President Donald Trump authorized the unprecedented attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicholas Maduro Friday night after having escalated military threats against the South American nation for months, but according to two insiders who spoke with the New York Times, it was the “Maduro’s regular public dancing” that was Trump’s breaking point.
“It was one dance move too many for Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro,” the New York Times reported Sunday.
“Mr. Maduro’s regular public dancing and other displays of nonchalance in recent weeks helped persuade some on the Trump team that the Venezuelan president was mocking them and trying to call what he believed to be a bluff, according to two of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the confidential discussions.”
Maduro has been filmed dancing in public multiple times in the lead up to his capture on Saturday, with several instances being documented in the last two months. He was seen dancing onstage during a student rally to a song championing peace in Caracas in late November, and he was filmed dancing with a robot operating with artificial intelligence at the Expo Motores Productivos event on Dec. 22, less than three weeks from his eventual capture.
Some critics, including Dylan Goforth, executive editor of the investigative news outlet The Frontier, perhaps in jest argued that Trump – known to frequently dance at his own rallies – was upset with Maduro for having stolen Trump’s “swag.”
“He was stealing Trump’s swag and had to go,” Goforth wrote Sunday in a social media post on X.
Maduro is currently in New York awaiting trial on drug-trafficking and weapons charges, and Trump announced that the United States would be “running” Venezuela until a transfer of power can be facilitated.
The New York Times reports that this is what finally pushed Trump to send Delta Force to storm Caracas and abduct Maduro: https://t.co/e4bmnTgaDy pic.twitter.com/cf1cd03ZCr — Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) January 4, 2026
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