Trump Refers to Himself as Venezuela’s ‘Acting President’

After Donald Trump made it clear that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela following the stunning arrest of the Latin American nation’s President, Nicolás Maduro, at the start of the year, memes proliferated online of Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who has additionally taken on the roles of acting USAID administrator, acting national archivist, and acting national security adviser—getting his latest fill-in assignment. But Rubio’s boss, the social media-obsessed U.S. President, whose online posts and memes have regularly earned criticism for sowing disinformation or discord, seemed to want in on the action himself, whether in jest or to hint at something more serious.

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On Sunday evening, Trump posted on Truth Social a fake image of a Wikipedia page labeling him as the “Acting President of Venezuela” as of January 2026. 

Trump’s current profile on Wikipedia—an online encyclopedia that allows for user-generated entries and edits—does not show the same designation.

In reality, Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s Vice President and oil minister, was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim President on Jan. 5. Rodríguez decried the arrests of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, but the Trump Administration has backed Rodríguez, albeit threatening that she would “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she does not kowtow to U.S. demands.

On Jan. 9, the Friday after the U.S. military operation, the Caracas government under Rodríguez said that it began exploring a process to restore diplomatic ties with Washington, which were severed during Trump’s first presidential term in 2019. And the State Department said a small diplomatic delegation from Washington visited Venezuela to preliminarily assess a reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.

Rodríguez also softened her tone in cooperating with the U.S., particularly on energy. The U.S. wants to control the South American nation’s oil industry; Venezuela is famously a petrostate with the world’s largest oil reserves. Trump has said the U.S. would get up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil under Rodríguez’s government.

With the increased cooperation under Rodríguez, Trump on Friday said he canceled a “second wave of attacks” on Venezuela. “The U.S.A. and Venezuela are working well together, especially as it pertains to rebuilding, in a much bigger, better, and more modern form, their oil and gas infrastructure,” he posted on Truth Social.

But speaking to the New York Times, the U.S. President said that while the interim government is “giving us everything that we feel is necessary,” “only time will tell” when Washington will stop seeking direct oversight of Caracas.