'Unbelievably silly': Pam Bondi's $50M Maduro bounty backfires online
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted a video to X on Thursday, proclaiming that " of Justice and State Department are announcing a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro," adding that he uses criminal cartels "to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country."
Maduro, the authoritarian president of Venezuela who has clung to power despite elections wildly being considered fraudulent, has long been considered a human rights abuser and an adversary of the United States, and has been subject to extensive sanctions.
Nonetheless, the video of Bondi offering a reward for information on a foreign head of state, as though he were a domestic criminal on the run from the law, led to extensive mockery on social media — with some commenters giving Bondi precisely the location the United States should look.
"This is extraordinarily silly," wrote attorney Dilan Esper.
"Well that escalated quickly," wrote internet war commentator Preston Stewart.
"Where could he be," wrote Washington Post national security reporter John Hudson.
"He's probably in Venezuela," wrote Semafor reporter David Weigel.
"He is in Venezuela," wrote Texas-based Democratic youth activist Olivia Julianna. "Do y’all have Venmo? I know that was Gaetz’s preference" — a dig at former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who was Trump's first nominee for attorney general but withdrew amid intense scrutiny of his involvement in a child sex trafficking scandal.
"Here he is: G35J+47F, Av. Nte. 10, Caracas 1012, Distrito Capital, Venezuela, Palacio de Miraflores," wrote Venezuelan-born political scientist and anti-authoritarian activist Daniel Chang Contreras.
"Just yesterday, the US gov't was running this paid digital ad targeted in Venezuela on Facebook offering $25M for info to help lead to the arrest of Maduro," wrote Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies operations director Andrew Arenge. "Would be curious to understand what prompted them to double the award (since they started running the ad about a week ago)."
"We don't have money to fund domestic programs but are wealthy enough to fork over $50 million dollars for information leading to the arrest of a foreign leader who hasn't committed a crime here in the US?" wrote Mississippi-based Republican strategist Melik Abdul. "Where is the non-interventionist the rest of us voted for?"