President Donald Trump ordered the capture of Nicolás Maduro after a trivial grievance pushed him over the edge, according to insiders.
Sources told the New York Times in a piece published Sunday that it was the Venezuelan leader’s dancing that was Trump’s breaking point.
Trump had been irritated about Maduro’s nonchalance in the face of escalating tensions between the two countries.
But the final straw came when Maduro stood up to dance to an electronic remix of his own speech, “No War, Yes Peace,” while at the opening of the International School for Women’s Leadership in Maracay, northern Venezuela, in late December.
Trump viewed Maduro’s dancing as “mocking” the U.S., which had days earlier carried out a strike on a dock in Venezuela that the president said was for drug trafficking, two sources told the Times.
Maduro‘s dancing wasn’t a one-off and has been a frequent part of his recent public appearances. The now-former president was also seen jigging to the song a month prior, with lyrics including: “Victory! Forever, forever, forever. Not crazy war! Peace! Forever, forever, forever!”
The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The indicted dictator continued with his flippant behavior even when he and his wife Cilia Flores were brought to the U.S. on Saturday, saying “Happy New Year” to DEA agents and posing with his thumbs up as he sat awaiting transportation to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Maduros and Flores are being held at the facility, where Luigi Mangione is also awaiting trial. The former is facing charges of weapons offences, narco-terrorism conspiracy, and cocaine-importation conspiracy.
Meanwhile, Trump has made it clear that the U.S. would run the show in Maduro’s absence. Speaking at a Mar-a-Lago press conference after the strikes, he said: “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”
Trump didn’t mention Maduro’s dance moves during his speech. Instead, he harped on the country’s oil opportunities.
“As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust, for a long period of time, they were pumping almost nothing, by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place,” Trump said.
“We’re going to have our very large United States put up companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, to go in, spend billions of dollars to fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
