5/21/2018

ELECTION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/VENEZUELA: “The Trump administration on Monday [5-19-18] dismissed Venezuela’s presidential election as a ‘sham’ and ramped up economic and diplomatic pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s beleaguered government. The White House announced that President Donald Trump had signed an executive order restricting the Venezuelan government’s ability to liquidate assets for pennies on the dollar at the expense of the Venezuelan people. The order, which stopped short of imposing crippling oil sanctions on the nation’s economy, was the latest effort by Trump to punish Maduro’s government. As world leaders rushed to condemn the election, Vice President Mike Pence asserted that it had been ‘neither free nor fair.’ He called it a ‘fake process” whose result was illegitimate, calling the move to hold the election ‘a further blow to the proud democratic tradition of Venezuela’…He insisted that Maduro allow humanitarian aid into the country, where widespread food shortages and hyperinflation have helped fuel the social crisis and opposition to Maduro’s government.”

-Josh Lederman, “Trump administration slams Venezuela’s election as a sham,” The Associated Press, May 21, 2018 11:40 am