Hundreds of protesters gathered Saturday at Lafayette Square near the White House to support Venezuela's incumbent President Nicolas Maduro.
The Hands Off Venezuela rally condemned what it has called the US administration's attempt to engineer a coup in the country to replace legitimately-elected Maduro with opposition leader Juan Guaido.
The Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition outlined the group's demands on its website as a protest against US involvement in what some have called Guaido's coup; a protest against sanctions imposed on Venezuela which they claim make people in beleaguered the nation suffer and a protest against possible military intervention in the country by the US "and their proxies in the region."
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, actor Danny Glover, Codepink’s Medea Benjamin, Grayzone journalist Max Blumenthal and a number of other journalists and activists were among the speakers at the event.
Protests in support of Maduro have occurred in other US cities, including New York City and Los Angeles, as well as in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.