As Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez (R) sets his sights to challenge Florida Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) for her congressional seat, Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava (D) looks to replace Mayor Gimenez, and she has just released a statement regarding President Trump’s recent comments regarding Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro that could come off as being rich in hypocrisy to the Cuban exile community.
According to former National Advisor John Bolton’s book that will be released this week, The Room Where it Happened, Bolton accuses Trump of calling Juan Guaido “weak” and Maduro a “strong” leader.
Responding to this accusation, Commissioner Daniella argued that “it’s offensive and simply disgusting that the president of the United States would call a brutal dictator like Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro a ‘strong leader’ and be willing to meet with him.” She added that “this is a slap in the face to our vibrant Venezuelan community and offers the clearest example of how the President’s rhetoric on Venezuela was just that, empty promises with little meaning.”
But the problem that Cava now faces is that while she bashes Trump over possibly meeting with Venezuelan strongman Nicholas Maduro, how does she explain her campaign consultant Christian Ulvert's organizing a 2016 trip to Cuba, and using his close contact in Cuba's foreign ministry to help with logistics during the trip for former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine.
Remember, Communist Cuba and the Castro regime propped up and continues supporting Maduro's criminal regime. Maduro is the new Fidel Castro of Latin America.
According to the Miami Herald, Levine’s team traveled with Tufts University, a team that "included his political consultant who organized the trip, Democrat Christian Ulvert of Miami, and his media strategist and friend, Republican Adam Goodman of Tampa."
It kind of makes sense, considering that at the time, President Barack Obama was trying to "normalize" U.S.-Cuba relations and was actually in Havana at the same time Levine was? Coincidence?
With Miami-Dade County having such deep Cuban exile roots, voters could take issue with Cava having close ties with someone that traveled to Cuba to help benefit himself and/or his candidate, and for having a contact within the Cuban government.
Staunch anti-Castro Americans like Esteban Bovo, who is also one of Cava's mayoral opponents, took a not-so-subtle shot at progressive Democrats like Cava when he tweeted that their "new-found concern" over President Donald Trump's "Venezuela policy" and their silence and hypocrisy after vice president Joe Biden actually met with Maduro and laughed it up
My statement on @realDonaldTrump’s comments on Brutal Dictator, Nicholas Maduro: https://t.co/RlLDnczJj1 pic.twitter.com/ueiNtsOe27
— Daniella Levine Cava (@LevineCava) June 22, 2020
"To those on the far left with new-found "concern" for @realDonaldTrump’s Venezuela policy, your silence when Biden actually met and was laughing it up with the dictator make your statements now hypocritical at best," tweeted Bovo.
