Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said Friday that her country is “definitely now into the first steps of a true transition to democracy,” adding she is confident Venezuela’s reigning “criminal regime” will be dismantled.
Machado spoke at a news conference in Washington the day after she gave her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House.
The gift came after Trump expressed doubts over Machado’s ability to lead Venezuela following the Jan. 3 capture of the country’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, by U.S. special forces in Caracas.
But Machado on Friday said she is “profoundly confident” the oil-rich country will make a stable transition to a democratic governance system with free and fair elections in the future.
“Venezuela is going to be free, and that’s going to be achieved with the support of the people of the United States and the President Donald Trump of the United States,” Machado said at the news conference, which took place at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with ties to Trump.
The opposition leader said Venezuelans are “absolutely grateful to President Trump, his team, his administration and the people of the United States,” adding that “it took a lot of courage to do what he did.”
Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as the interim president of Venezuela with Trump’s backing in the days following Maduro’s ouster. After a phone call with Rodríguez on Wednesday, Trump expressed favor for her cooperation with U.S. demands on oil and called the socialist stalwart a “terrific person,” adding that they had made “tremendous progress.”
Machado did not appear shaken by Trump’s praise for her political rival at the news conference Friday. She called Rodríguez a “communist” who fears Trump, lacks the support of the Venezuelan people and has an unsustainable grip on the fractured regime and the Bolivarian National Armed Forces.
“I want to insist on this, Delcy Rodríguez, yes, she’s a communist. She’s the main ally and representation of the Russian regime, the Chinese and Iranians,” Machado said. “But that’s not the Venezuelan people, and that’s not the armed forces, as well.”
Machado did not specifically answer questions on the contents of her closed-door meeting with Trump. Asked whether she had urged him to seek the arrest of Diosdado Cabello, a Maduro enforcer who faces U.S. drug-trafficking charges but remains in power in Venezuela, or not to meet with Rodríguez, who has expressed interest in the idea, she simply said she was “very impressed of the degree of information” Trump had on the situation on the ground.
She said she spoke to Trump about repression in Venezuela and freeing political prisoners who were detained under the Maduro regime.
As Trump and Machado met for more than two hours at the White House on Thursday, Rodríguez delivered her first State of the Union address to the Venezuelan National Assembly. She echoed Maduro’s signature anti-imperialist rhetoric, but offered signs of compliance with Trump’s agenda in the country.
She spoke about opening Venezuelan oil infrastructure to foreign investment and releasing the political prisoners detained by her predecessor, both key Trump demands. Human Rights groups have disputed the number of political prisoners Maduro’s government claims to have released. CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Delcy Rodríguez in Caracas on Thursday at Trump’s direction, a U.S. official with information about the meeting confirmed to MS NOW. The official said the meeting included trust-building measures and laid the groundwork for continued collaboration between the U.S. and Venezuela’s interim government, which Trump sees as the most viable path to short-term stability in the country. Ratcliffe and Rodríguez discussed potential opportunities for economic collaboration and reinforced that Venezuela can no longer be a safe haven for America’s adversaries, including drug-trafficking enterprises, the official said. Machado on Friday clarified that her condemnation of Rodríguez had little to do with their personal relationship and more to do with the decades-old “criminal structure” in Venezuela that she aims to dismantle with U.S. support. “This has nothing to do with a tension or decision between Delcy Rodriguez and myself,” Machado said. “This is about the cartels and justice. This is about a criminal structure of this regime and the mandate of the Venezuelan people … that’s what stake at this moment.” The opposition leader noted a democratic transition will be “a very complex and delicate process,” and cited widespread support for regime change among Venezuelans as reason the country won’t face the same roadblocks others have when the U.S. has intervened to force regime change. In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said it was a “great honor” to meet with Machado. He called her a “wonderful woman who has been through so much,” adding that her gift of the Nobel medal he has long coveted was a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW.
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C. Recommended
