During Tuesday’s “New Day” on CNN, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) reacted to socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) reluctance to call Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro a “dictator” while speaking at a town hall.

Menendez said Maduro is a “corrupt dictator.”

“He’s a corrupt dictator,” Menendez declared. “He has a combination of an absolute dictatorship and a narco traffic state. He keeps the generals around him in line by a combination of making them part of that narco-trafficking and the monies that proceed from it, and at the same time, by Cuban security that he has dividing the generals one against the other so they went think about creating a coup. So, there is no question he’s corrupt.”

Host John Berman then asked the senator if it is a “mistake” for Sanders to not call Maduro a “dictator.”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Dictatorship is dictatorship — whether from the right or left. Dictatorship oppresses their people. I’m really surprised that Senator Sanders could not at least call him a dictator.”

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