Speaking at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump openly criticized Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro – whom his administration had arrested just days prior in an unprecedented attack – for allegedly copying his dance moves, while also claiming Maduro had “killed millions of people.”
“[The Democrats] have been after this guy for years and years, and he was a violent guy!” Trump said, referring to Maduro. “He gets up there and he tries to imitate my dance a little bit, but he's a violent guy. He's killed millions of people, he's tortured – they have a torture chamber in the middle of Caracas that they're closing up.”
Trump’s apparent grievances with Maduro’s dancing supports reporting from this week that suggested the Venezuelan president’s public dances may have been the final straw for Trump in his decision to launch the large-scale attack on Venezuela, which killed at least 80 Venezuelans and has created political instability in the Western Hemisphere.
“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.”
Trump accuses Nicholas Maduro of copying his dancing: "He tries to imitate my dance!" pic.twitter.com/voM8zxowXu
— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) January 6, 2026