Maduro Henchman: Chile’s Leftist President Is a ‘Moron,’ ‘Drunkard’ — ‘Works for the Gringos’

CARACAS, Venezuela — The vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and alleged drug lord Diosdado Cabello accused the United States of using Chile’s far-left President Gabriel Boric to “sabotage” the recent meeting of South American presidents that took place in Brazil on Tuesday.

Cabello’s wild accusations against Boric took place on Wednesday during the latest broadcast of Cabello’s weekly state-television show, Con el Mazo Dando (“Hitting with the Mallet”). Cabello was responding to statements issued by the Chilean far-left president during a summit of South American leaders in Brazil this week in which he condemned the “horror” of the human rights crisis in Venezuela.

During the encounter, Boric, speaking in front of both Brazilian radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, refuted Lula’s claims that Venezuela’s ongoing crisis is part of a “narrative” constructed by enemies of the socialist regime.

“I have to say that the human rights crisis in Venezuela – and in this I differ with President Lula – is not a constructed narrative. It is real, in flesh and bone,” Boric said to the region’s presidents during their encounter, which drew the ire of the Venezuelan socialist strongman. Boric similarly reinforced his stance against the regime’s human rights abuses in comments to reporters later on Tuesday.

According to Cabello, Boric’s condemnation of the Venezuelan socialist regime was part of an act of “sabotage” allegedly orchestrated by the United States to undermine the summit.

“They [The U.S.] look for fools on the board, those who are very easy to handle and the biggest fool emerges, Boboric,” Cabello claimed. “Boboric” is a portmanteau of the president’s name, Boric, and the Spanish word for idiot or fool, “bobo.”

Cabello also called Boric “merluzo,” a colloquial nickname used in Spain to describe a person as “silly, foolish, or unskillful” and which has been used in Chilean politics against Boric over the past year. Boric is highly unpopular in Chile, despite narrowly winning the presidency in 2021, and has developed a reputation for gaffes, most recently reinforced by getting stuck in a kiddie slide on a playground last month.

“The people define him as such — the merluzo, he is the moron, because he is governing for the elites and forgets the people,” Cabello continued.

PSUV’s vice president further claimed that Boric was the “solution” that the United States allegedly found to undermine Lula’s presidential summit, as the United States no longer has former Chilean President Sebastian Piñera and former Argentine President Mauricio Macri as “lackeys.”

“In every party there is an impertinent drunkard, Boboric is the impertinent drunkard,” Cabello asserted. “The one who is being funny. He is a fool and he is president of a people, of a country, but he is a fool with bad intentions.”

“Boric is a fool who disrespected President Lula and the Brazilian people, but he did not succeed, in the end the result of the Summit is extraordinary,” Cabello continued before concluding that due to Boric’s actions it is “already evident that Boboric works for the gringos.”

Cabello further claimed that Boric is a “disguised president that the economic and financial groups put in place so that the people would not say anything.”

“Besides, the guy claims to be a leftist — Not only was he proven as a fool, but it was also evidenced that he does not care about the union of the peoples of the south,” Cabello continued.

The segment ended with Cabello declaring Boric the U.S. government’s “employee of the month.”

It is not the first time that Cabello has lashed out against Boric for commenting on Venezuela. In September, Cabello had similarly called Boric a “fool” and a “moron” after Boric stated during his speech at the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations that the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis caused a migratory flow that has put “tremendous pressure” on Chilean institutions and society.

Boric, despite describing himself as “to the left” of Chile’s Communist Party, has repeatedly criticized Latin America’s authoritarian regimes, namely, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. During an event in New York held shortly after his U.N. speech, Boric condemned leftists who fail to criticize human rights abuses committed by leftist leaders, citing Venezuela and Nicaragua as examples.

“So it really pisses me off when you are from the left, so you condemn the violation of human rights in, I don’t know, Yemen or El Salvador, but you cannot talk about Venezuela or Nicaragua,” Boric said at the time. “Or Chile! In Chile, we had several human rights violations in the social unrest. You don’t have to have a double standard.”

Boric’s criticism of Latin America’s authoritarian regimes has drawn the ire of Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and Nicaraguan sandinista dictator Daniel Ortega, who have respectively accused Boric of being a “coward” and a “U.S. lapdog.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.