Interim leader Delcy Rodríguez told influencers of US threat to kill leaders if they did cooperate after capture of Maduro
The communications minister holds a phone up to a microphone before a gathering of regime-friendly influencers.
On speakerphone is Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, who claims that when US forces captured the dictator Nicolás Maduro, she and other members of his cabinet were given 15 minutes to decide whether to comply with Washington’s demands – “or they would kill us.”
Rodríguez, the former vice-president who assumed power after the US attack – and has since been praised by Donald Trump for playing along with his demands – says she was doing so only because the “threats and blackmail are constant”. She also concedes that her priority was“to preserve political power”.
Her remarks appear in a leaked recording of the nearly two-hour meeting, which was held in Venezuela seven days after the US attack.
