The Daily 202: A tale of two elections
By James Hohmann
May 22 at 9:19 AM
THE BIG IDEA: The Trump administration doesn’t care about free and fair elections, except when it does.
In March, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether President Trump agreed with John McCain that Vladimir Putin’s reelection in Russia was a “sham.”
“We're focused on our elections. We don't get to dictate how other countries operate,” Sanders replied. “What we do know is Putin has been elected in their country, and that's not something that we can dictate to them, how they operate. We can only focus on the freeness and the fairness of our elections.”
Trump had ignored specific warnings from his own national security team — including a section in his briefing materials that said “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” in all caps — when he congratulated Putin for securing six more years.
Yet, on Monday, Trump issued a strongly worded statement condemning the reelection of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro to another six-year term as illegitimate. He even signed an executive order to block the government from selling or collateralizing certain financial assets. “The United States remains committed to the Venezuelan people, who have suffered immensely under the Maduro regime,” the president said in a statement. “We call for the Maduro regime to restore democracy, hold free and fair elections, release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally, and end the repression and economic deprivation of the Venezuelan people.”
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/05/22/daily-202-a-tale-of-two-elections/5b030f131b326b492dd07df5/