2025-12-02 16:56, act.2025-12-02 17:48
publication
2025-12-02 16:56
update
2025-12-02 17:48
US President Donald Trump posted a false post on Monday night, alleging the public “surrender” of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his handing over of “evidence” against Joe Biden's administration. In fact, Maduro called on the military to defend the homeland on Monday.
In a tweet posted just before midnight Washington time, Trump posted an image of a post from Platform X user “Paul White Gold Eagle” announcing that
Venezuelan President Maduro has publicly surrendered to Donald Trump.
The entry also included a TikTok video of Maduro's speech with a description saying that Maduro “just surrendered to President Trump” and provided and published evidence that the Biden administration asked the Venezuelan regime to bring criminals from the Tren de Aragua gang to the US.
The attached recording is from February this year. and in fact it presents a speech by the Venezuelan leader in which he claimed that his authorities had dismantled the Tren de Aragua. Maduro then asked Trump to review the files of the FBI and CIA branches in Colombia, suggesting that the Biden administration, in cooperation with the Colombian authorities, sent criminals to Venezuela to “sow terrorism.” The post, posted to Trump's account, was one of dozens of tweets the president has published, mostly consisting of video clips and statements from his supporters.
On Monday, Maduro performed at a military parade in Caracas, calling on the soldiers of selected units of the Bolivarian Troops to “defend the homeland and peace” in the face of “the threat posed by the armed forces of the United States present in the Caribbean Sea”. He also stated that he wanted peace, but “not the peace of slaves, not the peace of the colonies.”
The publication of Trump's entry comes against the background of growing US pressure against Maduro and threats to use force against Venezuela. According to Reuters, in a telephone conversation on November 21, Trump told the Venezuelan leader that he had until last Friday to flee the country with his family. When that date passed, on Saturday the president announced the closure of the airspace over the country. Trump also allegedly rejected the Venezuelan leader's requests for amnesty and the lifting of sanctions for himself and his associates, which was supposed to be a condition for him to give up power. According to previous Wall Street Journal reporting on the conversation, Trump also allegedly threatened to use force if Maduro did not relinquish power.
Maduro is accused by the US prosecutor of ties to the Cartel de los Soles drug cartel. In November, this group, which was supposed to consist of representatives of the government and the military and was supposed to cooperate with Colombian drug cartels, was recognized by Washington as a terrorist organization. Last week, President Trump announced that the US military would conduct ground attacks against drug traffickers.
On Monday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump was not ruling out either option. She also confirmed reports that a meeting on Venezuela was to be held at the White House on Monday with the participation of leading representatives of the administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine.
Pentagon: We have plans for any eventuality, including Maduro's departure
Pentagon spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson said Tuesday that the Pentagon has plans to respond to all events, including the handover of power by Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. However, she stated that the ministry is focused on fighting “narco-terrorists”.
Wilson responded this way during a press briefing to a question from former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz about what role the Pentagon would play in the process of changing power in Venezuela if Maduro fled the country.
– The Ministry has plans for all eventualities. We are a planning organization. If anything happened in the world, we have a planned and ready response, so we are at the president's every beck and call (…) – she said.
– In terms of our current operations … our goal is to eliminate drug terrorists and root out this threat that is poisoning the American people. Each ship we attacked was 25,000. American lives saved, she said.
On Monday, Reuters reported that President Trump offered the Venezuelan leader a safe escape from the country, but Maduro did not decide to do so, demanding amnesty for himself and his entourage.
As the spokeswoman noted, during the three-month-long campaign against boats suspected of transporting drugs, there have been 21 attacks so far, resulting in the death of 82 people. Wilson repeated earlier claims by the White House and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth that during the first attack on September 2, Special Forces Commander Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley decided to strike again, killing two people who survived the first attack. She said the admiral made the decision based on “clear authority” to “ensure the destruction of the ship and the elimination of the threat from the United States.” She added that the Pentagon fully supports the admiral's attitude.
Bradley is scheduled to report on the incident on Thursday to Congress, amid accusations of committing a war crime.
Wilson also stated that the ministry had “no doubt” that each of the boats attacked by US forces belonged to “narco-terrorists.”
– We know what they are carrying, where they come from and where they are going, and we are trying to smuggle drugs to our shores – she said.
Tuesday's conference of the ministry's spokeswoman was her first since the mass departure of correspondents from all major American media from their offices in the Pentagon in protest against the ministry's new policy. It prohibited journalists from obtaining information other than that authorized by the ministry. As a result, all questions asked on Tuesday came from representatives of right-wing media who sympathized with the ruling administration. Wilson described it as “the beginning of a new era”, criticizing the “fake news media”.
From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)
osk/mal/
