she

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Speaker 1: sees a palm of smoke in the distance, floating into

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Speaker 1: the night sky. She was in shock, Comihaimbrasos, holding her

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Speaker 1: baby in her arms and telling herself this cannot be happening.

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Speaker 1: The explosions were air strikes and then. I didn't know

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Speaker 1: it at the time, but the United States had just

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Speaker 1: carried out a secret operation called Absolute Resolve. More than

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Speaker 1: one hundred American bombers and fighter jets had descended on

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Speaker 1: the city of Caracas. In just a few hours. The

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Speaker 1: US military had captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife,

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Speaker 1: Celia Flores, took them out of their heavily guarded presidential compound,

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Speaker 1: and then they were flown to New York, where they

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Speaker 1: were charged with trafficking and narco terrorism conspiracies. The operation

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Speaker 1: damaged streets and homes in some parts of Caracas and

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Speaker 1: left at least one hundred people dead. This includes both

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Speaker 1: military personnel and civilians, and it marked a giant shift

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Speaker 1: in a twenty six year regime that started with Maduro's predecessor,

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Speaker 1: Hugo Chaves. On Monday, January fifth, Vice President del Si

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Speaker 1: Rodriguez was sworn in as interim president. Since then, in Venezuela,

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Speaker 1: at least a dozen journalists have been detained, and the

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Speaker 1: government has ordered police to arrest any Venezuelan in support

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Speaker 1: of the US operation. Adela, who didn't share her real name,

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Speaker 1: was hesitant to speak to US in fact. Our family

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Speaker 1: cautioned her against it because there have been reports of

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Speaker 1: government officials checking people's phones on the street to see

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Speaker 1: if they're sharing information with the outside the standard formasium.

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Speaker 1: It's safe to say that the overall reaction to Maduro's

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Speaker 1: capture has been shocked in and out of Venezuela. There

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Speaker 1: were also celebrations in neighboring Colombia and across many US

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Speaker 1: cities like Durrell, Florida. We spoke to Venezuelans living in

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Speaker 1: Bogota and New York who said the toppling of Maduro

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Speaker 1: was inevitable. It was now or never. They approve of

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Speaker 1: how the US put an end to Maduro's reign.

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Speaker 2: Were gots.

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Speaker 3: Yes, a yamtel.

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Speaker 1: But we've also heard pushback to what many see as

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Speaker 1: a clear overreach by the Trump administration and the return

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Speaker 1: of good old American imperialism.

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Speaker 4: I'm here to.

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Speaker 5: Protests against the illegal abduction of the Glas Maduro and

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Speaker 5: Celia Flores is a blatant violation of international law.

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Speaker 1: From Futuro Media, It's Latino USA. I'm Maria Josa today.

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Speaker 1: The invasion of Venezuela. It marks yet another chapter in

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Speaker 1: a long history of US intervention across Latin America. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna try to make sense of what Donald Trump's incursion

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Speaker 1: tells us about where the United States stands in the

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Speaker 1: world now, and we're going to try to better understand

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Speaker 1: what life was like under the Maduro regime. To start,

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Speaker 1: we're joined by Steven Levitsky. He's professor of Government and

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Speaker 1: Latin American Studies at Harvard. He's co author of the

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Speaker 1: best selling book How Democracies Die, And we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about the way that Maduro was ousted and what

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Speaker 1: this means for democracy and autocracy here in the United States.

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Speaker 5: It's been a long year for those of us who

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Speaker 5: care about defending democracy and who study democracy and democratic

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Speaker 5: stability for a living.

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Speaker 3: It's been a busy, busy time.

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Speaker 5: I don't want to be too bloomy here, but the

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Speaker 5: entire rules based international order upon which global democracy survived

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Speaker 5: and thrived for many decades is at risk right now.

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Speaker 5: It's a pretty extreme measure and one that challenges, if

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Speaker 5: not outright violates international law to go in and forcefully

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Speaker 5: take sees the had a state of another country, how

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Speaker 5: my daughter was an autocrat. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claimed

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Speaker 5: victory in the country's presidential election, but opposition rival at

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Speaker 5: Mundo Gonzalez claimed he was the victor and had the

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Speaker 5: polling to prove it.

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Speaker 3: Rights groups have denounced the crackdown on opposition protests, with

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Speaker 3: Human Rights Watch estimating at least twenty people have been

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Speaker 3: killed by Venezuelan armed forces.

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Speaker 5: He was a thug, he was illegitimate. He stole the

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Speaker 5: twenty twenty four election. There's nothing defensible about Maduro. But

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Speaker 5: states are not supposed to go in militarily and seize

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Speaker 5: heads the states of other countries and bring them into

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Speaker 5: US court rooms.

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Speaker 1: So the opposition party claimed that they won. Maduro did

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Speaker 1: not see power. Now Maduro is gone, the leader of

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Speaker 1: the opposition wins the Nobel Prize. It seems that she

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Speaker 1: would be the person to be named to run the country,

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Speaker 1: but Trump has said no, Maria Corina Machado. And so

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Speaker 1: now that there's a real concern inside Venezuela and out

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Speaker 1: about questions of who's in control and what this battle

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Speaker 1: for power will look like.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, well this is where the confusion starts, because so

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Speaker 5: Madoa has been removed. But Madoda was not a personal dictator.

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Speaker 5: There was a whole regime in place. These guys had

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Speaker 5: been in power for a quarter of a century. So

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Speaker 5: there's a clique of very corrupt, very authoritarian figures who'd

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Speaker 5: been sharing power since Zugo. Chad has died and we

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Speaker 5: ripped off the head, but the rest of the regime

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Speaker 5: is fully intact and still in power.

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Speaker 1: The Trump administration has made one thing clear. They believe

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Speaker 1: the United States has the right to dominate not only

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Speaker 1: Venezuela but the entire Western hemisphere. Online security advisor Stephen

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Speaker 1: Miller put it plainly in an interview with CNN.

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Speaker 6: The future of the free world depends on America being

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Speaker 6: able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology.

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Speaker 1: And Stephen tells me that this kind of rhetoric should

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Speaker 1: raise alarms.

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Speaker 5: It's really important to remind people when the world grew

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Speaker 5: rich and powerful enough and industrialized enough to wipe out

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Speaker 5: millions and millions of people in war, and did it

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Speaker 5: in World War One and World War two, global powers

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Speaker 5: got together and put together an imperfect but important, rules

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Speaker 5: based international order. Or there's a strong norm against rich,

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Speaker 5: powerful countries going in and plundering smaller countries because they can,

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Speaker 5: or because they want to or because they want to

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Speaker 5: steal the oil. That became a effectively prohibited It was

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Speaker 5: not perfectly eliminated, but it was effectively prohibited after World

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Speaker 5: War Two for the sake of mankind, because the amount

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Speaker 5: of damage that we can do to each other as

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Speaker 5: human beings today if we descend back into the law

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Speaker 5: of the jungle is almost unthinkable. I fear for the

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Speaker 5: US's image. The US is becoming a rogue state, it's

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Speaker 5: becoming a pariah.

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Speaker 1: You have now heard Donald Trump his administration saying that

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Speaker 1: Cuba should be concerned, that Mexico, my country should be concerned, Colombia, Canada, Greenland.

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Speaker 1: What do you think about these threats.

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Speaker 3: I think we all need to be anxious.

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Speaker 5: I certainly don't think that Trump administration is capable of

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Speaker 5: waging war simultaneously on Greenland, Canada, Panama, in Mexico and Colombia.

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Speaker 5: Some of these interventions are much much less likely than

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Speaker 5: and others. It is well known that Marco Rubio places

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Speaker 5: is a very very high priority regime change in Cuba,

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Speaker 5: and so that I think is is something that this

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Speaker 5: government probably will seriously consider.

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Speaker 7: Cuba is a disaster, it's it's run by incompetent see

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Speaker 7: now men and in some cases not seen now, but incompetent. Nonetheless,

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Speaker 7: it has no economy.

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Speaker 3: It's in total collapse.

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Speaker 7: And by the way, you know all of the guards

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Speaker 7: that help protect Maduro, this is well known, their whole

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Speaker 7: spy agency, all that were full of Cubans.

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Speaker 5: Some sort of action in Mexico has always been on

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Speaker 5: the agenda, really since the twenty twenty four campaign, at

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Speaker 5: least targeting the manufacturer of fennyl and drug cartels. So

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Speaker 5: that's certainly a possibility. I don't think Canada and Colombia

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Speaker 5: have quite as much to worry about, but this is again,

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Speaker 5: it's an unconstrained authoritarian president.

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Speaker 1: What do you think that the international response to this

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Speaker 1: should be and does it hold any Wait if you

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Speaker 1: have an administration that says, well, we don't care in

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Speaker 1: the meeting.

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Speaker 5: To long run, this is a big, big win for

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Speaker 5: China and Russia because it opens up the possibility of

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Speaker 5: Russian expansionism in its neighborhood and Chinese expansionism and plunder.

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Speaker 3: In its neighborhood.

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Speaker 5: So this is terrible news for Taiwan, it's terrible news

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Speaker 5: for Ukraine and other neighbors of Russia. So you're not

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Speaker 5: going to see Russia pushback, You're not going to see

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Speaker 5: China pushback. You will see some mild response, mild criticism

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Speaker 5: from Europe, but you know, Europeans are have been caught

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Speaker 5: somewhat flat footed by this. So the US's allies, who

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Speaker 5: have basically just been betrayed and abandoned by their leader,

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Speaker 5: they're pretty stunned. Is Europe going to post sanctions on

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Speaker 5: the United States. It's unlikely anybody is is going to

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Speaker 5: respond militarily to what the United States is doing. So

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Speaker 5: my guess is you'll see very little response. When the

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Speaker 5: most powerful bully in the neighborhood picks on somebody, it's

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Speaker 5: not so easy to respond.

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Speaker 1: I need to ask you about the person who has

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Speaker 1: now been named to be leading the country, Delci Rodriguez.

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Speaker 1: What do you make about her relationship to the United

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Speaker 1: States and to the fact that Trump is saying that

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Speaker 1: Minezuela is now going to turn over fifty million barrels

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Speaker 1: of oil.

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Speaker 5: It's very, very difficult to know how Dessie Rigez will

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Speaker 5: behave She's in a really, really difficult bind. She ist

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Speaker 5: a very committed left wing activist for her whole life.

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Speaker 5: Her father was a leftist who is actually killed under

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Speaker 5: a previous Venezuelan government. Des Riguez is known to have

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Speaker 5: held very strong anti American views, but now she's faced

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Speaker 5: with a really, really difficult bibe with these threats from

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Speaker 5: the United States, and in effect, Trump essentially threatened to

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Speaker 5: kill her if she doesn't behave right. He said, if

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Speaker 5: Delsie Rivegus does not do what I say, she will

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Speaker 5: suffer a fate worse than Madudo.

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Speaker 8: I just say that you will face a situation probably

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Speaker 8: worse than pure.

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Speaker 5: So Trump is saying, literally, give us your oil. We

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Speaker 5: are in the process of trying to steal oil from Venezuela,

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Speaker 5: and we will ask for cooperation from the Vegas government.

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Speaker 5: I have no idea how does he Riguz will respond,

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Speaker 5: Whether the will to stay in power will induce her

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Speaker 5: to cooperate and go along with that humiliation. Maybe what

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Speaker 5: that will do to her legitimacy at home, we don't know.

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Speaker 5: Will that lead to infighting in the regime. My guess

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Speaker 5: is she'll probably try to work kind of speak out

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Speaker 5: of both sides of her mouth at home, shows a

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Speaker 5: defiance while that he's quietly committing to cooperate. With the

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Speaker 5: Trump administration.

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Speaker 1: Finally, Stephen, what is the response of people who want

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Speaker 1: to maintain a democracy alive in the United States?

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Speaker 5: Americans should be very concerned that they have an unconstrained,

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Speaker 5: autocratic president driving our foreign policy, threatening the very international

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Speaker 5: order that the United States helped to build, that the

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Speaker 5: United States helped to defend, and that brought the greatest

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Speaker 5: era of power, democracy, peace, and prosperity in the history

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Speaker 5: of this country, the post World War two era. And

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Speaker 5: so Americans should be very concerned about bringing this president,

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Speaker 5: this roague president, under control.

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Speaker 1: Steven Levitsky is the author of How Democracies Die? Coming

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Speaker 1: up on that USA. A Venezuelan journalist in exile gives

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Speaker 1: us a glimpse into the corruption of the Madudo regime.

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Speaker 3: It's not only that Venezuela today is an auto Italian regin.

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Speaker 3: It's also that Venezuela became a kind of kleptocracy.

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Speaker 1: Stay with us, not Bayas, Hey, we're back. I'm joined

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Speaker 1: by Venezuelan journalist Roberto Denis. Roberto will help us understand

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Speaker 1: what it was like to cover the Venezuelan government as

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Speaker 1: an investigative journalist. It was a dangerous endeavor that led

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Speaker 1: him into exile. Roberto started his career under Ugo Chavis,

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Speaker 1: Maduro's predecessor.

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Speaker 3: I work for years in one of the more prestigious

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Speaker 3: newspaper that Venezuela had. It was a Universal, and since

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Speaker 3: that moment I understood that one of the biggest reasons

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Speaker 3: to explain what was happening in Venezuela was corruption.

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Speaker 1: Roberto switched from covering economics and business to investigative journalism.

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Speaker 3: And I worked there in Universal until twenty fourteen, and

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Speaker 3: I decided to resign to that work because new entrepreneurs

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Speaker 3: they bought this newspaper that, as I said, it was

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Speaker 3: one of the most prestigious independent newspapers in Venezuela, and

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Speaker 3: immediately they started to censorship. They started to say, well,

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Speaker 3: we have to change our vision, our point of view,

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Speaker 3: because everything is not negative.

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Speaker 1: So Roberto quit. He became a freelancer and eventually joined

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Speaker 1: Armando Bunto Info, which is one of the few remaining

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Speaker 1: independent media outlets in Venezuela. Twenty sixteen, Roberto began looking

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Speaker 1: into a Colombian entrepreneur named Alec sab.

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Speaker 3: He was a key part of the Nicolas Maduru regin

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Speaker 3: because he became a kind of important financial operator for

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Speaker 3: Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores.

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Speaker 1: Roberto and his colleagues discovered a multimillion dollar scheme that

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Speaker 1: included em bestling state funds and rigging government contracts, a

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Speaker 1: textbook example of the systemic fraud that is rampant in

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Speaker 1: the Maduro regime. An investigation into a shadowy figure Nico

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Speaker 1: Gayo Aki at the heart of an international corruption.

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Speaker 9: Scandal, Gorgano Venezulao a Bavian plus Forresto acusandloar Alojo.

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Speaker 1: Roberto's investigation led to him getting arrested, and the Venezuelan

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Speaker 1: government even threatened him with jail time. So in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: Roberto was forced to flee Venezuela.

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Speaker 3: And since that moment, I have been living in Colombia

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Speaker 3: and my main mission, of course, when I took that decision,

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Speaker 3: was to be safe first, but the second mission was

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Speaker 3: to continue with this work, to try to explain to

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Speaker 3: Venezuelan people that it's not only that Venezuela today is

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Speaker 3: an auto Italian breakin. It's also that Venezuela became kind

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Speaker 3: of kleptocracy where Nicolas Maduro has these kind of guys

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Speaker 3: working for him. But also Delsi Rodrigue has this kind

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Speaker 3: of guys working for her.

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Speaker 1: The kind of guys that Maduro and his vice president

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Speaker 1: have had working for him. It's not a bad moment

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Speaker 1: to remember that as of this recording, many of those

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Speaker 1: people are still in power. Now, let's go back to

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine when it all started. Ugochavis comes to

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Speaker 1: power with the support and admiration of many Venezuelans. Take

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Speaker 1: us to why Chavis is able to capture the interest

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Speaker 1: of so many people in Venezuela.

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Speaker 3: There was a big political crisis before what Chavis took power.

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Speaker 1: Chavis was then a lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan Army.

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Speaker 1: He tried to stage a coup in nineteen ninety two.

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Speaker 1: He was imprisoned, and upon his release, Chavis emerged as

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Speaker 1: a champion of anti imperialism and a supporter of the

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Speaker 1: working class.

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Speaker 3: He promised a lot of things to not only to

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Speaker 3: rebuild the Venezuelan democracy, also to rebuild the Venezuelan condition

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Speaker 3: of life, the Venezuelan economy.

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Speaker 1: Matrial.

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Speaker 3: He won election in nineteen ninety eight, and there was

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Speaker 3: a lot of poverty at that moment in Venezuela. Since

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Speaker 3: the eighties and the beginning of the nineties, Venezuela started

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Speaker 3: to live in a difficult economic situation, and people in

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Speaker 3: that condition, suffering poverty, suffering bad conditioned life may click

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Speaker 3: with this guy uver Chaves. He was like a messia

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Speaker 3: for the people. But as we have since in other countries,

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Speaker 3: not only Latin American countries, the idea of this revolution

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Speaker 3: quickly became in a nine mare for the Venezuelan people.

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Speaker 1: Chavis was known for using money generated from oil in

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Speaker 1: his country to help fund social programs that would help

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Speaker 1: lift people out of poverty, but there was also mismanagement

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Speaker 1: and corruption. He's also widely known for weakening democratic institutions

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Speaker 1: in Venezuela and for his human rights abuses, like the

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Speaker 1: unlawful killings of at least eighteen thousand people at the

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Speaker 1: hands of his security forces. We'll be right back. Hey,

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Speaker 1: we're back. Let's wrap up my conversation now with Roberto Denis.

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Speaker 1: So what is it that Nicolas Maduro picks up in

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Speaker 1: terms of what Chavis began. Does Nicolas Madudo have any

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Speaker 1: support at all in the country or is it all

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Speaker 1: maintained because of what used to be his control over

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Speaker 1: the military.

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Speaker 3: You have to think that Nicolas Maduro was the foreign

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Speaker 3: minister of Ugo Chavis. He was just a guy to

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Speaker 3: follow instructions to build this international image of Ubachavis as

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Speaker 3: the Minezuela messiah and the leader that was not only

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Speaker 3: leaving the Venezuelan transformation, also he was striving to be

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Speaker 3: part of the political situation of other Latin American countries

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Speaker 3: like Juan.

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Speaker 9: Domingo Peron of Argentina and Augusto Pinochet of Chile before him.

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Speaker 9: He is molded in the tradition of the tauvillo, the

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Speaker 9: strong man who dominates his country with patronage, charisma and

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Speaker 9: selective brute force.

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Speaker 3: We also have to remember that Chavis he got cancer

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Speaker 3: and he died, and this provoke a kind of new

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Speaker 3: scenario where the revolution lost his leader.

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Speaker 4: Just breaking right now, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dead at

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Speaker 4: the age of fifty eight.

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Speaker 8: You're going to begin with the death of strong Man

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Speaker 8: Hugo Shaves, the unpredictable president of Venezuela, could have a

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Speaker 8: major impact here in the United States. After all, Javes

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Speaker 8: controlled more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia.

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Speaker 1: So it's twenty thirteen and Chavis dies, and that's when

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Speaker 1: Maduro takes over.

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Speaker 3: Nikolas Manduro wasn't a popular leader. He immediately started to

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Speaker 3: face a tremendous economical priceis.

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Speaker 6: Venezuela lost seventy two percent of its economy. An estimated

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Speaker 6: eight million Venezuelans have voted with their feet by migrating

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Speaker 6: to other countries, including the United States.

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Speaker 2: This is how Venezuelans spend most of their time now

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Speaker 2: in line, not for luxuries but basics. Your next meal, soap,

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Speaker 2: for your next load of laundry, diapers for your baby's

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Speaker 2: next nappy change.

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Speaker 10: Venezuela, of course, a country where prices double every few weeks.

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Speaker 10: At a monthly salary isn't enough to buy meat for

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Speaker 10: one family meal. As a successor to Venezuela's Hugo Chaves,

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Speaker 10: Nicholas Madudo tightened his grip on the country for more

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Speaker 10: than a decade, surviving international sanctions, political unrest, and multiple

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Speaker 10: challenges to his rule.

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Speaker 3: The only thing that Maduro followed during the first years

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Speaker 3: of his presidence was to keep the power, keep the revolution.

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Speaker 3: That that was his goal.

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Speaker 1: Roberto, did you feel that the takedown of Maduro was inevitable.

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Speaker 3: For me as a journalist. Sometimes I with this. I

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Speaker 3: always says that I am very pessimistic about the Venezuelan situation.

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Speaker 3: But for me, it is clear that the Chavismo. I'm

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Speaker 3: thinking not only Maduro, the Chavismo, they are a political

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Speaker 3: movement that they never have considered seriously well, that it

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Speaker 3: is a possibility to leave power and now what. It

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Speaker 3: is not easy to accept that one other government came

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Speaker 3: to your country and do the things. I think that

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Speaker 3: in the mind of Donald Tumman, and I don't try

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Speaker 3: I'm not trying to understand his mind, but I think

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Speaker 3: in the mind of Donald Trump, he is convinced that

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Speaker 3: the Venezuelan opposition has no chance to govern, to keep

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Speaker 3: the government in Venezuela. I think that he believed that,

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Speaker 3: and I think that he also he has not respect

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Speaker 3: for the Venezuelan opposition. That is very clear and is

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Speaker 3: so risky. It's so dangerous because this is a scene

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Speaker 3: that the Venezuelan opposition has to participate immediately.

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Speaker 1: Nicolas Maduro is also quite aware of the international geopolitics

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Speaker 1: and aware of the fact that there are countries around

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Speaker 1: the world who will not accept what just happened. In fact,

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Speaker 1: when he was presented in court, Nicolas Maduro said that

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Speaker 1: he was kidnapped and that he is a prisoner of war.

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Speaker 1: We also know that Donald Trump just pardoned the drug

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Speaker 1: trafficking convicted NARCO president formerly of Ondudahs.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think Nicolas Maduro is clear that maybe he

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Speaker 3: is going to get the support of Russia, to get

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Speaker 3: the support of China, Iran and another international allies. But

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Speaker 3: he knew what he was facing. He was indicted in

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Speaker 3: the United States since twenty twenty, and that was public.

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Speaker 7: He knew it.

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Speaker 3: And I think that if the judicial process advanced, we're

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Speaker 3: going to see sadly terrible scenes about the government of

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Speaker 3: Nicolas Maduro, the corruption of Nicolas Maduro and many other things.

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Speaker 3: I just respect and as not only as a journalist,

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Speaker 3: as a Benezulan citizen, also respect that probably maybe this

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Speaker 3: could be, you know, the start of a process where

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Speaker 3: Venezuela can recover its democracy, where Venezuelan people can recover.

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Speaker 3: They hope to have a better country, a safe country,

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Speaker 3: a democratic country. And I think that that is maybe

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Speaker 3: the most important thing right now.

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Speaker 1: That was Roberto Denis a Venezuelan journalist living in exile

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Speaker 1: in Colombia. Our episode was produced by Rinaldo Leanos Junior.

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Speaker 1: It was edited by Rebecca Ibarra. It was mixed by

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Speaker 1: Julia Russo and j J. Rubin in fact checking by

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Speaker 1: Roxanna Aguire. Special things this Week to Tasha Sandoval, Arturo

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Speaker 1: and Here and Tama Calsavilla. Fernando Echavari is our managing editor.

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Speaker 1: The Latino USA team also includes Stephanie Lbau, Luis Luna Doni,

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Speaker 1: mar Marquis, Julieta Martinelli, Monica Morales, Garcia, Paloma Anelo Reyes,

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Speaker 1: Adriana Rodriguez and Nancy Trujillo. Penni, Lee Ramirez and I

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Speaker 1: are executive producers. I'm your host Mariao Posa. Latino Usa

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Speaker 1: is part of Iheart's Michael Dura podcast Network. Executive producers

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Speaker 1: at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana. Join us

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Speaker 1: again on our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see

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Speaker 1: you on all of our social media and don't forget

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Speaker 1: So do it now, grayes As. The Approxima Chao.

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Speaker 4: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Ford Foundation,

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