This is John Batchel, speaking with colleague Mary Anastasio Grady of the Wall Street Journal editorial page

about a man named Jose Zapatero, previous Prime Minister of Spain, and remaining extremely influential,

as is the present Prime Minister, Mr. Sanchez.

The surprise to me was to learn that Mother Spain is supportive of Maduro,

the dictator and bully and brute and election thief in Caracas,

and not of the elected President Gonzalez, nor the Nobel Peace Prize winning leader of the opposition Machado.

Here Mary explains Zapatero what we know about him.

He was prime minister until 2011.

The present Prime Minister Sanchez has been Prime Minister since 2018.

Much more of this later.

Mother, Spain, and Venezuela. Here's Mary. And I think the quote that

the Toledo gave me was that Zabatero is the main international agent for Maduro. That was the direct

quote from her. So she's saying that he represents

the international community, and I think speaking specifically to Cuba and Beijing and Spain,

in Venezuela. And that's a problem. I mean, you know, when you have such a powerful person as a

former prime minister

who is a socialist, who's very close to the current government, and is going around as a lobbyist

for the Venezuelans, that's a problem. Now, he denies that he does business with Venezuela,

but we know for sure that he has offered himself

over and over again as the mediator for any kind of talks that Maduro would have with the

opposition, which Maduro loves being in talks because that buys him time.