Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., often speaks harshly about thuggish dictators, contrasting their love for control and authority with America’s principles of liberty and self-governance. But the senator fell short of his professed ideals this week with a particularly ugly response to a video of a Turkish restaurateur hosting Venezuelan tyrant Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro’s country is suffering from severe food shortages due to his misgovernment. He lives in comfort amid this and even subsidizes Cuba’s communist regime, all the while causing one of the world’s worst current humanitarian crises, if not the worst, in a nation that was once prosperous. Sixty-four percent of Venezuelans have “reported losing significant amounts of weight, 11kg (24lbs) on average, amid worsening food shortages,” according to the BBC. “Child malnutrition is at record levels and 2.3 million people have left the country since 2014.”So yes, people might be angry to see him.
Maduro traveled to China recently to drum up investments. On his way back, he made a stop in Istanbul at a steak restaurant owned by celebrity chef Gokce’s Nusr-Et, known more commonly as “Salt Bae.” Chef Gokce uploaded three videos to social media showing Maduro’s visit, including the part where the chef himself carved up the tyrant’s dinner.
“This is a once in a lifetime moment,” Maduro can be heard saying in one of the videos.
Today I decided to stop following @nusr_ett You decided to erase this video but what you did remains. Shame on you! You cheered and served a tyrant responsable for the hunger, malnutrition and death of thousands of Venezuelans!
By the way, he is not a president. He is a dictator! pic.twitter.com/pddjPSEztO— Marcel Imery (@NachoImery) September 17, 2018
Social media users and Maduro critics responded furiously to the videos, criticizing the chef for catering to a strongman whose people are suffering from severe malnutrition. The three videos have since been deleted from the chef’s various social media accounts. Maduro, for his part, said of the visit that, “Nusret attended to us personally. We were chatting, having a good time with him.”
One such critic of Chef Gokce’s videos was none other than Sen. Rubio, whose office tweeted Monday, “I don’t know who this weirdo #Saltbae is, but the guy he is so proud to host is not the President of #Venezuela.”
The senator’s office added, “He is actually the overweight dictator of a nation where 30% of the people eat only once a day & infants are suffering from malnutrition.”
Rubio’s not wrong to be angry. Maduro is an evil man, and the chef is a garbage person for lavishing him with such affection and attention. But Rubio allowed his anger to get the best of him with this next tweet: “This guy [Gokce’s Nusr-Et] who admires dictator [Nicolas Maduro] so much actually owns a steakhouse in, of all places, #Miami. It’s called NUSR-ET STEAKHOUSE MIAMI located at 999 Brickell Avenue, Miami, FL 33131 The phone number is 1 305 415 9990 in case anyone wanted to call.”
Though this isn’t technically “doxing,” Rubio’s response is still over the line. Especially for a U.S. senator.
For starters, publicly singling out a semi-famous entrepreneur for this association doesn’t quite comport with the ideals of liberty and self-reliance that Rubio so often praises. It’s not Rubio’s place to “punish” people for their unsavory associations. He certainly shouldn’t be doing this in his capacity as a senator.
Second, the chef is based in Turkey, and may just be a bit insensitive to the situation halfway around the world. Instructing three million-plus Twitter users to call his Miami restaurant won’t accomplish anything but the persecution of some poor working-class stiffs. It’s not like the chef is just sitting there waiting to answer the main phone line at one of his many international properties.
The people who will be made to answer for Rubio’s outburst will be the American staff of a restaurant on U.S. soil. That’ll show Maduro.
Lastly, let’s pause for a moment and consider that Rubio’s choice to single out a private citizen for a campaign of targeted harassment is the sort of thing Maduro himself routinely does. As I’m sure Rubio would acknowledge in a moment of greater calm and sobriety, that’s not an example to follow.
