A Rare Interview with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Barack, Washington, Wickenden, News, Obama, Politics, Wnyc, Lizza, President

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2018

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nicolás Maduro was an unlikely successor to Venezuela’s popular and charismatic Hugo Chavez. And, since his election, the country has been wracked with devastating food shortages, a breakdown of ordinary services and medical care, and rampant violence. But, as Maduro sees it, the real problem is his political opponents, and he has taken steps to secure control over all the branches of government, in order to establish a de-facto dictatorship. The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson was recently granted a rare interview with the Venezuelan President, who told him of his country’s economic relationships with Russia and China. Anderson tells Dorothy Wickenden that he came away from the conversation with a renewed sense of the need for greater American engagement in Venezuela. “It is going through the sewer on our watch,” Anderson says.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu, and this podcast is brought to you by Wilderness, a conservation-driven
0:06.4	hospitality company that offers intimate world life encounters in extraordinary remote landscapes.
0:12.5	Last year, I embarked on two separate solo adventures with Wilderness, one to Botswana and the other
0:18.2	to Namibia, where the expert guides delivered a truly once-in-a-lifetime
0:23.6	experience. I promise you, whatever you watch and see before you go won't prepare you for the thrill
0:29.4	of a wilderness adventure. eBay, it's a place to fall in love with new pre-loved vintage and rare
0:36.6	fashion over and over again.
0:39.0	Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated.
0:42.5	Yeah, eBay.
0:44.0	Things people love.
0:48.7	I'm Dorothy Wickendon.
0:50.5	On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorker's John Lee Anderson talks to Venezuela's controversial president, Nicholas Maduro.
0:59.0	Maduro, who rarely grants interviews, has been a target of threats from President Trump.
1:05.0	He doesn't often give interviews, and he obviously had to spin you as an American.
1:20.7	So tell us how that conversation went.
1:24.0	So I know Maduro.
1:26.1	I've known him for nearly a decade, and I knew Chavez from the beginning of his presidency in 1999. I'm a known person to them, and I've both written for the New Yorker pieces that they liked and that they didn't like.
1:45.8	In the course of time, I think they've come to see me as someone who's balanced.
1:49.9	I think that what triggered the decision to give me an interview was
1:54.3	Trump's threat of military action against Maduro and his regime in early August of this year.
2:02.6	We have many options for Venezuela. This is our neighbor. This is, you know, we're all over the world,
2:09.6	and we have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.