Venezuela Bans CNN for ‘Misinterpreting and Distorting Truth’

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the suspension of CNN’s Spanish-language service from Venezuela’s broadcasting on Wednesday, accusing it of distorting the truth in coverage.

The regulator for Venezuela broadcasting, Conatel, said in a statement that CNN “defames and distorts the truth inciting aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and its institutions”.

The spat with the network has come after Washington this week blacklisted Maduro’s Vice President Tareck El Aissami on drug charges.

“I don’t want problems with Trump,” Maduro said on TV on Wednesday, adding that CNN had become “an instrument of war”.

About an hour later, Trump called for the release of prominent jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez in a tweet, posing in a photo with Lopez’s wife Lilian Tintori, Reuters reported.

Trump himself has previously lambasted CNN, calling them “fake news” after a story about him with Russian prostitutes went viral. The story was actually made up as a form of propaganda to defame him by political opponents and was created by a failed ex-MI5 agent reportedly hired by Jeb Bush.

CNN has distorted the truth for years, and in some cases it has produced manufactured news. For example: creating the narrative that the Trump protests were all Hillary supporters by using their own camera man in November, shortly after Trump won the election.

However, CNN President Jeff Zucker told New York Magazine that the network’s “credibility is higher than ever” which is an absolute joke. And now Venezuela is saying that the “news organization” “defames and distorts the truth inciting aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and its institutions.”

[Trump Slams Corporate Media as ‘Garbage,’ Says CNN is ‘Fake News’]