On Monday, after hosting the historic first Shield of the Americas Summit in Doral, Fla., Donald Trump stopped by a Venezuelan restaurant, El Arepazo, on his way to the airport to fly back to Washington, D.C. He was greeted with cheers and applause and chants of “Trump!” and “USA!” The crowd loved him, as they often do during these types of appearances, but this one was, potentially, a bit more meaningful.
THE PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT 🇺🇸
Quick stop at El Arepazo restaurant in Doral, Florida before heading back to Washington D.C. pic.twitter.com/saqfkw7700
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 9, 2026
Sometimes referred to as “Dorazuela,” the city of Doral has one of the largest Venezuelan diaspora communities in the United States. The president owns a hotel here — it’s where the summit, which was focused largely on rallying like-minded Latin American leaders to come together in the name of regional security and combating the cartels that plague every country in the Western Hemisphere, took place just days before.
At the restaurant, Trump shook hands, chatted with staff and patrons, and even took some Venezuelan food back on the plane for his staff. Those who were there said it was one of the warmest political appearances they’ve ever seen, which doesn’t surprise me. Whether they live in Doral or Caracas or somewhere else in the world, the Venezuelan people love Donald Trump. On January 3, he did more for that country than almost anyone else probably ever has.
But the language he uses leaves many wary and understandably so. The constant praise of Delcy Rodríguez and saying she’s doing a good job is tough to hear when you know that she’s just as bad and every bit as much as corrupt as Nicolás Maduro was. She’s a communist by birth and was radicalized even further when her Marxist father died in police custody after being arrested for kidnapping a business executive from the United States. After his death, she vowed to go into politics as her own form of personal vengeance.
“Delcy Rodríguez knows how to present herself as a ‘moderate,'” Venezuelan opposition-aligned lawyer Estrella Infante told me earlier this year. “That is why she has always handled international negotiations. She has extensive global connections, and many actors prefer her continuity because it protects their interests. That is her power.” (For what it’s worth, those global connections are largely our adversaries — Iran, China, Russia, Cuba, etc.)
The thing is, Delcy has a little help with maintaining her “moderate” reputation, and it comes from the United States. If it’s not the New York Times literally calling her a “moderate” and writing a glowing review of what a great leader she’d be, it’s what Venezuelan lawyer and writer Emmanuel Rincón calls the “hidden lobby war against Venezuela’s democratic transition.”
In a recent op-ed in the Washington Times, Rincón asserts, “Alongside the brave men and women who genuinely fight to end the socialist dictatorship, there has emerged a growing ecosystem of false opposition figures, fake activists, opportunistic lobbyists and self-proclaimed ‘conservatives’ who have found a way to profit from Venezuela’s tragedy.”
Here’s more:
From Day 1, certain groups have tried to persuade President Trump and key conservative policymakers that the leadership chosen by Venezuelans themselves is ‘inconvenient,’ ‘too radical’ or ‘not viable,’ and that accommodation with elements of the dictatorship would somehow be more ‘pragmatic.’
That is not pragmatism; it’s surrender disguised as strategy.
The money behind these efforts is murky. Not every initiative aimed at weakening Venezuela’s democratic transition is openly coordinated, but the outcome is the same: Divide the opposition, fracture its leadership, and weaken the possibility of a real break from socialism.
The motives vary. For some, it is money. For others, political ambition. For others, ego. For a smaller but destructive group, resentment and envy.
Thankfully, despite the language he uses publicly, Trump hasn’t been persuaded. Thankfully, he has the man in U.S. politics who knows more about Venezuela than anyone else whispering in his ear: Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Rubio’s fingerprints have been all over this entire operation, and they were long before everyone else was paying attention, long before Maduro was sitting in the Metropolitan Detention Center. For every time Trump praises Delcy, Rubio or another cabinet member comes behind him and reminds us all that she’s temporary. Trump himself even said at the Shield of the Americas Summit that he’s only praising her because she’s doing what he’s telling her to do, and that if she wasn’t, that wouldn’t be the case.
You see it in the media notes released by the State Department. You see it in the legal paperwork at the Department of Justice.
“Our engagement is focused on helping the Venezuelan people move forward through a phased process that creates the conditions for a peaceful transition to a democratically elected government.”
Delcy is not running the show. The United States is. As I like to say, the Marxist woman didn’t suddenly see the light on January 3 and decide to become a proud partner of Trump and U.S. ally. She saw the writing on the wall. She saw Delta Force. She saw a United States president with the ability and cajones to do whatever the heck he pleases to make the world a better place. She just agreed to be the puppet, the pawn who would handle everything to save her life.
Despite the fact that most of us understand this now, much of the U.S. media and some of the other people within that “hidden lobby war” seem determined to make Delcy the focus, when the real story is María Corina Machado. The U.S. mainstream media has spent two months now pretending that she’s irrelevant, that Trump and Rubio have “jilted” her or cast her aside. But again, if you get past the rhetoric and look at the physical evidence, you see a different story.
Since escaping Venezuela and accepting her Nobel Peace Prize in December, Machado has been in Europe and the United States, meeting with political leaders, business leaders, investors, and think tanks. She’s the one who is advocating for Venezuela. She’s the one securing the country’s future. She’s the one who has impressed Trump and countless others.
As I reported over the weekend, it was rumored that she’d had a secret meeting with Trump, Rubio, and Susie Wiles last Friday. Machado herself has since confirmed it. They meeting lasted nearly two hours, and she’s expected to return to the White House in the weeks to come for more talks. That doesn’t sound like someone who has been jilted to me.
Over the weekend, after the Shield of the Americas Summit, Trump was having dinner with some of his team and actually pulled out his phone and called Machado. “Everyone loves you here,” he said as he put her on speaker. And on Wednesday, she was a guest of honor as the new Chilean president, José Antonio Kast, was sworn in. Delcy didn’t receive an invitation. Video from the event shows Machado meeting with everyone from everyday Venezuelans who gathered outside to the numerous leaders and heads of state who were in attendance, and she was treated like a freaking rock star. She may have even overshadowed Javier Milei, and that’s hard to do.
Machado was the favorite to become Venezuela’s president in 2024 before Maduro banned her from running. Polls out of there today show that nothing has changed. If anything, people are losing their fear and speaking up even louder in support of her. She’s the most popular politician in a county where the opposition is more united than anything I’ve ever seen. She’s ready to return home and have elections as soon as possible, so that her country can be free and its people safe and prosperous.
That’s exactly why the bad actors that Rincón mentioned are ramping up their game. “…if one’s true objective is to end the socialist dictatorship, then attempting to sabotage the opposition’s bridge to the White House or to American conservative allies is politically irrational,” he said. “A country that cannot consolidate around strong leadership during a liberation struggle becomes easy prey not only for its internal oppressors but also for foreign actors seeking leverage. Dividing leadership strengthens the regime.”
“Those who cannot understand this, who prioritize headlines, applause or proximity to power over liberation, are either profoundly naive or knowingly serving the interests of the regime. Experience suggests the latter is far more common than the former,” he continues. “Today, Venezuela stands closer to freedom than at any other point in recent years. That is not accidental. It is the result of alignment between Venezuelan democratic forces and American leadership that understands the stakes: Socialism in our hemisphere is not merely a Venezuelan issue; it is also a strategic threat.”
He’s exactly right. None of this would have happened if Machado hadn’t rallied her country. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t connected with Rubio, and he hadn’t taken a vested interest. And none of this would have happened if Donald Trump was not president and hadn’t hired Rubio as his secretary of State. And the only way it will continue toward liberty is if these connections continue. And they will.
“First, we must have a country. Only then can we argue about how to govern it,” Rincón says, and he’s right about that, too. You don’t undo decades of dictatorship overnight. But when that time comes to decide how to govern it, there is no doubt in my mind that Machado will be the one to lead, while Delcy, if she’s lucky, lives out her years somewhere across the Atlantic.
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