Delcy Rodríguez became Venezuela’s interim president after Nicolás Maduro was captured in a U.S. nighttime military operation, the Associated Press reported. Rodríguez’s appointment followed an order from Venezuela’s high court, which directed her to assume the interim role on Saturday, AP said. The AP reported that Venezuela’s military backed Rodríguez as she took office.
The change placed a longtime Maduro ally at the center of the government’s next phase, with AP reporting that Rodríguez had served as vice president since 2018. The AP said she oversaw much of Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy and Venezuela’s intelligence service, and that she was next in the presidential line of succession.
AP reported that Rodríguez’s rise immediately set up a potentially consequential question for U.S.-Venezuela relations: whether she would push back against Washington or adjust course. In a televised address, Rodríguez referred to Trump’s government as “extremists” and said Maduro was Venezuela’s rightful leader, according to AP. She also said, “What is being done to Venezuela is an atrocity that violates international law,” AP reported.
U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, warned that if Rodríguez did not “fall in line,” “she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” AP said Trump added that he wanted “total access,” from oil facilities to basic infrastructure like roads, so they can be rebuilt. The AP said the comments followed Marco Rubio’s statements in TV interviews that Rubio did not see Rodríguez’s government as “legitimate” because Rubio said Venezuela had never held free and fair elections.
On Sunday, AP reported that Rodríguez shifted tone in a conciliatory message posted to Instagram. AP said she wrote that she hoped to build “respectful relations” with Trump, and she invited the U.S. government to collaborate on “an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law,” to strengthen what she described as “lasting community coexistence.”
AP described Rodríguez as a 56-year-old lawyer and politician whose career has been tied to the revolution associated with Hugo Chávez. AP reported that Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, have avoided criminal indictment in the United States, though Rodríguez faced U.S. sanctions during Trump’s first term because of her role in undermining Venezuelan democracy, AP said. AP also reported that Rodríguez’s father was arrested for involvement in the kidnapping of American business owner William Niehous in 1976 and later died in police custody.
In a segment of AP’s reporting on Rodríguez’s background inside the Maduro government, AP said she held roles as economic minister, foreign affairs minister and petroleum minister as part of efforts to stabilize Venezuela’s economy after years of inflation and turmoil. AP also said she developed ties with Republicans in the oil industry and on Wall Street who rejected U.S.-led regime change.
AP said Rodríguez’s close relationship with the military has been a key factor in her access to power. Ronal Rodríguez, a spokesperson for the Venezuela Observatory of Rosario University, told AP that she has “a very particular relationship with power,” and said she developed “very strong ties with elements of the armed forces” and established dialogue lines with them “largely on a transactional basis.”
How long Rodríguez could hold power and how closely she might work with the Trump administration also remains unclear, AP reported. Geoff Ramsey, a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, suggested to AP that Rodríguez’s initially firm tone may have been an attempt to “save face.” Ramsey also said, “She can’t exactly expect to score points with her revolutionary peers if she presents herself as a patsy for U.S. interests,” AP reported.
AP said Venezuela’s constitution requires an election within 30 days if the president becomes “permanently unavailable,” listing reasons such as death, resignation, removal from office, or “abandonment” of duties as declared by the National Assembly. AP reported that Maduro’s predecessor Chávez’s death in 2013 was handled under that 30-day-election requirement. But AP said the loyalist Supreme Court’s Saturday decision characterized Maduro’s absence as “temporary,” which AP said can be managed through the vice president rather than an election.
In that framework, AP reported that the vice president takes over for up to 90 days, with the period extendable to six months with a vote of the National Assembly. AP said the Supreme Court’s decision handing temporary power to Rodríguez did not mention the 180-day time limit, leading some to speculate she could try to remain in power longer while seeking to unite factions within the ruling socialist party.