Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado hailed President Trump for removing Nicolás Maduro from power and argued her coalition has a mandate to lead the country moving forward — even as Mr. Trump leaves doubts about whether Machado could take power herself.
Machado spoke to “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil in a network exclusive on Tuesday, just three days after the U.S. military executed a daring mission to capture Maduro, ending the authoritarian president’s nearly 13-year reign over Venezuela.
Machado has aligned herself with Mr. Trump in recent months, backing his administration’s months-long pressure campaign against Maduro’s regime and dedicating her Nobel Peace Prize to him. When Mr. Trump ordered last weekend’s surprise operation to pluck Maduro from Caracas and fly him to New York on drug charges, Machado vocally celebrated the move.
Since then, Machado has called for her ally Edmundo González — whom the U.S. recognizes as the winner of the country’s 2024 election — to take over Venezuela as soon as possible, replacing the Maduro operatives who are still running the country.
But Mr. Trump has declined to back Machado’s movement. He said Saturday that it would be “very tough” for her to run Venezuela and doubted she has enough support within the country, saying: “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”
Pressed on why she believes Mr. Trump said that about her, Machado suggested there could be lingering worries about Venezuela’s stability. She told CBS News that Venezuela “has been taken over by a criminal narcoterrorist system” backed by guerrilla groups and U.S. adversaries like Iran and Cuba, and “there is fear that these groups will resist a peaceful transition.”
However, Machado said she believes “a wide majority of the military and police in Venezuela also support an orderly transition to democracy.”
She continued: “I believe we have a united country.”
Asked if she believes she is the right person to lead Venezuela in the first chapter of its post-Maduro future, Machado told CBS News “the people of Venezuela have already chosen,” and her coalition is “ready and willing to serve our people, as we have been mandated.”
She pointed to the country’s heavily contested 2024 election, when González faced off against Maduro because the government banned Machado — who won the opposition’s primary — from running herself. Maduro’s government declared him the winner, but those results were rejected by much of the international community and are widely seen as tainted by pervasive fraud.
Machado — who told CBS News she has not spoken with Mr. Trump this year — said Venezuelans are “very grateful” to Mr. Trump. She called Maduro’s arrest a “major step towards restoring prosperity and rule of law and democracy in Venezuela.”
She acknowledged that the country is not there yet. She alleged that Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, played a key role in Maduro’s corruption, was “one of the main architects” of Venezuela’s security state and served as the “main link” between the South American country and Russia and Iran.
“Everybody in Venezuela and abroad knows perfectly who she is and the role she has played,” Machado said.
Asked if she has a message for Mr. Trump, she said: “Trust the Venezuelan people.”
“We’ve come a long way,” she said, pointing to what she called a “landslide” win in 2024 despite widespread allegations of fraud. “So imagine if there had been free and fair elections.”
She predicted that Venezuela “will be not only a security ally to the United States, but a country of prosperity,” allowing millions of Venezuelans who have left the country due to economic deprivation and political threats to return home. And she said she supports U.S. oil companies returning to Venezuela, backing a recent push by Mr. Trump.
She also predicted that the remnants of Maduro’s government and any violent groups in the country will be “neutralized.”
“I dare to say there is no other society in this hemisphere as cohesive and united as Venezuelan society,” she said. “More than 90% of our population wants the same. We want to live with respect, with dignity, with justice and opportunities.”
