While tensions between President Trump and CNN dying down, a new scandal has erupted for the cable news network after Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday he wanted CNN out of the country, accusing it of spreading fake news, misrepresenting the truth and meddling in issues that are not of its concern.
"CNN, do not get into the affairs of Venezuelans. I want CNN well away from here. Outside of Venezuela. Do not put your nose in Venezuela," said Maduro during a political statement. Quoted by Fox News, Maduro made the comment after blaming the U.S. network of distorting the facts when reporting on irregularities at a Caracas public high school.
"Some media like CNN tried to manipulate. They cannot manipulate! That is our business, of the Venezuelans," he said.
Last week PanAmPost reported that a student demanded on national television that the president improve the conditions of his school, asking for security, infrastructure and food so his classmates wouldn’t faint from hunger anymore. CNN en Español visited the high school and talked with the staff about the student, and whether Maduro had made any improvements since that incident only to discover he had not.
Maduro said the young woman “uncovered a situation that had to be spoken about” adding that “I want the youth to tell the truth, to be critical and revolutionary, for us to go to solve the problems,” he said. “To attend to those problems, we must build a sense of belonging in each school. Lyceum belongs to me and I must take care of it.”
The demand for CNN to leave the country also came a few days after CNN en Espanol broadcast and posted online an in-depth investigation into how officials of the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq allegedly sold Venezuelan passports and visas to suspected terrorists. “Passports in the Shadows” was the result of a yearlong investigation showcasing an account by a whistleblower, a former legal adviser to the Venezuelan embassy in Baghdad, and the government officials’ dismissal of the allegations.
Earlier on Sunday, Venezuelan police arrested and expelled two Brazilian reporters after they toured a structure built in 2012 by Odebrecht, the Brazilian company being investigated for a vast corruption scheme that allegedly touches several Latin American governments and heads of state.
