Venezuela Will Not Have New Elections in the Next 30 Days, U.S. President Says

AP

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Venezuela will not have new elections in the next 30 days, U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News on Monday, projecting a longer-term engagement two days after U.S. forces captured that nation's leader, Nicolás Maduro.

"We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote," President Trump said about the possibility of a vote in the next month. "No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have — we have to nurse the country back to health."

Moreover, he said, the U.S. may subsidise an effort by oil companies to rebuild the country's energy infrastructure — a project he said could take less than 18 months.

"I think we can do it in less time than that, but it'll be a lot of money," he said. "A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue."

He also insisted the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela.

"No, we’re not," President Trump said. "We’re at war with people that sell drugs. We’re at war with people that empty their prisons into our country and empty their drug addicts and empty their mental institutions into our country."

In the roughly 20-minute interview, President Trump identified a group of U.S. officials — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller and Vice President JD Vance — who will help oversee America’s involvement in Venezuela.

"It's a group of all. They have all expertise, different expertise," he said.

But he had a one-word answer for who is ultimately in charge: “Me.”

President Trump’s discussion of his vision for Venezuela came just a couple of hours after Maduro was arraigned in New York on a series of charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy and cocaine importation conspiracy. He was seized from a compound in the capital city of Caracas in the wee hours of Saturday morning during a raid by U.S. special forces and law enforcement officials.

Maduro pleaded not guilty, saying he remains the leader of his country even as Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in Monday as his successor.

President Trump said Rodríguez has been cooperating with U.S. officials but insisted there was no communication between her camp and the American side before Maduro's ouster.

"No, that’s not the case," he said, adding that a determination will be made soon about whether existing sanctions against Rodríguez will be left in place or lifted.

When asked if there was "any deal with any official in Venezuela to remove" Maduro, President Trump replied, "Well, yeah, because a lot of people wanted to make a deal, but we decided to do it this way," adding that it was without the help of Maduro's inner circle.

President Trump also declined to say whether he's spoken to Rodríguez yet, but he said that Rubio "speaks to her fluently in Spanish" and that their "relationship has been very strong."

He indicated that the U.S. could launch a second military incursion into Venezuela if Rodríguez stops cooperating with U.S. officials but said he does not believe that will be necessary. Trump also suggested he had initially expected to have to send in American forces again already.

"We’re prepared to do it," he said. "We anticipated doing it, actually."

Source: NBC News



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