Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday urged the Venezuelan people to "make your voices heard" against President Nicolas Maduro and rally around opposition leader Juan Guaido, in a video released on the eve of national opposition protests aimed at overthrowing the Maduro regime.
In the video, posted Tuesday morning on social media, Pence begins with the greeting, "Hola, I'm Mike Pence" and concludes with "Vayan con Dios," or "Go with God."
"Nicolas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power," Pence says in the video. "He's never won the presidency in a free and fair election, and he's maintained his grip on power by imprisoning anyone who dares to oppose him."
In Pence's message, delivered mostly in English with Spanish subtitles, he calls Guaido, the newly sworn-in head of the National Assembly, "courageous" and says the assembly is "the last vestige of democracy in your country."
"As you make your voices heard tomorrow, on behalf of the American people, we say to all the good people of Venezuela, 'Estamos con ustedes,' we are with you."
Maduro fired back hours later, saying that he had ordered "a total and absolute revision" of Venezuela's relationship with the United States. Speaking on state television, he asked: "Who elects the president of Venezuela? Mike Pence?"
Members of Congress from Florida met with President Donald Trump on Tuesday and discussed Latin America policy, including Venezuela.
"We encouraged the president today to follow through with what he's already declared, which is that Maduro is illegitimate," said U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. "The next logical step is to recognize the president of the National Assembly as the rightful president."
The video's release came a day before nationwide protests called for by Guaido to rally an opposition demoralized by the Maduro government's oppressive tactics and the nation's shattered economy. On Monday, rebel national guardsmen were detained in Caracas and accused of stealing weapons, prompting spontaneous protests in support of the officers in a working-class neighborhood of the Venezuelan capital, about 1.2 miles from the presidential palace.
Maduro, who took over for the late Hugo Chavez in 2013, began a new six-year term on Jan. 10.
Guaido wants the military to drop its support for Maduro, form a transition government and call for elections. Guaido and his supporters say Maduro's new term is illegitimate; about 60 countries concluded the election was fraudulent.
Information for this article was contributed by Margaret Talev, Andrew Rosati and Patricia Laya of Bloomberg News; and by Edward Wong of the The New York Times.
A Section on 01/23/2019