Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams called out former Vice President Kamala Harris’s hypocritical reaction to the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, blasting her response as “cynical and irresponsible.”
Harris released a statement bashing President Donald Trump on Saturday evening after U.S. troops carried out an early morning mission in Caracas, the capital city of the South American country.
“Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable,” she wrote on X. “That Maduro is a brutal, illegitimate dictator does not change the fact that this action was both unlawful and unwise. We’ve seen this movie before. Wars for regime change or oil that are sold as strength but turn into chaos, and American families pay the price.”
“The American people do not want this, and they are tired of being lied to,” Harris added. “This is not about drugs or democracy. It is about oil and Donald Trump’s desire to play the regional strongman. If he cared about either, he wouldn’t pardon a convicted drug trafficker or sideline Venezuela’s legitimate opposition while pursuing deals with Maduro’s cronies.”
Harris’s statement continued by arguing that Trump put U.S. troops at risk, wasted money, illegally destabilized Venezuela with “no exit plan, and no benefit at home.”
“America needs leadership whose priorities are lowering costs for working families, enforcing the rule of law, strengthening alliances, and — most importantly — putting the American people first,” she concluded.
Adams responded to the former vice president’s post on Sunday morning, pointing out that the Biden-Harris administration raised the bounty on Maduro for information leading to his arrest or conviction to $25 million on January 10, 2025.
The previous bounty was $15 million, set by the first Trump administration. Trump’s current administration raised it to $50 million before Maduro was ultimately captured.
“Public safety is not a political game,” Adams wrote. “You do not label someone a narco-dictator one year and then pretend he is no longer a threat the next simply because a different president is in office. That is cynical and irresponsible.”
“Maduro’s drugs have killed thousands of Americans and continue to endanger our children,” he continued. “Imagine being the parents of 2-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici, who died from fentanyl poisoning in a Bronx daycare, and watching this political theater.”
In September 2023, Dominici ingested the deadly drug in the care of Grei Mendez, a daycare owner who pleaded guilty to federal charges after police discovered a brick of fentanyl stored on top of children’s playmats.
“America is safer today because Maduro is no longer in power. Welcome to New York, Nicolás,” Adams concluded.
Maduro is expected to appear in the Southern District of New York court on Monday, facing multiple narcoterrorism, drug, and weapons charges, according to NewsNation.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
