US National Security Advisor John Bolton has been flooding Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino with messages asking him to “do the right thing,” playing the “Good Cop” to his own “Bad Cop.”
Bolton’s most recent “do the right thing” tweet implores Padrino and the army to “protect the Constitutional order from Maduro’s usurpation of democracy” – though US special envoy Elliott Abrams admitted earlier this month that Juan Guaido’s self-appointed presidency was technically in violation of Venezuela’s constitution, until he unilaterally opted to change it.
“Mr. Bolton, I tell you that we are doing the right thing,” Padrino responded in a televised address. “Doing the right thing is doing what’s written in the constitution… Doing the right thing is respecting the will of the people.”