A socialist and a Nobel Prize winner are at odds, pitting each other against each other and trying to prove that each is the best partner for Trump.
President Trump criticizes Venezuela after Maduro attack: ‘We are responsible’
President Donald Trump says he is “in charge” of Venezuela after US special forces captured President Nicolas Maduro.
- Delcy Rodriguez has been appointed interim leader of Venezuela following the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro by the United States.
- Political rivals Delcy Rodriguez and Maria Colina Machado are currently battling over US President Donald Trump’s support.
- Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is scheduled to meet with Trump, who has publicly expressed doubts about his leadership.
- Rodriguez has a history of involvement in the Trump administration and is considered “very cooperative” by the White House.
WASHINGTON — One is a wise and savvy political operative. Although she sometimes rubs people the wrong way, she deftly navigates Venezuela’s power hierarchy. She is currently the country’s interim leader after the US forcibly removed President Nicolas Maduro.
The other is a former congressman and activist who led the opposition against President Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which the committee awarding the honor described as her “tireless fight for peace.” Many Venezuelans expected her to take charge of the country after the fall of Maduro’s regime.
Delcy Rodriguez and Maria Colina Machado are Venezuela’s most prominent politicians. Political rivals Rodriguez and Machado are key figures in the Latin American nation’s nascent power vacuum. Both men deeply understand that their future, and the future of their country, is tied to winning the support of one man: Donald J. Trump.
Machado, who lives in hiding outside Venezuela, is expected to bring her charm to Washington later this week. She is scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House on Thursday, January 15th. This is the first meeting since October 10 last year. It was the same day she was announced as the Nobel Peace Prize winner, which President Trump had been lobbying for.
A meeting between President Trump and Rodriguez is not scheduled, but the administration said it had been in regular contact with Rodriguez in the months leading up to Maduro’s removal. President Trump said he hopes to travel to Venezuela and meet with Rodriguez once the situation calms down.
Machado and Trump’s sit-in came two weeks after members of the U.S. Army’s elite clandestine unit, operating under cover of darkness, raided Maduro’s mansion in Caracas, captured him and his wife, Cilia Flores, and took them to New York on drug trafficking charges.
For Machado, a visit to the White House could be a make-or-break situation. Venezuelans have long believed that if Maduro were to fall, the next president would be Machado or Edmundo González Urrutia, who ran for president after being banned by the government. González won the 2024 election, but Maduro refused to accept the result and declared himself the winner.
Hours after Mr. Maduro’s arrest on January 3, President Trump held a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, mansion, dispelling the idea that Mr. Machado would become Venezuela’s next president.
“I think it will be very difficult for her to be a leader,” he told reporters. “She doesn’t have any support or respect in the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have any respect.”
Multiple media outlets reported that a confidential CIA analysis concluded that Rodriguez, Venezuela’s vice president, was best placed to lead a transitional government in Caracas if Maduro was removed from office. President Trump said a U.S. team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, will run Venezuela until a safe and appropriate transition of power is achieved.
Rodriguez was officially sworn in as interim president on January 5.
Machado missed an opportunity to rally support.
For Machado, who has been an outspoken critic of Maduro’s party since first coming to power under Chavez in 1998, Trump’s comments were not only a serious blow to the Venezuelan party’s campaign. They were a sign that she misread important signals and missed other opportunities in her efforts to garner U.S. support.
Machado, known by her supporters as Venezuela’s “Iron Lady,” spent months trying to win Trump over, even dedicating the Nobel Peace Prize to him for “unwavering support for our cause.” Machado last week suggested he would present his award to Trump, but the Norwegian institute that bestows the honor threw cold water on the idea, saying the award is permanent and final and cannot be transferred to another person.
Other opportunities to curry favor with the Trump administration were ignored.
Machado, who speaks English, declined a request to meet with President Trump’s personal envoy Richard Grenell early last year. Grenell was tasked with exploring potential oil deals with the Maduro regime and conducting diplomatic negotiations with the regime to secure the release of Americans detained in Venezuela.
According to the New York Times, Grenell also contacted Machado, who agreed to speak by phone instead of meeting in person. Relations between the two sides deteriorated over time, the paper said, with Machado and his team ignoring Grenell’s requests for a list of political prisoners and growing frustrated that Grenell did not offer concrete ideas on how to bring a democratically elected government to power.
Grenell did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez has been working behind the scenes for years to win President Trump’s support.
Rodriguez, who was Venezuela’s finance minister when Trump won his first term in 2016, ordered Citgo, a subsidiary of the state oil company, to donate $500,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Rodriguez is fluent in English and reportedly lived in Santa Monica, California, during college. The daughter of a leftist guerrilla leader who was arrested in connection with the kidnapping of an American businessman, she served as Maduro’s communications minister, later as foreign minister and vice president.
After President Maduro promoted her to vice president in 2018, her portfolio expanded to include managing much of Venezuela’s oil economy. Tasked with managing U.S. sanctions against the country’s most important industry, Rodriguez abolished price controls, spearheaded an anti-corruption campaign, gradually helped increase oil production and introduced other reforms that endeared him to much of the country’s business community.
Delcy Rodriguez swoops in after Maduro is captured
After Maduro was captured, President Rodriguez condemned the US attack, calling it a “brutal attack.” But she soon took a more conciliatory tone, saying she wanted to move toward a balanced and respectful relationship with the United States. She called on the U.S. government to work together on the “cooperation agenda.”
Meanwhile, Machado slammed Rodriguez during a television interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
“As you know, Delcy Rodriguez is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption and drug trafficking,” Machado said. “She’s a key ally, a liaison with Russia, China, Iran, and she’s certainly not someone that can be trusted by international investors. And she’s actually been rejected, and she’s been rejected by the Venezuelan people.”
But the Trump administration is encouraged by what it has seen so far from Rodriguez.
Asked on January 11 if Trump had confidence in Rodriguez, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said last week’s events show Trump has a correct assessment of what should happen in Venezuela.
She said Rodriguez and his team have been “very cooperative” with the United States, as evidenced by President Trump’s commitment to oil deals and the release of political prisoners.
“We’ve seen an excellent level of cooperation, and the president expects that to continue,” Levitt told reporters at the White House.
Uriel Epstein, executive director of the Renew Democracy Initiative, a nonprofit organization that runs programs that unite dissidents around the world, said during his meeting with Trump that Machado needed to convince Trump that “the only way to actually ensure stability” is for the opposition to be in power.
For example, Exxon’s CEO said last week that Venezuela is currently uninvestable. Epstein, who is close to the Venezuelan opposition, said Machado needs to explain that as long as Rodriguez remains in charge of the country, that won’t change.
“Protecting and supporting the opposition is therefore not only about doing the morally right thing, but also about achieving the objectives set by Trump himself,” he said.
What is your plan to run Venezuela?
Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff on the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, said Trump’s efforts with the transitional government were about managing the country in the short term during Maduro’s transition.
“They have a real logistical challenge in that the Venezuelan opposition doesn’t have a single person who has been in the role of running Venezuela for 25 years,” he said. “I don’t think it’s realistic to come in and try to take over the immediate role.”
Gray said Machado should have “reasonable expectations” about when it makes sense to bring rebels back into the country and should arrive with a “very clear sense” of what he wants from the United States to help achieve democracy.
This includes presenting a national selection committee dominated by regime-friendly judges and a plan to reform the judicial system.
“There are so many obstacles and challenges that need to be resolved here before it makes sense to announce this massive democratic transition,” said Gray, a non-resident fellow at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank. “So I think she needs to be clear with the American people what it takes to realistically be in a position to make that transition happen.”
What’s next for the United States, Gray said, is “rather than picking and choosing the opposition, it’s working with the current administration to get them to do things that allow for a transition.”
It’s not about Machado or Rodriguez, he said.
“The key is to have a partner who is willing to work with us on this transition and do what we need to do in the short term immediately,” he said.
Contributor: Lauren Villagran
Michael Collins writes about the intersection of politics and culture. He is a veteran reporter who has covered the White House and Congress. Follow him on X: @mcollinsNEWS
Francesca Chambers is USA TODAY’s White House correspondent covering foreign policy. Follow her on X: @fran_chambers
