Inside Venezuela's uncertain path to freedom | Leopoldo López

0:02You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Democracy is under strain in more places than at any point in recent memory. From rising authoritarianism to disinformation, the question of how free societies grow and prosper has never felt more urgent. Leopoldo Lopez is the Venezuelan opposition leader and former mayor of Caracas. He spent seven years as a political prisoner under Nicolas Maduro before escaping into exile.

0:36Leopoldo Lopez: I learned what freedom was when I was in prison. I learned what freedom was when I was in a solitary confinement cell. When it was real for me that someone else was deciding what I was going to eat, when I was going to eat, if I was going to eat at all, when I was going to see the sunlight, when I was going to see and talk to another human being. Today, we're bringing you a conversation that widens the lens to the state of democracy worldwide. He discusses the role each of us can play in building a freer world. Leopoldo starts with a sobering idea at the heart of his work, that autocrats have gotten far better at working together than the freedom fighters have.

1:16Leopoldo Lopez: So I think autocrats collaborate and they do it in a very pragmatic way. It's not an ideological collaboration. You have the autocrats, the Communist Party from China, to the nationalists from Russia, to the theocrats from Iran, to the kleptocrats from Venezuela. It's not along ideological lines. They have a common purpose, a common objective, which is to hold on to power. In this conversation with TED curator Whitney Pennington Rogers, Leopoldo also gets into the dramatic, fast-moving changes in Venezuela this year. And despite everything, why he remains hopeful about the future of freedom. That's coming up right after a short break.

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4:34And now our TED conversation of the day. Please welcome Leopoldo Lopez.

4:41Leopoldo Lopez: Thank you. Thank you, Whitney. Thanks to all of you. It's a great honor to be here with you. You delivered that talk in April at our flagship conference, and you shared some really personal moments from your life in the talk, your seven years that you spent as a political prisoner. How did it feel watching it back just now? Well, I had not seen it since I delivered it in April. So it's always strange to look at yourself, right? And it's also a period that not just for me, but for millions of Venezuela has been very hard. So it's tough to look back on what happened and what we've gone through in Venezuela.

5:22Leopoldo Lopez: But it's also a moment of optimism because we're in a moment of transition in Venezuela. And that transition has many layers. And I'm sure we'll talk more about that. But what was Venezuela five months ago is very different from the Venezuela today. and I'm sure it will be very different from the Venezuela in five months. And I think the same happens with technology. Five months ago, talking about personal agents was something not many people knew about it, even at the TED conference. I mean, it was something almost at the fringes. And now I'm sure everyone has an agent. Five months after that, I'm sure everyone that is looking at this talk today even has one and knows exactly what agentic AI is.

6:06Leopoldo Lopez: And I think that the questions that were presented in April are still true. Who holds the keys to your technology? Who holds the keys to your individual relationship with money, with communications, with connectivity, with AI, with content? You or someone else? And I think that question and that idea that technology can be used for freedom is still there and it's very relevant in the same way that technology can be used for social control, because I think technology is neutral. And I have seen in my own country, and I have seen it through the World Liberty Congress in other countries, how technology is used by autocrats to control, to promote self-control in more and more sophisticated ways.

6:58Leopoldo Lopez: So the realm of freedom is no longer just the physical realm of freedom. It's also the digital realm of freedom. And I think that it's also true even in democratic countries. So looking back into it, I think that the questions are still there. And with regards to Venezuela, I continue to be very optimistic. Well, as you mentioned, so much has happened since April and just in this year alone. When you think about Venezuela, when you think about technology, there's so much we'll cover in this conversation. But I guess to the point of technology, this was your second talk you gave at TED. and the first sort of looked at the rise of authoritarianism and how we might stifle that, which is really the crux of your life's work.

7:41And so when you think about the second talk and the focus specifically on tech, do you see that as the primary way we go about doing that work of stamping out authoritarianism?

7:53Leopoldo Lopez: Well, it's certainly one. And I was giving the talk at TED, so, you know, the T stands for the technology. But beyond that, I do believe that this is an increasingly effective space to give people autonomy and sovereignty, even within autocratic countries. I've seen it and I've seen it in Venezuela and elsewhere. I've seen how we've been able to mobilize even in moments of Internet shutdown. I have seen how we've been able to push resources into countries that are completely closed because of the control of the financial system. So I have seen this and we are working in getting that intersection between those who are fighting for freedom and those who are developing technologies part of our work.

8:42Leopoldo Lopez: In fact, in November, we're going to have a meeting in San Francisco that will be focused precisely on this, on freedom technology and all of the things that I was talking about with activists and with developers. So this is something also that I can tell you that sparks a lot of interest by people, a lot of interest. So we are always surveying and talking to the members of our network. and we talk about, you know, what are their priorities? And technology is always top of the line because people see it. People see it as victims and people also see it as light at the end of the tunnel. AI has become a tool for autocrats to produce deep fakes.

9:29Leopoldo Lopez: Many of the people in our network, I myself, have been a victim of deep fakes of all sorts. we have seen the ways in which it's just blocking the connectivity. It becomes regular in different countries. How even just the lack of having access to Internet, it's a blocking for people to have access to AI. And this is not just an autocracy, democracy question. It's more of an infrastructure question. You know, what can we do about it? Can we build an alternative infrastructure for people to be connected? You know, Starlink is a way of doing it, but there are others, other technologies that are coming up there just to make sure that what is, I believe, one of the most important human rights today, which is access to Internet.

10:19Leopoldo Lopez: That's one of the most important human rights. And it's been blocked, even in countries that have access to Internet, 4, 5 or 6G like China. It's not free Internet. I think that this is something that that it's of interest to the community, for sure. I mean, and of course, like that's one of the major sustainable development goals. But from the United Nations, there's lots of folks who definitely agree with you from that place of like thinking about the important role of tech. And, you know, you talk about in the talk, you mentioned this even just now that you spent a good deal of time sort of describing the ways tech is being used by freedom fighters and people who are advocating for democracy around the world.

11:02And in the nearly six months since you've given that talk, so many things have continued to evolve and change. Like, how have you seen the ideas you presented on stage evolve even further since April?

11:14Leopoldo Lopez: Well, I think the focus has been more and more on AI. And I have seen how there is a lot of interest in our community of freedom fighters, of human rights defenders, of how to use AI appropriately. because there has been cases where people have been exposed in their conversations with AI. They have even gone to trial. So when you are working with AI to think of ways of how to overcome an autocracy, how to build a resistance movement, of course you feel exposed. Of course, there are many things that you are not willing to give a corporation. So we have been working on sovereign AI that has been, I would say, the most important thing over the past five months.

12:03Leopoldo Lopez: And we are working for activists and we're starting with the leaders of the movements for them to have their own sovereign AI that lives in their own server that they control. They decide what brain to use, what LLM to use, but they hold the basic elements in their own server. So given the exposure that many of the people in this community have, this has become more and more of an interest. And we are doing workshops. We're trying to spread it out and to make sure that the movements themselves have access to all of these different technologies. And I think that there is always a common thread around this is technologies that are open source.

12:48Leopoldo Lopez: That means technologies that nobody controls. And that was a part of my talk was to talk about the gatekeepers. And I mentioned the case of Uganda, that Starlink was closed. And at the same during the same week, Iran was closed. And I don't even give a political view of that. Maybe nobody really decided for a specific political reason. But the problem was that there was a possibility of someone deciding if there was access or not to connectivity. And if there is an alternative to that, I believe it's a transformational tool that millions of people could have worldwide. And these are things that, as I said before, are engaging more and more the people in our community.

13:33Well, and the gatekeeper point seems to be a specifically provocative one when you think about how people who are maybe living in what you might describe as free nations, how they engage with the talk, this idea that it's not necessarily just a government, but a corporation, as you noted, or, you know, if anyone else other than you owns it, then your freedom is conditional. So when people who are watching this, who are living in nations where their democracy maybe is more stable, what do you want them to take from this talk?

14:07Leopoldo Lopez: Well, I think that this exposure to gatekeepers is true for people who are living under autocratic regimes. And it's also true for people who are living in democratic countries. And we have seen that. I mean, we have seen how there are people that are being taken to trial. And part of this part of the elements that go to trial are their conversations with their own AI. So, I mean, that might be good for whoever is accusing you to have all of that information. But for individuals to be exposed in that way, I think it's something to think about. And I also think that that this the same ideas of holding your keys for money, connectivity, communication, it's also true for people who are living in democratic countries.

14:49Leopoldo Lopez: I am sure that everyone watching this talk now has thought about the fact that when they are interacting with whatever corporation for AI, they are overexposing themselves. This is something everyone is thinking about. So if there is an alternative to this where you can be sovereign in your own information, which is the most private thing. I mean, privacy is something you decide how much of yourself you want to give to the rest of the world. It's an individual decision. And of course, there are regulations and rules. But I think that these questions are true for everyone today in the world of the digital age, because we are living in at least two dimensionals.

15:34Leopoldo Lopez: We live in the physical dimension and in the digital dimension. And we spend maybe more time in the digital dimension than in the physical one. And all of these questions are relevant for anyone in the world today. Well, I'd love to expand out beyond the talk to your wider work. You co-founded the World Liberty Congress, which you mentioned in the talk, which is a freedom movement involving more than 60 countries now. And you said something really striking in the talk, that this idea that autocratic regimes are working together and collaborating and have been for time immemorial, it feels like, whereas freedom fighters have historically been really dispersed, which is a big focus of your work and was a big focus of your first talk.

16:16Why do you think the pro-democracy side has seemingly been much slower to find ways to organize and collaborate than we've seen in the autocratic side?

16:27Leopoldo Lopez: So I think autocrats collaborate and they do it in a very pragmatic way. It's not an ideological collaboration. You have the autocrats, the Communist Party from China, to the nationalists from Russia to the theocrats from Iran to the kleptocrats from Venezuela. It's not along ideological lines. They have a common purpose, a common objective, which is to hold on to power, to hold on to their corrupt networks and to go against a common enemy. And their common enemy is democracy. And it has been that way. Before the invasion of Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Putin signed a very famous document. It was 10 days before the invasion, and they dedicated at least one paragraph to what they call the color revolutions as a common enemy.

17:19Leopoldo Lopez: The color revolutions is nothing different than the people's movements from the 20th century and the 21st century that have risen against the autocratic regimes. The most recent in Nepal, in Madagascar, but it's happened everywhere in Bolivia, in Venezuela, in Nicaragua. And this is something that they see as a common enemy and they are working to dismantle these movements. So why is it difficult on the democracy side? Well, there are different layers. I will start by our own, which is the movements, the activists, the leaders on the ground. I think for too many years, we thought that our problem was only our own problem in our own country.

18:03Leopoldo Lopez: It was difficult to see the connections. It was difficult to see why would it matter to coordinate and to talk and to get to know people from Cuba and Nicaragua talking about my region. Maybe we thought that if we did that, we would be shifting the possibilities for those regimes to at some point be interested in working towards changing Venezuela. So it took time. And that's the core idea of the World Liberty Congress that we started in 2022 with Masiya Linejad from Iran and Gari Kasparov from Russia. We are the founders and we decided that we would call people from different countries and to share this idea.

18:48Leopoldo Lopez: Why don't we get together? Why don't we work together? So we met for the first time in Lithuania, in Vilnius, and we had people from 40 countries. And the second year we had people from almost 60 countries. And today we have leaders from 65 countries. Unfortunately, autocracy is a growing problem globally. Fifteen years ago, 42 percent of the population was living under some sort of autocratic regime. And these are not my numbers. This is Freedom House Economist Intelligence Unit, VDEM. Today, it's 75 percent of the world population is living under some sort of autocratic regime. So autocracy is growing very fast.

19:30Leopoldo Lopez: It's growing globally. and more than ever, we need to unite around these ideals that at least we hold as something worth fighting and worth giving your freedom to. The second layer is governments. And I think that many times geopolitics plays a role in this and there is very little value-based diplomacy. I think diplomacy is mostly about interest. It's mainly about geopolitical and economic interests. And democracy is taking the backseat of the priorities of democratic countries. And then you have philanthropy. I think that that's another layer that is very important. Let me give you an example.

20:15Leopoldo Lopez: In the U.S., almost$400 billion go to philanthropy every year. And only 1 % of that goes to democracy-related issues. And of that 1%, only a fraction goes to promoting democracy outside the U.S. So these are different problems that you can see in different layers. And that's part of the work that we want to do at the World Liberty Congress is try to align those institutions, individuals, governments, activists that believe that democracy is worth fighting for, that believe that freedom is something that is universal and that every human being in the planet should hold their own keys to their own freedom.

20:58You shared a lot of things just now that are probably stunning to a lot of folks, I think. And, you know, hearing you first mention that over 75 percent of the world is living under autocratic leadership. Like, you know, I think that's that suggests the overwhelming majority of the world. And we have a lot of questions from members that are sort of asking about how do we process this and think about what this means for this moment. Francesca is curious, what are the most urgent risks towards democracy you foresee in the near future, especially through that lens?

21:32Leopoldo Lopez: Well, I think the biggest threat is it's already happening. I mean, the biggest threat is losing ground to democracy worldwide. And we are seeing how our countries are becoming more autocratic. Even democratic countries are becoming more autocratic. So that pattern has continued. In the 2026 report of Freedom House or Economist Intelligence, we will see that the situation continues to deteriorate. And we are also seeing that, unfortunately, democracy is no longer a value for the large majority of people living in democracy. I have seen very striking polling of the way people think about democracy and freedom in democratic countries.

22:14Leopoldo Lopez: And it's staggering to see how much, especially the young people, are willing to sacrifice democracy for effectiveness. So that brings to another problem, which is democracy has to deliver. If democracy doesn't deliver, democracy won't be supported. And democracy has to deliver in the very basics. It has to deliver on the economy. It has to deliver on justice. It has to deliver on opportunities for the large majorities of the people. If that doesn't happen, people won't defend democracy. So that's, I think, a big challenge in terms of delivering, which gets more complicated because of the way communications has shifted, because of the immediacy of social media, because of the potential to manipulate public opinion, which is something that we have seen very, very closely, that we have been victims of in our own countries, in autocratic countries.

23:11Leopoldo Lopez: But it's also true in democratic countries. Well, I guess on the flip side of that, when you look at the landscape, what makes you feel most encouraged about where things are headed and sort of the arc towards freedom? Well, I get encouragement from the people. I get encouragement every time I get to know more and more leaders and movements worldwide that are willing to fight the fight, that are willing to take the risks, that are willing to learn, that are willing to go through a process of training, of learning, of organizing. because in the same way that democracy has been losing ground to autocracy over the past years, when people are asked, and I have seen global polling on this that is very interesting, when people are asked how they would like to live and people who like to live under democratic conditions, that means to be free, it's over 80 % of the world.

24:06Leopoldo Lopez: So that gives me hope. And what gives me hope is that we are able to align ourselves to communicate. Today, we can have a communication with people in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America every day. And that's something that it's also being permitted by technology. And it's encouraging. We do it all the time. We have, you know, just people from all over the world, all types of time zones or circumstances, meeting, thinking through these problems, how to help each other, how to learn from one experience to the other. Because at the end, every fight is unique, but there are always things that are similar in the struggle for freedom.

24:49Leopoldo Lopez: And that curiosity, that willingness to engage, it gives me hope.

24:57Don't go away. We'll be right back with more from Whitney and Leopoldo, right after a short break. Support for today's episode comes from WISE, the smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. When you send money abroad for investments, gifts, or family obligations, it's easy to get fed up with losing out to pricey hidden fees. On each transfer, major banks can mark up the exchange rate eating into your money before it's even gotten where it needs to go. The WISE account offers an easy way to outsmart those sneaky fees. Whether you're sending money back home or moving money between your accounts in different countries, Wise uses the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google.

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26:58Well, I want to connect what you're saying right now to this growing concern. And you mentioned this earlier in our conversation that even in democracies, using the tools that are available to us, these technologies that you referenced, that they're being built in ways that could make authoritarian nations, give them easier ways to control the people living there. Do you think that democracies are equipped to handle this moment? And what do you think we still need to build to enable them to do that better?

27:30Leopoldo Lopez: Well, I mean, it's a tough question because there are and I think there are two ways to think about this question. There are those who believe that the answer to this is in regulation, in more regulation. There might be especially being apparent that you're very sensitive to to a lot of that approach. But then there is another alternative view to this, which is how can you not be dependent on the technologies that have gatekeepers? And that's the entire heart of the message I delivered in my talk, that the technologies can be used in ways that you can be the owner of that technology, that you can be the owner of that key to whatever you're using for the things that we talked about, connectivity, money, communications, and AI.

28:23Leopoldo Lopez: So I think that there are two ways of looking at this. Well, let's talk about Venezuela, because I know that there's a lot of interest in hearing your perspective on all the things that have been going on there. And so many things have happened that have made global headlines this year, not least of which is U.S. Maduro's capture by the U.S. government earlier this year in January. Now, we're nine months later on from that moment, and we have an interim government in place there. More than 130 political prisoners have been released, but the country is still very much in transition. And this is something that probably none of us would have predicted would be happening that we'd be discussing a year ago.

29:01As someone who has spent your life really fighting for this, how how are you experiencing this moment? What has this moment felt like for you personally?

29:12Leopoldo Lopez: So it's the first reaction to your question is that we are much better than what we were in January the 2nd. Venezuela has started a transition. Transition is moving from point A to point B. We don't know exactly where that transition is going to land. I will give you my thoughts on that. But Venezuela, it's not the same as what it was on January the 3rd. And many things have changed. But we are not where we want to be. The way I think about transition is not only on a straight line, on a single issue. I believe that it's a multi-layered process. And there are things that have gone fast and others that are pending.

29:52Leopoldo Lopez: So one transition that has already taken place, in my view, is the geopolitical transition regarding Venezuela. Up until January the 3rd, Venezuela was under the influence of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, the narcos from Mexico and Colombia and organized crime worldwide. And that has been widely documented. And that has changed. It has significantly changed to a reality where the United States has the main level of influence. And someone could say, well, that's not sovereign either. And it's true. Venezuela today is under a level of influence of the U.S. that determines many of the things that are happening and will happen in the country.

30:36Leopoldo Lopez: If you ask me, I much rather be under the influence of the United States than Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, or the narcos. Are we where we want to be? No, but we are much better off. Then there is another layer to the transition that is the economic transition that has been talked about a lot by the Trump administration, Trump himself, Rubio, and many others. And there are things that are happening in the economic transition. The oil sector is opening. It's opening for investment. It's clear that Venezuela, if we want to think about economic recovery, there are three things that should be the focus.

31:17Leopoldo Lopez: It's megawatts, dollars and barrels. That's the focus of what is starting to happen in the economic transition in Venezuela. It's not there yet. Most of it has been signing of commitments for investment. The deployment of investment and capital has not been felt by the majority of the Venezuelan people. So people are worrying, impatient. But I think that this is a process that it's in the making and it will be felt in the months to come. Then there is the military transition, which is an important issue that very few people talk about, but I think is crucial. Venezuela has to move from its military organization that was built under the influence primarily of Cuba since the very early 2000s, and then with a lot of influence by Russia.

32:14Leopoldo Lopez: But then it also transformed into its own corporate structure that has a very heavy foothold in the kleptocratic regime of the economy in Venezuela. And that military transition, I think, is pending. I'm sure that there are things that are happening, but I think it's a crucial one because we have seen in places like Nicaragua, where they had an opening to democracy in the 1990s, and then Daniel Ortega came back precisely because the military was never part of the transition. And then another layer is the layer of the political transition, the democracy transition. And this is a process that it's already, it's ongoing.

32:59Leopoldo Lopez: And it's part of the plan laid out by Secretary Rubio that has three stages, stabilization, economic recovery, and transition. And the transition to democracy is being built by starting with the renovation of pillars, institutional pillars in the Venezuelan state, the Supreme Court and the Electoral Board being the two most important. And this has been discussed. And hopefully by the end of the year, there will be a new Supreme Court and a new Electoral Board in a negotiation process that is taking place between the National Assembly of 2015 that is controlled by the Democratic opposition and the regime.

33:42Leopoldo Lopez: Actually, this week, there is the beginning of the second round of negotiations. Where is this democratic transition leading to? It needs to lead to a free and fair election for National Assembly and for the presidency. But how we get there is crucial in order to get to the election, not just for people to vote, but for people to vote for the results to be respected and for the transition to be smooth. There needs to be this institutional transformation that that is already happening through this negotiation process. Of course, I have to say that the Venezuelan people are growing impatient. People have huge expectations after the capture of Maduro January the 3rd.

34:30Leopoldo Lopez: It was incredible the level of expectations built by the Venezuelan people. the capture of Maduro, I think, was a seamless military extraction operation of an indicted individual because Maduro was not even recognized as the president of Venezuela. But now the difficult part of how to build this transition on these many different layers that I'm talking about can happen with the right timing. And I think what's important is that it's built with strong basis because we have seen, and the literature is full of examples on this, transitions that then fall back, that then return to the old regime on some sort of regime that has influenced by the old regime.

35:13Leopoldo Lopez: So the window for success of a transition to democracy is narrow, and it needs to be built on strong fundamentals. And I think that the legal, the institution fundamental for the political change with the legitimacy of the people, because this is key. If the people are not brought into the equation, this will fail. The Venezuelan people need to be brought into the equation by feeling the economic recovery, by benefiting from the stability, and of course, by being part of the legitimacy of the democratic transformation. Well, thank you for sharing all of that. It sounds like there's a lot underway, and it's good to hear that overwhelmingly you seem to have a sense of hopefulness around where the direction in which things are moving, which I will say for me has helped make me better understand and process all that's going on in this moment.

36:04And we have questions from our member, Brittany W., who asks, if you take a realistic rather than aspirational approach, what does a genuine transition to democracy in Venezuela look like from where the country stands today? And I think you've done such a wonderful and helpful job of explaining sort of where we are today. So I guess to add to that, how do you think we involve the people? How do the people of Venezuela get involved in this process to leading to a free election? What are some steps you think that needs to be taken?

36:37Leopoldo Lopez: Yeah, no, very concretely. The way I see it path forward is we will have a new Supreme Court, a new electoral board. That board needs to lay out a timeline for elections. There needs to be elections of all sorts in Venezuela, local, regional, national assembly elections, and of course, a presidential election that is the most important one. But in order to get there, in order to get to that timeline, we need a new Supreme Court and a new electoral board. And hopefully, we will have that by the end of the year. So hopefully we will begin 2027 with clarity in terms of what will be the milestones.

37:19Leopoldo Lopez: And I also believe that this process of legitimizing the institutions and also thinking of more structural changes will need the legitimacy of the people to embrace the Venezuela looking forward. Because this will be the basis upon which the new structure of the Venezuelan democratic state will be built. But I also think that the people need to be brought in in the economic transformation. If there is economic recovery only for the oil companies or only for the benefit of some few in the state or only for the benefit of the U.S., it's going to fail. If people don't feel the impact in their pockets of the economic transformation in Venezuela, this could be a spoiler for the transformation, for the transition in our country.

38:11Leopoldo Lopez: And of course, there is something very important, which is the dismantling of the repressive state. And that is also part of the negotiation process. What does that mean? Well, the repressive state is built on different pillars. One of them, the institutions, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, the police, the military. A second one, it's the laws. And a third is the actual impunity with judges and attorneys and police. All of that repressive state needs to be dismantled in order for the people to actively engage. But we have a huge opportunity. Transitions are not easy. I just got back from Bolivia.

38:57Leopoldo Lopez: It's the only country that I had not visited in Latin America. I was not able to go there because it was an autocratic state until a year ago. They had their elections. They were able to transition with elections, but now they're facing a lot of challenges. They're facing protests. They're facing stability. They're facing the frustration of the people not being felt that the economy is delivering. So transitions are fragile. Most of them fail. And that's why we need to think of this in a way that creates stability and strong foundations for the future of Venezuela. But the first step, which was to remove Maduro and to start a transition, was taken on January the 3rd.

39:39Well, on top of everything that's happening politically in Venezuela, we, of course, all saw the devastating earthquakes that the country experienced over the summer in June. How has the humanitarian situation been handled? And what do you think people who are not in Venezuela need to understand about what recovery really requires?

40:01Leopoldo Lopez: Well, the earthquake was tremendous. It was a double earthquake on June 24th, and it had more than 10 ,000 victims, and it was devastating. But what was really frustrating and more devastating was the incapacity of the state to be present during the first 72 hours after the earthquake, which are the crucial. I mean, that's the window of life and death after an event like an earthquake. And the state was nowhere to be seen. What was seen was the international response. there was an immediate response from volunteers from Mexico, from the U.S., from El Salvador, from many other countries in Latin America, from many different organizations, and of the civil society coming together to be present during those critical hours.

40:49Leopoldo Lopez: Now we're facing a very big challenge. There's more than 20 ,000 families displaced, that there are millions of people affected directly or indirectly. And of course, this places another burden on the economy because the recovery of what was devastated is it's around$30 billion in a country that has a GDP of $80 billion and that has a national debt between$150 and$250 billion. And we don't even know the numbers because there is such a lack of transparency. So yes, the earthquake was tremendous, a lot of victims. I think it had a tremendous impact in the sentiment of the people, in the frustrations, and hopefully the way in which the people came together can compensate that loss, because there was also a lot of pride in the way people came together, in the way different organizations, even the way in which the diaspora was able to bring tons of help from the diaspora into Venezuela.

41:56Leopoldo Lopez: So that was, I would say, the only balancing of this tragedy that we had after the earthquake. Well, I feel like there's so much we can dive into here in thinking about what's happening in Venezuela. And thank you for sharing some insight into this moment and where you see things heading. I think to sort of zoom back out and think about you know, Venezuela wrapped into this larger conversation of democracy. We have a question from Alexa G who asks, you have lived through the loss of democratic freedoms firsthand. What do you think people living in stable democracies often take for granted that they shouldn't?

42:35I guess through the lens of all the things you've just shared.

42:38Leopoldo Lopez: You know, it's a great question. And there is a saying in Spanish that says you don't learn in someone else's head. So it's very difficult to learn from someone else's experience. And I remember during the early years of Chavez that people coming from Cuba would say, you know, this is going in the direction of Cuba. And I remember my own reaction at the time was, ah, they're exaggerating. You know, Cuba was an island. Venezuela has 40 years of democracy, of strong democracy. We have civil society. We play baseball. We're aligned, you know, with Western values. We have universities, civil society.

43:14Leopoldo Lopez: And 20 years into this process of the socialism of the 21st century, as Chavez called it, we're worse than Cuba. A third of the population in Venezuela had to leave the country. That's almost 10 million people. Think about this. A third of the population of the country had to leave. Most of the young people are out of Venezuela. Most of the people that have a professional degree are out of Venezuela. Most of the people that have an entrepreneurship spirit are out of Venezuela. There is not a single family in Venezuela that doesn't have a close relative that is no longer living in the country. So it's been devastating.

43:56Leopoldo Lopez: And I think that the only, at least for me, and I think it's true for many other people, we learn by our own experience. I learned what freedom was not because of what I read in terms of law books or political science or philosophy or poetry or music. I learned what freedom was when I was in prison. I learned what freedom was when I was in a solitary confinement cell. when it was real for me that someone else was deciding what I was going to eat, when I was going to eat, if I was going to eat at all, when I was going to see the sunlight, when I was going to see and talk to another human being.

44:33Leopoldo Lopez: It became very clear what freedom was, not because I was experimenting and feeling freedom, but because of the lack of it. And I think that's why it's very difficult to learn and cherish and defend freedom of people that live in democratic countries. But also when the threat is present, it's also an opportunity to people to reflect, you know, what will happen if that threat in whatever country, democratic country, you know, takes its ideas, its proposal to an extreme. And that's what happened in Venezuela. And now we are, I think, a population that is very, very conscious about the value of freedom and democracy.

45:17Leopoldo Lopez: These are not abstract ideas for us. When we talk about democracy, we know what we mean. When we talk about freedom, we know it's not one thing. It's the sum of many things. We know because we have lived it. When we talk about freedom, we can talk about an anecdote and not about a theory. So this is something that we've lived through and that I hope we can also share with people living outside autocratic countries for them to realize how important it is to defend democracy and to understand how fragile it is, because democracy is very fragile. We lived it in my country. We never thought we were going to reach a moment when over the past 10 years we had 20 ,000 prisoners, a third of the population living, the collapse of the economy and absolute and complete censorship and so on.

46:07Leopoldo Lopez: And we never thought that that was going to happen. But if our experience can contribute to open the consciousness and the sensibility of people living in democracies to take care and to engage and to be part of the defending of democracy, I think that's a good contribution. And what are some concrete ways people living in free countries can help freedom fighters across the world? Well, I would say that first to be interested. I would say first to get to know the problems people are facing worldwide. Second, to identify leaders and movements they can connect to. I mean, the World Liberty Congress is open to any of you who could be interested to engage in many different ways.

46:53Leopoldo Lopez: We're always looking for partners to engage with their knowledge, with their ideas, with their connections, with their funding in order for these movements to become more effective. But the most important contribution is to be aware, to have compassion. Compassion is not to have pity. Compassion is to put yourself in the shoes of someone else and to try to see, to feel, and to understand the world from their perspective. It's not an easy thing to do, but I think it's the most important step for people living in democratic countries to start helping the movements, the pro-democracy and freedom movements worldwide.

47:32Thank you so much, Leopoldo. I feel like we have just barely touched the surface on all the work you do and all the things that you're thinking about. And it's been so meaningful, I know, for me and definitely looking at the comments, the folks that have shared how they're feeling. This is so appreciated and such a meaningful perspective on all this. So thank you for your time, Leopoldo, and for this really wonderful conversation.

47:58Leopoldo Lopez: Thank you very much, Whitney. And thanks to all of you who joined. And congratulations to Ted. It's a great crowd. And also thank you to all of the team, because behind Ted, there is a lot of people that made Ted happen. So to all of you, thank you. Thank you very much. It's an honor for me to be part of this community and always open to work, to talk with any of you. Thank you. Thank you.

48:24That was Leopoldo Lopez in conversation with Whitney Pennington Rogers for a TED membership event in 2026. If you're curious about TED's curation, visit ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is a podcast from TED. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Taubner, and Tansika Sungmarnivong. Additional support from Daniela Ballarezzo, Christopher Faze-Bogan, Valentina Bohanini, Ban Ban Chang, Brian Green, and Lainey Lott. Learn more at podcasts.ted.com. I am Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.

49:06Thanks for listening.

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