Does a video show Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, reacting to the $50M bounty announced August 7, 2025 by the US Department of State by challenging the Trump administration to come and get him at the presidential palace? No, that is NOT true. The video shows Maduro giving a speech on July 30th, 2024, after a self-declared victory in the presidential race and calling his opponent a "coward," after opposition leaders and candidate Edmundo González Urrutia questioning the results. González, a diplomat and politician, criticized the Venezuelan government for not releasing official election results and challenged Nicolás Maduro's announced victory.
The claim appeared on X (archived here) on August 11, 2025. The screen caption read:
President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, reacts to the $50 million bounty set on him by the Department of State.
"Come for me. I'll be waiting here in Miraflores. Don't take too long cowards." 👏👏👏
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken by Lead Stories.)
The claim lacks links to official websites, statements, or interviews to permit independent corroboration.
Lead Stories found the video is a short clip from Maduro's speech on July 30th, starting at 00:47 of the longer recording.
In the full recording of the speech, Maduro addressed his opponent as Mr. Coward and asked him to come to the presidential palace (translation by Lead Stories):
The coward Gonzalez Urrutia, the new Guaidó. Mr. Coward, don't come for the humble woman at home and her family. Mr. Coward, do not go for the ordinary man. Come for me, I'm waiting for you in Miraflores.
Palacio de Miraflores is the official workplace of the President of Venezuela.
On August 7, 2025, the U.S. Justice Department doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest to $50 million. Attorney General Pam Bondi stated via X (archived here) that Maduro was directly linked to drug smuggling operations and accused him of being "one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world." These allegations date back to March 2020, when the Department of State announced that Maduro and 14 current and former Venezuelan officials had been charged with narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking, and other criminal charges (archived here).
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil commented on the new bounty on Maduro in a Telegram message, stating that (translation by Lead Stories):
Pamela Bondi's pathetic "reward" is the most ridiculous smokescreen we've ever seen. While we debunk the terrorist plots orchestrated from her country, this woman is staging a media circus to please the defeated Venezuelan far-right.
This doesn't surprise us, given who it comes from. The same one who promised a nonexistent "secret list" of Epstein and who wallows in scandals for political favors.
Her spectacle is a joke, a desperate distraction from her own misery. The dignity of our homeland is not for sale. We repudiate this crude political propaganda operation.
As of August 12, 2025, no posts or videos from Venezuela's official presidential website, Instagram account (archived here), state media (archived here), or President Maduro's Instagram account (archived here), support the claims made in the X post, that he had taunted the United States in those words.
