{"id":673290,"date":"2026-01-04T12:53:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/673290\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T12:53:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:53:20","slug":"who-leads-venezuela-now-trump-has-picked-his-grudging-puppet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/673290\/","title":{"rendered":"Who leads Venezuela now? Trump has picked his grudging puppet"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Nicol\u00e1s Maduro sat blindfolded on an American warship, the question of who would succeed him as ruler of Venezuela was already being answered by the US president.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,\u201d President Trump announced at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be involved with having somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and other key administration officials, Trump said he would work with Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, the Venezuelan vice-president and a key Maduro ally, who Trump said had been sworn in as leader, to run the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Later on Saturday, Venezuela\u2019s Supreme Court ordered Rodr\u00edguez become the country\u2019s interim leader.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez is from a powerful left-wing family in Venezuela. Her father, Jorge, was a politician and Marxist guerrilla fighter who became famous for the kidnapping of an American businessman in the 1970s. The businessman was later released, but Jorge was killed by Venezuelan intelligence agents who were torturing him under interrogation. <\/p>\n

After a life spent working to advance socialism and fighting US imperialism, Rodr\u00edguez, a former lawyer and diplomat, now appears to be being strong-armed by Trump into leading her country as an American puppet state, with the threat of full-scale military invasion if she does not co-operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had a long conversation with Marco and she said, \u2018We\u2019ll do whatever you need\u2019. I think she was quite gracious, but she really doesn\u2019t have a choice,\u201d Trump said, later adding that she was \u201cessentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Secretary<\/p>\n

Marco Rubio addresses the media on Saturday<\/p>\n

JOE RAEDLE\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u2022 Lights out, then US forces with blowtorches came for Maduro<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez appeared on Venezuelan television on Saturday to demand the \u201cimmediate release of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores\u201d, insisting that Maduro was \u201cthe only president of Venezuela\u201d.<\/p>\n

A source close to the Venezuelan government said that Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s insistence that Maduro was still in power could be related to the fine print of the country\u2019s constitution. Should Maduro be overthrown, Rodr\u00edguez would automatically be constitutionally bound to call elections within a short period of time.<\/p>\n

Yet, if she could argue that she was ruling in Maduro\u2019s stead on a temporary basis, she could stay in power for a longer time, after which the national assembly, which is headed by her brother and where their party has a majority, could determine whether she could stay in power.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s just for internal purposes,\u201d the source said, referring to Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s speech on TV. \u201cShe can\u2019t be too open about that internally. It could expose her \u2026 There are still very extreme factions [in Venezuela], a lot of national sentiment \u2026 she has to manage the internal dynamics \u2026 she can\u2019t just all of a sudden say she\u2019s a puppet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources close to Rodr\u00edguez said she had been offered deals to push Maduro aside by the US in recent months, including via the US special envoy Richard Grenell and by a prominent Miami lobbyist, but she refused them.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Katy Balls: What happened to America First?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The source said: \u201cIt\u2019s quite clear that Delcy is now running the show, that she\u2019s in contact with Rubio, that she\u2019d been sworn in; he clearly stated that [Mar\u00eda] Machado [the leader of the opposition] doesn\u2019t have any support.\u201d<\/p>\n

They later added: \u201cIt\u2019s good news Delcy is in control because it means there can be stability and things can happen without further violence, and she\u2019s somebody who is very pragmatic as well in terms of how she deals with things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Rodr\u00edguez and her brother are only one faction within the Venezuelan regime, albeit a powerful one. Diosdado Cabello, the interior, justice and peace minister, is a hardliner who is one of Maduro\u2019s chief enforcers. He is a rival of Rodr\u00edguez and her brother, who are considered more moderate.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Padrino L\u00f3pez, the defence minister who is the country\u2019s top-ranking military officer, is also a key player and was still in Caracas on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"Venezuelan<\/p>\n

Maduro and Vladimir Padrino L\u00f3pez in November<\/p>\n

JESUS VARGAS\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The fact that Maduro\u2019s inner circle<\/a> were left behind during the raid that whisked the president and his wife from the country prompted theories among Venezuelans that key regime figures had been part of the US plot.<\/p>\n

What was immediately clear was that for Trump, the most important next step was not democracy but stability that would allow US oil firms to enter the country and start work.<\/p>\n

When asked how long he would run Venezuela<\/a>, and when elections would take place, Trump said it would take a \u201cpretty good time\u201d. He said: \u201cWe\u2019re going to run the country right \u2026 It\u2019s going to run very \u2026 judiciously, very fairly. It\u2019s going to make a lot of money. We\u2019re going to give money to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The democratic opposition movement appeared to have been frozen out of the transition process, with Trump saying on Saturday afternoon that he had not spoken to Machado, a Nobel peace prize laureate, and that she didn\u2019t have enough \u201crespect\u201d from the Venezuelan people to rule.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Saturday morning, Machado had issued a statement claiming that \u201cthe hour of freedom has arrived\u201d and calling for her ally Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia, who won elections in 2024 that were stolen by Maduro, to take power.<\/p>\n

\"Venezuelan<\/p>\n

Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia and Mar\u00eda Machado in 2024<\/p>\n

FEDERICO PARRA\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Machado had been living in hiding in Venezuela since Maduro overturned her opposition alliance\u2019s victory in the 2024 elections. Last month she escaped Venezuela in a dramatic operation that involved her travelling in disguise \u2014 and being caught in a storm at sea \u2014 to accept the Nobel peace prize in Oslo.<\/p>\n

As the US attack began on Saturday morning, it quickly became clear that the Venezuelan democratic opposition had been sidelined by the US. Minutes after the attack on Caracas began, a representative for Machado sent a text to a Sunday Times journalist asking them whether they had any information on what was happening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Nicol\u00e1s Maduro sat blindfolded on an American warship, the question of who would succeed him as ruler…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-673290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115836931784942738","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}