PACO Calling TACO - 8

"Hello, Donald?"

"Yes, Vladimir? We are on full-name basis again?"

"Yes, I'm so mad at you!"

"Why, Vladimir? What did I do?"

"You've kidnapped Maduro!"

"I have indeed. But not kidnapped, arrested. As a part of our war on drugs. War on drugs, Vladimir! He cannot just send us his drugs, to kill millions of Americans each year! Wasn't it the most beautiful special operation ever? We just got in there with the most powerful military in the world - ours - and took him in, together with his wife! It was just beautiful!"

"That's not what we agreed on, Donald. You promised me that he will be safe, that his personal safety will be guaranteed."

"And he will be safe, Vladimir! We will just have a very quick, very public trial, to show that he can't fuck around and not find out, and sentence him to a long prison term..."

"That sounds like a personal vendetta, Donald!"

"No, Vladimir, I just took him up on his own offer!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in one of his passionate Trump-hating speeches, he said I was a coward. Can you imagine, me, coward! He said I should come to Miraflores and get him. That's what I did. Who is the coward now? The entire world is laughing at him. FAFO."

"Fa... what?"

"That's what the kids nowadays say, fuck around and find out."

"Damn it, Donald, don't sprinkle your stupid acronyms on me! Maduro is my friend, you cannot just kidnap the president of a sovereign nation and put him on trial in your country, military might or not."

"Well, apparently, I can! Even the human-rights loving Europeans keep their mouths shut, saying nothing. They say nothing because they all know Maduro is an illegitimate president. He is a thief, Vladimir, has no business running Venezuela."

"C'mon Donald, should I remind you how you got elected?"

"Oh, that's a low blow, Vladimir. Besides, Elon and I are whole now. I don't owe him anything. We are good."

"I don't mean Elon! I mean myself!"

"Oh, Vladimir, that debt has been settled a long time ago, when I paid you 2 billion from my crypto success. You told me yourself then we were good. You can't bring up old settled debts for a favor."

"But Donald, I thought we agreed about Maduro when we discussed the C5 strategy."

"Exactly, we did. We agreed that everything that is going on in both Americas and effects my America will be in my strategic domain. It is my strategic domain. He was pushing drugs onto my people, Vladimir, threatening the well-being and health of Americans. He has no business running drug-ridden Venezuela."

"C'mon, Donald, we both know Venezuela is not the drug-producing center of the world. So who has business running Venezuela then? You?"

"Well, we'll do this only temporarily, until we get what they owe us back. It’s called temporary external management, to put things back to order. Temporary, Vladimir, to create order. And then the people of Venezuela will run their own country, we'll set up a true democracy for them."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know your democracy, American style. You will just pump their oil out and dump them. It's called neocolonialism, Donnie!"

"Since when do you care about the poors, Vlad, in Venezuela or anywhere else? Don't you yourself pump and dump many regions of Russia?"

"What I do in my own country is none of your business, Donnie. That's what we agreed upon in our C5 strategy. Should I remind you of that again?"

"No need, Vlad, I do remember what we agreed upon. Tell me this: Did Maduro manage to transfer his assets, as we talked about?"

"Yes, he did."

"See? I kept my end of the bargain, gave him enough time."

"Right. So what happens to him now?"

"As I said, we'll have a very quick, very public trial, sentence him, and then you can have him. We can do some prisoner exchange or I can simply pardon him. I like pardoning people. It would cost him, though."

"We can talk about the costs, Donnie. Make sure he is not epsteined, though..."

"What? Epsteined?!!! That son of the bitch committed suicide!... I had nothing to do with that! Are you still there, Vlad?... Vlad?... Vlad?..."