President Trump says Venezuela will not hold new elections in the next 30 days, suggesting the United States will be involved in the sovereign Latin American nation for the foreseeable future.
“We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,” Trump told NBC News. “No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have — we have to nurse the country back to health.”
The scope of America’s involvement in Venezuela is unclear. The president said he has tasked a group of U.S. officials — including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller — to oversee the next steps.
Trump’s comments came hours after the deposed Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism charges in a New York federal court. Maduro and Flores were captured at their home in a U.S. military operation over the weekend.
As he left the courtroom, Maduro said, “I am a kidnapped president. I am a prisoner of war.”
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in Monday as his successor, has been cooperating with the United States, Trump said. But he warned that the U.S. could launch a second military incursion into Venezuela if she were to become uncooperative.
Still, Trump insisted the United States is not at war with Venezuela. “No, we’re not,” he said. “We’re at war with people that sell drugs.” Trump also denied a report that he preferred Rodríguez to take the reins of Venezuela’s transition over opposition leader Maria Corina Machado because Machado won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize — an award he coveted. Machado said the removal of Maduro proved Trump deserved the prize.
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