Oil, power, and a forgotten election: Miami Republicans pivot on Venezuela

Political amnesia: The day Edmundo González became optional

Well, that didn’t take long.

South Florida’s elected leaders have perfected the political pirouette — and Venezuela just watched them spin 180 degrees without missing a beat.

After months — months — of pounding their chests, waving flags, and solemnly declaring Edmundo González Urrutia the rightful president of Venezuela, Miami’s Republican delegation has suddenly developed amnesia. Convenient, selective, election-year amnesia. González, they once insisted, won the 2024 election. Period. End of story. Democracy spoken. Maduro illegitimate.

Until Trump said otherwise.

Now, the same politicians who demanded the world “uphold the results” are defending the president’s sidelining of Gonzalez and suggestion that María Corina Machado lacks the “respect” to lead Venezuela — and worse, are quietly endorsing a plan to wait for new elections while the U.S. collaborates with figures pulled straight from Maduro’s inner circle.

New reality, they call it. Ladra calls it a coup d’etat with the help of the U.S. military. Our local electeds — including all the Cuban American delegates — are basically supporting an overthrow. Un golpe de estado.

In a Miami Herald accounting — which reads like a slow-motion walk-back — South Florida’s congressional Republicans are now aligning themselves with Trump’s refusal to treat González as Venezuela’s head of state, despite the fact that the U.S. itself previously dismissed Maduro’s claims of victory as illegitimate.

Congressman Carlos Giménez, speaking to the Herald after a celebratory press conference in Doral, admitted he has “mixed feelings” about recognizing González, largely because Machado — who won the opposition primary — was barred from running. That argument might have landed a year and a half ago. But on Saturday, Giménez was still tweeting about the need to “uphold the result” of last year’s election. By Monday, the tune had changed.

“That was a year and a half ago,” he shrugged. New reality.

Funny how reality always seems to change right after Trump speaks.

“Today we are all Venezuelans,” he said, while Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar nodded vigorously behind him and said “yes” a lot. “Eight million Venezuelans emigrated during his tyranny… and hopefully many of them will go back,” Gimenez said.

Did everyone in Doral hear that? You’re not wanted or needed here anymore.

Salazar followed suit, defending Trump’s dismissal of Machado by suggesting the opposition simply hasn’t been able to operate inside Venezuela — as if repression were a character flaw. She assured voters that Machado will be president someday. Not now. Not when it counts. But someday. A promise that costs nothing and commits no one.

Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart basically had a public crash out when a reporter asked about the change of support for Corina Machado.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. First, are you talking to us,” Diaz-Balart asked a journalist from W Radio Colombia at the press conference, before completely deflecting and looking totally guilty of abandoning Corina Machado. “When have we ever not supported her?”

He didn’t even let the journalist explain that by supporting Trump’s position that Corina Machado lacked the support to be a leader in a new Venezuela, Diaz-Balart was, indeed, abandoning his previous position on her.

“No, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait,” he said, again, sounding like a guilty 10-year-old caught smoking in the bathroom and trying to get out of it. “Look, these are serious issues. Do not. Put. Words in my mouth.” Really. That’s how he said it.

“You said ‘us,’ you said ‘us,’ you said ‘us,’ okay? I will not tolerate putting words in my mouth or my colleagues’ mouths. We have been consistent from day one. And I am convinced there’s going to be a transition. We already talked about that. And I’m convinced that when there are elections, whether they are new elections or there’s a decision to take the old elections, the last elections, that the next democratically elected president of Venezuela is going to be Maria Corina Machado.”

The only problem with that is that the old elections, the last elections, gave the presidency to Edmundo Gonzalez, not Corina Machado. In fact, she supports Gonzalez. And these jokers have not been consistent about anything since ever. They go where the Republican or MAGA truck takes them. They were all about Corina Machado just months ago — until she won the Nobel Peace Prize that their orange leader coveted so badly.

But you know who they didn’t mention at the press conference? Any of the U.S. citizens being detained either illegally or under questionable circumstances in Venezuela. That includes James Luckey-Lange, a 28-year-old U.S. citizen from Staten Island who the U.S. has said is wrongfully detained. The son of the late musician Diane Luckey, who went by the stage name Q Lazzarus, was traveling across South America and entered Venezuela in early December 2025. His last contact with his family was on Dec. 8 before he planned to fly home. Reports say he is being held by Venezuelan counterintelligence.

There are two other U.S. citizens detained, and some reports suggest that Aidel Suarez, a Cuban-born permanent U.S. resident, has also been detained. The are also three Venezuelan-Americans with dual nationality being held. U.S. officials are skeptical of the charges against them.

Also ignored at the press conference, which was at a Cuban American restaurant: The 900+ Venezuelan political prisoners that are known to be in detention, according to mulitple human rights agencies, although some are being held in undisclosed locations, with undisclosed conditions. No demands about their release? Probably because this is not about freedom.

Meanwhile, Trump — who did not utter the word “democracy” once during his oil-heavy press conference — spoke vaguely about elections happening “at the right time.” On Air Force One, he doubled down on ambiguity. Venezuela, apparently, will vote when Washington decides the timing is convenient.

Machado, for her part, called immediately for González to assume command as president after Maduro’s capture. Instead, Trump announced plans to work with Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president — a move Rubio rushed to reframe as “pragmatic.” No recognition, he said. Just dealing with “people who can make changes.”

That same Rubio then dismissed the 2024 election altogether, insisting Venezuela has yet to have “real elections.” Which is remarkable, considering how often Florida Republicans cited that very election to justify sanctions, speeches, and endless Miami photo ops.

And let’s not forget: Venezuela’s own Constitution calls for an election within 30 days if a president becomes permanently unavailable. Maduro hasn’t been legally removed. In fact, he appeared in federal court Monday, declaring himself the “constitutional president” and pleading not guilty to drug trafficking charges.

The whiplash is real. And, perhaps, an opportunity for opportunists in government.

Miami-Dade Commissioner Natalie Milian Orbis must have thought for a moment she was former commissioner Kevin Cabrera — who she was appointed to replace when he was tapped as U.S. Ambassador to Panama — when she issued a statement that landed in Ladra’s inbox at 7:47 a.m. Saturday, just four hours after the extraction.

“The apprehension of Nicolás Maduro is a historic turning point and a warning to every criminal socialist regime that brutalizes its people and exports terror,” Milian Orbis said in the statement. “Accountability comes, and consequences are real. As Venezuelan freedom leader María Corina Machado has said, ‘Hasta el final.'”

Um, she still hadn’t gotten the memo from President Donald Trump that Machado is persona non grata, which he said hours later at a press conference from Mar-A-Lago.

Milian characterized Venezuela as a “criminal enterprise” exporting drugs, violence and corruption for almost three decades. “fueling chaos that harmed American communities and destroyed families.

“Here in Miami–Dade, this is not theoretical. We know Venezuelans who fled repression, left everything behind, and came here to work, rebuild, and live without fear. Their stories expose the truth about socialism. It is not an idea or a slogan. It is a system dictators use to seize power, crush dissent, and destroy nations.”

And, yet, she was okay with taking away their Temporary Protected Status and deporting them?

“Under the leadership of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the United States acted decisively against narco terrorist networks and the regime that protected them. I commend the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces and US law enforcement who executed this mission with precision and resolve,” Milian Orbis said.

“To the Venezuelan people fighting for liberty, you are not alone. To the enemies of freedom in Havana and across our hemisphere, take notice. Your days are numbered.”

Well, that’s doubtful: Cuba doesn’t have vast oil reserves.

Only one member of South Florida’s delegation seems willing to say what everyone was saying just days ago. Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz insists the 2024 results should stand — that nearly 70% of Venezuelans voted for González and that the transition should begin with the leaders voters already chose.

That position, once bipartisan, now looks downright radical.

Machado’s allies, boxed in by geopolitics, are trying to soften Trump’s remarks, suggesting his comments were misunderstood, misheard, mistranslated. They’re clinging to hope that the U.S. might still recognize González — even as South Florida Republicans quietly abandon that very idea.

In Miami, this isn’t just foreign policy. It’s personal. This delegation represents the largest Venezuelan diaspora in the country — people who didn’t forget who they voted for, who they marched for, who they were told was legitimate.

But their elected leaders? They forgot fast.

Because in the end, principles are flexible. Elections are optional. And yesterday’s “rightful president” becomes today’s inconvenient footnote the moment power changes hands.

Ladra has seen this before. The flags change. The talking points change.

Only the opportunism stays exactly the same.

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Carlos Gimenez, Donald Trump, Maria Elvira Salazar, Mario Diaz-Balart, Venezuela

Oil, power, and a forgotten election: Miami Republicans pivot on Venezuela added by Ladra on January 6, 2026
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