Venezuela: the Assembly under Chavismo
In the Venezuela discussion, the National Assembly is described as an elected legislature that the ruling party moved to neutralize. Fergus Hodgson states that even when the opposition did get a majority in the Congress, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that some of the candidates on the opposition, their outcomes were null, and so now they do not have a majority. He adds that the Supreme Court of Justice recently declared that the National Assembly was basically void or in contempt and could not pass any legislation, and that this declaration was what sparked the recent protest. Venezuela on the Brink with Fergus Hodgson (2017)
The same episode names Diosdado Cabello as the former president of the National Assembly. Hodgson describes Cabello getting into confrontations with unions, in the context of unions opposing the regime because their salaries had become worthless. Venezuela on the Brink with Fergus Hodgson (2017)
A later episode gives the Assembly a role in the succession dispute. Clifton Ross states that Juan Guaidó was chosen by the National Assembly, which he calls the legitimate National Assembly that was voted in massively in December of 2015. Ross frames the open question as whether the military would go with the new interim president or stick with Maduro, and says the outcome could go either way. Utopia Unmasked (2019)
The Assembly and the narco-economy
In a third Venezuela episode, the Assembly appears in the account of the cocaine prosecution of the nephews of Cilia Flores. Clif Ross says the two were raised in her own home, trafficked tons of cocaine into the United States or were trying to when they were arrested by the DEA, and went to trial in New York. On tape, one of them said they were doing this to raise money for his aunt’s run for the parliament or the National Assembly. The plane flew out of the presidential hangar, flown by an active-duty Venezuelan military pilot, and the men were arrested by the DEA in Haiti. Hugo Chavez: Failed Messiah (2019)
The same excerpt describes El Pollo as having been an intelligence chief and later a Chavista parliamentarian or National Assembly rep, before going over to Guaidó’s side in February of that year and eventually being held in Spain awaiting extradition to the United States. Hugo Chavez: Failed Messiah (2019)
The French National Assembly
A separate episode on Thomas Paine names a different body of the same name. Harlow Unger says that when the revolutionary government of France took control and overthrew the king, it named Paine an honorary citizen of France and a member of the French National Assembly. Unger ties this to The Rights of Man, which he says took the words of the Declaration of Independence and the spirit of the American Revolution and turned them into a book that inspired the French. Thomas Paine: Apostle of Liberty (2021)
Across episodes: the Assembly as a claim to legitimacy
Three Venezuela episodes return to the National Assembly, and the treatment shifts with events. In the April 2017 episode, Fergus Hodgson describes an Assembly whose opposition majority had already been undone by the Supreme Court of Justice and which had been declared void or in contempt and barred from passing legislation. Venezuela on the Brink with Fergus Hodgson (2017) By the February 2019 episode, Clifton Ross describes the Assembly as the legitimate body voted in massively in December of 2015 and as the body that chose Juan Guaidó as interim president, with the military’s allegiance the deciding question. Utopia Unmasked (2019) In the May 2019 episode, Clif Ross adds the Assembly to the criminal thread, quoting a convicted trafficker’s statement that the cocaine money was for a run for the parliament or the National Assembly, and identifying El Pollo as a former National Assembly rep who defected to Guaidó. Hugo Chavez: Failed Messiah (2019) The later episodes thus treat the Assembly less as a legislature than as the seat of a competing claim to rule; the excerpts do not show the guests arguing with one another about it.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe the National Assembly’s composition, powers, procedures, or the date or terms of its founding, and they do not name the legislation it considered or passed. They do not state which state or city Caracas is in, nor the name of any bill or the amendment at issue in any case mentioned. The French National Assembly appears only in the single sentence naming Paine a member, with no account of its structure or its relationship to the Venezuelan body. Where excerpts break off mid-sentence, the thought is not completed here.