Trump Team Moved to Oust Maduro Because They Were Put Off By Videos of His Dancing: Report

(AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

President Donald Trump’s team was reportedly so put off by strongman Nicolas Maduro’s dance moves that he gave the word for U.S. troops to invade Venezuela and remove the dictator from power.

The New York Times reported Sunday that “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.”

The Times cited anonymous sources saying that Maduro’s antics after rejecting an ultimatum from Trump to leave office and go into exile in Turkey, ultimately led the White House to follow through on its military threats.

“This week [Maduro] was back onstage, brushing off the latest U.S. escalation — a strike on a dock that the United States said was used for drug trafficking — by bouncing to an electronic beat on state television while his recorded voice repeated in English, ‘No crazy war,'” The report said.

Some of Maduro’s celebratory dances were posted to social media, which the White House monitors routinely, as evidenced by X appearing on a large screen in the war room used by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during the removal operation.

Trump posted a video montage on Truth Social Saturday of Maduro shouting, “Come for me! I’m waiting for you here in Miraflores. Don’t take too long to arrive, coward!”

The video, set to the strains of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” was interspersed with shots of bombs lighting up Venezuela’s night sky as U.S. troops descended on Maduro.

Trump has long blamed Maduro for allowing illegal drugs to flood the U.S. market, although critics point out that Trump’s claims of fentanyl trafficking don’t hold up.

Fentanyl wasn’t mentioned in the superseding indictment against Maduro and five co-conspirators released Saturday. Instead, the charges were related to bringing “tons of cocaine into the United States.”