How Cuba Propped Up Maduro

Conversations With Coleman

The Free Press

Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2026

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I’m joined by Gelet Martínez Fragela, a Cuban activist and journalist and a close watcher of Venezuela who’s tracked how authoritarianism hollowed out a once prosperous country. We talk about the warning signs, the lies that sustained the regime, and why President Maduro’s trial in the United States matters far beyond Venezuelan borders. Gelet also answers the question: Why were Cubans responsible for guarding President Maduro? And how will the country function in the wake of the U.S.’s shock intervention? For Gelet’s personal story, listen to our episode from October: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-cubas-police-state-from-ration-cards-to-black/id1716338488?i=1000733663296 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman.
0:04.1	The whole world is paying attention to Venezuela.
0:07.8	The stunning extraction and arrest of Nicholas Maduro has Americans asking questions like,
0:13.7	what is President Trump's goal? Are we in the midst of another regime-change war?
0:18.2	And most importantly, what's next? But in this episode, I wanted to get
0:23.6	behind the constantly changing headlines and delve into some deeper context about Venezuela as a
0:29.6	country. Again and again, I find that what podcasts and news articles lack is not up-to-date information,
0:36.8	but deep historical context. In this case,
0:40.2	what does it mean for Venezuela to be run by a cartel? How did that come to be? It's a strange
0:46.7	reality on its face. I mean, we all know what drug cartels are. We've all seen the Sopranos or
0:52.0	the Wire or Narcos. And we know what it means for corrupt
0:55.7	government officials to accept bribes in exchange for allowing cartels to operate freely.
1:01.7	But what Venezuela has become is something quite different. The government, in some literal
1:07.6	sense, is a cartel. And you can't understand anything that's going on in Venezuela
1:12.6	right now without understanding that fact. That, at least, is the argument of my guest today,
1:19.0	Helet Martinez Frajela. Helet is a Cuban-born journalist and TV producer who became a political
1:25.2	refugee after fleeing Cuba. She founded ADN Cuba and later
1:29.3	launched ADN America, which has been keeping close tabs on Venezuela for many years. In this
1:35.3	episode, we talk about how Venezuela was transformed from a thriving democracy with a functional
1:40.3	economy into a socialist dystopia and ultimately a hollowed-out narco-state.
1:46.2	We discussed the role of oil in Venezuela's history, as well as in Trump's current motivations.
1:51.6	We discussed the political implications of America's intervention.
	...

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