CARACAS, Venezuela — Hours after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a large‑scale military operation, President Donald Trump said the United States would “run the country” until a “safe, proper, and judicious transition” can take place. The comments immediately triggered a global debate over who should govern Venezuela during the power vacuum left by Maduro’s removal.
Trump said Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez had been sworn in as interim president.The president said that “we’ve spoken to her [Rodriguez] numerous times, and she understands, she understands.” However, Rodríguez, speaking live on television Saturday, condemned the U.S. attack and demanded "the immediate release of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. The only president of Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro."
With Maduro detained and flown to the United States to face federal charges, Venezuela now confronts a constitutional crisis, competing claims to authority, and intense international scrutiny.
Under Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, the vice president assumes power when the presidency is vacated. That makes Rodríguez, Maduro’s longtime deputy, the constitutional successor.
Rodríguez has served as vice president since 2018 and has been central to Maduro’s political apparatus. State media reported she was coordinating emergency communications after the U.S. operation, though independent confirmation remains limited.
Analysts warn that Venezuela’s military high command may assert control during the crisis. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López has vowed that Venezuela will “prevail” and “not negotiate” with the United States.
Several opposition leaders—long sidelined under Maduro—are now being discussed as potential successors.
Some analysts view Nobel Peace Prize recipient and prominent opposition figure María Corina Machado as a leading contender. Experts told Fox News she and ally Edmundo González have broad public support.
Recognized by the United States as the legitimate winner of Venezuela’s disputed 2024 election, Edmundo González is also considered a viable transitional leader.
Opposition groups argue that a civilian‑led transition is essential to restoring democratic institutions.
President Trump has said the United States will be “very involved” in determining Venezuela’s next leader, arguing that Washington cannot allow “somebody else” to take over and recreate the conditions that existed under Maduro.
Trump’s assertions that the United States will “run the country,” maintain a “partnership” with Venezuela’s oil industry during the transition, and keep American forces positioned for additional action have intensified concerns about U.S. overreach and the legality of unilateral intervention.
Governments across Latin America have expressed alarm at the prospect of U.S. administration of Venezuela.
“The Colombian government rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America,” Petro said, urging an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council, where Colombia currently holds a seat.
In Chile, outgoing President Gabriel Boric also condemned the attack. But President‑elect José Antonio Kast — who campaigned on promises to crack down on migration and crime — struck a sharply different tone. In a post on X, he called Maduro’s arrest “great news for the region.”
“Now begins a greater task. The governments of Latin America must ensure that the entire apparatus of the regime abandons power and is held accountable,” said Kast, who will be sworn in on March 11.
Venezuelan officials have condemned the U.S. operation as a “grave military aggression” and accused Washington of violating international law.
Venezuela faces a volatile and uncertain period. With Maduro detained abroad, competing factions—constitutional, military, opposition, and foreign—are now vying to shape the country’s future.
What remains clear is that the question of who should run Venezuela is no longer merely a domestic matter. It is now a geopolitical struggle with global implications.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.