Venezuela's most prominent opposition figure used a friendly US TV forum to court the one man now standing between her movement and power: President Trump. In a 10-minute interview on Fox News, María Corina Machado repeatedly praised the president, appealed for his backing, and even offered to hand him the Nobel Peace Prize she received last year. It was Machado's first televised appearance since the US seized Nicolás Maduro and Trump publicly dismissed her as a possible successor, despite her having led the opposition campaign that defeated Maduro in 2024. Trump has also declined to support Edmundo González, who ran after Machado, and is considered by both to be Venezuela's legitimate president, per the New York Times.
Washington has instead thrown conditional support behind Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, as interim leader. Senior US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and a classified CIA assessment have warned that openly backing the opposition could further destabilize the country, according to a person familiar with the intelligence. Trump said over the weekend that Machado "doesn't have the support within, or the respect within, the country," describing her as "a very nice woman" but not a viable national leader.
But Machado insisted the opposition would win "over 90% of the vote in free and fair elections," which Trump has not committed to. She used the broadcast to sketch the kind of country she says her coalition would build if allowed to govern: "the main ally of the United States in Latin America," an energy hub for the hemisphere, a safer destination for foreign investment, and a place capable of drawing back millions of Venezuelans who fled under Maduro. Speaking from an undisclosed location after a clandestine trip to Norway to accept her Nobel, she said she plans to return home "as soon as possible," adding, "Every day I make a decision where I am more useful for our cause."
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