From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the day.

Today, an expansion of power, a rewriting of the Constitution, is democracy coming to an end in Venezuela.

And what will it mean for President Trump to bring a four-star military general into a chaotic White House?

It's Wednesday, August 2nd.

By sanctioning Maduro, the United States makes clear our opposition to the policies of his regime and the support for the people of Venezuela.

Nick Hasey, the last time we spoke to you about Venezuela, you described a pretty grim picture there, a hunger epidemic, mass protests in the street, and a president who has been cracking down on freedoms of all kinds.

How does that connect with these actions by the Trump administration against the Venezuelan government?

The US is trying to find something it can do.

What we're seeing is the brutal oppression of the Venezuelan people to intervene in this situation, which is getting out of control.

And this is happening, obviously, in an accelerated pace in recent months.

There are sanctions against a hit estate.

As a result of today's sanctions, all assets of Maduro, subject to US jurisdiction, are frozen.

And US persons are prohibited from dealing with him.

And that's pretty unusual. There are only four heads of state now that have got sanctions against them.

Self, he joins a very exclusive club.

The others in addition to Maduro, Robert Mugabi of some Bobway, Bashar Alassad in Syria, and Kim Jong-un in North Korea.

Wow, I mean, that's a really ugly list of people who, according to the United States, have essentially committed crimes against their own people.

So, have we actually come to the point in Venezuela where the president is in the same league as Anassad or a Mugabi?

I think that of this small club of dictators that definitely, unfortunately for Venezuelans, they haven't seen Mugabi style actions on the part of Maduro.

But I think the fear is that if we turn the clock ahead and it's 2020, and Nicholas Maduro is an aging man who is still in charge of Venezuela because of these moves that he's taken this month,

we could potentially have someone that looks like an aging Robert Mugabi on the throne.

So what has Maduro done this month? What's been going on?

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