María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, repeatedly praised President Trump on Monday during a prime-time appearance on Fox News, her first televised interview since the United States captured Nicolás Maduro and Mr. Trump ruled her out as a successor.
Ms. Machado, who led a successful election campaign against Mr. Maduro in 2024, spent much of the 10-minute interview appealing to Mr. Trump, who has declined to throw his support behind the opposition. She even offered him the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in October, a prize Mr. Trump has coveted for years.
“Because this is the prize of the Venezuelan people, certainly we want to give it to him and share it with him,” Ms. Machado told the Fox News host Sean Hannity. She said that she had not spoken to Mr. Trump since October, when she dedicated the prize to him.
Mr. Trump has chosen to conditionally back Mr. Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, as interim leader instead of Ms. Machado or Edmundo González, who ran after Ms. Machado was barred from being a candidate. Ms. Machado and Mr. González have said that he is the legitimate president of Venezuela.
“She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country,” Mr. Trump said of Ms. Machado on Saturday. “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”
Senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had persuaded Mr. Trump that Venezuela could be further destabilized if the United States tried to back the opposition. A classified C.I.A. intelligence analysis reflected that view, according to a person familiar with the document.
On Monday, Ms. Machado said the opposition would turn Venezuela into a security ally of the United States and an energy hub for the Americas, provide protection for foreign investment and repatriate millions of Venezuelans who had fled the country under Mr. Maduro.
“We will leave behind all the destruction this socialist regime, criminal regime has brought to our people and turn Venezuela into the main ally of the United States in Latin America,” she said.
How Ms. Machado’s movement could be allowed to govern is unclear. Mr. Trump has not indicated if new elections will be held in Venezuela, saying only that the United States was “in charge” of the country. Ms. Machado said on Monday that the opposition would win “over 90 percent of the vote in free and fair elections.”
After the 2024 election, Ms. Machado went into hiding for more than a year. In December, she secretly left Venezuela to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. She missed the award ceremony but appeared in Oslo to greet supporters.
“I am planning to go back as soon as possible,” she said on Monday, without giving away her location. “Every day I make a decision where I am more useful for our cause.”
Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.
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