[Cyril Vanier, Cnn Anchor:] As cheers and celebrations Nicolas Maduro waves to his supporters, as he wins another term as Venezuela's President.
[Natalie Allen, Cnn Anchor:] U.S. President Trump lashes out, demanding an investigation over alleged FBI spying on his political campaign.
[Vanier:] Plus, new dangers in Hawaii as dangerous clouds of acid steam are spread from molten lava reaching the ocean.
[Allen:] One man apparently hit by what's called a lava bomb, we'll have more about it. Thank you for joining us, I'm Natalie Allen.
[Vanier:] I'm Cyril Vanier, it is great to have you with us.
[Allen:] We begin in Venezuela where the President, Nicolas Maduro, is celebrating victory in Sunday's Presidential Election, but the vote is being criticized both inside and outside the country as a sham.
[Vanier:] Officials say Maduro won a second six-year term with 68 percent of the vote. However, voter turnout was only around 46 percent, despite the fact that the government kept many polls open late so more people could vote.
[Allen:] Maduro won despite an economy in turmoil with many Venezuelans struggling to get even basic necessities like food and medicine, but the president is promising to turn things around.
[Nicolas Maduro, Venezuelan President:] Today I am a president with more experience. I am a human being more prepared. I swear to you I will fulfill my promise and will dedicate myself entirely to recover the economic growth, to heal our economy, to prosecute criminal mafia. You will see me throughout the country in the streets to activate the motors of the economy.
[Vanier:] The main opposition boycotted Sunday's vote calling it illegitimate and Maduro's main opponent, Henri Falcon, is calling for a new election.
[Allen:] Eric Farnsworth is vice president of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, he joins us from Washington. Eric, thank you for being with us.
[Eric Farnsworth, Vice President, Americas Society And Council Of The Americas:] Thank you.
[Allen:] Maduro wins again, no surprise there. How is he managing to stay in power when his country is crumbling? Its people are starving. Is he selling something that people are still buying? Is it manipulation? False promises? What is it?
[Farnsworth:] It's a combination of all of the above. He's selling promises to people and he can't cash the checks that he's trying to give them, but more to the point, he's taken steps that have put the opposition back on its heels. He's jailed opposition leaders. He has dominated the press and refused to allow the opposition access to it. He has taken steps, which have put the resources of the state at the disposal of his own electoral ambition. So the military and the national energy company are all at his service. So, he's not just building support among his base by direct benefits and gifts, but he's also doing everything he can to make the life of the opposition very, very difficult. So, that combination has, at least for the time being, kept him in power.
[Allen:] We hear from people who are desperate there that they're scared to let go of Maduro because it could get worse. They're barely eating, he gives them a little food, you have to stand in line for about 37 hours to get that. So, the question is, though, are people starting now to pull away from him? Even poor people, is his support waning at all?
[Farnsworth:] You know, the support has clearly been decreasing over time and people are voting not just with their votes, but with their feet. We're seeing hundreds of thousands of people leaving Venezuela as refugees across the border to Columbia, to Brazil, into the Caribbean's and the islands there, and seeking asylum as well in the United States and other countries. So, people are leaving the country, there is a certain desperation that has set in and the people that depend on the regime - you're right, they feel that if they're going to stay, they really have no alternative, but to continue to support the regime, because their livelihoods, their jobs, their access to food and limited medicine may depend on that. And, the regime does know who its supporters are, because it's - it's - it's keeping score by who receives the benefits and who is in their system. So, they know who the people are and it's become a very, very authoritarian state, almost dystopian state.
[Allen:] So, a lot of people left, I think almost 1.5 million, where does this go? How does this end if he just continues what he's doing, which is nothing for his people and everything to keep himself in power?
[Farnsworth:] It's hard to see how the economic situation gets any better at all. In fact, Maduro himself has said that he's going to double down on the revolution, he's going to make it even more - you know, take it in the same direction it's been going now for the past several years. [01:05] Meanwhile, the production of Venezuela's primary commodity, oil, is decreasing by the month and that's because of incompetence in the sector, and a lack of investment, a lack of skilled capital people who are leaving. So, they're going to have less and less resources. So, people of Venezuela are going to have to make a choice. They can leave, and again that's what may people are doing, or they can try to find a different way to try to change the circumstances within Venezuela. Obviously, the vote is now a path that circumscribed to them, that's not going to be available, so they're going to have to look for something else. And, I think what a number of people are beginning to think about is the possibility of additional public protests, additional civil disobedience perhaps and perhaps violence, not that anybody wants that, but that could be something that we will see increasingly after this election result concludes fully.
[Allen:] Alright. We're out of time. Wanted to talk to you about what the U.S. is doing and what the world is doing, but next time we'll discuss that. Thank you so much for coming in and talking to us.
[Farnsworth:] Thank you.
[Vanier:] U.S. President, Donald Trump, wants to know if the Obama administration had the FBI spy on his campaign for political reasons and he's demanding a justice department investigation into that.
[Allen:] This follows reports the FBI had a confidential source talk to Trump campaign aides about possible ties to Russia. CNN's Ryan Nobles has more on the justice department's response.
[Ryan Nobles, Cnn Correspondent:] President Donald Trump busy on Twitter this weekend.
[Vanier:] So, the political implications, the legal implications, let's try and untangle all of this with political analyst, Peter Mathews, also a criminal defense attorney, Troy Slaten. Peter, first to you. The president wants an investigation into those who are investigating him. Now, he'concerned that perhaps his campaign was spied on for political reasons. Does he have good grounds to - to - to believe that?
[Peter Mathews, Political Science Professor, Cypress College, Political Analyst:] We don't really know that yet.
[Vanier:] About that letter, Troy, Donald Trump's going to officially ask the department of justice on Monday to begin this new investigation into the investigation. Is he allowed to do that? Can he tell the department of justice what to do and what to investigate?
[Troy Slaten, Former Prosecutor:] Well, if you ascribe to the theory of the unitary executive then he absolutely does.
[Vanier:] So, it's not interference? Because usually it is said that the department of justice needs to be independent.
[Slaten:] Yes. So, for the last 30-40 years, even a little bit longer, the White House has taken the position that the department of justice is to operate independently. However, the president is entitled to be kept abreast of any investigations, if he wants to.
[Vanier:] Peter, Donald Trump wants to know whether the investigation of his campaign was politically motivated, but don't we already have a pretty good idea of how that investigation began? I mean, the FBI was informed by foreign diplomats - we've found out, of a conversation that they'd had with a Trump campaign staffer and that set off alarm bells to them and then they applied for a FISA warrant, so that they could wiretap that particular former Trump campaign staffer. So, there are objective elements that sent the FBI looking into this.
[Mathews:] Absolutely and those elements were pretty real. You know, this former advisor - he was actually a foreign policy advisor for President Trump and he had lost of ties to Russia, for example, and - here's the thing, though, about the internal unitary executive. The justice department is - is - is the cabinet department, the FBI is under the cabinet within the justice department. It has to have some independence or you'll have just a mockery, because it's investigating the president himself and his campaign. How can you have the president in charge of his own investigation? That's where you're talking about we call a unitary executive. [inaudible] checks and balances within the executive branch itself, in that sense.
[Vanier:] Troy, I'd like you to cast your lawyer's eyes for me on the deputy attorney general's statement. Rod Rosenstein, he said, "If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action." What's it look like to you? Because to me it looks very carefully crafted.
[Slaten:] Well, certainly - look, if - if - if the Obama administration implanted informants into the campaign of an opposing party, that would be a huge scandal, if they did it for some sort of political gain. So, if there was some sort of evidence that that was occurring, it should certainly be investigated. The whole purpose of the special counsel investigation is to look at interference in the campaign, whether it be from the Russians - now we're hearing information that Gulf States may have been trying to exert influence. So, we're trying to figure out what exactly happened and certainly if that did happen by the current administration - meaning the Obama administration during the campaign, to look into and try and affect the campaign of the opposing party, that would be a huge scandal and we'd definitely need to know about it.
[Vanier:] Peter, the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, says he want to know what the source reveals.
[Mathews:] It does and I guess that's what they're grasping onto, because other things look quite bleak for the president this time in the investigation. I do agree with Troy, though, that it needs to be known whether or not there was any kind of political influence in that particular counterintelligence operation and political counterintelligence. So, that's very important that we get to the bottom of that. However, I think that should not derail the major investigation which is to see whether or not there was any interference from foreign countries, not just Russia. Now it looks like possibly the UAE and Saudi Arabia may have been involved, their representatives met with Trump, Jr., I believe. But, that's really a problem there and that has to be focused on and this shouldn't be a distraction, but on the other hand I do believe the rule of law does call for any kind of untoward to be exposed, if it was political. I agree with Troy on that one.
[Vanier:] Alright. Troy Slaten, Peter Mathews, thank you very much for answering our questions.
[Mathews:] Thank you, Cyril.
[Slaten:] Thank you for having us. [01:15]
[Vanier:] Coming up, the latest on the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii.
[Allen:] Also ahead here, a Pakistani exchange student is being remembered as a bridge between two cultures. We'll take a look at her life cut short in the Texas school shooting.