Maria Corina Machado has a plan for democracy in Venezuela
5/11/202614 min
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, for her work to promote democracy in her country.
Many Venezuelans expected Machado would eventually become their president once authoritarian ruler Nicolas Maduro was ousted from power. But Maduro has been out of power and in a U.S. prison since January, and Machado is still on the outside looking in. Host Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Maria Corina Machado about her plans to return to Venezuela, her relationship with President Trump and the burden Machado’s political career has placed on her own family.
This conversation is part of NPR’s Newsmakers video podcast series. For more, follow or subscribe to Newsmakers on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you watch or listen. You can also find the show in the NPR app.
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This episode was produced by Alejandra Marquez Janse, with audio engineering by Tiffany Vera Castro, David Greenburg, and Robert Rodriguez. It was edited by William Troop and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMary Louise Kelly· Host0:00
It's Consider This from NPR, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, my conversation with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. I had interviewed Machado before, once when she was in hiding because of security threats from the authoritarian regime of Nicolas Maduro, and then we spoke a second time via Zoom. This time, I was able to question her in person in our studios in Washington. We talked about many topics, including what it was like to be a political leader in hiding.
Maria Corina Machado· Guest0:34
It was quite a challenge, certainly in a personal human way, not being able to touch or hug or see someone personally during a year and a half. Uh, but at the same time, how do I keep working? How d- how do we turn these challenging, very extreme conditions, risky conditions, into a possibility to grow? To grow our organization, to grow our communication?
Mary Louise Kelly· Host1:01
I wanted to speak with Machado again because of the tricky position in which she finds herself. Last December, she left Venezuela in secret to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, a recognition of her work to promote democracy in her home country. Then, in January, US military forces swooped in, captured Maduro, ousted him from power. Now he sits in an American prison, but Machado remains outside the