The two leaders fighting for Venezuela’s future – and for Trump’s favor
By Jessie Yeung, Stefano Pozzebon, CNN
(CNN) — As millions of Venezuelans wait to see what will become of their economically and politically ravaged country, a battle has emerged between two female leaders for control over the nation’s future – and for the American president’s favor.
On one side is opposition leader and Nobel Prize laureate María Corina Machado, who rose to prominence in recent years for her dogged fight for democracy in Venezuela, facing down now-ousted former dictator Nicolás Maduro.
She has mostly stayed in hiding after Venezuela’s disputed 2024 presidential election, after which government-controlled electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner – allowing him to cling to power until his capture by US special forces in a remarkable raid two weeks ago.
Her rival is Delcy Rodriguez – Maduro’s vice president, now settling into her new role as acting president. Rodriguez is seen as a staunch member of the old guard and a strong Maduro defender; but she’s walking a precarious tightrope in trying to appease both Washington and Maduro regime loyalists back home.
At the center of their struggle is a figure who sits more than 2,000 miles away: President Donald Trump, who ordered the deadly raid in Caracas and declared that the United States would “run” Venezuela in the meantime.
Though Trump has so far held off on a second attack on Venezuela, the threat of military intervention remains. He recently said his administration would begin targeting drug cartels on land, after months of strikes on alleged drug boats at sea. And he has kept a massive US military armada in the Caribbean to continue strong-arming Caracas.
Perhaps more importantly, Trump’s choices could influence the future of Venezuela’s leadership and who takes the helm.
On the surface, it looks straightforward – Trump has praised Rodriguez but declined to endorse Machado, despite her having high-powered supporters within his administration.
But Trump’s discussions with other world leaders have shown his opinions can flip quickly. Praise can turn to threats, or vice versa – and a one-on-one meeting, which Machado is about to have on Thursday at the White House, could change everything.
Nobel Prize or bargaining chip?
Both Machado and Rodriguez have been communicating directly with the US president. On Wednesday, Trump said he had spoken with Rodriguez on the phone, calling her a “terrific person” and saying they were “getting along very well.”
Machado is going a step further with direct face time; she’s expected to have lunch with Trump on Thursday during her visit to DC, according to the White House schedule. But the opposition leader may face a more uphill battle thanks to a certain coveted peace prize.
She has some powerful allies within the White House – Secretary of State Marco Rubio was among those who praised her work and nominated her for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Even Trump himself, before his inauguration last year, called Machado a freedom fighter who “MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!”
But that support appeared to sour when Machado won the Nobel – which Trump has made no secret of wanting for himself. “I can’t think of anybody in history that should get the Nobel Prize more than me. And I don’t want to be bragging, but nobody else settled wars,” Trump said last week.
After ousting Maduro, Trump claimed Machado “does not have the support or the respect within the country” to be leader.
Machado has tried to appease the president, dedicating the award partly to him when she won it last October. In recent weeks, she suggested she would offer her award to Trump even though the Norwegian Nobel Institute has said it cannot be transferred. Trump said it would be an honor to receive her prize, but didn’t directly answer whether that could make him reconsider her role in Venezuela.
Thursday’s lunch might be Machado’s best chance at swaying the president; despite being on the back foot right now, a lot can change in one encounter. Just look at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous White House meeting with Trump last February, which left Ukraine scrambling to regain US support and European allies jumping in to play mediator.
Or take New York’s newly-inaugurated mayor Zohran Mamdani – who, despite receiving scathing criticism from Trump during the mayoral election, appeared to charm the president during their first meeting at the White House.
A dangerous ‘double game’
Meanwhile, Trump has also voiced his willingness to meet “at some point” with Rodriguez, who now faces a tricky balancing act.
On the one hand, Rodriguez has outwardly denounced the US operation, condemning Maduro’s capture as a “barbarity” and a blatant violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty.
But under pressure from the US to comply, Rodriguez has since struck a more conciliatory tone, offering an “agenda of cooperation” with the US. Her government has begun releasing high-profile prisoners as a peace gesture, including several Americans.
Rodriguez has long had a complicated relationship with the US. As her rival Machado has pointed out, the acting president is under US sanctions for human rights violations – which she has repeatedly denied.
At the same time, she has worked for years to bolster the bilateral relationship – especially through oil, with Venezuela home to the world’s largest reported oil reserves.
In 2017, when she was foreign minister, Venezuela donated half a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration committee through its oil subsidiary. Since becoming acting president, she has offered to ship millions of barrels of oil to the US and authorized a visit by US chargé d’affaires Joe McNamara to explore the possibility of reopening the US embassy in Caracas, which was closed in 2019.
So far, her efforts to woo the White House appear to be paying off. Trump and other key administration officials have indicated that they view Rodriguez as a stable, pragmatic choice that the US can work with, and who is open to valuable business opportunities – with the first US sales of Venezuelan oil reported on Wednesday.
But she’s playing “a very difficult double game” with no guarantee of coming out on top, said Will Freeman, Fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Rodriguez “has to convince the Trump administration that she is working with them, to their ends, cooperatively,” he told CNN last week. “But she also has to convince hardliners in the Maduro regime… the military as well, that she’s not going to sell them out,” he added.
“We’re going to see how long she can walk that tightrope.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Alayna Treene, Mauricio Torres, Christian Edwards and Laura Sharman contributed to this report.
