Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) recently appeared on C-SPAN’s “After Words” program to promote his new book, “The Case Against Socialism.”
During the approximately 45 minute interview with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) acting as host, Paul spoke about the dangers of people like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) promoting socialist ideology unchallenged.
When Gaetz asked Paul about the way in which certain politicians and media figures “champion Venezuela,” the senator replied:
Venezuela is just such a disaster. I mean, people literally eating their pets. We tell the story of a young lady who was a teenage girl, and she has a gang, but her gang is to defend the turf of trash. So, there’s certain garbage receptacles and she keeps people out of them because those are her garbage receptacles to look for food. How sad. People killing rats in the street to try to eat them, pigeons, and it just, it really is a sad thing.
Kind of going back to the world economy thing, we have to understand why the world economy got better, and we have to understand why Venezuela’s deteriorating into, you know, chaos – and that’s, I think, part of what the book is doing – it’s part of also the debate we should be having up here, and we don’t seem to have it in Congress, is that we don’t develop, we aren’t really talking about which economically system is better.
And nobody in the media seems to care that what AOC is supporting or what Bernie is supporting is Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot, and all these terrible ideas, and they get away with it because they aren’t challenged.
The pertinent portion of the video begins at the 16:21 mark:
Later in the interview, Gaetz brings up Sanders’ remark from the 1980’s about breadlines.
“It’s funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing!” Sanders stated. “In other countries people don’t line up for food. The rich get the food and the poor starve to death.”
To this, Paul replied: “Yeah, well, we suggest that he actually go down and see what the lines are like in Venezuela. I don’t think people are too excited about lines.”
On the subject of politicians and media personalities defending socialism, during his October 11 appearance on ABC’s “The View,” Paul received pushback from guest-host Ana Navarro, who suggested that Venezuela was not a representation of socialism.
NAVARRO: Let me ask you this because I live in Miami, there’s tens of thousands of Venezuelan exiles living there. You talk a lot about Venezuela in your new book. I get a lot of political ads from the Republican Party – Donald Trump has tweeted this, many have tweeted this – “If you vote for Democrats, they will turn the United States into Venezuela.” Do you think that’s a fair statement to make?
PAUL: Well, if you vote for a socialist, you might get socialism.
NAVARRO: Come on. Don’t do that. Maduro is not a socialist; he’s a corrupt, murderous thug who is starving his people.
PAUL: That’s not true.
NAVARRO: That’s not true? Maduro’s not a thug and a murderer who’s starving his people?
PAUL: Let’s have a conversation here. Chavez was a socialist, and socialism was the economic system Venezuela –
NAVARRO: And they stole. [It’s a] kleptocracy. It’s not socialism.
PAUL: But here’s the question … they voted for socialism.
Paul attempted to finish his thought, but Navarro cut him of, falsely implying that Paul wouldn’t condemn Maduro as a “murderous thug.”
The Daily Wire reached out to Venezuelan expat Daniel Di Martino for a response to Navarro’s claim that Maduro isn’t a socialist, and he stated:
Ana Navarro is wrong to say Maduro isn’t socialist. Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, nationalized thousands of companies and greatly expanded welfare programs and government employment. It was as a result of these socialist policies that our economy was destroyed and that today 9 out of every 10 Venezuelans live in poverty and more than four million Venezuelans like myself have been forced to leave our homeland. Corrupt and evil people govern many countries around the world, but these countries don’t see the terrible humanitarian crises that socialist countries like Venezuela and Cuba experience.
“It is insulting that media personalities continue to try to defend the socialist system that has killed so many people throughout history just to protect the radical Democrats that promote those same policies in America,” Di Martino added.
via The Daily Wire
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