Last Saturday, the U.S. military swooped into Caracas and hauled Nicolás Maduro out of Venezuela in handcuffs. The world expected the opposition to take over after that. But oddly enough, President Donald Trump is backing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, over Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, aka the woman who actually got the votes!
Trump says Machado “doesn’t have the respect” to govern Venezuela, after she led an election campaign against Maduro in 2024.
A classified CIA assessment concludes that Machado and her ally Edmundo González Urrutia (who exit polls showed won two-thirds of the vote) would struggle to maintain order. The report suggested that loyalists like Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino were better suited to keep Venezuela stable in the short term in 2026.
The logic is that Venezuela’s military, police, drug-trafficking networks, and elites don’t answer to the opposition. So handing power to Machado could lead to rival factions starting to fight. So Trump propped up Maduro’s number two.
The US is an imperial gangster regime.
Trump threatened Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, and said if she doesn’t give US corporations “total access” to “the oil and other things”, she will “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro”.pic.twitter.com/p6qTaFiCJG
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 5, 2026
However, insiders are saying that President Trump is miffed at Machado because she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize and didnot decline it in favor of Donald Trump. Though this may be a plausible reason, it is yet not the official cause presented by the administration.
Speaking on ABC News, political analyst Liz Alarcón rejected Trump’s characterization of Machado: “What we want to see is, of course, the support of the entire international community (…) but we also want our will as Venezuelans inside and outside of the country to be respected.” That will include leaders like Machado or González Urrutia.
Trump’s relationship with Machado had been fraying for months. She was trying her best to cozy up to Trump through, as she praised his aggressive Venezuela policy and even said he deserved her Nobel Prize more than her.
During his first term, the U.S. president tried to cause a rebellion against Maduro. But when the armed forces didn’t budge, and the population didn’t rise (per Juan Cruz, a former White House Latin America official), Trump labeled the opposition as “losers.” So when deciding Venezuela’s future, Trump claims he chose stability over democracy. “We’re in charge,” he said.
The U.S. is now “running” the country as America needs “total access” to Venezuela’s oil and other resources to “rebuild their country.” But in Caracas, Venezuelans are celebrating Maduro’s downfall. For them, Maduro was a dictator who rigged elections and drove millions into exile, and is finally facing justice in a New York courtroom. But what comes next?
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🚨🇺🇸🇻🇪 BREAKING: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s trial will be presided over by Jewish Zionist Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who also oversaw most 9/11 civil lawsuits. pic.twitter.com/SDReM36nDh
— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) January 4, 2026
Venezuelan-American journalist José Enrique Arrioja described people being scared of what could be “uncertain weeks, if not months, ahead.” Many don’t like that Maduro’s regime is being replaced with another figure who doesn’t respect them.
Meanwhile, interim leader Rodríguez is demanding Maduro’s immediate release and calling on Venezuelans to mobilize in defense of the country. She condemned the U.S. operation as they want to grab Venezuela’s “energy, mineral, and natural resources.” Yet Trump claimed Rodríguez told Secretary of State Marco Rubio she’s “willing to (…) make Venezuela great again.”
Machado, for her part, has called to recognize González Urrutia as Venezuela’s president and urged Venezuelans to remain “vigilant, active, and organized.” But with Trump throwing his weight behind the regime, her path to power looks steep.
Can Rodríguez lead Venezuela toward democracy? But what is democracy if the people’s choice doesn’t matter?
