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Lisa Booth
Welcome to the Truth with Lisa Booth, where we get to the heart of the issues that matter to you. President Trump addressed the nation this week and there were rumors ahead of the time that he might be announcing a war against Venezuela. So we're going to talk to Daniel DiMartino. He is an economist and he's also a Venezuelan exile who fled socialism's devastation. He's the founder of the Dissident Project and a Manhattan Institute fellow. We're going to talk about President Trump's tough stance on the Maduro regime. We're also going to talk about what Venezuela was like, its collapse, what Daniel saw personally. And we're going to talk about President Trump's attacks on the narco terrorists as well. Are they justified? Why is he doing it? What do you need to know? Also, what parallels does he see between people like Zoran Mamdani in New York City or AOC with Maduro, and what he has seen in Venezuela as well. So all of that and more with Daniel DiMartino. Stay tuned. Well, Daniel, it's great to have you on the show. I was looking for someone to talk about all this Venezuela stuff and President Trump's posture toward Venezuela, and you were recommended to me. So appreciate you making the time and I'm looking forward to getting your insight into all of this.
Daniel DiMartino
Of course, I love to to talk about this.
Lisa Booth
So, Daniel, I wanted to start off because obviously President Trump addressed the nation last night and there were some rumors before that he would be announcing going to war against Venezuela. Obviously, he has taken a very tough posture with going after the narco terrorists. Do you foresee a war or why do you think he's sort of taken such a hard line approach to some of these narco terrorists and then also just, you know, putting the screws to the Maduro regime?
Daniel DiMartino
Well, first it's important to know that there, there's no way there can be a war properly because Venezuela doesn't have a functioning military nor the capacity to fight back in any way, which is why they haven't fought back at all with what President Trump has done so far. And I think the reason the President cares so much about this, and he has for a very long time, he did in his first term too, but he and allowed to do all the things that he's doing now, is that Venezuela checks off a lot of the boxes of the priorities of the administration. Number one, they are the reason for a lot of the border crisis because of the Venezuelan illegal immigration, but also because Venezuela destabilized all the other countries in Latin America that led to illegal immigration. Two, the drug issue. Venezuela is the main source for the cocaine that gets to the U.S. it's not that it's produced in Venezuela, but the Venezuelan regime uses its own resources, planes, trucks, boats to take the drug into the US market and they collaborate with the Mexican cartels to do that. And then three, Venezuela is the country with the largest oil reserves in the world. And because the socialist regime destroyed the oil industry, Venezuela now produces millions of barrels less than it used to. So every single American is paying more at the gas pump because Venezuela is a socialist country today.
Lisa Booth
Very interesting. So, so you think in terms of like these narco terrorist attacks, do you view them as justified? Obviously they've gotten a lot of attention and in fact was part of the basis of those democrat lawmakers essentially calling on the military to break, break ranks and you know, to not listen to the chain of compan. More or less.
Daniel DiMartino
Well, no, look, I, I think it's just, I think it's totally justified. I think a lot of people, you know, especially on the democrat side, they're trying to promote this conspiracy that, you know, it's all fake. And Venezuela is not actually involved in drug trafficking or terrorism. And it is. Look, the reason the Venezuelan regime traffics drugs is because they have no other source of income anymore after they destroyed the oil. And so, you know, drugs are not government owned. It's a private sector, so it actually works. And so they, the military of the Venezuelan regime, they actually are the drug traffickers. So the government itself is a cartel. It's the cartel of the Suns. The name comes from the Suns in The ranks that they get as generals. That's why that's their name. And they collaborate with Hezbollah, they collaborate with Russia, with Iran. You know, the oil actually, that, the little oil that Venezuela does export, it mostly goes to Iran and China on these sanctioned vessels that President Trump is now boarding, which is great, right? Because it's essentially a blockade of all the resources of Maduro. For first they're going after the drugs, right? You can't bring the drugs now by sea because they're bombing them. And next they're going after the oil tankers. So now they can't even export oil, so they're eventually going to run out of money.
Lisa Booth
How much of going after Venezuela is also, you know, countering enemy nations like Iran or Russia?
Daniel DiMartino
I think it's a lot. And also China, remember, most of the oil goes to Iran and China. Iran doesn't need it for itself, but it refines it and sends it elsewhere, but it mostly ends up in China. So you're really reducing China's oil supply at the same time you are countering the source of drugs for the U.S. so it's. You're hitting so many birds with one stone, which is why I think President Trump really is attracted to this.
Lisa Booth
You know, how, how tied, you know, we look at, you know, President Trump has accused Venezuela of emptying their jails and sending those individuals to the United States, which we've already seen has had a big destabilizing impact on the country. Um, how. Well, first of all, talk about that, and then also, how tied is Trente Oaga tied to the Maduro regime, or what's the first kind of address? The release of the jail. The jails and then the ties between that gang and the Maduro regime.
Daniel DiMartino
Yeah, I, I wouldn't say they released people from the jails, it's just that people don't go to jail.
Lisa Booth
Got it.
Daniel DiMartino
I mean, why, why do you think Venezuela is a dangerous country? It's because criminals aren't arrested. Right. If people went to jails, Venezuela wouldn't be dangerous. It's kind of like, why, why do you think there's crime in blue? Because the criminals aren't imprisoned.
Lisa Booth
I was gonna say that sounds familiar.
Daniel DiMartino
You know, and it's very interesting. It's the Venezuelan form of socialism, I would say, is the most similar to the one promoted here. It's like a third worldish socialism. @ least in the Soviet Union, the criminals went to prison. In Venezuela, they never did since Chavez came. So. But Trendaragua was formed by the few people who did go to prison, who then ended up running the prisons. You see this woman who is a minister in Maduro's government, her name is Iris Varela. She was the minister of prisons for a very long time under Chavez and then she stayed under Maduro. And she's essentially a thug like all the other members of the regime, but this one is a prison thug. And she allowed the jails and this criminal organization to foster so that they can then use them to terrorize the population. So they use the gangs to say that when there's a protest against the government, the gangs go after the protesters and kill them, kidnap them, terrorize them so that they don't say, oh, that's not the police, that's a criminal gang. But then the criminal gangs were using Russian weapons that only a military can purchase. So the Venezuelan government was arming the gangs on purpose with military grade weapons. And then eventually these gangs obviously want to make money. They're profit maximizing enterprises. They are not, I wouldn't say they terrorize people just for sadism at all. It's a very different type of crime than what you see in the us. They just really want money. They will extort you, they will rob you, but they won't kill you just for killing you. And so they ran out of money to steal in Venezuela because Venezuela was destroyed economically by, by the government policies. And so they went to Colombia, they went to Peru, they went to Chile, to Brazil to rob more money. Eventually they ended up in the US because that's where the money is. They knew that they could steal, shoplift, you know, create these shoplifting gangs in New York City and other blue cities where they knew they wouldn't be put to prison. And so that's what they did. It just made a lot of sense. Then the Maduro regime used trend Aragua bribing them, paying them to also go after political opponents. So that's how you saw the assassination of a Venezuelan general dissident in Chile, by trend gangsters that the Chilean government itself, which is by the way, until this past election under socialist control, they themselves said, yes, it was tender agua paid for by the majority regime who killed these.
Lisa Booth
Men. Do you see parallels with the way the left uses like Antifa or Black Lives Matter or these Palestinian protesters in the same way where it's like, you know, they're not like directly endorsed by the left, but they're kind of like they're street thugs to a certain.
Daniel DiMartino
Degree. That's such a good point. Well, it's not. I wouldn't say it's a parallel. I would say it's even more direct. So many of these far left groups that are here in America, I'll give you one example, the People's Forum in New York City, they were one of the main organizers of the pro Hamas occupation at Columbia University. Their president who was arrested in this pro Hamas occupation is a man named Manolo de los Santos. You can Google him. Manolo is originally from the Dominican Republic and he's a very close friend of Maduro himself. He went to Venezuela last year to celebrate the rigged election. I'd been to their HQ in Manhattan and they fly the flag of North Korea, they flagged the flag of the CCP of Venezuela. They have a picture of Che Guevara, of Castro, of Mao Zedong, of Kim Jonoun. I mean, these are radical communists, right? These are people who would take all our property and send us to concentration camps. And they are the ones promoting all of the pro Hamas protests. They're the ones promoting all the climate activism. All of these issues are just tools for them to advance their true goal, which is to create a socialist government in America. Right? These are the people who are advising Siramdani. These are the people who are part of the democratic socialists of America. And they view climate, they view Palestine, they view the Black Lives Matter, whose founders, by the way, also know Maduro for many years. They view it as just tools to divide the population and gain.
Lisa Booth
Power. You know, and this all obviously resonates with you because you were up in Venezuela and you fled Venezuela and you saw the fall of Venezuela. Walk us through what you saw and how socialism's destroyed once Latin America's wealthiest.
Daniel DiMartino
Nation. Yeah, you know, my, my story is very, I would say average, meaning I was in a middle class family. You know, we had a car. I, you know, I went to a school. We had, you know, our own home that we lived in an apartment in Caracas and we used to have electricity and water and normal things, right, that most people would have watch TV and then suddenly, oh, there's no water or so for one day and then for several days and then there's no electricity. So you have to carry up the jugs of water, up the stairs five floors or then, you know, you have to line up for food. I remember, you know, when I was in high school, some of the teachers would dismiss class in the middle of class because they would get a text from their friend that works at the grocery store next door that chicken or toilet paper or flour had just arrived. So they had to go line up as quickly as possible to get there first. They had the insider knowledge that the truck just arrived. The rationing system got so sophisticated that because we were not like Cuba, right, Socialism got there. Decades later, we had more technology. And so the Maduro regime put fingerprint machines in the grocery stores where when you went to the cashier to pay, you had to scan your fingerprint in a machine so that the cashier would see whether your quota covered the items that you were purchasing. It's very dystopian. This is worse than 1984, right? And that became my daily life, right? And so I saw that happen all just in my lifetime as a.
Lisa Booth
Teenager. So after seeing that and then coming to the United States and now sort of on the left, there's like this open embrace of socialism where people have sort of become desensitized to the term, like it's. It's losing its toxicity. Right. So why do you think that's happening? And why are people susceptible to the idea of.
Daniel DiMartino
Socialism? Well, that's such a good question on why people are susceptible. Because clearly people have been susceptible to socialism in every culture, in every, you know, for. For so long, right. In the world. It's almost like it's a natural human impulse. And that's why I think, you know, the source of socialism is actually sin. It's envy. It's that the rich are rich because the poor are poor. So I want to pun those people. It's not that I want to lift up the poor. It's that I also want to punish the rich on purpose, even if that doesn't benefit me. And that comes from envy. And, you know, envy is a natural human feeling. It's a. That's why it's a capital sin. And it's something that we must fight if or otherwise you're going to get a lot of bad outcomes. Every ideology that comes from that is very poisonous. So I think that that's the source. What Venezuela proved, though, that is very important for us here is that socialism can come democratically not just through a revolution. In Cuba, we had socialism because of a violent revolution in the USSR too, in China as well. In Eastern Europe, they were invaded and imposed by the Soviet Union. In Venezuela, people were deceived into voting for socialism. And then they got into power and they never left, even when the people wanted them out. That's the goal of the democratic socialists in the United States. And the fact that people have been desensitized, it's obviously been part of an agenda because of college campuses. Right. I think it's also been the fault of, you know, Republicans calling everybody who they didn't like a socialist when they weren't. That doesn't help. It's kind of like when the left called all the Republicans racists and then nobody believes when they're actual racists, you know, in some debate or whatever. And so it's been also our fault, I think. And so our job is to educate people.
Lisa Booth
Better. Quick break. Stay with us. If you like what you're hearing, please share on social media or send it to your family and.
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Daniel DiMartino
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Lisa Booth
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Daniel DiMartino
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Lisa Booth
Today. You know, it's interesting because when you talk about envy, you know, the irony of all this is, is the individuals pushing socialism want wealth themselves, right? And so like that's what inevitably happens is these people subjugate everyone else, but then they become wealthy. Their, you know, friends and family, well connected people become wealthy. And like Maduro's rich, right? But the rest of society poor. And you look at like Bernie Sanders, sells books, makes millions of dollars, has different homes, like flies, private, right? Like, or AOC wants to go to the Met gala. Or you look at yo Momdani is probably going to find ways to build wealth, right? So it's like, it's like they all want to be rich. So it's like they don't really hate the rich and they don't really hate billionaires. To your point, with envy, like they want to be.
Daniel DiMartino
Them. Yes, I think that's, that's interesting. Yes, they do want to be rich, but they do hate the people who are currently rich. You know, I see so many parallels between this resentment. In Venezuela, there's a woman who the New York Times recently profiled. The New York Times has been carrying the water for Maduro for a very long time, just like many socialist regimes throughout history. But her name is Delsey Rodriguez. She's one of the vice presidents and she's obviously one of Venezuela's richest women. Her brother is like the president of Congress. Like, they're all plugged in. Her and her brother are actually the sons of a very famous Marxist terrorist in Venezuela that got killed in the 70s because she kidnapped an American executive and then the police caught him and killed him back when Venezuela was democratic. And these kids grew up with a lot of resentment. They became Marxists like their father. And now they supplanted the elite. Now they are the elite. The Supreme Court president, until recently in Venezuela, was a convicted murderer. The criminals will become the law enforcement. The parasites will become the rich. The workers will become the owners. Right. You just flip everything up. That's their goal, and I think that's their goal here too. See who's advising? Sorry, Mamdani now for the nypd. Somebody who was a violent criminal himself. You know, what job did Mamdani have before being mayor? No, no job. He never had a private sector job. And it's the same story for all these.
Lisa Booth
People. That's very interesting. So then how do you counter it from a messaging standpoint? Because, you know, we're seeing socialism being embraced more, especially by younger generations. The idea of free things, the idea of, you know, the government handouts, the idea of, you know, street, particularly when people are struggling financially, you know, it sounds good on its face. Right? They don't dig deeper. So, like, how do you counteract that.
Daniel DiMartino
Messaging? Well, one of the ways, I think, is faith. I think that's important. I think we need that. That's part of what I think the pastors and the priests and faith leaders need to. Need to do. The Catholic Church has been very clear from, you know, well over a hundred years ago that socialism is incompatible with Christianity. And that's all written in Catholic social teaching, in many papal encyclicals. I know there's. But other than faith, I would say conservatives are doing a good job in taking back academia where all these conservative centers that red states are opening in state universities. I think that's a very good step. Another good step is that we need to do it in K through 12. Both Turning Point and YAF Young America's foundation have been doing that. I speak for YAF Young America's foundation, and I travel to high schools, colleges, to tell my story. There's other speakers that do that, and I would say the other one is in the family. I think a lot of conservatives find that their children end up becoming liberals. And I don't mean just liberals. I mean very radical Right. I mean, they're taken over by trans ideology, by Black Lives Matter, by all these things in colleges. And I think that's a failure of the parents, to be very honest and think about it. This even happened to Ronald Reagan himself. Ronald Reagan's children, all but Michael became very far left. That was a failure, I think, on the family part. And I think that means that parents need to be better at teaching their kids about this. Meaning, you know, you have to expose them from a young age about what America is, why this is a great country, what made it great, which is its freedom. Right. If America stopped being a free country, it would stop being a great country. And a lot of people refuse to, I think, teach their kids about that. I know it's an effort that you have to do because the left is making a big effort to indoctrinate them through social media, through so many things. And if we don't make an equal or greater effort, we're gonna lose them. And they know it. Right. Because the left doesn't have children. The Institute for Family Studies found this, that the average liberal couple has approximately half a child, on average less than the average conservative couple. So they know that their only path is indoctrination. But that means that for us, the job is easier. We just need to continue passing down our.
Lisa Booth
Ideas. That's a really good point. And then before we go, what do you think the future holds for the Maduro.
Daniel DiMartino
Regime? Well, I think it all depends on what President Trump decides to do at the end. If he continues taking the oil tankers, if he continues closing down on the narco trafficking, I think the money's gonna run out, and that's a great thing. But Maduro is never gonna leave power unless he feels his life is threatened. And so unless President Trump can find a way to threaten the life of Maduro himself or other top leaders of the regime, either with the land strikes that he suggested or the CIA operations that he said that he's begun. The goal of Maduro is going to be to outlast Trump, really. Maduro is just on lockdown mode until January 2029, hoping that under the next president, everything will be lifted and the Maduro will be able to rule forever. And I think President Trump now has to show that he can do more than that and think about what he has to gain. Right. Or what all of us have to gain. If Venezuela were to become a free country, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans would go back to their country. So that's great. Oil would start coming to the United States instead of drugs, another great thing. And more importantly, Venezuela would stop destabilizing other countries in the region. Colombia right now is ruled by a former guerrilla Marxist member because Maduro financed his campaign. Gustavo Petro Maduro is the one that's funding Nicaragua, another country that's an enemy. It's the one that's sending free oil to Cuba. This tankers that Trump is seizing were headed to Cuba to give them the oil for free so that Cuba could resell it and then continue funding their oppression, their migration, everything else. So really Venezuela right now is the head of the snake. And if President Trump can cut that off, there will be so many other positive things that come down the.
Lisa Booth
Line. Very interesting stuff. Daniel, we appreciate you sharing your insight and your story with us. Thank you very.
Daniel DiMartino
Much. Thanks.
Lisa Booth
Lisa. That was Daniel DiMartino. Appreciate him for taking the time to come on the show. Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week. Also want to thank John Cassio, my producer, for putting the show.
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Daniel DiMartino
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Date: December 18, 2025
Host: Lisa Boothe
Guest: Daniel DiMartino (Economist, Manhattan Institute Fellow, Venezuelan exile, Founder of the Dissident Project)
In this episode, Lisa Boothe sits down with Daniel DiMartino, an economist and Venezuelan exile, to discuss the ongoing crisis in Venezuela and its broader implications for the United States. The conversation centers on President Trump's tough stance against the Maduro regime and Venezuelan narco-terrorist networks, the collapse of socialism in Venezuela, and the alarming parallels DiMartino sees between far-left activism in the U.S. and the tactics that destroyed Venezuelan society. DiMartino offers a stark warning for America, emphasizing the dangers of socialism and the manipulation of activist groups, while providing personal stories from Venezuela's collapse.
[03:20–06:26]
“There’s no way there can be a war properly because Venezuela doesn’t have a functioning military nor the capacity to fight back in any way..." — Daniel DiMartino [05:09]
[06:26–08:04]
“I think it’s totally justified... the military of the Venezuelan regime, they actually are the drug traffickers. So the government itself is a cartel.” — Daniel DiMartino [06:47]
[08:36–11:47]
[11:47–13:30]
“These are radical communists... they are the ones promoting all the pro Hamas protests. They’re the ones promoting all the climate activism. All of these issues are just tools for them to advance their goal: to create a socialist government in America.” — Daniel DiMartino [12:05]
[13:30–15:18]
“The rationing system got so sophisticated... the cashier would see whether your quota covered the items you were purchasing. It’s very dystopian. This is worse than 1984.” — Daniel DiMartino [14:33]
[15:18–17:24]
"What Venezuela proved... is that socialism can come democratically, not just through a revolution... In Venezuela, people were deceived into voting for socialism. And then they got into power and never left." — Daniel DiMartino [16:33]
[20:45–22:59]
[22:59–25:38]
"If America stopped being a free country, it would stop being a great country." — Daniel DiMartino [24:42]
[25:38–27:24]
“Venezuela right now is the head of the snake. And if President Trump can cut that off, there will be so many other positive things...” — Daniel DiMartino [27:18]
“There’s no way there can be a war properly because Venezuela doesn’t have a functioning military nor the capacity to fight back in any way...”
— Daniel DiMartino [05:09]
"The government itself is a cartel. It’s the cartel of the Suns.”
— Daniel DiMartino [06:51]
“These are radical communists... These are people who would take all our property and send us to concentration camps. And they are the ones promoting all of the pro Hamas protests.”
— Daniel DiMartino [12:10]
“It’s very dystopian. This is worse than 1984.”
— Daniel DiMartino [14:33]
“Socialism can come democratically, not just through a revolution… In Venezuela, people were deceived into voting for socialism. And then they got into power and they never left.”
— Daniel DiMartino [16:33]
“If America stopped being a free country, it would stop being a great country.”
— Daniel DiMartino [24:42]
"Venezuela right now is the head of the snake. And if President Trump can cut that off, there will be so many other positive things...”
— Daniel DiMartino [27:18]
This episode delivers a stark warning about the dangers of socialism—drawn directly from Venezuela’s experience—and draws bold parallels to U.S. political and activist trends. Daniel DiMartino delivers firsthand testimony of Venezuela’s fall, the reality behind narco-terrorism claims, and strategic insights into both fighting the Maduro regime and countering the allure of socialism in America. The conversation is urgent, detailed, and intended as both a warning and a call to action for American listeners.