Socialist dictator of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro on Thursday starred in a bizarre “comedy sketch” involving an antique rotary phone — apparently alluding to his recent phone call with President Donald Trump.
Every week, Maduro hosts several radio and television shows broadcast across his regime’s media apparatus. On Thursdays, he hosts Maduro, Live Suddenly, a weekly podcast. Thursday’s roughly 90-minute-long episode saw Maduro accompanied by his wife Cilia Flores, other members of his authoritarian regime, and by a peculiar white and golden antique phone he kept next to him at the desk.
Maduro staged different “sketches” throughout the episode in which he pretended to use the vintage phone to speak with someone responding in “gibberish.”
“Look, I’m waiting for the call you told me about. The call is coming in, there it is as always from the moon making the connection,” Maduro said to the fake person.
“Look, you know the song, ‘satellite calling control, no response,’” he added, before briefly singing the same words in reference to Ismael Rivera’s 1974 song Satélite.
Another part of Maduro’s comedic performance saw him pretend that he received a call that did not go through. Maduro tells his wife to be on the lookout for “that call.”
A significant portion of the broadcast’s first half saw Maduro read and comment on pro-regime news headlines, using a xylophone to his right — echoing a decades long tradition in Venezuela and other Latin American countries that saw news anchors use a similar instrument to play a melody as a form of alert listeners in between headlines.
Maduro also had the “Not War, Yes Peace” parody remix by Dominican artist Hey Santana play at the show. Maduro and his regime officials moved their hands and made peace signs as the song played. According to the dictator, Venezuelans dance to the song at every discotheque in the country.
“Maduro, Live Suddenly! Always with good news, joy, music, sports, commentary, and plenty of action throughout the country,” the dictator wrote on his Instagram account on Friday morning.
While Maduro did not provide explanations behind his telephone “comedic” performance, it comes days after both him and President Trump confirmed that they recently spoke with each other over the phone.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, President Trump said, “I wouldn’t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call.” Trump did not disclose details on the content of the call. Maduro, on the other hand, claimed on Wednesday that the phone call was “friendly” and “cordial.”
“I received a call and spoke with the President of the United States, Donald Trump. I can say that the conversation was respectful in tone,” Maduro said during a regime event on Wednesday. “I can even say that it was cordial between the President of the United States and the President of Venezuela.”
The conversation between Trump and Maduro comes amid rising tensions between the United States and Venezuela in light of the U.S. Military’s ongoing deployment in Caribbean waters to fight against drug traffickers in the region — which Maduro claims is part of a purported plot to “invade” Venezuela, oust him from power, and “steal” the nation’s oil and other resources.
Reports published by the Miami Herald and Reuters this week claim that Trump issued an “ultimatum” to Maduro during the call. According to the reports, Trump demanded that Maduro immediately leave Venezuela with his family in exchange for safe passage. Maduro instead reportedly presented a counter-demand that involved, among other requests, full “amnesty” for him and his family, and the removal of U.S. sanctions on over 100 members of his socialist regime, many of which stand accused of committing human rights violations against its own people.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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