Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she hasn’t spoken to President Donald Trump since October, and vowed to return to Venezuela “as soon as possible.”
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Machado again thanked Trump for “the historical actions he has taken against the narco-terrorist regime.” She said January 3, when the US captured President Nicolás Maduro, “will go down in history as the day justice defeated tyranny.”
In the wake of the capture, Trump said Machado “doesn’t have the support within or the respect” to lead Venezuela and has repeatedly said that the US is in charge of the country.
Senior White House aide Stephen Miller has also dismissed calls for the US to install Machado as president.
“It would be absurd and preposterous for us to suddenly fly her into the country and to put her in charge,” he said Monday, arguing that Venezuela’s military would not view her as legitimate.
The US has instead been working with Maduro-ally and acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who has vowed to cooperate.
Machado, who is under a decade-long travel ban, had been in hiding for more than a year but traveled to Oslo, Norway in December to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. She left Oslo last month.
Machado defended her decision to dedicate her Peace Prize to Trump on Fox and said she wished she could share her gratitude to him for Maduro’s arrest personally, noting she last spoke with Trump on October 10, when her Nobel win was announced.