This is CBS I on the world. I'm John Bachelor. Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, the election of July 28.

Maria Karina Machado the leader of the opposition.

All this is drama for now what looks to be a grinding procedure going forward of the regime, buttoning up and persecuting the

opposition, and outside voices weighing in. One of those voices is the president of Brazil, the giant of the Americas.

Lula de Silva, three times elected.

This is his third tour as president.

I welcome Marianistasio Grady of the America's column

editor at the Wall Street Journal editorial page because all these dots do

connect. Mary a very good evening to you the Sao Paulo forum

Lula de Silva his identification with the traditional 20th century left.

How does he connect to Nicholas Maduro who's in trouble because of a bad election?

What does Lula get out of it? Good evening to you, Mary.

Well, good evening, John. I think we need to start first with the acknowledgement that Brazil is an ally of

Nicholas Maduro. It's been, you know, Lula's a hard left guy.

He's been reinvented in a lot of media

to suggest that he's something else,

some kind of modern, not really a real communist anymore. but he's very interested in power.

I don't think there's too many people who would subscribe to what Carl Marx, the theory that Carl Marx had when he first wrote it, but lots of them hang on to the ideology because it equals power for them and that's where Lula is at.

And the problem here is that because it's such a large country, the

largest country in South America, and it has long wanted to stop the US from

being the hegemon in the Western Hemisphere and to take on that role in South America.

He is considered an important

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