Venezuelans are wondering who is in charge as Trump claims he is in contact with Maduro’s deputy

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelans tried Saturday to understand who was in charge of their country after the U.S. military captured President Nicolás Maduro and ousted the strongman who survived a failed coup, several army mutinies, mass protests and economic sanctions in the vast country of 29 million people.

“What will happen tomorrow?” asked Juan Pablo Petrone, a resident of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. As fear gripped the city, the streets quickly emptied save for long lines snaking past grocery stores and gas stations. “What will happen in the next hour?”

President Donald Trump offered a shocking answer: The United States would take control of Venezuela, perhaps in collaboration with one of Maduro’s most trusted aides.

Delcy Rodríguez, next in the presidential line of succession, had served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018 and oversaw much of Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy and its feared intelligence service. On Saturday, Venezuela’s Supreme Court ordered her to take on the role of interim president.

“She is essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump told reporters of Rodríguez, who faced U.S. sanctions during Trump’s first administration for her role in undermining Venezuelan democracy.

In a major criticism, Trump said opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who received the Nobel Peace Prize last year, did not have the support to govern the country.

Trump said Rodríguez had a long conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during which Trump claimed she said, “We will do whatever you need.”

“I think she was very friendly,” Trump added. “We cannot take the risk of someone else taking over Venezuela if he does not have the well-being of the Venezuelan people in mind.”

Senior officials remain in place

Key Venezuelan officials appeared to have survived the military operation and kept their jobs, at least for now. There was no immediate sign that the US was running Venezuela.

Rodríguez sought to project strength and unity among the ruling party’s many factions, downplaying any hint of betrayal. In comments on state television before the court ruling, she demanded the immediate release of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and denounced the U.S. operation as a blatant violation of the United Nations charter.

“There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro,” Rodríguez said, surrounded by senior civilian officials and military commanders.

In an effort to calm the nervous public, Venezuelan military officials struck a defiant tone in video messages, lashing out at Trump and vowing to resist U.S. pressure.

“They attacked us, but they will not break us,” said Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino López, dressed in uniform.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, one of Maduro’s top enforcers, urged Venezuelans to “take to the streets” to defend the country’s sovereignty.

“These rats attacked and they will regret what they did,” he said of the US

Some Venezuelans heeded his call, rallying in support of the government and burning American flags in scattered rallies in Caracas on Saturday.

But most people stayed indoors out of fear.

“What is happening is unprecedented,” said Yanire Lucas, another Caracas resident, as she picked up pieces of glass from an explosion at a nearby military base that blew out the windows of her home.

“We are still tense and don’t really know what to do now.”

No sign of a political transition

Trump indicated that Rodríguez had already been sworn in as president of Venezuela, according to the transfer of power enshrined in the constitution.

But state television did not broadcast any swearing-in ceremonies.

During Rodríguez’s televised speech, a ticker at the bottom of the screen identified her as the vice president. She gave no sign that she would cooperate with the US and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“What is being done to Venezuela is an atrocity that violates international law,” she said in her speech. “History and justice will ensure that the extremists who promoted this armed aggression will pay for it.”

The Venezuelan constitution also stipulates that new elections must be called within a month if the president is absent. But experts have debated whether the succession scenario would apply here, given the government’s lack of legitimacy and the extraordinary US military intervention.

Strong ties to Wall Street

A lawyer trained in Britain and France, Rodríguez has a long history of representing the revolution started by the late Hugo Chávez on the world stage.

She and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, head of the Maduro-controlled National Assembly, have excellent left-wing credentials born of tragedy. Their father was a socialist leader who died in police custody in the 1970s, a crime that shocked many activists of the time, including a young Maduro.

Unlike many in Maduro’s inner circle, the Rodríguez siblings have avoided criminal charges in the U.S.

Delcy Rodríguez developed strong ties with Republicans in the oil industry and on Wall Street, who opposed the idea of ​​US-led regime change.

Among her former interlocutors were Blackwater founder Erik Prince and, more recently, Richard Grenell, a Trump special envoy who tried to broker a deal with Maduro for greater American influence in Venezuela.

Internal tensions can arise

Rodríguez speaks fluent English and is sometimes portrayed as an educated, market-friendly moderate, in contrast to the military hardliners who took up arms with Chávez against Venezuela’s democratically elected president in the 1990s.

Many of them, especially Cabello, are wanted in the US on drug trafficking charges and accused of serious human rights abuses. But they continue to exercise control over the armed forces, the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela.

This poses major challenges for Rodríguez in asserting authority. But some analysts said they expected Venezuelan power brokers to close ranks, as they have done before.

“These leaders have all seen the value of staying united. Cabello has always occupied a second or third seat, knowing that his fate is tied to Maduro’s, and now he could very well do so again,” said David Smilde, a professor of sociology at Tulane University who has studied Venezuela’s political dynamics for the past three decades.

Much depends on the condition of the Venezuelan military after the US bombardment, Smilde added. “When it no longer has much firepower, they are more vulnerable and smaller.”

A swear word from the opposition

Shortly before Trump’s news conference, Machado, the opposition leader, called on her ally Edmundo González — a retired diplomat widely believed to have won the disputed 2024 presidential election — to “immediately assume his constitutional mandate and be recognized as commander in chief.”

In a triumphant statement, Machado promised that her movement would “restore order, free political prisoners, build an exceptional country and bring our children home.”

She added: “Today we are ready to assert our mandate and seize power.”

Trump seemed to throw cold water on those plans.

Asked about Machado, Trump was blunt: “I think it would be very difficult for (Machado) to be the leader,” he said, shocking many Venezuelan viewers who expected Trump’s speech on liberation to signal a rapid democratic transition.

“She doesn’t have the support or respect in the country.”

Machado has not responded to Trump’s comments.