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Riccardo Housman is definitive on his Venezuela. Riccardo, I want to go back before your acclaim at Harvard, before your public service decades ago, to your Venezuela. How did the Houseman family get from a World War two Europe over to Venezuela. How did your family emigrate to Venezuela a lifetime ago.
Well, a Jewish family, my father, they both went through the Holocaust. My father lost both his parents. He arrived at Venezuela at age seventeen with some He managed to get himself to Spain, and then everybody in Spain thought that Hitler was going to take over Spain, so he ended up with another relative in Venezuela. And my mother lived through the the German occupation in Belgium and she was freed by the USGIS in September nineteen forty four.
She was living with a Catholic family in a village in the south of Belgium until they were liberated. She lived for over a year thereafter after, as you know, they got the papers to go to the train station in nineteen forty two, So that's That's how they ended up in Venezuela. And in Venezuela they had a you know,
they created a really really nice life for themselves. And so when I grew up, Venezuela was this heaven and well I had this image of Europe as this horrible place where my parents had covered from right, I.
Look Professor Housman and against this is part of the story, folks from Venezuela's at the tip of oargin China. Your economist essay written yesterday for Zeniment is absolutely scathing. You say the President of the United States is quote delusional. What does President Trump get wrong?
Well, he thinks that extracting oil from the ground is a technical issue. But extracting oil from the ground, if it was a technical issue and as well, would be a powerhouse. But the reason why oil production in Venezuela collapsed, that so many other things collapsed, is because oil is a long term investment proposition. You have to part with a lot of money and wait until you know you get a cash flow to recover that money over a
very long period of time. And in that long period of time, you have to be assured that you have some property rights that are going to be respected. And if he thinks that right now, he's going to recover oil production because he's going to tell us major companies to go out and part with billions of dollars in Venezuela in the context of an illegitimate government because Madula stole an election. But this woman who's now president of Venezuela, she didn't even win a pretend to win an election.
She was appointed by a guy who stole an election. And he's going to get concessions that have no approval in law by any any national assembly that was elected by anybody. And you would expect at the moment they will go back to democracy, that any of those conditions are going to be respected by a new by a new political majority. So I think that there is the Democracy is not a goal to be put after economic recovery. Democracy is an instrument of economic recovery. It's the way
of telling Venezuelans your rights will be protected. Go back and and and and you know, dream go.
Back to You knew as a kid RICARDA Houston with us of Carver University. Folks were thrilled that he could be with the Shannon O'Neil coming up We welcome all of you around the world. Please subscribe YouTube Paul and I humbled by the digital success this year. Paul Sweeney with Ricardo Housman, Professor.
Do we know or what can you tell us about what the average Venezuelan really on the ground once from this government going forward or from any government?
Well, I mean Venezuelans voted massively in favor of a change of direction. Right they when they were allowed to have a primary that the government tried to prevent. Well, Maria Corina Machalo won with ninety plus percent of the vote when she was not allowed to run and she anointed somebody to run instead. They voted. This guy won with a margin of forty points, and he didn't want buy more because they didn't not let us Venizuant's abroad vote and they did not let three million young Venezuelans
to register. Had that happened, we would have won with an even larger margin. So Venezuelans are unified politically in a new direction. If you allowed Venezuelants to choose, they would choose a very competitive legal framework for oil, and
they would engineer on oil boom. We don't need a you know, American help to engineer an oil boom, because the world is full of oil companies that would want to create back into Venezuela under the right conditions, and we have a political majority to create the right conditions. But this system that they have described right now, it's not workable. It's something that works on one on a day to day basis. That they're saying, well, we leave the same bad guys that were in power before, the
guys who are indicted. I mean the guys who are in the same indictment as Nicolas Maluru is the Minister of Defense and the other one is the Minister of the Internal Police. So it's the same guys. We're there and they pretend to say, well, we are going to tell them what to do and they're going to do our bidding. But when they say our bidding, they think that they can get a recovery of Venezuela without empowering Venezuelan citizens with rights. That's not going to work.
Professor Issert, do you think if there's a scenario where the Trump administration can in fact exert control over this government like I think they think they can.
Well, I mean what they think they can is to say either you do what I tell you, or I kill you because I have drones. I don't want to put boots on the ground. I have drones, I have missiles. I can kill you. So you better do what we want.
But when they interrupt Ricardo, but Paul nailed it with that question. What this is about is in is direct community violence, whether it's Cuba or Venezuela. I mean President Trump in his advocates have to decide if they want to participate with people who are violent. How do you want in your Venezuela? How do we move forward to a constructive end? What's the Houseman process? In January, February, in March of this year.
Well, you want to empower the people who have strategic interests that are aligned with you, and that is all the Venezuela Democrats. So this idea that you can do your thing without having to deal with the organized Venezuelan opposition that, under enormously difficult situations, was able to win an election. You want, you want to you want to empower them to help you. Do you want the strategic
aligance with them? But you don't want to hear this dismissive description of my Akorina Machau as somebody who's not respected in Venezuela. I challenge you to mention somebody in the world who's more respected than Manrie Akorina Machau. Obviously, she's super respected in Venezuela. That's why she can win elections in Venezuela. Now that's different from saying she has the command over troops.
We're gonna have share O'Neill with this, Professor Hausman. But let me ask you this Viscal. This came up, Paul outside of the dining room table. Where does the military of Venezuela fit in? I mean, if I look at the Philippines and the shift from du Terte to the younger Marcos, the military played a part there. Instability is the military of your Venezuela stable or unstable?
The military of Venezuela is led by a narco terrorist organization and they're still in power. But below that, there's a lot of people who would be willing, who would want to go back to a more democratic regime under civilian rule, but they cannot. They are not allowed to organize, they're being spied by the military secret police, and they're
being put in prison. They're being tortured. So what we need, if if Trump is going to demand something from from Delci Rodriguez, is that she she delivered Geosdalo Cabago, the head of the police, Vladimir Padrino, the Minister of Defense. Those are the heads of the Cartel of the Sons, the Cartel de los Soles. They are the narco traffickers.
They are now in charge of the country and they are the ones who yesterday put in prison twelve journalists, so that the number of political prisoners in Venezuela is going up, not down. Okay, So you want you want to fix the country, you need to get rid of these leaders, this corrupt, criminal leadership that is in control of army and to empower the public of the army to go back to civilian rules.
Paul get one more question from professor.
Professor, is a scenario where the people of Venezuela rise up and force change.
I think that you know, everybody now is willing to give a line of credit because you know, we've tried so hard to get rid of Maluro and we weren't able to do it on our own. So everybody is very happy that that the US was able to get rid of Maluro. But and and they're hoping that this is the beginning of a good process. But you know, the statements of Trump after you know, at Madlago and
afterwards were extremely disempowering and concerning. They described a vision for the future that I do not think it's going to work, and I don't think that Venezuelans are going to feel that that is there is the right prime.
Professor Hausman, thank you so much for leading our coverage this morning. Ricarda houseman with the Kennedy School, Harvard, and of course looked to his piercing essay and the economist