US Republican House Speaker Johnson backs elections in Venezuela

By AFP 6 January 2026, 5:56 am

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., walks from the chamber to speak with reporters after the final vote to bring the longest government shutdown in history to an end, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, says that Venezuela should hold elections soon, after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called voting premature following the US’s toppling of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

Speaking to reporters after a briefing to lawmakers from Rubio and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Johnson adds that he does not expect the United States to send troops to Venezuela, a possibility that US President Donald Trump refused to rule out publicly.

“I expect that there will be an election called in Venezuela,” says Johnson, the top member of Trump’s party in Congress.

“Some of these things are still being determined, of course, but it should happen in short order. And I think it will need to be, so that their economy can remain stabilized and the country can remain stabilized,” he says.

The United States for years described Maduro as illegitimate after successive elections that observers said were riddled with irregularities.

But Trump said after US forces captured Maduro that the United States would secure interests — notably access to oil — by forcing cooperation with Maduro’s vice president turned interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez.

Trump also dismissed the leader of the democratic opposition long championed by Washington, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado.

Rubio, in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, said that discussion of elections “is premature at this point.”

Johnson defends the legality of the operation and the lack of prior notice to Congress, which constitutionally has the authority to declare war.

“We are not at war. We do not have US armed forces in Venezuela and we are not occupying that country,” Johnson says.”We don’t expect troops on the ground. We don’t expect direct involvement in any other way, beyond just coercing the new — the interim — government.”

Democrats left the briefing skeptical. Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat, says: “Regime change and so-called nation building, it always ends up hurting the United States.”

“I left the briefing feeling that it would again,” Schumer says, adding that more questions were raised than answered.