Post Trump meeting, Venezuelan opposition leader says country will hold ‘free and fair’ elections ‘eventually’

After meeting with President Donald Trump, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said Friday that Venezuela will hold “free and fair” elections “eventually” as Nicolás Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, continues to rule the country after his capture. 

Machado did not offer a timeline for how long the current interim government would be allowed to rule, only that elections would happen “as soon as possible.”

“I am profoundly, profoundly confident that we will have an orderly transition.”

Speaking at a news conference hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, Machado said Venezuela is taking “the first steps of a true transition to democracy,” but stressed that dismantling the country’s repression apparatus must come before any credible election can be held.

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“We are facing a very complex and delicate process,” Machado said. “Eventually we will have free and fair elections,” she added, while emphasizing that security, rule of law and the release of political prisoners must come first.

Machado rejected the idea that Venezuela’s constitutional election timelines could be applied immediately, arguing that years of repression have hollowed out democratic institutions. She said hundreds of political prisoners remain unaccounted for and warned that fear and coercion are still widespread inside the country.

“The fact that you are not in a prison doesn’t mean that you are free,” she said, citing restrictions on speech, movement and political organizing.

Her comments come after the Trump administration faces growing scrutiny from critics over the lack of a clear electoral roadmap following the Jan. 3 operation that led to the removal of longtime strongman Maduro. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described a three-phase U.S. plan — stabilization, recovery and transition — but acknowledged that the final phase remains undefined.

During her Washington visit, Machado met privately with Trump and praised his role in pressuring Maduro’s government. She said the president told her he cares deeply about the Venezuelan people and their future.

Machado also presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal, a symbolic gesture toward a president who has long coveted the award. She described Trump’s actions on Venezuela as courageous and said U.S. support has given Venezuelans renewed hope after years of repression and economic collapse. The Nobel Committee said in a statement that a “laureate cannot share the prize with others, nor transfer it once it has been announced.”

“The decision is final and applies for all time.”

Despite her praise for Trump, questions remain over Washington’s posture toward Venezuela’s interim leadership. Trump has publicly spoken positively about Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president who is now playing a central role in the transitional government — a stance that has unsettled some opposition supporters.

Machado sought to downplay the appearance of competition between herself and Rodríguez for the U.S. president’s support.

“This has nothing to do with a tension or decision between Delcy Rodríguez and myself,” Machado said when asked about Trump’s openness to working with the interim government. “This is about a criminal structure that is a regime and the mandate of the Venezuelan people.”

Trump has spoken positively about Rodríguez’s role in the transition and suggested he’d be open to meeting with her. On Thursday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Venezuela meeting with Rodríguez.

Trump recently called Machado a “very fine woman” with whom he has “mutual respect,” after saying Jan. 3 that Machado “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” to rule. 

Machado called Rodríguez “a communist” and “the main ally and representation of the Russian regime, the Chinese and the Iranians,” while arguing that Rodríguez “does not represent the Venezuelan people” or the armed forces.

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Machado said the current phase of the transition remains unstable, with elements of the former regime still being forced to dismantle systems of repression, including intelligence units and detention centers. Only after those structures are neutralized, she said, can Venezuela begin rebuilding democratic institutions and organizing legitimate elections.

She also stressed that future elections must include Venezuelans living abroad, noting that millions were barred from voting in past contests.

“Every single Venezuelan, living in Venezuela or abroad, should have the right to vote,” Machado said.

Trump has previously questioned whether Machado has sufficient support inside Venezuela to govern, backed by a U.S. CIA report on the matter, a remark she did not directly address during her public remarks. Instead, she framed the transition as a collective effort driven by popular will rather than individual leadership.

“This is not about me,” Machado said. “It is about the will of the Venezuelan people.”

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For now, she said, the priority remains security.

“We understand the urgency,” Machado said. “But without dismantling terror, there can be no real democracy.”

The White House has said the United States intends to play a hands-on role during Venezuela’s transition, arguing it has significant leverage over interim authorities in Caracas. Venezuela. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said recently the administration believes it has “maximum leverage” over Venezuela’s interim leadership, including influence over economic and security decisions as the transition unfolds.

After Maduro’s capture, Trump said the U.S. would essentially run Venezuela. 

“We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” he said. 

On Machado, Trump initially expressed skepticism. “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.” 

A source told Fox News Digital there was concern among senior officials even prior to the Venezuela operation that Machado “lacked the necessary support in Venezuela if Maduro was to be removed.”

Rubio has said the administration envisions a phased approach to Venezuela’s transition — beginning with stabilization, followed by recovery and then a political transition. Rubio acknowledged that while elections are the end goal, they must come after security conditions improve and democratic institutions are rebuilt. 

Trump’s energy dominance rewrites the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after Biden drawdowns

America’s rise as a global oil powerhouse has changed how critical the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is to U.S. security and economic stability — even after President Joe Biden’s drawdowns drove stockpiles to modern-era lows, an economist and energy expert explained to Fox News Digital. 

As the Trump administration works to gradually replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve following record releases under the Biden administration, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, told Fox News Digital that the decades-old emergency oil stockpile no longer plays the same central role it once did.

President Donald Trump‘s policies of “unleashing” energy and his “drill, baby, drill” mantra are key as to why, following the U.S. as domestic supply rose and demand shifted. 

“I don’t think for the security of the United States, for the economy of the United States, I don’t think the SPR is as important as it was 25, 30 years ago because now we are one of the greatest oil and natural gas producers in the world,” Furchtgott-Roth said.

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The U.S. became the world’s largest natural gas producer in 2011, surpassing Russia, and then the top crude oil producer in 2018, overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia — a surge driven largely by the shale revolution, which took off in the mid-to-late 2000s with the widespread use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created in the aftermath of the 1970s oil crisis to protect the United States from foreign supply shocks, at a time when the country relied heavily on imported oil. That dynamic has shifted dramatically as domestic production surged, turning the U.S. into the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas.

Furchtgott-Roth said the U.S.’ shift to become an energy producer, combined with Trump’s policies, have opened the floodgates of producing U.S. oil, which lessens the need for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. 

“We have the potential to produce a lot more, and we have a government that’s supportive of that,” Furchtgott-Roth said of the oil in the U.S. “It’s now possible to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but I just want to say the biggest strategic petroleum reserves we have is right under our feet in places like Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio. We have so much oil and natural gas in this country.”

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Since returning to office, Trump has used executive authority to fast-track domestic energy production, including signing an order titled “Unleashing American Energy” aimed at rolling back regulatory barriers and accelerating permitting for oil and gas projects. The administration also moved to restart and speed reviews of liquefied natural gas export approvals, reversing the Biden-era “pause” approach and positioning U.S. natural gas exports as a centerpiece of its energy strategy.

Biden ordered a 50 million–barrel release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2021, framing it as a move to ease gasoline prices and help relieve pandemic-era supply chain pressures after COVID-19 brought the global economy to a “near economic standstill.”

He dramatically expanded the drawdown in March 2022, announcing a plan to release up to 1 million barrels per day for six months as gas prices climbed. The move came weeks after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions targeting Moscow’s energy sector. In total, Biden released roughly 300 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over his four years.

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Trump repeatedly criticized Biden’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases between his first and second terms, telling the New York Post in 2021 the reserve should be tapped only for “serious emergencies, like war, and nothing else.” 

He later pledged in his Jan. 20 inaugural address to “fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top” while driving prices down and expanding U.S. energy exports.

Furchtgott-Roth also criticized Biden’s drawdowns, arguing the reserve was never meant to be used as a tool to manage consumer prices. She added that high energy prices during the Biden years were driven by domestic policy decisions.

“That’s not what the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is supposed to be useful for,” she said. “It’s supposed to be used for a national security emergency. It’s not supposed to be used because prices are too high. And in this case, it was a self-caused emergency caused by President Biden’s different policies regarding oil and natural gas.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. military successfully captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January, with Trump shortly after announcing the U.S. would “run” the South American, oil-rich nation. 

He announced on social media in January that Venezuelan oil would immediately be turned over to the U.S., including “between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America.”

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States! I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately. It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States,” Trump wrote. 

An administration official told Fox Digital that refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with Venezuelan oil is not currently under consideration. 

Energy Secretary Chris Wright told FOX Business that the “we’re going to bring more crude onto the marketplace” with Venezuelan oil.

“We’re going to bring crude that’s particularly well-suited for American refineries,” he explained Friday. “It helps us build asphalt as well. All of those things, as you drive market prices down, and you drive supply up, that’s helpful for giving us multiple ways to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.”

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Furchtgott-Roth said Venezuela’s power shift sent a powerful signal to U.S. adversaries, weakening Cuba’s economy, cutting into Russia’s oil revenues, limiting China’s leverage in Latin America, and emboldening opposition movements in Iran by demonstrating Washington’s willingness to confront authoritarian regimes.

She added that Venezuela’s oil comeback would take time because production collapsed after the regime expropriated U.S. infrastructure and couldn’t operate it, driving output from roughly 3.5 million barrels a day pre-Hugo Chávez to under 1 million today. 

A Trump official explained to Fox Digital in December 2025 that the administration is working to “gradually” refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with oil, while citing significant “damage” left to the reserve following the Biden administration releasing millions of barrels of oil in 2021 and 2022. 

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“Joe Biden’s disastrous green energy policies sent gas prices soaring across the country, making the past four years painfully unaffordable for Americans filling their gas tanks to commute to work, take their children to school, and travel during the summer and holiday seasons,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital. 

Congress must appropriate funding to fully replenish the reserve. The Department of Energy currently has refill authority and funding under the so-called “big, beautiful bill,” which set aside $218 million for maintenance and repairs and another $171 million to begin refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. 

Rand Paul says US in ‘active war’ with Venezuela: ‘I still hope it works out for the best’

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said on Sunday that the U.S. is engaged in an “ongoing war” with Venezuela following what he described as recent U.S. actions involving the country.

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Paul said the U.S. continues to be in conflict with Venezuela over its oil.

“That is an act of war, it’s an ongoing war, to continue to take their oil, ongoing war, to distribute it,” Paul said.

“I still hope it works out for the best, but we are still involved in an active war with Venezuela,” he continued.

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The senator added that “we still have hundreds of ships with a 100% blockade of the coast.”

This comes after the U.S. operation to attack Venezuela and arrest its president, Nicolás Maduro, and the Trump administration’s subsequent seizing of oil tankers from the country.

Venezuela is one of the biggest producers of oil, and its oil industry has become a focus of the Trump administration. Officials said oil sales to the U.S. will start immediately with an initial shipment of about 30 million to 50 million barrels and that the shipments will continue indefinitely.

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump previously wrote on Truth Social.

Trump has also said the U.S. would continue “running” Venezuela for much longer than a few months. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have said it will take time for Venezuela, now led by interim President Delcy Rodriguez, to reach a place where it can hold elections.

More than half of U.S. voters oppose the Trump administration running Venezuela, according to a poll from Quinnipiac University.

Paul is part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who want to limit Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela after the U.S. military’s recent move to strike the country and capture Maduro, which the Kentucky Republican has said amounts to war.

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The group attempted to pass a war powers resolution last week to block the president from additional intervention without congressional approval, but the effort failed in the Senate.

“The only problem about a war powers vote now is that, since it hasn’t happened, there are a lot of Republicans who say, ‘Oh, that’s prospective. I’m not going to tie his hands prospectively,'” Paul said on Sunday. 

“The problem is, if you wait until after an invasion, whereas the administration argues, we don’t know it’s a war until we count the casualties. That’s sort of a crazy definition of war, because our job is to initiate or declare war,” he added.

Wife of former American detainee released after more than a year in Venezuelan prison

The wife of a once-detained American citizen was released this week after being held for more than a year in a Venezuelan prison following their arrest while traveling to the South American nation to meet her family. 

Renzo Humanchumo Castillo, a Peruvian- American who was detained for close to a year by Venezuelan authorities, told Fox News Digital that his Venezuelan wife, Rosa Carolina Chirino Zambrano, as well as her friend and the taxi driver they were with, were released after being imprisoned and charged with espionage due to their contact with him. 

He spoke with Zambrano following her release, he said, their first contact since December 2024 when they were confronted by Venezuelan authorities near the country’s border with Colombia. 

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“It was surreal,” Castillo recalled of the conversation. “She got teary, you know, but she was like… ‘hey baby, I’m out.’ Now my main concern is how do I get her here with me.”

Castillo, who lives in Southern California, was detained after crossing the border into Venezuela, along with his wife and her friend, who were in a taxi. After being questioned at length by Venezuelan authorities, he was charged with terrorism and conspiring to kill Nicolas Maduro, then the country’s president, who was recently captured by U.S. forces in a daring military operation. 

“They got me as a professional hitman sent by the CIA, and (that) I was there to overthrow the government and kill Maduro and Diosdado (Cabello),” Castillo said.

Diosdado Cabello, known as the “octopus,” runs Venezuela’s security apparatus and is considered one of the country’s most feared government figures. The U.S. has accused him of narco-terrorism and several other crimes. The State Department has issued a $25 million reward for his arrest and conviction.

“Cabello, he presented me on the news, and then he put me on a chart saying that I came here to overthrow the government,” Castillo said. “Me and some other Americans.”

After spending months in Venezuela’s notorious “El Rodeo” prison, Castillo was freed in a prisoner swap in July 2025. However, his wife remained in detention. 

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Castillo said he was initially questioned by Venezuelan authorities who accused him of being a “commando” or some kind of military operator.

A search of his cell phone only heightened their suspicions when they found images of him wearing a protective vest and other tactical gear. However, Castillo said he works in private security and executive protection and has never served in the military. 

The gear was used for work, he said. 

He was eventually detained and transferred to “El Rodeo” where he endured beatings and other forms of torture, he said. In one instance, he was hung by his arms like a piñata and beaten. 

“They had me hanging. And like my feet were still kind of touching the floor,” he said. “They just hit me for maybe at least five to eight hours, just hanging… just not even questions anymore. But you can feel the joy, how much they wanted to hit me, hurt me, you know?”

Castillo got in trouble several times while at the prison, he said, for speaking out of a window in his cell where he would sometimes get updates on events outside the facility. Stressed about not knowing what happened to his wife, he went on a hunger strike in an effort to write a letter to her, he said. 

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Castillo met Zambrano during a visit to Peru to reunite with old classmates from grade school. One night, he went to a bar with friends where the pair met and struck up a friendship. 

That was followed by multiple trips to Peru, where she lived, before they got married. On his last journey, the couple met in Colombia and traveled via road to her home country to meet his in-laws for the first time, Castillo said. 

After crossing the Colombia-Venezuela border, they were separately detained and their misfortune began. 

Since Zambrano is a Venezuelan citizen, she was not part of the prisoner swap that freed her husband. Despite now being free, she remains under the watchful eye of the Venezuelan government, Castillo said. 

In the meantime, Castillo is working to get Zambrano to California. He said he plans to reach out to the State Department. Despite his wife’s citizenship status, his optimism heightened following Maduro’s capture earlier this month. 

“It was that moment when, inside of me, I felt I was going to be able to see my wife again,” he said. “The chances of me seeing my wife again just went from like, from nothing to like a hundred. It really lifted my spirit.”

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“It took Americans and it took foreigners to be kidnapped for the world to put eyes on Venezuela,” he said. 

On Tuesday, Venezuela’s interim government released at least four Americans imprisoned during Maduro’s regime. The release was the first involving U.S. citizens since Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces. 

“We welcome the release of detained Americans in Venezuela,” a State Department official said Tuesday. “This is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.”

On Wednesday, Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez said she spoke with President Donald Trump by phone during a “long and courteous” conversation. The pair discussed a “bilateral work agenda for the benefit of our peoples, as well as pending matters between our governments.”

On Truth Social, Trump said topics of discussion included oil, minerals, trade and national security. 

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“This partnership between the United States of America and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL. Venezuela will soon be great and prosperous again, perhaps more so than ever before!” he wrote. 

Castillo praised the Trump administration for addressing the Maduro regime and his action in Venezuela.

“I feel like the current administration is doing the hard work that it hasn’t been done,” he said. “Those things that sometimes people don’t want to see and are afraid to say, well, they’re doing it now. And I am very thankful to the administration. I’m very thankful to my president. Very thankful to (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio, because they did all of this. They got us out.”

Nobel Foundation weighs in after Machado presents Peace Prize to Trump

The Nobel Foundation weighed in Sunday after Venezuela’s opposition leader gifted her Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump.

Maria Corina Machado gave her Peace Prize to Trump during a meeting at the White House last week. The Nobel Foundation pushed back on the legitimacy of such a transfer on Sunday, however.

“One of the core missions of the Nobel Foundation is to safeguard the dignity of the Nobel Prizes and their administration. The Foundation upholds Alfred Nobel’s will and its stipulations. It states that the prizes shall be awarded to those who ‘have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind,’ and it specifies who has the right to award each respective prize,” the foundation wrote in a statement.

“A prize can therefore not, even symbolically, be passed on or further distributed,” the statement continued.

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Machado explained her decision to give Trump her award in an interview with Fox News.

“He deserves it,” Machado told “FOX & Friends Weekend” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy. “It was a very emotional moment.”

Machado said she presented the prize to the president on behalf of the Venezuelan people, crediting him for the historic work he did in liberating the country from its dictator Nicolás Maduro.

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“[Venezuelans] appreciate so much what he has done for, not only the freedom of the Venezuelan people, but I would say the whole hemisphere,” she said.

As a longtime Maduro critic, Machado has been vocal in supporting Trump’s unprecedented removal of the disgraced Venezuelan leader, prompting her to credit him with the prize for the historic capture.

Trump appeared pleased and gratified by Machado’s gesture.

“It was my Great Honor to meet María Corina Machado, of Venezuela, today,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”

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The Norwegian Nobel Institute had tried to shut down the transfer before Machado met with Trump earlier this month.

“Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others,” the institute said in a statement. “The decision is final and stands for all time.”

Venezuela’s acting leader was once a DEA ‘priority target’: report

Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez has appeared in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intelligence files dating back several years and was labeled a “priority target” in 2022, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The documents show the DEA has intelligence files on Rodríguez going back to at least 2018, with her name appearing in multiple investigations across several U.S. and international field offices, though she has never been publicly accused of any criminal wrongdoing, the outlet reported.

The DEA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The “priority target” designation is used by the agency to focus investigative resources on individuals or organizations believed to play a significant role in major drug trafficking or money laundering operations affecting the United States, according to a 2008 DEA assessment.

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Rodríguez was formally sworn in as Venezuela’s new leader on Jan. 5, just two days after U.S. forces extracted Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from their compound in Caracas in an early-morning military operation.

Maduro and Flores were taken into U.S. custody and flown to New York to face federal charges.

Maduro is charged with four counts: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine-guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine-guns and destructive devices. His wife is charged with three counts: cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine-guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine-guns and destructive devices.

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The White House has been working with Rodríguez in the weeks since Maduro was ousted. President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he spoke with Rodríguez by phone and praised her as a “terrific person.”

“We discussed a lot of things and I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela,” he said.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado criticized Rodríguez as the Trump administration engages with the Maduro ally, arguing she does not represent the Venezuelan people.

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“I want to insist on this: Delcy Rodríguez, yes, she’s a communist. She’s the main ally and representation of the Russian regime, the Chinese and the Iranians, but that’s not the Venezuelan people and that’s not the armed forces, as well,” Machado said at a Heritage Foundation event on Friday.

“So I am profoundly, profoundly confident that we will have an orderly transition. This is a complex phase we are in right now. Some of the dirty work is being done by them,” she added. “But then, the result of a stable transition will be a proud Venezuela who is going to be the best ally the United States has ever had in the Americas.”