‘You can’t have an election’: Trump squashes Venezuela democracy hopes, says he must ‘nurse the country’ to ensure correct result

Venezuela yearns for democracy. Or so we’re told. It’s not like Venezuelans got much of a say about their former president Nicolás Maduro being kidnapped by Delta Force and paraded through New York like a captured Gaul through ancient Rome.

But onwards and upwards! It’s time for Venezuela to look for the silver lining in all this. Sure, it certainly appears that their natural resources are about to be plundered by American oil companies, but at least they’ll get to have elections again.

Well, hold your horses, Venezuela. Like it or not, your current de facto president is Donald Trump, and he will decide whether you’re ready to make the correct choice in a democracy. And right now, he suspects not. When asked about when Venezuelans could elect a new leader, he firmly kicked that can down the road. Speaking to NBC, he explained:

Trump told NBC News an election in Venezuela would not happen any time soon:

“We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote. No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have to nurse the country back to health.” pic.twitter.com/YIOIEWKbaY

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 6, 2026

“We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote. No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have to nurse the country back to health.”

Well, there you have it. Presumably, the Trump administration has concluded that if they held an election in the near future, those silly and misguided Venezuelans might vote for another socialist again. Then we’d be right back where they started!

Viva la CIA!

Nope, the better option is to install a puppet placeholder government that can efficiently root out any remaining pockets of left-wing sympathy, crush union power, and launch an all-consuming media blitz that will tell Venezuelans that the root of all their problems is actually… I dunno, uh, Guyanese immigrants?

Once this process is complete and Venezuela has been “nursed back to health”, only then do you allow an election, at which every effort will be made to ensure that Venezuelans make the “correct” choice on their ballots.

It should be underlined that none of this is new for South America. It’s pretty much the CIA playbook for the region from the 1950s onwards. Sure, you might point out that the process generally leaves millions of miserable people living under a torture-happy tyrant. But, importantly, they’re America‘s torture-happy tyrant.