During an exclusive interview with The Floridian, Republican congressional candidate Michael Carbonara put a real-world "face" on the current environment in Venezuela, even after the arrest of socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro by the Trump administration. Carbonara, who's running against U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida's 25th district, discussed his conversation with "Jane Doe," a Venezuelan woman who had to conceal her identity in fear of retribution from the Venezuelan government.
"I wanted to show the people what it's really like in Venezuela. I was talking to this person, and right away, she was just terrified, like a deer in the headlights," Carbonara said. "She said, No, I can't do that. They're gonna take my family away. She was definitely scared to speak out."
"As hopeful as everybody is, and I think there's reason to have hope, they're still scared," Carbonara continued. "There's, there's no freedom of speech there, and so we took all the precautions to make sure that she could speak to us without being identified, because she is still in Caracas with her family."
Nicolas Maduro, who ruled over Venezuela since 2013, was captured by special operation forces along with his wife in an early-morning raid inside their home in Caracas on Jan. 3.
In reaction, Carbonara called the arrest a sign of "relief" and "hope" for Venezuela, a sentiment shared by Jane Doe and Venezuelan Americans in South Florida. Florida's 25th Congressional District has a heavy Venezuelan population and a large Hispanic population overall.
"So immediately it was, it was a sign of relief, a sign of hope. The whole weekend, everybody in Venezuela was celebrating. They were celebrating before the sun came up that Saturday morning, and everybody was so excited for freedom," Carbonara said. "They were joyful, all their families that they were separated from; it was just pure joy and hope that freedom was finally here."
With Venezuela's events unfolding, Carbonara also discussed with Jane Doe a restoration of freedom in other Latin American countries, including Cuba. Both Cuba and Venezuela have had a relationship under the Maduro regime, with the Cuban military protecting Maduro in exchange for Venezuelan oil.
"There are tools and diplomacy that can happen where we could have a restoration of freedom in Cuba without violence, without necessarily, you know, a coup, or with an overthrow," Carbonara said. "We don't need that. We could do it peacefully with diplomacy, because we took out the narco terrorist that was making Cuba's regime possible."
"I think that there's a renewed energy for freedom. And people want to be free. They want to have freedom of speech. They want economic opportunity. They want safety," Carbonara added.
Carbonara, an entrepreneur and business owner with a background in cryptocurrency, contrasted his "American Dream" approach to the likes of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed socialist who rose to notoriety with his policies before winning the Big Apple's mayoral seat last November.
Jane Doe also called the socialist platform, including people protesting in support of Maduro in New York City, ignorant, based on her experiences under the Venezuelan government.
Moreover, Carbonara noted the ideology could be coming from young people feeling left out of the American Dream, including economic opportunities otherwise taken away from H-1B visas.
The H-1B visa program is a government program that allows employers to hire foreign nationals temporarily with a bachelor's degree or equivalent to work in largely speciality occupations, such as technology, engineering, or medicine.
"Mamdani said, here's your future, but presented socialism as the only answer," Carbonara remarked. "What I'm saying is, no, freedom is the answer, because socialism might sound great, because you have opportunity for these free things, but look what happened in Venezuela when they sold that same story."
