Trump's Meeting with Venezuela's Interim President

This Tuesday, President Trump meeting Venezuela's

interim president at the

UN General Assembly for the first meeting since Maduro's

capture back in January. It comes as the administration

finalizes a major oil deal with Venezuela as they work to

bring down gas prices. GOP Senator Bernie Moreno sits on

the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and he joins us now.

Welcome, Senator. So let's get right into this.

Um, there's a possibility, we don't know for sure,

but there's a possibility

that when the president goes to the UN, President Trump goes to the UN General

Assembly, he could do a, a, a set aside meeting,

right? A pull aside meeting with the interim

dictator of Venezuela,

Delcy Rodriguez. If you were advising President Trump,

would you advise him to

take that meeting? Um, or would you say, "No, better not," because

she's so disliked, despised by, um, so many Venezuelans?

Well, she's not a legitimate leader of

Venezuela.

She was part of the Maduro regime. She's responsible for the murder of

thousands and thousands of innocent Venezuelans.

She has no credibility in her home country.

Obviously, she's, uh, uh, been somebody who does exactly what we

tell

her to do, uh, in the case of, uh, uh, the last

few months since we've liberated Venezuela.

Uh, but I would caution President Trump she's

not our friend.

Uh, she's somebody who will tell us what we

wanna hear but doesn't always follow

the instructions that she, uh-

Yeah

... commits to or the, or the things that she says she's gonna do.

Yeah, I wanna talk about the deal, but let's first talk about what happened

this

past week in Venezuela. Um, we did liberate Venezuela, and

yet it appears that the infrastructure of repression is

still in place. An opposition leader, not Maria, somebody else,

um, came back into the country, and he was immediately, um, arrested,

and then there was such an outcry that somebody, I don't know if it

was Marco or

somebody, um, demanded he be released.

But what does that tell you about what's happening, um, with

that repression infrastructure inside of Venezuela

that that even happened?

Well, it tells you that what they're trying to, uh, b- uh,

buy their time.

Uh, th- this is obviously a brutal regime. Delcy was at the center of all this.

Uh, Cabello is another one. Maduro is the one guy that's in jail.

Uh, but look, the President understands this.

Uh, we obviously need them to do the things

that they're doing, and w- it's

only been eight or nine months. In that eight or nine mir- month period of

time-

Right

... we've brought enormous amount of

investment into Venezuela, are getting it on

the right track. But again, I go back to what I said earlier, Rachel,

uh, Delcy's

no friend of the United States, and we should be very,

very careful in dealing with

her.

Yeah, it seems like she, um, ha- still hates the United States.

She's probably just waiting out for Trump to leave.

So then let's talk about this deal and its, and its legitimacy since it's

being made with a communist who hates us, uh, who doesn't have legitimacy with her

own people. Um, do you think that the deal is in any

jeopardy in the future because of that?

And then, um, wouldn't it be better to have,

to have this deal

with a legitimate leader? Like, why not call for elections and,

and, and see who gets elected? I predict it would probably be Maria

Corina,

but wouldn't that bring more legitimacy?

'Cause a lot of people are concerned about this deal.

They say there's not a lot of transparency.

There's not a lot of input from the Venezuelan people.

Um, so what do you say?

Well, it's definitely a phenomenal deal for the

people of Venezuela, and more

importantly from our perspective, for the people of the United States.

But to your point, absolutely, uh, we need to have elections in

Venezuela. Obviously, they're not ready for elections today,

but I think

it's extremely important to set a date.

I've suggested July 24th of next year.

That's Simón Bolívar's birthday.

Uh, previous elections had it being Chávez's

birthday.

As you know, uh, Simón Bolívar was the liberator of

Venezuela and Latin America.

Yes.

And President Trump is the modern liberator of Venezuela.

Yes.

So what a more-

Maria said that

... fitting day to have it.

Yeah, Maria Corina-

Yeah, so July 24th

... said that.

Let's go.

Yeah, Maria, Maria-

July 24th.

Yeah, Maria Corina, when she gave him his Nobel Prize,

said he was the modern-day

Simón Bolívar. Um, you're saying-

Yeah

... that you think the president should call

for elections on, on th- on

his birthday, um, which would be, what, in June or July?

Uh, Simón Bolívar's birthday was July 24th, so let's do it

July 24th-

Yeah

... of 2027. Set that date so everybody can shoot for that

date to get things done.

One last question. The Wal- uh, Maria Corina Machado spoke with the Wall

Street

Journal. She says that she plans to return to Venezuela in

order to

campaign for whenever those elections are. Do you think she should do so?

And if so, when-

Well, she's a free-

... should she return?

Uh, she should go back whenever she feels

it's, uh, she wants to go back.

I mean, she's a free person. It'll certainly test, uh, the regime's,

uh,

grip on power. You know, they've gotten dramatically unpopular

since the

earthquake. The, if not for the US, Venezuela would be completely

a nonexistent nation. And, uh, Delcy, again, I think is,

uh, somebody who smiles and waves for the cameras,

tells us what we wanna hear.

But ultimately, uh, she's trying to bide her time, uh, to,

hoping that there'd be some crazy Democratic administration

that would restore

socialism in Venezuela. It's not gonna happen.

I think setting that election date is the most important thing we can do.

But it's also important for ev- everybody to understand,

had President Trump not

acted, Venezuela would be a completely failed

nation.

So the ab- absolute opportunities for the people of

Venezuela and for the

United States with this oil deal are immense, but we need to

have that election date.

All right. Senator Bernie Moreno, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

You got it.