President Trump’s acknowledgment that he would be open to meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is now fodder in the race for South Florida voters, with new Spanish-language ads from presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden using Trump’s remarks as ammunition.
Trump said in an interview last week with Axios that he was open to meeting with Maduro and held reservations about recognizing Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.
In Florida, which is home to more than 400,000 Hispanics of Venezuelan origin, the former vice president is leading Trump by just 6 points, according to a RealClearPolitics average recent polls. Biden is much further ahead with other Hispanic cohorts.
Senate Republican aides said they doubted there would be a long-term negative impact from Trump’s comment and stressed the administration’s overarching policy on Venezuela, including sanctions against the Maduro government and a rollback of Obama-era policy that is open to relations with Cuba.
One senior Senate Republican aide said they did not envision the remark having “any sort of lasting impact politically,” noting that Trump, in a tweet, had added that the meeting with Maduro would be to negotiate his exit.
This aide also said the race was too far out for polls today to be of useful guidance. “If anybody thinks that we’re going to have an election where one side wins by 14 points, then there’s a lot of bridges in Arizona that we can sell that person,” this person said.
Venezuelan voters in South Florida understand the president’s desire to get a deal “because that’s who he is,” another senior Senate Republican aide said.
But some Republicans fear there could be consequences.
“In terms of Venezuela, as far as South Florida Hispanic community goes, the president really had a perfect record up until now,” said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican from Florida — a swing state with a perennially narrow margin of victory in which any movement of voters could be decisive for the presidential election.
“It’s not that the Venezuelan community in South Florida or the Cuban community are now going to become enthusiastic Biden supporters, but this could depress some enthusiasm for the president,” said Curbelo.
Democrats “certainly sense an opening,” he said, but they should not expect an outpouring of support given the Obama administration’s record on Venezuela. “There’s nothing to boast about there. But they could put into question the president’s commitment to the Venezuelan opposition, and that could depress some enthusiasm for the president.”
Trump is positioned to build on his administration’s policy record, Curbelo said. “But for someone who has been credibly been accused of tolerating dictatorship and even embracing dictators in some parts of the world, this openness, this sudden openness to Maduro does carry significant political risk.”
In a statement, the Trump campaign’s Communications Director Tim Murtaugh said Trump “would meet with Maduro only to negotiate his peaceful exit from power,” noting the president’s “unequivocal” support for democracy and opposition to dictators. Murtaugh stressed Trump’s early recognition of Guaido as Venezuela’s “rightful” leader.
“By contrast, Joe Biden has said he would revert to the Obama policy of appeasing Cuba’s dictator, strengthening and enriching Cuba and allowing it to better prop up Maduro and other dictators in the region,” Murtaugh said. “President Trump stands strongly against socialist regimes, while Biden’s policies would make life easier for them.”
