Latest / The Real News Podcast / The US, Israel, and Latin America’s Far Right Are Plotting to Crush the Left

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The US, Israel, and Latin America’s Far Right Are Plotting to Crush the Left · The Real News Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mark Steiner Show here in the Real News.
0:09
Speaker 1: I'm Mark Steiner. Great to have you over with us
0:10
Speaker 1: as usual. My guestterday is Miguel Zorro, otherwise known as
0:14
Speaker 1: Mike Fox, who I had to do it. I'm sorry
0:18
Speaker 1: who just in as late as under the Shadow wrote
0:22
Speaker 1: this piece Hondura Escape Weeks reveal the far right plant
0:25
Speaker 1: under my Latin America's left, and it's a very chilling,
0:28
Speaker 1: chilling piece that we're going to talk about. He's going
0:31
Speaker 1: to talk about in terms of the threat of the
0:34
Speaker 1: Trump administration and the right wing leaders of Latin America
0:38
Speaker 1: and where it's taking this.
0:40
Speaker 2: So Mike, always good to see you. Welcome, goodness, see you.
0:43
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Mark, it's a pleasure. You know.
0:45
Speaker 3: I've been thinking.
0:45
Speaker 1: I read this piece twice taking my notes, and one
0:49
Speaker 1: of the things that just struck me as long as
0:52
Speaker 1: I've been in this movement since the sixties Knacla, which
0:57
Speaker 1: you're part of, which has been around, say we keep
1:02
Speaker 1: seeing Latin America being taken over by US imperialism and dictators,
1:07
Speaker 1: right wing dictators who do America is bidding and it
1:10
Speaker 1: never seems to change. So here you are writing this
1:12
Speaker 1: piece about Honduras, it's taken over by the far right
1:17
Speaker 1: and the dangers of America is still attacking the left
1:20
Speaker 1: in South America and popular governments in South America. So
1:23
Speaker 1: it's just I just I started. It's a it's a
1:25
Speaker 1: very vague way to start this conversation, but I really
1:29
Speaker 1: want to hear your take on that historical reality and
1:33
Speaker 1: what Latin America has suffered under in terms United States.
1:36
Speaker 1: But you go back to Teddy Roosevelt, for God's sake,
1:38
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds, it never ends exactly well.
1:42
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what Trump is pushing to do or
1:45
Speaker 2: has been doing, is returning to a moment of Teddy Roosevelt.
1:49
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so it's so great that you mentioned that, Mark,
1:53
Speaker 2: and and and because I think this is so important
1:56
Speaker 2: for people to understand that Teddy Roosevelt was the man
2:00
Speaker 2: who created the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, who
2:02
Speaker 2: basically put the Monroe Doctrine on steroids and open up
2:07
Speaker 2: an entire new campaign, a new campus for the United
2:11
Speaker 2: States to use its military, to use its marines as
2:14
Speaker 2: a police force, to push its agenda in across Central America.
2:19
Speaker 3: Across the Caribbean as.
2:21
Speaker 2: It felt it was necessary, right, And that's essentially what
2:24
Speaker 2: Teddy Roosevelt's corollary said.
2:26
Speaker 3: It said, look, if you're.
2:28
Speaker 2: Not doing what we want you to be doing, then
2:29
Speaker 2: we're allowed to move in because that's our job.
2:32
Speaker 1: Right.
2:33
Speaker 2: And then the last you know, seven or eighty years
2:36
Speaker 2: gunboat gunboat diplomacy. And then you had the last seven
2:39
Speaker 2: or eight years that were slowly kind of pulling back
2:41
Speaker 2: to that You're still the United States doing tons of interventions,
2:45
Speaker 2: some subversive things and cias everything.
2:47
Speaker 3: You can imagine.
2:48
Speaker 2: But it was trying to portray an image that it wasn't.
2:51
Speaker 2: And then what Trump did, in particular last year with
2:55
Speaker 2: his National Security Strategy, which he released on December fourth
2:58
Speaker 2: of last year, which actually says, now we're going to
3:02
Speaker 2: implant a Trump corollary, it's the Dunrow doctrine. So it
3:08
Speaker 2: was literally thinking back to Teddy Roosevelt and saying, that's where.
3:12
Speaker 1: We want to go.
3:12
Speaker 2: We're going to forget everything else, and now the United
3:15
Speaker 2: States is going to push its agenda.
3:16
Speaker 3: It's going to push its agenda.
3:17
Speaker 2: Militarily, and this is the utmost this is the top priority.
3:21
Speaker 2: And we saw that of course, with the invasion of
3:23
Speaker 2: Venezuela and the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduda President Nicholas Maduda.
3:27
Speaker 2: We've seen it with Cuba and you know, the just
3:29
Speaker 2: the complete cutting off of oil, the starving, the strangulation
3:33
Speaker 2: of that country, and what we what we're seeing in
3:36
Speaker 2: Honduras is just a piece of that strategy attempting and
3:41
Speaker 2: actually succeeding to return to the far right in Honduras,
3:45
Speaker 2: which you had under Juana Landernandez fraudulent elections backed by
3:50
Speaker 2: the United States, who was then detained, brought to the
3:55
Speaker 2: United States to stand charges on drug trafficking, convicted of
3:58
Speaker 2: drug trafficking, was convicted of forty five years in prison
4:02
Speaker 2: for his drug trafficking into the United States, and then
4:05
Speaker 2: he was pardoned just last year, just I think three
4:09
Speaker 2: days before that same National Security strategy was actually published
4:13
Speaker 2: in Washington. And so you have this return where where
4:16
Speaker 2: it's very clear that the United States and Israel are
4:18
Speaker 2: very very excited to have Juan or Lando Nandez b
4:22
Speaker 2: be back or return not necessarily is in office, but
4:26
Speaker 2: it's what he's talking That's one of the things he
4:27
Speaker 2: talks about in these leaks is his hopeful return to power,
4:31
Speaker 2: his ally is his in power. One supposedly won the
4:35
Speaker 2: elections last year, although there were many, many claims of fraud.
4:39
Speaker 2: And that's what's kind of you know, broiling under the
4:43
Speaker 2: surface here. People don't understand how important Honduras is for
4:46
Speaker 2: the United States and is for Israel, and has been
4:49
Speaker 2: over the last ten or fifteen years in in Latin America,
4:53
Speaker 2: one of the most important countries. It's a tiny country
4:55
Speaker 2: in such America.
4:56
Speaker 1: Why hunter, yea, yeah, let's talk about it for a minute.
4:58
Speaker 1: I mean, so it means A. I think, why would
5:01
Speaker 1: is will be involved in Latin America A B. And
5:05
Speaker 1: why Honduras? I mean, why not Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, countries
5:10
Speaker 1: that have hugeness and substance, And but so why Honduras.
5:15
Speaker 2: Right, So, the very first thing is Honduras is home
5:18
Speaker 2: to the largest contingent of US military officers in all
5:23
Speaker 2: of Central America, which is the former It's so it's
5:26
Speaker 2: it is basically it's not an official US base, but
5:29
Speaker 2: the soldiers and the officers and the military of the
5:32
Speaker 2: Air Force have their people there. It's the former US
5:34
Speaker 2: military Bear's Palmarola, which is where they stationed all this stuff.
5:37
Speaker 3: Out of in Central America. It's it's now called.
5:40
Speaker 2: Sokano, but and it's officially Honduran base because Honduras can't
5:44
Speaker 2: allow foreign bases there. But that's where US soldiers Air
5:50
Speaker 2: Force UH is based. And so this is the this
5:53
Speaker 2: is basically the stage and ground for the United States
5:55
Speaker 2: in Central America.
5:56
Speaker 3: And one of the things that came out of these.
5:57
Speaker 2: Lakes, and I'll get into Israel, one of the things
6:01
Speaker 2: that one thing at a time, one of the things
6:03
Speaker 2: that came out of this leaks is that they're actually negotiating,
6:07
Speaker 2: the current far right government in Honduras is negotiating with
6:10
Speaker 2: the Trump administration to create a new US military base
6:14
Speaker 2: in the island of Roatan, so just off the coast
6:17
Speaker 2: in the Caribbean.
6:18
Speaker 3: And in fact, when Juano.
6:19
Speaker 2: Lando Hernandez in one of these leaks, when he was
6:21
Speaker 2: speaking with the vice president, the current vice president, mari
6:24
Speaker 2: Antoinette the.
6:24
Speaker 3: Mahia, she told him that the president had just visited.
6:29
Speaker 3: This was in February.
6:30
Speaker 2: So the president, the current president of Honduras, Nasrias Fuda,
6:35
Speaker 2: who won the election last year, had just visited Trump
6:38
Speaker 2: and mar A Lago.
6:39
Speaker 3: And she said.
6:40
Speaker 2: One of the things that they were negotiating, is this
6:42
Speaker 2: new US military base in Ratan to be able to
6:46
Speaker 2: combat Mexico, to combat potentially Venezuela, and to combat Cuba.
6:52
Speaker 3: Anything that's happening.
6:53
Speaker 2: Now, what's important about Rotana we can get into this
6:56
Speaker 2: as well. Mark, is the fact that it's on Roatan
7:00
Speaker 2: that you have one of the most important places for
7:06
Speaker 2: libertarian bitcoin bros, the free market activist silicon Valley in
7:12
Speaker 2: perhaps the entire world. It's a place called Prospida and
7:15
Speaker 2: it's what's known as the set. So if we go
7:18
Speaker 2: back to twenty thirteen, Honduran Congress, the Honduras Congress passed
7:23
Speaker 2: the law in which they allowed for the creation of
7:26
Speaker 2: these private, corporate owned cities, independent autonomous cities within Honduras.
7:32
Speaker 2: At that point, the former president Juan Orlando Ornandez, that
7:36
Speaker 2: was just a year before he came to power and
7:38
Speaker 2: he was actually the head of Congress at that point.
7:41
Speaker 2: So this law was passed and they proceeded to then
7:44
Speaker 2: create these cities, or at least the image of them
7:47
Speaker 2: around the country. When the leftist government came to power
7:53
Speaker 2: four or five years ago, they then rolled back the cities.
7:58
Speaker 2: They said, you can't do this, this isation of our law.
8:00
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court said, this is a violation of our territory.
8:03
Speaker 2: These are illegal. But Prospita, which is this one that's
8:07
Speaker 2: actually financed by Peter Thiel, they said, no, we're going
8:12
Speaker 2: to fight this, and they took Honduran. They took Honduras
8:15
Speaker 2: to international arbitration for eleven almost eleven billion dollars. So
8:19
Speaker 2: they have been continuing to fight this whole time. One
8:22
Speaker 2: of the things that Maria Antoinette Mahia, the vice current
8:26
Speaker 2: vice president of Honduras said to Juano Landornandez in these
8:30
Speaker 2: messages is she said, we're going to get the set
8:33
Speaker 2: Is back. We're renegotiating the setting Is. We're going to
8:35
Speaker 2: bring those back. We're going to we're going to actually
8:38
Speaker 2: you know, fuel pros. But essentially that's out there in
8:41
Speaker 2: real time. So what they're talking about is an is
8:44
Speaker 2: an increase kind of bringing the set Is back, backing Prospita,
8:48
Speaker 2: which is, like I said, this is this autonomous region
8:51
Speaker 2: extremely important for kind of the libertarian free market thinkers
8:57
Speaker 2: of the world. It's this place that they kind of
9:00
Speaker 2: lifted up. If you go to you often see these
9:02
Speaker 2: kind of international conferences where they talk about they say prospecta,
9:06
Speaker 2: it's our own thing.
9:07
Speaker 3: We're gonna use bitcoin, We'll use our own currency. It's
9:09
Speaker 3: our free state out in the middle in the Caribbean.
9:12
Speaker 3: It's beautiful.
9:12
Speaker 2: And I went there, Mark, I visited it three years
9:16
Speaker 2: ago to do reporting about the situation there and the
9:19
Speaker 2: battle that they're having with the local black community, the
9:22
Speaker 2: traditional local black community just next door, who are saying, look,
9:25
Speaker 2: they're trying to gobble us up.
9:26
Speaker 3: They want us to join them, but they only bait.
9:28
Speaker 2: They basically have a couple of buildings there and kind
9:30
Speaker 2: of one kind of high rise apartment.
9:32
Speaker 3: Block, and that's it. It's not really a thing. It's
9:35
Speaker 3: like it's not even a city.
9:36
Speaker 2: But they've been trying to propel this and push this
9:39
Speaker 2: idea as kind of there as kind of the the
9:44
Speaker 2: top of the iceberg of what they could potentially do
9:47
Speaker 2: to kind of build these corporate cities. It's very similar
9:49
Speaker 2: what Trump wants to do in the United States. This
9:50
Speaker 2: is like freedom cities, right. So anyway, so this is
9:53
Speaker 2: one of the things that has come out of these
9:55
Speaker 2: leaks is that that they're on board with the current
10:00
Speaker 2: current far right hon Duran administration is on board with
10:03
Speaker 2: these that we're bringing back the set is on board with,
10:06
Speaker 2: you know, increasing the amount of troops US potential troops
10:09
Speaker 2: in Honduras and building a US military base or at
10:11
Speaker 2: least a Honduran military base to house US military troops.
10:15
Speaker 2: And then that's bring that brings us to Israel. And
10:18
Speaker 2: this is absolutely interesting in these leaks, which look the
10:22
Speaker 2: leaks are mainly communications between Juan or Lando Nandez, who
10:27
Speaker 2: is now freed. He's living in the United States after
10:30
Speaker 2: he was freed from jail in early December. He's been
10:32
Speaker 2: in the US ever since, and leaders of the government,
10:36
Speaker 2: the president, vice president, or top members of Congress and
10:40
Speaker 2: in specific and we'll get to this, I'm sure one
10:43
Speaker 2: member of the National Electoral Council. These are all right wing, conservative,
10:47
Speaker 2: far right members of the Honduran kind of elite. And
10:50
Speaker 2: so there are communications between Juan or Lando Nandez and
10:53
Speaker 2: the United States and these other folks in Honduras. One
10:57
Speaker 2: of the things he makes clear in these messages is
10:59
Speaker 2: that he he doesn't feel like they're doing enough for him.
11:01
Speaker 3: He's like, you got to prepare the groundwork.
11:03
Speaker 2: I'm here lobbing, I'm talking with Republicans. And one of
11:07
Speaker 2: the things he makes clear is that his release from
11:10
Speaker 2: prison came basically at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister
11:16
Speaker 2: Benjamin Nataniahu, and that the people who paid for his pardon,
11:19
Speaker 2: This is one of his quotes that he says in
11:21
Speaker 2: the messages, the people who paid for his pardon weren't
11:23
Speaker 2: you all. He says, there were a group quote a
11:26
Speaker 2: group of rabbis tied to Israel. And the reason why
11:30
Speaker 2: this is important is because janal Lando Nandez has a
11:33
Speaker 2: long history with Israel. He was one of the few
11:36
Speaker 2: countries to support almost always support Israel at the UN
11:39
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen when there was a big vote to
11:42
Speaker 2: denounce Israel's attempts to move the capital to Jerusalem, only
11:47
Speaker 2: nine countries voted with Israel.
11:49
Speaker 3: Honduras was one of them.
11:51
Speaker 2: He actually went and studied at a kind of a
11:54
Speaker 2: professional training, diplomatic training with the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Israel,
12:00
Speaker 2: and he traveled there several times. He met with Nathaniaho
12:03
Speaker 2: that he actually opened up a commercial office, a Hunter
12:06
Speaker 2: and Kirs commercial office in twenty nineteen in Jerusalem, after
12:09
Speaker 2: he had already recognized Rusalem as the Israeli capital. And
12:13
Speaker 2: so they've had these really tight ties, and it's clear
12:16
Speaker 2: that Israel sees Honduras as one of the few countries
12:20
Speaker 2: especially and more than Honduras, but Juan or Lando Ernandez
12:24
Speaker 2: as a tremendous, tremendous ally who was going to support
12:28
Speaker 2: them regardless. So getting Juan Orlando Nandez out of jail
12:32
Speaker 2: was such a top priority that basically what comes clear
12:35
Speaker 2: through these messages is that Natano who was lobbying Trump
12:38
Speaker 2: on his behalf, and that rabbis.
12:42
Speaker 3: In the United States.
12:43
Speaker 2: And it's unclear exactly who or what that means or
12:45
Speaker 2: what the the innuendo is, but people tied to Israel
12:49
Speaker 2: were extremely important in in Juan or Lando Nandez's release,
12:55
Speaker 2: or at least convincing Trump that he needed to be released.
12:58
Speaker 2: In this one message, mark when Juana Lendo Anea this
13:02
Speaker 2: mentions you all didn't pay for my pardon money. You
13:05
Speaker 2: didn't pay the party, which is a strange comment because
13:08
Speaker 2: you're like, what money did? So does that mean they're
13:11
Speaker 2: they're either paying Trump off or they're paying people to
13:14
Speaker 2: lobby Trump.
13:15
Speaker 3: We don't know.
13:16
Speaker 2: Those are things that we're not privy to, but we
13:19
Speaker 2: know that people put together money to at least lobby
13:22
Speaker 2: in the very least Trump to convince him that Juana
13:26
Speaker 2: Landon had to be released from prison. And now he
13:29
Speaker 2: of course is going to become He is now kind
13:31
Speaker 2: of pushing his agenda as I'm sure we'll get into
13:34
Speaker 2: kind of across across the region, not just Honduras.
13:37
Speaker 1: Maybe unpack a piece of this though Honduras is a
13:39
Speaker 1: relatively small country.
13:41
Speaker 3: And unimportant in the scheme of things.
13:43
Speaker 1: When most people think of international politics, think of even
13:47
Speaker 1: Latin American politics, it's not Brazil, it's not Argentina, it's
13:51
Speaker 1: not Mexico, it's not even Panama. It's Honduras. And so
13:55
Speaker 1: the question is why, and what is the political power
14:00
Speaker 1: that emanates from that, and what does it mean for
14:02
Speaker 1: the rest of Latin America, And why is it so significant?
14:06
Speaker 1: How did it become so significant?
14:08
Speaker 2: Well, I think we have to go back, and we
14:10
Speaker 2: can go back far in time, but it's at least
14:14
Speaker 2: important to go back to the nineteen eighties because Honduras
14:17
Speaker 2: they actually called it at the time, in.
14:19
Speaker 3: The nineteen eighties USS Honduras.
14:21
Speaker 2: Because this was basically the staging ground for the United
14:24
Speaker 2: States Wars in Central America.
14:26
Speaker 3: That's where they were doing training.
14:27
Speaker 2: That's where they were training the contras right who were
14:30
Speaker 2: then pushing in to try and take out the San
14:32
Speaker 2: Denistas in the paramilitary forces that were murdering people in
14:37
Speaker 2: the countryside of Nicaragua. It's where they were training people
14:40
Speaker 2: who are then going to El Salvador to fight against
14:42
Speaker 2: the leftist gorilla movement. Honduras was basically the focus and
14:50
Speaker 2: the main staging ground for the United States and Central America,
14:54
Speaker 2: and that's what it's been pretty much traditionally. I mean,
14:57
Speaker 2: I got into a lot of this stuff in Under
14:59
Speaker 2: the Shadow Season one, uh and anyone who's interested, they
15:01
Speaker 2: can go back and check it out.
15:02
Speaker 3: It's great.
15:03
Speaker 2: There's a lot of historical stuff where I visited places.
15:06
Speaker 2: That was the whole idea, that is the whole idea
15:08
Speaker 2: of of of Under the Shadow of my podcast.
15:11
Speaker 3: So what's interesting now is, of course you then had.
15:17
Speaker 2: I mean many, many, many things happened during that time
15:21
Speaker 2: and between now. Manuel Selaya came to power right in
15:24
Speaker 2: the mid two thousands. Manuel Selaya was a president who
15:28
Speaker 2: was voted kind of along the pink tide of the
15:31
Speaker 2: of the mid two thousands, allied with Hugo Chavez and
15:34
Speaker 2: all these other important kind of leftists and progressive leaders
15:37
Speaker 2: in the region, and he was an The whole idea was, look,
15:43
Speaker 2: we're gonna we're gonna move Hunduras back toward the left
15:46
Speaker 2: and we're going to create a constissuent assembly. That was
15:49
Speaker 2: his goal, right, and it was right around that time
15:51
Speaker 2: that he was talking about actually just having like a
15:55
Speaker 2: consultation vote to see if people would be interested in
15:59
Speaker 2: having a constitution assembly. That's when they took him out
16:01
Speaker 2: of power. It was a US back coup in two
16:03
Speaker 2: thousand and nine that removed him from power. It was
16:06
Speaker 2: then a coup government that came to power. There was
16:08
Speaker 2: one election and then Juan or Lendez, Juan Orlando None
16:12
Speaker 2: this came to power. And then you had a fraudulent
16:15
Speaker 2: re election because reelections are actually prohibited by the Hunduran constitution.
16:20
Speaker 2: But Juan Lndo none of this pushed another reelection and
16:23
Speaker 2: that's how come you had kind of the far right
16:24
Speaker 2: came back into power. Right during these times. Well what
16:29
Speaker 2: Manuel Celia's wife, Siamana Castro, she won the election this
16:33
Speaker 2: last well not this last one, but two thousand, very
16:36
Speaker 2: end of twenty twenty one, going into twenty twenty two,
16:40
Speaker 2: she won that election.
16:40
Speaker 3: It was and many people saw it as kind of
16:42
Speaker 3: the return of the.
16:43
Speaker 2: Left to power for the first time democracy was restored
16:47
Speaker 2: after the two thousand and nine coup against Manlo Celaya,
16:51
Speaker 2: and her whole goal was kind of rolling things back.
16:54
Speaker 2: So this is again, this is the push and pull
16:56
Speaker 2: of Latin America what we've seen in recent decades, particularly
16:59
Speaker 2: with the left high. But what you have in Honduras traditionally,
17:02
Speaker 2: and this is I think getting to your point, Mark,
17:05
Speaker 2: is they have been very, very linked, very tied to
17:08
Speaker 2: the United States going back decades, going back centuries, you had,
17:14
Speaker 2: like you've had all across Central America, the United States,
17:17
Speaker 2: you know, pushing mining interests, the United States, pushing banana interests,
17:20
Speaker 2: you know.
17:21
Speaker 3: United Fruit.
17:22
Speaker 2: I mean, this is like, it's the same story, right
17:24
Speaker 2: that we know of all these different countries. But what's
17:27
Speaker 2: important about Honduras is that this was the staging ground
17:30
Speaker 2: for US military, for US power in Central America, and
17:34
Speaker 2: the United States does not want to lose that.
17:38
Speaker 1: What struck me in terms of what you just said
17:40
Speaker 1: and what you've written in this piece for Real News
17:43
Speaker 1: in Under the Shadow, is that we're seeing a right
17:47
Speaker 1: wing push from this country with its ally Israel for
17:52
Speaker 1: its own reasons to undermine the left in Latin America
17:56
Speaker 1: and the people's movements of Latin America. So the right
17:58
Speaker 1: wing seizes power by stealing elections or by overthrowing governments.
18:03
Speaker 1: And it's the same cycle we saw the nineteen fifties
18:06
Speaker 1: and sixties and early seventies. It's happening again. When they
18:10
Speaker 1: killed the End South in Chile. I think people, which
18:14
Speaker 1: truly I would to export from a moment to hear
18:16
Speaker 1: with you, is the importance of this in terms of
18:20
Speaker 1: American power in Latin America. What it means to install
18:25
Speaker 1: these right wing dictators, what America gets out of it,
18:28
Speaker 1: and the power to control all of Latin America.
18:30
Speaker 3: That's what we're actually seeing here.
18:31
Speaker 1: We're seeing a pushback to all the liberation movements that
18:34
Speaker 1: freed itself from American imperialism now being taken back under
18:38
Speaker 1: Trump and the right wing in America.
18:40
Speaker 3: And it's insidious.
18:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you know, Mark, There's two things I think
18:47
Speaker 2: are really important for us audience to understand. The first
18:50
Speaker 2: off is that Trump sees his enemies abroad in the
18:54
Speaker 2: same way as he sees them inside the United States.
18:58
Speaker 2: So if you look at the people where the locations
19:00
Speaker 2: that he has sent ice to that the locations he
19:03
Speaker 2: has deployed the National Guard within the United States. These
19:05
Speaker 2: are all either cities or regions that are either controlled
19:11
Speaker 2: by the Democrats or they're controlled by enemies of Trump
19:14
Speaker 2: in states that that that that probably voted against him
19:18
Speaker 2: in most cases. So he's saying, look, I'm gonna unleash
19:22
Speaker 2: terror on anyone who is my enemy.
19:24
Speaker 3: That is part of his structure.
19:26
Speaker 1: That's what he does, is he attacks enemies exaggression here,
19:30
Speaker 1: which he's always done even before he was in politics,
19:33
Speaker 1: to anybody who he wanted to take out was in
19:35
Speaker 1: his way to milk him wealthier and more powerful. There's
19:39
Speaker 1: nothing new, exactly, I'm sorry, go ahead, jump, yeah, yeah,
19:41
Speaker 1: that's great.
19:42
Speaker 2: So this is his mo and what what he So
19:44
Speaker 2: that's what he does locally, that's what you're seeing national politics,
19:48
Speaker 2: but internationally it's the exact same thing. So if you
19:50
Speaker 2: look at who are who are the most vocal presidents
19:54
Speaker 2: left his presidence in the region against Trump's politics, well,
19:58
Speaker 2: of course you have Lula Lula de Silva. So then
20:01
Speaker 2: Trump what he did, what he'd did last year, he
20:03
Speaker 2: he levied fifty percent tariffs on everything, on all Brazilian
20:06
Speaker 2: products right out of nothing. That actually helped Lula to
20:09
Speaker 2: like lift him in the polls because he said, I'm
20:11
Speaker 2: not going to forget you until finally Trump had to like,
20:15
Speaker 2: you know, but but he's going to come out and
20:17
Speaker 2: verbally attack or threaten every country. So you've got Brazil
20:21
Speaker 2: with Lula clearly, Nicholas Maduda in Venezuela, we saw the
20:24
Speaker 2: invasion of Venezuela.
20:25
Speaker 3: And the kidnapping of Nicholas Madudu.
20:27
Speaker 2: You have the same thing against Claudia Shinbaum in Mexico,
20:30
Speaker 2: who Trump is continually attacked saying, you know, let me
20:33
Speaker 2: send in the troops, et cetera, et cetera.
20:35
Speaker 3: And then of course.
20:36
Speaker 2: Gustavo Petro in Colombia right and now we have the
20:38
Speaker 2: elections that are happening right now, So you have you
20:41
Speaker 2: have Trump has had a laser focus on attacking his
20:45
Speaker 2: enemies in the region.
20:46
Speaker 3: At the same time, what has he done on the side.
20:49
Speaker 2: He created this this whole strategic plan, it's called Shield.
20:54
Speaker 3: Of the Americas. I don't know if you remember this
20:55
Speaker 3: mark he was back in March.
20:56
Speaker 2: He had all of the kind of the far right,
21:00
Speaker 2: the conservative and anybody who wasn't his enemy. Essentially, he
21:03
Speaker 2: invited them all to Florida, to Dural, Florida, you know,
21:07
Speaker 2: which is where his golf course is located, and said, look,
21:09
Speaker 2: we're going to have this crew to.
21:11
Speaker 3: Come down there.
21:11
Speaker 2: It's called Shield to the Americas. We're creating a counter
21:14
Speaker 2: cartel coalition, and it's essentially these countries signing a blank
21:19
Speaker 2: check and allowing US military forces to come into their
21:22
Speaker 2: countries to battle drug traffickers within their countries. So he's
21:26
Speaker 2: either saying, either you're with us, literally, you're with us
21:29
Speaker 2: and you're allowing us to come in and collaborate with
21:31
Speaker 2: you to attack your enemies, or you're against us, and
21:35
Speaker 2: I'm going to come out full throttle.
21:37
Speaker 3: Venezuela.
21:39
Speaker 2: I don't think Venezuela was actually the top priority for Trump,
21:41
Speaker 2: but Trump had to get venezuel out of the way,
21:43
Speaker 2: and he had to make an example of some country
21:46
Speaker 2: in Latin America, and.
21:47
Speaker 3: Venezuela was it.
21:49
Speaker 2: I think he's he and clearly Marco Ruby are more
21:51
Speaker 2: interested in Cuba, and that's why he said, Wow, I'm
21:54
Speaker 2: just gonna keep tightening, strangulating this country, doing everything I
21:57
Speaker 2: can and trying to force them to their need, but
22:00
Speaker 2: always with with you know, the threat of another military invasion,
22:05
Speaker 2: you know, is on the horizon. Hey, I can always
22:08
Speaker 2: do this now. I think he would have pushed even
22:10
Speaker 2: further in Latin America right now if he hadn't gotten
22:12
Speaker 2: bottlenecked with Iran and you know, kind of this.
22:15
Speaker 3: Never ending thing with Iran.
22:17
Speaker 2: Otherwise, I think he would have pushed even further in
22:19
Speaker 2: Latin America. But it is what you said, Mark is
22:22
Speaker 2: absolutely right. It's the same story again and again and again.
22:28
Speaker 2: It just takes different you know, has kind of different forms.
22:32
Speaker 2: The Venezuelan invasion. I've said this so many times over
22:34
Speaker 2: the last couple of months. It's exactly like the Panamanian
22:37
Speaker 2: invasion nineteen eighty nine, where they went in to get
22:38
Speaker 2: Monel Loriega, took them out and brought them to the
22:40
Speaker 2: United States to face, you know, drug trafficking charge.
22:43
Speaker 3: The exact same thing. It's just coffee and model.
22:45
Speaker 2: The only difference is that back in Panama in nineteen
22:48
Speaker 2: eighty nine, the United States was able to occupy land
22:51
Speaker 2: troops on the ground and keep them there. In Venezuela,
22:53
Speaker 2: if they had done that, it would have been a bloodbath,
22:55
Speaker 2: and they would have unleashed a civil war that wouldn't
22:58
Speaker 2: end for decades.
22:59
Speaker 3: And they knew that.
22:59
Speaker 2: That's why they came in with their drones and their planes.
23:02
Speaker 2: They kidnapped Nicholas Madudo and got out as quickly as
23:04
Speaker 2: they bought as they could. But that's like that, that's
23:07
Speaker 2: the difference you still had. And people don't talk about
23:10
Speaker 2: this in the US invasion even as well, there was
23:12
Speaker 2: over one hundred people that died, right, it wasn't a
23:14
Speaker 2: surgical mission, and so it's the same story.
23:16
Speaker 3: Market is the exact same story.
23:18
Speaker 2: The difference is is that Trump is looking back to
23:22
Speaker 2: the days of Teddy Roosevelt right to see how they
23:25
Speaker 2: did things, and he's being inspired by, you know, gunboat
23:28
Speaker 2: diplomacy and the Marines on the ground, boots on the ground.
23:31
Speaker 2: That's what Trump is looking back to. He's not worried
23:33
Speaker 2: about what happened between that and now.
23:34
Speaker 1: And one of the things they don't isn't take into
23:36
Speaker 1: account as well. But well it is and it isn't
23:40
Speaker 1: is Marco Rubio and the power of the right wing
23:43
Speaker 1: Cuban political movement in our country, and they are part
23:48
Speaker 1: of the process of the power that's pushing this takeover
23:51
Speaker 1: of Latin America, pushing the right in Latin America and
23:54
Speaker 1: pushing the left out. I mean, this is this is
23:56
Speaker 1: not an accident that Rubio is who he is in
23:59
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, and this is happening under his reign
24:04
Speaker 1: as the head of foreign policy.
24:06
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, and in fact, nasri Asfuda, who is the
24:09
Speaker 2: current president he won the last election. He won the
24:13
Speaker 2: last election in December, although despite claims of fraud, and
24:17
Speaker 2: it took roughly three weeks of a manual vote count
24:20
Speaker 2: for him to finally beat out the closest challenger by
24:22
Speaker 2: zero point five percent less than a percentage point. But
24:27
Speaker 2: even before he took office, nasri Asfuda met with two
24:30
Speaker 2: people Prime Minister Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary
24:36
Speaker 2: of State Marco Ruvio. Those are the two people that
24:38
Speaker 2: he met even before he took office. This was between
24:40
Speaker 2: like literally he's just had a month right before he
24:43
Speaker 2: was declared victor and before he took office, and he
24:45
Speaker 2: met with those two individuals. And then within ten days
24:48
Speaker 2: of taking office, he was already in mar A Lago
24:52
Speaker 2: meeting with Donald Trump. So it shows where the allegiances lie.
24:56
Speaker 2: It shows where his interests are and in fact, this
24:59
Speaker 2: is interesting. So we haven't even gotten into like the
25:02
Speaker 2: biggest bombshell or one of the two biggest bombshells.
25:04
Speaker 1: In these leaks.
25:05
Speaker 2: So the biggest thing for Latin America around these leaks
25:11
Speaker 2: is this thing that Juan Orlando Hernandez tells people roughly
25:19
Speaker 2: maybe a week or two into Nasrias Fuda's government.
25:22
Speaker 3: And in fact, I'm going to read it in his
25:23
Speaker 3: own words. He calls them.
25:24
Speaker 2: Up and he says, he says, and so he's talking
25:30
Speaker 2: to This is Guarorlando Nandez in the United States, and
25:33
Speaker 2: he's talking to the current president of Honduras, Nasriez Fuda.
25:37
Speaker 2: He says, we're setting up an information office president from
25:41
Speaker 2: here from the United States, so they can't link it
25:43
Speaker 2: back to us there in Honduras. It's going to be
25:45
Speaker 2: like a Latin American news site. I was on call
25:48
Speaker 2: with Argentine President Javier Milay and it was very successful,
25:51
Speaker 2: very very good, and I think with this we can
25:53
Speaker 2: do some big things for all of Latin America. There
25:56
Speaker 2: are some files coming out against Mexico, there are some
25:59
Speaker 2: files coming out against Columbia, and most importantly against Honduras
26:02
Speaker 2: and the Zeliah family. He then calls because the reason
26:06
Speaker 2: why he's doing is he's asking for money. He's asked
26:08
Speaker 2: them for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to set
26:10
Speaker 2: up this office based with the support of someone in
26:15
Speaker 2: the White House is what he says, some Republican in
26:16
Speaker 2: the White House. He doesn't name names, but he says,
26:18
Speaker 2: I'm setting We're going to set up this office, and
26:20
Speaker 2: the idea is to take down the left, any leftist government,
26:24
Speaker 2: We're going to take them down. So then from there
26:26
Speaker 2: he calls up Vice President Mahea because she's the one
26:29
Speaker 2: who's going to manage the money right, and he says, Okay,
26:32
Speaker 2: I need this cast because we're going to set up
26:34
Speaker 2: an office here with the support of some Republicans in
26:36
Speaker 2: order to attack and uproot the cancer of the left
26:39
Speaker 2: in Honduras and all of Latin America. I mentioned the
26:42
Speaker 2: president Asfuda that we could talk with Javier Milay and
26:44
Speaker 2: he's supporting with three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Also,
26:48
Speaker 2: another good friend of ours is in Mexico is supporting
26:50
Speaker 2: in order to push the focus on the issue of Mexico.
26:53
Speaker 2: We're pretty ready and hoping this can really move forward.
26:56
Speaker 2: So we're talking about so he's requ resting money. Someone
27:01
Speaker 2: in Mexico is throwing.
27:03
Speaker 3: Down how you're Melae.
27:04
Speaker 2: I don't know how Malay has money, because Melay has
27:06
Speaker 2: been you know, the government is basically under default.
27:09
Speaker 3: But Melay has.
27:10
Speaker 2: Offered three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to support this
27:12
Speaker 2: basically fake news site, and he requests one hundred and
27:17
Speaker 2: fifty thousand, and they, in fact they approved in these messages,
27:20
Speaker 2: they said, Okay, we're going to give you one hundred
27:22
Speaker 2: fifty thousand for this office and then another one hundred
27:25
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand for you to live on because you know,
27:27
Speaker 2: you need some you need a little money there while
27:29
Speaker 2: you're up there. So basically we're talking about Honduras transferring
27:33
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand dollars, Argentina three and fifty thousand dollars,
27:36
Speaker 2: all of this to take down to create a disinformation
27:40
Speaker 2: new site with the support and actually guided and led
27:44
Speaker 2: by somebody in the White House. This is just this
27:47
Speaker 2: is crazy town, Mark Well, and it is you.
27:50
Speaker 1: Have lived in Latin America for a long time, you know,
27:52
Speaker 1: and some many more than boy, I know almost what
27:55
Speaker 1: is going on at this moment that the powers to
27:58
Speaker 1: be in the West, industrial powers, political powers on the
28:02
Speaker 1: right here in America can think they can undermine overthrow
28:04
Speaker 1: governments all through Latin America and bring it totally back
28:07
Speaker 1: into the American sphere. I mean, the last target they'll
28:09
Speaker 1: have probably is Cuba, probably the hardest one to take over.
28:12
Speaker 1: But if they do this, that's that's one of their
28:14
Speaker 1: next targets clearly, So talk about that. I mean, what
28:17
Speaker 1: is going on here And it's almost it's almost as
28:21
Speaker 1: if it's unseen by everybody in our country here, nobody's
28:25
Speaker 1: paying attention to what we're doing in Latin America and
28:29
Speaker 1: absolutely and reasserting American power. So I mean, I just
28:33
Speaker 1: talk about do you think the political the politics of
28:35
Speaker 1: this is? What are the economic forces behind it and
28:37
Speaker 1: why it's happening now?
28:39
Speaker 2: Well, A, there's numerous numerous things at play, right, I mean, first,
28:44
Speaker 2: in the United States, people are just blindsided by everything.
28:47
Speaker 3: Right, there's a different news and this is this is Look,
28:49
Speaker 3: this is Trump's strategy.
28:51
Speaker 2: Right, I'm just going to hit you with something new
28:52
Speaker 2: every single day and distract the press and distract the press.
28:55
Speaker 2: So like Latin America, I mean look, there was a
28:58
Speaker 2: lot of interest in fact that people responded to when
29:00
Speaker 2: the United States invaded Venezuela, right, that was like clearly like, look,
29:04
Speaker 2: you can't do this. You saw marches and protests in
29:07
Speaker 2: Mexico and in many countries all around Latin America. Even
29:10
Speaker 2: in the United States people were protesting.
29:12
Speaker 3: It wasn't a global like you know, oh my god.
29:16
Speaker 2: But within a week or two weeks, then Trump is
29:18
Speaker 2: talking about Greenland and people are like, oh, you know,
29:21
Speaker 2: like so his whole thing is is to knock people
29:24
Speaker 2: off guard and to distract the media, and of course
29:28
Speaker 2: it works. You know, there's a reason why Trump has
29:31
Speaker 2: done most of his onslaughts, most of attacks late on
29:35
Speaker 2: Friday night.
29:36
Speaker 3: Mark.
29:36
Speaker 2: It's because he doesn't want whatever he's doing a to
29:40
Speaker 2: like be on a news cycle. He doesn't want it
29:43
Speaker 2: to be on a newsday. He wants it to be
29:44
Speaker 2: in the weekend where people aren't paying attention. And then
29:46
Speaker 2: the other reason is that, you know, he doesn't want
29:48
Speaker 2: it to affect the markets.
29:49
Speaker 3: Oh the market's closed, Well, I've got two days for
29:51
Speaker 3: things to kind of calm down.
29:53
Speaker 2: I mean, if you saw the like the first attacks
29:55
Speaker 2: in Iran that was on a Friday night, the invasion
29:57
Speaker 2: of Venezuela Friday night. So the reason why that happens
30:01
Speaker 2: is because he doesn't want all that attack and he
30:03
Speaker 2: wants this to kind of go order the radar, So
30:05
Speaker 2: people are just blindsided. So that's one thing in Latin America.
30:09
Speaker 2: The reason why he's been able to do this is
30:10
Speaker 2: because people are scared. I mean, at the America, at
30:13
Speaker 2: the Shield of the America Summit and the Countercrtel coalition,
30:16
Speaker 2: you had a bunch of countries.
30:17
Speaker 3: That are clearly on the right or the far right.
30:20
Speaker 2: But then you had some countries that are my kind
30:21
Speaker 2: of more centrist that are there who just saying, I
30:24
Speaker 2: don't want him to come after us next, and so
30:27
Speaker 2: I just I just want to, like, you know, walk
30:29
Speaker 2: the straight line and say, oh, do what I need
30:32
Speaker 2: to do to make sure he's not going to come
30:33
Speaker 2: attack me later on. And that's why you have a
30:36
Speaker 2: few presents who have already mentioned in the region who
30:39
Speaker 2: have really kind of pushed back to try and respond.
30:42
Speaker 2: But this is not the time of the two thousands
30:44
Speaker 2: where you know, Latin America had this kind of unity
30:48
Speaker 2: and support and a progressive movement and international solidarity. You know,
30:54
Speaker 2: it you know you've gotten after for instance, the vasion
30:57
Speaker 2: invasion of Venezuela. You had other countries that came out
31:00
Speaker 2: denouncing what Trump just did. But there's nobody's going to
31:02
Speaker 2: stand up and say, you know, Trump, if you, if you,
31:04
Speaker 2: if you do that, that we're gonna we're gonna come
31:06
Speaker 2: back at you. And for instance, it's very clear, very
31:09
Speaker 2: clear that what we're seeing the alignment, the geopolitical alignment
31:13
Speaker 2: in the world right now, has aligned so that it's
31:16
Speaker 2: like we've reverted back to like the nineteenth century where
31:21
Speaker 2: Trump is basically saying, Okay, China, look, you got Asia,
31:24
Speaker 2: do what you need to do over there. It's that's
31:25
Speaker 2: your sphere of influence.
31:26
Speaker 3: You know, in Russia. You take care of Ukraine.
31:28
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say much over there, and you
31:29
Speaker 2: take care of whatever's going over there, Europe whatever, I
31:32
Speaker 2: don't really care, Just give me the Americas. And it's
31:34
Speaker 2: very clear that this kind of realignment again we're looking
31:38
Speaker 2: back at Teddy Roosevelt.
31:39
Speaker 3: I mean, it's insane that this is like where.
31:40
Speaker 2: We've returned to, where we're like people are afraid, nobody's
31:44
Speaker 2: willing to stand up. And of course Greenland's kind of
31:47
Speaker 2: a different situation. You know, you actually saw you know,
31:51
Speaker 2: the EU and NATO going look, Trump, you can't do that.
31:54
Speaker 3: But that was all Most of that was blustered, true,
31:56
Speaker 3: it was just trying to see that.
31:57
Speaker 1: It was a distraction. Was it planned distraction? So other
32:01
Speaker 1: things could take place? Is what you distract?
32:03
Speaker 3: Exactly? That's exactly it. That's exactly it.
32:05
Speaker 2: And the rest of the region is either scared or
32:08
Speaker 2: they're trying to push back. And when they are trying
32:10
Speaker 2: to push back, then you see the United States leaning
32:12
Speaker 2: in this year. This is a comp I mean, look,
32:15
Speaker 2: we just saw elections in Colombia where it was the
32:19
Speaker 2: first round, but the far right candidate kind of came
32:21
Speaker 2: from nowhere over the last month and and he essentially
32:25
Speaker 2: won with forty three percent, although there's been many claims
32:27
Speaker 2: of fraud, so we'll see, and of course there's a
32:29
Speaker 2: second round coming up in a couple of months. But
32:31
Speaker 2: so there's a big election in Columbia, there's big elections
32:34
Speaker 2: here in Brazil in a few months, like in October
32:37
Speaker 2: of this year. So these are some of the last
32:39
Speaker 2: bastions of the left in the entire region. And Trump
32:43
Speaker 2: is going to be playing his game to try and
32:45
Speaker 2: shore everybody up and get everybody on his side. That's
32:48
Speaker 2: this is the game he plays. So it is an
32:50
Speaker 2: extremely terrifying moment mark because there are very very few Internet.
32:56
Speaker 2: The UN isn't going to do anything for us. There
32:58
Speaker 2: are very few international institutions or countries that are willing
33:03
Speaker 2: to stand up and say no, no, no, sorry.
33:04
Speaker 3: Trump, you can't do that. You just you know you've
33:06
Speaker 3: gone too far.
33:07
Speaker 2: People will say it, they'll make these declarations that's nice,
33:10
Speaker 2: but Trump doesn't care about that, right, No.
33:13
Speaker 1: And I think that there are two things here before
33:15
Speaker 1: we while we have time. A is the clear danger
33:18
Speaker 1: this represents. We haven't seen anything like this, I think
33:21
Speaker 1: in this mass scale since things like the overthrow of
33:24
Speaker 1: a Yendi and Chile and other places in Latin America.
33:27
Speaker 1: The United States had to come in to take back
33:29
Speaker 1: its economic interest, to control it's the hemisphere in the
33:34
Speaker 1: way it wants to. But that's what we're seeing. It's
33:36
Speaker 1: happening again in some ways even more dangerous because we're
33:40
Speaker 1: seeing these far right governments taking over throughout Latin America,
33:43
Speaker 1: all over the place and at the behest of America.
33:47
Speaker 1: And so I think that that's a I'm not sure
33:50
Speaker 1: politically where the response is to that and where it
33:53
Speaker 1: comes from, it seems like it's a sleep defeated in
33:56
Speaker 1: Latin America, imprisoned in Latin America. But also people in
33:59
Speaker 1: the United States are yawning. It's not even on the
34:03
Speaker 1: radar that this danger we face and what it portends.
34:06
Speaker 2: People in Latin America definitely know and they and and
34:09
Speaker 2: they understand what's happening in Latin America. And many people
34:12
Speaker 2: have been out in the streets, they've been protesting. I mean,
34:14
Speaker 2: we are seeing kind of of of a response in
34:16
Speaker 2: Bolivia right where UH, Indigenous organizers and movements are fighting
34:22
Speaker 2: to topple the new right wing government that's only been
34:25
Speaker 2: in power for six months. UH and they are pushing
34:27
Speaker 2: back hard because that government tried to pass reforms UH
34:31
Speaker 2: and undo gas subsidies, et cetera, and so so so
34:35
Speaker 2: Bolivia is one example where people are pushing back. There's
34:38
Speaker 2: there's elections happening in Peru, which are we don't really
34:41
Speaker 2: know what's going to happen there. It's like it's it's
34:43
Speaker 2: another crazy, crazy situation, but it is.
34:48
Speaker 3: It is. It is blind siding because there's something that's
34:51
Speaker 3: really important here.
34:52
Speaker 2: Mark is the the image, the example, the role that
34:56
Speaker 2: Trump shows to the other countries and to other far
35:02
Speaker 2: right leaders in the region. In his first and in
35:05
Speaker 2: his first administration, Trump did. He came to power within
35:09
Speaker 2: two years. You had Bolshneata winning. Why because he saw Trump.
35:12
Speaker 2: He said, if Trump can do it, we're going to
35:13
Speaker 2: follow those same tactics. So the same thing with Twitter
35:16
Speaker 2: and social media denouncing, you know, the elections and whatever,
35:20
Speaker 2: and suddenly you had you have everybody's just following that tactic.
35:23
Speaker 3: And what's happened is there's actually a.
35:25
Speaker 2: Situation where in some cases like for instance, Boukeley, Nai
35:29
Speaker 2: Bukeley and Nel Salvador. Salvador's kind of he calls himself,
35:34
Speaker 2: was it the coolest dictator? Is his own words for himself, right,
35:38
Speaker 2: And he's a friend of Trump's, like they've met. Trump
35:40
Speaker 2: in fact said, oh, you're just doing a great job.
35:42
Speaker 2: I thought you were young when I first met you,
35:44
Speaker 2: but you're doing a great job. So Boukeley is like
35:48
Speaker 2: for the right and for the far right, he is
35:50
Speaker 2: the idol of across Latin America. I was covering the election,
35:54
Speaker 2: his reelection, Bukele's election in twenty twenty four and I
35:59
Speaker 2: met a politician from Chile, a member of like the
36:07
Speaker 2: civil police forces, a politician.
36:09
Speaker 3: Far right politician in Bolivia.
36:12
Speaker 2: And they were all there to see Bukele's model of policing, because,
36:16
Speaker 2: of course Bukele has passed all of these draconian laws
36:21
Speaker 2: gutting and any sorts of civil rights and basically locked
36:24
Speaker 2: up seventy thousand and eighty thousand people over the last
36:26
Speaker 2: supposed drug traffickers, but thousands, tens of thousands of them
36:29
Speaker 2: are innocent, and he's locked them all up in these
36:31
Speaker 2: jails and been helding them there ever since. We're talking
36:34
Speaker 2: about years in jail without any habeas corpus, and many
36:37
Speaker 2: of them without any ability to even speak with a lawyer.
36:40
Speaker 3: So it's it's shocking, it's terrifying.
36:41
Speaker 2: And these are jails where Trump has been sending people
36:44
Speaker 2: to right, but they were there to see, Wow, if
36:47
Speaker 2: Bukeley can do it, so can we.
36:49
Speaker 3: And when I was.
36:49
Speaker 2: Driving through Prue last year, mark on the sides of buildings,
36:54
Speaker 2: what you saw, like in like spray paint was Boukeley
36:59
Speaker 2: on the sides of building in Peru. It was clearly
37:01
Speaker 2: kind of like a like a you know, like a
37:05
Speaker 2: kind of a presidential candidacy for some far right candidates
37:11
Speaker 2: that were trying to attract people's attention but basically using
37:14
Speaker 2: their own colors to say, But the idea is, that's
37:18
Speaker 2: the image that we want. And in Al Salvador, since
37:21
Speaker 2: they were able to clean up the streets, it sold
37:23
Speaker 2: across the rest of the region in that it works.
37:26
Speaker 2: And so if we're having problems with drug trafficking, then
37:29
Speaker 2: all we have to do is crack down and gut
37:31
Speaker 2: habeas corpus in the rule of law, and for instance,
37:33
Speaker 2: in El Salvador, that's what they've done. And you know,
37:35
Speaker 2: now El Salvador is one of the most dangerous countries
37:38
Speaker 2: in the region. So I say all that to say
37:40
Speaker 2: this is that you have this situation where the far
37:45
Speaker 2: right is just is riding this wave, this Trump wave,
37:48
Speaker 2: this Bukelei wave across the region and pushback is extremely,
37:55
Speaker 2: extremely difficult, but there is people are responding, people are
37:58
Speaker 2: pushing back. Latin America has always been extremely elastic and
38:01
Speaker 2: people have risen from below and grassroots and things like that,
38:04
Speaker 2: but people are people are really scared about what Trump
38:08
Speaker 2: can do with the United States can do.
38:10
Speaker 1: I think what you're covering and what you bring to
38:12
Speaker 1: us here at th real news and under the shadow
38:13
Speaker 1: in your work is the danger we face in the
38:16
Speaker 1: United States in the world because of what we're doing,
38:18
Speaker 1: because what Trump and the right wing in America are
38:20
Speaker 1: doing in Latin America. But before we go, we won't
38:22
Speaker 1: have much time here. You've brought up a couple of
38:24
Speaker 1: times in our conversation Israel. What does Israel have to
38:28
Speaker 1: do with Latin America, you know? And yeah, let me
38:31
Speaker 1: just stop there. I mean I always feel this in
38:33
Speaker 1: some ways because anti Semitism is so deep that as
38:36
Speaker 1: soon as you that us who pushes this. But what
38:39
Speaker 1: is it about Israel and the right in Latin America
38:42
Speaker 1: And what's that connection?
38:45
Speaker 2: Well, I mean we've looked at what Israel means now
38:48
Speaker 2: and most recently, I mean, there's two different things, right,
38:50
Speaker 2: is what Israel's meant in recent years.
38:52
Speaker 3: Israel has really been courting.
38:54
Speaker 2: Many countries in Latin America in recent years around question.
38:58
Speaker 2: These are countries that might be more pro Palestine. Don't
39:02
Speaker 2: forget that five hundred thousand, you know, like the Palestinian
39:07
Speaker 2: refuge descendancy in Chile is one of the largest the
39:11
Speaker 2: entire world. It's huge, half a million people. They have
39:14
Speaker 2: their own soccer team, right Palestina. So you have a
39:18
Speaker 2: lot of support for Palestine that are there. And what
39:22
Speaker 2: Israel has been trying to do in particular Latin America
39:25
Speaker 2: is finding ways of shoring up support from different countries
39:29
Speaker 2: and particularly from the right and the far right, so
39:31
Speaker 2: support at the UN, international support, support to back them.
39:35
Speaker 2: So we're talking that's in recent years. But Israel has
39:37
Speaker 2: played a huge role in Latin America, you know, going
39:41
Speaker 2: back decades. I mean, Israel was supporting authoritarian governments throughout
39:45
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties, supporting the dictatorships of South America, training weapons.
39:50
Speaker 2: It was kind of like the United States is right
39:52
Speaker 2: hand man throughout the Cold War in Latin America.
39:56
Speaker 3: And that's just kind of it's not known or it's
39:59
Speaker 3: forgotten me.
40:00
Speaker 2: I promise I will be doing an episode about this
40:03
Speaker 2: on Under the Shadow at some point over the next
40:05
Speaker 2: year because it's so important and people need to understand.
40:08
Speaker 3: Kind of this history. But you do have these two different.
40:10
Speaker 2: Things, but definitely Latin America has been extremely important for
40:13
Speaker 2: Israel going back decades.
40:15
Speaker 1: Well as a conversation we can have, you know, I
40:17
Speaker 1: may maybe think of its total personal digression.
40:20
Speaker 3: But my family.
40:22
Speaker 1: I have family in Montevideo, I have family in Mexico City.
40:25
Speaker 1: And the interesting part is that both of those families
40:28
Speaker 1: on the Jewish side of the family are on the left,
40:31
Speaker 1: and my family at Uruguay were part of the two
40:33
Speaker 1: Pomaro's guerrillas. Wow.
40:37
Speaker 2: Mark, we do have to have a converse. I should
40:40
Speaker 2: I should be interviewing you from the shadow.
40:42
Speaker 1: But it is. But I think that it's insidious about
40:46
Speaker 1: how this is happening in Latin America. It's always happened.
40:49
Speaker 1: It's it is part of the history of this country
40:53
Speaker 1: to control this hemisphere and not let anyone control it
40:56
Speaker 1: but American capital. And that's exactly what's underlying all of this,
41:00
Speaker 1: and it gets lost in these conversations people that that's
41:03
Speaker 1: exactly what we're doing. Ye another thing, and and Mike,
41:06
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that you're your reporting here real
41:08
Speaker 1: news is really critically important. It's on the cutting edge
41:11
Speaker 1: of what we face in terms of fighting the neo
41:13
Speaker 1: fascist tied in this world coming out of Latin America.
41:16
Speaker 1: And Uh, I really appreciate all the stuff you're doing.
41:18
Speaker 1: I really do.
41:19
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Mark, Well, I appreciate it. I
41:22
Speaker 3: appreciate you.
41:23
Speaker 2: There were many other things in these leaks that were
41:26
Speaker 2: just shocking, jaw dropping, shocking.
41:29
Speaker 1: You know.
41:29
Speaker 3: We didn't even get into.
41:32
Speaker 2: Members of the Hunduran government on on the far right
41:38
Speaker 2: talking about imprisoning or even killing.
41:40
Speaker 3: Members of the left and Honduras.
41:42
Speaker 2: But one of the things that that just that that
41:46
Speaker 2: that sent the hairs on the back of my neck
41:50
Speaker 2: standing on end was a message that juanro Landornandez sent
41:55
Speaker 2: to Thomas Sombrano. Tomas Sombrano is the head of National
41:59
Speaker 2: Congress ANDAs far right National Party, same as Juana Landor Nandez.
42:04
Speaker 2: Most these people are members of the kind of the
42:06
Speaker 2: right wing, far right National Party. We have to remember
42:10
Speaker 2: that under Juana Landor Nandez's government, particularly during his fraudulent
42:14
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen electoral campaign, he was pushing human rights violations
42:19
Speaker 2: left and right. People were disappeared, people were killed, arrested, arrested.
42:23
Speaker 3: For years, a ton of violence.
42:28
Speaker 2: And it's within this context that he sends this message
42:30
Speaker 2: to Thomas Ambrano, who's he's kind of he's kind of
42:33
Speaker 2: elected as his right hand man to try and get
42:35
Speaker 2: him back to Honduras.
42:37
Speaker 3: Right.
42:37
Speaker 2: In fact, at one point, Juana Landor Nande says, don't
42:40
Speaker 2: listen to the current president. He's old, he's senile, he
42:42
Speaker 2: doesn't even know what he's doing. You got to listen
42:44
Speaker 2: to me. I will guide you.
42:46
Speaker 1: Right.
42:46
Speaker 2: And in this message he leaves to Tomas Ambrano, he
42:49
Speaker 2: says this and like this is the quote from the message.
42:53
Speaker 3: You have to kill people, he says, for us to
42:56
Speaker 3: be calm. You just have to do it.
42:59
Speaker 2: If you have to return into repression to control the country,
43:01
Speaker 2: it has to be done. You have to do everything
43:04
Speaker 2: you have at your disposal to not let go of power.
43:08
Speaker 2: And you have to make it seem that everything that
43:10
Speaker 2: will happen, the deaths, the killings, the kidnappings, they're all
43:16
Speaker 2: being done by the communists. This is the man who
43:21
Speaker 2: was convicted two years ago for drug trafficking hundreds of
43:24
Speaker 2: kilos of cocaine into the United States, convicted to forty
43:28
Speaker 2: five years in prison, and who was prop and who
43:30
Speaker 2: was pardoned by President Donald Trump last December.
43:34
Speaker 3: And this is a man who's been trying to return
43:37
Speaker 3: to Honduras to in his eyes, hopefully take control of
43:41
Speaker 3: the country, but definitely guide the country for the next
43:44
Speaker 3: four eight Who who knows how many years. A man
43:47
Speaker 3: who's backed by Israel and Prime Minister Natanyahu, hu man
43:51
Speaker 3: who's very very close tys to the White House because
43:53
Speaker 3: he talked about them a lot during these messages, and
43:57
Speaker 3: he's talking about killing people in order to suppress them
44:01
Speaker 3: in order to maintain control on the country. And this
44:05
Speaker 3: is a window mark.
44:06
Speaker 2: And this is why I wanted to like kind of
44:08
Speaker 2: close in essence this conversation, because this is a window
44:12
Speaker 2: into the right wing and far right elites in Latin America.
44:17
Speaker 2: In one country, this is Honduras, but they feel so
44:20
Speaker 2: empowered and emboldened by President Trump in office that they
44:25
Speaker 2: believe they have a green card and the green light
44:28
Speaker 2: to do whatever they want, and if that means inflicting
44:32
Speaker 2: violence on people in their own country, they're going to
44:35
Speaker 2: do it. Honduras is just one example, but it's one
44:38
Speaker 2: example that is the reality in most of the countries
44:42
Speaker 2: in Latin America and for most of the leaders on
44:45
Speaker 2: the far right who have been taking power. And that's
44:48
Speaker 2: just terrifying for me, but really important that we understand
44:52
Speaker 2: the extent to which certain individuals are pushing this agenda
44:58
Speaker 2: and and how terrifying that is that should be for
45:01
Speaker 2: all of us.
45:02
Speaker 1: Well, Mike Fox again, I dip you appreciate the stuff
45:04
Speaker 1: you're doing and thank you for doing this today. And
45:06
Speaker 1: in what you just finished talking about I think deserves
45:10
Speaker 1: a deeper dive in our next conversation together about the
45:13
Speaker 1: ties between the right wing in America United States, I
45:16
Speaker 1: mean to say, and the right wing throughout Latin America
45:19
Speaker 1: and what this regime in this country means in terms
45:22
Speaker 1: of fomenting the right there that helps strengthen the right here.
45:26
Speaker 1: And I think that that it's a really important dynamic
45:28
Speaker 1: that it's not explored. So that's our next conversation. That's
45:32
Speaker 1: all right, I look forward to it. Thanks so much, Mark,
45:35
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Once again. Let me thank Mike
45:44
Speaker 1: Fox for joining us today, and thanks to Cameron Grandino
45:47
Speaker 1: running a program, audio editor, receivers, and Frank for working
45:49
Speaker 1: his magic, Rosette Sawally for producing the Mark Steiner Show
45:53
Speaker 1: and It's Hardless Killer of Ar for making it all
45:55
Speaker 1: work behind the scenes, and everyone here for a news
45:58
Speaker 1: for making this show possible. Please let me know what
46:01
Speaker 1: you've thought about what you heard today and what you'd
46:03
Speaker 1: like is to cover. Just write to me at MSS
46:07
Speaker 1: at threenows dot com and I'll get right back to you.
46:10
Speaker 1: Once again. Thank you to Mike Fox for joining us today.
46:13
Speaker 1: I'm put the important work he does here at the
46:15
Speaker 1: Real News check out under the shadow. So if the
46:18
Speaker 1: creweth Real News, I'm Mark Steiner, stay involved, keep listening,
46:23
Speaker 1: and take care.