Rubio responds to Machado return: Can’t ‘street-protest your way into a democracy’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a warning to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Monday, without explicitly naming her after the exiled Nobel Peace Prize winner returned to her home country.

“You’re not going to street-protest your way into a democracy,” Rubio told reporters, according to Axios.

He also praised her return, saying it was based on “the U.S. supported reconciliation talks which has already seen hundreds of political prisoners freed and hundreds of political opposition figures return from exile.”

Machado vowed to run for president if elections are held next year, telling other opposition leaders in Panama that she will remain committed to Venezuela’s transition of power and to holding free and fair elections.

A White House source told the outlet that the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and subsequent historic oil deal with his interim successor, Delcy Rodríguez, mark “the top foreign policy achievement[s] of this administration, and if the progress we made gets undone and Machado is a spoiler, nobody wins.”

The administration has publicly backed ruling-party loyalist Rodríguez, with President Trump saying Machado lacks support among the South American nation’s population while the interim leader wants to “make Venezuela great again.”

But Rubio told reporters this week the country must have elections and that the White House will not allow the nation’s government to stall until Trump leaves office in January 2029. He added that Rodríguez would have to declare the presidency vacant, triggering an election to be held in six months.

The secretary of state said he will oversee Venezuela’s transition as long as he’s in his job.

“Best-case scenario, I’m in this job for two more years and two months,” Rubio told reporters, according to Axios. “So, I clearly intend to see this thing well in advance of the time I leave.”

The top U.S. diplomat noted that Caracas must “change the infrastructure of the elections … quickly under timelines that we’ve established,” warning further that anyone attempting to interfere with this process is “doing great harm to Venezuela.”

The Trump administration has looked to move Venezuela away from the left-wing regime installed by former President Hugo Chávez, a military leader who led an unsuccessful coup against the government. He was first elected in 1999 and served non-consecutively until his death in 2013, leaving an opening for his vice president, Maduro, to succeed him.