Analysis: Trump doesn’t seem interested in working with Venezuela’s opposition

In the immediate hours following US forces bombing Caracas and abducting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Venezuela’s beleaguered opposition was ecstatic.

“Venezuelans, the hour of freedom has arrived,” declared María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s opposition movement and recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

But after US President Donald Trump expressed a lack of confidence in Machado and suggested he’d instead partner with Maduro loyalist Delcy Rodríguez, the opposition’s official channels were quiet for most of the day.

Machado had called for the immediate installation of Edmundo González Urrutia as president, and for the Venezuelan military to fall in behind him. Most Western governments regard González as the legitimate winner of the contested 2024 presidential election in Venezuela.

“Today we are prepared to enforce our mandate and take power,” Machado said. “Let us remain vigilant, active, and organized until the democratic transition is achieved. A transition that needs ALL of us.”

Then came a press conference from Trump. Asked whether Machado would have any part in the post-Maduro government, Trump said that he had not been in contact with her, and that while Machado was a “very nice woman,” she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” to lead Venezuela.

As of Saturday evening, neither Machado nor González has commented publicly on Trump’s remarks. CNN contacted both Machado and González’s teams about Trump’s statements and is awaiting a response.

Trump’s cool response to Machado may seem odd: the opposition leader is a vigorous supporter of the president, dedicating her Nobel Prize win to Trump, and even suggesting in at least one interview that Maduro had “rigged” the 2020 US election to Trump’s disadvantage.

But Elías Ferrer, founder and director at Orinoco Research, said that he was unsurprised by Trump’s apparent rejection of Machado, noting that he rarely references her on social media.

Ferrer told CNN that he thinks that Trump was unimpressed with the Venezuelan opposition during his first term, when his administration supported politician Juan Guaidó in his quixotic 2019 attempt to take leadership of the country, backed by the country’s parliament.

The US recognized Guaidó as the country’s lawful president, as did more than 60 others, but his movement stalled soon after.

“He was really backing Juan Guaidó, but it went wrong,” Ferrer said. “And then Trump kind of took the hit, because he was parading this guy who turned out to be a complete failure.”

In his second term, Trump is most interested in cracking down on crime, bombing narco-boats and securing access to oil, Ferrer continued.

“For those things, you don’t really need a model democracy,” Ferrer said. “You just need a government that is going to be compliant in some way.”

David Smilde, a Venezuela expert and professor at Tulane University, told CNN that he was struck that Trump declined to even mention “democracy” during his press conference.

“It doesn’t look like they have in mind a democratic transition,” Smilde said. “They have in mind a country that is friendly and open to the United States interests, stable and economically productive.”

“It doesn’t sound like democracy or Maria Corina Machado are even on the map, at this point,” Smilde added.

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

Rather than Machado, Trump has instead appeared to zero in on Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, a regime stalwart.

Trump announced on Saturday that the US would “run” Venezuela until a “judicious transition,” while claiming that Rodríguez was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”

Rodríguez, a member of the regime who faces sanctions from the US herself, has not yet directly acknowledged the nod from Trump, saying on television on Saturday that Maduro remains Venezuela’s president.

“We will never be a colony again,” Rodríguez said, flanked by high-level government figures, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who was named in the same indictment against Maduro unsealed by US Attorney General Pam Bondi after the US attack.

One resident of Caracas, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told CNN she saw the US removing Maduro while leaving Rodríguez in charge of Venezuela as “very weird.”

“I don’t know how much are we advancing by removing Maduro but leaving them in charge, or her in charge,” she said. “I don’t see that making much sense.”