We’re glad to hear Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasize that Team Trump means to see rapid free elections in Venezuela — not some deal that lets the Chavista cabal keep power.
President Donald Trump’s remarks Saturday had led to fears of just that — a “pragmatic” approach that would see the regime that’s impoverished the country hang on in exchange for oil and (empty) promises to abandon its alliances with Iran, Hezbollah, Russian and China.
Doing the Sunday-show rounds, Rubio was crystal-clear that Washington won’t accept the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, staying on for long: “We don’t believe that this regime in place is legitimate via an election,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”
As a reminder to Mayor Mamdani and others clucking about how Operation Absolute Resolve supposedly violated Venezuela’s sovereignty, Rubio noted that “60-something countries around the world” agree that Nicolás Maduro and his entire government stole the last election (at least).
Yet Maduro was merely the top gang leader; Rodriguez, her brother (who runs the puppet parliament) and various other top figures like Defense Minister Vladimir Padrin (who’s also under a US drug indictment) are as complicit in the ruination of Venezuela, as deeply in bed with the Cuban secret police who secured Maduro’s rule.
Indeed, the Cubans pose an ongoing threat to anyone who does play ball with Washington — an incentive balanced only by the fact that the US forces who captured Maduro and his wife can zoom right back in to take out anyone who tries to keep the regime going.
To that end, Trump on Sunday again put Rodriguez on notice: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”
But he expects her to do a lot: The prez also told The Post’s Caitlin Doornbos: “We should run the country with law and order,” before pushing for elections, since Venezuela has “literally become a Third World country ready to fail.”
This is crucial context for Trump’s apparent dissing of chief opposition leader María Corina Machado on Saturday: “She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country,” he warned then.
But he’s now told The Post she can “win an election” as long as he supports her, and “I like her very much.”
So he and Rubio are clear: Any lasting endgame requires free and fair elections to install a fully legitimate government, but such voting isn’t possible until basic order is restored.
Left unsaid: This may also require bribing Rodriguez and the rest with some version of the deals Maduro rejected — with his example as a warning.
Still, a peaceful, orderly transition remains urgent: The cabal can’t be trusted without a gun constantly at its head.
Venezuela needs to rebuild the energy industry and the economy, and that work can only go so far without leadership the public supports.
