Venezuela's interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, has threatened Donald Trump in the wake of President Nicolás Maduro's capture, as he now sits in a federal jail in New York.
Venezuela's Supreme Court quickly confirmed hardline socialist Vice President Rodríguez as Maduro's successor, just hours after U.S. forces detained Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges on Saturday. Trump later said that he would rather see the 56-year-old Rodríguez in power than opposition leader María Corina Machado, claiming that Maduro's longtime deputy was willing to cooperate with the United States. "She, I think, was quite gracious, but she really doesn't have a choice," Trump said of Rodriguez.
Stepping Into Maduro's Shoes
"She is essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again. Very simple," Trump said during a news conference in which he said the US would 'run' the country.
But the longtime Maduro loyalist — who helped keep his regime in power for more than a decade — has now erupted in anger over Trump's capture of the strongman, whom she described as Venezuela's rightful leader.
Rodríguez, who also serves as the country's finance and oil minister, condemned Maduro's arrest as "an atrocity that violates international law" and demanded his "immediate release."
"We call on the peoples of the great homeland to remain united, because what was done to Venezuela can be done to anyone," she said during a National Defense Council session after the US military operation.
"That brutal use of force to bend the will of the people can be carried out against any country."
Rodríguez also hinted that she was far less willing to support the idea of the United States effectively running Venezuela than Trump had implied.
Trump offered few specifics about how Washington would govern a country of roughly 30 million people, though he suggested Venezuela's vast oil wealth could be tapped to bankroll its recovery.
New Tension in Venezuela
Still, many remain skeptical that Rodríguez would be a cooperative partner in carrying out Trump's vision. "I don't think that we can count on Delcy Rodriguez to be friendly to the United States until she proves it," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton said on CNN's State of the Union with Dana Bash on Sunday.
Rodríguez has made no public comments indicating she would go along with Trump's agenda for Venezuela, instead stressing only her commitment to safeguarding the country's independence.
"Never again will we be slaves, never again will we be a colony of any empire," she said on Saturday.
"We're ready to defend Venezuela."
Given her unwavering loyalty to Maduro, Trump's said preference for working with her over opposition figures — including Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia — has sparked fears among many Venezuelans.
For more than two decades, Rodríguez has been a powerful force within the Chavismo movement founded by President Hugo Chávez. After Chávez's death in 2013, Maduro rose to power and took over as the movement's leader.
Rodríguez is from Caracas, the country's capital, and holds a law degree from the Central University of Venezuela.
Her father, Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, was a Marxist guerrilla who co-founded the militant left-wing Socialist League, a group active during the 1960s and 1970s, according to The Wall Street Journal.
She has held a string of senior government posts dating back to Chávez's presidency. From 2013 to 2014, Rodríguez served as minister of communication and information, and from 2014 to 2017 she held the role of foreign minister.
