News Beat
Trump is ‘dictating’ policy to interim leadership of Venezuela after Maduro capture
The White House is still claiming to be in charge of Venezuela’s government despite assertions from the country’s newly-minted acting president that her administration is running the country independently after U.S. forces seized Nicolas Maduro from a safe house and brought him to a New York City jail.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a Wednesday press briefing that top administration officials, including President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the entire White House national security team are “in close correspondence with the interim authorities in Venezuela” while exercising “maximum leverage” over the Caracas government.
“We’re continuing to be in close coordination with the interim authorities, and their decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America,” Leavitt said.
The White House spokesperson’s claims appear to contradict assertions made a day earlier by Delcy Rodriguez, the former Venezuelan vice president who was sworn in as acting president in the wake of Maduro’s removal from the country by American special forces. Maduro pleaded not guilty during a court appearance earlier this week where he described himself as a prisoner of war.
During a televised event on Tuesday in Caracas, Rodriguez maintained that the government she now leads is calling the shots after Trump claimed that the U.S. would “run” the oil-rich South American country after removing its’ head of state to face drug and weapons charges in New York.
“The government of Venezuela is in charge in our country, and no one else. There is no foreign agent governing Venezuela,” Rodriguez said.
Trump, whose decision to order Maduro’s seizure represented a major break from his years-long pledges and boasts of keeping the U.S. out of foreign military adventures, claimed on Saturday that the U.S. would “run” the country while addressing reporters at his Palm Beach, Florida home following the audacious incursion and extraction mission.
He is understood to have consented to permitting Rodriguez to take the reins of power following Maduro’s ouster rather than attempting to install opposition leader María Corina Machado or ally Edmundo González atop the government because Rodriguez, the country’s longtime vice-president whose brother is president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, would have support from the country’s military.
According to multiple reports, Trump’s decision to sideline Machado and Gonzalez was also driven by pique over Machado accepting the Nobel Peace Prize last year. He also told reporters on Saturday that Machado did not “have the support within, or the respect within, the country.”
The president’s claim to have placed the U.S. in charge of Venezuela despite having no military presence there and leaving the Maduro government largely in place has left even some of his own allies in the dark about the situation there.
Asked what Trump meant by the U.S. “running” Venezuela, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, told The Independent on Tuesday that he had “no idea” what Trump was talking about.
But GOP Senator Rick Scott, who represents a large part of the Venezuelan diaspora in South Florida, said he spoke with Machado and told The Independent he thinks Trump is still “trying to make sure we have a transition to a democracy.”
Despite the lack of clarity from the White House, Scott’s former Senate colleague Marco Rubio — now Trump’s Secretary of State and National Security Adviser — insists there is a plan.
He told reporters at the Capitol following a Wednesday briefing with senators that the administration is not “winging it” on Venezuela policy after removing Maduro.
“The bottom line is, we’ve gone into great detail with them about the planning … it’s not just winging it,” he said. “It’s already happening.”
