The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | September 14: Immigration Chaos in Ohio & Has Maduro Won in Venezuela?

Episode Date: September 14, 2024

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: We begin in Springfield, Ohio, where a small town has found itself at the heart of a national debate on immigration. Tens of thousands of largely Haitian immigrants have settled there, leaving local residents outraged. Art Arthur, Resident Fellow for Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, joins us to break down the situation. Then, we head to Venezuela, where Nicolas Maduro is tightening his grip on power, despite evidence that he lost the late July election. We'll hear from Wall Street Journal correspondent Kejal Vyas, who brings us the latest on Maduro’s crackdown and the exodus of his political opponents. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief ☕ Blackout Coffee: https://www.blackoutcoffee.com/PDB 🏅 Patriot Gold: Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. 💵 Tax Network USA: To schedule a complimentary consultation, call 1(800)958-1000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/MIKE 🕶️ MySudo: Go to https://MySudo.com/MIKEBAKER & use code 'MIKEBAKER' to get 30 days free on a SudoPro yearly subscription. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. Today, we'll start in Springfield, Ohio. You didn't see that coming, did you? A small town that's become the center of a national debate on immigration. Now, local residents are outraged, as tens of thousands of, largely Haitian immigrants, have flooded into their community over the past few years. Resident Fellow for Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Stub,

Art Arthur joins us to dig into the details. Later, we'll turn to Venezuela, where opponents of Nicholas Maduro have taken flight as the dictator cracks down on dissent and shores up his kung-foo-like grip on power, despite evidence showing that he lost the late July election. Wall Street Journal correspondent in Cajal Vias brings us the latest. But first, our situation reports spotlight. As odd as it sounds, the town's town's the town's news.

sounds, the town of Springfield, Ohio, is now a flashpoint in America's debate over the Biden-Harris administration's border policies. Now, a lot of the headlines have been dominated by viral claims about Haitian migrants eating pets from yards and ducks from public parks, in part because, well, people are more inclined to click on a story about how ducks and cats are on the menu rather than click on a story about the complexities of immigration problems. It was even mentioned by former President Trump during a presidential debate. Of course it was. But in some ways, that's a distraction. In a lot of ways, that's a distraction. In just about every way, that's a distraction. And it's not what I want to focus on today. Rather, I want to take a page out of Bordersar,

Vice President Harris's playbook and look at the root causes. Now, Springfield is a former manufacturing hub with a population of about 58,000. And they've been inundated with thousands of Haitian migrants over the past four years. And that's something that residents say has caused an uptick in violent crime and car crashes and general community mayhem and chaos. Since 2021, Springfield has seen its population increased by as much as one-third, with the number of Haitian migrants rising from 5,000 to over 15,000. That's 15,000 migrants landing in a town of 58,000. The situation has reportedly put a strain, as you might imagine, on local resources and intensified the state's ongoing housing crisis. In recent weeks, residents in Springfield have been packing city council

meetings wall to wall to complain to local lawmakers. Now, many say they no longer feel safe in their community. They described a chaotic reality on the ground with migrants crowding public areas, hitting people with cars, and harassing residents in supermarkets. So, you ask yourself, what are the policies at the heart of what's happening in Springfield, Ohio, and what could be the impact on the rest of the nation? To help answer those questions, is resident fellow for law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, Art Arthur? Art, welcome to the PDB Situation Report, and thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you for having me, Mike. I appreciate it. Sure. Now, I'm going to get this question out of the way right at the very beginning, and then I promise it's the last time I'll mention it.

But it must be a little bit frustrating for someone like you who spends a lot of time deep in the details and complexities of border security, of migrant issues, of immigration policy, to have the headlines hijacked by people eating pets and ducks. Yeah, no, it really is. And, you know, all of this, you know, is just sort of a sideshow to what is a massive influx of individuals into the United States, you know, ever since. since the Biden-Harris administration started. Normally we get about a million legal immigrants per year, and we get a few hundred thousand people who attempt to enter illegally, and most of those people in the past were detained.

The Biden-Harris administration, however, has released 5.6 million illegal migrants, people who were stopped at the borders of the ports into the United States. That doesn't count nearly two million other people who evaded overwhelmed border patrols, agents and got away. And of course, the Haitians really came to a flashpoint or, you know, really came to the public attention back in September of 2021 in the town of Del Rio, Texas.

When we had about 15,000, primarily Haitian migrants, pour over the Rio Grande into what is a pretty small border town, Del Rio. And, you know, to the degree that that incident, which was a big deal at the time, is remembered today, is because there were pictures. that emerged that appeared to show border patrol agents on horseback whipping migrants, even the person that took those pictures said nobody was getting whipped. But that didn't stop President Biden from taking the White House lectern and saying, you know, there will be consequences these people will pay. And from Vice President Harris talking about, you know, how disturbing these pictures were,

apparently, you know, unfamiliar with horsemanship, let alone what happens at the border. So, yeah, I mean, this has been building up for a long time in the United States, and a lot of it is a consequence of the administration's immigration policies. Now, there's the program for Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, and is it, Nicaragua, to fast-track their entry into the states. And that's been going on for some time under the Biden-Harris administration. Is that program still underway? Is it still going on where they're flying directly into the country from those four countries? Or has that been put on hold possibly during the election season? I don't want to say it's all about politics, but I think I did.

Yeah, actually, formally it's called Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela parole processes, but it's better known as CHNV parole. And under CHNV parole, 30,000 nationals of those four countries are permitted to fly into the United States and be paroled into this country. Now, you talked about fast tracking. This actually isn't really fast tracking so much as it is turning a blind eye to the fact that those folks don't have visas to enter the country. They had visas. They would just fly into an airport and they would just be admitted to the country. These are folks who go through a rather complicated process.

to apply, find a supporter in the United States and then fly into domestic airports. It's interesting because the Center for Immigration Studies did a FOIA request. We wanted to know where they were going and where they were coming from. We determined that migrants who have entered under this program have come not just from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela,

but from 77 different countries around the world, including Australia, China, and Iceland. So yeah, I mean, it's an interesting program, but thus far, Haitians have really been among the primary beneficiaries of it. About 172,000 Haitian nationals, again, none of whom have visas to come here, have been allowed to fly into the United States on promises of two-year periods of parole that allows them to live here and work here. Now, at the end of that two-year period, there's no expectation to leave. In fact, if you go on the CHNV website, there's a question. what happens when my two-year period ends? Well, you may be eligible for some other form of immigration benefit in the United States.

By law, under the parole statute, they have to leave. And yet, for some reason, they're not being told that by the administration. What you said was, I think it's fascinating because I thought that program was specifically set up design for those four countries. But what you're saying is it's been expanded. Is that just the way the bureaucracy works? Was there some official effort to try to expand it to other countries? Talk to me about that a little bit, if you could. Yeah, so just to clarify, it's only available to nationals of those four countries,

Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela. But there's no requirement under the program that any of those people be living in those four countries. In fact, there's been a massive Haitian diaspora over the last 20 years. there's been a, you know, large Venezuelan diaspora of about six million people, you know, under Hugo Chavez and current president Maduro of Venezuela. And so those people have gone, you know, primarily throughout South and Central America, but all over the world. Now those people who are firmly resettled in countries on the other side of the globe

have the opportunity to take advantage of this parole program, and they're leaving the places that they are, which aren't their homes, so that they can fly into the United States. I mean, it's really sort of a remarkable program. And again, none of this is authorized by statute. There's nothing in the Immigration and Nationality Act that permits this. The Biden administration, the Biden-Harris administration, has created this out of whole cloth. And they did it primarily because they were getting so many nationals of those four countries showing up illegally at the southwest border. you know, as we saw in the Del Rio incident back in September 2021.

But there's no guarantee that the people who apply under this program would have otherwise entered the United States illegally. And the fact that they're coming from all over the world suggests many of them never would have. You know, the logic of this is to deter people from entering illegally. But this is sort of like standing in front of a shopping mall handing out gift cards to deter shoplifters. Yeah, okay, some of those people you're giving gift cards to may have shoplifted. but most of them were probably just going to come and do legitimate business. Now, to what degree do, let's, let me ask you this way. The numbers seem to be all over the map.

When people are talking about, from one story to the next, when people are talking about how many people have come into this country just during the course of the Biden-Harris administration. You just, there never seems to be a consistent number. And I realize because, you know, obviously you've got the known God, ways. You've got various categories of people coming in. Not to get too far into the weeds on statistics, but can you talk a little bit from your perspective and all your experience? What are the accurate numbers? What are the parameters that we're looking at if we're just talking again about

the Biden-Harris administration? Yeah, and there's a tendency amongst many, particularly on the right to blow up the numbers. You know, it's 10 million, it's 15 million, it's 20 million. But we have a fairly accurate idea of how many people have shown up been stopped by Customs and Border Protection who have been subsequently released into the country. About 2.2 million people have been allowed into the country who don't have visas on parole. Again, those are people who are, you know, immediately eligible to apply for work authorization. On top of that, we have about 3.4 million other people who were stopped by Customs and Border Protection, primarily Border Patrol agents, who were then released into the country.

In fact, about 840,000 of those folks this year alone, FY2024 were nearing the end of the fiscal year, but we still have two more reporting months to go. So, you know, when you add that up, it's about 5.6 million people. When you talk about the gotaways, we know that that is about 1.8 million people total. Those are the known gottaways.

Those are people that Border Patrol agency entering the United States crossing the border who aren't subsequently apprehended. That's why we call them known godaways. But the Congressional Budget Office actually released a report in January that said that the, you know, unknown gotaways, when you add those together, you know, boost that up about 20%. So that's where we get to a number of about 2 million, you know, total godaways, individuals who have never been encountered by anybody accustomed and border protection who have simply made their way into the United States and who are going to be living here indefinitely until we find

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Let me bring back my guest, Art Arthur. He's the resident fellow for law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. All right, there's a lot to. discuss here. Let me start attacking it from a bit of a different angle. Say I'm the president. I put you in charge. What do you do on day one? What changes would you make, based on all your experience and the work that you do to try to get the immigration situation in this country under control with the idea that, again, I'm not just talking about shutting down the border. I'm talking about sort of a bigger picture.

Because I assume that at some point in our lifetimes, perhaps, Washington, D.C. will be able to multitask, and they can realize that they can perhaps adjust or make fixes to the immigration policy at the same time as they can secure the border. But it's all in your lap now. What do you do? So the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to secure the border. And the laws already require or already provide a number of tools

that would enable the president to secure the border. We saw President Biden back in June used his authority under Section 212F of the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny entry to people who had entered the United States illegally. They're still allowed to apply for certainly humanitarian forms of relief that we've agreed to under international law. But other than that, they're not eligible. But the other important thing, Mike, is that, you know, the key thing, the key tool that Congress has given is detention. The law requires that everybody who enters the United States illegally and everybody who shows up at a port of entry and is not allowed in is supposed to be detained until we can make a determination as to whether they should be released into the United States. And if they were detained, the number of people that you see coming illegally, you know, at the border would drop to almost zero. The Trump administration, you know, actually, you know, fairly vigorously detained the people that it could.

And the people that it couldn't attain, it sent back to Mexico under its remain-in-Mexico policy. Once that remained-in-Mexico policy, you know, fully took effect about six months before Title 42 took effect in March 2021. We saw the numbers of people who attempted to enter the United States illegally drop down to the historic levels, about 30,000 people per month. We only have about 17,000 Border Patrol agents on the border, and they work, you know, 50-hour shifts, which means, only a third of them are on the line. When you start to get, you know, 100,000, 150,000, 200,000, like we've seen under the Biden administration, the whole system melts down at the border. The drugs come flowing in, you know, the gotaways come in, criminals are able to evade,

and potentially terrorists are able to evade agents coming into the United States. So the first thing you need to do is to shut down the border. Then you need to actually determine who all of those people who have come in, you know, total it up, It's about 7.5 million people who, you know, we don't really know anything about who have either been released into the country or entered the country. We need to figure out what to do with those people. We need to figure out where they are, what status they have, and how exactly we're going to deal with them. Those things are absolutely key. That's what we have to do in order to secure the border and secure the country.

Let me return to what we started out with, which is the town of Springfield. of Ohio, obviously, you know, kind of been in the news lately. And I did promise you almost stay away from the old ducks and dogs thing. But is it just happenstance that, look, you've got a town of 58,000 people. And over a short, relatively short period of time, that population is increased by approximately a third, anywhere between 15,000, 20,000 Haitian immigrants coming in. Is that just happenstance? Or what is the process where it's determined that migrants are going to be flown to,

bus to relocated, resettled to a particular location? Is there a process or is it just, it becomes a matter of that just happens to be where that community is and so now they draw more from their own community and that just happens over a period of time? Or is there some level of thought behind it from the administration? of the government's perspective that they're identifying locations where they think they can resettle such large numbers. Yeah, they're not engaged in any resettlement program at all. Once those individuals, you know, are released into the country, be it at the airports of entry in the

interior or at the border, they're free to go wherever they want in this country. And what we're seeing happen in Springfield, Ohio is, you know, one of those things that we've seen happen throughout American history. New immigrants to the country will generally go to places where their fellow countrymen have gone. There's a reason that the Minnesota football team is called the Vikings and that New Orleans team has a flirtily on their helmet. I mean, this is a constant in American history. You will go where your fellow countrymen have resettled, and apparently a large number of people, a large number of Haitians went to Springfield, Ohio, founded that it was a place where they could get jobs, where they could get housing, and so more and more of them come there. A lot of this,

like his word of mouth or word of cell phone in these days, because you do want to go where you know people where you can speak the language, and keep in mind, Haitian, Haiti's national language is Haitian Creole, which sounds like French, but is a much different language. So communication issues, things like that are going to cause them to, again, concentrate in certain areas. Springfield, Ohio just happens to be one of those areas and they didn't have a lot of infrastructure before those folks got there. And to what degree, I mean, obviously there's so many layers here. You know, there's the problem of town and city resources being stretched in.

That's just going to happen. There's only so much to go around. There's the issue of national security. How do you view the current situation in terms of the, the biggest threat to the nation. Is it a national security threat? I mean, and that leads me to another question. I'm just layering them on here, so you're going to have to take notes.

But to what degree can you talk about, say they have another plane load of migrants under the program, ostensibly for those four nations we talked about, to what degree are they vetting those individuals so that we actually have some knowledge as to who we're bringing in? Yeah, that's probably the biggest issue of all of these. administration policies is when you talk about those four countries, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, three of them are, you know, socialist dictatorships. You know, they are, you know, run by governments that are hostile to the United States that have policies adverse to us and with whom we really don't have very good diplomatic relations. We don't know anything at all about anybody coming from

those four countries, whether they have a criminal record, whether they, you know, have any mental health issues. Honestly, Nicholas Maduro is in no hurry to tell us, oh, hey, by the way, this person's a criminal and you may not want them in your country. And, you know, that feeds into one of the points that Donald Trump makes. You know, they're opening the prisons and the mental institutions. And I get so many fact checkers calling me asking me that. Like, I don't know. I'm not in Venezuela. Maybe you should go down there and report and find out. But yeah, in the fourth country, of course, is Haiti. Haiti doesn't and have a government. In July of 2021, President Hovein-El-Mauisei was killed in the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince. They haven't had a president since then, and the country has devolved into chaos.

So all of the, you know, the administration will talk about, you know, vigorous vetting that these folks are going to go through. It's a canard because there's nothing that we can do. There's nothing that we know about those folks that will allow us to, you know, know anything about their backgrounds. And again, most people that come to the United States legally or illegally or, you know, generally law-abiding people, especially the legal ones, because if you have a criminal record, you're not allowed in the United States. But, you know, there are bad people that come in. We're just not going to be able to identify them under the regime that the administration is set up. Yeah, I mean, I think if they have a criminal record, if they have, essentially, my understanding is basically the only database they're checking is U.S. database. So if they've got a criminal conviction in the U.S., then that will show, but that's what they're running.

It's not like they're running international databases, nor, to your point, do they have access to it, or is there the infrastructure in a place like Haiti or Venezuela, elsewhere, to query a database there, even if they would allow it. So I take your point, and I couldn't agree more, when the administration or any administration says they're fully vetting these individuals that are coming across the border, no matter how they're coming into the country, quite frankly, it's a load of crap. It's just not happening. And so I look at this whole thing. I mean, clearly it's a problem. It's a drain on resources. There's issues there. You do want people to be able to pursue a better life. Of course. Yes,

the country was built on immigration. Of course, all that makes perfect sense. You can have lots of different conflicting views in your mind at the same time. But you can also understand that it is a national security issue here. First and foremost, you can't. You can't do your primary job as President of the United States or vice president of the United States, which is a protection of your citizens if you don't know who's coming in across your border. Now this last question, Art, is probably not fair, but I'm known for asking questions, I guess that aren't fair.

Looking at the past going on four years now with the Biden-Harris administration, a lot of people ask the same question, which is why? Why did they take their foot off the gas? Why did they become so lax with border security? Why this willingness to open up the borders in a sense? What's the logic behind it? Is there logic behind it? What do you think? What was the reasoning behind the Biden administration and their willingness to have these numbers increase the way they have over the past handful of years. Yeah, and actually, you know, this is probably one of the biggest misunderstandings. People will talk about all, you know, sorts of nonsense, all they want more voters or whatever. Most of these people are never going to be able to vote in the United States.

Fortunately, in September 2021, DHS issued a memo, and you have to read five pages into it to get to an explanation for why it is doing any of these things. And it's this. it is the opinion of decision makers within the current administration that the immigration laws are discriminatory, that they're unfair, that they are too strict, that they prevent people from coming into the country, and that for that reason, the administration has to put its thumb on the scale to make the rules more fair to use its prosecutorial discretion, not to go after ailing criminals in the United States. States to use its prosecutorial discretion to release people into the United States whom Congress has said should be detained. And again, you know, it's funny because there's a lot of talk about why. And, you know, I've written about this a number of times and yet nobody seems to want to believe me, but you can go to the document yourself and you can read it. This is all part of the, you know, president's initial push to make government more fair in the United States and more

equitable in the United States. Okay. Yeah, that's that's really interesting. Look, we unfortunately are we're out of time. We'd love to have you back on because there's there's a lot here. And I don't think this problem is going to get solved in the near future. Art Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies. Look, thank you very much for giving us your time, your insight today. It's really appreciated. Thank you so much for having it. All right. Up next, Venezuela's opposition is facing a major setback. as key leaders flee the country and others take refuge inside embassy facilities, causing Venezuelan security forces loyal to Maduro to surround the Argentine embassy in Caracas. We'll be joined by a Cajal Vias.

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Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Now, it's been a rough week, and that's putting it mildly, for Venezuela's opposition. as hopes of removing President Nicholas Maduro appear to be fading, and opposition leaders have begun to flee. This week, the man that many considered to be the rightful president of Venezuela now, Edmundo Gonzalez, arrived in Spain after fleeing into exile as part of a negotiated deal with Maduro's government. Upon his arrival, Gonzalez stated, quote,

My departure from Caracas was surrounded by acts of pressure, coercion, and threats. I trust that we will soon continue our government. our fight to achieve our freedom and the restoration of Venezuela's democracy. Meanwhile, Venezuelan security forces have encircled the Argentine embassy in Caracas, where six opposition leaders have sought asylum. So, is this the end of the illusion of democracy in Venezuela? Okay, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Not sure who was still clinging to that illusion after years of Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro,

but, you know, let's go with it. Let's cling to the illusion of democracy. But joining me now is Cajel Vias, a South American correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, who's been covering Venezuela since 2010. Cajel, thank you very much for joining us here on the Situation Report. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Well, let's start at the very top here.

30,000-foot view on Venezuela. Is there any chance Maduro is going to lose his grip on power, or is he there now for this next term? It's, you know, it's such a volatile situation. We're seeing a kind of change here on almost on a day-to-day basis. But at the moment, it doesn't, it's very hard to envision what will push Maduro out that hasn't already worked. At the moment, he seems very determined to entrench himself, stay in power at any cost. And as you very rightly laid out, you know, the opposition did, played ball effectively.

You know, they decided to go to this election with really unfair conditions. And by the data that has been made public so far show that they trounced Maduro. However, Maduro has his own results and is insisting on them. He's not showing any evidence to back up his assertions. that he won another six-year-term. But at the moment, we're kind of at an impasse. You know, the opposition is the main candidate, Mundo Gonzalez, he is seeking political asylum in Spain.

Today he actually met with the Spanish Prime Minister, and at the very least, he's trying to show that he's going to continue rallying international support against Maduro. Now, Maduro's had international condemnation for... you know, since 2019, effectively. I mean, he's been deemed an illegitimate leader by most of the, you know, most countries around the world. And so that didn't budge, that didn't help him, you know, budge him from power. And now it's hard to see what the next steps are here,

because he's adamant on staying power and staying in power. And also it doesn't seem that there's as much appetite for international pressure as there had been years ago. And under the Biden administration, we've seen a pretty concerted effort over the last two or three years to try to negotiate, come back to the negotiation table with Maduro offering some sanctions. All predicated on these promises, they were going to hold something resembling of their vote. Now, that clearly has not happened. In fact, we hear from many people that it's actually the worst case in the great. where you have just an absolutely brazen fraud

where numbers are just absolutely pulled out of thin air to declare a victory. And so if that's your opposition, I'm sorry, if that's what you're kind of negotiating up against, it's kind of hard to see where, how you're gonna find some kind of dialogue in good faith. Yeah, have you seen in your work covering Venezuela and dealing with the people that you deal with,

your sources, your contacts? Are there any indications that there may be any daylight at all between military and police and Maduro, or has he got them locked down pretty tight and they're going to support him no matter what? At the moment, we've not seen any of those fractures. You know, this is actually, I referred earlier to 2019. And back then, you know, when the then Trump administration leveled, some of the strictest

sanctions against Venezuela, they had also been, you know, working very hard to get Venezuelan military officials to flip on Maduro. It did not work then, had very limited success. they didn't get very many defectors. And this time around, it seems that Maduro has hardened, you know, all of the, his inner circle. And so there, for the moment, sticking by his side, we've seen numerous times over the last month, or six weeks, basically, since the election, we've seen the military top brass to not just congratulate Maduro on the victory and, you know, recognizing his claim that he was. one, but also just putting themselves, basically making themselves available to help him

crush any kind of dissent or political protests on the streets. And so they've done that fairly effectively over the last six weeks to the point where, you know, most folks are very scared to protest or even tweet about the government because they feel that, you know, security forces are going to be knocking on their. door. And that's also what's pushed, you know, thousands of opposition activists, people who volunteered to serve as voting station witnesses on the day of the election. All these folks are now in hiding, seeking, fearing persecution. And many of them are starting to flee the country and case in point, the opposition leader, Edmundo Gonzalez. But we still still,

have the other opposition leader Maria Purina Machado still in the country, but also in hiding. So it's a very dire situation. Yeah, it's hard to see, I guess when you think about his support from the military, it's hard to see where the upside would be for them to split with Maduro, given that, you know, most of the senior military leadership have benefited greatly from their loyalty to him. So, you know, there's nothing but downside if they step down from power, then they're squarely in the target sites as well as Maduro is. You raised an interesting point here with Maria Machado in terms of she's in hiding, but

she's in country. And yet the reason why Edmondo Gonzalez was the candidate, a bit of a, I don't know how you would call him a reluctant candidate, was because she was declared ineligible. I mean, again, this is all, you know, it's all relative, right? It's all efforts by Maduro to keep the opposition from gaining any traction. Any indications that she's in danger or that, you know, because of that she may be looking to go into exile as well? That she's in danger, I think, is indisputed.

You know, we've had numerous regime officials come out to say that she deserves to be incarcerated for, you know, instigating what they consider violent protests. And she, for the moment, she said she has not indicated that she will want to leave the country. At the same time, she has gotten numerous offers from other Latin American countries who said would happily her exile if she so wished. However, if she were to leave, I think that would be a, I mean, as, as, as, as, as, as, As much as many Venezuelan opposition supporters felt crestfallen after Edmundo Gonzalez left,

you know, as you mentioned, he was not, he's not a career politician. He's a guy who fulfilling a civic duty and seeing the rest of the opposition leadership arbitrarily banned from running in this election was put as a placeholder candidate and went with. He's not really somebody who has any kind of aspirations, political aspirations, or much experience, you know, leading a movement like this. Maria Corina, meantime, you know, she won like 90-something percent of the votes last year when the opposition held the primary to become their candidate. She has a pretty strong mandate, strong support, and that's who many of the opposition people, my opposition supporters put their faith into. So if she were to leave the country,

I think that would be a serious psychological blow to the struggle, which looks pretty grim as it is, but that would be, I think, I think some people would even call it a potential nail in the coffin. Yeah. And then you've got the issue of the half dozen other opposition personnel stuck inside the Argentine embassy now.

And, you know, with reporting that they've cut off power and water to that embassy, and, you know, they've instructed Brazil that, you know, they don't have the authority to, you know, watch over the Argentine embassy and indicating that they may make a move on it at some point. I, I, what, what is the mood of the population? I mean, obviously those that have been protesting, they, you know, they, you know, they're, they've gone underground to some degree. they've stopped the protest to some degree. They're worried about their own safety. Is there just a sense of fatalism that they're not going to be able to make any difference?

I mean, do you feel like that's setting in? Or earlier you used the word impasse. And that impasse would imply that there's the possibility, right? There's hope. There's an opportunity perhaps for change because they're at an impasse. Would you describe it still that way, or would you say it? way or would you say that really what's happened is Maduro has shown himself capable of crushing this latest effort by the opposition?

I think I would kind of agree with both sides of that. I mean, I would say that no doubt many Venezuelans still kind of keep a candle lit for that. I don't think they've completely given up hope. As pessimistic as many may be, and I think that may be essential. that may be essential for if they want to keep going, to keep advocating for a democratic transition in the country. You know, I guess you have to believe it that is possible in order to even put in any effort.

So I think that that is still the case. However, I think things like the fear, the depression, depression that people are feeling is extremely palpable in Caracas. You know, you have, not just because of, you know, what people may be feeling inside, you know, maybe feeling demoralized that, you know, they tried the correct way, you know, at the ballot box to try to change the government. And we're just, you know, completely denied that right. Aside from that, you also have just on the street that you look outside of that,

your window and you know, you have thugs in all black uniforms and ski masks in holding, you know, assault rifles driving around the streets on pickup trucks, you know, making sure nobody's getting uppity on the streets. And so it's extremely frightening. And, you know, one of the, one thing I'd like to mention is just, you know, the uproar, the protest that we saw in the immediate aftermath of the elections were quite different from what we saw in past years, where we saw many protest movements against the regime as well. However, this time it was a huge demographic difference, where in the past we saw anti-government movements kind of led by the middle class, maybe upper middle class of Venezuelan society. We saw people from the lowest strata

of Venezuela from the slums come down to protest. And now it was just something that we had not seen in quite a long time in the country. And now we're seeing the consequences of that. You know, the government has kind of militarized many of these poor barrios around Caracas and other cities in the country to really kind of keep the poorest among the Venezuelan society, you know, in permanent fear. You know, there's been cases of people's homes being marked, being identified as like opposition supporters.

And so it's a very, very scary moment to be living there. And especially as a, as a political, or somebody thinks differently. Yeah. K, Joel, I want to talk about what the international community can do to try to. try to influence this, if they can do anything. I mean, are there sanctions that could be meaningful at this stage of the game, as you pointed

out? Look, it's not like sanctions haven't been levied on Venezuela in the past. But before we get to that, I want you to stay right there because we do have to take a quick break. And then we'll be right back with Cage will be us. Hey, if you're tired of the same old coffee from those mega corporations pushing their agendas, and you know the ones I'm talking about, well, listen up. It's time to take a stand and support a brand that truly embodies American values.

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Us. Cajal, we've been talking about Venezuela. We've been talking about what's been happening in country. Maduro's grip on power, his relationship with the military, what the opposition is able to do right now. But I'd like to ask your opinion on the issue of the international community, right? I mean, aside from harshly worded memos, uh, condemnations, statements, is there anything meaningful at this stage of the game that the international community could be

doing, uh, to try to change what's happened in Venezuela? Um, there's definitely, uh, stronger measures that can be taken that would, you know, hit Maduro in the, uh, pocketbooks, so to speak. However, whether it's the best option, you know, whether there's collateral damage that could, you know, affect the broader population, I mean, these are all debates that are playing out as we speak. So, you know, just today we saw the Biden administration level individual sanctions against 16 Venezuelan regime officials. It's people, everybody from Supreme Court justices to electoral council officials to military officials, everybody who has been involved in either the voter fraud or the subsequent repression against the civilian population. These sanctions bar these 16 officials from doing business with Americans and freeze whatever assets they have in the states. Now, these guys have, there's about 140 Venezuelan regime officials who face similar sanctions.

And these sanctions have been trickling in over the years. And they really haven't made a difference in terms of changing behavior, which is what they are nominally supposed to be doing. And so for now, one of the hottest debates, I think, that's playing out, at the moment in terms of how the international community can respond is, you know, whether, you know, the U.S. and other countries should pull the plug on any in oil, any and all oil investments or operations in the country. Now, Venezuela's economy runs almost exclusively on oil. And so when the toughest oil sanctions were imposed against the country about five years ago, We saw a dramatic drop, about 70, 80% drop in production as the foreign companies pulled out.

The country really doesn't have needs international oil services companies and foreign oil majors to come in, put the money in and run the operations because they just cannot do it on their own. As part of the Biden administration's negotiations with the Maduro regime over the last couple years, they've slowly allowed some oil companies to get back into the business in Venezuela, including Chevron, which is probably like the most emblematic of this group. Now, we hear from many critics who think that, you know,

allowing these kinds of companies to go back is effectively a lifeline to Mitsubaduro. There's other people who argue that you need to get some money flowing into the economy because that's the only thing that's going to prevent you know, mass starvation and suffering and that that will promote, you know, even more migrants to leave

in addition to the roughly 8 million or the quarter of the population that already left under Maduro. So it's a really, it's a really tough position, but, you know, there is a, you know, we hear from many analysts who feel that that the approach has been, you know, a little

soft or at the very least permissive with Maduro in terms of not sufficiently responding when he breaks his agreements to hold an election, you know, not snapping back some the sanctions from before. Some people see as effectively appeasement to that kind of behavior. So it is a tough situation. Now, it is also true that when the toughest sanctions were put in, five years ago, that, you know, it did seriously upend the economy, even more than the economy had already been severely damaged by Maduro's own mismanagement. And that did, according to many groups that research migration patterns and whatnot, you know, that it did help stoke even more outward, a greater exodus out of the country.

So it's a real tricky spot for the international community. I mean, not, they want to create an environment where migrants won't want to leave, but at the same time, they don't want to enable Maduro. And so much has been tried, you know, as of now, as you already mentioned, you know, there's been a kind of large-scale economic sanctions, individual sanctions against regime officials. There's been individual indictments against people like Maduro for narco-terrorism. and it's just kind of hardened everybody, as we were talking about earlier. And if I could add one more thing on your military question from earlier, I think you hit it right on the head when you were saying that it's hard to see what their incentive would be turning on Maduro.

And I can't agree more. Because Maduro, for all his talk of being this humble working man's leader, I think few Venezuelan heads of state have done more to militarize their government than he has. And under his rule, we've had countless ministers, everything from oil minister to food minister to transport minister or whatever. All these positions go to military guys who have been able to make very lucrative deals for themselves. and so it's hard to see why they would, you know, suddenly flip on the guy who gave them control of the entire economy. Yeah, they'd have to obviously be worried about their own future at that point.

I mean, you know, if you, yeah, and unless they can cut some type of deal, and who knows, maybe that's a thing. Maybe there's a country out there that would offer Maduro and his close minions, you know, safe passage. and I don't see how this goes any other way than Maduro just, you know, come January, there he is for another six-year term, but I guess I'm very cynical. To your point about the migration out of the country, I had read some statistics that indicated a staggering third almost,

30% some out of the population of the country had fled the country over the past few years, which is, if true, astounding. It's roughly like, you know, about 25, between 25 and 30 percent that left basically over the last 10-year period. You know, Maduro has been in power for 11 years. He took over right after Hugo Chavez died in office in 2013. And it's been this, you know, kind of epic downfall ever since. You know, he's faced some protest. who wanted to push him out early back in 2014.

He crushed those protests. Then he was facing his own kind of internal political crises where the economy was melting down, all their free spending ways of the past, which is basically how Hugo Chavez maintained popularity, was just by basically not saving a cent and splurging all of the national oil income on handouts and corruption and you name it. And Maduro couldn't replicate that governing model. He just didn't have the money. And then, you know, you come with international sanctions and election fraud allegations. And the news just kept tightening and tightening to the point where, you know, he does not have access to big bucks like he did in the past.

And it has not, frankly, found the right formula to govern. or how to keep the ship stable. He's barely able to kind of keep it afloat. But it's been at, you know, keeping the civilian population in order at gunpoint, effectively. That's been the way he's hard in his position. Yeah. Cajul, I mean, you're a very serious journalist. And so I suspect you hate to speculate.

But I'm going to throw this question at you. In the time that we've got left, where do you think we are with Venezuela in, say, six months time? I hope I'm wrong. I'll start with that. But I think I kind of agree with what, you know, albeit pessimistic or cynical take that you had, which is that in six months, Maduro may still very well be,

at least considering himself president. Yeah, just because at the moment, it's just very hard to see what the kind of next catalyst is in all this. It feels like the opposition has kind of spent all their ammo, so to speak, you know, peacefully showing, you know, that they're up against absolutely blatant electoral fraud. I think they've taken the ball as far as they can on that front. But where to from there? I don't see it.

And every day we see the Venezuelan. regime kind of radicalize their discourse. I mean, they almost kind of are inviting people to, you know, take arms against. I mean, that's kind of what they want. They seem to close every other avenue for democratic change in the country or some kind of, you know, institutional, sort of be of a normal system, so to speak. So it feels like he's going to be there. six months. So sorry, I think that's the short answer. Now, I think it'll be at the cost of,

you know, the civilians who will have to live under tighter economic pressures and also, you know, the fear of living under a repressive regime. Well, I also wanted to, unfortunately, we were running out of time, but I wanted to get your expertise and insight on another country that's neck deep in turmoil and chaos and misery, and that would be Haiti. So I'm hoping that, you know, when we call you again, you'll come back, Cajel, and you'll talk to us again. And this next time, I would like to get your thoughts on what's happening in Haiti. But Wall Street Journal correspondent Cajel v.S.

I can't tell you how much we appreciate you spending your time and providing your insight. Thank you very much. Thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. All right. That's all the time we have. the PDB situation report. Now, if you have any questions or you have comments, you have humorous anecdotes, please reach out to us at PDB at thefirsttv.com. The entire PDB team, and that does include our mostly literate interns, love to hear from you. In fact, and I'm being honest here,

there's no happier time at the PDB compound than when Carl the mailman offloads more mailbags stuffed filled to the brim, chock full of your questions and insightful comments. Every month, We dip into the mailbag and we select a bunch of your questions for our Ask Me Anything episodes. Okay, to listen to the podcast of this show ad free, well, become a premium member of the president's daily brief by simply visiting pdb premium.com. I told you it was simple. And remember, new episodes of the PDB situation report air every Friday at 10 p.m. on the first TV. And of course, on all the podcast platforms and on our immensely popular YouTube channel at President's Daily. brief. You should check that out. I'm Mike Baker. Until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed.

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