The Trump Administration Leads Calls to Unseat Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela

Published: Jan. 31, 2019, 5 p.m.

In May of 2018, Nicolás Maduro announced that he had won reëlection as the President of Venezuela. Almost immediately, reports of voting irregularities and of suppression of opposition parties cast doubts on the legitimacy of the election. Earlier this month, the Venezuelan National Assembly declared the election results invalid, and that Juan Guaidó, the Assembly’s leader, was the acting President of Venezuela. More than twenty-five countries, including the United States, have recognized Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful President, but Maduro refuses to step down. Jon Lee Anderson joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss Venezuela’s moment of reckoning, and the potential consequences to the region, and the United States, of the Trump Administration’s warnings to Maduro.