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On the Media
A Deadly ICE Shooting in Minnesota. Plus, Trump Plays King in Venezuela.
00:50:19
Debunking Minnesota claims; why Trump keeps threatening global takeovers.
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- [00:01]
Brooke Gladstone
Minnesota had already made headlines after a MAGA YouTuber claimed widespread fraud in Somali run daycare centers.
- [00:09]
Michael Loewinger
This one's also generated nearly $3 million.
- [00:12]
Jeffrey Mitraut
In the past three years.
- [00:13]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Let's see if there's any children.
- [00:14]
Michael Loewinger
And then Wednesday, an ICE agent shot an American citizen. You shot her.
- [00:20]
Brooke Gladstone
From WNYC in New York, this is ON the Media, I'm Brooke Gladstone.
- [00:25]
Michael Loewinger
And I'm Michael Oinger. Also on this week's show, the perils of reporting on the ground in Venezuela.
- [00:30]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
You can go to prison. A joke for a tweet for anything.
- [00:35]
Brooke Gladstone
Plus, on foreign policy, Trump seems to be rolling back the clock.
- [00:40]
Abe Newman
This is a story of kings, Louis xiv. I am the state. It's not just corruption. This is a system where resources are being channeled into this insider elite group.
- [00:54]
Michael Loewinger
It's all coming up after this.
- [01:01]
Brooke Gladstone
From WNYC in New York, this is ON the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
- [01:05]
Michael Loewinger
And I'm Michael Loewinger.
- [01:07]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Say her name.
- [01:09]
Michael Loewinger
Brooks. The Minneapolis police chief says a woman was killed after being shot in the head by an ICE agent.
- [01:15]
Abe Newman
And we have to give you a warning here. The video you're about to see is graphic. You'll see an ICE agent stopping a red suv. One tries to open the car door. The driver reverses and then pulls away.
- [01:27]
Michael Loewinger
There was an agent directly in front of her. From the video, it looks like at least two shots were fired by that agent. The woman's vehicle then crashes and she was pronounced dead at the hospital. The victim has been identified as a 37 year old. Her name is Renee Good. She was a US Citizen. City leaders say that she was a legal observer monitoring federal activity at the time. She was not the target of any ICE arrest. She was on her way home after dropping off her six year old child Wednesday morning when this all happened. They are already trying to spin this as an action of self defense. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry. Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bull. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying. Early reports from Fox News, Minnesota Public Radio, NBC and ABC relied on a tired trope calling the killing a quote, ICE involved shooting. But within a day, 404 Media, the BBC, New York Times, Bellingcat and Washington Post used verified cell phone footage, some from multiple angles, to conclude that the tires on the victim's car were clearly moving away from the officer when he began shooting her three times.
- [02:48]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Nevertheless, the President is saying the woman.
- [02:51]
Abe Newman
Driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting who then violently willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer. People in position have already passed judgment.
- [03:05]
Michael Loewinger
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaking in a press conference on Thursday.
- [03:09]
Abe Newman
From the President to the Vice President to Kristi Noem have stood and told you things that are verifiably false. They have determined the character of a 37 year old mom that they didn't even know.
- [03:24]
Michael Loewinger
That's precisely what we heard from the MAGA media this week. The woman who lost her life was a self proclaimed poet from Colorado with pronouns in her bio. She was a disruptor, though she considered herself a legal observer. But there's no evidence she had a law degree.
- [03:42]
Jeffrey Mitraut
I'm tired of hearing, you know, this.
- [03:44]
Abe Newman
Is tragic that somebody lost their life.
- [03:47]
Jeffrey Mitraut
If the choice is between that lady and an ICE officer that wants to go home to their family just because.
- [03:54]
Abe Newman
They'Re doing their jobs, I want that officer to come out on the right.
- [03:58]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Side of this all day long.
- [03:59]
Michael Loewinger
Yeah, no, I'm totally with you. I, I don't lose any sleep for this woman because she seemed crazy. Let's talk about how we got here. A day before the shooting, the White House announced an aggressive new push in Minneapolis St. Paul. Long guns, armored trucks and the head of Homeland Security.
- [04:16]
Abe Newman
2000 federal agents are flooding the Twin Cities in a serious show of force. The head of ICE calls it their largest immigration operation ever.
- [04:24]
Michael Loewinger
Part of their justification.
- [04:26]
Abe Newman
This state has faced unprecedented immigration fraud.
- [04:30]
Michael Loewinger
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem seen unprecedented benefit fraud.
- [04:36]
Abe Newman
Individuals were allowed to come into this country and set up fake companies and.
- [04:40]
Michael Loewinger
Fake nonprofits and divert billions of dollars.
- [04:43]
Abe Newman
Away from American citizens and those vulnerable citizens who truly needed the services from those programs.
- [04:49]
Michael Loewinger
She's referring to a video from 23 year old MAGA content creator Nick Shirley, who went viral just after Christmas for claiming to uncover evidence of widespread fraud at Somali run daycare centers in Minnesota. In this video we will down all of the fraud from start to finish from going to the fraudulent businesses and confronting the people who are making millions of dollars from the government.
- [05:13]
Abe Newman
What was this money spent on?
- [05:16]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
1.26 million.
- [05:17]
Jeffrey Mitraut
What was that money spent?
- [05:19]
Abe Newman
There aren't any kids.
- [05:20]
Michael Loewinger
Answer the question.
- [05:21]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Are there children?
- [05:22]
Michael Loewinger
There's no children inside this building. Despite its dubious claims, or maybe because of them, the video has received some 139 million views on X thanks to big boosts from Elon Musk and Vice President J.D. vance who wrote, quote, this dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes. Journalism? No. Useful. Very. Here's Vance in An interview with Fox's Jesse Watters this week. The Democrats have a little bit of a Somali problem. They've let it.
- [05:58]
Abe Newman
America has a bit of a Somali.
- [05:59]
Michael Loewinger
Problem, especially the Democrats in Minnesota. Simply put, the rabid national focus on this local story can be explained by racism and xenophobia. But like so many sticky narratives, a bit of truth can open the door for wild exaggeration and scapegoating. Fraud has been a perennial storyline for Minnesota leaders, investigators and newsrooms for many years. It's also true that some Somali Americans have been implicated before, most famously in the prosecution of Feeding Our Families, a Minnesota nonprofit that fraudulently received over $240 million during Governor Tim Waltz's tenure. This week, he decided to throw in the towel. He is not going to run for reelection. This comes as pressure has been growing around this widening welfare fraud scandal. Now, Waltz has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but it has been a growing political headache. To dig into the veracity of the claims that helped set this week's news in motion, I spoke to Jeffrey Mitrat, a senior investigative reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune. I began by asking him about Nick Shirley's main source, an activist named David Hock, who takes Shirley to a series of daycare centers while making hyperbolic claims like this.
- [07:19]
Abe Newman
My opinion is that this is the worst fraud in human history. What is occurring in Minnesota and more specifically in the Twin Cities right now.
- [07:29]
Jeffrey Mitraut
He's something of a political gadfly. He described himself originally as a Republican, but then he seemed to lose faith in that party, created his own party, ran for governor, ran for attorney general, got very few votes, and he considers himself sort of an independent whistleblower. He has now been fed a lot of information by Republican legislators here who have been looking at this as a significant campaign issue.
- [07:58]
Michael Loewinger
The Intercept reported that Haack posted on Instagram last year, quote, every Somali in Minnesota is engaged in fraud. All of them. He also reportedly posted in November, quote, even the blacks have had enough of the demon Muslims. There's a healthy dollop of racism in this video.
- [08:18]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Well, I think that's clear. Minnesota is the home to the largest Somali population in America. There's over 100,000 Somalis here. They're state legislators, they are policemen, they are teachers. And to say that the vast majority or even all of them are criminals, it's just absurd.
- [08:35]
Michael Loewinger
At one point, Nick Shirley says, we're gonna go confront these people. We're gonna go to these daycare centers. We're gonna see what's actually happening. Hawke says, okay, so we have to be careful because these people are very violent. They're exceptionally violent.
- [08:49]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Yeah, it's like the notion is that there's Somali gangs roaming the streets of Minnesota just indiscriminately attacking people left and right, and that they're the majority of the crime here, which is utter nonsense. Nothing of the sort is happening. This is like a fantasy world of white nationalism. It's just nuts.
- [09:07]
Michael Loewinger
But give us some of the more local context. At one point in the video, we hear something to the effect of it's not racist or Islamophobic to investigate fraud. And if white people were doing it too, we would be focused on that as well. Why do you think they're focused on Somali businesses here?
- [09:25]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Fraud here has been a story for 10 years. And the first charges involving Somali daycare operators were filed back in 2014. There were about 10 cases filed between 2014 and 2017. Then defeating our future case came along with the meals program. Again, that was mostly Somali owned businesses that were involved in this. And now we have programs that are helping both people with autism and homeless people who need housing stabilization services. Again, Somali businesses have been implicated in these cases. You know, that sets the table for you to sort of, you know, demonize the entire community.
- [10:04]
Michael Loewinger
Let's just dig into some of the specific accusations in the video. Shirley and Hawk visited 10 different daycare centers, knocking on doors and trying to speak with anyone near the entrance. In some cases, when they visited a center, like, no one would respond or open the door. In others, there's kind of like awkward conversations sometimes with like a language barrier where Shirley and Hawk keep asking, where are the kids? Where are the kids? And we never see any, although one center is credited with allowing them in. You co reported a story with your colleague Dina Winter, who went to those same centers, and you collaborated on an article about her visits. Can you tell me about what you two found?
- [10:46]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Sure. Obviously we wanted to sort of fact check this video. Dina, my colleague on the story, she went and she visited all 10 of the daycares. And half of them were either shut down or wouldn't let her in, and the other half did. And when she went in the daycares that were open at that moment, or at least welcoming visitors from the media, she saw what looked like very legitimate operations. These were not suburban looking daycares by any stretch of the imagination, but they were very. They had cribs, they had beautiful painted Disney characters on the walls. This wasn't something that somebody whipped together in 10 minutes to fake a state Inspector or a newspaper reporter. They were filled with toys and filled with sleeping children. Yeah.
- [11:34]
Michael Loewinger
I want to play you some tape from two of the centers that both Nick Shirley and your colleague Deana Winters went to. First we have the Minnesota Childcare Center.
- [11:43]
Abe Newman
We're just wondering where the children are.
- [11:45]
Brooke Gladstone
Where the children are?
- [11:47]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Yeah, where are the children?
- [11:48]
Abe Newman
It says you have 102 children here and you got $2.66 million this year in funding and 2.5 million last year.
- [11:57]
Michael Loewinger
We're just wondering where the.
- [11:58]
Abe Newman
Where the kids are and who are you?
- [12:00]
Michael Loewinger
My name is Nick Shirley.
- [12:01]
Abe Newman
Nick Shirley.
- [12:06]
Michael Loewinger
Oh, we are from ourselves.
- [12:07]
Abe Newman
Yeah.
- [12:08]
Michael Loewinger
Hello. We'd like to ask where's the money's going. Look at that. Shut us down. So tell me about the Minnesota Childcare Center. What did you see there?
- [12:19]
Jeffrey Mitraut
We saw dozens of children. There were three rooms full of school age children sitting there coloring, reading books and doing everything you would normally expect in a daycare operation. The idea that there were no kids here is just crazy. This specific daycare, it's been licensed since 2015. It has 62 violations. It's been routinely inspected every six months by the state.
- [12:41]
Michael Loewinger
62 violations for what?
- [12:43]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Paperwork violations, not doing background checks on employees that were required. Nothing about fraud. They have had some problems. A lot of these centers have had violations as well as most other daycare operations in the state of Minnesota. A lot of these operations owned by Somali business people have struggled in some cases to understand the regulatory culture here and what they're supposed to do to satisfy all these various state regulations. Minnesota, often described as a nanny state, really, in a sense, makes it tough for daycare operators because they got to follow all kinds of regulations to document everything that they're doing, how they're doing it. And that's a high bar for folks that struggle with English may be new to this country, have set up these daycares to help other Somali families actually show up for work and gain employment. So they rack up violations. But that actually, that doesn't make them criminals.
- [13:40]
Michael Loewinger
And you said earlier that some of these places don't look like suburban daycares. In other words, in the video, they look like these are very urban buildings. They may not look to viewers like the daycares. They're used to seeing where they live.
- [13:59]
Jeffrey Mitraut
People could be predisposed to believe these allegations because they look at that and they're thinking, well, gee, that doesn't look like the daycare center I dropped my kids off to. You know, where they've got a gymnasium outside and a white picket fence. And there's kids all over the place. Well, I mean, it's the middle of winter, so you're not going to see any kids outside playing. If they were, they'd probably end up park. That's about a block and a half down the road, which again, is not going to show up in your video. So a lot of these folks that own these centers, they're getting space where they can afford it.
- [14:30]
Michael Loewinger
Let's talk about another daycare center that Deena visited. ABC Learning Center. Here's what Shirley had to say when he visited. All the windows are blacked out.
- [14:43]
Abe Newman
This facility is licensed for 40 children. I've come by this place a hundred times.
- [14:47]
Jeffrey Mitraut
I've never seen a child here ever.
- [14:50]
Michael Loewinger
I knocked on the door and to my surprise, somebody actually answered the door. Hello, can we speak? I would like to check a child in the daycare. Can I speak to a manager? Where can I get paperwork to file for my son? I wanted to put my son Joey in daycare. And after a few questions, the lady went silent. Looks like little Joey. Shirley ain't going to daycare.
- [15:12]
Jeffrey Mitraut
You know, there were 30 kids there on the inside, and not perhaps on the outside, but on the inside it looked like a very nice, well maintained daycare center where they're licensed for 40 kids. There were 30 there. They're not at capacity, but that's a pretty good group of kids. And we even talked to some of the neighbors who said, we've been seeing kids come in here for years. And so the idea that it's a fraudulent operation actually made them mad.
- [15:38]
Michael Loewinger
Minnesota's CBS local affiliate was given access to evidence that purportedly proves that kids were in fact inside the daycare center the day Shirley came snooping around. Hassan showed us security footage from the same day Shirley was here. According to the timestamps in the videos, this woman takes a young child into the center at around 9am that day, about three hours before Shirley arrives at the door closer to the street. Within the hour after Shirley leaves, a woman arrives at the other door with a stroller. A larger family heads inside. We see this kind of ticker just going up after every daycare center abroad. And by the end, it's over $110 million in funding. It appears to be just the amount of federal funds that goes to each of the daycare centers they visited over a multi year period. Help kind of break down those numbers and how they might stack up against what we actually know about fraud.
- [16:32]
Jeffrey Mitraut
The 10 daycares that were the subject of this quote unquote documentary, they received a total of $17 million in the most recent fiscal year. So the idea of getting to $100 million or so over a five year period, you know, the math makes sense. But what you're claiming then is that every single dollar paid to these daycare centers is fraud. My guess is that at the end of the day, if the Fed's do actually investigate, they could discover that there was some overbilling, that maybe they claimed the children received services on days that they didn't show up. However, that's a big if. We don't even know that the Feds are investigating these specific daycares at this.
- [17:12]
Michael Loewinger
Point, though they've claimed investigations will follow because of the video.
- [17:18]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Right. But again, the Feds are generally pretty limited on what they can say about targets of an ongoing investigation. Joe Thompson, the assistant U.S. attorney here who has talked about this $9 billion number, he has not come out and accused any other specific operations of any of these social service programs of fraud or suspected fraud. He's merely talked about the whole landscape and what those fraud amounts could be. He and his colleagues have not come on and said, we do agree that these, you know, 10 daycares look suspicious and we're investigating them. They have not gone that far. And the state has, however, said that four of them are now under investigation. They're not telling us what they're under investigation for, but they could make a criminal referral. They could end up just simply documenting more violations or they could discover overbilling. So we really don't know where that's going to go.
- [18:17]
Michael Loewinger
The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families did compliance checks on all of the childcare centers in the video and found they were, quote, unquote, operating as expected. Yet local outlets have reported that some Somali childcare providers have received harassing phone calls and at least in one case have been vandalized and broken into and had records stolen. What have you seen?
- [18:41]
Jeffrey Mitraut
I'm telling you, there's a lot of fear out there right now. This video has resulted in a lot of hate being directed at Somali daycare operators. Even the ones that aren't in this video have been getting death threats. They feel like they're targets. I talked to one attorney who represents several Somali daycares. He said there have been hundreds of death threats leveled at his clients and they're terrified.
- [19:08]
Michael Loewinger
News of Renee Goode's killing broke after we spoke with Jeffrey Mitraut early Wednesday. So on Friday, I called him back up. What have your last 48 hours been like?
- [19:20]
Jeffrey Mitraut
We feel like our city's been turned upside down. There are ICE agents everywhere and people are afraid. Events are being canceled, schools has been canceled. We just feel like we're a city under siege.
- [19:33]
Michael Loewinger
What connection, if any, do you see between Nick Shirley's video and the events that have since transpired?
- [19:40]
Jeffrey Mitraut
I see this as almost an outgrowth of the tension that has been growing between this state and federal authorities. We have been under attack now for weeks by the president on down. And there has been a slow ramping up of ICE activity over this period, clashes with protesters. A lot of people felt like an incident like this was inevitable because it's like you're poking the bear. Sooner or later, something bad's gonna happen. When federal authorities are, in a sense, over muscling local authorities, shoving their way into places, taking actions without any real reason. It's not like the city was having some kind of crisis, that we needed help with authorities. They're creating the crisis.
- [20:26]
Michael Loewinger
Why do you think they sent ICE.
- [20:27]
Jeffrey Mitraut
There to punish Minnesota? We've had a governor who ran against the president. There were a lot of bad blood between them. It's hard not to look at this as some kind of retribution sort of example Setting like this is what happens to states that don't toe the line.
- [20:43]
Michael Loewinger
What would you like listeners to keep in mind as they're following coverage of the fallout from the shooting, coverage of the protests and so on?
- [20:53]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Well, this is not only in Minnesota situation. ICE is going to be expanding its presence around the country. People should be looking at Minnesota and not thinking of this as something that's happening in isolation. They should sort of be thinking about, gee, I wonder who's next and could it be us?
- [21:08]
Michael Loewinger
Jeffrey, thanks for doing this work.
- [21:10]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Thank you.
- [21:12]
Michael Loewinger
Jeffrey Mitraut is a senior investigative reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune.
- [21:19]
Brooke Gladstone
Coming up. Wake up, babe. A new foreign misadventure just dropped.
- [21:24]
Michael Loewinger
This is on the media.
- [21:33]
Brooke Gladstone
This is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
- [21:35]
Michael Loewinger
And I'm Michael Olinger. It's been about a week since President Donald Trump directed a violent raid on Caracas, bombing several military sites and capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores. When it comes to at least one of the motivations behind the raid, Trump can be counted on to say the quiet part out loud.
- [21:56]
Jeffrey Mitraut
On what moral foundation will this conflict be framed?
- [22:00]
Michael Loewinger
Jon Stewart on the Daily show this.
- [22:02]
Abe Newman
Week, we're going to have presence in.
- [22:04]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Venezuela as it pertains to oil, but we're going to get the oil flowing the way it should be. Seems a little on the nose oil, precious commodities, certainly, but not the reason a country formed 250 years ago on the ideas of liberty and self determination.
- [22:21]
Abe Newman
Would go into a country and snatch.
- [22:23]
Michael Loewinger
A man at night.
- [22:24]
Abe Newman
There must be a slightly more noble pretense.
- [22:28]
Jeffrey Mitraut
We're going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.
- [22:31]
Michael Loewinger
Reuters this week reported that 100 people died during the raid, according to Venezuela's Interior Minister. Meanwhile, the New York Times observed that, quote, day to day life for many Venezuelans has worsened. To get a sense of the media environment there, I called up Rafael Ocillo Cabricis, the editor in chief of Caracas Chronicles, an independent media outlet covering Venezuela. After many years of working as a journalist in Venezuela, he now lives in Montreal, Canada. Rafael, welcome to the show.
- [23:04]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Thank you very much.
- [23:05]
Michael Loewinger
Michael, you started your career in Caracas in 1994. Can you describe what it was like in the years before Hugo Chavez rose to power in 1999?
- [23:17]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Lots of radio stations, four big newspapers, four big TV stations, cable news. The governments at the time had tense relationships with media. They will pressure media, for instance, by reducing access to cheap dollars to import paper for newspapers, or by sending tax inspectors to a TV station. But that's it. Chavez, since his first electoral campaign, started to say media were lying.
- [23:54]
Michael Loewinger
We're quite familiar with that in the United States these days as well.
- [23:57]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Yeah, it's exactly the same as Trump, but we started to experience that in 1998.
- [24:03]
Michael Loewinger
And in 2002, the tension between the Chavez regime and the media reached a fever pitch.
- [24:11]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
In April 2002, there was a protest wave that ended up with a couple against Chavez. He lost power for about 48 hours, and when he recovered power and was reinstalled by the military, everything changed. We, the journalists, lost access to official sources from that moment on, and we were told that our hands were soaked in blood and we are CIA agents and fascists and terrorists.
- [24:44]
Michael Loewinger
You were working as a journalist and editor in Caracas until 2014, when you and your family fled to Miami and then Montreal. I actually read a piece that you wrote in the Washington Post about your decision to leave. Describe what led you to finally decide to leave.
- [25:01]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Yes, it was a very specific event. Chavez got away with getting the constitution reformed in order to be elected term after terminal. When that happened, I told my wife, I don't want to live in a dictatorship. You don't want either, so we have to leave. What we did not expect was that economic collapse that wiped out the society and produced that mass migration. That was a surprise for me in.
- [25:33]
Michael Loewinger
That piece for the Washington Post about your experience leaving Venezuela and watching what happened to it from afar. You wrote you felt like Princess Leia watching her home planet Alderaan, explode from a window of the Death Star.
- [25:50]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Imagine that almost all your friends, all your family and places and institutions that gave shape to your life suddenly have to live or cease to exist. To this point, almost all my family left Venezuela, almost all my friends, and many, many things that I took for granted during my whole life disappeared. So the sensation in that year of 2014 was that we were living in Alderaan and our planet exploded and we were now trying to survive, each one of us a fragment of our world floating in space.
- [26:38]
Michael Loewinger
Tell me about the media ecosystem in Venezuela now. Where are Venezuelans getting their information, particularly about the aftermath of the US attack on Caracas and the capture of Maduro?
- [26:53]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Mostly WhatsApp and social media, because independent digital media, who can tell the truth, is blocked in Venezuela, with legacy media wiped out or reduced to a tiny expression with no resources. It's an environment which is perfect to use misinformation as a weapon to sabotage any attempt of society, to organize itself and to fight for democracy.
- [27:21]
Michael Loewinger
The government has issued a new decree earlier this week, effectively criminalizing any sort of celebration or support of the attack from the U.S. tell me a little bit about what that looks like.
- [27:34]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
If you have in your cell phone a mem of Maduro in shackles in the New York jail and some police officer or colectivo, which is paramilitary, stop you in the street and see that picture in your phone or a message or a conversation with a journalist, you can be thrown to jail and sentenced the same day to 20 years of prison. You can go to prison for a joke, for a tweet, for anything. People have no rights.
- [28:10]
Michael Loewinger
And how is state media covering or explaining the US attack? What are the majority of Venezuelans seeing when they scroll on their phones or turn on the tv?
- [28:24]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Micah, that's a tricky question because things are changing and state media is sending contradictory signals because the power landscape is changing. We can see that the patriotic rhetoric against us is the same. Del C. Rodriguez, the interim president, is talking about following the example of liberator Simon Bolivar and defend their fatherland, et cetera. But at the same time, public oil company PD is announcing that they are doing business with the US in the terms that Donald Trump has dictated.
- [29:07]
Michael Loewinger
It's my understanding that one of the common narratives is that, look, this is exactly what Chavez warned us about. It's the imperialist Americans invading Venezuela to take our oil they're saying that. And then at the same time, the state oil company is capitulating and agreeing to do business with American companies.
- [29:27]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Yes, but that depends where are you watching? So if you are an old Chavista supporter, 75 years old, in the countryside, watching the Venezuelana Television, which is the public TV station, you are watching endless footage of Chavez and Maduro and propaganda, propaganda, propaganda, propaganda. If that same person doesn't look the Pedevesa's Instagram account today, that person won't find that statement by Pedevesa saying, we are doing business with the U.S. and we are selling our oil to the U.S. i see. The state terror apparatus is very, very efficient with social media, and they design and implement campaigns to induce terror in the population, as they did just after stealing the election in 2024 and using things like Chucky from the horror movies.
- [30:32]
Michael Loewinger
The killer doll.
- [30:33]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Yeah, the killer doll. To say, don't make ideas because the big brother of the Bolivarian Revolution is watching you all the time.
- [30:43]
Michael Loewinger
What kind of impact do you think these state sanctioned media narratives are having on the general public's sentiments towards the United States?
- [30:51]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
No effect.
- [30:52]
Michael Loewinger
You don't think the propaganda is working right now, is that what you're saying?
- [30:55]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
No, the propaganda ceased to work years ago. Except for that 15, 20% of the population who is Chavista right now. The rest of the population does not believe a word that the government will say. Those years of real hegemony of the Chavista thought and propaganda ended years ago with Hugo Chavez.
- [31:18]
Michael Loewinger
In Caracas Chronicles, you've written about what you say is misleading language that some international press have been spreading in their attempts to debunk Trump's rhetoric.
- [31:28]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Yep.
- [31:29]
Michael Loewinger
One line that we hear from international media is that what Trump is after is Venezuela's natural resources. You say that's kind of true, kind of not.
- [31:40]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
I can dispute that fact that Trump want our oil because he's the first one to admit it.
- [31:47]
Michael Loewinger
He's being as clear as he can be.
- [31:49]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Yes, but there's a lot of technical details. And we have another piece on that on Caracas Chronicles with an oil expert, which is Francisco Monaldi, professor in Rice University in Texas, who says that, but it's disputable. To what point? The US Needs Venezuelan oil because the Venezuelan oil is extra heavy and it's difficult to extract and to use in the modern oil mills. And the oil industry is in a very dismal state in Venezuela, and a very huge load of money is needed to bring that, that industry back.
- [32:31]
Michael Loewinger
Another narrative that you take issue with is that, quote, venezuela is irrelevant in drug trafficking.
- [32:40]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Okay. Venezuela is not irrelevant in cocaine traffic. But most cocaine coming out from Venezuela, which is mostly produced in Colombia and goes through Venezuela, goes to Africa and Europe and the Caribbean, not the US And Venezuela does not produce or export fentanyl. Fentanyl comes into the US From Mexico.
- [33:03]
Michael Loewinger
You're saying that sometimes, in an effort to debunk Trump, some of his critics will go so far as to deny everything of drug trafficking in Venezuela, which, as you say, is clearly supported by the Maduro regime. Yeah.
- [33:17]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
For the Venezuelan point of view, we saw as our country was kidnapped by drug traffickers. Drugs are everywhere, and the entire state is corrupted by the drug business.
- [33:31]
Michael Loewinger
You're skeptical of the fentanyl narrative. You're skeptical of the oil narrative. Why then do you think Donald Trump is now so fixated on Venezuela?
- [33:43]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
It's not because he wants our democracy back. It's not because he wants Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez take the helm of our government.
- [33:53]
Michael Loewinger
The opposition party which has expressed fealty to him.
- [33:56]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Exactly. It seems to be because their golf pals convince him of doing business in Venezuela. And at the same time, to expel Russia, China and Iran of the American hemisphere and to resuscitate the Monroe Doctrine from the past, because America must be great again, is a combination of all that.
- [34:23]
Michael Loewinger
As listeners are encountering news and analysis and narratives about Venezuela and the experience of the people there and the unfolding political situation, what do you want them to keep in mind? You said that sometimes it feels like people talk about Venezuela, like it's part of some kind of board game.
- [34:43]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Exactly. Like Stratego or Risk or Dungeons and Dragons. And no, Venezuela is not part of a board game. It's a country with 28 million people living under a horrendous dictatorship. Today, there are many people organizing protests against the US Attack on Venezuela. Those people did not organize protests when Maduro stole the election. Why? He's very, very cool, talking about imperialism and new world order, et cetera, and talking about Venezuela as if you are playing a board game and not talking about the suffering of a nation who was unraveled by violence, poverty, and mass migration.
- [35:35]
Michael Loewinger
Rafael Ocio Cabrises is the editor in chief of Caracas Chronicles, an independent media outlet in Venezuela. He's currently based in Montreal. Rafael, this has been great. Thank you so much for your time and sharing your perspective.
- [35:51]
Rafael Ocio Cabrices
Thank you so much. Micah, thank you for your interest and for taking the time to talk with a Venezuelan about this.
- [35:59]
Brooke Gladstone
Coming up, we need A new word to describe the Trump era foreign policy. And we found one.
- [36:06]
Michael Loewinger
This is on the media. This is on the media. I'm Michael Loewinger.
- [36:18]
Brooke Gladstone
And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Following the capture of Venezuelan President Maduro, Katie Miller, wife of Trump advisor Stephen Miller, posted an ominous image of Greenland wrapped in a US flag to X the caption soon. Trump later said that, quote, the U.S. does need Greenland. The Prime Minister of Denmark responded, quote, it makes absolutely no sense. US Senators also scrambled to understand what really prompted the Trump administration to do what it did in Venezuela.
- [36:55]
Abe Newman
This is an insane plan. They are talking about stealing the Venezuelan.
- [37:00]
Jeffrey Mitraut
Oil at gunpoint for a period time of.
- [37:04]
Abe Newman
Of time undefined as leverage to micromanage the country. The military action against Venezuela is illegal, is harmful to U.S. interests in the region, and is profoundly disrespectful to U.S. troops.
- [37:19]
Michael Loewinger
People are just saying, what the hell is going on? We need answers.
- [37:23]
Abe Newman
It's really about a small group of elites using intervention to put themselves at the center of power to show other countries that they have to bend the knee.
- [37:34]
Brooke Gladstone
That's political scientist and Georgetown professor Abe Newman, who with his co author Stacey Goddard, coined a new term to clarify how Trump is reshaping international relations.
- [37:46]
Abe Newman
Neoroyalism, neo royalism is when international affairs is driven not by national interests, but by a small group of elites. This is a story of kings. You know, of Louis xiv. I am the state. I mean, historically, states did this all the time. You have what people might call gunboat diplomacy. The idea that you could just go and demand things. We really ended that after World War II. So the rules based order was premised on the idea that we should talk, not shoot. And that's where Trump is really drawing a line and saying, no, I'm not committed to these rules based systems. He just withdrew from a whole host of new international organizations. So then people are grasping what's gonna come next. If it's not the rules based order, how's global politics gonna work?
- [38:36]
Brooke Gladstone
Maybe this is paradoxically America first, but you call that a red herring too.
- [38:43]
Abe Newman
The closest thing the Trump administration gets to a security issue is something about drugs. But there again, like Trump just pardoned the former president of Honduras, who literally had a quote, my goal is to put drugs up the gringos noses. It's not a coherent policy. I mean, it's hard to think about what is the nation gonna get out of this or get out of acquiring Greenland. It would estrange us from one of our closest allies in NATO. That would not help us against China, it's not gonna help your average consumer. Similarly with the Venezuela case. There's a real concern that there'll be instability in Venezuela, which would result in, in more migration. So I don't see any clear America first objective.
- [39:30]
Brooke Gladstone
What about the oil?
- [39:32]
Abe Newman
All the reporting says the major oil companies, they were not driving this intervention. In fact, they were surprised when it.
- [39:39]
Brooke Gladstone
Happened and they weren't thrilled. They haven't committed to do anything yet.
- [39:43]
Abe Newman
No, the oil companies are quite cautious. You know, these are long term investments that would be quite expensive. And what's really crazy is the United States produces way more oil than, than Venezuela does. So it's not addressing some immediate concern economically for an America first consumer perspective.
- [40:01]
Brooke Gladstone
So who's the elite? Who wins if it isn't the oil companies?
- [40:05]
Abe Newman
Well, this is about court politics.
- [40:08]
Michael Loewinger
Paul Singer.
- [40:09]
Brooke Gladstone
This is Senator Ed Markey speaking.
- [40:11]
Michael Loewinger
One of the biggest contributors to Donald Trump and to Marco Rubio purchased Citgo, the American subsidiary of the Venezuelan state owned oil company, just two months ago for $6 billion, which now looks like a filing basement bargain.
- [40:30]
Abe Newman
You know, it's fortuitous timing for him because Citgo, they're one of the few people that can process this oil that comes out of Venezuela that is less easy to refine. The thing that's very interesting is like the amount of money that would come out of this in the short term in barrels of oil sold. It's not going to be a remarkable amount for the US consumer, but it is going to flow into the hands of the Trump administration and particularly Donald Trump. At least his truths that he's been putting out say he will control something like 50 million barrels of oil that the government will immediately give him at market price, it's over 2 billion. This oil is not as good as US oil, so maybe it's half that, that it's still about what a presidential campaign would cost. And so what our argument is is that everybody says, well, this doesn't make any sense because of the oil. Well, it doesn't make sense from a national interest stance. It definitely makes sense from the elite stance that Trump gets, maybe a slush fund that he can use as patronage to enrich his selected inner circle.
- [41:36]
Brooke Gladstone
And this brings us to your term neo royalism, which you say recalls Pre 16th century dynastic systems which weren't based on any international law, but on a nation's relationship to a monarch and his clique.
- [41:52]
Abe Newman
That's right. And you see that most clearly, I think, in the example of conflicts with India. There's this Remarkable fallout that happens in the fall between Trump and Modi. And at least the New York Times reporting it's about the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump wants Modi to recognize him as solving the conflict with Pakistan. But Modi, he's also a personalist ruler. He can't go home and say, oh, we have peace with Pakistan and Trump solved it. It would be the end of his career. And so Modi resists. And in response, Trump then slaps really unprecedented tariffs on India. It's another example of this creating status dominance in the international system, even when it can hurt economic relations, even when it hurts individuals. It's not about the citizens involved. It's about creating this kind of status differential and saying, if you won't recognize me, then you're going to be punished.
- [42:49]
Brooke Gladstone
But that's another head scratcher. Why is Trump so head up about the Nobel Peace Prize?
- [42:56]
Abe Newman
The system can't be legitimated through rules. This is a system based on exceptionalism. And, you know, the Nobel Peace Prize is a way for Trump to say, everybody recognizes me as this exceptional ruler. Trump goes to Korea and what does Korea give him as a symbol of friendship? They give him a crown. We should never underestimate the power of symbols and practices and norms to shape what we're doing. And I think that's what Trump is doing is he's changing what the practice of global politics is to shift us from, from this kind of rules based order to one that's neo royalism.
- [43:33]
Brooke Gladstone
So where do the tariffs fit in?
- [43:36]
Abe Newman
Basically, as a tithing mechanism, It's a way for Trump and the US Government to put demands on other countries and companies that they then have to figure out how to get out from under. How do they do that? They make concessions. They make either investment funds that get pledged to the US Government or companies do something to get exemptions. We don't know what Apple did to get its exemption from the semiconductor tariffs, but we do know that they're contributing to the Trump ballroom. The logic. It's not, let's create a new equilibrium for trade. The squeeze is the point.
- [44:17]
Brooke Gladstone
Trump and his ilk seem to embrace a certain gangster style. The FCC chief saying, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Practically anything. Pete Hegseth says swaggeringly about the use of power because America has it and might makes right. But the gangster metaphor also extends to policy. It's all about, hey, nice little country you got here. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
- [44:45]
Abe Newman
Trump is very selective in his coercion. He's not Very selective in his threats. So there are a lot of threats. And what he really wants is for actors to bend the knee. If you think about the tariff negotiations, countries are throwing investment deals at him, companies. Apple is putting a gold iPhone on his desk, the Swiss bring gold bars. He just has to use a little bit of coercion to get quite a lot of return. But the problem is most other actors, they're so used to living in this rules based international order, they don't know what to do. And what I'm worried about is that people will get normalized, that they'll start to just routinize how this kind of politics is gonna work. You had the Indonesian president, it was at a Gaza peace negotiation, caught on hot mic saying to Trump, oh, I'd like a meeting with Eric, Eric Trump. That is very concerning to me, this kind of complying. Before there's even a request we should.
- [45:46]
Brooke Gladstone
State that this kind of self dealing is against the law. It's just no one is doing anything about it.
- [45:54]
Abe Newman
I think one of the things that's difficult is there is the immunity decision for the President himself. So it's very unclear when it's about the President. But you also have a complicit Congress. One of the proposals floated recently is that the oil money from Venezuela would go into private bank accounts. It's just mind boggling to me, the idea that the treasury would not be holding that money and who are these banks? Which banks will benefit from being the salespeople of Venezuelan oil? And then Trump has said that he personally would control those pots of money.
- [46:32]
Brooke Gladstone
That's very kingly.
- [46:34]
Abe Newman
That is, it's like here you hear, you feel the treasure trove and then it will be dispersed as I see fit.
- [46:41]
Brooke Gladstone
It's nice to just have a phrase that we can use because we've all seen the self dealing. But as an arm of foreign policy, I don't think that people have put it together quite so pithily before.
- [46:54]
Abe Newman
Now I also do want to stress for the listeners that it's not just corruption or crony capitalism. This is a different system where resources are being channeled into this insider elite group. Nobody would say, oh, Catherine the Great was corrupt, it was just a different set of principles. That system worked on. When Qatar offered to give him a plane, Trump said, well, if somebody offered you a plane, wouldn't you take it?
- [47:28]
Brooke Gladstone
So this isn't about oil, this isn't about spheres of influence, this isn't about drugs. In this case, none of it is really about anything except enabling Trump to amass enough resources that he can reward his friends and punish his enemies.
- [47:48]
Abe Newman
Yeah, it's about power. You have to be able to name it, and then you have to mount an alternative. And that is both. Domestically. You had Chuck Schumer saying in response to that, the oil comments. Republicans should vote against this. And no, there needs to be a different vision. What is the vision for the US and the world that people can get behind. And then at the same time, globally, other actors have to stop debasing themselves to this logic. So whether that's the Swiss gold bars or the Korean crown, they need to offer an alternative as well. Europe, for example, for so long has just stood in the shadows of the United States. It's deferred, but it needs to put something on offer and say, okay, we believe in this. The US can join us in openness, trade, equal rights amongst states, or if it wants to go its own way, we'll wait until it's ready to play. But this idea that it needs to waffle and just, like, minimize its losses, well, that leads everybody else in the world just fending for themselves.
- [48:55]
Brooke Gladstone
With a flick of his pen, Trump can tariff them into an unstable situation at home. Can Europe afford not to waffle?
- [49:06]
Abe Newman
Whether it's Europe or countries like China, they both have a lot to lose from this world. But a difference between the two cases is China has basically said, look, we're not going to accept open bullying without saying there's going to be a cost involved. Europe has basically resisted that. And the result, unfortunately, Europe could then end up as a vassal, that they just take everything that Trump asks for, whether that's tariffs or Greenland.
- [49:36]
Brooke Gladstone
Abe, thank you very much.
- [49:38]
Abe Newman
Thanks, Brooke. This was such a great conversation.
- [49:41]
Brooke Gladstone
Abe Newman is a political scientist and professor at Georgetown University and author of the book Underground How America Weaponized the World Economy.
- [49:53]
Michael Loewinger
That's it for this week's show. On the Media is produced by Molly Rosen, Rebecca Clark Callender, and Candace Wong. Travis Mannon is our video producer.
- [50:02]
Brooke Gladstone
Our technical director is Jennifer Munson with engineering from Jared Paul. Eloise Blondio is our senior producer, and our executive producer is Katya Rogers. On the Media is a production of wnyc. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
- [50:17]
Michael Loewinger
And I'm Michael Lowminger.