The Woman Who BEAT Maduro: Venezuela's Next Leader? Nobel Peace Prize Winner María Corina Machado

María Corina Machado, welcome to the All-In interview, and thank you for being here with me today. Congratulations on winning the Nobel Peace Prize 2 weeks ago.

Today, you are in hiding.

In October 2023, you won the presidential primary election in Venezuela. Last March, you were disqualified from running in the general election, so you ultimately appointed a surrogate, Edmundo González. After the presidential election, your party presented evidence claiming that you had won 69.5% of the votes, while Maduro, through the National Electoral Council, declared himself the winner with 51% of the votes.

This is the recap of a very long story about the Maduro regime and, prior to that, the Chávez regime, and their effect on the people of Venezuela, which you have tried to bring to light on the global stage. I was hoping to frame up the story for our audience, who may not know the history of Venezuela very well, by talking a little bit about the background of the country and how your childhood and youth brought you to the stage you're on today.

Just to provide a little bit of background—and forgive me for my lengthy introduction, but I think it's important for folks to understand this—the discovery of oil in Venezuela in 1914 began an economic boom that really kicked off in 1922. Today, Venezuela has proven oil reserves of 300 billion barrels, the largest proven oil reserve in the world. Saudi Arabia is number 2 at 266 billion, and the United States is at 48 billion.

Over the decades that followed the discovery of oil in Venezuela, there was initially an improvement in the economy through investment by the Seven Sisters, a group of 7 oil companies. Ultimately, there was a transition in the country to nationalize oil production, and that led to, I think, the story that brings us here today. So, María Corina, again, thank you for being here. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about your youth.

First of all, I have to thank you, because this is a unique, decisive moment in Venezuela. We've been under a tyranny that has turned into a real criminal structure for 26 years. It has turned what used to be one of the freest and richest countries in the Americas into one of the poorest, with a third of our population forced to flee. Imagine what a tragedy.

It shows that you can have huge, unique natural endowments, but that's not wealth. You need talent, institutions, and freedom in order to turn those resources into the well-being of your people.

I was born into an incredible family. I thank the Lord because we had a huge Latin American family that liked to be together, hanging around all the time. My father was an incredible industrial entrepreneur. He is perhaps the smartest, most generous, and most honest individual I've met in my life.

He taught us the responsibility that comes with our family values and the opportunities life gives you. That's why I can only imagine my life in Venezuela and in freedom. We grew up with that sense of responsibility.

To be honest, I'm part of a generation that looked at politics with rejection or even contempt. I said I would do anything in my life except politics. We thought we had inherited democracy forever; we took it for granted.

When Chávez arrived, our lives were turned upside down, and we realized that we needed to exercise citizenship if we wanted to live with freedom. That's how it all started. I never thought I would be sitting here with you talking about politics or democracy. I never thought I would be sitting on a podcast, but life takes us down strange paths.

What were the conditions in the country when Chávez came to power? What sort of life were you living? What were you seeing in the country that enabled Chávez to come to power, and what did he promise the people?

We had a period of democracy that brought Venezuela huge opportunities, including widespread education and health care. Unfortunately, we stopped short of having a truly free economy. The state controlled not only the institutions but, as you mentioned, the oil companies as well. When they were nationalized and turned over to the government, terrible incentives started being created.

More and more people felt excluded from the wealth that Venezuelan society and the country were receiving, because it was all in the hands of the state. We've never known anything but a state-controlled economy. We've never seen anything but those kinds of socialist procedures in place.

When Chávez arrived, we had gone through a political crisis. There were growing tensions and claims of corruption in the political system and the party system, and the price of oil had declined. It was around $8 a barrel.

He came with a populist narrative, offering everyone equality and revenge against all those who were guilty of ruining the country. He aligned with actors such as Fidel Castro in Cuba and other international interests to grab the huge resources Venezuela has, of course in a super-strategic geographic position.

That's how he got there, and that populist system turned into an autocratic system and then into a criminal structure.

And he came to power in 1999?

It was in 1999.

At the time, I think when he took office, oil was at around $14 per barrel. A few years later, oil spiked up to $100 per barrel.

Even less. Yes, that's true. Just to contextualize all of this, prior to his coming to power, the oil companies had been nationalized. So, to your point, the government was really the economy.

He promised this sort of equality and redistribution of value for all of the people of Venezuela. Is that what he promised, and was the economy really depressed because the oil price was down?

Yes, and he said that he would take resources from the rich and the companies and distribute them in poor neighborhoods and in the most vulnerable parts of society. In the end, we learned the hard way that this kind of socialist approach does get everyone equal—in absolute misery—because there's nothing for free in life.

You give away your choices and your decisions, supposedly to receive, but what you're actually getting is a slave situation in which the state decides for you. Only if you behave accordingly will you get what they offered. That's what we're seeing right now.

The largest oil reserves in the world are in Venezuela. I've been walking around those areas where that oil is actually beneath the ground, and you see children eating from garbage.

I think, to your point—and I was going to bring this up later—there's such a powerful lesson to be learned for the West, for America, and for Europe: socialism is slavery. I think the story that you bring to the world is one of slavery driven by this kind of socialist tyranny. There is no socialism without tyranny.

I just want to walk through that a little bit, because as Chávez came to power, oil went up to $100 a barrel. Suddenly, Venezuela's oil reserves made the country very wealthy, and he then engaged in a series of actions that some people have described to me as petro-diplomacy.

He gave away 300,000 barrels of oil per day to the Cubans at a 50% price discount in order to make the Cubans a surrogate, and to make other island nations in the Caribbean and the African island states surrogates. That's how Venezuela expressed its political influence around the world: through the power of its oil reserves, but in such a way that excluded the people from participation. It seemed to be very centralized in the government.

Maybe you could share a little bit about how people in the government and the military under Chávez lived these incredible lives of wealth and luxury while the people were impoverished. Are there any anecdotes you could share about that?

Sure. This is a result that's being tried in Venezuela and elsewhere. You get into power through elections, and then from within, you start undermining every single democratic institution.

You go against the media. You control the media. You can see this pattern in Venezuela: Chávez started by pressuring or buying media space and publicity, then buying the whole media outlets. Through censorship and changing the laws, it became very risky to speak out.

Then it went against the private sector in every single area of production. Of course, it took the military as well. All those who were the most competent individuals were put aside, and only those who were absolutely loyal to the regime were promoted.

You destroy merit, so that everybody realizes that if you want to be part of the system—if you want to work for the state, in academia, or in the military—it has nothing to do with your competence, knowledge, or talent. You have to be absolutely loyal and bow your head to the regime.

Imagine all the resources that were coming in, because you said something very important that some people don't realize. The barrel of oil was around $10 or $8 when Chávez arrived. It went up to $150 a barrel. Imagine the amount of resources.

It was all the money in the world, and they used it effectively to buy loyalty, lobby around the world, and support ideological groups all over the Western Hemisphere. These groups started getting in contact with each other.

They exchange technology, they exchange information, and they support each other in international forums. That's why they become so powerful in their different areas and countries. On the other hand, what we have seen is that democracies and democratic movements on our side of the world are very isolated. We don't help each other or support each other as we should. I think this is one of the great lessons that we learned in these 20 years.

Regarding the amount of resources, look, there are estimates that the amount Venezuela was robbed of is over $2 trillion. Imagine what we're talking about in these 26 years. It all either went to corruption, as I said, or to these kinds of obscene fortunes that these very few individuals have, while 86% of our population nowadays lives in poverty. The pensions in Venezuela are less than $1 a month, David. $1 a month.

And so, under Chávez, there was also this embracing or tie-up with the drug trade—the FARC and the ELN in Colombia. What is the alignment? What was the reason that the Chávez regime, and now the Maduro regime, aligned with the drug cartels, given the oil wealth and the international diplomatic ties because of the oil trade? Why is there also a drug tie-up, and what is the motivation, incentive, and drive there?

Well, the drug business isn't new. Actually, it started before Chávez arrived, and many individuals in the military had ties to it. But they realized it could be much more—the margins were even larger than in oil—and the greed of these individuals in these criminal structures is unlimited. It's infinite.

So they not only went into drugs and drug trafficking; they went into gold smuggling, arms smuggling, and even human trafficking. Every single criminal network in the world has converged into Venezuela, which has been turned into a safe haven for the enemies of the West and the enemies of the United States. Imagine, Caracas is 3 hours away from Miami. Having a satellite of Russia and Iran operating in the heart of the Americas is something that these regimes around the world have always dreamed of.

This includes even terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, to which Chávez and Maduro have given thousands of Venezuelans identities and passports to travel freely around the world.

So, under Chávez, GDP declined 70%. There was mass starvation, the highest crime rates in the world, and a 90% poverty rate. Much of these stories and anecdotes have been reported publicly by international organizations. You were 32 years old when Chávez came to power. Three years later, you started a civic organization called Súmate.

What were you doing when Chávez came to power professionally? What motivated you to get involved in civic engagement that carried you forward to today?

I had been working in the private auto parts and steel industries, following my father's steps. I was also involved in an NGO that took over a children's shelter for abandoned and abused children. As I say, I had never thought I would get involved in politics, but once this individual arrived, it was evident to us that he was promoting the division of our country to create tensions, to divide even families—even my own family. The degree of hatred and violence in his speech, and the way he wanted to create tensions among religions and races, made me realize that he was going to turn part of our country against the other.

A group of friends, all engineers, decided that we would work to gather signatures for a recall referendum. We thought it was going to be a super-easy task to get 6 million signatures in a few weeks. We learned the hard way that it would require a totally new kind of citizen organization. That's how Súmate, which means “join up,” finally managed to gather the signatures in just 1 day. Millions of people came out and signed them.

It's a long story. Chávez eventually committed fraud in the referendum and stayed in power, becoming more and more autocratic as the years passed by.

Were you doing Súmate full-time? Did that become your life's work at that point? And then how did you make the decision to run for the National Assembly, which was in 2011? Fast-forward 9 years after founding Súmate.

Súmate was an awakening for me and for many Venezuelans. We realized that we could not rely on political parties to exercise our citizenship, and that you cannot complain about politics if you're not willing to do your own part. That's why one day I said, “Look, I know how politics works. I don't like it, so I cannot complain if I'm not willing to take my own steps.”

I took a fellowship for a program in leadership at Yale University. It was like seeing my life from above, and I made the huge decision that I was going to go for it: I was going to run for Congress. I had no political party. I had no experience. Everything was against me. Everybody told me, “You are crazy. You are never going to win. You are never going to get support.”

Nobody was going to support someone whose family has resources, who's a woman, who's divorced, and who's not a socialist. I had every single condition to fail.

I decided that I felt it was my responsibility. I could not be afraid of it, and I trusted my own feelings. It was impressive: volunteers started contacting me, and in a matter of months, with no money whatsoever, no organization, no media, nothing, I won the primaries, and then I ran for the National Assembly. That was in 2010, and then I won the election with the highest number of votes in Venezuelan Congress history.

How much of a role did the internet play? I worked at Google a long time ago, and we always had this conversation that the internet was going to create a democratization of information—that you no longer had centralized control of information through the media, and in the case of Venezuela, that media is effectively controlled by a government that wants to stay in power. Did the internet play a role in giving you the ability to reach people around the country in 2010 and get elected?

Absolutely. And not only that: in 2010, I wouldn't have won if it wasn't through the internet. No media outlet would dare to interview me. It was a way in which we could organize because we had no resources.

But further ahead, let me tell you, I know there are so many concerns about the use of technology by bad guys and by autocratic regimes. Venezuela is a textbook case of how you get infiltrated, persecuted, manipulated, and so on. But if it wasn't for technology, we wouldn't be here at the threshold of freedom. This is something that we need to really highlight.

So you are, like all great revolutionary leaders, speaking truth to power. You have a seat at the table now. You're in the National Assembly. In March 2014, you addressed the Organization of American States about Venezuela's human rights, and a few days later you were expelled from the Assembly. Then there's all this legal stuff that happened, which we don't need to get into. Can you frame up what happened in that moment? What is your narrative on the transition where they said you could no longer be a representative there anymore?

Well, I had a previous experience just 1 year before, because we went for a presidential election and won against Maduro when Chávez died. They committed fraud, and we weren't able to prove that we had won. That was in April 2013. I went back to the National Assembly, stood up, and said, “Maduro is not the legitimate president. We won.”

Suddenly, I heard someone calling my name. I turned around, and there was this member of parliament of the Chavista regime who hit me in the face and broke my nose in 5 pieces. We were locked in Congress. I was thrown to the floor and kicked. Diosdado Cabello was watching everything. He was the person who ran the National Assembly. This was evidence that violence had gotten out of control. Imagine, you can do that on TV—it was seen on TV throughout the country and the world while they were assaulting us.

The next year, we started peaceful protests, and the regime ordered young people who were in the streets, just with flags, to be shot at. I went to the OAS, the Organization of American States, and it was the first time Maduro was accused of human rights violations internationally. As soon as I came back, they ejected me from the National Assembly and, by force, prohibited me from going back into my seat.

It was a very hard moment, but at the same time, it was a great opportunity because I realized that I needed to reach out personally to our country, create a totally new organization that promoted our ideas, and prepare for the next stage of the struggle. This was in 2014.

Can you share about the Maduro transition? On paper, Maduro seemingly wouldn't have been the natural successor to Chávez. He started out as a bus driver and then was a union leader. It's unclear from the outside what makes Maduro the selected successor to Chávez. What is it about him as a man, as a person, and his character that made him the successor to the Chávez regime?

Maduro was trained in Cuba. So it was the Cubans who chose Maduro. It was a very easy option for them: totally loyal to the communist Castro regime.

And Maduro has nothing that restricts him from exercising violence and force for his ideas. He certainly doesn't have Chávez's charisma or the degree of control over the other groups. So they were creating a group of individuals who had control of the system—the strategy, the structure that controlled the military, the financial enablers, the criminal networks, and the political sectors.

That's how he went on taking more and more control and turning Venezuela, as I mentioned before, into this safe haven of criminal activities. He himself turned into the head of these structures. When we heard about the Tren de Aragua and now about the Cartel de los Soles, the Cartel of the Suns, these are structures that we have denounced for years.

We have tried to get the world to understand that this was not a conventional dictatorship anymore. This is a very complex structure that produces obscene amounts of resources, not only for that, but also for very dangerous allies that come from very far away, such as the ones I mentioned before: Iran, terrorist groups, and so on. They turned Venezuela into one of Russia's main buyers of arms and weapons and also, I would say, one of the major strongholds of the Iranian regime abroad.

They use the Venezuelan financial system to bypass financial-sector sanctions, and they use our territory to operate freely.

And what about China? Can you share a little bit about China's relationship with the Venezuelan leadership and Maduro, and when that became a more intimate economic tie?

Venezuela turned out to be China's main debtor, with over $60 billion in debt. That accounted for all kinds of different projects that were never built. Certainly, China realized that Venezuela's natural endowments are unique—absolutely unique. It was strategic.

Nonetheless, the degree of corruption in the system is so big that China stopped funding Maduro about 7 years ago and simply is getting the oil to pay for the debts that are still pending. I believe China understands the strategic importance Venezuela has, also because of its geographic location, but has been more prudent because of the degree of corruption that they have suffered from Maduro and the regime.

But there's also the side of the intelligence, espionage, technology, and satellites from China that have been installed in Venezuela. That's a very important dimension as well.

Venezuela is a country of, I think, 28 million people. By some estimates, 8 million people have fled the country. Does that feel accurate to you, and can you provide some anecdotes of why people leave, where they go, and what it's like in the country that's causing this mass exodus of the population?

Look, we're a nation of a little over 30 million. I mean, this is a country where you have no information whatsoever. Imagine living in a country where you don't know how many people there are. You don't know the size of your debt or your GDP or inflation—nothing. It's a black box. That's why it's also a challenge in terms of what's coming up.

Roughly 9 million people have left. It is around 30% of our population. Imagine if 30% of the American people left, what it would mean. No, it's devastating because we're seeing our young people, our children, doctors, engineers, scientists, nurses, and teachers.

Of course, they go because the situation from the economic perspective is horrible. But mostly because you don't see a future in your own country, because you feel there's no possibility to survive. There are women who have left their young children behind only to sell something for them to eat, and children who have left their parents alone.

I've met so many grandparents who have not met their grandchildren yet. They cry and help me and ask me, "Please, please bring my grandchildren back." We all know that the only possibility for that to happen is for us to have a transition to democracy.

When that happens, David, on the day Maduro goes, you will see hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans voluntarily coming back. Even though they know it will be a hard moment and that they will have to work really hard, we know that unique potential. They want to be part of this.

It's much more than a political struggle for us. It's an existential struggle as a nation and also a spiritual struggle.

A lot of people will say, "Why don't they go on the streets today?" Can you talk a little bit about the intimidation of the Maduro regime and why it's so difficult for people to rise up in the way that we have seen in other revolutions historically around the world? What keeps that from happening? What are the mechanisms that are used to stay in power by the Maduro regime?

Look, we have seen that in Venezuela many times as well. I mean, we're talking about thousands of people in protests, in peaceful rallies, people going out by the tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands. But the Maduro regime, with Cuban intelligence mechanisms, has developed ways to infiltrate. Anyone who goes out is either detained, harmed, killed, or disappeared.

When we won the election last year, on July 28, thousands of people went into the streets while we were counting the votes. So, I want to tell you a little bit more ahead. In a matter of 24 hours, 2,500 people were in prison, including young people, children, and women who were even sexually assaulted and abused, just because they had gone out into the streets to peacefully claim their right for popular sovereignty to be respected.

But they went beyond that, David. They went to the houses of our activists who had been taking care of the election, who worked as witnesses, who took care of the tally sheets. And they took them away. If they weren't there, then they would grab their families—their mothers, their children, their partners.

Every single person who even posted my picture on their Instagram or X account, whatever, they would go and take them as well. It was so brutal that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights labeled it state terrorism, and the fact-finding mission of the United Nations has said those are crimes against humanity. It was so widespread and systematic that what they wanted was to terrify a society.

We've had, these last 15 months, a period of darkness as we've never seen before. I was accused of terrorism. Maduro is searching for me. He said I would spend the rest of my life in prison. Some people think it would be even worse.

All my team, which managed the campaign—this incredible campaign that took place—are either in prison or have had to leave the country. This is the moment in which fear has been imposed by brutal force. But that doesn't mean that Venezuelan society is neutralized in the country.

As we managed to organize for an incredible epic episode when we won the election, now we've been organizing underground and preparing for the day when the transition to democracy will come and people will make sure it is an orderly process.

Maduro has publicly said many times that you are a puppet of the West, that the U.S. and its allies are trying to interfere in Venezuelan politics because of their economic interests in the Venezuelan oil reserves. I want to give you a moment to respond to those claims.

I think you've done an amazing job highlighting your motivation and the on-the-ground experience, but can we counter or have a conversation about this belief, which, by the way, many have made because of U.S. involvement in Middle Eastern politics and the U.S.'s absence of involvement in politics in countries that are not oil-rich? Maybe we could talk a little bit about the importance of this for the West—not just the economic interest, but what else is motivating this and why the U.S. is interested in supporting your cause?

That claim is not very original. I mean, that's what all these guys say to anyone who speaks out, even if it's a union leader, a student, or a priest. And frankly, I couldn't care less what they say. We know what we are, what we believe, and why people trust us.

We have managed to build the strongest citizen movement in our country's history. Starting in 2023, when Venezuela looked hopeless and divided and without a chance to move ahead, I went to every single corner of my country.

Look, I went in my car because I've been banned from leaving Venezuela for over 12 years. I'm not even allowed to buy a local flight ticket. So, they thought they were hurting me, but actually they gave me the biggest opportunity to go through my country from one point to the other and to talk to people, to listen, to learn, to understand, and to get really close in terms of what we are and what we believe.

They gave me the opportunity to tear down those barriers the regime had built to divide us and to find out that this is not about left or right, rich or poor, black or white. It is about human dignity. It's about respect, solidarity, cooperation, freedom, and love—love, which is the strongest force that has brought us together.

I've seen people who were close to the Chavistas for years coming to me, crying, hugging me, and asking for forgiveness. And I said, "No, I have nothing to forgive. We have a common goal now. We have a common vision. We all want our kids back home." And that's precisely what's happening right now.

So, look, Venezuela is, for me, the country with the largest opportunities—not only for the United States and the rest of the West. Imagine. And I'm not talking about our natural endowments, which are huge. We've already addressed that, or infrastructure, or even our geographical position. It's our people, what we have endured, and the way we have come together.

I've heard recently some people talking about how, once Maduro goes out—because he will leave soon—there's a risk of civil war or unrest. Give me a break. We're talking about a country where 90% of the population wants the same thing. There are no religious differences, no racial tensions, and no social or political differences. We all want the same thing.

We have fought so hard for freedom that we are the ones guaranteeing that this will be an orderly transition. And yes, we are close to the United States' values and culture. Yes, we are. We admire a nation that has strong democratic institutions and feels proud of its achievements, its history, and its legacy. And so are we.

So, look, that kind of socialist rhetoric is useless in Venezuela nowadays. We only know socialism. Venezuela today is a country where, I believe, most people embrace open markets, respect for private property, merit, and collaboration.

I want to just talk about the election, and then I'd like to ask your view on the United States today. But let's talk about the election. Two years ago, you ran for president. You won the primary with a resounding victory on October 26, 2023. Today, you're sitting in a basement. You're not in the office of the president. Can we walk through what happened?

What was that campaign like? How did you reach the people, given that you didn't have access to the state media? And then maybe share a little bit about that primary victory and what happened afterward.

We realized, as I said, in January 2023 that we needed to get trust back in the Venezuelan people, trust in ourselves, and trust in each other. The primary had this incredible opportunity to give power to the people and not to the political parties that used to decide which candidates there were.

So, we decided to go for a primary in which the regime would not get involved. In Venezuela, in previous primary processes, the regime's electoral entity would organize the primaries, and we said, "This time, no way. We're going to have it all organized by citizens." It was a huge challenge and a great risk, and we believed the regime totally underestimated us.

They thought that perhaps 100,000 or 200,000 people might appear and vote, and that's why they let it run. When October 22 came, exactly two years ago, they came. I was a candidate. There were 10 candidates, and I thought, "Well, it's a miracle that this is happening as we're seeing it."

At midmorning, around 10:00 or 11:00, I started getting calls from all around the country saying, "We ran out of ballots." I said, "What do you mean? It's only 3 hours into the process. What do you mean, we ran out of ballots?" So many people showed up—over 3 million Venezuelans.

It was such a courageous act, David, because going out meant that you were voting for the opposition. This was huge. I'm talking about remote towns where we needed riverboats in order to get the results, and also Venezuelans around the world, because I insisted, as did many of us, that Venezuelans abroad—our diaspora—should be allowed to vote.

That day, our country came together. I am humbled. I am grateful. I got 92% of the votes, and Maduro realized that they wouldn't be able to stop me. So, they banned me from participating.

I confess to you that it was one of those really tough days in your life because it was so unfair. I had a mandate. But I could have blown everything, and I decided, "No, we have to keep going, and we're going to have to find someone who is willing to take my place."

Once again, the regime underestimated us because they accepted a 74-year-old diplomat whom nobody knew. A super-honest, loyal, intelligent, good person. No one knew who he was. This is Edmundo González.

Edmundo, exactly.

Edmundo González, our president-elect. I had a poster with his face, so I went all over the country saying, "If you want to vote for me, you have to vote for him. This is the guy."

At the same time, remember, we had over 30 elections that had progressively become more and more fraudulent. I'm sorry.

Edmundo González became your candidate in July 2024, last summer, just to be clear, right?

In May.

Okay. Yeah.

May. The elections were in July. Yeah.

Elections were in July. So, imagine, at this time nobody knew who the candidate was, and everybody knew we were facing the most fraudulent system in the world. I mean, the concept of fraud in elections that is being spread around the world was born here in Venezuela, with the electronic machines and all the stuff they've been creating around them: fear, manipulation, altering the register lists, and so on.

We realized that we needed to use technology in our favor. That's why we managed to create a legion of volunteers. We trained them without the regime noticing that we were training them. There were 5,000 sessions in person and over 300,000 people trained over the internet. We developed apps for cell phones through which we would monitor every single polling station around the country.

How many people did you recruit to this legion for ballot monitoring?

It ended up being more than 1 million volunteers, everyone with a specific task. David, we had no money. We could not print flyers or posters. You know how much our publicity budget was? Zero. We didn't pay for one ad—nothing.

When we went around the country and stayed in hotels, the regime would come the next day and close the hotel. If we stopped in the street to buy some food, they would punish the restaurant or the snack place. They blocked streets. They got our people in prison and persecuted those who were in charge of the electoral organization.

I mean, this was huge, but they turned this into an epic. Citizens decided that it was going to be their own epic, their own victory. So, we trained all these people with our diaspora. We had these apps designed, and we knew—and this is a very important part—that we had to prove our victory.

For the first time, we needed to prove the results. So, we designed a system through which we would collect the original tally sheets. We would scan them and publish them on a digitized, super-robust webpage for the whole world to see.

In order to do this, imagine we are in a country where 60% of our territory doesn't have access to the internet or even cellular phones. We needed to geo-optimize processing centers to process the physical tally sheets. We did that with mobile Starlink units and antennas throughout the country, generators, laptops, and cell phones.

Without the regime noticing it, we installed these 130 operational centers, and in less than 24 hours we were able to prove our victory with the original images of the tally sheets, which were seen and scrutinized by the whole world. They were audited by over 20 different independent technicians and universities, and they all concluded that those were the real results.

To be honest, I think we have set a new standard for electoral integrity—not only in dictatorships, but even in democracies.

The data that you shared showed that you won a resounding victory. Your party won the presidency, and Maduro declared himself the winner. Since then, he's issued a warrant for your arrest. What is next for you? What is next for the country?

Look, it's been such a long way. I have so many colleagues and friends who are currently in jail, who are very far away, or who have even been killed. I mean, this has been very painful.

But at the same time, we have grown so much. We're a different society, but we're also different and better individuals. We've learned the value of living in a democracy and being free. We've come such a long way.

We defeated Maduro in the hearts and minds of the Venezuelan people. We defeated Maduro in the ballot boxes. We defeated Maduro in the spirit of Venezuela. Now, the only thing he's got left is violence, a few top-brass individuals, and financial enablers who have terrified those in the military who are still supporting him.

But these last 15 months of resilience and resistance have created more and more pressure from within, and now, finally, we're seeing a reaction from abroad. For years, we've had to ask the world to understand that this is a criminal structure and that, in order to break it down, you need to cut the inflows of criminal money that come from drug trafficking, gold smuggling, human trafficking, and the black market in oil.

You need to cut those inflows, and that's precisely what President Trump is doing right now. We are very grateful to see this international coalition applying law enforcement to this criminal structure, which is what we need.

I mean, Maduro, for all these long years, has felt that he could disappear, kill, and torture people with absolute zero cost. But the time of his impunity has ended. I believe the regime is in its weakest position ever. They understand this is serious. There is a real threat, and we are seeing defections, betrayals, and more and more people from within the regime reaching out to us.

What we are saying is: We had offered the possibility of a negotiated transition, and now that day is close. We offer everybody who decides to step on the side of the law the opportunity to be part of this huge transformation of Venezuela.

Mhm. Can you highlight the moments of the American presidencies—the American administrations of Obama, Biden, and Donald Trump—and how they have supported the cause? What’s different today?

I do have to say that we’ve had bipartisan support, and you see that in Congress, even yesterday, because there are sensible individuals in the Senate and the House who understand that this is for humanitarian reasons, because millions of lives are at risk in Venezuela. But it’s also about the national security of the United States. I think that’s pretty well proven at this point.

But so far, the words were only statements and no actions. When you face a criminal regime, you have to understand that the way to reach peace is through freedom, and freedom requires strength. That is moral strength, spiritual strength, and physical strength. That’s what the regime is finally facing at this point.

We are very grateful to President Trump and his administration for the visionary and decisive way he has acted, calling things by their names. It requires courage. There are a lot of people who are willing to do that before.

Now we are prepared for an orderly transition. We know what we need to do in the first 100 hours and 100 days to take control of the institutions and our territory. Venezuela has been destroyed in every possible way. You see it in our economy, in our security, in our national sovereignty, and in the public services—the basic services that people require. But our people are tougher and stronger than him, and we are determined to be free.

This is going to be a rebirth. We’re going to turn Venezuela from the criminal hub of the Americas into the energy hub, the technology hub, and the democracy hub of the Americas. We will need to do that from scratch, from ruins. But we have a huge, incredible diaspora that is willing to come back.

Imagine, with all the resources we have—the energy, the capacity to produce energy, not only natural gas and hydroelectricity, but solar and so on—we can be very attractive to those who want to invest, not only in energy, but in technology, AI, and data centers. We have everything to turn Venezuela into a bright and proud nation very fast.

Before we wrap, María Corina, I’d love to ask you an important question. We are seeing a rise of interest in socialism that’s unprecedented in the history of the United States, largely fueled by what some would argue is a challenging income-growth situation and student-loan debt. It’s a very different situation from Venezuela, but many middle-class American children are finding themselves unable to progress like every generation before them in U.S. history. They cannot seem to create better lives for themselves than their parents.

As a result, we are seeing, in cities like New York, Zohran Mamdani as the favorite to become mayor. We’re also seeing presidential candidates being discussed who may have a socialist agenda and socialist interests. I want to give you an opportunity to speak to the youth of America about the lessons learned from what Venezuela has gone through with its socialist cycle, and perhaps share something that could help them think a little differently about the choices ahead for American democracy.

Yes. We went through the same experience. Twenty-six years ago, people would warn us and say, “Watch out for what socialism and communism could bring to you,” and we would always answer, “Venezuela is not Cuba. That’s not going to happen to us.” In the end, look at the disaster and devastation we had, with 9 million of our people spread around the world.

The fact is that you can only live in peace and prosperity if you have freedom and democracy. That’s our lesson. Those who offer to give you for free what you need to get on your own with hard work end up charging you with the most valuable asset you could have, which is your freedom—your capacity to decide and to make your own decisions. That’s a great lesson.

When you have the state on top of you, that means the whole society will probably be equal in misery and poverty. The American institutions, the American spirit, and the American dream—these temptations come many times, and they are good because they make societies reflect on what they have and understand that freedom and democracy are to be defended and taken care of every single day of your life.

When you lose it, it’s very hard to get it back. That’s the lesson we’re going to give to our children and our grandchildren. I believe the American people value what they have, and I hope that having so many Venezuelan people around you can also give you an idea of the threats and dangers of these systems.

María Corina, courageous speaking truth to power. I cannot think of a more powerful regime to speak truth to. I thank you for your courage and your leadership. Congratulations on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and thank you for joining me here today.

Thank you. It was a pleasure, and I look forward to hosting you in a free Venezuela, where you will see great investment, great prosperity, and also peace and freedom from Venezuela to the rest of the region. Thank you so much, David.

Thank you. I'm going all in.