Nobel Medal Gesture and U.S. Approach to Venezuela (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I presented the President of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize and I told him this, listen to this, 200 years ago General Lafayette gave Simon Bolivar a medal with George Washington on it. Bolivar since then kept that medal for the rest of his life.

[00:00:34] Speaker 2: We don't know yet what the President's reaction was to that gift. We do know he wanted the prize himself. We should note the Nobel Committee has made clear the Peace Prize cannot be shared or transferred after it is awarded by the Nobel Committee. The meeting comes as the White House says Trump stands by his assertion that Machado does not have the support necessary to lead Venezuela. Just yesterday the President called Venezuela's acting president, Delsey Rodriguez, of course Nicolas Maduro's former vice president, a terrific person following a phone call. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt says the current Venezuelan government has been extremely cooperative.

[00:01:15] Speaker 3: Secretary Rubio and the administration have been in constant communication with Ms. Rodriguez and other members of the interim government in Venezuela. They have been extremely cooperative and they have thus far met all of the demands and requests of the United States and of the President.

[00:01:34] Speaker 2: In Caracas, Delsey Rodriguez delivered her State of the Union, State of the Nation address. She urged her country to wage a diplomatic battle with the U.S. saying quote, if I ever have to go to Washington as acting president I will do so standing tall, walking, and not crawling. Kristen Holmes is live at the White House. Kristen, is it clear to you what the next steps are for Venezuela? If Trump is still saying Machado doesn't have the support and that he likes Delsey Rodriguez, seems like they're happy with the status quo for now?

[00:02:10] Speaker 4: Well for now certainly. I mean we know one of the things that President Trump and the administration was trying to focus on was stability in the administration in Venezuela. That's part of the reason that they had kind of turned their focus to Rodriguez after the capture, actually before the capture of Maduro for this idea that one, they could have her in place and then put the screws to her. We know that they've kept the armada that is in the Caribbean with essentially weapons pointed at Venezuela just off the coast. We know that we've kept sanctions or at least some of them in place. These are all forms of negotiating tactics to put the screws to Rodriguez to get her to do what the United States wants. Now you heard Carolyn Leavitt in the briefing today. She would not give any sort of a timeline on elections or a shift to democracy in Venezuela. So it's really unclear what this looks like in terms of steps. All we really know right now is this step or phase one, which is this kind of stability period where you see President Trump, the United States trying to rebuild the oil infrastructure and continue to use basically the same regime. Maduro is gone, but Rodriguez is essentially a part of Maduro. She was part of his inner circle. She was his vice president. But to put an enormous amount of pressure on and Rodriguez seems to be playing ball with the White House in a way that Maduro was not willing to. So right now, does seem as though they are happy with the status quo.

[00:03:39] Speaker 2: It's quite a change given most of the government remains from the Maduro regime. Kristen Holmes, thanks so much. Richard Haass is President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. He's also the author of the substack newsletter, Home and Away. Richard, good to have you. Good to be here. So I first have to ask you this, given your long history in diplomacy, is there any precedent or anything close to a winner of a prize, a Nobel Prize or similar, feeling pressure to give it to the U.S. president to curry favor?

[00:04:14] Speaker 5: I think that's a rhetorical question, Jim. I'm not familiar with anything like it. It was quite a gesture on her part. And I think it's her attempt to bring the president over, given the conversation he just had, to where he sees a meaningful role for the political opposition in Venezuela.

[00:04:32] Speaker 2: Is it clear to you that he sees a meaningful role? Because listening to Caroline Leavitt today from the White House podium, she repeated that Trump doesn't quite believe Machado has the support. He said that he likes Delcy Rodriguez. She's being extremely cooperative. They seem to be prioritizing stability of oil supplies getting out of there. And there's no timeline for elections. Is the status quo going to stick around for a while?

[00:05:02] Speaker 5: I would think so. This administration, when you think about it, is not about promoting democracy. That's not on their bingo card. They are interested in access to oil. I also think they have a legitimate concern that if they try to interject Mrs. Machado and basically say she has to be the next leader or you need to have elections right away, that could trigger civil conflict. You have a lot of guns and a lot of small groups running around, and my guess is they'd see her as a threat. The real question to me is whether the president opens up a middle ground between the status quo, working with essentially the old regime, minus Maduro, and something that would try to usher in democracy quickly, and whether he's willing to open up some type of a gradual process.

[00:05:51] Speaker 2: You've written in your recent piece that the U.S. doesn't just lack the means to run Venezuela, as the president claims to be doing right now, but also the appetite. Explain what you mean.

[00:06:04] Speaker 5: Well, to run a country, you've got to have a real physical presence, military presence. You've got to be there politically, on the ground, economically. I mean, think about it. What we did in Japan and Germany after World War II, more recently what we tried to do in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, nation building, the idea of shepherding a country through a political transition, you don't do that from offshore. You don't do that by telephone. You've really got to be there. You've got to rebuild institutions. You've got to lead by the hour. And I just don't see this administration making that investment. A lot of its base would be violently opposed to that type of a foreign or international commitment. So again, the president wants the benefits of that kind of a policy without the costs. And it's just life doesn't work that way.

[00:06:49] Speaker 2: You cite, of course, previous examples of failed U.S. efforts at nation building, Afghanistan and Iraq. It seems like the administration's making the argument that they, for instance, are not making the mistake that the U.S. did in Iraq of taking apart all the institutions there, de-Bathification, all that stuff you're very familiar with. I mean, is there any wisdom in that argument?

[00:07:15] Speaker 5: There is. What we did in Iraq was was was wrong. We disbanded the military. We disbanded all the institutions. So we had no one to work with. This administration now is going to the other extreme rather than nation building. This is just a simple leadership change. And what they're hoping is this is enough. But as you heard, say, from the leaders of some of the the oil companies, Jim, this is not a recipe for long term stability. And if you want American companies to make long term investments, you've got to give them more confidence. That's why I think what the administration is doing might be OK for now, but it won't be OK permanently.

[00:07:51] Speaker 2: The examples that you'll hear from some of the administration supporters setting aside Iraq and Afghanistan are places like Panama or Granada, let's be frank, much smaller than Venezuela. But they'll say, well, look what we did there. It worked there. It can work here.

[00:08:07] Speaker 5: We had unique relations in places like Panama because of the canal. We also had twenty five thousand, twenty six thousand troops there. We had an American serviceman there killed and so forth. So we had stakes there. We had a presence there. So because it worked, there is not an argument it will work here. It's just the opposite. If we're not willing and we're not able to establish that kind of a relationship with Venezuela, there's no reason to expect we're going to have that degree of influence.