From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Socialism & Communism Took Down Venezuela, Is America Next?

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

As Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro refuses to step down despite overwhelming opposition and evidence of his defeat, Venezuelans continue taking to the streets in protest. After years of witnessing human rights abuses and economic devastation under President Maduro, many Venezuelans are determined to leave the country before things get worse — with hundreds of thousands aiming to come to America. However, with the pressure this may put on an already overwhelmed border, should the U.S. be putting more pressure on Maduro to step down so countless Venezuelans don't feel the need to flee? Columbia University PhD student and founder of the Dissident Project Daniel Di Martino joins the kitchen table to discuss the terrible reality many Venezuelans are facing regularly, the startling parallels between the political climate in Venezuela and America, and how America should take stronger action to take down Maduro. Follow Sean & Rachel on X: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everybody, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel

Campos Duffy. Hi Rachel. It's great to be back. We've had quite a full house here. It's been crazy. My sister's family's here. My's great to be back. We've had quite a full house here. It's been crazy. My sister's family's here. My brother's family's here. It's been a lot of cooking, a lot of kids.

A lot of wildness. A lot of wildness. But we're back, and while everyone is still sleeping off the carnitas from last night. And they were good carnitas, I'll say that. And they were good carnitas. We are doing the kitchen table, and we have with us one of our favorite guests. We've had him on multiple times. It is Daniel DiMartino.

He is, of course, a PhD candidate in economics. Actually, he graduated. Daniel, didn't you graduate? No, I haven't. It's a very long program. I'm going into the fifth year now. Fifth year, okay. I thought you were partying once a while back i thought that

that's why so okay he's still in the phd program not ready to party yet almost done uh fifth year but what i love about daniel is he also runs one of my favorite organizations which is the dissident project it's an incredible non- nonprofit organization that connects immigrants who have fled tyrannical regimes like he did in Venezuela. But he gets these people from all over the world, from China and North Korea, and they go into high schools and talk to high school students about what those policies are, why they make people's lives miserable. He did it. Daniel came to my children's school and spoke. It was incredible to get that kind of firsthand information from another young person. But today we're going to talk about Venezuela and sort of get an update

on what's happening, the role of the U.S., and most importantly, what are the lessons for the United States as we look to possibly vote in our own socialist regime in a few months? So let's talk to Daniel DiMartino. Daniel, welcome to the kitchen table. Thank you for having me again, both of you. So why don't you lay out just very briefly what happened over the last maybe so there was an election it was very obvious that the opposition won by like overwhelming numbers 70 percent and the opposition did a very good job of setting things up so things could be proven if they won and they did and most countries around the world including the united states have had to sort of even those who didn't want to, have reluctantly admitted that the opposition won and that the dictator, Nicolás Maduro, lost by a lot. But he has been refusing to go.

The people have taken to the streets. They took to the streets. They were protesting. It looked like things might move. But things are kind of stalled right now, and he's still trying to hold on to power and i believe that the u.s is trying to work some deal out with him to get him out but not it's not working and i don't know if there's a reason why it's not working if there's not enough effort you fill us in on what's been happening since then yeah so well the election

happened on july 28th which not coincidentally was Hugo Chavez's birthday. That was purposeful to put it on that date. And they decided that the cheating this time was not enough to just make that people vote, force you to vote where they would have a military person next to you in the ballot box, paying you to vote for them. That wasn't enough. Even with all of that, they still had less than 30% of the vote. So what they did is they just announced a fake result. Why bother doing all these tricks with the machines, with the reports? No, no, let's just make it up. Let's just announce a different result that perfectly rounds. So their first announcement was Maduro got 51.2

0, 0, 0, 0, 0 percent of the vote. The opposition 46.2 0, 0, 0. And then the rest of the candidates 4.6. This is statistically impossible that it rounds so good. And so after that, the people went to the streets to protest. People started turning down the statues of Chavez, the original dictator that preceded Maduro. To me, that was a beautiful thing to watch because I think that Chavez destroyed our country. And he deserves no statue. And so what happened after is the regime went on its most totalitarian campaign ever,

where they went door to door, what they call Operation Knock Knock, Operation Tuntun, where they go, if you were an election witness, if you collected some precinct results, kidnapped. If you are a party leader for an opposition party, kidnapped. If you were, if there's any picture of you or if you have even social media activity against the government and they don't like you, kidnapped. They put police checkpoints in most roads where they are checking your phones for social media activity. Maduro banned Twitter. He banned Spotify, Amazon, even Pinterest for some reason, people say. A lot of websites. I don't know. Maybe people are sharing subversive graphics on Pinterest.

I don't know. Well, maybe that's a secret way to get information out if everything else is shut down. Is X shut down right now? Yes. So you need a VPN now in order to access X and all these other websites from Venezuela. And it is truly a shame because, remember, Chavez, before Maduro, had already taken over all the media. The media that opposed him lost their license. So imagine that they told Fox News you cannot air on TV anymore, the federal government. That's what they did to our media. And then the few private media that was left, they had some of their regime oligarchs buy it. So that, oh, it's private, right?

But it's part of the regime, really. And the radio stations, which were, it was much easier for you to say air something on radio privately, that you shut them down and they give them a list of prohibited words and phrases. You cannot say the word dictatorship on Venezuelan radio. You cannot say many other things. And so we, the only left thing that, the only media that we had left was social media, was Twitter. Twitter was the most popular social media for idiosyncratic reasons in Venezuela. Even Chavez was like one of the first world leaders to get a Twitter.

So everybody had a Twitter. Even I had a Twitter when I was a kid, not to boast, but to get the news because we couldn't get it from TV. And this was the last straw for the regime. They know that they need to advance towards a regime like Cuba. So they want to leave us uncommunicated so that we can organize protests and they can finally say, you're just our slave and you have to put up with what we do. We're going to win the elections. We're going to do fraud and there's nothing you can do about it. So in a second, Daniel, I think it's instructive in our podcast to talk about

what happened, you know, years ago that brought in this socialist communist regime and what we can learn as Americans from that, because there's a lot of parallels, I think, to what happened in Venezuela, to what's happening here in America. But before we do that, obviously, there's been countries around the world excluding Cuba, China, Russia, who have all, you know, congratulated Maduro on his win. But other countries have come out and said, listen, even the U.S. has made statements, not the strongest, sadly, but statements that Maduro's lost. And so where do we stand today where we have, you know, basically the world recognizing this is a sham election. We have people taking to the streets. But again, those two things, people on the streets and other countries recognizing the cheating, it doesn't do anything. Maduro stays in power, arrests the political dissidents.

Is there a path forward where the people can take control of Venezuela again? Or is it a foregone conclusion that, no, this is the way, you know, commies work, they suppress their people, and they continue on with their rule? Yeah. Well, yeah, obviously, Russia and China and Cuba all congratulated Majuro. The countries that have been the strongest in recognizing that Maduro is an evil dictator are number one, Argentina, but also Peru, also Costa Rica, also

the Dominican Republic, a lot of other nations, Ecuador, all the governments that are kind of like in the moderate to the center right, to more conservative, have recognized that Maduro obviously lost and is a dictator and recognized the opposition candidate as the president-elect.

Other countries, however, like specifically Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil, the only thing they've done is say, no, we want evidence of the election result that Maduro announced. Well, they're not going to show evidence, and if they show evidence, it's fraudulent evidence, but that's exactly what they want. So this is the thing. The presidents of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil are all allies of Maduro. They're trying to save face with their own populations and say, look, we're not in favor of dictatorship. Of course, we don't want to become a dictator in our country. You shouldn't be concerned about us. But they should be concerned about them, because the reality is that Petro's presidential campaign

in Colombia, the president, was financed by Maduro. His own solicitor general is investigating him. Lula is a corrupt person. AMLO is too. AMLO just yesterday, his party just tweeted that it's the anniversary or something of the birth of Fidel Castro and they miss their great commander and everything he achieved for the Cuban people. That is the president of Mexico. And the newly the president elect of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, she's going to be sworn in soon. Another communist. She's going to be sworn in soon. Another communist. She said she was asked about this in a press conference and said, well, we don't get involved in the matters of other countries.

We'll just wait until the institutions of that country do something and they should take it to international institutions. And in international institutions, Mexico votes in favor of Maduro. So which is it? This is all a facade for them to support Maduro behind closed doors because they're unwilling to do it openly for fear of losing popularity. That is something that the Chilean president learned the hard way. His popularity went down, and now he's saying Maduro is a dictator, and now things are improving for him in Chile. Right. Well, you know, the United States has said that

the support for the opposition is very tepid. So here's what the U.S. has said. They said they recognize Gonzalez, the opposition leader, as the winner, but they have not yet called him president-elect i wonder daniel if it's possible that this administration's in a weird position right like they can't very well go and say the opposition won and there was cheating and really have a loud voice in an election that looks shady because they don't like anyone to question any results here so i wonder how much that has to do with it and also overall neglect for any country um basically in latin america they've neglected latin america they've given support to the communists and the leftists in lat America who are partnering with China against. And they've been sort of very antagonistic towards countries like Argentina under Javier Mille, like Bukele in El Salvador and others that have sort of are more right of center or center-right administration.

So they're in a weird position. What is the U.S. doing? What should they do? Yeah, so the only thing they've done is put out a statement saying that the opposition obviously won the election and that Maduro should, you know, give up power peacefully. But those are empty words. That's not going to do anything. They can't do anything more forceful, I think. And the reason is that they have, they made a bet over a year ago that they would lift sanctions on Maduro.

They lifted the oil sanctions, which started importing Venezuelan oil in the United States. They lifted the oil sanctions, which started importing Venezuelan oil in the United States. They lifted the secondary oil sanctions, which meant that foreign companies that do business in America could use Venezuelan oil. So that means Repsol in Spain, that means BP in Great Britain, all of these things. And they just, by the way, something that has gone unreported two days ago, the Biden administration reissued a license, an exemption of the Venezuelan sanctions to allow the Venezuelan regime to pay bondholders on the debt. The reason

that they're doing this is to maintain the price of the Venezuelan debt, which if they didn't do it, Venezuelan debt would fall in price, which would make it more difficult for the Venezuelan regime to obtain financing abroad. So they are saying these things on statements, but then they're doing something else when it matters in action.

And that's where I believe that the people in the National Security Council of Biden for Latin America, which used to be led until recently by Juan Cruz, someone who is totally ignorant of what's happening, really. They believe we're in like a child's game where Majuro is just another player and he's trying to negotiate and I'm sure he wants to leave and he's a good guy. You can trust him. Like you cannot negotiate with terrorists. This is like negotiating with the Taliban. Like the tortures that are happening in Venezuela now are insane.

What's happening? Tell us about that. Yes. So I can tell you one woman claims she lives in Spain now. She has a cousin that was kidnapped by the regime. And the National Guard is asking her for $3,000 in Venezuela, the National Guard, in exchange for not picking,000 in Venezuela, the National Guard, in exchange for not picking the nails of her cousin one by one of torture. They are electrocuting people all over their bodies in Venezuela. They are waterboarding them.

They are putting them all together in small cells for days, letting them do their physical necessities there for days without any cleaning. They eat where they do their physical necessities, in the same plates, the same containers. This is on purpose so that they get ill and it's part of a torture. There's a really good resource that people should look up. It's called El Helicoide. El Helicoide is the main torture center of Venezuela in Caracas. It was supposed to be a shopping mall and they turned it into a torture center. And there is a virtual reality headset that you can go. It's in several parts of the U.S. that they've done this tour,

where you put on the virtual reality headset and it takes you inside. It was done by some of the political prisoners who escaped from there that were released. And so that's what they're doing. And we cannot negotiate with these people. We just have to be tough. And what does being tough mean? You ask, what should the U.S. do? Well, number one, reimpose the oil sanctions. Number two, not allow people to trade their debt. Number three, instead of releasing the family of Maduro, as Biden did, he released the nephews, he released Alex Saab, a terrorist financier of him, which will arrest the criminals. There's a lot of Americans who receive money from the Venezuelan regime. There are people in Spain, especially, who receive money from the Venezuelan regime. There are people in Spain, especially, who received money from the Venezuelan regime. Where is the DEA? Where is the FBI arresting these people? They're hunting down January Sixers. Right. So, Daniel, I think, I mean, Ronald Reagan would be rolling over in his grave, a man who led our country and a president who stood up for freedom around the world,

who famously told the old Soviet Union to tear down their wall. There has been a titanic shift in the philosophy in the American government in that, yeah, we'll say things, right? There's empty words that come out from this administration and from the U.S. government. They'll recognize that Maduro lost, but you're right, there is nothing behind those words that would push any kind of change on the ground in Venezuela. And it's horrific what's happening. But again, if you really look at what the U.S. is doing, we're the same position, the same philosophy of the other communists in the world. We're not that much different than Cuba, than China in what we're doing with Venezuela. And I think to Rachel's point, it's because we share that philosophy. In our government, too, we try to shut down dissent, whether it's on social media, people whether they were even just on the grounds, not even at the Capitol, or if they go to an abortion clinic or they go to a Catholic mass. You have your government that's coming for you in trying to imprison and jail you. We're not to torture yet.

Maybe you would say that J6 with the solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is a form of torture. And so I think, Daniel, what's instructive, especially for our podcast, again, is recognizing what's happening in Venezuela. But what's clear is the promise of socialism or communism, it's a really powerful promise. And that's why people around the world have at times voted for it. What can we learn? I think we're on this path right now to socialism. How did it come in to Venezuela? What were the promises that were made? And how quickly did Venezuela switch from a pretty wealthy country, a lot of oil reserves, a lot of money coming into the country? How did it switch? How fast did it switch into what we see today, the despair and the rotten economy that exists in the authoritarian policies of Chavez at the start, but now Maduro?

Daniel, really quick before you answer that. It's so interesting what you're saying, Sean. The parallels. Just this week, we have Democrats saying what literally in the press room with the president, with the president's press secretary, we have state media journalists saying, what can we do to stop X, to stop Donald Trump from speaking with Elon Musk? Can we preemptively stop the dis and misinformation that's going to come out with the Donald Trump, Elon Musk conversation on Twitter? What should we do about that? Because

we obviously can't let people freely speak because we decide what's truthful and what's fake. Well, the Democrats want to shut down X as much as Nicolas Maduro. But anyway, Sean's question is good. How long did it take? How did it happen? And what are the lessons for us? right after she voted. And she started crying when she talked to a journalist. And what she said was, my kids have no future here. My grandkids have no future. And it is my fault because I supported this. I was part of this movement.

And it is a movement of trash, she said, of the socialist regime. She was a supporter. And she regretted her decision. And now she's trying to change it and make it right. And I think that's a beautiful thing that she regretted it, but it might be too late. And so I think that people need to think twice and see what are you being promised? Are you being promised that the government is your God that's going to solve all of your problems? The government's going to come in

and give you a house. The government's going to come in and give you free electricity, free water, free education, free health care. The government's going to come in and take care of you and all your problems in your personal life will be solved. We know that that's not what happens. Most people's problems are really not solved by the government. They're solved by, hey, you need to go get a job. You need to go get out and work out. You need to do all of these things that are in your control. And so I think the false promises of politicians are one thing. I think people need to be aware of who's trying to censor. You just mentioned this. Of course, people would love to shut down X here. The FTC or

whichever other bureaucrat would love to shut down X. The only reason they don't is because we have a constitution. This is the thing. The founders of the US, they knew that there would be politicians that would try to do these things. That's why they set up the system of separation of powers. Now it is up to us to maintain that system, to maintain the checks and balances, to vote for people in the right way. And that's a difficult task. That's the task of every citizen, right?

Daniel, how long did it take? How long did it take? How long did it take from the time? So was that what, 1999 when Chavez was elected as a socialist? How long did it take before people started to realize this is not going to work? Well, in the first year in office, he already embarked upon the rewriting of the Constitution. That took one year. That was pretty radically fast. And people loved it, by the way. People voted for it legitimately. So he rewrote the Constitution. There were general elections again. And soon after he got sworn in as new president under a new constitution, under a new parliament that passed an enabling act, he began the nationalization of companies. By 2002, there were mass protests.

There was a coup attempt. People pumped up pretty quick that this was a bad guy. But all those efforts failed. And because those efforts failed, Chavez purged the institutions. So he fired all the government employees that disagreed with him. And he did it on national TV, reading their ID numbers. And by the way, there were a lot of big Hollywood names at this time supporting him and enabling him. Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Kevin Spacey, Kevin Spacey, Michael Moore. A lot of people at Bernie Sanders, all these people saying that Chavez was wonderful, that the American dream was more likely to be found in Venezuela than in the United States.

Right. And by the way, all of this didn't result in any near economic catastrophe because Venezuela was an oil producing country. Oil prices had been rising from $9 a barrel in 1999 to over $100 by 2007. So in less than a decade, the government's revenues multiplied times 10. And even that was not enough to pay for all the welfare programs. So I say, look, socialism works until you run out of other people's money, of course. And it didn't even work out where we literally had money growing from the ground. So it's not going to work out here. We'll be right back with much more after this.

The Fox News Rundown, a contrast of perspectives you won't hear anywhere else. Your daily dose of news twice a day. Featuring insight from top newsmakers, reporters and Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to FoxNewsPodcast.com. Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to Fox News Podcasts dot com. You know, what I find interesting, Daniel, is again in Venezuela, through democracy, they voted in these policies. Right. And we have that conversation right now in America to vote in these policies and these people. But once it's in, you can't vote it back out, right? It's a cancerous form of government that you can never extract through the ballot box, right?

Which is what you see in Venezuela. And here I find, I mean, you talked about what happened in Venezuela and how they had a referendum to undermine and change their constitution, right? To change the rules. And everyone kind of agreed with that and they're all supportive of it. You have something different happening in constitution, right, to change the rules. And everyone kind of agreed with that, and they're all supportive of it.

You have something different happening in America, right? So you're not having a referendum to change your constitution, but you really don't have to. The constitution is kind of like what's happened with prosecutor's offices. You can have states that pass laws, but then you have prosecutors who just choose not to enforce those laws. What you're going to have with the U.S. Constitution is you're going to have courts that reinterpret what the Constitution means. They'll breathe new life into the meaning of

the Constitution. And what I think is key is the effort of all these regimes is always to take away people's rights to bear arms. And our founders, Daniel, they didn't give you your right to bear arms to go target practice, to shoot deer. They didn't even give it to you to protect your home, right? Which is what a lot of people talk about. Our founders understood to what you said, which was that the human beings, that man can be evil and that with power, they can get some and try to take more. And our founders understood that giving people the right to bear arms was their right to push back against a tyrannical government. And you saw that in Venezuela, you saw it in Cuba, you see it in China. The first thing these tyrannical

regimes do is they take away people's right to bear arms. So you can never push back. You can never fight back against the tyranny. And that's what the left is trying to do in the U.S. They're trying to take away your gun rights and they're trying to take away the protections that we have from our founders in our Constitution. And that is just greasing, I think, the skids to what you see. It might happen differently, but the skids are being greased to give us what we see in Venezuela. In the 2020 primary, Kamala Harris was asked about gun buybacks, mandatory gun buybacks. And she said, absolutely, I'm in favor of that. And by the way, Sean, they do kind of want to change the Constitution because aren't they trying to stack the court, the Supreme Court, which was also done in Venezuela?

So not by vote. Right. They want to just do it by, oh, this has new meaning now. Right. We have a new a new interpretation of the Constitution. But if it's mandatory, it's confiscation. interpretation of the Constitution. But if it's mandatory, it's confiscation. So I was going to say the same thing, Daniel, when they say the buybacks, it is confiscation. They will take your guns, right?

That's a nice way to put it, but it's like, no, no, we're going to... But she said she was in favor of that. And it wasn't like she said it when she was 30 and in some other office. She said it running for president four years ago. That's right. In the Democratic Party. And and that's the thing you say it's about the interpretation of the constitution i agree because imagine they try to implement mandatory gun buybacks today the

supreme court would say that's unconstitutional because if it's mandatory uh they will probably declare a voluntary program constitutional and legal but a but a mandatory one would be confiscation and that requires not just just compensation, but it needs to be for the public interest, and that wouldn't pass that bar. But if you just change the Supreme Court, they'll just say it's totally legal, no matter what the letter of the Constitution says. And that's the concern. In fact, I would say that's a vulnerability of the U.S. Constitution. It's that with just 51 votes in the Senate, really 50 plus the VP and half of the House,

you can add as many members of the Supreme Court as you want. And you can totally pack the Supreme Court if you want it. And that's what the Democrats want to do in this country. They want to pack the Supreme Court. And I think that's dangerous. But think about what we have going for us, though. to do in this country. They want to pack the Supreme Court. And I think that's dangerous. But think about what we have going for us, though. In Venezuela, we didn't have the right to bear arms in the same degree the Americans have, right? I mean, the level of gun ownership in the U.S. is the largest of the world. Not just gun ownership, wealth. Wealth is actually

an underrated way to fight authoritarian governments. Why do you think Venezuelans are not every day in the streets right now protesting? Because they cannot afford to. They will starve if they don't work. That's why Maria Corina, the opposition leader, is calling for protests on weekends. I mean, it's sad. It's sad that you, I'm only going to fight tyranny on the weekend. What? Because you cannot afford to. I totally understand that. It's the facts that we're dealing with. That's why we need to do two things. Number one, we need to keep America prosperous. There requires free enterprise. Number two, we need to protect the right to bear arms.

We need to protect the right to bear arms. We need to protect the right to free speech. We need to protect it from censorship on social media. We need to protect it from censorship of TV, of everything they're doing. Yeah, it's their selective persecution of people who are pro-life. You mentioned they don't even need to pass new laws. They just use laws that are unjust, too. And I think this is a problem, by the way, for American conservatives. Oh, the rule of law, the rule of law, the rule of law can be turned against you. Not all laws are just. That's not, being a law doesn't make it a good thing. The FACE Act is a law. That is the law that is used to put people

who protest in front of abortion clinics 30 years behind bars. That is the rule of law. Is the rule of law good in every case? No. So the law needs to change too, because it's not just for somebody who was praying outside an abortion clinic to go 30 years in prison while the rapist illegal immigrant here in new york city gets released on a 500 500 bail and goes on to rape again well it goes back to what sean said i mean they choose to um prosecute or not right and so they'll go and throw the book at you know a little a little old lady praying the rosary and singing in front of an abortion clinic. And then when these leftists disrupt Easter mass in St. Patrick's going up during consecration and protesting, which is also a violation of the Face Act, they do nothing to them.

But then they throw the book at the little old lady. So this goes back to. Or if they burn cities across the country, nothing happens to any of those people as well. But then they'll take the J6ers, and they're still in solitary confinement. Some of them have committed suicide. Which, by the way, you mentioned that, Sean. Which, by the way, it's working. By the way, Danielle, it is working to...

You know, you say, well, they can only protest on the weekend. Sean, I keep saying, you know, we're not sure if conservatives feel safe protesting anymore after J6. I think there has been fear struck in the hearts of conservative protesters. You mentioned the riots. That is in part the fault of the conservative movement, too. I mean, Trump was president during 2020. Why didn't the federal government get more involved in order to persecute the violations of federal property of so many people? And so it's usually cheering takes over because the good guys don't act.

So it was so. But again, it's because we do have separations of power now. The Department of Justice and the FBI fall under the executive branch, right? So that's under the president, to your point, Donald Trump. But there's traditionally, at least for conservatives, there's been a separation between, you know, the politics maybe of the presidency and how the DOJ and the FBI operate. So Donald Trump didn't push the FBI and the DOJ to prosecute those individuals who were burning the streets. However, you see Joe Biden stepping in and pushing, I think, the FBI and the DOJ and state prosecutors offices to go after Donald Trump for bogus charges. Here's what I think is important. You mentioned something that struck me.

We have to also protect the right to free speech. I saw a stat yesterday or the day before, and I think it was 58% of Americans believe that we should have restrictions on speech. Wow, really? Yeah. And I think the question becomes, well, how could that happen? Why do Americans at such a high number feel like there should be restrictions on speech? Now, I would tell you, Daniel, that I would think that the greatest generation, which would be Gen X, our generation, more so than the greatest generation. He just knocked the World War II guys off. Take them out. We are now the greatest generation. The problem is that's not our generation.

We actually still believe in free speech and the question becomes well what's happened from gen x to um to the you know the millennials and this these other generations and the answer is the school system right so in the school system you have teachers doing a lot of crazy stuff, whether it's global warming, but they're also undermining the rights to free speech in the school system, polluting the minds of young students that speech is dangerous and speech can be violence. And therefore, we have to limit it. We have to curtail it. We have to censor it. And on top of that, if you look at how Americans view gun ownership, younger Americans also are opposed to gun ownership in the Second Amendment. It has to be curtailed. Why? Because

in the American school system, they're attacking the Second Amendment as well. And I think when we talk about the failure of conservatives, the failure is really that we have seeded the minds of the youth through our education system to the left. Yeah. And we know what's happening. And the question becomes, what the hell are you doing about it? When is there a true conversation of how we in states reform our education system? Yes. Maybe with Ron DeSantis in Florida, he's making efforts, but you have Republican governors around the country that have some of the most radical institutions in their states, and they sit back and do nothing. This is the war that we have to win, which is in the minds of the young people, which is the next generation of CEOs and prosecutors and presidents and congressmen.

That's the fight. And we don't seem to be engaged in it at all. Teach the Constitution. I mean, most kids don't even know anything. Which is why you can take it away. If you don't teach it, if you don't teach how important these rights are to the next generation, they're willing to give them up because they don't know what they mean. Ronald Reagan's last message in his farewell address was that he was concerned that we were not doing enough to teach the next generation what America means and that it means freedom and to preserve those rights and patriotism. I would argue that in this point in time, one dollar to campaign for a school board is more valuable than for a congressional race in any part of the country.

I agree. And more governors, more Republican leaders should be doing what Ron DeSantis is doing in Florida, which is I'm going to get involved in the school board races. That's more important than the congressional races. I'm going to go all in and we're're going to take over the schools back for freedom. And that's what we need to do, not to indoctrinate, but to teach the normal stuff, the history, and not the pornography or the leftist things

or the hate speech is bad and we need to censor. That's what we need to change. And so school boards are critical. Reforming the public universities, like Florida has been doing, but also actually in Ohio there's a new the public universities are creating these sort of classical thinking institutions

within the university and they're hiring a lot of conservative professors, that's happening in Ohio, that's happening in Texas too, so I think some red states have woken up now if every red state does it, if we do it, especially at the school board level, I mean, we won't see the impact in the next 10 years, but we will see it

in the next 20 and in the next 30. And that's what matters because we don't know what the world will look like in 20 or 30 years. What worries you about the upcoming election, Daniel, here in America? What worries you about the upcoming election, Daniel, here in America? Okay. The thing that worries me the most in this election is actually not as much about the culture, because I think that's more determined by education. My biggest concern is actually the federal deficit on the budget. I am concerned that the Democrats just want to give away money to win. Green subsidies, the student loans, they just want to increase discretionary spending. They don't care anything. At the same

time, they want to raise their taxes. But I'm also concerned that Trump and the Republicans don't care about entitlement reform anymore. And the truth is that the Medicare trust fund is going to run out in the next 10 years, so is Social Security. And that means that in that moment, either the benefits will be cut, Congress is not going to allow that, taxes are going to be raised, that could happen, or we will get just more and more in debt. And I know what happens from my background economically, what's going to happen financially to this country if we keep on this path. And that is we're going to be in an economic crisis. There's going to be a lot more unemployment. There's going to be perhaps more inflation, but probably we're going to stagnate and we're going

to stop growing and people are going to be paid less. And that's going to set the stage in this country in a decade for somebody like Chavez to come in and say, I'm going to solve all these problems. You just need to give me power. That's what happened to Venezuela. Venezuela stagnated the 80s and 90s. People were pissed off with the corrupt politicians and they elected Chavez, who was an evil man, to fix it. We cannot set that stage in America for that to happen here. Yeah, that's Sean's number one concern, too, is the debt. Yeah, listen, what's going to happen? They're not going to tax.

When we run out of money for these entitlements, they won't tax. No, they'll just print. Right. So, again, you print money and you'll see they are. But to a greater extent. And then you see inflation will look like child's play that we've seen over the Biden administration and Harris administration. And I agree that's that that creates societal strife. And that allows for these radical dictators and radical changes to happen in a society.

And what I would tell you, Daniel, is these people aren't stupid. They, they're very smart. They know what they're doing. They're, they're trying to crash the currency, which has crashed the economy, which will crash America and remake America. That is, that is the plan of the left. And I think you're right. Um, there was a time when I came to Congress, we talked about entitlement reform all the time. We talked about the debt all the time. That was that was a plank in our platform of what we in Congress wanted to work on. That was 12 years ago, 14 years ago. That was what we were doing. And it's got exponentially worse. And the conversation is is off the table. And I think, you know, Donald Trump sees this as a third rail, right? He's like,

I can't talk about entitlement reform. I'm going to protect your Social Security and Medicare. And when you say that, to your point, Daniel, you're not protecting anything. You're actually undermining the very system you're saying you're going to protect if you don't reform it because it's going broke, right? People take out too much money for what they put in, right? So inevitably, the thing cracks, right? And the only reason it worked earlier, just for our viewers, and many of you probably know this, but when you have less people pulling in entitlements and benefits and more people paying in, like the baby boomers, the system can work. But when that flips and the baby boomers start to pull out of that very same system,

and there's less workers paying in, it doesn't work anymore. Because the baby boomers didn't pay in enough money to cover the benefits they're going to pull out of it. They don't want to hear that. They're going to get longer, and there's all that, too. By the way, I saw a speech that Sean gave back in, I don't know, maybe 2000. It was near the beginning of his. It might have even been when you were running or shortly after you were elected. And you were complaining about we were approaching $15 trillion.

And we're now approaching $34 trillion. No, we're at $35 trillion. We're at $35 trillion. We're on the fast track to $50 trillion. And we're now at approaching $34 trillion. No, we're at $35 trillion. We're on the fast track to $50 trillion. And it's good. So you're a smart economics guy. The study of currency will tell you that, yes, this might have lasted longer in America, but the consequences of doing this to your currency, there's some rules that just apply. And the rules will apply to America as well. And the consequence of what we're doing, history will dictate you are fomenting a disaster in your country. And remember, we are the world's reserve currency, which means that if we lose that status, interest rates will spike much more. We will lose that forever. And that will have

tremendously negative economic consequences for investment in this country. And that's not going to be pretty. And I don't want it. And the consequence of that, too, is the cost of goods goes up dramatically if you're not the reserve currency. So you can buy a lot of cheap things at Walmart right now. You flip it around when you're not the reserve currency, those prices will go up dramatically. And again, I think it's important to talk about it because I think it's important for people to demand at least a conversation from their representatives, from the members of Congress. But it's hard, Sean, because the president has been elected for four years. And so no matter who wins, Kamala and Trump, they know they're going to have to deal with the destruction of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. We don't have the right incentives.

No, you're absolutely right. And again, I think maybe that's even too far. To Rachel's point, maybe we should just ask some basic questions about guns, about criminals, about the border to Kamala Harris. That would be a good start for us. But we're like, what, like we're like 24, 24, some days away from an election. And 24 days into her presidential run with no interviews. And again, this is why she's not doing it. The press has allowed her to get away with not no interviews. And again, this is why she's not doing it. The press has allowed her

to get away with not doing interviews. The polling would show her that it's still working. But the real answer is Kamala doesn't do interviews because if you have any half-hearted journalists that'll call out Kamala for prior statements with current policy positions, she can't answer the questions. It's impossible to answer the very simple questions that would come her way because her policy positions are absolutely opposed to where the American people want to go. And she's going to have to lie about it. And she can't explain it.

And that's why she won't do the interview. Danielle, we're going to wrap this up. I know you've got to go. Predictions on Venezuela. My predictions are grim. I think that this regime is here to stay. And a lot more people are going to go to jail. I don't want that to happen. I want to be wrong. I pray for a miracle. But I think that that's just what's likely to happen, unfortunately. I think that the more people will leave. There's a new poll that showed that a million and a half more Venezuelans will leave by the end of this year, and several million more will leave next

year, which is going to make Venezuela tied for the third largest refugee crisis in world history with World War I, over 10 million people leaving their country. Wow. And that could be a problem, of course, for the United States. That's right. And, yeah, we're already dealing with a lot of illegal immigration and pressure on that with an open border. So, Daniel, really great talking to you. Thank you for joining us. I wish you had better news on Venezuela.

We're going to keep praying for the Venezuelan freedom fighters. Please pray for Mariota Pesa, my friend, who turns a week in kidnapping by the Maduro regime. We don't know where she is. From Portuguesa State. Mariota Pesa is her name. If you want to pray for her, an advocate. Yeah.

Absolutely. We absolutely will for all the freedom fighters um in venezuela and for you too daniel um you're you've been a a powerful voice um for all kinds of people who are trying to escape tyrannical regimes and we wish you luck and we wish your organization the uh that you the Dissident Project, lots of luck. And hopefully you can help educate young people on what really happens when you vote in these Marxist ideologues. Amazing. Thank you so much. Daniel, you are a freedom fighter. Thank you so much for being with us.

Thanks, Anya. Safe travels. We'll have more of this conversation after this. It comes down to very simple terms, Rachel. At all costs, fight for freedom. Right. And you have to be you have to be confident in in your philosophy and ideology and make the argument to the people that you want to represent. Get in the ring, have a debate.

Don't shut them down. Let them say that if you're a communist or a socialist, let them make the argument and you make the argument for freedom. The problem we have right now, only on one side, Donald Trump to a fault. Listen, he's crystal clear what he wants to do. He's an open book. There is no confusion about Donald Trump's policies, none at all. But what you see with Democrats is the lying, the deceit, you know, even Kamala. I mean, here's what's interesting. So she has all these crazy positions, right? So instead of coming out and doing a speech or doing an interview and walking back single payer health care, right, was socialized health care in America. Get rid of private insurance instead of instead of walking that back personally.

What she does is she sends out a press release and a press release. They know they send out another send of the campaign, sends a memo to the press saying she's changed her position on that. Well, I don't believe that. Listen, unless I hear it from Kamala Harris's mouth herself, and when she gets questions about why have you changed the position on single-payer health care, Kamala, and if the only answer is, well, the American people don't like it, and therefore I had to change my position. She hasn't changed her position at all. She's going to lie to us right now to say, I don't believe in single payer or I don't believe in open borders, but guarantee you, if she's elected, she's going to push for single payer. She's going to push for open borders. She's going to push to confiscate your guns because that's what she's told us. And there's

no rational reason why she would change those policy positions. But for she wants to lie to the American people to get elected. Well, I mean, the perfect example is her coming out of the speech. And to be fair, her own mouth saying, I now I am going to support no taxes on tips but when she was you know but she's still part of the administration that actually had a policy to go after um uh tips and and and make sure that they get taxed so the problem no no no even worse she was the deciding vote yes in congress to give you 80 000 new irs agents to do what to go after wage workers who get tips and make sure they pay their fair share to kamala harris so now she she she was because they just vote on the senate was the senate was split 50 50 and so the vice president she actually voted on she came

and it hurt uber drivers It hurt anybody, especially, who was receiving payments with tips through Venmo or through some sort of digital... If you get a payment of $600 on Venmo, they said they're coming for your Venmo payments. Yeah. And I think everyone should pay... Listen, I think everyone should pay taxes. I don't think we should play favorites with income.

I actually... I don't know that... I disagree with the...'t know that I disagree with the no taxes on tips. No taxes on tips. There's a lot of people that aren't able to, you know, there's a lot of people who aren't reporting their tips anyways. Let's just like let it go. In my words, you will live to regret starting to exclude pockets of income. Some income is more favorable than other income.

That's a bad place to be. You watch where this goes because it starts with tips, but what other income? But if you're a union, if you get a union wage, why would you tax a union wage versus a non-union wage? Shouldn't union workers not pay? You're going to go into a place that is very dangerous. And again, politically, it's really good on donald trump and you know again clearly it was stolen by kamala harris it's a very popular but i kind of like it because i feel like you're that the tip if you're a raider and i was a waitress you know if you do a good job you get more and so why would you want to um tax people for doing a better job? Hold on.

We can argue about that. If I do well at my job and I get a raise, I did the same thing as the waitress. Here's why. I don't believe in income tax either. But I'm giving you some pushback. What you have to do now with these policies, what I've seen with Democrats, is you have to move four or five plays down the field and see where does this bring you. Yeah. What feels good. Or the chess.

Again, the Patriot Act at the time seemed really smart. It was going to protect us. We didn't see several moves down the chessboard to go, well, how could this actually play out? moves down the chessboard to go, well, how could this actually play out? And you have to see over the horizon on where this brings us, which is why I'm opposed to this. This is not a podcast to take my tips. But in any case, there's a lot of lessons from Venezuela, the way they stack the courts, the way they confiscated guns, the way a crisis, an economic crisis, can sort of set the stage

and create the circumstances where suddenly people are willing to give up freedom in order to have security economically speaking. And what happens when you start to censor and curtail speech, all of that works against the power of the people and ends up benefiting the dictator, the authoritarians. And it's very clear, Sean, in this election, there is one party that stands for freedom, freedom of speech, economic freedom, and power to the people. And the other party is the party of the oligarchs, is the party of censorship, is the party of globalists, is the party of control. And I think that, you know, in many ways, I feel like Donald Trump, while I often try not to question the method to his madness because he ends up many times being right about things. I do think attacking personally Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, he should

leave that to his surrogates. He needs to stay on policy differences because the differences are so stark. And when you look at a country like Venezuela, we can look into the future of what will happen if we vote an administration under Kamala Harris, which is an extension of the Biden administration, which is truly going to be the fourth term for Obama and the cabal that's running our country now. And, you know, because obviously Joe Biden's not running it, Kamala's not running it. So, you know, I think Donald Trump needs to make this an election between freedom and the system, the deep state. And I think that's what we're fighting for.

So you're right. He should say that Kamala Harris's ideas are stupid. Kamala's ideas are crazy. And leave it to us to call Kamala crazy. Leave it to us to call her stupid. Her ideas are crazy. Her policies are crazy. And leave it to us to call Kamala crazy. Leave it to us to call her stupid. Her ideas are crazy. Her policies are stupid. Are stupid. That's how you do it. I want to do a couple of quick things here. You mentioned the deep state. I'm going to come back to that in a second because before we sat down for this podcast, Rachel made a really insightful and important point. But before we do that, I want to give

Joe Biden and his team a little insy bitty amount of credit. The Department of Justice has charges against pending against Maduro. They want they've they've they've got 15 million dollars for anyone who gives information for his arrest. And what they're doing is they're trying to incentivize Maduro to leave Venezuela and say, listen, we're going to we're going to take these all away. Right. You can you can leave. We're not going to pursue you. We're not going to arrest you. We're not going to bring you to some American prison. So he deserves it. A hundred percent. And I think if you're fair to go like, listen, let the dude take all the money he's stolen. Let him, you know, make sure he's not prosecuted.

Just get him the hell out of there. You're saving lives and saving the future of a country. I'm not so sure that's what Joe Biden is doing. I do think Joe Biden, I say Joe Biden, but it's not Joe Biden. Whoever, the cabal that's running our country are worried about what Daniel DiMartino talked about, are worried about what Daniel DiMartino talked about, which is if this, the hope that will be lost when it is very clear, 100% clear that Maduro is going to stay, the amount remember people freaking out about Ukraine. People are leaving Ukraine. I mean, it's dwarfed by what's been happening in Venezuela. And this will only increase, I think, 40 percent of the population has already left. And you're going to see more leaving. And I think the Biden administration doesn't want to see that

happen before the election. They don't want to see more pressure. And I think the Biden administration doesn't want to see that happen before the election. They don't want to see more pressure on the border before the election. I'm not sure that they're being sincere, Sean. I think that they want Venezuelan oil because they need to do that if they're going to shut down American oil and wage their war on energy. I don't know what they're up to, but it doesn't seem to be helping the dissidents. It is not. I want you to talk about one thing. So before we sit down for this podcast, Rachel said it's really interesting that nobody in the media seems to care that we don't really have a president right now. Or that Obama and his cabal are running it. Well, that's that's the point. Right.

So, again, it's become very clear that Joe Biden's not running the country. Right. He's off in Behoveth and he's on the beach and he's snoring and he's like the dude is incapacitated. And I think the point is, no one reports that no one cares because he hasn't been running the country for three years. Yeah. You have a system in place that functions without a president. So think about that. A system in place that functions without a president, that is scary, because that is a threat to democracy. When you have a president who doesn't run a country, but an unelected group of bureaucrats or former presidents

that come together to run the country for you, it means that you have an elected figurehead. They can't change anything. They can't modify. It's like having King Charles run your country. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't figure that. And so that's what's happening right now. And that curtain has been pulled back. Maybe that's, Rachel, why the press doesn't want to talk about it, because they're like, I'm not going to expose that. Of course, the deep state runs the American economy and country and foreign policy, because Joe Biden sure as hell isn't. And by the way, Kamala Harris, they're going to win it for her, too. Yeah. Right. They'll be in charge for Kamala. The reason the deep state doesn't like Trump is because Trump will run the country, not the deep state. And that pisses them off. They're like, no, no, no. You're going to take my power, my unelected, but really great power away from me.

I can't have that. I'm the smartest guy in the room. Can you make one of the points here, Rachel, and then we'll shut up. No, no. That's such a great point that they just they are so afraid of an actual president who will be an executive and run the country as he did over four years. I think also we have to be very aware of Davos, right? These elites that are rich, that congregate once a year to strategize what the world should look like under their rule. What's happening in Venezuela, what I think is going to happen in America, are all pillars to

fall that eventually they see that they're going to be the salvation that steps in. That is going to be the pathway to their power, global power, to make sure that they run the economy, that they control your life, they make the rules for your life and your family and your food and your transportation. They control it all. And in the backdrop, I do think that if these very, in air quotes, smart people were being more vocal about Venezuela and pushing their own governments back at home to do something for the people of Venezuela and their plight with the socialism, there'd be a change of global policy. But they don't. I mean, it's very clear, Sean. It's very clear X was instrumental

in getting the opposition elected because once there was, with X, they were able to organize, they were able to get their message out, and they were able to sort of get around all the repression from the Maduro government. Once this election happened, and it was so overwhelming,

the opposition won by 70%, and there was no denying it. And so then he shut down X. Well, it's very obvious what the American government has to do is say, free X. Unless you open up X and allow your people to have freedom of speech we're going to impose these sanctions back on you we're going to make your life so miserable venezuela or maduro until you free your people for you know free speech but how can joe biden and and kamala harris do that or our state department do that when they're the ones who want to shut down x right now because donald trump's on when they're the ones who were pissed off that elon musk took over

x because they wanted to control it through through their intelligence um network um all you know they wanted to be able to say this is disinformation the the the you can't you can't you can't allow on x information about the laptop because that's just that's russian disinformation. You can't allow on X information about the laptop because that's Russian disinformation. We have the same tyrants in our own country. They're just a little more sophisticated. They just make them think. They're not as crude as Maduro. They want the same power.

And they are wielding the same power and trying. And the only thing that stands between us and their tyranny is the constitution, which we still are holding onto. And quite frankly, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, that's it. I'd always say that what happens in Venezuela, these are trial runs, right? How is what Maduro is doing? How is it working? What blowback did he get? What did he do well? What did he fail at? Because they want to perfect a model that's going to work here. Wild, ranging kitchen table, Rachel. I know. It's all over the map, but it's all, if you can follow our crazy rants. On this map, X marks the spot.

Listen, X has been pivotal. And This is going to be pivotal in our election and if it's not freed in Venezuela, it will be the death of Venezuela. I'm just going to pull the curtain back. Let's do like a 40-45 minute podcast, Rachel, and we're about an hour and 15 minutes in.

We need to be more controlled. We should do it in 30 minutes. We're going to work on it. We have too much to say. We should do it in 30 minutes. 30 minutes or less. We're going to work on it. We have too much to say. The kitchen table is too fun for us. But with that, thank you for hanging with us at the kitchen table. If you like our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can always find us at foxnewspodcast.com, Spotify, Apple.

Wherever you get your podcasts, you can find us. Rate, again, review, and subscribe. Tell your neighbors, friends, coffee clutchers about the kitchen table. Bring them on over. We'd be grateful for that. And until next time, listen, thanks for being with us. We talk about

this in Venezuela because it matters. It matters for us here in America. That's why we keep doing podcasts. No doubt. Until next time, have a great day. Bye-bye. Yeah. That's why we keep doing a lot of lessons for us. No doubt. Until next time. Have a great day. Bye bye. Listen ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple podcast and Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad now on the go for podcast fans. Get key interviews with the biggest business newsmakers of the day. The Cut Low podcast will be available on the go after the show every weekday at foxbusinesspodcasts.com

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