US President Donald Trump said this Monday in a telephone interview with NBC News that the president in charge of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, is “cooperating” with US authorities.
“I have the feeling that he is cooperating. They need help. And I have the feeling that (Rodríguez) loves his country and wants his country to survive,” Trump said of Nicolás Maduro’s vice president before her capture on January 3 by US forces.
The president added that there was no contact from Washington with Rodríguez before the military operation that detained Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in their residence in Caracas, in which several points in Venezuelan territory were also bombed.
Rodríguez was sworn in today as president in charge of Venezuela in front of her brother, the Chavista Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly (AN, Parliament) who this Monday inaugurated a new legislative period dominated by the ruling party.
“I come with pain for the suffering that has been caused to the Venezuelan people after an illegitimate military aggression against our homeland,” Rodríguez said during the event, and denounced that Maduro and Flores are “hostages” in the United States.
Keep reading: Profile: Who is Delcy Rodríguez, the woman who supports Chavismo after Maduro’s arrest?
The Trump Administration had already designated Rodríguez as the interlocutor from Caracas even before her inauguration and ahead of opposition leader María Corina Machado or Edmundo González Urrutia, the candidate who faced Maduro in the controversial 2024 presidential elections and who the opposition considers president-elect of Venezuela.
Both Trump and the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, have harshly warned Rodríguez of “much worse” consequences than those suffered by Maduro if the president in charge does not “comply” with Washington’s guidelines.
The US president also asked Rodríguez for “full access” to oil and other Venezuelan resources and infrastructure.
Maduro and Flores appeared today before a federal court in New York in the first hearing of the judicial process that accuses them of drug trafficking, conspiracy and corruption, charges to which they have pleaded innocent.
With information from EFE