Liberty + Leadership
TFAS has reached 53,000 students and professionals through their academic programs, fellowships and seminars. Representing more than 140 countries, TFAS alumni are courageous leaders throughout the world – forging careers in politics, government, public policy, business, philanthropy, law and the media. Join TFAS President, Roger Ream, as he reconnects with these outstanding alumni to share experiences, swap career stories, and find out what makes their leadership journey unique. The Liberty and Leadership podcast is produced at Podville Media in Washington, D.C. If you have a comment or question for the show, please drop us an email at podcast@TFAS.org.
Liberty + Leadership
Venezuela’s Path Back to Liberty
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Roger welcomes Andrés Guilarte, vice president of opinion research at Eyes Over US and Stratus Intelligence and a former TFAS outreach fellow. Guilarte reflects on growing up under Venezuela’s socialist regime, his journey to the U.S. after facing political persecution, and his work raising awareness about the consequences of authoritarian rule.
They discuss the U.S.-led efforts to pressure Nicolás Maduro’s regime, the regional implications for Latin America and the challenges of rebuilding democratic institutions after decades of authoritarian rule. Guilarte explains the role of opposition leader María Corina Machado, the slow process of releasing political prisoners, and the continued influence of the military. He also recounts his travels across the country as a TFAS outreach fellow, sharing his firsthand experience with socialism, educating students about its real-world consequences, and addressing common misconceptions he encountered from young Americans who believe it could be implemented differently in the United States.
The Liberty + Leadership Podcast is hosted by TFAS president Roger Ream and produced by Podville Media. If you have a comment or question for the show, please email us at podcast@TFAS.org. To support TFAS and its mission, please visit TFAS.org/support.
Welcome to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast, a conversation with TFAS alumni, faculty, and friends who are making an impact today. I'm your host, Roger Reen. I'm excited to welcome Andreas Guilarte to Liberty and Leadership. He is the vice president of opinion research at Eyes Over US and Stratus Intelligence. Andreas grew up in Venezuela while Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro were in power. He studied international relations at the Central University of Venezuela, where he served as student government president. After facing intense political persecution, Andreas immigrated to the U.S., where he became an intern at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., and then became a TFAS Outreach Fellow. As a fellow, Andreas traveled across the nation, sharing his personal story and raising awareness about the dangers of socialism. Andreas then went on to work with Students for Liberty and then interned in the U.S. House of Representatives. He then began his career in polling and analytics at WPA Intelligence, a firm founded by TFAS alumnus Christopher Wilson. Andreas, welcome to the show. Thank you, Roger. It's a pleasure always to be with you. Well, it's great to see you again. You did great work for us traveling the country during those COVID years, getting to audiences where you could, doing radio and writing op-eds about really a warning to young Americans about the experience of your native country of Venezuela. And now a day I know you no doubt have dreamed about has finally arrived. Nicholas Maduro was removed from power. What were your emotions when you heard the news that surprised me that the US had captured Maduro and his wife and brought them to the Brooklyn Detention Center?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think that, as probably every Venezuelan, we were not expecting it to happen in reality, right? We have to remember, last year we were under months of pressure where we saw that the US military building a collision in the Caribbean, right? So there was an expectation that something might happen at some point. And eventually it happened on the evening of January 3rd, right? So I was in the middle of moving to my new place in New Jersey, and I was in a bedroom. And my friend that was helping me, he was bringing the door down, saying, like, hey, they're bombing Caracas. And I'm like, eh, that's not happening. You know, stop saying. Because in Venezuela, there's always a joke, the Marines are coming, something is gonna happen. And this is a joke happening for many, many years. And he's about to bring the door down, like, hey, this is actually happening. So I'm like, all right, let me see the phone. And I start seeing videos on social media, all the WhatsApp group of my family and friends, like, hey, there's something happening. And over the last, the next day or two, I we didn't sleep. And basically most Venezuelans didn't, because the history changed, not only in Venezuela, Latin America, the region, and probably the world, in how the US conducted this operation from the military perspective, but also it's a whole turning point in what the future is going to look like for Venezuela moving forward.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, one of the implications for the rest of the region, I guess, is now there's a little bit more of a focus on whether we might see change in Cuba. And I understand the U.S. military took out a number of Cuban officials who were there to protect Maduro and seemed to do so fairly easily. But does this send a broader signal outside of Venezuela to neighboring countries into the region?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely. And we already seen the repercussions of that. For example, not only that the US had the situation with Venezuela, it also had the situation with Colombia, Colombia's president, which was just yesterday here in the US, visiting the White House with Trump. We have to remember that he had a beef with Trump in social media and everything, Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia. And as soon as the situation happened in Venezuela on January 3rd, that president changed his whole strategy and his whole narrative against the US. And now he just came to the US yesterday to visit Trump. And he had even on social media the pictures of the book that Trump gave him and the signature, like, you know, boosting that he had that meeting. So that's one of the main consequences that we have seen that some of the presidents in the region have realized that the US is not joking around. The US meant what he said, that we were going to do something in Venezuela. And the next step, not only the what he's predicted, but the President Trump has said that recently. Even Marco Rubio has said it, the Secretary of State, that Cuba is the next step. So is that gonna be in the form of another military operation? We don't know. Is that gonna be the form of a deal? That seems to be the case so far. There's some news and reporting going around that there is some deal happening between the leadership in Cuba and the US government. But it's definitely one of the main takeaways from what happened in Venezuela is that the leaders in Venezuela were really directly from Cuba. Hugo Chavez was directed from Cuba with Fidel Castro, Maduro as well. They were both formed in Cuba as well, as many, many, many leaders in Venezuela from the regime. You can't separate the two countries out of itself. Is this going to finally bring freedom to Cuba? Not sure, but hopefully it will.
SPEAKER_01:Now, what about for Venezuela? I want to ask you a little bit about whether this will finally bring freedom to Venezuela. Venezuela was the richest country, I think, in South America a few decades back. It was a surprise to many people, I think, that Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro's number two, is now the president or the acting president of the country. The military certainly has not been reformed and probably has a lot of the power there. But what do you expect in the short term for Venezuela now?
SPEAKER_00:Right. And we would like to call Delcy as the serving president because she's serving President Trump. She's there because President Trump wants her to be there. And that's what we have to really do. Is that a mistake? Is that the right thing to do? I don't think it's a mistake. I think that, and that's what the next point was going to be is that she is there because Trump wants. And tomorrow, she probably is not going to be there if President Trump doesn't want her to be there. Just like Trump one day from Maduro from one way to another was not there. And that's the main takeaway here. That the way Trump usually refers to is the leadership of Venezuela. Sometimes call her the interim president, sometimes call her differently. He said that they had a great relationship. And that's what we have to understand: that whatever relationship is happening between the US government and the interim leaders in Venezuela right now with under Desol Rodriguez is really whatever the White House is saying them to do. We already see the consequence of that. They're changing the law regarding the oil industry in Venezuela to allow for more foreign companies to invest in Venezuela. That was one of the main goals from President Trump. They have already started to slowly release political prisoners. One of the main subjects that, at least from the opposition, has been the main flag here that we have to release these people that have been under terrible torture that you can only see in the movies, the kind of horrors that these people have gone through. And let's remember, just a cave that here. Political prisoners are not only like the leaders of a party. We're talking about students that are in prison right now. We're talking about moms. You know, we're talking about old people. So it's people from all over society that are currently under the worst conditions and they're slowly starting to be released. Some of my friends had been released already that I know that I went to school with. So those small victories is what eventually is going to lead us to freedom. I know that myself included, many of Venezuelans, after January 3rd, we wanted the next day to be Maria Corina Machado, the president, right? And we want everything to be different already. We have to understand, it's been 25 plus years of a dictatorship. You don't erase that from one day to another. You make a great point. We still have the same military. Only two people were released from Venezuela, Maduro and his wife. We still have the main structure of the military. There is over thousands of captains and members of the leadership of the military that are still there. So that's not something that you do from one day to another. And I'm pretty sure that the administration here in the US knows that and they know it has to be a gradual process. So we have to be patient, and more importantly, we have to trust the main decision drivers here: President Trump, Marco Rubio, the US administration, Maria Corina Machado, because she's also insane, telling the administration, you know, her opinions and what has to be done. The process is gonna get there, and we're eventually gonna get to freedom. And it's undeniable that we already make some process towards that.
SPEAKER_01:Now, Maria Corina Machado, for people who don't know, she ran for president and got about 70% of the popular vote. Of course, Maduro didn't leave power, he stayed as president.
SPEAKER_00:It was actually more way more complicated than that. Yeah. That's one of the things that is hard to understand outside Venezuela, is that we also had primaries like you have in the US. So Maria Corina Machado ran in the primaries against all the other opposition leaders, and she won single-handedly, like a landslide. And then when she started to run for the general election against Maduro, she was not allowed to run. She chose another lady to run for her, and they also didn't allow the lady to run. Eventually, Edmundo González Urrutia, he was the selected to run against Maduro. He won the election over a third of the popular vote. That was not accepted by the government. They never recognized the election. They never publicly released the tallies of the election, but the opposition did their homework, and we actually got all the tallies from every single prison and every single voting table in Venezuela. So we know who won. That's what one of the main reasons why all of this happened, because Baduro was illegitimate. He never actually won the elections. So that's what bringed Machado to eventually be the leader of not only the opposition, but really from Venezuela. And then she won the Nobel Peace Prize this year.
SPEAKER_01:Well, last year.
SPEAKER_00:Which is a very contentious situation in the US because Trump Trump won it that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, she ended up presenting it to President Trump at the White House recently. A very important and very smart decision from her. Yeah, but she is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. And do you think she, you know, you said she's able to offer advice to President Trump. So she's still going to be an influential person in the path ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Not only we hope that she is, we know she is, because the meeting that she had with President Trump, what everything that we know from the reporters and everything that we know from the people that were there is that Trump gave her his personal phone number. So she has his phone number. And it was in the middle of that, Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, she would she said, like, hey, here's my phone number. And President Trump said, No, let her have my phone number. So President Trump doesn't make those kind of comments without anything, right? So she has a direct line with the president to show her whatever she has to say. So she obviously that can be very good, can also be very bad, right? You can't tell Trump the wrong thing. But we trust that Maria Corina Machado has the, you know, she has the leadership, the knowledge, and the wisdom to know what to say at the right time. So we can bring this change as fast as we can, because there is many things going around, Roger, here is that there's also midterms in the US later this year. And that can change power in Washington, DC, which can also influence not only Venezuela, but many of the focal points that the US is trying to do overseas. So eventually we would like to see this change, whatever is happening on the three phases that Marco Rubio presented stabilization, recovery, and transition, at least to happen before the midterm is possible. And is Machado in Venezuela now? No, she's traveling around the US and she's probably gonna have more traveling around the world. But can she did effectively return to Venezuela? Yeah, she said she has stated several times that she would like to go to Venezuela as soon as possible.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Mainly because she recognizes that she needs to be with the people in Venezuela, right? One of the main, if you want to say, issues right now in Venezuela is that there is not a clear leadership in the ground. Because we had Machado outside, we had Elmundo, the one the guy that actually won the elections outside, many, many political prisoners and exiles outside. So she wants to go back, but maybe right now is not the time. One final comment on that is that I do foresee that at some point President Trump is gonna force Machado and Rodriguez to sit down and shake hands, at least for the visual of seeing that there's gonna be a moving forward path here for Venezuelans. Because we like it or not, there is a very small percentage of the population in Venezuela, at least for the elections, less than 10%, that is actually committed Chavistas with the regime. We might have to sit down with those people eventually. And if there is leadership here in the US and Trump President Trump wants us to sit with them, we have to, because at the end of the day, the people that took Maduro out were Americans that entered Venezuela. And Americans are right now the ones deciding the future of Venezuela.
SPEAKER_01:And uh what's the population of Venezuela and what percentage now have gone into exile and live outside the country?
SPEAKER_00:Well, back in the day we're talking about if you take every Venezuelan, right? We're talking close to 36 million Venezuelans. That's everyone, inside and outside. When we were doing the speaking engagements for Tifas around the country, I keep telling people that we have left over six million Venezuelans. That was four years ago. Yeah. Right now we're talking there's over 8 million Venezuelans that have left the country. And that's always like a number that keeps going around because there's not official sometimes number from some countries. Most of them go to Colombia because it's a neighbor country. Some of them go to Chile, Peru. There is close to 1 million here in the US, across the region, mostly all is obviously in Florida, especially Miami. And that's a lot of population, right? So there is the expectation that once we get to a point that both Venezuelans and Americans can go, because let's not forget the State Department still has the risk level that Americans should not travel to Venezuelans, right? So imagine just a percentage of those eight million going back, half. That's four million people going back to Venezuela to work in every single level of industry, and that's is gonna drive change. Because every one of us that believe in free markets, we know that the main important thing in free markets is are humans. So humans is what actually bring prosperity and free markets. So if those people come back to Venezuela and the ones in Venezuela have actual access to markets, to capital and to labor that is not corrupted and that is not imposed by the regime, that's where we're gonna see the real change in Venezuela.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you've got, of course, among the world's most oil reserves. I think production's plummeted to about a third of what it used to be before Chavez and Maduro. There's this idea that this oil industry can be restored and we can get American companies to invest in drilling, and the production can help us offset what Russia's getting for selling its oil. So there's a bigger geopolitical game going on here. But how do you see all that playing out? And especially in terms of the US, are we are we there to restore democracy and rule of law? And or do you think our interests are gonna be swayed too much toward just maximizing oil revenue or oil production?
SPEAKER_00:Well, they're undeniable, one tied to the other. Because one of the main elements that uh Maduro regime and Chavez used to control the population was using their revenue from oil to exercise basically a clientelism in Venezuela, right? So the way that they created every single social program, the way that they told you that if you don't vote for us, you're not gonna get your box of food, you're not gonna get this. It all came from revenue from oil. And also there is revenue from illegal activities. You know, there is a lot of drug net trafficking, illegal gold mining, and other activities that they do. And also they allow, like you mentioned, foreign adversaries of the US to operate inside Venezuela. We know that there is a presence of Hezbollah. We know there is a presence of Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. So, but the main, main economic focal point in Venezuela is oil. It has been for over a century in Venezuela. So is the US just trying to have free elections in Venezuela? Then the next question we should actually ask ourselves is: are free elections the tool to really rebuild the old industry? Should we have the old industry rebuilt first and make sure that that revenue doesn't run through the main party, doesn't run to directly through the state and go to nefarious organizations around the world, and then we make free elections? I think the right path is happening right now with the President Trump. That it doesn't matter if right now it's Delcy Rodriguez or tomorrow is Diosdado Cabello or tomorrow is someone else, whoever is in power is taking orders from Washington because they know that the military buildup is still in the Caribbean. The forces that took Maduro out are still there, waiting for something, someone to make a mistake and then go and do it again. And they know that that is going to happen. That's why you see Del C is releasing prisoners, changing the oil industry. I'll saying Del C has said that that if they want to come back, some political prisoners from the outside exiles to come back to Venezuela, they are gonna be welcome. And it's only has been one month, Roger, that we have seen so much change. So I do think that the oil industry has to be rebuilt. The US doesn't really need just oil, Venezuelan oil, because the US is one of the main oil producers in the world. But we have the biggest oil reserves in Venezuela. So the future for the US and the region is going to pass through Venezuela. So the US, like you mentioned, doesn't have to depend on Russia, doesn't have to depend on Saudi Arabia, doesn't have to depend on the Middle Eastern. They know that they have Venezuela there to build that up. And for the sake of the Venezuelan population, all that money is going to flow through the economy in the country, right? When you have those old companies go back to Venezuela, not only Chebron, but more and more coming to Venezuela, they're gonna build infrastructure, they're gonna create jobs, their money coming from that is gonna flow to the communities. That's what it's gonna really bring about democracy eventually. Because I do think that you first need that economy to start to be built up that going to democracy. And one final comment. Let's not forget, like we mentioned before, the military is still there. And one of the reasons that Delhi and the regime are the ones taking the orders and not someone else in the opposition is because at least for now, they can ensure stabilization from those colectivos, from those members of the military. That maybe if Machado reaches power, those militaries are not gonna take orders from her.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I became a Venezuelan millionaire last week at an event in Florida. One of our supporters handed me this wad of bills. Each one is one million Bolivars. I'm not sure his pictures on it. Well, that's Simon Boliver. Boulevard, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Which is funny because that's a remake of his image that Chavez made, because that's one of the things socialists do, right? They change the national symbolism. So that's a picture that they created. It's not the traditional Simon Bolivar picture.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, each uh I I was told by this gentleman that one million boulevards, which is what this is, is worth about 16 cents or was when he bought it a few months ago. It may be less today.
SPEAKER_00:Or it might be more, because actually now that the U.S. is being revaluing the US.
SPEAKER_01:Well, maybe I'll hold on to it then. And when I get to visit people, I haven't seen those in in many years.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But with that kind of massive inflation that we saw in Venezuela under Maduro, it's no wonder they had so many shortages in stores, that the healthcare system was falling apart. You told that story of Venezuela to American young people as the TFAS outreach fellow. What kind of response did you get when you shared that story with young people? Were they responsive? Did that help open their eyes to what could happen in this country or any other country?
SPEAKER_00:Some of them did. Some of them realize that it's very hard to tell me, since I lived it, that what I'm saying is a lie, or that I don't know that what I'm talking about. But you do have some students from time to time, some schools, mostly the most liberal schools, saying that, well, that was not actual socialism. That was something else, because actual socialism is what you see in the Nordic countries, right? In the Scandinavian countries. Or that's Venezuela. Here in the US, we're Americans, we know better because everything that Americans do is great. That American exceptionalism, that also gets translated into how we can make better socialism than anyone else in the world, right? But the thing is like socialism, capitalism, any economic ideology or political ideology is based on humans. And humans don't matter where they are, right? They're in the US, they're in Venezuela, somewhere else. Humans eventually have the same emotions, have the same drivers. So the main driver in socialism is that you want to control, control the economy, control the government, control everything else that was done in Venezuela. And you have the perfect example in your hands with those bills that are worthless. We're saying that currently Venezuelans are earning at least the minimum wage, the official minimum wage is less than$3 a month. And everything else that people make is through government bonuses that are called war bonuses that their people are getting. It's a social program. So that's not a manageable economy when people can really depend. There's no expectation of the future that you know if you work this month, you're gonna get X amount of money, like you do in capitalist country. So when I was talking to students around the country, I will tell all these stories how I didn't have food, how I spent two weeks just eating bread and butter in 2016 into one of the worst crisis years in Venezuela, how I got robbed twice the same day by children. Actually, the ones that robbed me were kids, kids that should have been in school, but they know that there's no future in school, so they just go out and commit crimes. So all those stories that it's not just me, millions of Venezuelans compounded stories of what's happening. Unfortunately, I saw that some people just didn't believe it. And I think it's that it's a change that they just don't want to believe that. And some people actually really believe that they can do it differently here in the US. We see that some socialists are getting elected in the US, and the share of people voting for those socialists is increasing because they think that the US capitalist system, quote unquote, because the US is really not fully capitalist, right? We no one can say that all healthcare system is capitalist, it's really socialist. Just like the US higher education system is a socialist system because it's run basically by the government with all the programs. So that's one of the main things that I see, and that I try to tell students that what you really think are the Issues in the US that you think is a capitalist is socialist issues because it's the US government overtaking and overpowering the free markets. And hopefully that changes in the future, but I'm not too hopeful about that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I think there's some truth to the fact that socialism can be more successful in a wealthy country. But eventually, as Margaret Thatcher said, you run out of other people's money. Right. And uh I saw the other day, I think this report I read said there have been 79 experiments in the world with socialism, and all 79 have failed. Yet people keep looking at it because it looks like it's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00:People in New York City think they're gonna be the 80 and they're gonna be the successful one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Right. But there's no such thing as a free lunch. You know, you've kind of already touched on this, but I was gonna I was planning to ask you what kind of misconceptions you heard from Americans about socialism. I guess they don't look at the consequences and they think they can get, you know, free education, free healthcare, you know, affordable housing, that that can all come without a cost. They never look at the hidden costs of these things. But did you find that that was usually the problem with Americans you spoke to?
SPEAKER_00:Right. Especially because it's it's the key question, who's paying for that, right? And so the notion is like, well, if the government gives me something, the government's paying for it. Right. But if the government's paying for it, we are paying for it, right? The taxpayers are paying for it. Yeah. So are you comfortable with more taxes? Usually the question from socialists and overall progressives is that yes, I'm comfortable with more taxes. Great. Look at the examples in the US where there's more taxes. You have the highest cities in like New York City or in the state of New Jersey, that the taxes are higher. Well, tell me about the roads there. Are the roads perfect? Are they not? How is healthcare there? How's education there? So we're seeing that people are leaving the state. Right, they're leaving the state. Where are people heading the most in the US? To Florida, right? There is no income tax, for example. And there's even talks that Governor Santos is gonna remove property taxes. So it's like people are fleeing away from taxes with the most important way of voting, which is with your feet. You're moving away from taxes. But we keep seeing some people, especially young voters, that keep voting for politicians that are gonna increase their taxes. And that's one of the main things, especially the young population. I really can't blame them, right? We have seen that over the last 20 years, higher education keeps getting more and more and more expensive. They just see the university and they think that it's the university that just wants to be take your money and you know it's a capitalist university. But it's like, where are you getting your loan from? From the federal government. So the federal government is incentivizing universities to increase tuition because they're basically being subsidized by the federal government, but you are left with a bill eventually, and then you don't know how to pay for your student loan. The same thing happens with healthcare, the same thing happens with housing, the same thing happens with everything else. The US government and also many states are incentivizing free markets to not be free anymore and just trying to get the most from the federal government. That's the main problem here, but people usually don't look at it that way. They just look at the first instance: university, the hospital, yeah, or the whoever is selling you the house. Why is it so expensive? And you think it's a capitalist that is just trying to get money from you. Everyone here are humans playing under the same economy. And we all know that the main player is not you and I or anyone that is looking at this, is the US government, the federal government, with an endless budget, endless quote unquote, because we're also seeing that the debt is keep going up. That's one of the main problems here. And I keep seeing that over and over going to universities. And the thing is like those people in universities are the blowers of tomorrow. And we already see the examples of that happening across the U.S.
SPEAKER_01:You were someone who was president of student government at your university, you were an activist, so to speak, in Venezuela. You fled to this country when things got dangerous for you to stay. Are you hoping now to stay involved some way with what's going to happen in the future of Venezuela? How do you do that? Is it very difficult now that you're in the US? But as you said, there are millions of Venezuelans who've left the country. And, you know, can you play a role, do you think, in the building of a new Venezuela in the future?
SPEAKER_00:I think I will. Like I think like every Venezuelan is playing their role in one way or another. Leaving aside the fact that it was US soilers that entered Venezuela and took out Maduro and is the US government doing everything that is going to happen afterwards. The narrative that was created over the last years, created upon the fact of everything that happened in Venezuela, was thanks to all the Venezuelans around the world sharing their stories, right? People here in the US know what is happening in Venezuela because both Venezuelans from inside the country are saying it, but the ones in here, myself included, have been saying all of this. You go back to any of the speeches that I did in TFES. I always said that the only way to take these people out is through force. And me replicate that by millions of people around the world, that created a narrative that eventually led governments to understand that something more had to be done than just sanctions and public speeches. So can we play a role in the future now? Well, the question is do we have family there? All my families in Venezuela. So it's undeniable that I will play a role, at least with my family, in the more minimum sense. And playing a role with your family helps the society because that's a nucleus of society, helps the country. Can I also play a role in something else? I would love to play a role in something else. Maybe helping from the US, maybe connecting people with opportunities, maybe traveling there. I will love to travel back to Venezuela. To, you know, remember everything that happened, see my family. I haven't seen my mom in seven years, right? Seen everything. Because at the end of the day, besides the fact that I've been here in the US for seven years and build my life here, and I don't see myself leaving anytime soon because my future is at least here in the US. We all come from somewhere, right? So we want to see that place thrive. I want to see my family try, my young cousins thrive, and everyone else in the country try. Because we're talking about kids that they don't have anything to eat over the last months, kids that don't know actually what education is, because the regime has been telling them that they have to only read socialist books and socialist papers. That's every one of those kids can be a brilliant person tomorrow on whatever the field is. There is a human capital that is going to be great for Venezuela and for the world, because those people are going to help the world. So it's not a question of if we're going to be involved. It's a must. It's a moral must that we have to do something to help the next generations of Venezuelans and also the next generations of people here in the US and everyone else that we are living, that they understand that we can't allow that to happen anywhere else again.
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned that when you were doing your speaking for TFAS five years ago or so, that at the time you said there's no way to get rid of Maduro except through force. Could you not see any scenarios where there'd be a military coup, uh uprising by people? I mean, they've tried, of course, but because perhaps things would be in better in terms of moving forward now if he had been deposed internally rather than having the US come from the outside to have to do that. But what are your thoughts about that?
SPEAKER_00:The best case scenario would have been that Maduro stepped down. And the US gave him all the opportunities last year to do that, right? And he had for many, many years to say, like, hey, I'm this is the wrong thing, and going outside, taking my money. I don't we never care if you have to take money, just leave. But that never happened because they always wanted to be in power, right? So I we I always understood, even when I was in Venezuela, that when I especially being in the streets protesting and seeing what was happening around me, that the only way that you take criminals out of power is with force. Where is that force coming out? We saw that it came out from the outside from the US. That force can also come from the inside if it was a coup. That never happened, unfortunately, because one of the good things that the regime is good at is the intelligence inside. You know, they have the Cuban intelligence, the Russian intelligence. A military member in Venezuela can't move a finger without them knowing. But thankfully, at release in January 3rd, we realized that American intelligence is better than Cuban intelligence because they were able to perform that operation. It was incredible. Yeah, it was incredible. The way they took out the intelligence, the Cuban intelligence, the Russian intelligence, everything they did. And we there is stuff that we don't know that happened in that operation. God bless Americans and God bless those soldiers that did all of that. But the main takeaway is that the easiest path was always for Maduro to step down. He chose not to step down. Now he's in Brooklyn. He could have been in Turkey, he could have been in Russia, enjoying at least in freedom, quote unquote. Now he's gonna be, hopefully, for the rest of his life, him and his wife, Celia Flores, in Brooklyn for the rest of their lives, or in whatever other prison they're sent to.
SPEAKER_01:That's cruel and unusual punishment to be in Brooklyn the rest of your life. No, that's a that's a little joke. I like Brooklyn. Maybe some of our viewers are from Brooklyn and I don't agree with. I actually love Brooklyn. Yeah, it's a beautiful place. Maybe not from the view that Maduro is getting, but I I once visited there for a few, I stayed there for a few days, and afterwards I remember saying to my wife and my daughter who was with me, I'd love to retire to Brooklyn. Really? These brownstones are great. You walk outside, you got every kind of cuisine you could possibly want. There's entertainment sports. You aren't far from Manhattan, but now I live in Washington, D.C. and I love it here.
SPEAKER_00:Well, at least we know that Maduro is a forced retirement in Brooklyn. And I'm sure he's not tasted any other cuisine. Like, well, we'll see if they get a conviction, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right. We have to wait, hopefully. Well, bring me up to date, Andreas, on what you've been doing since you completed your work as TFAS outreach fellow.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I realized that speaking and saying everything that we were doing with TFAS, it was incredibly important. But I realized that, at least for my skill set, I wanted to take it to actually affect the ballots in the country, right? Work with conservatives or work with anyone really that is not a socialist, working against those socialist politicians in the US and trying to win elections. So since I stopped at least doing it full-time for Tifas, I still do some speeches from time to time when it's needed because I do think it's important to keep that going. But I realize that we just have to support those politicians and those candidates, people from working class that are trying to get into office wherever that office is, it's in Congress, it's in local officials, school boards, people that really want to make a change because we can't allow socialists to win elections. At least not allowed democra democratically. Don't get me wrong. We want those people to run. Yeah. Because we want to defeat them with the ideas, defeat them in the ballots. So I took my skill set towards that goal and trying to get everyone elected. At least I want to say that I, for a small share, a really small percentage, I helped conservatives win last year and hopefully win this year and moving forward. And your focus is polling and data analytics and like you mentioned, like one of your Tifas alumnus, Chris Wilson, working alongside, you know, doing everything that has to do with polling, analytics, traditional method of survey research, everything that has to do with data management. So right now we're doing a lot of social listening, which is basically social interpretation and social media, right? We went far from those days that the public discourse was in the public squares around, and then traditional polling, everyone getting a call at on Sunday night. There's not a lot of people picking the phone anymore right now, but a lot of people talking in social media. So that's where the future is going to be, right? To listen to what they're saying and interpret what they're saying. So all of that combined into giving that consultancy to candidates and giving not just to candidates, actually, to organizations. We work with nonprofits, we work with advocacy groups, we work with and also internationally. We're also helping conservative candidates in elections overseas to win in their races. We just did it in Bolivia and Honduras, elect the presidents in those two countries. Because we think that it's not just the US, we have to win overall worldwide, the battle against government control and against socialism.
SPEAKER_01:Well, there are certainly encouraging signs. We just completed our program in Santiago, Chile for students from throughout the hemisphere. And there was a lot of enthusiasm among Chileans because they have a change of government coming. They've the socialist president is leaving office in March, and a center-right conservative candidate's going to take over there and try to preserve Chile as the freest economy in the in South America and with a commitment to low taxes and free trade and a private retirement system. That's encouraging. What's happening in Argentina seems to be turning that country around in the right direction from everything I read there. So those are encouraging signs. And let's hope Venezuela follows suit. They've got those role models now for how to have a free election.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you put all of that picture together, right? We have all of those countries. We have Bolivia now with a new president. We have Honduras with a new president. There's elections in a couple months in Colombia. There might be a center right or at least full right president winning Colombia. If Venezuela really achieves the transition to free elections and we get Maria Corina Machado as a president, or at least someone else that is not a socialist, now you have a different Latin America, right? That's very different from how it was before. Opportunities for business, opportunities for organizations. But more importantly, Roger, is opportunities for Latin Americans living in those countries. The only path for you in the future is to cross the border and try to get a life in the US that you can't have a life in your country and visit the US or get something, right? That's one of the main takeaways here that not to get into immigration, but all of that gets connected. Latin America for many, many decades has been a problem, with the exception of Chile and a couple others, but we have seen socialism on the rise. Now we're seeing socialism on the down, down in the ballots, down in people's hearts, because those candidates don't win in those elections without people realizing that really socialism is not the way. I'm very hopeful and excited about the future, not just of Venezuela, but of Latin America as a whole.
SPEAKER_01:Well, on that hopeful note, thank you very much for joining me today on the first Liberty and Leadership podcast of 2026. It's been great working with you as the TFAS Outreach Fellow and also consider you a good friend of our organization and appreciate whenever you are able to continue to speak out at events of ours and in front of audiences that we can bring you for. So thank you, Andreas. I wish you much success and hope to bring you back in maybe a year to talk again about the new Venezuela and the special program in Venezuela.
SPEAKER_00:That'd be great. Hopefully, God bless. Thank you, Roger, and thank you, Tifas. Tifas is like my home, and I always am grateful for everything that I learned and I've done here. So thank you, everything. Thank you, Andreas.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast. If you have a comment or question, please drop us an email at podcast at tfas.org. And be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app and leave a five star review. Liberty and Leadership is produced at Podville Media. I'm your host, Roger Reim, and until next time, show courage in things large and small.
