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The Cuban-American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar celebrated the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado with fiery statements against the Venezuelan regime, asserting that “Nicolás Maduro is terrified” and that his fall is imminent.
“Cockroaches never want to die, but the great exterminator named Donald Trump is coming with a fully loaded pesticide tank, ready to eliminate them all,” Salazar said in a statement to Politico, after being contacted to comment on the award given to the Venezuelan opposition leader.
The representative from Florida asserted that the Nobel Prize makes Machado an "untouchable" figure, and compared her to historical figures such as Simón Bolívar and George Washington.
"This is a glorious moment. Machado is not only the George Washington of this time for Venezuelans," he affirmed.
The congresswoman from Florida also revealed that her phone “has been ringing off the hook” since the news of the Nobel prize broke, which—according to her—demonstrates the geopolitical impact of the announcement and the support that Machado has in the United States and Latin America.
The congresswoman's words come after Diosdado Cabello, a key figure in chavismo, publicly accused her of having links to drug trafficking, just like María Corina Machado.
Salazar responded from his X account: “It’s ridiculous that a corrupt and repressive narco-military like Cabello is accusing us of drug trafficking. It’s laughable and embarrassing. The regime is desperate.”
He also stated that Chavismo acts with “nervousness and terror” because “the United States has never before been so determined to put an end to the transnational criminal operation that he and Maduro lead.”
Salazar's statements and Machado's increasing prominence coincide with a rise in military tension in the Caribbean, following the deployment of U.S. ships and troops in what Washington has described as a counter-narcotics operation, but which Caracas interprets as a direct threat.
Maduro denounced before the UN the presence of a missile-launching cruiser and a US nuclear submarine near his waters.
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