It's important to understand what's happening in Venezuela right now, and how the Biden/Harris team helped put the brutal Nicolas Maduro in a strategic corner.
1/ First - let me be clear: the briefings I've received show Maduro lost the presidential election - badly.
1/ First - let me be clear: the briefings I've received show Maduro lost the presidential election - badly.
2/ As we speak, Maduro is trying to steal the election, and supporters of democracy in Venezuela - including Maduro's allies in the Western Hemisphere - must join together to ensure he cannot overturnthe will of the people or maintain any semblance of legitimacy.
3/ fwiw Biden inherited a totally broken Venezuela policy. Trump made America look feckless by recognizing a President of Venezuela who wasn't actually President, and relying on a sanctions-only approach that entrenched Maduro and pushed 8m Venezuelans to flee to the U.S.
4/ Biden took a different, more effective approach. He relieved some of the sanctions, which eased the economic crisis, caused Maduro to set the election, and helped unite the opposition (which Maduro often keeps fractured). The unity of the opposition led to Maduro's loss.
5/ Maduro still did his best to rig the election, but Edmundo Gonzalez and the Unitary Platform galvanized the country. This would not have happened without Biden's moves to set in motion the election and the unification of the opposition.
6/ Republicans say the fact that Maduro is trying to steal the election if proof that Biden's policy didn't work. That's nonsense. Trump's sanctions policy just strengthened Maduro, and if Biden had continued that policy, Maduro would still rigged the election.
7/ Biden's policy is a vast improvement, because it recognized that sanctions were helping drive a migration crisis and doing nothing to hurt Maduro. Biden's new approach helped revive the opposition, resulting in Maduro's current vulnerable position.
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