The Young Turks - The U.S. Government Is Heavily Involved In The Ongoing Crisis In Venezuela

Episode Date: January 25, 2019

Trump has recognized the opposition against President Maduro as the reigning political figure. U.S. funded think tanks are stoking discord in the ongoing Venezuelan crisis. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Well, the Young Turks, Jank Uger, Anna Kasparian, huge news day. We have a ton of national and international news. So the shutdown continues, dramatic news from that. And I had said on social media yesterday that I would pay Anna the $50 for the shutdown bet that we had, I now withdraw that. What? Okay, hold on, I'll explain later in the program. Did you not see you, it's in the rundown, did you not see the story of the Democrats offering

the whole $5.7 billion? Hey, hey, hey, relax. Clyburn does not represent all of the Democrats. He kind of does, and so does, so does. No, no, no, no, no. Okay, so we'll get to that later in the program, okay. Drama ensuing, okay, speaking of drama, this is not fun, it's a very serious story. It's about Venezuela, we're gonna get to it in a second.

But I want you to hang on for the second segment. Because not only are we gonna give you the story about what's happening in Venezuela now, and that story is nuanced. Very nuanced. And we will probably piss off both left wing and right wing, at least I know I will, right? Because there are no clear, like- No, there's bad guys all around. Yeah, bad guys all around.

If you care about the truth rather than political agendas, then you'll understand the nuances. But if you're driven by political motives, then yeah, you're gonna get upset. Right, but the second segment is going to have a story that is larger about how the right wing funds propaganda and organizes coups all across the world against left-wing governments. That story is amazing, it's maybe one of the most important stories we've done on the show. So that's a big statement, but I think you'll see that we can back that up. So a giant show ahead today, plus news breaking constantly. We'll have some updates for you guys as we go along too about the shutdown.

shutdown and the wall. So all that to get to, Anna, was up first. All right. The crisis in Venezuela has escalated following the United States and its statements regarding who the real leader, elected leader in Venezuela is. Now this really began to escalate after Donald Trump and his administration decided to recognize Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guadio, as the country's interim president. And that set the stage for dramatic escalation with the current president, Nicholas Maduro,

responding by cutting ties with the US and ordering American diplomats to leave within 72 hours. So of course, Maduro is going to react that way. But the election, the recent election that took place in mid-2018 was not a fair election. And I think that the facts on the ground prove that. So for instance, many opposition candidates had been barred from running, while others had been jailed or had fled the country for fear of being imprisoned. And the opposition parties argued that the poll would be neither free nor fair. And so voters who are more in line with the opposition actually boycotted the election because

they're like, what are we doing? I mean, the opposition has been suppressed, what is the point in even participating in this election? So of course, Maduro gets elected. And it's been a complete and utter disaster in Venezuela for a number of different reasons. And that is a very nuanced thing that I do want to get into. But before we get to those details, I do want to show you why Maduro is as unpopular as he is. There are mass protests in Venezuela.

And Vox really did a great job in breaking this down in a video that they put together in 2017. Take a look. Maduro's political ambition became evident in December 2015. Two years after he became president, a coalition of opposition parties called the Democratic Unity Roundtable, or MUD, one of two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. putting Maduro's rule at risk. In response, Maduro quickly forced out several Supreme Court justices and filled the positions with cronies loyal to him.

In March 2016, the court ruled to strip the opposition-led National Assembly of its powers, a move that sparked massive protests across the country. The ruling was reversed a few days later, but the damage was done. Protests continued to grow and have left about 100 dead and thousands injured so far. Despite the violence and public outcry, Maduro held a vote in July to elect a new governing body called the National National constituent assembly, which would have the power to rewrite Venezuela's constitution and essentially replace the National Assembly and leave virtually no opposition to Maduro's rule.

And one of the other things that Maduro has been very focused on is ensuring that the military is on his side. And the way that he does that is by offering them all sorts of economic perks. So as long as he's taking care of them, he's hoping that they will take care of him, and that's exactly what's going on right now. The military is very much on Maduro's side on this. So there are no winners in this story. So I think we're going to be one of the very few outlets that reports it as nuanced as it actually is in real life.

There are people that usually pick sides, Maduro's the worst, and this Juan Guadillo is the best and is for Venezuela, etc. Or the reverse. Okay, neither side is right. Anna is absolutely right about Maduro. He is, has dictatorial tendencies and unsurprisingly, Vladimir Putin, who also does similar tricks with his elections and in seizing power in his home country also supports Maduro. By the way, he also has huge oil contracts with Venezuela.

That's also why Putin supports him. Erdogan, who does similar tricks with elections in Turkey supporting Maduro. On the other hand, the right wing attempt to seize power here, I think it is fair to call it a coup. And so it is illegitimate. The United States is obviously coordinating with it because Donald Trump's offer of support came minutes after the right wing declared that they were the real president in Venezuela. Yes.

And so the fact that that came so closely afterwards shows obvious coordinate. So if you're concerned that the U.S. is helping to organize another coup in another Latin American country, I believe you are correct. So the U.S. is very much involved in some of the opposition that's taking place in Venezuela, and it all has to do with money and business interests. And we all know that. This is something that the United States has done throughout the world for as long as we can remember.

But that's not to say that Maduro is a good guy. What we're seeing now is business interests capitalizing on Maduro. mistakes and the fact that he is now pushing for a more authoritarian regime in Venezuela, they're using that as a way to infiltrate politics and essentially convince younger Venezuelans to rise up and go against Maduro, a fight against him, and push for regime change. Now with that said though, another thing to keep in mind is that we have a president who is not privy to nuance, who doesn't really understand the the inner workings of what's going on and is very impressionable. And so he has said on multiple occasions that military intervention in Venezuela is very much

on the table. Here's one of the recent examples of that. In an announcement about Venezuela today, some administration officials told reporters on the conference call that all options are on the table. Are you considering a military option for Venezuela? We're not considering anything, but all options are on the table. Does that mean you're considering those? Which is all options, always, all options are on the table.

Now in 2017, August of 2017, when tensions were flaring, he said something a little more aggressive toward Venezuela. Here it is. We have many options for Venezuela. And by the way, I'm not going to rule out a military option. We have many options for Venezuela. This is our neighbor. This is, you know, we're all over the world.

And we have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are suffering and they're dying. We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary. So let's talk about, again, both sides. The elections, I believe, are illegitimate, the ones that Maduro claims that he won. He won elections back in 2013 with a slim margin, 1.6 percent. He is far more unpopular these days than he was back then. But okay, you could say, hey, that's just a small indication, all right, fair enough.

Here's an incredibly large indication. He banned some of his opponents from running against them. Well, that's pretty convenient. And then he imprisoned other political opponents, also not allowing them to run because they are in prison. That is not a legitimate election. On the other hand, the leader of the National Assembly, which is the legislature, the one that you saw on the video that the Supreme Court ruled against the Venezuela.

Supreme Court, can I just raise his hand and say, oh, by the way, I'm now the duly elected leader of Venezuela? No, you're not. And then he asked the military to help him overthrow Maduro. Well, that's a coup. That's the definition of a coup. And so he, look, they always have an excuse. The excuse is, oh, there's an article, two articles in the Constitution that says that the leader

of the legislature can seize power if there's actually no one in charge. I mean, whether it's legitimate or not, there is someone in charge, you've created the constitutional crisis, right? And so, now, I sympathize with the people of Venezuela, because what do you do when someone with dictatorial tendencies has captured the government? And how did Maduro do that? Yes, he did it the same way that they have done it in Russia, Turkey, Iran, where he basically said, I'm going to give you lucrative government contracts if you're in the military. Because what matters the most? The guns, the weapons, okay?

The military has the weapons. He gives them basically bribes through government contracts, et cetera. So then the military says, all right, I'm on your side. And when put to a decision here, they came out today. And the defense minister said that the right-wing opposition's claim to the leadership of Venezuela was, quote, laughable. And while he's laughing all the way to the bank, right? The defense minister is because he got rich off of Maduro.

And by the way, this is not real socialism. Real socialism does not give all the money to the military leaders at the top. Right, so can I jump in and just start talking a little bit about what went wrong with Venezuela and its economy? So look, people with political agendas like to pick on one very slim component of that failed economic policy and just blame socialism. Oh, it's because they had all these government programs for the poor, that's what happens when you spend money on the poor.

I mean, you see libertarians in the United States use that talking point time and time again. But if you look at a more detailed explanation of what went wrong in Venezuela, you'll see that it was a multi-pronged disaster. So first of all, they relied heavily on their oil exports, right? And so when the price of oil goes down, their economy suffers, and that's exactly what happened. So at first, they're doing well because the price of oil. of oil is very high. And since they put all of their eggs in that basket and at the same time simultaneously spent

all that money on the social programs, when the cost of oil goes down, well then the country suffers because they don't have money saved for that economic downfall. Now in addition to that, Maduro, and this was a terrible idea, instituted certain price controls. And when you institute price controls, well, certain industries will decide, doesn't really make sense to produce this anymore. It's not profitable. So then Venezuela is highly reliant on imports.

And so all of this coming together leads to insane inflation. And so people in Venezuela right now are hungry. It's not just the fact that they spent that money on social programs. It's the fact that they did not have a diversified economic model. And then the Western governments, including the US, start doing some sanctions on Venezuela. So that creates a vicious cycle. And then they have trouble paying their debt, which then leads to some of the US. some more inflation.

So look, you have to look at the whole context, because if you had looked when oil prices were high at Hugo Chavez's government, so Maduro followed Chavez, and he was, and Chavez claimed to be a socialist as well. So he says, all right, I'm gonna give money to the poor, I'm gonna take the oil, which is the people's oil, and I'm going to distribute some of the profits to the people instead of just to the mega corporations. And if you had looked at that point of time, you would say, oh my gosh, socialism works so well because Venezuela is doing so much better.

Their government has more money, their economies humming along. No, it didn't mean that socialism was great back then. It depended on the context. If you look at it today and you say, oh, well, it's a disaster. Well, again, it depends. Where are oil prices? What happened with the sanctions? But look, that is why I'm a believer.

I often say on the show that I'm a capitalist. But in reality, these are all made up terms that don't have much meaning. They're all mixed economies. The question is what is public and what is private? And in this case, I agree completely with Anna. Price controls are a terrible idea, especially when it comes to food and supplies and essentials. And that also depends on some context, but generally a very bad idea. The last president to do that in America, because it's not like we've never had price controls

we have, was a Republican. His name was Richard Nixon. And that, by the way, also led to the disastrous economy that we had. That was then blamed on Carter, but he actually didn't do the price controls. It was Nixon who did it. And then he took over after obviously Nixon then Ford. And so it's a complicated situation. Now you turn to the right wing, and the right wing has been doing propaganda, and of course

is largely saying within Venezuela. And by the way, all across the world, certainly it and abetted here in America. And by the way, funded, some of the propaganda is funded by the United States government, okay? And we have to be cognizant of that. They're not just for the 1960s, they're still happening right now. And what did that propaganda say? They didn't take a nuanced approach, hey, what are oil prices, what are the effects of sanctions? They said, no, giving money to the poor is a terrible idea.

Making anything public for the benefit of the public is a terrible idea. You have to privatize, privatize, privatize, why? Because I want the oil money, I want the profits. Now, another reason why America is against the government of Venezuela is, and China is actually a perfect example of this, I'm gonna get to them next, okay? What did I tell you, who has the oil contracts right now? Other than Venezuela, Russia does. Now, America wants everything in the Western Hemisphere.

So they're like, Venezuela's got oil, I want it. Now, does that mean the American people get it? Hell no. No, ExxonMobil wants it. The American companies, corporations, want that oil and the profits associated with that oil. So they pay for propaganda to say that privatizing. the oil and giving all the profits to ExxonMobil would be a spectacular idea. And if you dare oppose them, they will finance overthrowing your government.

And that is partly what has happened in Venezuela. So it is both. Maduro has terribly mangled the management of the country, is autocratic, dictatorial in a lot of ways, and has taken over the government in a non-democratic fashion. The right wing is also non-democratic, and their takeover is not on behalf of the public. or Maduro or the general host, their takeovers on behalf of corporations. Right, so, so, you know, these U.S. business interests are, again, exploiting the wrongdoings of Maduro to push the entire country to this privatized model that would benefit the business

interests here in the United States. Now, to give you some more detail into why Trump has been a little more aggressive toward Maduro and Venezuela as of late, Jenk alluded to a meeting. that he had with the right wing here in the U.S. and I want to give you more details in that. So let's go to Graphics 7. Trump, Vice President Pence, and National Security Advisor John Bolton met at the White House with a delegation of GOP Florida lawmakers, Republican senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott

and Representative Mario Diaz Ballert, as well as Governor Ron DeSantis to discuss Venezuela, okay? Now, mind you, Trump knows that Florida is incredibly important. for his reelection campaign. And so he wants to do whatever's necessary to reach out to the more Republican-leaning Latin Americans or Cuban Americans in Florida. And he wants to make sure that the lawmakers there are also on his side. Now, one researcher with the Eurasia group says, whatever is good for Rubio and his constituencies

is good for Trump and voters in Florida as he thinks about 2020. Florida will be a key state in 2020. I'm sure that's part of Trump's consideration. Also, Senator Rick Scott said the following. I went to the White House yesterday and talked to the president about what to do in Venezuela. Nicholas Maduro's clearly a terrorist. We need to declare Venezuela as a terrorist state. It clearly is.

Now, why are they so desperate to refer to Venezuela as a terrorist state? Well, when you do so, you're able to basically have these incredibly harsh sanctions against Venezuela. And there is a point to that, you know, instilling or using those sanctions would certainly not only hurt their economy, but it would push for the uprising that U.S. business interests want in the country. So I have so much more to say about this. So how about the people who depose Manuel Zelaya in Honduras?

That was another right-wing coup. Aren't they terrorists? They dragged him out in his pajamas. He was the duly elected president. There was no allegations like there are in the case of Maduro that he did not actually win the elections. They just wanted the power and the money and they did a violent coup against them. That's terrorism.

And what did the US government do? They supported it, right? Obama hemmed and Hawn and thought it was not a great idea, but Hillary Clinton convinced them to support that coup. Oops, okay? So we do this all the time. Now that leads to a really important point. The Russians here, again, not good actors, but they do make a good point.

And why do I say they're not good actors? First of all, the Russians said, hey, if you're keeping all options on the table, we have a warning for you, that could be, quote, catastrophic. They have recently done military exercises with Venezuela, including two nuclear submarines. So this is a disaster in the making if we keep pushing this. But Russia did have a good point in saying, now you're accusing us of meddling in your elections, which I think they did. It's like, but now let me get this right.

You're accusing other people of meddling in elections, whereas you're supporting coups in Venezuela, Honduras, and how many other Latin American countries? You don't give a damn about people's elections. You undermine their elections all the time for your own financial benefit. That unfortunately is true. But guys, this is all about the money. So then I come back to China. So China also has oil deals with Venezuela, also has the financial gain with Venezuela.

So they then lent Venezuela a lot of money. Venezuela is again terribly mismanaged, and their inflation is unreal, 1.3 million percent inflation last year. So their currency is close to worthless, so now they can't pay China back. Now all of a sudden, China went from $10 billion to $65 billion in loans, now they're not giving any more loans to Venezuela, and now they have not commented at all. So Russia gains financially from Venezuela, they're like, yeah, Venezuela. We do not, so we're like, oh, boo, Venezuela.

China's in the middle because they used to benefit financially, but now they're owed a lot of money and they're not sure how they're going to get it back. So they're the ones in the middle going, I don't know, because all it is is about the money. So China can't figure out how they're going to make more money. That's why they're sitting on the sideline. There are only a few good guys in this story. We already told you some of the countries supporting Venezuela. You take that for what it's worth.

I don't think they're doing it because they're good guys, the Turkey, Russia, et cetera, because they have done similar things in their elections and they don't want coups. Remember, there was a coup against Erdogan in Turkey, and he is not in favor of that. That's why he's supporting Maduro. But Cuba's in favor of Venezuela, that it's understandable. But Bolivia and Mexico, and Mexico's the- Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size.

Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. The most important one I'm going, no. We do not believe that this is the right way to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

So out of all these guys, if there's one country that I trust most, out of all these actors, right now it happens to be Mexico. Yeah. Well, there is a second incredibly important part to the story. that we are going to get to after the break. What are the underlying influences in this uprising that's taking place in Venezuela right now? We're going to give you some excellent reporting

from The Intercept when we return. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies.

debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it.

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. perfect week to do it. Get hour two here. Among the stories we're going to discuss an hour two

is the debate that Anna and I had about whether Democrats would fold on the government shutdown, and there is plenty of evidence in both directions today. So t.t.com slash trial. On Monday, we're going to cover Kamala Harris's town hall just for members. So another good reason to try the Young Turks this week. And then if there's a state of the union, we will be doing that play-by-play as well. So everybody, check it out. T.y.t.com slash trial, or if you just want to join up your sure already, TYt.com slash join. Of course, a great way to do it. All right. Now, let me read some comments for you real quick, because there's a lot of good ones here. Members writing in, Rod says, another U.S. attempted

coup in America's is nothing new. That's certainly true. Shifty writes in, U.S. sanctions have played a big role in economic troubles in Venezuela. Also true. Doc Martinez says U.S. meddling in Latin America is nothing new. You want to understand what was happening in Venezuela. Go back in time to 1973 and what happened to Salvador Allende. Iende, I know, I always get that wrong. Thank you, Edward. Aende, that's absolutely right.

That was an absolute crime, what happened to him, literally. Ted Arukin, speaking of crimes on Twitter, says the criminals, Maduro banned from running for election were part of a right-wing coup constructed very similarly to the one executed in Brazil that led to the fascist, Bolsonaro. These criminals were funded by our nation's business interests to overthrow. democracy. We're gonna get into that. Yeah, we're gonna get into that now.

But listen, also remember, it is, again, a little bit more nuanced than that. Now, Erdogan has also put a lot of his political opponents in jail, and he says it's because they are working with Fetulo-Gulan, his opponent that's in Pennsylvania. And whether he has CIA connections is an interesting question, and he says they work with it. The thing is, a lot of people do work with Gulen, and so he's not wrong about that, but that doesn't even carte blanche to arrest most of his political opponents. So that's why it's complicated, and that's another scenario where there are no good guys.

Okay, so last one, YouTube super chat, Letitia Lehmar says, USA concerns about democracy when the country has a lot of oil. Yeah, exactly. I mean, what a coincidence that look at the countries that we are very interested in their democracy, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia also has a lot of oil, we support them, But only because they say, okay, yes, we'll give you the oil for cheap. Right, Saudi Arabia, not a democracy. That's right, exactly.

Yeah. The one, it's like the worst dictatorship in the, arguably in the whole world. And they're like, oh, no, no, Saudi Arabia doesn't need democracy, because they give us their oil for the prices that we want so that Exxon Mobil can make money. So that's how this world goes around. All right, now, speaking of how this world goes around, this is the story you should not miss. As tensions and conflict escalate between the United States and the United States.

Venezuela, there's a lot of shallow reporting into the underlying influences that have led to this escalation and the uprising that we're starting to see in Venezuela. Now the economic situation in Venezuela is a complete, and utter disaster. And Nicholas Maduro has made a ton of mistakes and is authoritarian. He has suppressed his opponents, he is not a good guy. However, the fact that he has done many terrible things as a leader of Venezuela has allowed business interests here in the United States and libertarian thinkers to exploit his wrongdoings in order to spread their free market propaganda and ideology.

Now this was actually reported on by Lee Fong at the Intercept back in August of 2017. It is an incredibly important piece for people to know about. It's titled, Spear of Influence How American Libertarians are remaking Latin American Politics. And he talks about a number of Latin American countries, not just Venezuela, but he does spend a good amount of time in this piece talking about what's happening in Venezuela right now. I wanna just say a couple of things before Anna gets more into the facts. First of all, we'll have a link to the article down below if you're watching this later on YouTube or Facebook, because it's such a great article, you should definitely read it.

Great work by Lee Feng. Secondly, so Anna said spreading their libertarian ideology, that's true. But as you will see in this story, that's just a cover. And the reality is it is business interests largely. American business interests that use libertarian ideology as a way of overthrowing governments that they are not in favor of, doing propaganda through the media, and that the think tanks are nothing but cover stories for a way of them making more profits. So there's no real principled interest here.

Like, you know, I really believe that the libertarian principles could be better for the people of Argentina and Brazil and Venezuela, etc. Now, some people might genuinely believe that, but generally they're dupes. And they are funded by giant multinational corporations. Those corporations are not funding them for their health. They are funding them so that they get to privatize the industry in all those countries and privatize the profits and socialize the losses. Exactly, yes. So at the heart of this is the desire to profit off of regime change in Latin American countries. Now, at the heart of it is something known as the Atlas Network, and it is a network of think

tanks that seek to undermine left-wing economic policies in Latin American countries. According to Lee Fong's reporting in The Intercept, he says that the Libertarian Atlas Network, which has reshaped political power in country after country, has also operated as a quiet extension of U.S. foreign policy with Atlas associated think tanks receiving quiet funding from the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy, a critical arm of American soft power. So this is very much tied to the U.S. government. They are providing financial support to this network of think tanks that seeks to essentially overthrow left-leaning political leaders throughout the world. Now, over the years, Atlas and its affiliated,

Foundations have provided hundreds of grants to conservative and free market think tanks in Latin America, including the Libertarian Network that supported the Free Brazil movement and organizations behind a libertarian push in Argentina. And they have been successful. The imprisonment of Lula in Brazil, the rise of Jaire Bolsonaro in Brazil, that's very much tied to these operations that are taking place behind the scenes. The Atlas network spans dozens of other think tanks across the region, including prominent groups supporting right-wing forces behind the unfolding anti-government movement in Venezuela.

So I have specific details on that, but before I move forward, Jank, do you want to jump in? Yes. So one of the things that they, this article explains in great detail is how the corporations that fund these so-called think tanks understand the value of hiding where the money is coming. from. So they explained that the industrial groups give money to the think tanks. And because if the polling or the suggestion that they are right about certain issues came from the companies themselves, they would be discredited.

So for example, one of the companies that pays these Atlas networks was Philip Morris, that is a tobacco company. And what does the think tank associated with Atlas Network do? They say they pushed for, in that particular Latin American country, for more tobacco usage. And so then they do a poll about how great tobacco is. And so then they give it to the media. And they say the media, well, oftentimes is lazy. Now they know that and they take advantage of it.

So they say, oh no, this is an established esteemed think tank. And then only if you do real journalism as they intercepted here, do you find out that that money actually came from Philip Morris. And so now much bigger amounts of money come from. ExxonMobil, because oil is now huge, and so they fund these think tanks to put out the idea that you should privatize the natural resources of your countries, including oil. So here, I'm gonna give you one quote from the article here to give you a sense of that. Fisher, who is the guy who set up IEA, and there's a lot of these groups, but that was the original

group that then Atlas Networks came out of. So he's a British entrepreneur that in the 1980s started a lot of this. In fact, it goes back even further than that. And he actually went and talked to Frederick Hayek, the Austrian economist in London. And Hayek was a real thinker, and for him it was about ideology. It goes to Fisher, who's an entrepreneur who made all his money by boxing up chicken in closer and closer environments and thinks, well, that's a good way to spread my propaganda and make more money.

And then other corporations go, yes, that's it. But Fisher said, to influence public opinion, it is necessary to avoid any suggestion of vested interest or intent to indoctrinate. In other words, we want to indoctrinate people, and there is a vested interest behind it. We gotta hide it though. But don't tell them that because then they won't believe you. That's why you have to lie and pretend that it's about ideology.

Now, who funds Atlas Networks, not only the U.S. government, but Charles and David Koch. Yes. And so many of the other right-wing billionaires in this country. And they do it for profit. Now they do that here in America as well for programs like Dave Rubens. And so an idea is, oh no, we found a neutral person who's just thinking about big ideas. And we're just having an exchange of ideas, but it is actually funding to push their propaganda so they can make more profit.

Yeah, I mean, look, when you dive deep into the story and you see the parallels between the United States and all these Latin American countries, it's pretty incredible. I mean, this is the reason why you see someone like Dave Rubin, who doesn't even know how to pronounce Bolsonaro's name, appearing on a pro-Bolsonaro propaganda show to prop him up and to prop up his policies. Because they're literally funded by the same group of people. Yes, yes. Bolsonaro is very anti-gay rights.

Dave happens to be gay. So why would he go on there and support this authoritarian guy who's against LGBT rights? Because he's told to, hey, listen, you go out there and you tell him how great Bolsonaro is. Dave's like, did the check clear? Check cleared. Bolsonaro is wonderful, and he goes on Brazilian TV and pretends to be a liberal doing it. So it is trick after trick. And Anna is absolutely right.

We're going to get into details of how similar their propaganda campaigns are. are in those countries to what you see here in America. Yes, yes. So let's talk a little bit about what Freedom of Information requests told us about what's going on in Venezuela. So The Intercept writes, records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by author and activist Eva Gollinger, as well as State Department cables disclosed by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, reveal U.S. policymakers' sophisticated effort to use Atlas think tanks in a long-running

campaign to destabilize the reign of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Again, I give you, again, the same caveat that Hugo Chavez is not a good person. What he's doing in Venezuela is wrong, he is authoritarian. Now with that said, though- Maduro who followed Chavez. Oh, Maduro is, I'm sorry, yes, Maduro who followed Chavez. So in covering the Venezuela aspect of this, we're not trying to defend the current leader of Venezuela and what's going on. However, that is being exploited by business interests here in the United States.

On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs, only date is July 18th. In order to essentially increase their profits through regime change.

Now, through recent investigations, though recent investigations have shed light on the role of powerful conservative billionaires, such as the Koch brothers, in developing a business-friendly version of libertarian thought, the Atlas Network, which receives funding from Koch foundations, has recreated methods honed in the Western world for developing countries. Now this is where you should pay attention, because what we're seeing here in the United States is definitely happening in these countries. They are infiltrating academic academies. They are working with millennial activists and essentially spreading their propaganda to them

and convincing them to rise up against the current regimes in these Latin American countries. As early as 1998, Cedisa Libertad, Atlas's flagship think tank in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, received regular financial support from the Center for International Private Enterprise. So the Center for National Private Enterprise is the U.S. government, and they are funding the think tank, which then supported the opposition to Maduro. And now, all of a sudden, that opposition is leading a coup against Maduro. After the announcement of basically the coup, when the leader of the legislature stood up and said, I'm randomly the president, okay, guess what happened right afterwards?

Donald Trump's government said, we are now giving him $20 million to support his efforts to overthrow Maduro. So they get money ahead of time, they sneak it in through the so-called think tanks funded by the US government and right-wing billionaires in America. And why are they working together? I'll get back to that in a second. And then afterwards, they go, well, I guess he's the official real leader of Venezuela, so we're gonna give him $20 million to help us coup.

So that is an incredibly important part though. Is it the US government representing the US people? No, it's the US government representing giant corporations. So the Koch brothers run Coke Industries. It's one of the largest private corporations in the world. And they have interest in oil, as well as many other parts of industry. So they have financial interests in Latin America. And they go fund politicians in America.

See, they already did a coup in America, that was easy. What they did was they said, all right, we'll make bribery legal. We'll call it campaign contributions and independent expenditures. And we'll get the Supreme Court to say that giving millions, in fact, billions of So politicians is not bribery. So they criticized Maduro now, rightfully so, for getting control over the Supreme Court in Venezuela and then pushing his cronies into setting up a whole new legislature. But our right-wing billionaires captured our Supreme Court, took it over, and then declared

that bribery was legal. And so they captured the U.S. government. Now they have the largest government in the world, which then takes U.S. taxpayer money, your money and spends it in favor of coups and right wing propaganda and so-called think tanks to influence people. And then that's another layer of the story that is so intensely interesting. They know they have to win the people over. So that is why they go to the media to influence people.

But you can't let them know that it's ExxonMobil and Coke Industries because then the people will not be convinced. That is why these think tanks are so pernicious. And how they influence the media is also amazing. We'll get to that. Yeah, I actually want to get to that right now. So let's go to Graphics 17, and it perfectly lists the kind of communications that take place in these think tanks in order to convince people to rise up against the Latin American leader.

So for instance, a 2006 cable laid out a strategy from U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield for funding politically active nonprofits in Venezuela. Here is the list that he shared. Democratic institutions, penetrating Chavez's political base, dividing Chavismo, protecting vital U.S. business, and isolating Chavez internationally. Now, of course, this network of think tanks, Atlas networks, thought of some clever ways to make this happen, to essentially penetrate these organizations and spread this propaganda. So I'm gonna go to Graphic 20.

And annual competition encourages Atlas' network to produce viral YouTube videos promoting laissez-faire ideas and ridiculing proponents of the welfare state. James O'Keefe, who's a complete and utter joke, has appeared before Atlas to explain his methods, right? So they're using social media, they're going into student groups, they're infiltrating the actual political base for the very leaders that they're trying to overthrow. So, again, I'm got more details on the media, but why is the US State Department getting involved in funding things that help just corporations?

Aren't they supposed to be representing the American people? Isn't that a totally different calculation than what helps giant multinational corporations? And by the way, they're not American companies, they're not patriotic. They are legally bound to make every dollar that they can. They must maximize profit. They have shareholders and executives from all across the world. They are not American. They're multinational machines meant to maximize profit.

So why is the US government helping them to do that at the expense of not only those Latin American countries, but oftentimes our own taxpayers, let alone using our money to do so, okay? So now look at how they use the media in Brazil. Now they have a Brazilian blogger named Rodrigo Constantino. So, and what does he do? Okay, so let me read it to you from Fong's reporting. In Brazil, Brazilian blogger Costino in Brazil is one of the founders of Instituto Millennium and is credited with popularizing a narrative that workers' party supporters are, I love this,

limousine liberals, wealthy hypocrites that flock to socialism to claim the moral high ground while snubbing the working classes that they claim to represent. So now, why do they do that? Because if any rich person ever actually tries to help the poor of the middle class, they have to attack them because they have money and resources. And if they use those resources to help people, that's unacceptable. So they lionize the greedy rich and say they are libertarian thinkers that are principled. And conveniently, they get all the money, right?

But if you're actually a decent person who has money, they got a limousine liberal, all right? He's a hypocrite. He has money, but he hasn't given it all away to the poor. Because they're really afraid they might actually use that money to combat their propaganda. Yeah, I mean, that's happening here in the United States as well. And not even with people who are wealthy. So look at the types of attacks that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been dealing with. Her blazer makes her look like she spends a lot of money on her clothing.

So as a result, we shouldn't believe in her policies that seek to help. the disadvantage in the poor in the country, right? She's not even rich, she's not even close to rich, but they're still finding ways to kind of demonize her based on the clothing she's wearing. So I want to give you more context now. So what does this Brazilian blogger Constantino do? He spreads conspiratorial views, gee, I wonder if I've heard that before, and acidic right-wing commentary.

They call this the bright barterization of public discourse is but one of many ways that the Atlas Network has subtly influenced political debate. He chairs yet another Atlas think tank. There's a guy doing conspiracy theories who's chairing a think tank, okay? And he criticizes every move of the left and says that it is attempting to subvert democracy. In fact, it's him who's being paid to subvert Brazilian democracy. So what does he do? Since he knows he's doing it, he says, they're doing it, the left is doing it.

Now, one of the reasons that they go to propaganda and conspiracy theories is because they think we all we got to do is convince people that aren't that bright. And since we're doing a conspiracy, they will believe that there are conspiracies in the world, and that's true. So we'll convince them that the left is doing a conspiracy with no money. In fact, they say the conspiracy is to have cash assistance, and this is in Brazil, cash assistance programs to poor families. Who runs a conspiracy to help the poor?

Right? I mean, that is so preposterous, but it's easy to trick people who are in the right wing and who think, who are not as educated, who think, oh, yeah, oh my God, they're probably trying to help the poor with their secret plan, okay? When in reality the secret plan is to help the rich, take your money. And honestly, like right now, in the case of Venezuela, what we're seeing is Maduro unwittingly helping these people spread the propaganda because there's so much unrest in Venezuela. There's so many people suffering because of these failed economic policies

that these business interests are able to come in and paint a false narrative of what went wrong with the economy. You think they're focusing on the nuances of how Venezuela focused solely on oil exports to make money? No, they're not talking about that. No, in fact, let me get to the the policies that they promote. They say the pension system is absurd. So rob the middle class of the pensions that they worked for their whole lives. Again, we've seen the right way trying to do that in this country with Social Security. And they say that you should privatize all education.

Why? Because if you privatize education, then only the rich get it. And the poor of the middle class don't get education. You keep people more ignorant than your propaganda is more likely to work. And then they say that you have to defund labor unions. Why? Because labor unions allow the workers to pull together to have more strength and leverage, which hurts corporations, because it doesn't hurt them in terms of going bankrupt or anything, no.

But corporations want to pay their workers as little as possible so they can maximize profit. So they say to their bloggers and their so-called think tanks, tell everybody, labor unions is bad, they're really bad. Why? Because together, you might actually be able to raise up your wages, and we don't want you to do that because that is our money, not the workers' money. And lastly, he says, they also are arguing for repealing the law that makes voting compulsory. So that happens to be the case in that country, and why?

They don't want a lot of people to vote. They want as little people to vote as possible, they want as little people to be educated as possible, and they want the people to be separated, divided, and not working together. All in service of corporations making more and more money. And they get so-called libertarian thinkers to go out and do that. And finally, what is the medium they have chosen lately to great success in Latin America? YouTube and online media. And by the way, guys, I mean, you go look at our comments section anywhere, Twitter,

YouTube, Facebook, et cetera. And you will see bot after bot after bot. So, because unlike the Democrats, the right wing billionaires and corporations understand that there is real power in social media, online media, and that is actually affecting a whole generation. So they spend a ton of money doing their propaganda. And in this country, honestly, the idiot Democratic Party is like, what? What's social media?

And Hillary Clinton got killed on social media in the 2016 election. And they're all still, you know, in their own corruption, making money off of TV ads. So who's the only one left minding the store in online world defending the left? It's not the only one, that's not remotely fair. And look at the intercept doing brilliant work, right? But as far as video is concerned, the young Turks is a huge part of the left wing in online media. So the Democratic Party might not realize it, but the right wing recognizes it.

And they attack us constantly. were among the very few people fighting back against and exposing their tricks and showing that it isn't about ideology, it's about maximizing profit for them. Yep. And you can't argue that you're all about, you know, big ideas if you're unwilling to debate those big ideas. Just throwing that out there for the second time on this show. Yeah, all right.

Can I just, I'm gonna give you two last examples now going back to the companies. So we showed you how they use the media and what propaganda they put out there. So, but this goes to why. And it goes to how all the government and the companies are, and the think tanks are intermingled. So I'm gonna read again from The Intercept. In one instance, an official from the U.S. Agency of International Development, the principal foreign aid arm of the federal government recommended that the head of Coca-Cola subsidiary in Panama work with Atlas to set up an IEA style, that's the original think tank, affiliate

think tank over there in Panama. Why is the US government telling Coke how to influence the politics of Panama? The US government is supposed to be working for us, not for Coke, but they're not. They're working for multinational corporations and what they tell them is, look, the guys who are great at working for corporate interests while pretending to be ideological thinkers are the Atlas Network. So go to the Atlas Network, bribe them, and you'll get exactly what you want, okay? And one last example.

This is, by the way, this is the actual founder of the Atlas network, Chafuan. And he said, Pfizer Incorporated, would not sponsor surveys on health issues, nor would Exxon pay for surveys on environmental issues. So libertarian think, now back to intercept, libertarian think tanks, such as the ones in Atlas's network, however, could not only present the same survey with more credibility, but do so in a way that garnered coverage in the local media. So Pfizer, ExxonMobil, Coke, you want to maximize profit at the expense of the people of Latin America, you go to the Atlas Network and they'll cover up your dirty work and they'll make sure

that it's seen by the media as something official and important and something worthy about thinking about and is to the benefit of the people of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, et cetera. And they will help you lie at the expense of all of those citizens. That's how this game is played. And it's working. Unfortunately, it's working. And look at it. They've got the deposed leader, in fact, a coup in Honduras, the post left-wing leader

in Brazil, right-wing fascists now in Bolsonaro in charge in Brazil, right-wing in charge in Argentina, and now they're in the middle of a coup, a right-wing coup in Venezuela. So there you have it, and what do they say? Oh, the people think that we should privatize all the industries. And that's why we must get rid of the left wing governments. We gotta take a break. When we return, we will have our members only second hour. And we will get into a long discussion about what's going on with the government shutdown.

Breaking news involving the Trump administration drafting a national emergency order. We'll give you the details on that and more. TYT.com slash join to become a member so you can get that second hour. But guys, you can get it for free trial, a week free trial right now. And just look around and check out all the shows, old school, aggressive, progressive, et cetera, and see if you like it. Jimmy the other day did a great segment, how a former assistant FBI deputy said that, hey, you know, the American government helps corporations and makes sure that left wing people in America

don't get elected. So a very similar topic to this. So look around and enjoy the progressive networks that we have. you can do that at tyt.com slash trial. We'll be right back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the Young Turks, quick breaking news for you guys. U.S. has ordered non-emergency personnel out of Venezuela. So Maduro had kicked out our ambassadors when they supported the coup, our ambassador and the rest of the embassy. And in the beginning, we were tough guys, and we're like, oh, no, he's not the official

government of Venezuela, so we're not going to listen to him. And now we're like, oh, non-emergency personnel, get out, get out, get out now, right? So, and that's the right move. They're not welcome there, they got to, because you're putting their lives in danger. Yeah, for their own safety, exactly. Okay, I'm gonna read a couple of quick comments here. Captain Cornball, these are all members in the beginning. As in most countries, the think tank puts the story in a media outlet that is sympathetic

to those views. And unfortunately, that is most of the American media. And so they all quote those think tanks, like, oh, well, the American Enterprise Institute thinks invading Iraq's a wonderful idea. Yeah. Am I going to tell you that they're funded by the oil companies and the defense contractors? No, no, no, no, no. This general thinks that Abrams tanks is the way to win the war in Iraq.

Am I going to tell you that he works for the company that makes Abrams's tanks? No, that's a literal story. Barry McCaffrey, General, former General Barry McCaffrey on NBC News. That's exactly what he said. He said, we're gonna win the Iraq war because of the Abrams tank. Okay, it's gross. So if they try to plant that story with us, how do you think that would go?

Not well. Okay, and we are a tiny team. Those other companies are gigantic. They have all the resources in the world to investigate those things, affect check them over and over, and they choose not to. Okay, so Danny Heim says, old Don Trump would love to be Maduro. That's a good point. I hadn't thought of it that way.

Randy Leap says, excellent in-depth context on Venezuela, T.YT. Thank you, Randy. And Meg says, this is blowing my mind. And I'm going to go to one last thing, YouTube super chat. Nestor Costiodo Custodio says, let's not forget the U.S. sent 22,000 troops since the Dominican Republic in the 60s, because the new leadership's progressive agenda was a new communism. They're always trying to call something communism, the boogeyman, because if you try to actually

help your own citizens, oh well, then you're a communist. So in today's post game show, I'm going to talk about how in grad school I did a presentation about Panama and how I was influenced by the very terrible reporting here in the United States in spreading something that was false and how a Panamanian in my class made me cry in front of everyone during the presentation. It's an important story. I look forward to that. Yeah.

Oh, by the way, guys, Killer Mike's gonna be on the show on Monday, so that's pretty neat. So yeah, he's gonna be part of the panel. It's gonna be wonderful. All right, so check that out. All right, what's next, Dana? All right. Donald Trump and Democrats have not reached an agreement on the spending bill, which means that the government continues to be shut down.

The partial shutdown is now on its 34th day, and people are really feeling the economic pressure and impact of that. However, since Democrats are unwilling to play ball with Trump, it appears that the White House is preparing to draft a national emergency order, and they are identifying $7 billion for the border wall. So the massive amount of, this is what the draft says, by the way. The massive amount of aliens who unlawfully enter the United States each day is a direct threat to the safety and security of our nation and constitutes a national emergency.

Now the reason why the administration would do this is because if they can't get the funding through a spending bill, they can declare a national emergency and take that money from the Pentagon. So now, therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the National Emergencies Act, hereby declare that a national emergency exists at the southern border of the United States. Now I want to again emphasize that this is not official yet, this is a draft, which means that they are planning on doing this, but it's not good.

So a couple of things here. First, the reason that it's being released is they're testing the waters to see how it's going ago. And so that's usually the reason why you have a leak like this coming out of the White House. It's not official yet, but how would this play, right? Now, the national emergency declaration is very dangerous because it allows the president to spend money without going through constitutional process. Normally, who spends the money?

If you took any civics class at all or watch cartoons on Saturday afternoon, you know that the power of the purse in the American government is with Congress, not the president. The president gets to sign the bills or veto the bills, but Congress must appropriate money. Declaring an emergency allows the president to ignore Congress and our normal constitutional system and spend the money himself. Well, there's a good reason why we didn't set up the government that way in America, because you need separation of powers. Otherwise, it masses too much control in the power of the executive. And we overthrew a king to make sure that that didn't happen. So a lot of Republicans in earlier trial balloons had said, don't do this.

Don't do this, it's a bad idea. I give credit to those Republicans because they were the ones saying under Obama, oh my God, an executive order that did not spend money, that's not the same thing. An executive order is something that the president is allowed to do, uses executive power in implementing the law, right? Now, you can stretch that too far as Obama sometimes did, as Trump has done over and over and over and over again. But this is completely a different bridge and a bridge way too far, because then he robs

Congress of the power to spend money. So now some Republicans are like, yeah, whatever. That all that stuff we said about Obama is total nonsense. We never meant it, who cares, do whatever you want, be a king if you like, right? But some principle Republicans have said, no, don't do that, that doesn't make any sense. That's unconstitutional. So but now the second part is as important. No, actually it's not.

It's just an important point, but it doesn't get any more important than totally destroying our former government. Okay, the second point is, wait a minute, national emergency, but there are not. no more people crossing the border today than there was in the last two years. So why was it an international emergency on day one? In fact, in fact, in the early 2000s, there were far more people crossing the border illegally than there are today. The numbers bear that out.

And so to say that we're dealing with a national emergency today is just a flat out lie. Yeah, but think about it in the context of the Trump administration. Why did he wait two years to demand money for a wall and then declare an act? emergency. Is it an emergency or is it not? If you're in an emergency, let's say your house is burning down, that's an emergency. Would you wait two years to get out of it? No, it's an emergency, you would immediately leave. So by definition, it's not an emergency because we have the same exact situation as we've had under Trump for the last two years. He didn't think it was an emergency in the first month, the first year, in the second year,

and now finally he thinks it's an emergency enough to subvert the Constitution, that makes no sense. And by the way, if you're a right winger, why didn't Trump prioritize the wall? He said it's his number one priority and that's why he's insisting on it now two years later. But the thing he did prioritize was what? Tax cuts for the rich. And that he got passed because that's what he cares about. The wall is just symbolic to trick you guys into helping him pass those giant tax cuts for corporations and the rich. And now, if the administration goes through with this national emergency, they will take money

or funding away from the Pentagon. Now, right-wingers say that they care very much about ensuring that the Pentagon is well-funded. Taking that money out of the Pentagon to fund a border wall seems ridiculous. Now, the administration could pull, and this is the list, $681 million from Treasury forfeiture funds, $3.6 billion in military construction, $3 billion in Pentagon. civil works funds and 200 million in Department of Homeland Security funds. Something else to keep in mind is if they go through with this, they would essentially construct the border wall on private land, private property here in the United States.

And if people living along the border who would be impacted by this don't agree with that, Trump would essentially seize their private property to build this hate monument that wouldn't really do anything to solve the problems that Trump claims he cares about, like drug smuggling, which of course goes through our border, through legal ports of entry, not, you know, in any other way. Okay, and guys, even if you like the wall, and you don't think it's a hate monument, you don't think it's symbolic, you think it's super important, et cetera, because why? Because it's about national security. Well, how does taking the money from the Pentagon, the Defense Department, and the Department

of Homeland Security helps security. So no, he's doing it for political reasons, not because he's actually concerned about national security. Yeah, we gotta take a break. When we return, we are going to cover some more angles of this government shutdown. There's a lot to get to. And then later on in the show, US authorities foiled a terrorist plot in New York, the state of New York, and Muslims were involved, but they were the potential victims. We'll give you the details on that and more.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.