RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/VENEZUELA: “During his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump often complained about how President Barack Obama drew red lines that he never enforced, and how a diminished America let Russia walk into Syria unchallenged, something he said would not happen if the Russian leader respected the United States president. Now, in Venezuela, President Trump is facing his own red-line moment — again, with Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. For the past week, the Trump administration has escalated its warnings about Russian intervention in the country, claiming that Moscow is helping to prop up President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and undermining the hopes of American officials that the Venezuelan military will oust him. The United States has been trying to rally the world behind Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader, as Venezuela’s legal interim president. On Monday [4-1-19] morning, speaking at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said flatly, ‘Russia’s got to leave Venezuela.’”
–David E. Sanger, “Trump, Putin and a Possible ‘Red-Line Moment’ in Venezuela,” The New York Times online, April 1, 2019