On this episode of The Truth with Lisa Boothe, Lisa sits down with Daniel DiMartino to discuss the devastating aftermath of Venezuela’s deadly earthquakes and why he believes decades of socialist rule made the disaster far worse. Daniel shares firsthand accounts from Venezuelans on the ground, the failures of the government’s response, and how corruption and mismanagement contributed to a growing humanitarian crisis.
Lisa and Daniel also examine the growing support for socialism in the United States, including the rise of politicians like Zohran Mamdani and other Democratic Socialists winning major primaries. They break down why younger Americans are increasingly skeptical of capitalism, the influence of education and culture, and whether America is ignoring the warning signs seen in countries like Venezuela.
Plus, they discuss the realities of funding larger government programs, the difference between free markets and socialism, the risks of government control, and what Americans can learn from countries that lost their freedoms.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Truth.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
With Lisa Booth, we'll get to the heart of the
issues that matter to you today. We're talking about the
rise of socialism, the rise of communism happening on the left,
and we're going to discuss it with someone who has
seen this cancer take over their country firsthand. His name
is Daniel di Martino. He is a fellow at the
Manhattan Institute. He's also a Venezuela and he was born
(00:29):
in Venezuela, came to the United States in twenty sixteen
and has been warning people about the dangers of socialism,
how it can lead to corruption, how it destroys countries.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
We're going to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We're also going to talk about those devastating two earthquakes
that hit Venezuela. We know that thousands have been confirmed dead,
over sixteen hundred injured. Many still they're still looking for them.
But part of the challenge is so many people died
because of corruption of the government. So we're going to
(01:01):
get to that angle as well about why that created
more deaths. Also looking at the rise of socialism here
in the United States and what can become of America
if these people on the left continued to take over,
so stay tuned for this conversation and this warning from
Daniel di Martino.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, Daniel, it's great to have you back on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I know your home country of Venezuela was recently struck
by two rare and violent earthquakes back to back. Caused
a significant amount of damage in the country. They're estimating
at least more than three three hundred people that have
been confirmed dead, over sixteen hundred injured. And that's just
what we know about. I know you have people in
(01:47):
your life who have been impacted by this. What are
you hearing from the ground in Venezuela about what's really
going on and what the death toll and damage could
ultimately be.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, thank you for having me, Lisa. The what I'm
hearing from Venezuelan's in the ground there is that people
are just devastated, not just because the earthquake was disastrous,
but because it comes on top of so many years
of destruction, right almost three decades of this regime, and
so many people lost their homes, so many people lost
(02:19):
their life, and so it felt for the people there
like it was the last straw, you know, the last
the last thing that you needed. In the worst moment.
And the thing that really made it so outrageous for
the population was that the government, instead of helping, only
hindered recovery efforts. In addition to the fact that a
(02:41):
lot of people died because they live in in terribly
constructed homes because of the government, right, because a lot
of that was government public housing that all fell apart
during the earthquake, because the government hired these Turkish, Iranian
and other contractors where they stole money to build quickly
cheap homes and give them away for free, and they
(03:03):
ended up falling apart. So people were already might because
of that. But then when the recovery time became and
the rescue effort came, the government didn't send any rescuers.
Venezuelans had to go through the rubble with their own hands,
and the military instead of helping, what they did was
steal the appliances of people, their washers or dryers, their TVs.
(03:28):
And so the Venezuelan population has never felt more outrage
than they do today, I think, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And so that's a key component of all of this.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Because at Venezuela had had a non socialist, non incompetent
not corrupt government. You know, how many lives do you
think could have been saved? And you know the response
time would have looked different, So I guess kind of
connect those dots.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yes, well, absolutely so think about this in Chile when
they have equivalent earthquakes, and Venezuela could look today like
Chile does today. Had it never elected Hugo Chaves, it
could easily be richer than Chile. In fact, you know,
this kind of earthquake causes maybe a few hundred dead
and and in Venezuela it's causing thousands of death. Right
(04:20):
you mentioned the figure, The truth is much larger. They
just haven't identified the bodies, right. You know, by the
beginning there were some sixty thousand people reported to have
vanished that their family members couldn't find. The government. The
US government estimate from the geological survey was that this
earthquake would kill between ten and one hundred thousand people.
(04:44):
So the figure, the final figure is I think it's
going to end up being between ten and sixty given
the you know, the number of people who are reported
as disappeared is probably the high end. So that is
the cost of socialism in this earthquake was tens of
thousands of lives, and many more lives affected that didn't die, right,
(05:05):
like the people who lost their houses. The economic activity
that I think some international groups estimated in the several
billion dollars that the GDP impact on Venezuela is going
to be over ten percent negative this year because of
the earthquake. All of this was preventable. But what's outrageous
is that the government didn't help, is that the government hindered,
that they confiscated aid, that Venezuelan's depended on foreign aid.
(05:29):
And it was great. I mean, thank god for the
foreign eight thanks to the US government, thanks to the
Chilean government. Mexican is rarely Syrian events. So many governments
from around the world that sent rescue teams, some of which,
by the way, were also hindered by the Venezuelan regime.
But these foreign rescue teams really saved hundreds of lives.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So then you look here in the United States, and
I mean, we can call them communists, we can call
them they call themselves socialists, but.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
We're seeing a rise of them on the left.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
You know, self proclaimed people like Zaron Mom Donnie in
New York, or you know they're cropping up here on
the left. They've won primaries. They're going to be headed
to Washington, d C. Most likely in these deep blue districts.
You even look at polling a gallop and a majority
of Democrats now have a more favorable viewpoint of socialism
than they do capitalism. Independence just barely hanging on with
(06:24):
the more positive viewpoint of capitalism than socialism. So why then,
looking to places like Venezuela, would we want to follow that?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Well? I think that the people who have a federable
view of socialism do not think about Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Nobody will look at Venezuela and say, yes, I want
to leave like that. That would mean you're psychologically in
a deep trouble. Right, So what people think is I
just want more government, and I'm resentful at the rich.
I think the rich are causing the problems, and we
need to take from the rich to give to me.
(07:01):
And some of the people who are voting for this,
by the way, are not poor, right. I mean, actually,
most of the people who are voting for this and
who have a favorable view of this, of this ideology socialism,
are actually middle class or upper middle class. They're young
people overwhelmingly, that's for sure. The real polarization is in
(07:21):
the age and these are young people who come from
good families. Lisa have met people who parents in their
fifties who are very high income, some of them are
millionaires in annual income, and their children, who are in
their early twenties are supporters of Sora Mamdani. Are people
(07:42):
who think that the rich have rigged the system, when
the truth is that they are the rich, right, They're
the ones who haven't built anything but are inheriting from
their parents. And yet these are the people who are
supporting ideas that not only harm their family, what harm
everybody else, as if they were a virtuous ideas when
(08:04):
they're not. They're actually very harmful ideas.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But see, the thing is, I mean it always starts
off the promises like that, like Hugo Chave's promise to
end corruption, like he promised to reduce poverty. He said
he wasn't seeking a Cuban style communist system, that it
was going.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
To be in between capitalism and communism.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
He made a lot of the same promises that we're
hearing now from these leftist politicians.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And if you heard Zaar on mom Donnie and his speech.
He was talking.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
About how we should be worried about wealth being you know,
in the hands of a few. But isn't that ultimately
what happens with communism and socialism is it just turns
away from what they want to call corporate greed and
it's government greed, and then it ultimately leads to corruption
and competency and a broken system of government because the
(08:51):
people who are in power and that scenario are idiots,
and they don't know how to run things, and they're
not builders, they're not into its, right, Like, you're really
just shifting from what they want to call corporate greed
and taking moneyway from innovators and builders and people like Elms,
and then putting at the hands of people like Zora
Mamdani who try to be a rapper and failed. You know.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So it's like, right, who is a trust fund baby
from his millionaire mother, but who has not built anything
for a little of course, not the only built is
stealing money from the taxpayer. Look, the let's take this
as a real argument. There are people who say they
want to tax the rich to pay for a host
(09:33):
of new things. Right, they ignore the truth that we
already spend trillions of dollars on government programs that don't
actually make any effect on poverty, and instead they want
to spend a trillion dollars more a year. Well, let's
speaking with the fact that our national budget is already
in a deficit, so we already need to raise taxes
(09:54):
or cut spending or both in order to go back
to the baseline without adding new programs. Now, imagine we
do that because we magically, you know, cut some spending,
raise some taxes, and then we say we're gonna pay
for Medica for all. We're gonna pay for you know, say,
subsidies for housing for more people. Where is the money
(10:16):
gonna come from? Is it all gonna come from billionaires?
It can't. Like that total amount of income that billionaires
make a year is not enough to even pay for
Medicare for all, And so the threshold keeps going down.
Oh well, it's not billionaires anymore. It's gonna be people
who make over a million dollars, okay, And then it's
gonna be people who make over five hundred thousand dollars
(10:38):
and one hundred thousand dollars the tax rate and actually
compare is gonna have the charge. The marginal tax rate
that a person in Denmark, Suiten a Norway pays over
one hundred thousand dollars is most of the time over
sixty percent. So these are people who pay over sixty
percent of their income at one hundred thousand dollars year,
(11:00):
not at one million dollars, not a ten million dollars,
at one hundred thousand dollars, and everybody, So forget about
income taxes. Everybody pays over twenty percent in sales tax.
That is how those countries actually fund larger governments, and
they do so with low, you know, smaller defense budgets.
Norway does so be in an oil state that gets
(11:21):
a lot of oil revenue that we don't have for
a large population. And so that is how those countries
do it. That is not what is being proposed here
here are they're proposing all these fantasies and saying that
the math works to just ability in ours pay for it.
That's it's not true that math doesn't work. So I
guess then what do you think's driving it? Is it
indoctrination in schools?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I mean, we're also seeing you know, people coming here
like from some third world countries bringing some of the
animosity towards the West with But from your estimation, what
do you think is driving this movement toward communism and
socialism in the country.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I think it's I think it's home ground. I don't
think it's coming from other countries. I think that's a distraction. Actually,
I mean, obviously, Mam Danny came from another country. But
Mandanny came to New York City when he was seven
years old. He was raised by a communist. That's why
he's a communist. His father was one. You know, Daria Lisa,
the woman who won the primary in Harlem for Congress,
(12:19):
who is very much an anti American socialist, somebody who
really hates this country. Who I think, you know, it's
just very misgadded ideas. She was born here. She's not
an immigrant, do you know. So what kind of conditions
create that?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I think?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Obviously your education system is a problem. I think parents
have failed in many cases. You know, how do the
children of hedge fund managers end up being socialist Lisa?
Because the hedge fund managers failed at parenting. In my opinion,
they send them to prestigious private schools that are all
staffed by Marxist educators taught in American teacher colleges, which
(12:57):
all teach the teachers how to indoctrinate. If you go
to the Columbia Teachers College Columbia University, it's like a
Marxist inductrination camp, worse than the regular university. And then
those are the people who teach at the prestigious private schools.
So we are creating, we're educating an army of highly
educated Marxists in top private schools K through twelve in
(13:20):
this country, and then in colleges too. And we have
the augmenting factor of social media, because in social media
we don't only just have the freedom of expression. We
have I think, on TikTok at least an algorithm that
is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. And what is
the interest of the Chinese Communist Party, well, to fry
(13:40):
the brain of the American youth and to promote Marxism. Right,
they take down the content they don't like and they
promote the content that they do like, and that has
a huge effect on how people think. We have that
on so many ways like this that really concerned me.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I mean, do you think some of it's coming from
abroad as well? In terms of you know, people coming
here from like Hassan Piker, right, he's Turkish, coming here
from countries whose viewpoints are there's a lot of animosity
towards America and the West, and then they bring that
with them or they've taught that, been taught that by
their parents.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
But but I agree with that primary so.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yes, yes, so I also I agree that there are
people who come from other countries. By the way, Passant
Biker was born in the US.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I'll say parents are Turkish. But yes, obviously.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
There are people, you know, but like that that creates
a much more expansive group of people, right, if you
count the children of immigrants, that's already like, you know,
thirty percent of the population. I think that.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And of course you could look at someone like Elon Musk,
who is an immigrant who came here who's you know,
brought significant wealth to the United States, created.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Jobs, and I do think the average right yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But but I do agree that there are people who
come to America who shouldn't, who are a Marxist, you know,
think of Khalil. What was the purpose of them coming
to America. It was to agitate, it was to promote Marxism.
They didn't come because they wanted a better life. They
came because they wanted to destroy America. And that might
sound very harsh, but it is true for a small
(15:19):
number of people, and that small number of people are
having an outsized impact on the public discourse and society.
It's also true that there are foreign authoritarian regimes that
are training American leaders. Karen Bass was trained in Cuba
when she was a kid. Most of the DSA members
look to Cuba and actually travel there to get training
(15:41):
on how to promote their ideas here and win office.
Secretary of State Marco Ruby recently arrested on his deporting
and banned the Cuban Institute for Peace, which was a
front group for the Cuban government to promote their ideas
and train American activists here in the United States. Things
are happening.
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has your back. It is pretty crazy to your point
about Karen Bass now currently being the mayor and previously
a member of Congress, after training and being part of Faith,
a pro Castro pro communist front group, which the entire
(17:36):
purpose of it was to essentially train Americans as you know,
spies or to be pro revolutionary and then get them
into government and to have them be in prominence here
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Or you look at the fact that.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Obama piled around with the Weather Underground founders and I
think they held his first event when he was announcing
to run for state Senate in Illinois. That was a
Marxist violent revolutionary group bombed government buildings in the nineteen seventies.
Or you look at Tim Wiss visited China like thirty times,
like Bernie Sanders spend his honeymoon and Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
So it's like, you know, this stuff's been going on.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Like I wish, I will wish lily so that these
people actually wanted to be like Norway. You know, there
are some nice things about Norway, you know that we
could learn from. I can assure you that it is
not nationalizing the means of production right, And I'll say
we also have a rising current of anti free market
people on the right who actually do believe in larger government,
(18:38):
who do not believe in free markets. And if we
don't present a principal defense of free enterprise, then why
wouldn't you vote for the socialist? On the one hand,
you would have a big government person that is pro life,
and on the other one you have a big government
person who is pro choice.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I guess, you know, I've heard people try to make
the case, you know, it's only happening and some of
these you know, deeper blue areas. It's the threats.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
President Trump even called out the rise of communists and
his speech amount rushmore and people are saying, oh, it's.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Not that big the deal. People are overreacting.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Do you think people are overreacting to the threat of
you know, communism and socialism in the country or I mean,
I feel like it can take over pretty quickly and
it's one of those things that you've got to stop
as soon as you can.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
But how do you view it.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I think that politicians are overreacting in their speech, and
then they're reacting in their actions. I think President Trump
is being very strong in the know how he speaks
about communism and socialism, and I really appreciate that, but
what have we done to stop it? Nothing? Nobody has
done absolutely nothing. What law has been passed? What are
(19:51):
the states doing? The only state that has done something
has been the state of Florida educating kids in K
through twelve about the threat of socialism in schools. The
state does it. Republican politicians love to fill their mouths
saying that they oppose socialism and that they do nothing
about it. So we should be teaching in schools about this.
That's a good step. The other things we should be
(20:12):
doing is actually supporting pre enterprise, is actually putting out ideas.
And I think in this Texas has done something good,
which is they actually have deregulated the housing market so
that it's cheaper to buy a house. And yeah, I
think on the education from that they have done very little.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, that's concerning way zoron mcdonne's trying to do in
New York with the rent freezes, because inevitably it'll lead
to shortages and decayed housing and then the government's going
to step in as the concern. You know, how quickly
did things fall apart in Venezuela. How quickly can a
country go from you know, wealthy and successful to fallen
(20:51):
and corrupt.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So it depends obviously on the initial state instructure. America
has other things to its advantage. For Venezuela, I would
say it was relatively quick, you know, within ten years,
I think the dictatorship was fully solidified, and they have
already changed the constitution and packed the court all that
that is my fear here. I think that obviously the
(21:15):
Second Amendment is a great protection here that we didn't
have in Venezuela. But that's already for when the rubber
hits the road, right, not for the beginning. And my
concern is one vulnerability of the American constitutional system is
the Supreme Court. If say, a radical Marxist gets to
the presidency here and they have a democratic majority in
(21:37):
Congress that is willing to go with them, they can
pack the Supreme Court and reinterpret the Constitution to say
whatever they want, Lisa. And then what does the second
Amendment mean? What does the First Amendment mean? What does
for example, know, ceasing of private property without compensation even
meaning the constitution? Right? What is compensation? Maybe the government
(21:57):
can actually take your company for a nominal compensation of
a few dollars, right, And then who are you going
to appeal to if the Supreme Court is stacked against you.
That is my concern of how a socialist dictatorship could
start in America after a democratic election.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And I think that's a very real concern considering that
the Democrats have talked about packing the court.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
And then by the way, they can abolish the philibuster,
legalize pao harvesting nationwide. And that's not necessarily that they're
going to, you know, misreport the election results, but they're
going to stack all the rules in their favor. And
that's how it started in Venezuela too. They didn't break
the elections at the start that were popular, right, they
were giving away things for free. But once people started
(22:40):
complaining about it, for example, you could design welfare programs
through the states such that, you know, then the governments
in each state can force the public workers to vote
for you and things like that. You know, if you
really want to, you can't do it in America too.
The question I think for the average person is what
do they do about it? I think for the average
person is they need to ensure that that socialism is
(23:04):
not supported within their families and they need to really
share things about what happens in other countries to their
family members. They need to share what the actual political
leaders in America have said about those things. What has
mum Danny said about Venezuela's elections, for example, he actually
thought it was a great example for the world in
(23:24):
twenty thirteen when they were rigged. What has Bernie Sanders
said about this? What has their Realitiza said even about
Russia right, she said that you know, the Russians were
right from mad Ukraine. I mean, these are what we
call on the internet tankies. These are people who are
full on Stalinists, who are on the side of Russia,
of China against America, and we need to reveal their
(23:46):
character for who they are. We need to expose them
so that people don't fall for their lives.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
No, I agree very well, said Daniel, before we go.
Is there anything else you'd like to leave us with?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well, just on the Venezuela topic, would say that I'm
very grateful for what the United States has done for Venezuela,
especially with the humaniterranny in the last few weeks. That
it's something that I think people will always be thankful for,
and that I hope that that can lead soon to
a transition towards freedom out of this evil regime that
(24:18):
led to so many deaths, so that Venezuela can once
again become a story of hope on freedom right, so
that we can stop talking about Venezuela as a warning
about socialist I mean, will always be right, like Poland
and the Soviet Union. But instead we start talking about
Venezuela like we talk about Poland today. An American ally
that's very strong, that has become so much wealthier after
(24:40):
years of freedom, that has created so much prosperity for
the Polish and for the Americans alike. That's what I
want for Venezuela too.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I hope that too.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Daniel de Martino, appreciate you for joining the show.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Thank you so much. Thanks Lisa.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
That was Daniel de Martino.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
He is a fellow at the Manhattan institu Appreciate him
for joining the show. Appreciate you guys at home for
listening every Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
You can listen throughout the week. I want to thank
John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together.
Until next time,
Welcome to the Truth.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
With Lisa Booth, we'll get to the heart of the
issues that matter to you today. We're talking about the
rise of socialism, the rise of communism happening on the left,
and we're going to discuss it with someone who has
seen this cancer take over their country firsthand. His name
is Daniel di Martino. He is a fellow at the
Manhattan Institute. He's also a Venezuela and he was born
(00:29):
in Venezuela, came to the United States in twenty sixteen
and has been warning people about the dangers of socialism,
how it can lead to corruption, how it destroys countries.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
We're going to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We're also going to talk about those devastating two earthquakes
that hit Venezuela. We know that thousands have been confirmed dead,
over sixteen hundred injured. Many still they're still looking for them.
But part of the challenge is so many people died
because of corruption of the government. So we're going to
(01:01):
get to that angle as well about why that created
more deaths. Also looking at the rise of socialism here
in the United States and what can become of America
if these people on the left continued to take over,
so stay tuned for this conversation and this warning from
Daniel di Martino.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, Daniel, it's great to have you back on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I know your home country of Venezuela was recently struck
by two rare and violent earthquakes back to back. Caused
a significant amount of damage in the country. They're estimating
at least more than three three hundred people that have
been confirmed dead, over sixteen hundred injured. And that's just
what we know about. I know you have people in
(01:47):
your life who have been impacted by this. What are
you hearing from the ground in Venezuela about what's really
going on and what the death toll and damage could
ultimately be.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, thank you for having me, Lisa. The what I'm
hearing from Venezuelan's in the ground there is that people
are just devastated, not just because the earthquake was disastrous,
but because it comes on top of so many years
of destruction, right almost three decades of this regime, and
so many people lost their homes, so many people lost
(02:19):
their life, and so it felt for the people there
like it was the last straw, you know, the last
the last thing that you needed. In the worst moment.
And the thing that really made it so outrageous for
the population was that the government, instead of helping, only
hindered recovery efforts. In addition to the fact that a
(02:41):
lot of people died because they live in in terribly
constructed homes because of the government, right, because a lot
of that was government public housing that all fell apart
during the earthquake, because the government hired these Turkish, Iranian
and other contractors where they stole money to build quickly
cheap homes and give them away for free, and they
(03:03):
ended up falling apart. So people were already might because
of that. But then when the recovery time became and
the rescue effort came, the government didn't send any rescuers.
Venezuelans had to go through the rubble with their own hands,
and the military instead of helping, what they did was
steal the appliances of people, their washers or dryers, their TVs.
(03:28):
And so the Venezuelan population has never felt more outrage
than they do today, I think, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And so that's a key component of all of this.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Because at Venezuela had had a non socialist, non incompetent
not corrupt government. You know, how many lives do you
think could have been saved? And you know the response
time would have looked different, So I guess kind of
connect those dots.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yes, well, absolutely so think about this in Chile when
they have equivalent earthquakes, and Venezuela could look today like
Chile does today. Had it never elected Hugo Chaves, it
could easily be richer than Chile. In fact, you know,
this kind of earthquake causes maybe a few hundred dead
and and in Venezuela it's causing thousands of death. Right
(04:20):
you mentioned the figure, The truth is much larger. They
just haven't identified the bodies, right. You know, by the
beginning there were some sixty thousand people reported to have
vanished that their family members couldn't find. The government. The
US government estimate from the geological survey was that this
earthquake would kill between ten and one hundred thousand people.
(04:44):
So the figure, the final figure is I think it's
going to end up being between ten and sixty given
the you know, the number of people who are reported
as disappeared is probably the high end. So that is
the cost of socialism in this earthquake was tens of
thousands of lives, and many more lives affected that didn't die, right,
(05:05):
like the people who lost their houses. The economic activity
that I think some international groups estimated in the several
billion dollars that the GDP impact on Venezuela is going
to be over ten percent negative this year because of
the earthquake. All of this was preventable. But what's outrageous
is that the government didn't help, is that the government hindered,
that they confiscated aid, that Venezuelan's depended on foreign aid.
(05:29):
And it was great. I mean, thank god for the
foreign eight thanks to the US government, thanks to the
Chilean government. Mexican is rarely Syrian events. So many governments
from around the world that sent rescue teams, some of which,
by the way, were also hindered by the Venezuelan regime.
But these foreign rescue teams really saved hundreds of lives.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So then you look here in the United States, and
I mean, we can call them communists, we can call
them they call themselves socialists, but.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
We're seeing a rise of them on the left.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
You know, self proclaimed people like Zaron Mom Donnie in
New York, or you know they're cropping up here on
the left. They've won primaries. They're going to be headed
to Washington, d C. Most likely in these deep blue districts.
You even look at polling a gallop and a majority
of Democrats now have a more favorable viewpoint of socialism
than they do capitalism. Independence just barely hanging on with
(06:24):
the more positive viewpoint of capitalism than socialism. So why then,
looking to places like Venezuela, would we want to follow that?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Well? I think that the people who have a federable
view of socialism do not think about Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Nobody will look at Venezuela and say, yes, I want
to leave like that. That would mean you're psychologically in
a deep trouble. Right, So what people think is I
just want more government, and I'm resentful at the rich.
I think the rich are causing the problems, and we
need to take from the rich to give to me.
(07:01):
And some of the people who are voting for this,
by the way, are not poor, right. I mean, actually,
most of the people who are voting for this and
who have a favorable view of this, of this ideology socialism,
are actually middle class or upper middle class. They're young
people overwhelmingly, that's for sure. The real polarization is in
(07:21):
the age and these are young people who come from
good families. Lisa have met people who parents in their
fifties who are very high income, some of them are
millionaires in annual income, and their children, who are in
their early twenties are supporters of Sora Mamdani. Are people
(07:42):
who think that the rich have rigged the system, when
the truth is that they are the rich, right, They're
the ones who haven't built anything but are inheriting from
their parents. And yet these are the people who are
supporting ideas that not only harm their family, what harm
everybody else, as if they were a virtuous ideas when
(08:04):
they're not. They're actually very harmful ideas.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But see, the thing is, I mean it always starts
off the promises like that, like Hugo Chave's promise to
end corruption, like he promised to reduce poverty. He said
he wasn't seeking a Cuban style communist system, that it
was going.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
To be in between capitalism and communism.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
He made a lot of the same promises that we're
hearing now from these leftist politicians.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And if you heard Zaar on mom Donnie and his speech.
He was talking.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
About how we should be worried about wealth being you know,
in the hands of a few. But isn't that ultimately
what happens with communism and socialism is it just turns
away from what they want to call corporate greed and
it's government greed, and then it ultimately leads to corruption
and competency and a broken system of government because the
(08:51):
people who are in power and that scenario are idiots,
and they don't know how to run things, and they're
not builders, they're not into its, right, Like, you're really
just shifting from what they want to call corporate greed
and taking moneyway from innovators and builders and people like Elms,
and then putting at the hands of people like Zora
Mamdani who try to be a rapper and failed. You know.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So it's like, right, who is a trust fund baby
from his millionaire mother, but who has not built anything
for a little of course, not the only built is
stealing money from the taxpayer. Look, the let's take this
as a real argument. There are people who say they
want to tax the rich to pay for a host
(09:33):
of new things. Right, they ignore the truth that we
already spend trillions of dollars on government programs that don't
actually make any effect on poverty, and instead they want
to spend a trillion dollars more a year. Well, let's
speaking with the fact that our national budget is already
in a deficit, so we already need to raise taxes
(09:54):
or cut spending or both in order to go back
to the baseline without adding new programs. Now, imagine we
do that because we magically, you know, cut some spending,
raise some taxes, and then we say we're gonna pay
for Medica for all. We're gonna pay for you know, say,
subsidies for housing for more people. Where is the money
(10:16):
gonna come from? Is it all gonna come from billionaires?
It can't. Like that total amount of income that billionaires
make a year is not enough to even pay for
Medicare for all, And so the threshold keeps going down.
Oh well, it's not billionaires anymore. It's gonna be people
who make over a million dollars, okay, And then it's
gonna be people who make over five hundred thousand dollars
(10:38):
and one hundred thousand dollars the tax rate and actually
compare is gonna have the charge. The marginal tax rate
that a person in Denmark, Suiten a Norway pays over
one hundred thousand dollars is most of the time over
sixty percent. So these are people who pay over sixty
percent of their income at one hundred thousand dollars year,
(11:00):
not at one million dollars, not a ten million dollars,
at one hundred thousand dollars, and everybody, So forget about
income taxes. Everybody pays over twenty percent in sales tax.
That is how those countries actually fund larger governments, and
they do so with low, you know, smaller defense budgets.
Norway does so be in an oil state that gets
(11:21):
a lot of oil revenue that we don't have for
a large population. And so that is how those countries
do it. That is not what is being proposed here
here are they're proposing all these fantasies and saying that
the math works to just ability in ours pay for it.
That's it's not true that math doesn't work. So I
guess then what do you think's driving it? Is it
indoctrination in schools?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I mean, we're also seeing you know, people coming here
like from some third world countries bringing some of the
animosity towards the West with But from your estimation, what
do you think is driving this movement toward communism and
socialism in the country.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I think it's I think it's home ground. I don't
think it's coming from other countries. I think that's a distraction. Actually,
I mean, obviously, Mam Danny came from another country. But
Mandanny came to New York City when he was seven
years old. He was raised by a communist. That's why
he's a communist. His father was one. You know, Daria Lisa,
the woman who won the primary in Harlem for Congress,
(12:19):
who is very much an anti American socialist, somebody who
really hates this country. Who I think, you know, it's
just very misgadded ideas. She was born here. She's not
an immigrant, do you know. So what kind of conditions
create that?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I think?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Obviously your education system is a problem. I think parents
have failed in many cases. You know, how do the
children of hedge fund managers end up being socialist Lisa?
Because the hedge fund managers failed at parenting. In my opinion,
they send them to prestigious private schools that are all
staffed by Marxist educators taught in American teacher colleges, which
(12:57):
all teach the teachers how to indoctrinate. If you go
to the Columbia Teachers College Columbia University, it's like a
Marxist inductrination camp, worse than the regular university. And then
those are the people who teach at the prestigious private schools.
So we are creating, we're educating an army of highly
educated Marxists in top private schools K through twelve in
(13:20):
this country, and then in colleges too. And we have
the augmenting factor of social media, because in social media
we don't only just have the freedom of expression. We
have I think, on TikTok at least an algorithm that
is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. And what is
the interest of the Chinese Communist Party, well, to fry
(13:40):
the brain of the American youth and to promote Marxism. Right,
they take down the content they don't like and they
promote the content that they do like, and that has
a huge effect on how people think. We have that
on so many ways like this that really concerned me.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I mean, do you think some of it's coming from
abroad as well? In terms of you know, people coming
here from like Hassan Piker, right, he's Turkish, coming here
from countries whose viewpoints are there's a lot of animosity
towards America and the West, and then they bring that
with them or they've taught that, been taught that by
their parents.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
But but I agree with that primary so.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yes, yes, so I also I agree that there are
people who come from other countries. By the way, Passant
Biker was born in the US.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I'll say parents are Turkish. But yes, obviously.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
There are people, you know, but like that that creates
a much more expansive group of people, right, if you
count the children of immigrants, that's already like, you know,
thirty percent of the population. I think that.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And of course you could look at someone like Elon Musk,
who is an immigrant who came here who's you know,
brought significant wealth to the United States, created.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Jobs, and I do think the average right yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But but I do agree that there are people who
come to America who shouldn't, who are a Marxist, you know,
think of Khalil. What was the purpose of them coming
to America. It was to agitate, it was to promote Marxism.
They didn't come because they wanted a better life. They
came because they wanted to destroy America. And that might
sound very harsh, but it is true for a small
(15:19):
number of people, and that small number of people are
having an outsized impact on the public discourse and society.
It's also true that there are foreign authoritarian regimes that
are training American leaders. Karen Bass was trained in Cuba
when she was a kid. Most of the DSA members
look to Cuba and actually travel there to get training
(15:41):
on how to promote their ideas here and win office.
Secretary of State Marco Ruby recently arrested on his deporting
and banned the Cuban Institute for Peace, which was a
front group for the Cuban government to promote their ideas
and train American activists here in the United States. Things
are happening.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
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has your back. It is pretty crazy to your point
about Karen Bass now currently being the mayor and previously
a member of Congress, after training and being part of Faith,
a pro Castro pro communist front group, which the entire
(17:36):
purpose of it was to essentially train Americans as you know,
spies or to be pro revolutionary and then get them
into government and to have them be in prominence here
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Or you look at the fact that.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Obama piled around with the Weather Underground founders and I
think they held his first event when he was announcing
to run for state Senate in Illinois. That was a
Marxist violent revolutionary group bombed government buildings in the nineteen seventies.
Or you look at Tim Wiss visited China like thirty times,
like Bernie Sanders spend his honeymoon and Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
So it's like, you know, this stuff's been going on.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Like I wish, I will wish lily so that these
people actually wanted to be like Norway. You know, there
are some nice things about Norway, you know that we
could learn from. I can assure you that it is
not nationalizing the means of production right, And I'll say
we also have a rising current of anti free market
people on the right who actually do believe in larger government,
(18:38):
who do not believe in free markets. And if we
don't present a principal defense of free enterprise, then why
wouldn't you vote for the socialist? On the one hand,
you would have a big government person that is pro life,
and on the other one you have a big government
person who is pro choice.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I guess, you know, I've heard people try to make
the case, you know, it's only happening and some of
these you know, deeper blue areas. It's the threats.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
President Trump even called out the rise of communists and
his speech amount rushmore and people are saying, oh, it's.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Not that big the deal. People are overreacting.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Do you think people are overreacting to the threat of
you know, communism and socialism in the country or I mean,
I feel like it can take over pretty quickly and
it's one of those things that you've got to stop
as soon as you can.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
But how do you view it.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I think that politicians are overreacting in their speech, and
then they're reacting in their actions. I think President Trump
is being very strong in the know how he speaks
about communism and socialism, and I really appreciate that, but
what have we done to stop it? Nothing? Nobody has
done absolutely nothing. What law has been passed? What are
(19:51):
the states doing? The only state that has done something
has been the state of Florida educating kids in K
through twelve about the threat of socialism in schools. The
state does it. Republican politicians love to fill their mouths
saying that they oppose socialism and that they do nothing
about it. So we should be teaching in schools about this.
That's a good step. The other things we should be
(20:12):
doing is actually supporting pre enterprise, is actually putting out ideas.
And I think in this Texas has done something good,
which is they actually have deregulated the housing market so
that it's cheaper to buy a house. And yeah, I
think on the education from that they have done very little.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, that's concerning way zoron mcdonne's trying to do in
New York with the rent freezes, because inevitably it'll lead
to shortages and decayed housing and then the government's going
to step in as the concern. You know, how quickly
did things fall apart in Venezuela. How quickly can a
country go from you know, wealthy and successful to fallen
(20:51):
and corrupt.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So it depends obviously on the initial state instructure. America
has other things to its advantage. For Venezuela, I would
say it was relatively quick, you know, within ten years,
I think the dictatorship was fully solidified, and they have
already changed the constitution and packed the court all that
that is my fear here. I think that obviously the
(21:15):
Second Amendment is a great protection here that we didn't
have in Venezuela. But that's already for when the rubber
hits the road, right, not for the beginning. And my
concern is one vulnerability of the American constitutional system is
the Supreme Court. If say, a radical Marxist gets to
the presidency here and they have a democratic majority in
(21:37):
Congress that is willing to go with them, they can
pack the Supreme Court and reinterpret the Constitution to say
whatever they want, Lisa. And then what does the second
Amendment mean? What does the First Amendment mean? What does
for example, know, ceasing of private property without compensation even
meaning the constitution? Right? What is compensation? Maybe the government
(21:57):
can actually take your company for a nominal compensation of
a few dollars, right, And then who are you going
to appeal to if the Supreme Court is stacked against you.
That is my concern of how a socialist dictatorship could
start in America after a democratic election.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And I think that's a very real concern considering that
the Democrats have talked about packing the court.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
And then by the way, they can abolish the philibuster,
legalize pao harvesting nationwide. And that's not necessarily that they're
going to, you know, misreport the election results, but they're
going to stack all the rules in their favor. And
that's how it started in Venezuela too. They didn't break
the elections at the start that were popular, right, they
were giving away things for free. But once people started
(22:40):
complaining about it, for example, you could design welfare programs
through the states such that, you know, then the governments
in each state can force the public workers to vote
for you and things like that. You know, if you
really want to, you can't do it in America too.
The question I think for the average person is what
do they do about it? I think for the average
person is they need to ensure that that socialism is
(23:04):
not supported within their families and they need to really
share things about what happens in other countries to their
family members. They need to share what the actual political
leaders in America have said about those things. What has
mum Danny said about Venezuela's elections, for example, he actually
thought it was a great example for the world in
(23:24):
twenty thirteen when they were rigged. What has Bernie Sanders
said about this? What has their Realitiza said even about
Russia right, she said that you know, the Russians were
right from mad Ukraine. I mean, these are what we
call on the internet tankies. These are people who are
full on Stalinists, who are on the side of Russia,
of China against America, and we need to reveal their
(23:46):
character for who they are. We need to expose them
so that people don't fall for their lives.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
No, I agree very well, said Daniel, before we go.
Is there anything else you'd like to leave us with?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well, just on the Venezuela topic, would say that I'm
very grateful for what the United States has done for Venezuela,
especially with the humaniterranny in the last few weeks. That
it's something that I think people will always be thankful for,
and that I hope that that can lead soon to
a transition towards freedom out of this evil regime that
(24:18):
led to so many deaths, so that Venezuela can once
again become a story of hope on freedom right, so
that we can stop talking about Venezuela as a warning
about socialist I mean, will always be right, like Poland
and the Soviet Union. But instead we start talking about
Venezuela like we talk about Poland today. An American ally
that's very strong, that has become so much wealthier after
(24:40):
years of freedom, that has created so much prosperity for
the Polish and for the Americans alike. That's what I
want for Venezuela too.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I hope that too.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Daniel de Martino, appreciate you for joining the show.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Thank you so much. Thanks Lisa.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
That was Daniel de Martino.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
He is a fellow at the Manhattan institu Appreciate him
for joining the show. Appreciate you guys at home for
listening every Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
You can listen throughout the week. I want to thank
John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together.
Until next time,
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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