‘Venezuela’s Revolution Still Stands,’ Even With Gun to Its Head
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After the January 3rd bombing of Venezuelan neighborhoods, military facilities and the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, the Trump White House and Pentagon are still imposing a full scale naval blockade against Venezuela. The Trump administration is claiming they’ve fundamentally changed the Venezuelan government but the facts don’t bear this out. Many of the oil concessions they may now receive were long ago offered by Maduro himself.
Brian is joined by Manolo De Los Santos, the executive director of The People’s Forum in New York, to discuss how the government in Venezuela is still mobilizing the nation in defense of its sovereignty.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | After the January 3rd terrorist bombing of civilian neighborhoods in Venezuela and the kidnapping |
| 0:09.1 | of the president and his wife, the Trump White House and the Pentagon are imposing a full-scale |
| 0:16.0 | naval blockade of Venezuela. Today we'll talk about how the government in Venezuela is mobilizing the |
| 0:23.4 | nation in defense of its sovereignty. We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand |
| 0:31.6 | that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, |
| 1:05.5 | but an imperative necessity. Welcome to the Socialist Program. I'm your host, Brian Becker. |
| 1:08.6 | Today we're talking with Manolo de Los Santos. |
| 1:13.2 | He is the executive director of the People's Forum in New York. |
| 1:19.0 | Manolo, welcome back. Thank you for having me. Despite the horrible circumstances, I'm glad we can talk through this. Yes, Manolo, I mean, the last week since Saturday, early morning Saturday, |
| 1:25.8 | you, the Answer Coalition, the People's Forum, many, many organizations, |
| 1:30.7 | I would say hundreds, in fact, have immediately sprung into action, mobilized large-scale |
| 1:37.1 | demonstrations in more than 100 cities. That all happened within 12, 16 hours of the attack. |
| 1:48.1 | But each day, each hour almost brings new news. |
| 1:56.7 | As we're recording on Wednesday, the news is that the U.S. Navy has seized a Russian oil tanker that was connected to or bound for at some point, Venezuela. Again, the U.S. government is saying |
| 2:03.5 | this is part of the full-scale naval blockade and oil embargo over Venezuela. The Venezuelan |
| 2:12.0 | government, in spite of the tremendous crisis, in spite of the loss of life, in spite of the bombing of civilian |
| 2:19.3 | neighborhoods, in spite of the fact that the president himself was kidnapped and brought to a New York |
| 2:25.2 | city jail, the government, the revolutionary core of the government has remained intact, |
| 2:31.1 | and the nation in Venezuela, the people are mobilizing. Let's just talk about it. |
| 2:36.6 | Well, I think it's the greatest testament to the will of the Venezuelan people and of their |
| 2:42.7 | revolutionary process, which didn't start yesterday. This has been a revolution that's been |
| 2:47.8 | in movement, in power for 25 years now. |
... |
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