Ted Cruz Calls for Venezuela to Hold Free Elections “Rapidly” After Trump’s Oil Deal

Breaking

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” that Venezuela must hold “democratic, free elections,” telling host Kristen Welker they should proceed “no later than mid-way through next year.” Cruz added that “the timing doesn’t matter as much as the one versus the other… free and fair elections need to proceed, and they need to proceed rapidly.” On the current Venezuelan government, Cruz said bluntly: “Delcy Rodríguez was Nicolás Maduro’s vice president. Maduro was illegitimate. He was a Marxist.”

Cruz’s comments arrived two days after President Trump announced a deal granting a U.S.-backed company 100-year development rights to Venezuelan oil fields holding an estimated 65 billion barrels in reserves. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who helped negotiate the agreement alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez, called it “a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people.” Cruz separately praised the arrangement, saying, “The oil deal as announced sounds like it could have a very positive impact on the United States and the United States economy, on American jobs,” and that it “on its face appears to have a really positive economic benefit for America.”

Details & Background

Maduro was captured by U.S. special forces in early January and remains in U.S. custody facing federal drug-trafficking charges, with Rodríguez, his former vice president, assuming the acting presidency. Under Venezuela’s constitution, Rodríguez’s 90-day mandate as acting president expired in early April without new elections being scheduled; if her “temporary absence” stretches past 180 days, the Maduro-aligned National Assembly would need to formally declare the absence permanent, which would trigger elections within 30 days — a process critics say loyalists have slow-walked.

Cruz’s push isn’t new: on Aug. 4, he and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., introduced a bipartisan Senate resolution — co-sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine, Rick Scott, Dick Durbin, Adam Schiff and Jacky Rosen — backing free and fair Venezuelan elections. The resolution also called for the release of political prisoners and guaranteed participation rights for opposition leader María Corina Machado, warning that harming candidates would delegitimize any eventual election. Shaheen said at the time, “A credible democratic transition is only attainable when the Venezuelan people are free to decide Venezuela’s future, yet the Delcy Rodríguez regime has failed to take meaningful actions toward holding elections.” Cruz added then that free elections are “vital to the national security interests of the United States.”

Reactions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has publicly floated a notably longer timeline than Cruz’s. Rubio said an elections process would require “some persistence and a little bit of patience, not years, but certainly months and weeks,” pointing to Paraguay’s roughly three-and-a-half-year transition away from authoritarian rule as a comparison, and listing prerequisites including a free press, multi-party participation and a credible electoral commission.

Rodríguez’s government has pushed back on U.S. pressure generally, with Rodríguez telling a crowd of oil workers, “Enough already of Washington’s orders over politicians in Venezuela,” and, “Let Venezuelan politics resolve our differences and our internal conflicts.” Neither Rodríguez’s government nor Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has directly responded to Cruz’s specific Sunday remarks.

Why This Matters to You

Cruz is drawing a sharper line than the administration’s own top diplomat on how fast Venezuela should move toward elections, even as he applauds the new oil agreement — suggesting Republicans are not unified on how much leverage the deal itself should apply to Caracas.

With Rodríguez’s government showing no sign of setting an election date and Rubio publicly signaling patience measured in months rather than a fixed date, Cruz’s “mid-2027” marker may end up as more of a marker for Republicans to hold the administration to than a deadline Venezuela’s government feels bound by.