By EFE
02 Sep 2024, 17:33 PM EDT
It is false that former US President Barack Obama accused Venezuelans of having “the government they deserve” and called them “cowards.” The messages circulating online refer to statements made by the politician of which there is no record.
EFE Verifica received a query through its WhatsApp channel (+34 648434618) about alleged statements by Obama, in which he apparently stated that “the Venezuelan people have the government they deserve” and called the citizens of that community “cowards” after the recent elections in the country, whose official result ―which gave victory to Nicolás Maduro― is questioned by the opposition and part of the international community.
“STRONG WORDS FROM BARAC OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE USA TO THE VENEZUELANS (sic),” reads a Facebook profile that echoes the alleged statement.
On that platform, some messages claim that the statements were recovered from an interview of the politician for the American network CNN.
According to these posts, the former president also mentioned that “Venezuelans are a people who fight little and sit down.”
FACTS: Obama has not made any offensive statements against Venezuelans since the July 28 elections. There is no evidence of a statement like the one mentioned in the viral messages, which are falsely attributed to the former president at least since 2023, as demonstrated by various Google searches.
Non-existent statements
An advanced keyword search for a possible Obama interview on CNN leads to the most recent one, given in June 2023 to journalist Christiane Amanpour.
In that conversation, the former president at no time mentioned Venezuela, its inhabitants or the country’s political class, as can be corroborated by a transcription made with the artificial intelligence application IVERES, a project co-directed by RTVE and the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
There is also no evidence that the politician has ever made a similar comment about Venezuelans in interviews with other media outlets.
In January 2024, the former president’s senior adviser, Eric Schultz, denied the quote to the US agency AP, which is part of the International Verification Network (IFCN), to which EFE Verifica also belongs.
An ancient narrative associated with other figures
Various online investigations have revealed that misleading posts claiming Obama insulted Venezuelans have been circulating since at least 2023 in both English and Spanish.
In fact, other advanced searches on Google and social media revealed messages in 2014, 2019 and 2020 that reproduced the same words but were attributed to the former British minister, Tony Blair.
In the case of the British leader, Internet users claimed that the statements had been made on the BBC.
The Venezuelan fact-checker Es Paja has already debunked these claims at the time.
In conclusion, it is not true that Barack Obama called Venezuelans “cowards” after the 2024 presidential elections. It is an unsubstantiated quote that has already circulated in the past and whose veracity was denied to the American press by an advisor to the former president.
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