US Attack On Venezuela Updates: Maria Machado Rejects Rodriquez As Interim President, Set To Return To Venezuela

In the wake of last weekend’s US military action in Venezuela, the news media got something it has seldom heard from the Trump administration: a “thank you”.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio credited news organisations that had learned in advance about Saturday’s strike that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with not putting the mission in jeopardy by publicly reporting on it before it happened.

Rubio’s acknowledgment was particularly noteworthy because Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has cited a mistrust of journalists’ ability to responsibly handle sensitive information as one of the chief reasons for imposing restrictive new press rules on Pentagon reporters.

The United States is undergoing preparations in case President Donald Trump decides to reopen the U.S. embassy in Venezuela’s capital Caracas, a senior State Department official said on Monday.

“As President Trump said, we are making preparations to allow for a reopening should the President make that decision,” the official told Reuters.

Trump on Sunday said that the U.S. was thinking about reopening the embassy in Caracas.

Bloomberg first reported that the Trump administration is taking early steps to allow for the reopening of the American embassy in Venezuela.

US President Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela has emerged as a flash point in the closely watched Republican primary campaign between Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a long-running Trump antagonist, and retired Navy SEAL officer Ed Gallrein, who has the president’s backing.

Massie, showing his non-interventionist leanings, fired off a series of social media posts criticizing the dramatic action that captured Nicolás Maduro and removed him from the South American country.

“Wake up MAGA,” Massie wrote. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top officials briefed leaders in Congress late Monday on the striking military operation in Venezuela amid mounting concerns that President Donald Trump is embarking on a new era of U.S. expansionism without consultation of lawmakers or a clear vision for running the South American country, AP reported.

Republican leaders entered the closed-door session at the Capitol largely supportive of Trump’s decision to forcibly remove Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro from power, but many Democrats emerged with more questions as Trump maintains a fleet of naval vessels off the Venezuelan coast and urges U.S. companies to reinvest in the country’s underperforming oil industry.

A war powers resolution that would prohibit U.S. military action in Venezuela without approval from Congress is heading for a vote this week in the Senate.

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado said she hasn’t spoken to US President Donald Trump since October 2025.

“Actually, I spoke with President Trump on October 10, the same day the (Noble Peace) Prize was announced, (but) not since then,” Machado was quoted as saying.

A courtroom sketch of toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, during their first appearance in a US court was released on Monday.

The sketch shows Maduro and Flores standing before a Manhattan judge, dressed in blue and orange jail-issued shirts paired with khaki pants. Flores was seen with two bandages on her face. Both were wearing headphones to listen to a Spanish translation of the proceedings, which were conducted in English. READ MORE

Amid US military operations in Venezuela, US President Donald Trump has listed more nations where he believes US intervention is necessary. Trump has hinted time and again of a possible US takeover on Greenland.

However, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance.

Amid the ongoing US-Venezuela tensions, Sri Lanka has called on the United Nations to pursue a peaceful solution.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has vowed to return home ‘as soon as possible’.

Machado has been in hiding due to the threat to her life since the 2024 elections in Venezuela.

Maria Machado has rejected the country’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez, saying she “is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narcotrafficking.”

“In free and fair elections, we will win by over 90 percent of the votes, I have no doubt about it,” Machado told FOX news.

US President Donald Trump on Monday said the US has taken in, and will soon receive, more than $600 billion through tariffs. He stated that the policy has strengthened the country financially.

Alvin Hellerstein, the 92-year-old US judge handling the case against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, has presided over a number of notable trials during his decades on the bench.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, made their first appearance in Hellerstein’s Manhattan courtroom on Monday, pleading not guilty to narco-terrorism and other charges.

Following the Venezuela operation, Trump has doubled down on his desire to annex Greenland from Denmark.

Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro pleaded “not guilty” on Monday as he made his first appearance before a US federal court in Manhattan on drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges.

Appearing before US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, Maduro told the court he had been forcibly taken from Venezuela. “I was captured.”