The Republican congresswoman from Florida María Elvira Salazar described the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, as "a necessary evil for now" in an interview with the program Face the Nation on CBS, days before the anticipated meeting between Rodríguez and President Donald Trump in New York.
The statement is surprising coming from one of the most critical voices of chavismo in the U.S. Congress: Salazar had previously accused Rodríguez of having led the Venezuelan secret police and of being partly responsible for the country's destruction.
In an interview with host Margaret Brennan, Salazar justified his pragmatic shift by framing it within Trump's hemispheric strategy: "Trump has forced the bad actors to create the platform for the good actors to enter," he stated.
According to the congresswoman, Rodríguez is necessary at this stage to stabilize Venezuela and pave the way for a democratic transition. "Delcy is just a necessary evil for now to stabilize," she said bluntly.
Salazar also referenced recent statements from Secretary of State Marco Rubio regarding a phase of "recovery and transition" in Venezuela, and emphasized that the United States is "in the business of bringing freedom and democracy to its neighbors."
The congresswoman also expressed confidence that the process will culminate in fair elections: "I am sure that soon we will be able to hold new and fair elections with international observers, and once again, we will have fulfilled our mission of bringing democracy and freedom to the Western Hemisphere."
In the same interview, Salazar stated that he spoke directly with President Donald Trump after posting a controversial video last week in which he claimed that his immigration policy had gone "too far" and that many Hispanics felt "betrayed."
The representative for District 27 in Florida described the exchange as "fantastic" and stated that Trump was "very courteous" and "very receptive."
The meeting between Trump and Rodríguez is scheduled for Tuesday, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, as confirmed by the U.S. ambassador to the organization, Mike Waltz. It will be a brief and informal contact—without sitting delegations or a formal agenda—and would represent the first in-person meeting between a U.S. president and a Venezuelan leader in over eleven years.
Rodríguez assumed the acting presidency of Venezuela on January 5, 2026, two days after U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro. Since then, she has become the main interlocutor of chavismo with Washington.
Salazar's stance has notably evolved in just a few weeks. At the end of August, she criticized the oil agreement between Trump and Venezuela —described by the president as the largest in history, with 65,000 million barrels of proven reserves— and labeled Rodríguez as "the wrong person to make this deal," although she later softened that position.
In May 2026, the congresswoman had directly warned Rodríguez that she should not try to deceive Trump, in a tone very different from that of this Sunday.
The White House confirmed the Trump-Rodríguez meeting on Friday, making the Tuesday gathering the immediate backdrop for Salazar's statements on Face the Nation.
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