PBD Podcast
Glenn Greenwald: CIA's Venezuela Coup, Trump Meets Lula & Epstein Whistleblowers | PBD Podcast | Ep. 674
28 Oct 2025
Chapter 1: What key events in Brazil and Venezuela are discussed?
Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm supposed to take sweet victory. I know this life meant for me. Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright. A handshake is better than anything I ever signed. Right here. You are a one-on-one? My son's right there. I don't think I've ever said this before. Glenn Greenwald in the house. How you doing?
Good to be here. Good to be back.
Yes, except this time it's just you and I. We don't have the whole crew.
I was saying I missed the whole crew.
Just so you know, he misses you guys.
Absolutely. I'm going to do like a 24-hour binge on the crew just so I know they're going to be here.
Okay, so how are you feeling with everything that's going on right now? I guess maybe the one question to ask is, I got a lot of things I want to talk to you about. I want to know what's going on with Brazil because Lula just met with Trump in Malaysia, if I'm not mistaken. And then, you know, Lula says, you know, looks like some good's going to happen.
Venezuela, you got Maduro coming out saying what he's saying. Petro is doing what he's doing in Colombia. Argentina, Malay got the votes that he got. So I'm curious what you think about that. Palantir with Peter Thiel, you know, what he wants to do with surveillance and the Antichrist series that he did.
David Ellison with Skydance and, you know, how he took a, you know, small company into now buying up all these other companies that Ellison found has become a household name. But maybe let's start off with the following.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of whistleblowing in today's political climate?
He has no longer any access to classified information. And it was very obvious they were trying to create this climate of fear where anyone thinking about maybe I'm going to be the next Edward Snowden or be the next Julian Assange had to understand that if they did so, they weren't going to just go to prison. They were going to have their lives completely destroyed.
I mean, look what they did to Julian Assange. You know, they tried to break him physically, emotionally, psychologically. And I think that's become a major reason why.
Do you think when a whistleblower is doing it, don't you think Snowden and Assange, and you're going to know this better than I would, don't you think they know, like, If I do this, my life's going to change. We've all seen the movies. We've all seen the documentaries. Don't you think they're sitting there saying, I know if I release this, I feel like they're typically not money-driven.
It's crusade-driven. It's correcting an injustice. They feel the world needs to know this. And they kind of know you're going to suffer the consequences of doing this, right? So wouldn't that be like the DNA of the next whistleblower to come out saying, I know I'm going to get in trouble anyways?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a good point. For me, it's what makes people like that so admirable. I mean, think about what Snowden had in his hands. He could have sold that to Russia or China or any U.S. adversary and lived the rest of his life extremely rich. He didn't do that. He brought it to American journalists. And when he brought it to us, he said, be extremely careful.
Don't publish anything that might be— In terms of how they released, especially the first years of release, they would redact everything. They would withhold things. They tried to work with the State Department to get State Department input.
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Chapter 3: How do whistleblowers like Snowden and Assange impact journalism?
At the same time, of course, they understood they were sacrificing their liberty for a cause. For me, that's what makes them so noble. I don't, though, think they anticipated that – their lives would be completely destroyed. You don't think so? They knew it was a chance. As a matter of fact, I'll just tell you quickly.
When I was with Snowden in Hong Kong, and I hadn't met him before, I didn't know much about him, and I got to know him, and I really became convinced that he was exactly who he said he was, that his motives were authentic. Sometimes with these people, they're a little crazy. They're on the margins of society. They're disgruntled. He wasn't any of those things. It was almost like he was so pure.
That's the picture, right? Is that the hotel room picture?
We went back and visited him. That's myself and my husband, David. That's Laura Poitras, who directed Citizen Four, which won the Oscar about the work we were doing. And then there's Snowden. So that's about a year after. The scene from the film, if you go up into the right-hand corner there, that's myself and Snowden.
I think that's on the second or third day of being in Hong Kong where we were going over the files. That was all from Laura Poitras filming.
Okay.
So I became very convinced of the authenticity of his motives. And it's a great point because we would ask him, you know, what's your plan for getting out of here? Like the idea was we're going to start publishing while we're there. We had to start publishing as quickly as possible for a lot of reasons. And we were in Hong Kong. And the question was, how are you going to get out of here?
And he said, you know what? He didn't want to involve us in that because he knew if we were involved in his escape plan, we could then be criminally charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive or whatever. crimes like that. But he didn't really have a plan. He didn't really care. And the whole time I was working with him and becoming more and more respectful and admiring of what he had done.
He's 29 years old. He has a beautiful girlfriend, his high school sweetheart, making a lot of money, has a great future ahead of him, sacrificed it all because out of conviction, he really believed it was wrong for Americans not to know what the government was doing to the internet. Not obviously the details of it. That's fine. Keep that classified, the methods that you spy on people.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of U.S. relations with Israel and the Middle East?
I mean, the last person to do that was Henry Kissinger. Yeah. There's no more powerful foreign policy advisor in American history than Henry Kissinger.
You saw Trump edified Rubio about a week and a half ago. He said, look. I don't know. I think some are saying that Rubio may be better than Kissinger was. You know, he's kind of Kissinger leaked. Kissinger was famous for leaking. Do you remember that when he said that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So he's doing his part of being a kink maker as well and trying to see who's going to run 2028. But you're saying Rubio could flip, huh? You think Rubio could turn on him?
I don't think Rubio is a true believer in the America First agenda in the way that J.D. Vance, I think, is. You think J.D. is more than Rubio is? Depending on how you define America first. You know, it's it's you know, when Trump bombed Iran, the idea was America first is whatever Trump says it is. Right.
Trump's the the creator of the America first movement, the leader of it, the person who brought into public consciousness. So there are no principles separate and apart from Trump's decision. I don't believe this. I think it's a very that's a call to personality. That's not a political movement. Political movement is based on principles.
So if you look at the principles on which America First is based, I think how the true believers understood what differentiated America First movement from prior Republican orthodoxy. I believe J.D. Vance is as convicted of a true believer as anybody in the administration, certainly far more than Marco Rubio. Just let's take Ukraine, for example, which for me is kind of a flashpoint.
Obviously, Israel is the main one. We can talk about that if you want. But I have a lot to say on that, obviously. But let's look at Ukraine, which people are less emotional about. Traditionally, the Republican position is go destroy Russia. Russia's our enemy. Who's our enemy? We go to war against, you know, fund American allies till the end.
Lots of Republicans got attributed to Biden because that was Biden's policy, too. And the Democrats were super obsessed with Ukraine. You go to any, like, liberal blue district in the United States and you see nothing but Ukrainian flags still. It became kind of a religion, almost like replacing the LGBT flag. Pants was absolutely wise.
fully bizarre bizarre bizarre yeah um but a lot of republicans were fully on board with that as well just because that's a standard let's say neocon warmongering kind of interventionist mindset that has driven both parties since the end of the since since uh the the start of the cold war but even then the end and one of the planks of america first was no we have to stop
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of U.S. intervention in Venezuela?
We're going to be responsible for it. We're going to fund it. We're going to fund all the overflow of instability and civil war and and and. migration problems that are going to happen all throughout the region, including probably for the United States. And so, you know, you can say, oh, look, we got rid of Saddam and we're so happy because he was a bad guy, which he is.
But look at all the harm it did for the United States. Oh, we got rid of Maduro. No one thinks he's a good guy. But all the problems that it's going to get going.
Chapter 6: How did Trump engage with working-class voters?
And, you know, at the end of the day, I think the main reason why Trump won and one of the things I think Zoran Mandani did that was so good that I knew early on he was going to be a very effective candidate before people knew. is after Trump won, he went out into the street, he went into the neighborhoods where there was the biggest swing toward Trump in New York.
You know, New York had mostly every community swung toward Trump as opposed to prior elections. And these were working class, multiracial neighborhoods. And all he did was go and interview people on camera and say, well, who did you vote for Trump? Why?
And they would say, our communities are falling apart, and I'm sick of how much money we're sending to Ukraine and to Israel and to all these wars. Also, immigration was a big deal. Why are these people coming to the country illegally getting more than our neighborhood? And he shaped his campaign around that. And that, I think, was the biggest appeal of Donald Trump was...
Our elite class cares about everything except you and your family and your community. We spend money on all these other globalistic ventures, on all these wars and all these other countries that have nothing to do with your lives. We should instead put America first. We should put Americans first. His speech in the inaugural address was about the forgotten man. Who is that?
Those are the working class people in Pennsylvania and Ohio and Wisconsin where everything has been deindustrialized and the cities that are falling apart. And so this interventionism, you know, is a nice word for war, is I think one of the things that is most destroying the United States and our future security and our welfare.
I just went to Malaysia last month, not where Trump is now or was a couple of days ago.
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Chapter 7: What is the impact of U.S. foreign policy on domestic issues?
Not a particularly like a country that's not particularly known for its great prosperity. You can find prosperity in a lot of other countries. It's a Muslim majority country. You go there, to Kuala Lumpur or wherever, and you look at the infrastructure, the airports, the road, everything is better than most American cities. Why is that?
Why is a country like Malaysia capable of having cleaner cities, better organized cities? It's a democracy. I mean, not a perfect democracy, but it's a democracy. It's not Saudi Arabia. And the reason is, is because we use our resources for everything except what's happening inside of our country and in our communities and our people.
And I think that's the message above all else that resonated for people with Trump. And I want that message to be fully embraced finally. And I think stopping unnecessary intervention is a key way to do that.
OK, so let me ask you. So. You'll hear a lot of times people say, so you're saying you're a non-interventionist yourself?
Chapter 8: How does the relationship between Trump and Lula affect U.S.-Brazil relations?
Completely.
Okay. So was George Washington, right? So was Ron Paul. Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson. A lot of these guys, right? Okay. And at that time when that was going on, maybe the argument somebody will make is 1776 is different than 2025. Okay, let me pose this question. How do you as a non-interventionist make it while your top five other enemies are all intervening?
How do you play offense or defense against them as a non-interventionist?
When was the last war China had? Do you know?
I don't think they have the same wars as we have. I don't think they fight the way you and I fight.
I'm saying, like, when was the last time they had a war?
Five years ago, COVID. I think they started that. They intervened. That's intervening.
Okay. I mean, war in its classical sense, in the sense that I mean, let me just make the point, you can obviously, COVID is, it was 1979. They had a one-month border war with Vietnam. A one-month border war with Vietnam. That was 45 years ago. Okay. OK, we fought. You couldn't count how many wars we've had, interventions, wars, invasions, bombings that we've done in many other countries.
And you look at China, I don't mean politically. We talked about Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Emirates in a favorable sense, even though they're as repressive as anybody, including China. You look at China, they have... Their cities are magnificent. They're shocking in terms of their innovation. They're building bridges. They're engineering feet.
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