Thank you, Mr. Vice President.  You said it very well, so I'll just add a few brief thoughts.  To be clear, the humanitarian assistance that we are announcing today is not about politics.  It is about helping the victims of a massive crisis. This aid is based upon need and need alone, because America will always stand with the hungry and the displaced.  That's simply who we are as Americans.

However, we cannot pretend that this situation falls into the same category as the natural disasters that we have seen over the last year - hurricanes and earthquakes.  Let's be honest, in some ways, this is more tragic because it is entirely man-made and regime-made. Now, we have all heard stories of the terrible suffering and the hunger among Venezuelans.  What I think many people don't realize, especially those of us in the U.S., is that this crisis is also causing the largest displacement in Latin American history. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans are fleeing their homeland to escape the brutality and the corruption of the Maduro regime - 1.6 million, in fact.  They're fleeing not only to their immediate neighbors but to something like 20 other countries as well.