New Venezuela leader to pay ‘big price’ if doesn’t ‘do what’s right’: Trump

President Donald Trump threatened Sunday that Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez will pay a “very big price” if she doesn’t cooperate with the United States, after US forces seized and jailed her former boss Nicolas Maduro.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in a brief telephone interview.

Venezuela’s military on Sunday recognized Rodriguez as the country’s acting leader, after US forces extracted the former head of state to face trial.

Amid uncertainty following the leftist president’s dramatic capture, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez appeared to throw his weight behind Rodriguez, who Trump had earlier indicated was a figure Washington could work with.

Padrino read out a statement on television endorsing a Supreme Court ruling that appointed Rodriguez as acting president for 90 days.

He also called on Venezuelans to get back to their daily life, speaking less than two days after the US strikes shook the capital Caracas and special forces seized Maduro and his wife.

Padrino denounced it as a “cowardly kidnapping” and said that some of Maduro’s bodyguards were killed “in cold blood,” as well as military personnel and civilians on the Venezuelan side.

Venezuelan authorities have not yet given an official toll for people hurt or killed in the US operations.

The streets of Caracas were deserted and quiet on Sunday, with many businesses closed and moderate queues at some markets and pharmacies.

“I call on the people of Venezuela to resume their activities of all kinds, economic, work and education, in the coming days,” Padrino said.

“The homeland must follow its constitutional course.”