Sounds like Lulu Garcia-Navarro is yearning for the good old days in Venezuela under Nicolas Maduro. On Tuesday's CNN This Morning, Garcia-Navarro, a longtime NPR host turned CNN commentator, claimed:
"The Venezuelan people are the ones that are actually facing not regime change, not any actual change, but increased repression. And who is dealing that out? Dealing that out is the U.S. government."
Garcia-Navarro offered no evidence in support of her outlandish claim that there is "increased repression" in Venezuela after the removal of Maduro. Remember: this is the same "civil rights" specialist that proclaimed ten years ago the communist Castro brothers running Cuba were like "the Holy Trinity."
Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as Venezuela's interim president. After her initial display of defiance, President Trump said that Rodríguez would "pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro" if she refused to cooperate with his administration. Rodriguez promptly changed her tune and pledged cooperation.
Among Trump's plans for the country are free and fair elections at an appropriate time, once the situation has been stabilized.
Note also the joyous reaction in the Venezuelan diaspora, notably in Florida, to the removal of Maduro [per Grok, emphasis added]:
Exiled communities, particularly in South Florida (e.g., Doral, often called "Doralzuela"), erupted in celebrations shortly after the news broke. Hundreds gathered in the streets, waving flags, chanting "libertad" (freedom), dancing, and expressing overwhelming joy and hope. Many viewed Maduro's removal as a long-awaited end to repression and economic collapse, with some describing it as the "best gift" or comparing it to the fall of the Berlin Wall."
So, the notion that the Rodriguez administration would attempt, in defiance of Trump, to increase repression is absurd, as Garcia-Navarro must surely know.
But the left's love affair with Communist dictators, including the Castro regime in Cuba, Daniel Ortega and his Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Salvador Allende in Chile, not to mention Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, dies hard.
Perhaps Lulu can't . . . suppress her dismay over the removal of Maduro, but hopefully she'll get over it if the project succeeds in making Venezuela a much freer and more prosperous country for its citizens.
Note: Republican strategist Ashley Davis did push back, saying: "No one can sit here and argue that Venezuela was better off when Maduro was in power." Yet there was Lulu, sitting to Ashley's left!
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
1/6/26
6:05 am ETLULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: The problem that we have at the moment, though, is not only just the lack of a plan, but also, you know, here we have the Trump administration basically saying that they run Venezuela. And they're saying that they run Venezuela because they can do it through this threat of the armada. So what is the plan here, that we're just going to leave the U.S. Navy and Marines off the coast of Venezuela interminably as sort of a Damocles sword over their head?
And meanwhile, inside Venezuela, what we're seeing is an enormous amount of repression. We're seeing a consolidation of power with a new government that always happens, right? Because there are always internal divisions. There's a power vacuum. There are internal divisions. There are many different players within the Venezuelan elites.
And so the Venezuelan people are the ones that are actually facing, not regime change, not any actual change, but increased repression. And who is delving that out, dealing that out, is the U.S. government. What does America stand for at this point?
