Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado said Saturday, January 3, the “hour of freedom” had arrived for her country after the United States seized strongman Nicolas Maduro, but was criticized by the US president, who said she “doesn’t have the respect.”

Machado, who has been mostly in hiding since Maduro’s disputed reelection in July 2024, said in a statement that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, whom the opposition says won the vote, “must immediately assume his constitutional mandate” as president.

“Venezuelans, the HOUR OF FREEDOM has arrived!” she posted on social media after an early-morning US military strike on Caracas. Machado is abroad in an unknown location after traveling under cover to Oslo in December to receive her Nobel, which she dedicated to President Donald Trump as she welcomed US intervention in her country.

“Today we are ready to enforce our mandate and take power. Let us remain vigilant, active, and organized until the Democratic Transition is realized. A transition that needs ALL of us,” she said on Saturday. “We are going to restore order,” she stated, adding Gonzalez Urrutia must now be “recognized as Commander in Chief of the National Armed Forces by all officers and soldiers.”

At a press conference, Trump scotched any expectation that Machado should emerge as Venezuela’s new leader. “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country,” Trump told a news conference. He indicated he could instead work with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, saying “she’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”

Machado was barred from running in the 2024 election by institutions loyal to Maduro and was replaced on the ticket by Gonzalez Urrutia, a little-known diplomat. She has been hailed for her fight for democracy, but also criticized for aligning herself with Trump. She was awarded the Nobel prize for “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Gonzalez Urrutia wrote on X on Saturday that “these are decisive hours, know that we are ready for the great operation of the reconstruction of our nation.”