MIAMI — After months of calling Edmundo González — backed by opposition leader María Corina Machado — the legitimate winner of the 2024 Venezuelan elections, South Florida’s congressional delegation is now defending President Donald Trump’s comments that Machado doesn’t have the “respect” to lead Venezuela, and Trump’s plans to collaborate with Nicolás Maduro’s allies after his dramatic capture by the U.S. military.

All three of the Miami area’s Republican representatives have said they believe Machado, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, will one day be Venezuela’s leader. But that hypothetical reality is likely months away, at best.

Now, South Florida’s congressional delegation — representing the largest population of the Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S. — are defending the president’s plan to wait for new elections instead of treating González as Venezuela’s head of state based on the 2024 election. Both the opposition party and Maduro claimed victory; the U.S. treated Maduro’s claims as illegitimate.

Republican Rep. Carlos Giménez said he’s OK with Trump’s plan not to treat González as the winner of the elections in the meantime, largely because Machado was forced to drop out after the primary in the 2024 election cycle.

“I have mixed feelings with that because actually, had María Corina Machado been allowed to run for president, she would be on the top of that ticket, not as vice president,” Giménez told the Miami Herald Monday, after a celebratory press conference in Doral.

“That was a year and a half ago, now we have a new reality. Let’s have free Democratic elections with no impediment to who’s going to be the candidates and then let’s see who the Venezuelan people elect,” he added.

The comments mark a pivot from his position Saturday on social media that it was time to “uphold the result” of last year’s elections in Venezuela. He said Monday he’s hoping to see new elections occur within months, not years.

The timeline for any new elections is still up in the air. Trump did not mention democracy once during a press conference Saturday focused largely on his plans for oil extraction in Maduro’s absence. Speaking to reporters on Air Force 1 Sunday night, he said Venezuela would hold new elections “at the right time.”

In an interview with the Miami Herald Sunday, Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar defended the president’s comments disparaging Machado as lacking the respect to lead Venezuela.

“I think what he was basically saying is that the opposition forces have not been able to really operate inside the country,” she said.

“We’re just going to help them get up, get up on their feet and be able to run the country,” Salazar said. “Free and fair elected Venezuelan officials, which I am sure that María Corina Machado will be and she will be chosen again by the Venezuelan people because they chose her already.”

For her part, Machado posted on social media shortly after Maduro’s capture saying González should immediately assume the post of commander-in chief. Instead, Trump said later in the day the U.S. would be working with Maduro’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that working with Rodriguez does not mean that the U.S. sees her as the legitimate head of state.

“We don’t believe that this regime in place is legitimate via an election,” Rubio said on ABC’s "This Week Sunday." “But we understand that there are people in Venezuela today who are the ones that can actually make changes.”

But he also dismissed the 2024 Venezuelan election: “Ultimately, legitimacy for their system of government will come about through a period of transition and real elections, which they have not had,” Rubio said.

According to Venezuela’s Constitution, there would be an election within 30 days after the president becomes permanently unavailable. The Venezuelan court has not deemed him as such.

“I am a decent man, I am the constitutional president of my country,” Maduro said Monday during his first appearance in federal court to face charges that he conspired to deliver tons of cocaine to the United States. He pleaded not guilty.

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents a large number of Venezuelan Americans and has otherwise celebrated Maduro’s capture, took an opposite stance from her Republican counterparts — insisting the 2024 election results should stand.

“It doesn’t appear to me that there needs to be elections. An election occurred. Almost 70% of Venezuelans voted for Edmundo González to be their president and supported the opposition party led by María Corina Machado,” Wasserman Schultz told the Herald Sunday.

“Even if they had an election down the road, where they re-ran the election, the transition that should take place should be with the rightfully elected leaders, at least in the interim, if not immediately.”

Machado’s team, left with few options without Trump’s backing, also defended his comments.

“I didn’t take it the wrong way,” María Theresa Morin, a confidante of Machado and coordinator of the ConVzla-USA Command, told reporters after Monday’s Doral event.

“Nobody’s celebrating in Venezuela, they can’t,” she said. “She cannot go there, she could be killed. She could be assassinated or kidnapped. I think that’s what (Trump) meant.”

Still, she’s holding out hope the U.S. will treat González and Machado as the leaders prior to a new election — even if South Florida’s Republicans have abandoned that possibility.

“There could be two scenarios: the recognition or calling for a new election,” she said. When the Herald asked her preference, she said, “I don’t know — maybe to recognize the results of the elections and then President Edmundo is going to call for new elections or maybe he resigns and Maria Corina Machado assumes the presidency of Venezuela. But the main purpose of this is for Maria Corina Machado to be the next president of Venezuela.”

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