US President Donald Trump has accused Nicolas Maduro of imitating his dancing as he celebrated the abduction of the Venezuelan leader in a freewheeling speech to Republican lawmakers.
Trump's comments come on Tuesday after a New York Times report that Maduro's regular public dancing in defiance of US threats convinced White House officials that it was time to act.
"He gets up there and he tries to imitate my dance a little bit," Trump told lawmakers at the Kennedy arts center in Washington — which was recently renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center by his handpicked board.
"But he's a violent guy, and he's killed millions of people. He's tortured. They have a torture chamber in the middle of Caracas that they're closing up."
Trump did not give further details about the alleged torture chamber, or elaborate on his so-far vague plans for the United States to "run" oil-rich Venezuela following the abduction of Maduro.
Leftist Maduro regularly appeared on stage dancing to a techno remix of his mantra "No War, Yes Peace" as US forces massed in the Caribbean in late 2025.
Trump is known for dancing to the disco song "Y.M.C.A." at his rallies.
But while Trump hailed the "brilliant" US special forces raid that abducted Maduro and his wife on Saturday, most of the speech was about firing the starting gun on the crucial 2026 US midterms.
The 79-year-old returned to the theme of his dancing, and other moves, as he ran through a list of his policy priorities ahead of November's crucial election to decide who holds Congress.
'So unpresidential'
"My wife hates when I do this," Trump said regarding his exaggerated imitation of what he said was a trans weightlifter. "She said, 'it's so unpresidential.'"
Trump added that "she hates it when I dance," adding: "Could you imagine FDR dancing?"
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in office from 1933 until 1945, was paralysed from the waist down by polio in 1921.
Trump also referred to the fact that his speech was on the fifth anniversary of the US Capitol attack by supporters irate at what he still falsely calls his "rigged" election loss to Joe Biden in 2020.
He was impeached for the second time over the riot — and warned Republicans that the same thing could happen if they do not win this year's midterm elections.
"You got to win the midterms, because if we don't win... I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me," he said, referring to rival Democrats.
Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 January 6 rioters on his first day back in office on January 20, 2025.
