WASHINGTON, Jan 6 – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that Venezuela will not hold elections in the next 30 days.
The remarks came two days after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was taken from the capital of Caracas by U.S. forces.
“We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News.
Trump identified a number of his team members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Vice President JD Vance, who will help oversee U.S. intervention in Venezuela.
Trump added that his administration may subsidize efforts by U.S. oil companies to invest in and rebuild Venezuela’s energy infrastructure, noting that the process could be completed in less than 18 months.
“I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money,” Trump 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.”
Trump denied that the United States is at war with Venezuela.
“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,” the US President said.
Earlier on Monday, Maduro, who was arraigned in New York on charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to import cocaine, pleaded not guilty, saying he remains the leader of his country even as Vice President Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as acting president.
Trump said Rodriguez has been cooperating with U.S. officials.
Trump said on Sunday night that the United States is “in charge” of Venezuela, and that in the short term, he needs Rodriguez to provide the United States with “total access,” especially access to Venezuela’s oil.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez demanded the “immediate release” of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores during a session of the National Defense Council broadcast by state television channel VTV, calling Maduro “the only president of Venezuela” while describing the U.S. action in her country as “a savage attack.”
