On Thursday, Venezuela's "acting president" Delcy Rodríguez held a regime-sponsored event for young people, "Gran Encuentro con la Juventud Venezolana" (Great Meeting with Venezuelan Youth), during which she got up on stage in front of a crowd, flashing peace signs and wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and made a lot of big promises to the country's younger generations. It was giving "How do you do, fellow kids?" vibes.
I assume this bit of propaganda was meant to counter the country's brave and growing youth opposition movement that has been standing up to the regime in recent weeks —marching, protesting, calling for elections and the release of political prisoners, and even getting in Delcy's face and shouting her down without fear.
But what it turned into was some sort of groveling fest, because the little anti-United States communist woman stood on that stage and carried on and on and on about how much Venezuela loves the U.S. and Donald Trump and how we're all great friends and partners and how if the U.S. would just end the blockades and sanctions, their country would be prosperous again. (Sorry, Delcy, I think Cuba's already played out the "it's the fault of the U.S blockade and not years of communism" card.)
What's even worse is that Nicolás Maduro, Jr. stood on stage behind her, clapping, cheering, and nodding along as if a few short weeks ago, his "friend and partner" Trump didn't pluck his daddy from his bed and put him in a New York detention center. But to be honest, Nicolásito has always given me big, dumb buffoon vibes.
Here's the video. It's in Spanish, but you can at least see what I'm talking about:
Ver @nicmaduroguerra aplaudiendo a Delcy Rodríguez, la que entregó a su padre, mientras dice que Trump, el que bombardeó a su padre y lo apresó, es su amigo y socio, es todo lo que usted necesita saber sobre la dignidad de esta cuerda de cucarachas. pic.twitter.com/GtDKwiIxvV
— Emmanuel Rincón (@EmmaRincon) February 27, 2026
But all the peace signs and "friend and partner" of Donald Trump rallying cries in the world can't hide the fact that this is still a corrupt, communist regime, with or without Maduro. That didn't change over the course of the last two months, and the signs are there.
For example, the regime raided the home of Laura Acosta, opposition leader María Corina Machado's long-time assistant, this week. The so-called Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace, Diosdado Cabello, who is a wanted man in the U.S. himself to the tune of $25 million, continues to threaten the opposition despite the largely worthless "amnesty law" that was passed last week. And there are still hundreds of political prisoners detained. There's also the fact that the regime's attorney general, Tarek Saab, resigned last week, which looked like great progress at first, but he was quickly appointed as the "acting ombudsman."
The news out of the country hasn't been all bad this week, though. The regime suspended 19 Maduro-era oil/gas production-sharing contracts, for example. Moves like this make it look like Delcy is cooperating, but this is her doing what Trump and Marco Rubio tell her to do. She talks a big game, but she's still their pawn.
Even so, many people on our side don't like it, nor do they like the language Trump is using to talk about Delcy and how well she's doing in her "new role." Fox's Rachel Campos-Duffy stirred things up a bit on Friday morning when she mentioned that the Trump administration is getting "too cozy" with Delcy and the regime, and that every time the president says something positive about her, he loses points with voters in South Florida.
Trump administration is getting too cozy with communist Delcy Rodriguez… She can’t be trusted. Every time President Trump says he’s working great with her, he drops five points in South Florida, where people know the dangers of communism. pic.twitter.com/HW7LCB2q4w
— Rachel Campos-Duffy (@RCamposDuffy) February 27, 2026
I'll admit that I don't like the language either, but I maintain that it's all optics and part of the way Trump operates. It doesn't actually mean anything. When I want to know the truth, I look to what's actually happening vs. what is said. I also look to the various members of the Trump administration who are advising the president, particularly Marco Rubio.
On Wednesday evening, as he was leaving Saint Kitts and Nevis, a reporter asked Rubio about elections in Venezuela, and he made some good points, but he assured us that the goal is free and fair elections, even if we still don't have a timeline.
"Well, I don’t know if we’d set an artificial timeline. The important part is just, if you think about it logically, it’s hard to have elections where many of the people that may want to participate in have been in jail or are still overseas," Rubio said. "So, I do think that as we enter this recovery phase, which I think we’ve done a pretty good job working with the interim authorities on the stabilization phase. You have not seen mass migration, you have not seen civil war, you have not seen violence; on the contrary, you’ve seen some real stability on the ground and you’ve seen a growing in productivity among their key sectors."
He continued:
I think now you enter into this – we’re increasingly entering into this phase of recovery, and part of that is a national reconciliation. So there have been very positive steps taken. Hundreds of political prisoners have been freed, the infamous prison Helicoide has been closed. You are – those are all very positive. You’ve seen an amnesty law pass. There was actually a real debate in their national assembly over the law and even amendments filed to it and so forth. These are all very positive. They’re not enough, but they’re positive, and I think that begins to create the groundwork for civil society there to function.
To have elections, you need to have a number of factors. You need to have political parties that are formed. You need to have political movements. You need to have a media environment that allows people to campaign and get the word out. All of these things have to be in place, and you need to have candidates that can run. And so I think it begins by getting – a lot of the people that were in jail were in jail because they were candidates or they – because they were supporting candidates or because they were involved in their politics. So you have to have a real civil, political society in order to have elections, and that begins, in the case of Venezuela, by the amnesty law, by the freeing of political prisoners, and by the ability of Venezuelans abroad who want to participate in the country’s political life to return.
There are other factors that people need to consider. As an example, in order to have a real election, you will need to account for how Venezuelans living abroad can vote. Are there consulates set up where they can come in and vote? Because those were big polling places in the past, and in fact, Chávez prohibited consular voting at one point, and so did Maduro, because they were losing those votes big time, as you can imagine.
And here's the important part (emphasis mine):
So there – there is a pathway here. We’re not even nine weeks since Maduro’s capture. I think life in Venezuela today is not good enough, but it is substantially better than it was nine weeks ago, where this could have gone in a very different direction. And frankly, a lot of the so-called experts on many of your outlets were predicting this was going to be catastrophic and the whole thing’s going to fall apart and it’s going to descend into chaos, and that has not happened. But we’ve got to key on top of it. It has to keep moving in this direction. The trend line is good, but it needs to be sustained. This is still a process of recovery, and then you can move into that period of transition to something.
In the end, here’s the bottom line: For Venezuela to achieve its potential, which means to attract the kind of investment it needs to truly rebuild its economy and achieve its potential, it will need to legitimize its government through an election. They know that.
That tells me everything I need to know. The Trump administration does not see Delcy as the endgame.
If free and fair elections were held today, there's no doubt that Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader María Corina Machado would win. The country is largely united around her. I've actually never seen an opposition so cohesive. When Rubio mentions people who want to participate being overseas, this is what I feel he's talking about to some extent. She and much of her team can't even get back into the country right now, so to hold elections right now would be pointless.
One of my favorite Venezuelan writers, Emmanuel Rincón, posted something on X today that also summed it up. "President Trump looks out for the interests of the United States, not those of Venezuela, and that is completely rational and valid," he said. "Along those lines of thought, we must position ourselves. The president has been and will be a great ally, as long as it aligns with the interests of the United States, but it falls to the Venezuelan side to set the agenda that will generate that connection."
Ultimately, having María Corina Machado and her party leading Venezuela is in the best interests of both of our countries and would lead to the most aligned and best potential partnership. As I've said countless times, taking Maduro and leaving his right-hand men in charge would have been a waste of U.S. time and resources. I do not believe our president and secretary of state are that dumb or corrupt.
Interestingly, the president was asked about Cabello being wanted in the United States earlier on Friday when he flew to Texas. "Do you want to see him facing charges here in the United States?" the reporter asked.
"We'll take a look at it," Trump responded. I have a feeling Diosdado must not sleep well at night.
By the way, I'd planned for this to be a Venezuela-only update, but during that same event, Trump also said something about Cuba that I felt was worthy of a mention.
"The Cuban government is talking with us, and they're in a big deal of trouble, as you know. They have no money, they have no anything right now... and maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba," he said. He added that he'd been hearing about Cuba since he was a little boy, and how everyone wanted a change. He says he could very well see that happening.
.@POTUS: "The Cuban government is talking with us, and they're in a big deal of trouble, as you know. They have no money, they have no anything right now... and maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba... We have people living here that want to go back to Cuba..." pic.twitter.com/VrnzsXjO0v
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 27, 2026
A friendly takeover of Cuba? I've been around long enough to know that sometimes the president says things that require a bit more explanation, but he did mention that Rubio is in "high-level" talks with someone inside the country — as I've been reporting, there are rumors that Rubio is currently in talks with Raúl Castro's grandson and his team possibly even met the younger Castro on Wednesday.
So what does this mean? A 51st state? Turning it into a U.S. territory? A Venezuela-style makeover? Whatever it is, I'll take it.
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