CARACAS, Venezuela — The stunning nighttime capture of President Nicolás Maduro by the U.S. military plunged this oil-rich country and its 26-year-old experiment in socialism into dizzying uncertainty Saturday, as President Donald Trump vowed to “run” the nation with the cooperation of Maduro’s vice president while extracting a “tremendous amount of wealth” from the ground.
But Vice President Delcy Rodríguez did not appear to be following Trump’s script. In an address to the nation, she denounced the U.S. operation as “shameful,” evoked socialist icon Hugo Chávez and South American liberator Simón Bólivar, and demanded the release of Maduro and his wife, first lady Cilia Flores.
The swiftly unfolding developments were the strongest challenge yet to the socialist state forged in 1999 by the Bolivarian Revolution of Chávez. The Trump administration wants to replace the authoritarian regime with a government that would allow freer access to the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
The action, which evoked memories of the U.S. operation that seized Panama’s Manuel Antonio Noriega in 1990, brought down one of Latin America’s most prominent latter-day strongmen and left in question the grip of the socialists who have dominated Venezuela for a generation, first through the ballot box and then through repression.
Trump, speaking from Mar-a-Lago in Florida after the overnight assault on Maduro’s compound and military targets, appeared to sideline opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose stand-in candidate won two-thirds of the vote in the 2024 presidential election. The Trump ally was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her effort to bring change to Venezuela; Trump called her a “very nice woman” but said she lacks the “support” and “respect” inside the country to lead.
Instead, he said Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, had been sworn in as the country’s interim leader and had already spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“She said ‘we’ll do whatever you need,’” Trump said. “I think she was quite gracious. But she really doesn’t have a choice.”
But Rodríguez, 56, called the U.S. action an “illegal kidnapping.”
“If there is something the Venezuelan people will never be again, it is slaves, or the colony of an empire,” she said. At her side were Gen. Vladimir Padrino López, Venezuela’s longtime defense minister, and Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister and head of the national police.
Rodríguez, a lawyer and diplomat educated in Caracas, Paris and London, has been seen as more pragmatic and willing to negotiate with Washington than regime hard-liners. She has operated with the support of her influential older brother, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, a psychiatrist who was Maduro’s primary negotiator with Washington.
Maduro’s inner circle has projected unity in public but has been riven by internal divisions. Venezuelans were watching how different power players would react. Among them is Padrino López, who Maduro had claimed would mobilize the people in the streets to protect him.
The streets in the capital on Saturday were, in fact, eerily calm. Motorists formed long lines at gas stations and queued outside supermarkets to buy staples. Grocery stores were limiting entry to small groups at a time to prevent looting. Successful shoppers could be seen walking through the streets guarding eggs and milk.
There did not appear to be a significant uptick in soldiers or security checkpoints in the streets.
Under Venezuela’s constitution, if the president is absent during the first year of his term, the vice president takes over on an interim basis pending the results of an election, which must be held within 30 days.
Rodríguez has in recent years tried to overhaul Venezuelan economic policies and has developed ties with the country’s business community and with foreign investors.
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