{"id":104894,"date":"2026-01-04T03:07:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T03:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/104894\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T03:07:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T03:07:19","slug":"carlos-gimenez-among-first-to-learn-about-nicolas-maduros-capture-predicts-ramifications-for-cuba-and-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/104894\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Gim\u00e9nez, among first to learn about Nicolas Maduro’s capture, predicts ramifications for Cuba and elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Rep. Carlos Gim\u00e9nez was among the first calls made by Secretary Marco Rubio about Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s capture and removal<\/a>. Now, Gim\u00e9nez wonders what the news means for Cuba.<\/p>\n

The Miami-Dade Republican, who chairs the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security, told The Wall Street Journal<\/a> he learned around 4:27 a.m. that Maduro had been taken out of power. The Secretary of State called the fellow Miamian politician with a simple message: \u201cWe got him.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s little surprise as South Florida\u2019s lawmakers have been among Maduro\u2019s most outspoken critics. Gim\u00e9nez personally attended<\/a> the Nobel Peace Prize honoring Maria Corina Machado, a political opposition leader exiled by Maduro\u2019s government. So this was news he was waiting for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew who he was talking about,\u201d Gim\u00e9nez said of the call from Rubio.<\/p>\n

Venezuelan politics for the past several years have been of critical importance in South Florida. According to the Migration Policy Institute<\/a>, about 49% of Venezuelans currently in the U.S. live in Florida, most of them migrating since 2010.<\/p>\n

That has put the issues in the oil-rich communist nation center stage in Florida for some time. And with Maduro apparently deposed, Gim\u00e9nez hopes other communist nations, like Cuba, consider the changing winds in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a demonstration of American capacity, capability, and when you have a will to use that, you can get some really positive results,\u201d he told the Journal.<\/p>\n

He specifically noted Cuban President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel, and told the Journal that Cuba was apparently providing security for Maduro when he was taken into custody by the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure that Diaz-Canel is now rethinking about his situation,\u201d Gim\u00e9nez said, though he stressed he was not predicting the U.S. would take similar action in Cuba.<\/p>\n

The future of Venezuela remains uncertain at the moment, with Trump suggesting<\/a> Rubio and others in the administration could be calling shots for some time.<\/p>\n

Gim\u00e9nez, along with U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody and U.S. Reps. Mario D\u00edaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar, are expected to further discuss the situation in Venezuela at a press conference in Doral on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Rep. Carlos Gim\u00e9nez was among the first calls made by Secretary Marco Rubio about Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8864,1016,28,30,29,8877,9395,4389,4390],"class_list":["post-104894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-carlos-gimenez","tag-cuba","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-marco-rubio","tag-miguel-diaz-canel","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}