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Maduro Opponent Machado Vows to Return to Venezuela, Wants an Election
A person holds up an image depicting Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, as people celebrate after the US struck Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, in Santiago, Chile. Jan. 3, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza
Venezuela‘s main opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, has vowed to return home quickly, praising US President Donald Trump for toppling her enemy Nicolas Maduro and declaring her movement ready to win a free election.
Trump appears, however, to hope for now to work with interim President Delcy Rodriguez and other senior officials from Maduro‘s government, disappointing the opposition and contributing to nervousness in Venezuela.
“I’m planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,” said Machado, 58, who escaped from Venezuela in disguise in October to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which she dedicated to Trump.
“We believe that this transition should move forward,” she told Fox News’ “Hannity” program. “In free and fair elections, we will win over 90% of the votes.”
Trump has said the US needs to help address Venezuela‘s problems before an election, calling a 30-day timeline unrealistic. “We have to fix the country first … There’s no way the people could even vote,” Trump told NBC.
SOCIALIST PARTY LOYALISTS STILL CONTROL VENEZUELA
In the interview late on Monday, her first since Maduro was captured in Caracas by US commandos, Machado did not give her location or more details on returning to Venezuela, where loyalists of Maduro‘s Socialist Party remain in power, and Machado is under investigation for inciting insurrection in the military.
To the dismay of the large diaspora – one in five Venezuelans left during an economic implosion – Trump has said Machado lacks support. The opposition, some international observers and many US allies say Machado‘s movement was cheated of victory in the 2024 election, from which Machado was banned and an ally stood instead.
The daughter of a left-wing guerrilla fighter, Rodriguez is a diehard Maduro ally who has denounced his “kidnapping” while also calling for respectful relations and cooperation with Washington.
“Delcy Rodriguez, as you know, is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco-trafficking,” Machado said, noting Rodriguez’s liaison role with allies Russia, China, and Iran.
PRAISE AND THANKS FOR TRUMP
Machado, who has galvanized an often fractured and demoralized opposition in recent years, said she would personally give Trump the Nobel Prize.
“Jan. 3 will go down in history as the day justice defeated a tyranny,” she said of Saturday’s raid.
She thanked Trump for “his courageous vision, the historical actions he has taken against this narco-terrorist regime.”
With the world’s largest oil reserves and the US as its main ally, Venezuela would become the energy hub of the Americas, restore the rule of law, open markets and bring home exiles, Machado said.
Trump has, however, been told by the CIA that Rodriguez and other senior officials from Maduro‘s government are the best bet to maintain stability, sources said.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello has been on the streets patrolling with security forces.
“Always loyal, never traitors. Doubt is betrayal!” they chanted in one of several overnight social media posts by the Venezuelan government.
Authorities have ordered the arrest of anyone who collaborated with the seizure of Maduro. The government has not given a number for those killed in the US operation, but the army posted a list of 23 names of its dead.
Fourteen media workers were briefly detained covering events in Caracas on Monday, and shots were fired on Monday night into the sky above the city, which a Venezuelan official said came from police to deter unauthorized drones.
“There was no confrontation, the entire country remains completely calm,” Vice Minister of Communications Simon Arrechider told reporters.
With nearly 900 political prisoners behind bars, according to a leading local rights group, Machado‘s Vente Venezuela movement demanded on Monday that they be released immediately as a first step toward restoring democracy.
MADURO PLEADS NOT GUILTY
Maduro, 63, pleaded not guilty on Monday to narcotics charges. He said he was a “decent man” and still president of Venezuela, while standing in a Manhattan court shackled at the ankles and wearing orange and beige prison garb.
He has long denied cocaine-trafficking allegations, saying they were a mask for imperialist designs on oil.
Venezuela‘s Attorney General Tarek Saab called on Tuesday for the US judge overseeing Maduro‘s case to recognize what he said was a lack of US jurisdiction and Maduro‘s immunity from prosecution as a head of state. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, should be freed unconditionally immediately, Saab said to reporters.
Venezuela has about 303 billion barrels in reserves of mostly hard-to-extract heavy oil. But the sector has long been in decline from mismanagement, underinvestment, and US sanctions. Production averaged 1.1 million barrels per day last year, a third of its output in the 1970s and much less than producers such as the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
With the US imposing an embargo, Venezuela‘s main oil ports entered their fifth day on Tuesday without delivering crude for state-run PDVSA’s main buyers in Asia. Venezuela‘s bonds extended a rally on investor optimism over a post-Maduro future.
WORRIED WORLD
Rodriguez, Venezuela‘s first female head of state, has wavered between angry defiance and potential cooperation with Trump. He has threatened another strike if her government displeases him.
According to the Politico news site, US officials have told Rodriguez they want to see a crackdown on drug flows, the departure of Iranian, Cuban, and other operatives hostile to Washington, and an end to oil sales to US adversaries.
They also expect her to eventually facilitate a free vote and stand down, Politico said, quoting a US official and another person familiar with internal Trump administration discussions.
Trump’s actions, the biggest US intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, have brought condemnation from Russia, China, and Venezuela‘s leftist allies.
Allies of the United States have urged adherence to international law.
“It sends a signal that the powerful can do whatever they like,” the UN human rights office said in the latest expression of international concern.
Trump has said the US is now in charge of Venezuela and will help revive its oil industry with the help of private companies.
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Lindsey Graham urges Israel not to strike Iranian oil depots even as he says he helped make war happen
(JTA) — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has called on Israel to rein in its attacks on Iranian oil infrastructure, marking a rare note of caution from a Republican lawmaker who has said he helped push the United States to join Israel in waging war against Iran.
In a post on X on Sunday, Graham praised Israel for its role in the war before adding that “there will be a day soon that the Iranian people will be in charge of their own fate, not the murderous ayatollah’s regime.”
“In that regard, please be cautious about what targets you select,” continued Graham. “Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life when this regime collapses. The oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor.”
Graham’s post linked to an Axios article that reported that the United States was alarmed by Israeli strikes over the weekend that targeted 30 Iranian fuel depots. On Monday, U.S. gas prices rose to their highest levels since 2024.
The warning from Graham, an ally of President Donald Trump and staunch supporter of Israel, comes days after the Republican hawk told the Wall Street Journal that he had played a key role in urging Trump to strike Iran.
Prior to the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, Graham made several trips to Israel where he met with members of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom he said he coached on how to lobby Trump to strike Iran.
“They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” Graham told the newspaper.
On Monday, Graham also directed his criticism at Saudi Arabia’s decision to stay on the sidelines of the campaign against Iran.
“It is my understanding the Kingdom refuses to use their capable military as a part of an effort to end the barbaric and terrorist Iranian regime who has terrorized the region and killed 7 Americans,” wrote Graham in a post on X Monday. “Question – why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?”
The post Lindsey Graham urges Israel not to strike Iranian oil depots even as he says he helped make war happen appeared first on The Forward.
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Belgian officials investigating synagogue explosion as possible act of terrorism
(JTA) — Belgian officials are investigating an explosion in front of a synagogue in Liège early Monday as a possible act of terrorism.
The explosion, which took place at 4 a.m., damaged the door of the historic neo-Romanesque synagogue and blew out the windows of multiple buildings across the street. No injuries were reported.
A range of Belgian politicians, including the prime minister and the mayor of Liège, characterized the explosion as act of antisemitism.
“Antisemitism is an attack on our values and our society, and we must fight it unequivocally,” Prime Minister Bart de Wever said in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community in Liege and across the country.”
The explosion comes amid a surge of concern about possible attacks by agents associated with the Iranian regime, against which the United States and Israel launched a war last week. Iran has a long record of supporting attacks on Jewish targets abroad, including two bombings in the 1990s in Argentina that killed more than 100 people at the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center. Now, with Iran being pummeled at home, watchdogs are warning that it might lash out through its Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, responsible for attacks abroad.
Azerbaijan said Friday that it had foiled multiple terror attacks planned by Iranian agents on Jewish sites. In London, four men were arrested last week for allegedly spying on the Jewish community for Iran, with the intent of planning attacks against the community. And a string of shootings at synagogues in Toronto has ignited concern in Canada, too.
Iranian agents have taken aim at non-Jewish targets, too. On Friday, a Pakistani man who prosecutors said had been directed by Iran’s IRGC was convicted of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump.
The attack in Liège, in the primarily French-speaking Wallonia province, comes amid a range of recent developments that have unsettled Belgian Jews, who number approximately 30,000. They include antisemitic carnival caricatures in the city of Aalst; a ban on ritual slaughter preventing the local production of kosher meat; and an ongoing row between U.S. and Belgian officials over Jewish circumcision practices. The attack also follows a 2014 shooting in which a gunman associated with the Islamic State, a rival to Iran’s Islamic Republic, shot four people to death at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
A spokesperson for the Liège police described the effects to the area as “only material damage” to the 1899 building. Rabbi Joshua Nejman told local media that he was hoping that security footage would reveal the perpetrator.
“I’m going to try to calm my heart, because it is beating faster and faster this morning,” said Nejman, who said he had been at the synagogue for 25 years.
“Liege is home to a very small but vibrant Jewish community where I personally grew up,” Eitan Bergman, vice president of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organisations in Belgium, told Reuters. “Today, the feelings among our community members are a mixture of sadness, worry and profound shock.”
Liege’s mayor, Willy Demeyer, praised the synagogue community to RBTF, Belgium’s French-language national broadcaster. He added, “We cannot allow foreign conflicts to be imported into our city.”
The post Belgian officials investigating synagogue explosion as possible act of terrorism appeared first on The Forward.
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The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life, 2025
In honor of The Algemeiner‘s 12th annual gala, we are proud to present our “J100” list — 100 individuals who have positively influenced Jewish life over the past year.