President Donald Trump announced this Tuesday, September 2, the death of 11"drug traffickers" in an attack in the Caribbean against a vessel transporting drugs from Venezuela, a clear escalation after the deployment of vessels in the area. The Venezuelan dictator was quick to speak out, doing so at a public event broadcast by local media.
“Our people will not be stained, there is the Miami mafia, which persecutes migrants [...], all those migrants, Colombians, Cubans, in Miami, who are setting them up, who are persecuting them is the Miami mafia, Marco Rubio, the boss of the White House and the State Department who wants to stain the hands of the Trump family name with blood,” Maduro asserted.
The Venezuelan dictator accused Marco Rubio of lying after his previous announcement about the operation in the Caribbean Sea: "They invent a story that no one believes. Young people don't believe Marco Rubio's lies."
"They, with their narrative, with their manipulations, with their lies, and we, with our profound truth, and our truth is that the people of Venezuela are united and want peace," said the Chavista leader at the event.
Maduro also noted: “Imperialism attacks us, it attacks us for two reasons, both obvious. They send eight warships, they point 1,200 missiles at our heads, they send a nuclear submarine. When has any place on the planet ever sent them? And they send them because they invent a story, a tale that no one believes.”
Maduro took the opportunity to assert that Marco Rubio is the one who "calls the shots" in the White House.
Meanwhile, Venezuela's Vice President of Communication and Culture, Freddy Ñáñez, one of Maduro's confidants, also reacted to the news and lashed out at the U.S. Secretary of State.
“It seems Marco Rubio continues to lie to his president: after leading him into a dead end, he now hands over an AI video (thus proven) as ‘proof’. What does Gemini say about this video?” the Venezuelan government official questioned.
U.S. forces “fired on a vessel [...] that was carrying a lot of drugs,” Trump said at the White House. “So we took it out,” he said.
The president then added in a message on his Truth Social network that the attack occurred while the traffickers, from the Tren de Aragua group, were in international waters.
“The US military carried out a lethal attack,” added Secretary of State Marco Rubio, shortly before beginning an official visit to Mexico this Wednesday.
