Rodríguez says Maduro still president after Trump vows US control

Ke­jan Haynes

Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez said Nicolás Maduro re­mains the coun­try’s on­ly pres­i­dent, re­ject­ing US as­ser­tions of au­thor­i­ty af­ter Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said Wash­ing­ton would “run” Venezuela fol­low­ing Maduro’s cap­ture.

“There is on­ly one pres­i­dent of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Mo­ro,” Ro­dríguez said dur­ing an emer­gency meet­ing of the De­fence Coun­cil of the Na­tion, hours af­ter Trump out­lined the US po­si­tion dur­ing a press con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton.

Ro­dríguez de­scribed the cap­ture of Maduro and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res, as an “il­le­gal kid­nap­ping” and ac­cused the Unit­ed States of pur­su­ing regime change to gain con­trol of Venezuela’s oil, min­er­al and nat­ur­al re­sources. She said the op­er­a­tion vi­o­lat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al law and Ar­ti­cles 1 and 2 of the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter.