NEWNow you can listen to Pak Gazette articles!
Women’s tennis legend Martina Navratilova came under scrutiny for her continued comments regarding the recent US military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its aftermath.
After expressing support for criminal sanctions against US oil companies trying to take oil from Venezuela and suggesting that the recent US intervention was “looting” in a series of posts on Saturday, Navratilova took direct aim at President Donald Trump.
“This is absolutely crazy. Not to mention this is completely illegal,” Navratilova wrote on
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON PakGazette.Com
Navratilova later responded to the clip again, writing, “He wants to be the king of the WORLD!”
In another post, Navratilova doubled down on her claims that Trump is committing criminal acts with the intervention in Venezuela.
“Peace President, s–! Trump is breaking more laws than all previous presidents combined. A serial criminal on so many different fronts!” Navratilova wrote in response to a New York Times editorial.
The tennis legend’s comments generated mixed responses on social media, with plenty of criticism.
“Please go back to playing and talking about games. You have no credibility as a political pundit. Sit down,” one X user wrote.
One user wrote: “You have to keep playing tennis because you have no idea about politics.”
Another user joked that Navratilova has Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
“TDS is tough on you. He keeps talking about hitting a furry ball with a net of sticks,” the user wrote.
One user rejected Navratilova’s claim that Trump’s attacks were illegal, pointing to the tennis star’s history of leaving the former Czechoslovakia to escape a totalitarian communist government.
“No it’s not lol,” the user wrote, referencing Navratilova’s “illegal” statement. “It’s a shame they hate Trump more than they love their fellow human beings. Again, why did they leave their country?”
Navratilova has said she left her homeland in 1975, citing her experience under Soviet rule, resenting limitations on personal freedoms.
KAMALA HARRIS HIGHLIGHTS THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CAPTURE OF VENEZUELA’S MADURO AS ‘ILLEGAL AND RECKLESS’
Many Venezuelans have celebrated the takeover of Maduro by the United States, who had also limited their personal freedoms during his rule, as humanitarian concerns grew among the country’s people. He is also considered by the United States and much of the world to be an illegitimate leader due to suspicions over the way the 2024 election was conducted.
However, Navratilova has compared Trump to her home country’s authoritarian government in the past, as seen in the tennis legend’s pinned post on X.
“I lived in a totalitarian authoritarian country growing up and I will not vote for that now or ever,” he wrote in October 2024, referring to Trump.
Still, Navratilova has supported Trump’s stance on at least one major issue: protecting women’s sports and spaces from biological men, earning her praise and support from conservatives. Navratilova is considered an ally of conservative influencer Riley Gaines, XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey, and has come to the defense of “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling on the issue of biological male transgender people invading women’s spaces.
Navratilova also joined a coalition of athletes, along with Gaines, and signed a letter condemning the iranian regime for the death sentence of boxing champion Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani in November.
Still, Navratilova has regularly expressed her staunch opposition to Trump and Republicans in recent years on seemingly every other issue, including Venezuela.
On Saturday, Navratilova praised a post on
He later wrote: “Holding a country hostage while plundering its natural resources. Next stop, Greenland or Nigeria,” in response to a thread that included a report about officials from Wall Street firms in the finance, energy and defense sectors visiting Venezuela after the recent attacks.
Maduro, who was elected in 2013 after serving as Hugo Chávez’s vice president, faces charges of conspiracy to narcoterrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
While several congressional Democrats have come out strongly to condemn the operation to capture Maduro and his wife, some other Democrats have broken away from the group to applaud the action, including Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.
Meanwhile, Venezuelans in Miami, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Madrid wore Venezuela’s national colors and waved flags hours after Trump announced that Maduro and his wife had been flown out of the country following the overnight US military operation.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE Pak Gazette APP
In Miami, Venezuelans danced and cheered, and celebrations also took place outside Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. In Doral, Florida, revelers chanted “Freedom!” and Venezuelan flags were placed on their shoulders.
Pak Gazette Digital reached out to Navratilova’s engagement inbox for a response to social media criticism against her.
