A video circulating on social media appears to show Venezuela's interior minister physically confronting an American rescue team and ordering them away from earthquake survivors in La Guaira, days after twin quakes killed more than 1,400 people and left tens of thousands missing.
Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela's Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace, can be seen in the footage wearing a neon orange baseball hat, arguing with U.S. rescuers and directing them back to their vehicle. "Back up. Back to the truck. Back to the truck," Cabello told the Americans, as reported by the Daily Mail.
One American rescuer, described as a bald man with a goatee, pushed back. "There's someone right over there we're trying to help!" he told Cabello. When Cabello continued arguing, the rescuer pressed again: "You don't want us to help the person over there?"
Cabello is no minor functionary. He has served as interior minister since 2024 and commands Venezuela's police, intelligence services, prison system, and the armed militias known as colectivos. He is also wanted by U.S. authorities, who have placed a $25 million bounty on his head on charges of narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, and carrying machine guns.
That a man facing those charges would stand in the path of American search-and-rescue workers, while people lay trapped under concrete, tells you everything about the priorities of the Venezuelan regime.
Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart shared the confrontation video on X Monday morning and issued a pointed warning to Cabello and the rest of Venezuela's interim leadership:
"Delcy Rodríguez, Diosdado Cabello, and the rest of their cronies should know that the United States is monitoring this situation very closely, and they had better not interfere with or sabotage these humanitarian relief efforts."
Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez, also a Florida Republican, went further. He called on the U.S. to arrest Cabello outright, saying American forces should "pick up" Cabello "and bring him to justice so he can stop impeding the distribution of aid to those impacted by the earthquake."
The twin earthquakes, a 7.2-magnitude tremor followed just 39 seconds later by a 7.5-magnitude quake, struck Wednesday evening and devastated Venezuela's northern coast. The death toll has climbed past 1,450, with the New York Post reporting it has surpassed 1,700. Approximately 1,500 people were injured, and tens of thousands remain missing.
National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said Sunday that 774 buildings were badly damaged and 189 totally collapsed. Millions of Venezuelans are feared to lack sanitation and other basic needs.
An aftershock rattled Caracas and La Guaira shortly after 7:00 a.m. Monday, adding to the fear and chaos. By that point, the critical 72-hour window for finding survivors trapped under rubble had already passed.
Yet American and French teams were still pulling people out alive. On Sunday, joint French and American rescue crews found a father and his teenage son alive under rubble in Caraballeda, a town roughly 25 miles north of Caracas. U.S. soldiers were patrolling the streets there Monday morning.
Virginia Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 1, identified by the New York Post as the elite USA-01 team, rescued a mother and her nine-month-old baby from the rubble of a collapsed building in northern Venezuela. Both survived with only minor injuries. The U.S. State Department published video of the baby being extracted.
The task force posted a message alongside its own footage of the rescue: "This is our why... the delivery of hope."
That message lands differently when you watch the Cabello video. American rescuers traveled thousands of miles to dig through rubble, and a Venezuelan official allegedly wanted by U.S. law enforcement told them to get back in the truck. When one rescuer tried to show Cabello something on a phone, possibly the location of a trapped survivor, Cabello shoved the phone away. A second Venezuelan man in a navy blue hat stood nearby, shaking his head.
The construction failures exposed by the quake have raised separate questions about decades of corruption and mismanagement under Venezuela's socialist government, the same government now apparently obstructing the people trying to clean up the mess.
The obstruction captured in the Cabello video is not an isolated incident. Breitbart reported that acting President Delcy Rodríguez pulled international rescue workers away from critical search operations to attend a political protocol event, something Rodríguez herself acknowledged happened during "critical hours for saving lives."
Rodríguez stepped into the acting presidency after Nicolás Maduro was captured by the United States in January. Maduro is currently held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where he and his wife, Cilia Flores, have pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering, and corruption charges. The broader legal reckoning with Maduro's inner circle continues to unfold in American courts.
With Maduro behind bars, the regime's remaining power brokers, Cabello chief among them, appear more concerned with controlling the optics of American presence on Venezuelan soil than with saving Venezuelan lives.
The Daily Mail contacted Cabello's office for comment. No response was reported.
Several questions remain open. Were the American rescuers ultimately allowed to continue their work after the confrontation, or did Cabello succeed in blocking them? What authority are U.S. soldiers operating under as they patrol Venezuelan streets? And has the video been independently verified beyond the social media posts where it first appeared?
The U.S. decision to waive sanctions for relief operations signaled a willingness to set politics aside in the face of catastrophe. The Venezuelan regime, apparently, did not get that memo.
What the video shows is simple enough. American rescuers pointed to a person who needed help. A Venezuelan official, one wanted on federal narco-terrorism charges, told them to get back in the truck. That is the government Venezuelans are stuck with while their country digs out from under the rubble.
When a regime's reflexive instinct is to obstruct the people pulling survivors from the wreckage, the problem is not the rescuers. It is the regime.
