CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s opposition supporters have long hoped for the day when Nicolás Maduro is no longer in power — a dream that was fulfilled when the U.S. military whisked the authoritarian leader away. But while Maduro is in jail in New York on drug trafficking charges, the leaders of his repressive administration remain in charge.

The nation’s opposition — backed by consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations in the U.S. — for years vowed to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But U.S. President Donald Trump delivered them a heavy blow by allowing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume control.

Meanwhile, most opposition leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, are in exile or prison.

“They were clearly unimpressed by the sort of ethereal magical realism of the opposition, about how if they just gave Maduro a push, it would just be this instant move toward democracy,” David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for three decades, said of the Trump administration.

The U.S. seized Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores in a military operation Saturday, removing them both from their home on a military base in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. Hours later, Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and expressed skepticism that Machado could ever be its leader.

“She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country,” Trump told reporters. “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”

Ironically, Machado’s unending praise for the American president, including dedicating her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump and her backing of U.S. campaigns to deport Venezuelan migrants and attack alleged drug traffickers in international waters, has lost her some support at home.

The rightful winner of Venezuela’s presidential election

Machado rose to become Maduro’s strongest opponent in recent years, but his government barred her from running for office to prevent her from challenging — and likely beating — him in the 2024 presidential election. She chose retired ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia to represent her on the ballot.

Officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner mere hours after the polls closed, but Machado’s well-organized campaign stunned the nation by collecting detailed tally sheets showing González had defeated Maduro by a 2-to-1 margin.

The U.S. and other nations recognized González as the legitimate winner.

However, Venezuelans identify Machado, not González, as the winner, and the charismatic opposition leader has remained the voice of the campaign, pushing for international support and insisting her movement will replace Maduro.

In her first televised interview since Maduro’s capture, Machado effusively praised Trump and failed to acknowledge his snub of her opposition movement in the latest transition of power.

“I spoke with President Trump on Oct. 10, the same day the prize was announced, not since then,” she told Fox News on Monday. “What he has done as I said is historic, and it’s a huge step toward a democratic transition.”

Hopes for a new election

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday seemed to walk back Trump’s assertion that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela. In interviews, Rubio insisted that Washington will use control of Venezuela’s oil industry to force policy changes, and called its current government illegitimate. The country is home to the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves.

Neither Trump nor Rodríguez have said when, or if, elections might take place in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s constitution requires an election within 30 days whenever a president becomes “permanently unavailable” to serve. Reasons listed include death, resignation, removal from office or “abandonment” of duties as declared by the National Assembly. That electoral timeline was rigorously followed when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, died of cancer in 2013.

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally who traveled with the president on Air Force One on Sunday, said he believes an election will happen but did not specify when or how.

“We’re going to build the country up – infrastructure wise – crescendoing with an election that will be free,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters.

But Maduro loyalists in the high court Saturday, citing another provision of the constitution, declared Maduro’s absence “temporary” meaning there is no election requirement. Instead, the vice president — which is not an elected position — takes over for up to 90 days, with a provision to extend to six months if approved by the National Assembly, which is controlled by the ruling party.

Challenges lie ahead for the opposition

In its ruling, Venezuela’s Supreme Court made no mention of the 180-day limit, leading to speculation that Rodríguez could try to cling to power as she seeks to unite ruling party factions and shield it from what would certainly be a stiff electoral challenge.

Machado on Monday criticized Rodríguez as “one the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco-trafficking … certainly not an individual that can be trusted by international investors.”

Even if an election takes place, Machado and González would first have to find a way back into Venezuela.

González has been in exile in Spain since September 2024 and Machado left Venezuela last month when she appeared in public for the first time in 11 months to receive her Nobel Prize in Norway.

Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory in Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario, said the Trump administration’s decision to work with Rodríguez could harm the nation’s “democratic spirit.”

“What the opposition did in the 2024 election was to unite with a desire to transform the situation in Venezuela through democratic means, and that is embodied by María Corina Machado and, obviously, Edmundo González Urrutia,” he said. “To disregard that is to belittle, almost to humiliate, Venezuelans.”

Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a Danish territory.

Tensions escalated after the White House said Tuesday that the “U.S. military is always an option.” President Donald Trump has argued that the U.S. needs to control the world’s largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned earlier this week that a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of NATO.

“The Nordics do not lightly make statements like this,” Maria Martisiute, a defense analyst at the European Policy Centre think tank, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “But it is Trump, whose very bombastic language bordering on direct threats and intimidation, is threatening the fact to another ally by saying ‘I will control or annex the territory.’”

The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined Frederiksen in a statement Tuesday reaffirming that the mineral-rich island “belongs to its people.”

Their statement defended the sovereignty of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark and part of NATO.

The U.S. military action in Venezuela last weekend has heightened fears across Europe, and Trump and his advisers in recent days have reiterated a desire to take over the island, which guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.

“It’s so strategic right now,” Trump told reporters Sunday.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenland counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested a meeting with Rubio in the near future, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland’s government website.

Previous requests for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.

‘This is America now’

Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor of military operations at the Royal Danish Defense College, said an American takeover would not improve upon Washington’s current security strategy.

“The United States will gain no advantage if its flag is flying in Nuuk versus the Greenlandic flag,” he told the AP. “There’s no benefits to them because they already enjoy all of the advantages they want. If there’s any specific security access that they want to improve American security, they’ll be given it as a matter of course, as a trusted ally. So this has nothing to do with improving national security for the United States.”

Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last June to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil. It widened a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish airbases in the Scandinavian country.

Rasmussen, in a response to lawmakers’ questions, wrote over the summer that Denmark would be able to terminate the agreement if the U.S. tries to annex all or part of Greenland.

But in the event of a military action, the U.S. Department of Defense currently operates the remote Pituffik Space Base, in northwestern Greenland, and the troops there could be mobilized.

Crosbie said he believes the U.S. would not seek to hurt the local population or engage with Danish troops.

“They don’t need to bring any firepower. They don’t to bring anybody.” Crosbie said Wednesday. “They could just direct the military personnel currently there to drive to the center of Nuuk and just say, ‘This is America now,’ right? And that would lead to the same response as if they flew in 500 or 1,000 people.”

The danger in an American annexation, he said, lies in the “erosion of the rule of law globally and to the perception that there are any norms protecting anybody on the planet.”

He added: “The impact is changing the map. The impact I don’t think would be storming the parliament.”

‘Greenland is not for sale’

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he spoke by phone Tuesday with Rubio, who dismissed the idea of a Venezuela-style operation in Greenland.

“In the United States, there is massive support for the country belonging to NATO – a membership that, from one day to the next, would be compromised by … any form of aggressiveness toward another member of NATO,” Barrot told France Inter radio on Wednesday.

Asked if he has a plan in case Trump does claim Greenland, Barrot said he would not engage in “fiction diplomacy.”

While most Republicans have supported Trump’s statement, Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, have criticized Trump’s rhetoric.

“When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” their statement on Tuesday said. “Any suggestion that our nation would subject a fellow NATO ally to coercion or external pressure undermines the very principles of self-determination that our Alliance exists to defend.”

Geir Moulson in Berlin and Mark Carlson in Brussels contributed to this report.

Reagan lived for years in Southern California, having attended Los Angeles Valley College and getting his start in talk radio in the L.A. area. His popular politics-steeped talk radio show broadcast from various studios over the years, including KIEV in Glendale and stations in the San Diego area.

Michael Reagan’s second and decades-long marriage was to his wife Colleen, with whom he had two children. They resided for many years in Sherman Oaks. His married his first wife, Pamela Gail Putnam, in 1971, but the marriage lasted only a year.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, located in Simi Valley where the former president’s library and museum are based, announced his death in a post on the social platform X on Tuesday, calling him “a steadfast guardian of his father’s legacy.”

For decades, Michael maintained a close relationship with the Reagan Library, and faithfully attended the Feb. 6 birthday party honoring his father as well as other foundation events.

“Whether escorting guests through the Library, engaging in heartfelt conversations in the Museum Store, or lingering long after events had concluded, Michael never measured his time—only the meaning of each interaction,” a statement from the foundation said. “He took genuine joy in speaking with visitors who shared their admiration for his father, ensuring that every person felt seen, heard, and connected to President Reagan’s enduring story.”

In a letter on the foundation’s site, Reagan said he was most proud of his father’s “dedication to individual liberty and global democracy and the positive impact these values had upon our nation and our world.”

“We lost an American hero, a faithful son and a devoted father and grandfather this week,” Andrew Coffin, vice president and director of the Reagan Ranch, wrote in a statement posted on the website for Young America’s Foundation. Reagan often worked with the organization, which is geared toward young conservatives, Coffin said.

Reagan died following a battle with cancer, according to Coffin.

Reagan was a contributor to the conservative Newsmax television network and was known for his popular talk radio program, “The Michael Reagan Show.”

Reagan’s wife, Colleen, and children, Cameron Reagan and Ashley Reagan Dunster, issued a statement calling him “a beloved husband, father, and grandpa.”

“Michael was called home to be with the Lord on Sunday, January 4th, surrounded by his entire family in Los Angeles, California,” the statement said. “Our hearts are deeply broken as we grieve the loss of a man who meant so much to all who knew and loved him.

“I met Michael when my son was attending school at St Mel’s Catholic School in Woodland Hills in 2014,” said Victor Franco, a partner at California Strategies, a public affairs and government relations consulting firm. “He was very generous in fundraising at the school, offering tours of the Reagan Ranch and participating in school events. He would even speak to kids at the school’s career day.”

Franco added: “While Michael had the pedigree of the Reagan family and his father being president, you’d never know that when chatting with him. Michael was a regular guy to myself and the other dads at the school. He was always chatting with the dads at our BBQ or chili cookout events. Michael was our “taste tester”– making sure the BBQ was just right. He was a good man.”

Reagan was born to Irene Flaugher in 1945 and adopted just hours after his birth by Ronald Reagan and his then-wife, actor Jane Wyman.

The young Reagan followed in his parents’ footsteps.

After attending Arizona State University and Los Angeles Valley College, Reagan took up acting, playing in television shows including “Falcon Crest,” and he spent nearly two decades as a conservative radio talk show host, weighing in on politics, trends and culture.

In two autobiographical books titled “On the Outside Looking in” and “Twice Adopted,” he told of, at times, a difficult childhood, which included coming to terms with his adoption and his journey of faith.

Reagan penned several others, including “Lessons My Father Taught Me” published in 2016, where he detailed lessons learned growing up the son of Ronald Reagan.

Throughout his life, Reagan raised money and worked for charities, using powerboat racing as a means of fundraising for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Statue of Liberty Restoration Fund. Reagan sat on the advisory board for Mixed Roots Foundation, which focuses on the foster care and adoption in the U.S. and globally.

Reagan served as chair of the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation board for three years, working on the same disease his father succumbed to in 2004.

As president and chair of the Reagan Legacy Foundation, he championed the heritage of his father’s impact. The conservative former president was known for working to scale back government and devoting his presidency to winning the Cold War.

Douglas Elmets, a communications consultant in Sacramento who worked in the Reagan White House, described Michael Reagan as an “affable and engaging” figure who both celebrated his father and pushed to assert his own identity.

“He had his own family and mission, and unlike many relatives of presidents, he didn’t try to latch on or take advantage,” Elmets said. “But he would take phone calls and respond to emails from people I don’t think he knew well just because he was the president’s son, to carry on that legacy.”

In 2015, Elmets said, Michael Reagan was instrumental in helping raise money to install a now-iconic statue of President Reagan in the State Capitol in Sacramento — a tribute to the president’s tenure as a former governor.

“Michael Reagan was very supportive and used his platform and his radio show to talk about it,” Mr. Elmets said. The statue, funded entirely by private donations, remains a popular attraction for visitors to the Capitol building. “At his core, he was both a member of that family, but also someone whose own name carried weight.”

Staff writer Jill Stewart, The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this report.

As the Trump administration continues to investigate a series of alleged fraud schemes at Minnesota day care centers run by Somali residents, social media users are falsely citing a Craigslist ad as evidence of such deceit.

The ad, which is no longer live, said a day care center in Minneapolis’ Ventura Village neighborhood was hiring 20 child actors for three days to pose as attendees while it is vetted by the state. It noted the children would be paid $1,500 per day.

But the ad was a prank. It is not proof of fraud in Minnesota.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: A Craigslist ad seeking child actors to legitimize a Minnesota day care center is proof of alleged fraud perpetrated by Somali residents.

THE FACTS: This is false. The ad, which was posted Jan. 1 in Craigslist’s Hennepin County, Minnesota, section for general labor jobs, was bait for an online prank show, its cohost Joey LaFleur told The Associated Press.

“The show’s called Goofcon1 and it is a funny show,” LaFleur said. “We do pranks and stuff like that.”

He added the show received a “ton of responses” to the ad and said he and his two cohosts will be doing a live show Saturday where they will call people who expressed interest.

Screenshots of the ad were used in social media posts on multiple platforms, cited as proof of fraud at Minnesota day care centers. The posts gained tens of thousands of likes, shares and views.

“BREAKING – A Craigslist ad seeking child actors for a daycare in Minneapolis’ Hennepin County has been discovered, with the poster requesting 20 children to act as clients while the state observes them to determine whether it’s a legitimate daycare,” reads one X post sharing the ad.

A man in a TikTok video called the ad “100% serious.” The video was viewed approximately 14,300 times.

LaFleur said that in addition to being a prank show, Goofcon1 wants to protect against predators and call out conservatives who “don’t care about fact checking.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ended his bid for a third term Monday amid President Donald Trump’s relentless focus on the fraud investigations. Also Monday, the Trump administration said it’s planning to tighten rules for federal child care funds.

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute announced his death in a post on the social platform X on Tuesday, calling him “a steadfast guardian of his father’s legacy.”

“Michael Reagan lived a life shaped by conviction, purpose, and an abiding devotion to President Reagan’s ideals,” the foundation said.

His cause of death was not immediately announced.

Reagan was a contributor to the conservative Newsmax television network and was known for his talk radio program, “The Michael Reagan Show.”

Reagan was born to Irene Flaugher in 1945 and adopted just hours after his birth by Ronald Reagan and his then-wife, actor Jane Wyman.

The young Reagan followed in his parents’ footsteps.

After attending Arizona State University and Los Angeles Valley College, Reagan took up acting, built his syndicated radio show and authored several books, including two about his personal journey titled “On the Outside Looking in” and “Twice Adopted.”

Throughout his life, Reagan also focused his time on several charities, raising money in powerboat racing and serving as chair of the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation board for three years.

Ronald Reagan, who was known for trying to scale back government and devoting his presidency to winning the Cold War, died in 2004 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Michael Reagan pushed his father’s ideas forward as chair of the Reagan Legacy Foundation.

Michael Reagan’s second marriage was to Colleen Stearns, with whom he had two children.

BENSALEM, Pa. (AP) — A suburban Philadelphia shop selling President Donald Trump-themed merchandise that became a magnet for die-hard supporters announced it’s closing its doors, six years after opening.

The Trump Store, which sells hats, flags, T-shirts and other items in hotly politically contested Bucks County, posted on social media that its storefront will be closing at the end of the month.

Owner Mike Domanico said in a phone interview Tuesday that he’s closing the store because he’s focusing on another business, selling firearm targets and other items at gun shows, and he’s semi-retired. But the closure is also an acknowledgement that business has slowed down.

“The store has kind of run its course,” he said. “You know, it’s been six years and the elections are over. Trump’s not gonna be in another election, even though he’ll be part of it.”

The store sells Trump 2028 gear despite the president being constitutionally prohibited from running in 2028. Trump has said it’s “too bad” he can’t run, though he’s also handed out Trump 2028 souvenirs at the White House.

“That’s just to get people riled up,” Domanico said.

The Facebook post announcing the store’s closure attracted gloating comments from apparent Trump skeptics.

“Are you no longer winning?” wrote one commenter. Another said: “Trump must be doing wonders for the economy.”

Domanico said there was a time when he’d respond to all the comments, but no longer.

“No matter what the president does, they hate him no matter how good anything is,” he said.

Dave Russell, 81, is a longtime Trump supporter and was at the shop when it opened in 2020 to buy a Trump for Veterans hat. In a phone interview Tuesday, he said he wasn’t surprised the shop was closing.

“Because most of the stuff they sell was to promote Trump. He’s already in this last term. You can’t do much more for him than he’s already gotten,” Russell said.

Bucks County is often viewed as a crucial bellwether in presidential elections. Trump narrowly carried the county over Kamala Harris in 2024 on his way to winning back Pennsylvania as he did in his first victory in 2016.

Asked if he’d go back for any final sales items, Russell laughed and said no. “I am so loaded up with Trump stuff. I don’t need anything.”

MIAMI (AP) — In 2017, as political outsider Donald Trump headed to Washington, Delcy Rodríguez spotted an opening.

Then Venezuela’s foreign minister, Rodríguez directed Citgo — a subsidiary of the state oil company — to make a $500,000 donation to the president’s inauguration. With the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro struggling to feed Venezuela, Rodríguez gambled on a deal that would have opened the door to American investment. Around the same time, she saw that Trump’s ex-campaign manager was hired as a lobbyist for Citgo, courted Republicans in Congress and tried to secure a meeting with the head of Exxon.

The charm offensive flopped. Within weeks of taking office, Trump, urged by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, made restoring Venezuela’s democracy his driving focus in response to Maduro’s crackdown on opponents. But the outreach did bear fruit for Rodríguez, making her a prominent face in U.S. business and political circles and paving the way for her own rise.

“She’s an ideologue, but a practical one,” said Lee McClenny, a retired foreign service officer who was the top U.S. diplomat in Caracas during the period of Rodríguez’s outreach. “She knew that Venezuela needed to find a way to resuscitate a moribund oil economy and seemed willing to work with the Trump administration to do that.”

Nearly a decade later, as Venezuela’s interim president, Rodríguez’s message — that Venezuela is open for business — seems to have persuaded Trump. In the days since Maduro’s stunning capture Saturday, he’s alternately praised Rodríguez as a “gracious” American partner while threatening a similar fate as her former boss if she doesn’t keep the ruling party in check and provide the U.S. with “total access” to the country’s vast oil reserves. One thing neither has mentioned is elections, something the constitution mandates must take place within 30 days of the presidency being permanently vacated.

This account of Rodríguez’s political rise is drawn from interviews with 10 former U.S. and Venezuelan officials as well as businessmen from both countries who’ve had extensive dealings with Rodríguez and in some cases have known her since childhood. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from someone who they almost universally described as bookishly smart, sometimes charming but above all a cutthroat operator who doesn’t tolerate dissent. Rodríguez didn’t respond to AP requests for an interview.

Father’s murder hardens leftist outlook

Rodríguez entered the leftist movement started by Hugo Chávez late — and on the coattails of her older brother, Jorge Rodríguez, who as head of the National Assembly swore her in as interim president Monday.

Tragedy during their childhood fed a hardened leftist outlook that would stick with the siblings throughout their lives. In 1976 — when, amid the Cold War, U.S. oil companies, American political spin doctors and Pentagon advisers exerted great influence in Venezuela — a little-known urban guerrilla group kidnapped a Midwestern businessman. Rodriguez’s father, a socialist leader, was picked up for questioning and died in custody.

McClenny remembers Rodríguez bringing up the murder in their meetings and bitterly blaming the U.S. for being left fatherless at the age of 7. The crime would radicalize another leftist of the era: Maduro.

Years later, while Jorge Rodríguez was a top electoral official under Chávez, he secured for his sister a position in the president’s office.

But she advanced slowly at first and clashed with colleagues who viewed her as a haughty know-it-all.

In 2006, on a whirlwind international tour, Chávez booted her from the presidential plane and ordered her to fly home from Moscow on her own, according to two former officials who were on the trip. Chávez was upset because the delegation’s schedule of meetings had fallen apart and that triggered a feud with Rodriguez, who was responsible for the agenda.

“It was painful to watch how Chávez talked about her,” said one of the former officials. “He would never say a bad thing about women but the whole flight home he kept saying she was conceited, arrogant, incompetent.”

Days later, she was fired and never occupied another high-profile role with Chávez.

Political revival and soaring power under Maduro

Years later, in 2013, Maduro revived Rodríguez’s career after Chávez died of cancer and he took over.

A lawyer educated in Britain and France, Rodríguez speaks English and spent large amounts of time in the United States. That gave her an edge in the internal power struggles among Chavismo — the movement started by Chávez, whose many factions include democratic socialists, military hardliners who Chávez led in a 1992 coup attempt and corrupt actors, some with ties to drug trafficking.

Her more worldly outlook, and refined tastes, also made Rodríguez a favorite of the so-called “boligarchs” — a new elite that made fortunes during Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution. One of those insiders, media tycoon Raul Gorrín, worked hand-in-glove with Rodríguez’s back-channel efforts to mend relations with the first Trump administration and helped organize a secret visit by Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican, to Caracas in April 2018 for a meeting with Maduro. A few months later, U.S. federal prosecutors unsealed the first of two money laundering indictments against Gorrin.

After Maduro promoted Rodríguez to vice president in 2018, she gained control over large swaths of Venezuela’s oil economy. To help manage the petro-state, she brought in foreign advisers with experience in global markets. Among them were two former finance ministers in Ecuador who helped run a dollarized, export-driven economy under fellow leftist Rafael Correa. Another key associate is French lawyer David Syed, who for years has been trying to renegotiate Venezuela’s foreign debt in the face of crippling U.S. sanctions that make it impossible for Wall Street investors to get repaid.

“She sacrificed her personal life for her political career,” said one former friend.

As she amassed more power, she crushed internal rivals. Among them: once powerful Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami, who was jailed in 2024 as part of an anti-corruption crackdown spearheaded by Rodríguez.

In her de-facto role as Venezuela’s chief operating officer, Rodríguez proved a more flexible, trustworthy partner than Maduro. Some have likened her to a sort of Venezuelan Deng Xiaoping — the architect of modern China.

Hans Humes, chief executive of Greylock Capital Management, said that experience will serve her well as she tries to jump-start the economy, unite Chavismo and shield Venezuela from stricter terms dictated by Trump. Imposing an opposition-led government right now, he said, could trigger bloodshed of the sort that ripped apart Iraq after U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein and formed a provisional government including many leaders who had been exiled for years.

“We’ve seen how expats who have been outside of the country for too long think things should be the way it was before they left,” said Humes, who has met with Maduro as well as Rodríguez on several occasions. “You need people who know how to work with how things are not how they were.”

Democracy deferred?

Where Rodríguez’s more pragmatic leadership style leaves Venezuela’s democracy is uncertain.

Trump, in remarks after Maduro’s capture, said Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado lacks the “respect” to govern Venezuela despite her handpicked candidate winning what the U.S. and other governments consider a landslide victory in 2024 presidential elections stolen by Maduro.

Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy to Venezuela during the first Trump administration, said it is impossible for the president to fulfill his goal of banishing criminal gangs, drug traffickers and Middle Eastern terrorists from the Western Hemisphere with the various factions of Chavismo sharing power.

“Nothing that Trump has said suggests his administration is contemplating a quick transition away from Delcy. No one is talking about elections,” said Abrams. “If they think Delcy is running things, they are completely wrong.”

Russian officials indicated in 2019 that the Kremlin would be willing to back off from its support for Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela in exchange for a free hand in Ukraine, according to Fiona Hill, an adviser to President Donald Trump at the time.

The Russians repeatedly floated the idea of a “very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and Ukraine,” Hill said during a congressional hearing in 2019. Her comments surfaced again this week and were shared on social media after the U.S. stealth operation to capture Maduro.

Hill said Russia pushed the idea through articles in Russian media that referenced the Monroe Doctrine — a 19th century principle in which the U.S. opposed European meddling in the Western Hemisphere and in return agreed to stay out of European affairs. It was invoked by Trump to justify the U.S. intervention in Venezuela.

Even though Russian officials never made a formal offer, Moscow’s then-ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, hinted many times to her that Russia was willing to allow the United States to act as it wished in Venezuela if the U.S. did the same for Russia in Europe, Hill told The Associated Press this week.

“Before there was a ‘hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink, how about doing a deal?’ But nobody (in the U.S.) was interested then,” Hill said.

Trump dispatched Hill — then his senior adviser on Russia and Europe — to Moscow in April 2019 to deliver that message. She said she told Russian officials “Ukraine and Venezuela are not related to each other.”

At that time, she said, the White House was aligned with allies in recognizing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president.

But fast forward seven years and the situation is different.

After ousting Maduro, the U.S. has said it will now “run” Venezuela policy. Trump also has renewed his threat to take over Greenland — a self-governing territory of Denmark and part of the NATO military alliance — and threatened to take military action against Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine.

The Kremlin will be “thrilled” with the idea that large countries — such as Russia, the United States and China — get spheres of influence because it proves “might makes right,” Hill said.

Trump’s actions in Venezuela make it harder for Kyiv’s allies to condemn Russia’s designs on Ukraine as “illegitimate” because “we’ve just had a situation where the U.S. has taken over — or at least decapitated the government of another country — using fiction,” Hill told AP.

The Trump administration has described its raid in Venezuela as a law enforcement operation and has insisted that capturing Maduro was legal.

The Russian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Hill’s account.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the military operation to oust Maduro but the Foreign Ministry issued statements condemning U.S. “aggression.”

Trump’s administration on Monday took the unprecedented step of cutting the number of vaccines the government has long routinely recommended for all children. On that list are vaccines against 11 diseases. Additional vaccines that were once broadly recommended now are separately categorized for at-risk children or as available through “shared decision-making” with their doctor.

Leading medical groups are sticking with prior vaccine recommendations, saying there’s no new science to warrant a change — and they worry the conflicting advice will leave more children vulnerable to preventable illness or death.

On social media, Trump wrote that “America will no longer require 72 ‘jabs’” for children, and shared a misleading graphic comparing the U.S. to a “European country” that administered 11 “injections.”

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: In a social media post about changes to federal childhood vaccination recommendations, Trump shared a misleading graphic about vaccinations abroad and misstated vaccine requirements in the U.S.

THE FACTS: A year ago, the government’s childhood vaccination schedule recommended routine protection against 18 diseases. Doses were spread across different ages, based on carefully vetted scientific research about disease risk and vaccine protection.

How many separate injections that added up to between birth and age 18 varied. It depended on things like the brand used, the availability of combination shots and the child’s starting age. But unless you counted once-a-year flu vaccines (which some kids can get as a nasal spray) or COVID-19 shots, the number of injections was closer to three dozen.

That would drop to about 23 injections if children received only the recommended-for-all vaccinations on the administration’s new schedule. They include vaccines against diseases such as measles, whooping cough, polio, chickenpox and HPV, or the human papilloma virus.

Contrary to Trump’s claim, 72 injections were never “required,” as families could opt out. States do require children to get certain vaccines before enrolling in school. But the state lists’ of school shots were narrower than the prior U.S. vaccine schedule, and many states offer different types of exemptions.

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President Donald Trump’s administration said Tuesday that it is withholding funding for programs that support needy families with children in five Democratic-led states over concerns about fraud.

“For too long, Democrat-led states and Governors have been complicit in allowing massive amounts of fraud to occur under their watch,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

The administration has not laid out details of either the fraud claims or the widening plan to withhold funds, which was first reported by the New York Post.

An official in the White House budget office who has knowledge of the plan but was not authorized to speak about it publicly said that it was due to states “pouring money out” to people in the U.S. illegally.

Five states — California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York — are targeted. The Associated Press has asked all of them, and by Tuesday afternoon, none had received notice of a broader funding pause. But Gov. Kathy Hochul said New York is prepared to go to court, as Democratic-led states have scores of times now, to block the administration.

“We’ll fight this with every fiber of our being, because our kids should not be political pawns in a fight that Donald Trump seems to have with blue state governors,” she said.

The programs in the crosshairs aim to help needy children and their families

The targeted programs provide lifelines to some of the neediest Americans:

• The Child Care Development Block Grant subsidizes daycare for low-income households, enabling enabling parents to work or go to school.
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families provides cash assistance and job training so that parents in poverty can afford diapers and clothes and earn paychecks so they won’t need public assistance.
• The Social Services Block Grant, a much smaller fund, supports several different social service programs.

“These resources support families in need and help them access food and much more. If true, it would be awful to see the federal government targeting the most needy families and children this way,” the office of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement.

Trump himself has not spoken on the specifics, but he proclaimed on social media Tuesday: “The Fraud Investigation of California has begun.”

Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in an email that “Donald Trump is a deranged, habitual liar whose relationship with reality ended years ago” and defended California’s record at stamping out fraud in government programs.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said Trump’s move to halt funding aims to score political points, not to stop fraud.

“It’s our job to serve the people most in need and most at risk — no matter what state they live in or what political party their family or elected representatives belong to,” she said in a statement. “To use the power of the government to harm the neediest Americans is immoral and indefensible.”

Trump’s administration has amplified fraud claims

For months, the Trump administration has claimed that federally funded programs are being defrauded — and using that as a rationale to hold up money.

Federal child care funding has been put on hold in Minnesota since late last month amid investigations into a series of alleged fraud schemes at day care centers run by people with family roots in Somalia.

In the fallout, HHS officials said no state will receive child care funds without providing more verification. Several states have told The Associated Press that they have not received any guidance on that decision.

The administration also raised fraud claims involving SNAP, the country’s main food aid program, saying it would halt administrative money to states — most Democratic-run ones — unless they provide requested details on recipients. That process could take months.

The administration has said the information that’s been provided by most GOP-controlled states shows fraud may be worse than previously believed, though it has not provided the data or detailed reports.

Associated Press journalists Anthony Izaguirre, Steve Karnowski, Trân Nguyễn, Todd Richmond, Colleen Slevin, Darlene Superville and Sophie Tareen contributed to this article.