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Joe Biden’s own administration once put a $15 million bounty on Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s head for narco terrorism, cocaine trafficking, and using drugs as a weapon against the United States. Now that President Trump’s decisive actions have led to Maduro’s capture, Democrats are scrambling to spin the story. The same people who once called Maduro a criminal are suddenly downplaying or dismissing the significance of his arrest, all to avoid admitting that Trump’s America First strategy delivered the results they could not.
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2. US offers $25M reward for info leading to Maduro’s arrest as third term begins
The $25 million bounty for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was a reward offered by the U.S. government under President Joe Biden in January 2025. This amount was later increased to $50 million by the subsequent Trump administration in August 2025.
Key Details
- Initial Bounty: The Trump administration originally offered a $15 million reward in March 2020 as part of an indictment against Maduro for “narco-terrorism” and drug trafficking charges.
- Biden Increase: The Biden administration raised this reward to $25 million in January 2025, a move announced on the same day Maduro was inaugurated for a controversial third six-year term. The U.S. did not recognize the legitimacy of the election.
- Current Bounty: The bounty was doubled to the current $50 million in August 2025 by the Trump administration, making it one of the largest rewards ever offered for a foreign leader.
- Reasoning: The reward is part of a U.S. Department of State Narcotics Rewards Program for individuals responsible for trafficking narcotics into the United States. U.S. prosecutors allege Maduro managed and led the “Cartel de los Soles” (Cartel of the Suns), a Venezuelan drug-trafficking organization.
- Additional Bounties: At the time the bounty was raised to $25 million, the U.S. also increased the reward for Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello to $25 million and offered a new $15 million reward for Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.
Maduro has consistently denied all drug trafficking accusations, calling the U.S. actions a pretext for regime change and political propaganda.
The Forgotten History of the Maduro Bounty
Most Americans have short memories, but the record is clear. In 2019, during Venezuela’s brutal political crackdown, NBC News aired shocking footage of military tanks crushing protesters who dared to stand against Maduro’s socialist regime. It was pure tyranny broadcast live. The Biden campaign, along with top Democrats, condemned it. Biden himself called the actions “unacceptable” and urged international accountability.
Then, in 2020, the United States Department of Justice, under the Trump administration, indicted Maduro for narco terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. The case alleged that Maduro used drug trafficking to flood the United States with cocaine as a weapon against the American people.
The indictment was bipartisan in effect. Democrats did not object. Biden, then running for president, did not call for the charges to be dropped. Quite the opposite, his team supported the idea that Maduro was a dangerous criminal.
So what changed? Only the name of the man in the Oval Office.
Biden’s Bounty and Trump’s Capture
When the Trump administration put a bounty on Maduro’s head, it was treated as a necessary national security move. The offer of fifteen million dollars for information leading to his arrest was still in place when Biden took office. The Biden White House never lifted the indictments or rescinded the reward. They did not recognize Maduro as a legitimate leader. They treated him as a fugitive.
Fast forward to 2026. Maduro is captured, thanks to decisive United States military coordination and intelligence operations that had been years in the making. Instead of celebrating, Democrats and their media allies tried to smear President Trump’s involvement as reckless, provocative, or politically motivated.
It is a breathtaking reversal. The same people who cheered Maduro’s isolation now sound like apologists for him, simply because Trump was the one who finally got the job done.
Media Memory Loss
NBC News once aired the horror of Maduro’s violence against his own citizens. The 2019 footage, still available on X, showed Venezuelan army vehicles rolling over unarmed protesters, crushing the resistance that had grown against socialism’s failures.
At the time, NBC called Maduro’s actions brutal and unacceptable. Democrats in Congress echoed that sentiment. The Venezuelan military’s assault on civilians became a rallying cry for both sides of the aisle, proof that socialism’s promise always ends in blood.
Now, with Maduro finally brought to justice, that same network treats the event like a geopolitical inconvenience. The coverage downplays the magnitude of capturing one of the Western Hemisphere’s most dangerous tyrants. Why? Because acknowledging victory would mean admitting that Trump’s policies, from maximum pressure sanctions to covert alliances, actually worked.
Just the News and the Record of Violence
As Just the News recently highlighted, Maduro’s record is not just authoritarian, it is lethal. Over two decades, his government orchestrated political assassinations, drug smuggling operations, and financial crimes that destabilized not just Venezuela but the region. His security forces were implicated in extrajudicial killings, torture, and mass detentions.
The United States government documented this behavior across Republican and Democrat administrations. Every major Western power agreed that Maduro’s regime was a narco state. Yet when Trump takes the same stance and sees it through to the end, his opponents suddenly pretend that aggression toward Maduro is problematic.
It is the ultimate act of political amnesia.
The Double Standard on National Security
Democrats often talk tough about defending democracy abroad, but when it comes to action, they retreat behind talking points. Biden’s own record proves that he once understood Maduro was a criminal threat to the Western Hemisphere. But now the narrative has shifted, not because Maduro changed, but because the optics did.
This is the same political crowd that lectured Americans about foreign interference, yet ignored Maduro’s documented ties to Cuban intelligence, Iranian operatives, and Chinese strategic partners. These alliances form part of the Chinese Communist Party’s push to extend influence in Latin America, a direct threat to United States sovereignty.
Trump’s operation against Maduro was not just about capturing a dictator. It was about drawing a line in the sand against global communism and the foreign cartels that sustain it.
A Lesson in Hypocrisy
The capture of Nicolás Maduro should have been a unifying national security moment. Instead, it exposed the Democrats’ inability to stand by their own words when political credit belongs elsewhere.
Biden’s bounty was real. The indictments were real. The human rights abuses were real. The drugs were real. And the tanks rolling over protesters, that was as real as it gets.
The only thing that was not real was the Democrats’ consistency. When Trump acts, they resist, even if it means rewriting history.
The Real Victory
Maduro’s capture is not just a win for the Trump administration. It is a message to every foreign power betting against America. From Beijing to Caracas, the world just saw what decisive leadership looks like.
It also sent a message to the American people. Political games may dominate the headlines, but at the end of the day, results matter.
Trump got results. The Democrats got caught in their own contradictions.
That is the real story, one that no amount of spin can bury.
Here is more of our coverage of the unfolding details on Maduro’s capture and the landscape: