Glenn: What is happening in Venezuela is remarkable. And it is a Socialist utopia the way they always end. There's a humanitarian crisis going on right now in Venezuela, some of which I can't talk to you about. There are things going on right now that people are being literally smuggled out at night because they're being targeted as groups.
As I look at this and see what's going on, and now the press is starting to say "Oh, you know what this is? This is a -- this is what happens when you go to nationalism and populism."
No, that's not what this is. This is Communism. This is socialism. This is what happens. And quite honestly, this is the road that we've been headed on for a very long time. Debbie D'Souza joins us now on the program. Hi, Debbie, how are you?
DEBBIE: Hi, Glenn, first of all, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for talking about Venezuela for all of these years. I've listened to you for years, and you have been right on target with the situation of Venezuela from the very beginning, and I want to thank you for that. Because not many people talk about it. They ignore it. You know, Venezuela is only a couple thousand miles away from us.
GLENN: I know.
DEBBIE: And they have not talked about it at all and as you say, they say it's something other than what it is. And it is downright socialism, and this is what it looks like, the ugly side of socialism. I don't know if there's a pretty side to it.
GLENN: This is when -- who was it? Facture that said the problem that socialism has eventually run out of other people's money. This is that point where eventually you run out of money.
DEBBIE: Absolutely. And Venezuela, you know, I was born in Venezuela in 1966. It was a thriving country. You know, it's an oil-rich country. So we had all of the amenities that you could think of. You know, the birth rate in Venezuela obviously when I was born was high. Now, you know, babies born in Venezuela, they -- the birth rate has gone down because the death rate has gone way up for babies born. Because he, you know -- Hugo Chavez as you said destroyed the health care system trying to make everybody pay for it. Well -- when people started leaving the country, when doctors started leaving the country, there was no one to pay for it.
GLENN: And then when he had a thriving oil company, or oil industry and when he took that over and nationalized oil, that went through the ground.
DEBBIE: He nationalized everything. Telecommunications, energy, you know, the left in Venezuela is also into the whole climate change thing and so they basically started doing wattage allotments for people. So if you went over your allotted wattage, you had to pay a $200 tax increase on top of your bill, so people stopped using blow dryers, they stopped using -- I mean, it was ridiculous. Of course now, you know -- it's just awful.
GLENN: Debbie, when you see -- this is a narco-Communist State.
DEBBIE: Uh-huh.
GLENN: This is a Communist State now that has ties to terror, ties to Iran, ties to Hezbollah.
DEBBIE: Uh-huh.
GLENN: The current president is going to Citibank, and it's going to be one of the biggest robberies of all time or at least this century where he is now going to sell all of the Venezuelan gold reserves.
DEBBIE: Uh-huh.
GLENN: And you hear people on TV say "This is populism," which is clearly wrong and clearly trying to make a point that is anti-Donald Trump.
DEBBIE: Uh-huh.
GLENN: How does that make people in Venezuela feel?
DEBBIE: Well, those people who get it in Venezuela are huge Donald Trump fans. They asked me to tell you and the viewers, please, please, Donald Trump do something. Either, you know, embolden the opposition. You know, we're not asking for military intervention. I mean, it's actually that bad. But we want to embolden the opposition.
GLENN: Who is opposition that could fix this?
DEBBIE: Well, the opposition leader right now is Enrique. It's basically made up of different political parties that are all on the right side of the ideological chart. So basically when the equivalent of the Republican party self-destructed, this is what gave way to Chavez. This is the reason Hugo Chávez was able to come in and take over the country is the right of Venezuela just completely self-destructed.
So then they kind of started picking up the pieces and splintered off into a -- just a bunch of different political groups, and so they all got together and called themselves the opposition. So Enrique has basically run for president twice, and we believe that the last time, he actually won. But there was voter fraud and so basically, a -- it was either last week or a couple of weeks ago, they banned from running for any type of office.
I mean, can you imagine? So they're afraid of this man. And so him, and then there's a woman, she's a congresswoman who is also opposition party, and they have actually blamed the death of this young girl, I sent you a video of this girl who was killed by thugs who basically are helping run the country. These are basically a civilian army that Hugo Chávez established from based off of criminals who he pardoned. And so they're -- you know, they're murderers, they're rapists, they run a muck all over the city. Just, you know, killing people, raping women, doing whatever they want.
GLENN: This happens and this is why Haiti can't get up on its feet because they have the same kind of thing happening in Haiti.
DEBBIE: Yes, so this is huge. They're feared. And I don't know if you know this, but in 2010, there was a disarmament movement for citizens of Venezuela, so they started taking away guns of citizens. And now citizens do not have guns, but they do and the armed forces of Venezuela is also part of the regime, and they're the National Guard and of course, they have guns and then these thugs have guns but the citizens don't have anything. So I want to make it very clear that when you see, you know, fighting in the streets and these kids throwing Molotov cocktails and all of that, these aren't the same type of thugs that are, like, wreaking havoc here on the --
GLENN: Berkeley.
DEBBIE: No, Berkeley and all of that. No, this is the exact opposite. Actually, those thugs are the thugs that have the guns in Venezuela. The left. And so --
GLENN: Debbie -- we're talking to Debbie D'Souza, did a necessary D'Souza's wife who's family is in Venezuela. I remember I was coming back from South Africa, and I was supposed to go speak in Venezuela. I don't remember. It was, like, the national theater or something, and it was a group of pastors from all over Central and South America. And Hugo Chávez said, "You're not going to speak there." And put armed military around -- by the time I landed to refuel in north Africa, they said:"Don't come." The people who invited me. Because he's going to put military around the theater.
So I actually had to land in I think Jamaica, wasn't it, Pat? And we cut my message and had somebody smuggle it in on videotape to Venezuela.
Now, that was five or six years ago. I don't -- I mean, we're talking now -- I'm dealing with people now trying to help smuggle people out of Venezuela who are being targeted as groups. I mean, it's a dangerous place now.
DEBBIE: It is awful. My 82-year-old aunt and I'm only saying this, you know -- I'm just throwing this out there. But she's in Miami right now. But the rest of my family still in Venezuela, and I don't know what to do. I mean, this is so bad. You know, Ted Cruz's dad Rafael, I reached out to him in 2014 because this is when people started taking it to the streets back in -- three years ago. And he was trying to help. But of course, you know, it was the Obama administration who was in bed with these people. And so, you know, what people don't get is Hugo Chávez hated Bush. He hated Reagan. He hated any Republican. And so, you know, I just don't understand how people do not see that the left uses the same exact tactics in Venezuela. They blame the right for everything that's going wrong. They --
GLENN: This is 1950s, ''60s could you be on what's going on.
DEBBIE: Oh, absolutely. And basically Cuba owns Venezuela now.
GLENN: Yeah.
DEBBIE: Maduro is close friends with the Castro brothers. Obviously, one of them has passed away. But the other one Raúl, they're buddy, buddy, and they are -- so basically, he's helping him run Venezuela, so --
GLENN: Go ahead.
DEBBIE: Yeah, go ahead.
GLENN: Is this something that we could see a Reagan moment? That if Donald Trump was empowering, not using force, just making the speech of tear down this wall and empowering like the pope did, empowering the solidarity movement in Poland?
DEBBIE: Absolutely. The regular doctrine is what we want. Empowering the people that are being oppressed right now in Venezuela. The opposition party, helping them somehow, you know, reach the level of being able to get out of this. I just don't know -- short of a military coup, I just don't know how else to remove this man from office. And to, you know, help the Venezuelians. This crisis has reached a level of -- I've never seen it like this before. It's just horrific.
GLENN: They really are -- there's no food.
DEBBIE: No food, nothing. I mean, these people are for the most part, you know, they hoard food, and they grow their own food because they have to. They -- you know, my aunt was going from grocery store to grocery store just to find milk, just to find eggs. You know, she basically had to go vegan, and I mean, it's really, really horrific.
GLENN: Yeah, I will tell you that I've seen reports where people will line up starting at 1:00 in the afternoon and sometimes at midnight hoping that there would be a delivery for the store. And when that door opens, whether you need it or not, it's Germany stuff. Whether you need it or not, you buy whatever is on the shelf.
DEBBIE: Absolutely. And, Glenn, this is also -- you know, people are -- well, Debbie, why should we care about Venezuela? Well, I tell you why you should care. Number one, if it's destroyed, it's going to just become a hotbed for all of these terrorists that are in bed with the regime. They already have, you know -- and this is from reports from people that are in Venezuela that tell me that they see things in Farsi, you know, they -- there's airplanes coming from Iran that are landing from Tehran that are landing at the airport daily. What are they doing? Basically, they're up to no good. And so if we create this situation where there's going to be a huge vacuum in Venezuela.
GLENN: It's a base. Debbie, I've got to run. But thank you so much for this update. We're going to continue to follow it and please let us know how we can help you.
DEBBIE: Thank you.
GLENN: You bet.
DEBBIE: Just, you know, have Trump help. I mean, I don't know. We're just -- we're desperate. We are desperate. Thank you so much, Glenn.
GLENN: Thank you. Debbie D'Souza following on the crisis in Venezuela.
