It seems like the upper echelon of New York Times leadership understands that disclosing the explicit leftist biases of its sources has the potential to undermine the entire credibility of the newspaper’s anti-Trump mudslinging. Times Opinion's international editor Daniel Wakin brought “Venezuelan economist” and Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Senior Fellow Francisco Rodríguez onto his The Opinions podcast to belch about “What Trump Gets Wrong About Venezuela” following dictator Nicolás Maduro’s ouster. “How do I see this? I see this in two ways,” Rodriguez stated on Trump’s gambit for the U.S. to run one of the most notorious communist countries in Latin America. Rodriguez snorted that this was “the crudest expression of imperial power that the U.S. has attempted to exercise since the early 20th century, when it ran Cuba after the Spanish-American War or when it took control of the customs administration of Haiti and the Dominican Republic after it invaded those countries in the 1910s.” What Wakin didn’t bother mentioning throughout the entire 22-minute interview was that Rodriguez’s employer is funded by a litany of leftist donors, including none other than the notorious George Soros. Soros poured at least $1,241,518 into CEPR between 2016 and 2024 alone. Other prominent left-wing donors included the hard-left Ford Foundation and eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Not exactly a neutral source, eh Wakin? No wonder he didn't bother with being transparent about Rodriguez's implicit political biases.  Of course, neither Rodriguez nor Wakin put too much emphasis on the fact that other world powers like communist China and Russia were exerting massive influence in Venezuela through the Maduro regime. The Wall Street Journal reported January 13 that “Maduro was [China’s] most important ally, an anti-American leader with oil resources, earning Venezuela the rare distinction of an ‘all-weather’ partnership—China’s highest diplomatic honor and a status held by no other country in Latin America.” Radio Free Europe also reported January 14 that “Over more than two decades, Russia has embedded itself in Venezuela's military, energy sector, and political elite, courting Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, both ardent critics of the United States, and establishing a firm foothold in the Western Hemisphere.” In fact, Russia wasn't even mentioned at all! But for the Soros-tied Rodriguez, he complained: “As a Venezuelan, I don’t like having the U.S. president run the Venezuelan oil industry.” Oh, so tyrants like Putin and Xi Jinping exerting massive influence over the oil industry was any better? Wakin offered no pushback to anything Rodriguez said. Rodriguez proceeded to kvetch that the Trump administration could bring Venezuela to economic collapse, like such a collapse didn’t already occur under the Maduro regime, such as when inflation peaked at 63,000 percent in 2018 to hovering around an average rate of 682.1 percent in 2026: Where do I see the problems? I see the problems in the near term, in the short term, and I see the problems in the belief by the U.S. that they can actually run the Venezuelan economy. Because the reality is that President Trump and his cabinet have no idea how to run the Venezuelan economy. My fear is that in the time that it takes for the Trump administration to actually understand why they can’t do what they claim that they’re going to try to do, you could have a full-fledged economic crisis in Venezuela.” Has this guy been living under a rock the past ten years? Times readers wouldn’t know it, because Wakin just lobbed softball questions at Rodriguez throughout the interview. By the way, how could a U.S.-influenced Venezuela perform any worse than 63,000 percent inflation? Trump exercising the principles of the Monroe Doctrine to prevent foreign influence on our Latin American neighbors and expanding access to Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves could be a net economic positive if conducted right. Even Rodriguez admitted, “Look, there’s tremendous economic upside to getting Venezuela access to oil markets again. This is an economy that has the capacity to produce a significant amount of oil.” No kidding compadre!