Ted Cruz: “Chavez nationalized companies, nationalized oil resources.”

“It was an incredibly booming economy. But then what happened is Hugo Chavez, a communist, came into power and just utterly destroyed the economy there. Poverty skyrocketed. Chavez nationalized companies, nationalized oil resources. And where do you think Venezuela ranks in terms of the size of their oil reserves? So I actually know too much about this.” (18:27–18:34)

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.