{"id":200154,"date":"2026-02-12T16:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/nicolas-maduro-is-still-the-legitimate-president-of-venezuela-its-acting-leader-tells-nbc-news-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T16:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:49:11","slug":"nicolas-maduro-is-still-the-legitimate-president-of-venezuela-its-acting-leader-tells-nbc-news-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/nicolas-maduro-is-still-the-legitimate-president-of-venezuela-its-acting-leader-tells-nbc-news-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is still the 'legitimate president' of Venezuela, its acting leader tells NBC News – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

BREAKING: Justice Dept. antitrust chief says she\u2019s leaving, effective today<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
Nicol\u00e1s Maduro <\/a>is still the legitimate leader of Venezuela<\/a>, the country’s acting president said in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
\u201cI can tell you President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is the legitimate president. I will tell you this as a lawyer, that I am. Both President Maduro and Cilia Flores, the first lady, are both innocent,\u201d acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a> told NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press\u201d moderator Kristen Welker<\/a> in Caracas, in her first interview with an American journalist since taking office.
As her predecessor sits in a federal detention facility in New York after being captured by U.S. forces last month, Rodr\u00edguez is now seemingly being welcomed back into the diplomatic fold by President Donald Trump<\/a>. A high-profile visit Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright came as the two countries hammered out details of how Venezuela\u2019s vast oil reserves are to be distributed.
She added, \u201cI can tell you I am in charge of the presidency of Venezuela, as it\u2019s stated clearly in the constitution of Venezuela. And from the amount of work that I have, from how busy I am, I can tell you it\u2019s very, very hard work and we\u2019re doing it completely day by day.\u201d
The daughter of a revolutionary and sanctioned by the first Trump administration<\/a>, Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s<\/a> path to power has not been conventional.
In the days following Maduro\u2019s capture on Jan. 3, Rodr\u00edguez <\/a>was highly critical of the U.S. military action against him. She has since softened her tone and relented to U.S. pressure and demands, raising the possibility of a visit to the U.S. after two phone calls with Trump.
\u201cI have been invited to the States,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez told NBC News, adding that \u201cwe\u2019re contemplating coming there once we establish this cooperation and we can move forward with everything.\u201d
Still, the current government has not entirely shed the authoritarian ways of Maduro or his predecessor, the late President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, who largely established the infrastructure of the current security state in Venezuela.
After being released from prison on Sunday, prominent opposition figure Juan Pablo Guanipa was rearrested<\/a> and is currently under house arrest, according to a post on X<\/a> by his son Ramon Guanipa.
\u201cRonald Reagan, trust but verify. Trust but verify. We\u2019ve been dealing with Delcy for five weeks now. It\u2019s been an amazing cooperation,\u201d Secretary Wright told Welker in an exclusive interview in Caracas on Wednesday.
\u201cShe\u2019s delivered information. Everything we know so far has turned out to be true. She\u2019s made enormous positive changes, including already changing the hydrocarbon law in the country in the first few weeks. So I would say that cooperation is off to a tremendous start.\u201d
There has been over $1 billion in Venezuelan oil sold and another $5 billion in oil sales are expected in the coming months, Wright told NBC News.
\u201cSo the Venezuelans are in charge here in Venezuela, but the United States has enormous leverage over the interim authorities in Venezuela \u2014 the largest revenue source that funds the government, that funds the government of Venezuela is now controlled by the United States,\u201d Wright said.
\u201cIf they\u2019re driving positive change that benefits Americans and is improving the life opportunities of people in Venezuela, that money will flow. If they steer off that path, we have just simply tremendous leverage.\u201d
Dozens of political prisoners have been released<\/a> in recent weeks and political space within the country has opened up to the point where a protest demanding the release of more prisoners was held last week in front of the country\u2019s highest court, an act that only months ago could have resulted in arrest, jail time or worse.
The bigger question is when, or even if, Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, Venezuela\u2019s most prominent opposition activist, can safely return to the country. Despite gifting her Nobel Peace Prize medal<\/a> to Trump during a White House visit last month, Machado has yet to be fully embraced by the president as a serious political contender in Venezuela.
\u201cWith regards to her life, we do not understand why there\u2019s such a fuss about it,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez told NBC News. \u201cWith regards to her coming back to the country, she will have to answer to Venezuela. Why she called upon a military intervention, why she called upon sanctions to Venezuela, and why she celebrated the actions that took place at the beginning of January.\u201d
Babak Dehghanpisheh is an NBC News Digital international editor based in New York.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BREAKING: Justice Dept. antitrust chief says she\u2019s leaving, effective today news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeNicol\u00e1s Maduro is still the legitimate leader of Venezuela, the country’s acting president said in an exclusive interview with NBC News.\u201cI can tell you President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is the legitimate president. I will tell you this as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-200154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}