Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and other senior Maduro regime officials would prove more capable of governing Venezuela temporarily and preserving immediate stability than opposition figures should the autocrat lose power, a classified CIA intelligence analysis determined, sources familiar with the document told The Wall Street Journal.
Trump received the intelligence evaluation and shared it among a restricted group of top administration officials, two sources confirmed. Multiple sources indicated to The Wall Street Journal that this CIA analysis partially drove Trump's embrace of Maduro's vice president and rejection of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado.
The intelligence assessment illuminates Trump's refusal to back the opposition's bid for control after last week's audacious US military operation that seized Maduro and transported him stateside for prosecution, The Wall Street Journal reported. Trump arrived at the same conclusion as his first presidency: immediate Venezuelan stability requires a successor commanding military establishment and governing elite loyalty.
Trump administration officials commissioned the CIA to produce the analytical assessment, then debated its findings while considering post-Maduro scenarios for Venezuela, sources stated to The Wall Street Journal. Sources familiar with the document could not pinpoint its exact production date.
Trump's briefing on the report occurred in recent weeks, two sources confirmed.
Maduro's potential removal mechanisms went unaddressed in the assessment, which avoided advocating regime change and instead evaluated Venezuela's domestic situation assuming his hypothetical departure, sources familiar with the document explained to The Wall Street Journal.
Rodriguez and two additional top Venezuelan regime officials received mention in the intelligence report as credible interim leaders capable of maintaining order, sources stated. Sources familiar with the assessment declined naming the other officials, though Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino rank as the regime's most powerful figures alongside Rodriguez, The Wall Street Journal noted.
Control over Venezuela's police and military apparatus positions these two hardliners to derail any transition efforts, former US and Venezuelan officials stated. US criminal charges similar to those facing Maduro make cooperation with Washington highly unlikely for both men, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Edmundo Gonzalez – widely viewed as 2024's actual election victor against Maduro – and Machado would struggle establishing leadership legitimacy while confronting regime-aligned security forces, drug trafficking networks and political opponents, the CIA report concluded, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
Machado developed close Trump administration ties and repeatedly praised his confrontational Maduro policies. Trump merited the Nobel Peace Prize she received, Machado stated in October, dedicating it to him for his "decisive support of our cause."
A federal judge in New York City heard Maduro's narco-terrorism charges Monday, with the autocrat pleading not guilty after his extraction, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Late 2024 saw the CIA develop a source within Maduro's inner circle who provided location intelligence, The Wall Street Journal previously disclosed. Surveillance assets including stealth drones supplemented the agency's precise tracking of Maduro's movements, enabling the Army's Delta Force to capture him and his wife during the raid, sources familiar with the operation stated to The Wall Street Journal.
A bipartisan congressional delegation received Monday afternoon briefings from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior officials on the administration's Venezuela strategy, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Maduro's ouster without a qualified successor would probably empower competing military factions, rival politicians and criminal groups fighting for dominance within Venezuela, triggering a security breakdown, Latin America experts have consistently warned – including throughout Trump's first term – according to The Wall Street Journal.
Expecting Machado or another opposition figure to assume power qualifies as "magical realism," stated Tulane University professor David Smilde, who specializes in Venezuela. Compelling Rodriguez to initiate a power transfer represents the superior approach after Maduro's removal, Smilde stated, though the problem is that it appears "anyone in the U.S. is actively engaging in negotiations."
"The president and his national-security team are making realistic decisions to finally ensure Venezuela aligns with the interests of the United States, and becomes a better country for the Venezuelan people," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, declining to address the intelligence assessment specifically, The Wall Street Journal noted.
Conflicting narratives about Rodriguez cooperation have emerged from the Trump administration. Washington views Rodriguez, Venezuela's acting president, as a pragmatic operator. Sunday saw Rodriguez signal cooperation readiness and communicate with Rubio after initially adopting a confrontational stance, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Sunday television interviews featured Rubio explaining US plans to pressure Rodriguez into advancing American interests through a military "quarantine" intercepting sanctioned oil tankers and depriving Venezuela of oil income, according to The Wall Street Journal. Hours afterward, Trump expressed preference for direct governance without clarifying Washington's enforcement approach in Caracas.
Trump informed reporters: "We're in charge," adding: "We need total access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country that allow us to rebuild their country."
Machado's advisers and numerous American supporters experienced shock Saturday when Trump endorsed Rodriguez and dismissed the Machado-led opposition, The Wall Street Journal reported. Democratic transition leadership demands support and respect Machado "doesn't have the support or the respect within the country" to provide, Trump stated.
Public championing of Machado's opposition as the optimal successor movement came previously from Trump and his closest allies. January saw Trump publish a Truth Social post praising Machado for "peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people." Rubio – among her strongest backers who stated he conversed with her "many, many times over the years" – signed her Nobel Peace Prize nomination letter, The Wall Street Journal reported. Don Trump Jr. and additional Trump confidants regularly promoted her as Venezuela's democratic future.
Private skepticism about supporting Venezuela's opposition developed in Trump after he determined it failed delivering results during his first administration, stated Juan Cruz, who served as senior White House Latin American policy official then, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Venezuela's state oil corporation faced sweeping Trump sanctions while Maduro endured diplomatic isolation and Trump attempted sparking military rebellion. Neither armed forces nor general population rebelled, causing the strategy to collapse and confirming Trump's assessment that the opposition overpromised while underdelivering, The Wall Street Journal noted.
"Trump sees the opposition as losers, as they failed to deliver," Cruz stated. "It's an opposition that he sees as unimpressive and having come up short, so why would you just turn it over to them?"
