‘Don’t play games’: White House gives Maduro the meme treatment | World News

The capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro is being relived by its orchestrators with a stirring soundtrack and couched in the language of internet memes.

A series of social media posts published by Donald Trump and his officials in the hours after Maduro‘s abduction by US forces on Saturday have portrayed the operation as an action movie.

One post shared by the White House invoked the internet slang term “FOFA”, an abbreviation of “f*** around and find out”.

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US defence secretary Pete Hegseth deployed the phrase after Maduro’s capture, adding the Venezuelan dictator “had his chance – until he didn’t”.

As Trump and his inner circle celebrated, the US president posted a video on Truth Social showing US military planes and explosions across Caracas set to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son.

Released in 1969, it quickly became a protest anthem against the Vietnam war.

Another video the White House shared on X opened with a clip of Maduro daring his enemies to “come get me”.

“I’ll wait in Miraflores. Don’t take too long. Coward,” the translation from Spanish said.

Set to dramatic music, the video cut to US military planes taking off and explosions erupting over Caracas.

The highly-edited video included more highlights from Sunday’s press conference from US secretary of state Marco Rubio, Mr Hegseth and the US president.

“Don’t play games when this president’s in office, because it’s not going to turn out well,” Mr Rubio said.

The Department of State also joined in, sharing a picture of Mr Trump with the caption “don’t play games”.

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Another clip shared by the White House was set to an expletive-laden rap track by artist The Notorious B.I.G, and featured the same archive footage of Maduro daring the US to come and get him.

It also included what appeared to be AI-generated footage of Mr Trump walking in slow motion past military personnel.

The posts received a mixed reaction from social media users, with some posting their own AI-generated videos celebrating the US victory.

One user shared an AI-generated video of Mr Trump sending up the White House’s “FOFA” post, with the caption “What files?”, in reference to the Epstein files.

The post reflected criticism from Democrats that the abduction was a political distraction from the recent release of documents on the activities of podophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Another social media user wrote “Maduro – you are fired”, referring to the catch phrase Mr Trump used on reality TV show The Apprentice.