Right-wing coverage of Machado often relies on a blurry distinction between supporting Machado and cheering the removal of Maduro on the one hand while misleadingly claiming to oppose U.S.-led regime change on the other — arguably a distinction without a difference. Sometimes Machado employs this sleight-of-hand rhetorical device herself, seemingly to assure her audience that attacking Maduro’s government would not result in a replay of George W. Bush’s unpopular forever wars.

Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy is perhaps Machado’s most significant ally in right-wing media, having interviewed her in both English- and Spanish-language media. Campos-Duffy’s colleagues at Fox have also praised Machado, as has Donald Trump Jr. on his Triggered podcast. Other conservative figures celebrated her even prior to Trump’s election in November 2024.

• In July 2024, Sebastian Gorka discussed Machado on his America First show with a guest who said Machado “has been the real leader of Venezuela for years.” Guest Joseph Humire was, at the time, executive director of a think tank focused on national security issues and now serves as deputy assistant secretary of war for Western Hemisphere affairs, according to his LinkedIn page. A later analysis of Humire’s think tank found that it spread false information about Tren de Aragua, a criminal organization in Venezuela. Gorka, now a counterterrorism adviser to Trump, and Humire were discussing the recent election in Venezuela, in which Maduro claimed victory despite international observers determining the election did not meet democratic standards. [Salem Media Group, America First with Sebastian Gorka, 7/29/24; LinkedIn, accessed 10/7/25; C-SPAN, 8/21/25; The Carter Center, 7/30/24; The Guardian, 8/13/25]
• In January, just days before Trump’s second inauguration, Campos-Duffy said Machado is “considered Venezuela’s liberator” and floated the possibility of regime change within the year. Campos-Duffy then paraphrased Trump’s approach to the Western Hemisphere, saying, “We will control our backyard, our neighborhood. And that is what you’re seeing play out right now.” She continued: “Venezuela couldn’t be happier that Donald Trump won, but it’s going to be difficult to take this dictator out of power. It’s going to be a very interesting year for Venezuela.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/10/25]
• In March, Donald Trump Jr. interviewed longtime U.S. mercenary and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who said the Maduro government is “going to have to be pushed out. And it doesn’t require U.S. military — it can be covert action from the intelligence community or covert action from Venezuelan patriots helped by outsiders.” Earlier in the interview, Prince said: “María Corina Machado is a brave woman and deserving of our help and our support. And they did to her what they tried to do to your dad.” Prince added that “the Maduro regime” is “effectively a narco-state,” and accused it of “exporting leftist, communist money to all the other political parties all across the continent.” Earlier, in February, Trump Jr. gave Machado a friendly interview on his program as well. [Rumble, Triggered, 3/17/25, 2/26/25; The Wall Street Journal, 8/16/25]
• Trump Jr. returned to the subject in April in an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during which Trump referred to Machado as “clearly the choice of the Venezuelan people.” Rubio added that Machado was “one of the bravest people in the world.” [Rumble, Triggered, 4/8/25]
• In July, former GOP congressman and current One America News host Matt Gaetz interviewed right-wing activist Roderick Navarro, who has long supported the overthrow of Maduro and now said that “it is necessary that María Corina Machado, which is the leader of the opposition, the true opposition, can be aligned with the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to end this situation as soon as possible.” Navarro’s statement came in response to a question from Gaetz about how change could come to Venezuela following the disputed election the previous year. [One America News, The Matt Gaetz Show, 7/20/25; The Guardian, 12/14/18]  
• In August, Trump Jr. interviewed Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, who said Machado is “somebody that I admire tremendously, and clearly she won the election last year.” Landau continued: “I very much look forward to a day, very soon, when we have constitutional order restored in Venezuela.” Earlier in the interview, Landau cautioned against U.S.-led regime change. [Rumble, Triggered, 8/11/25]
• The same month, Campos-Duffy interviewed Machado, giving her an opportunity to persuade Americans who support Trump “taking on Nicolás Maduro” but worry that “this kind of smells like regime change.” Machado responded: “This has nothing to do with regime change for two reasons. First, because the change of the regime was already mandated by the presidential election we won by a landslide. And secondly, because this is about dismantling a criminal terrorist enterprise that has taken the power of Venezuela by force.” She added: “We are ready to take power — the legitimate government, elected. Venezuela will move orderly and peacefully to the transition.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/13/25]
• Two days after Trump’s initial boat strike on September 2, Machado said in an interview with Campos-Duffy that Maduro “is understanding, finally, that the time of impunity is over and it is in his best interest to accept the will of the people that voted against him. It’s time to go.” Campos-Duffy replied, “The pressure is mounting and he is feeling more and more like a caged animal.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 9/4/25; The New York Times, 9/2/25]
• On September 6, Campos-Duffy argued that “Latin American social media” was proof of “cries from the entire hemisphere of, yes, do it, we need to get rid of these cartels, we need to have our countries back, liberate us President Trump” because “they know it can only happen with him.” During her appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend, which replayed her Machado interview, Fox’s Brian Brenberg added, “Machado is one of the most impressive leaders around the globe, and your interview with her was awesome. Following that story is like following the story of liberty, and I hope it has a very successful ending.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 9/6/25]
• On September 30, Campos-Duffy again interviewed Machado, who said outright that “Maduro is not the president.” Machado added, “Maduro is illegitimate, as the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has repeated so many times,” and said that “regime change was demanded last year with the vote of the Venezuelans.” [Fox Deportes, Fox Noticias, 9/30/25]
• In October, Fox News host Sean Hannity said Machado “sounds like a pretty good leader to me for the people of Venezuela and the end of narco terrorism.” [Fox News, Hannity, 10/20/25]
• A few days later, Campos-Duffy hinted that the Rubio-led campaign against Venezuela could expand to other Latin American countries. “A lot of people saying, we’ve heard María Corina Machado say it on our show as well, if Venezuela returns to the people who won the election last July, to the opposition party, and the Marxist, you know, socialist government of Maduro goes down, so will Cuba and so will Nicaragua. It will essentially get all of the communists out of our hemisphere,” Campos-Duffy said. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 10/25/25]  
• On Sunday Night In America with Trey Gowdy, after Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) mentioned that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado is planning to “open the oil rigs” to U.S. companies, host Trey Gowdy mentioned that “she may be leading that country here in the not-too-distant future.” [Fox News, Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy, 10/26/25]
• On November 19, Campos-Duffy teased an upcoming interview with Machado, arguing that “unlike other countries where you’ve seen regime change and the U.S. has been in some way involved, Brian, this is a country that doesn't need to be stood up economically.” Earlier in the segment, host Brian Kilmeade asked: “Rachel, it looks like she’s preparing to take over. Does she know something that we don’t?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 11/19/25]
• The interview aired a few days later on November 22, with Machado predicting that Venezuela “will see an orderly and peaceful transition … that will happen very soon.” During a separate segment of the interview, Machado argued that “regime change was already mandated by the Venezuelan people by a landslide.” She said “Maduro started this war; President Trump is ending this war,” adding that “we are solving and dismantling a criminal structure that has produced great pain and turn our country, our nation, into the best ally of the United States — a security shield for the Americas and a huge opportunity for energy security.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/22/25, 11/22/25]  

Machado’s rise has also given election deniers an opportunity to revive the long debunked conspiracy theory that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 U.S. election against Trump. Machado — who had recently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — repeated that false claim during an October 31 interview on a Bloomberg podcast. “I have no doubt that Nicolás Maduro, Jorge Rodríguez, and many others are, you know, the masterminds of a system that has rigged elections in many countries, including in the U.S.,” Machado said. “I have no doubt about that.” 

Former Overstock CEO and "prominent election denier" Patrick Byrne mocked a post criticizing Machado’s interview on his Telegram channel, writing that people who say the 2020 U.S. was fair “doth protest too much.” In August, Byrne claimed that Smartmatic, which provides electronic voting systems, is “a spinoff of the Venezuelan government” and that the company “has been rigging elections for people around the world.” In October, Bryne said the United States had to “overthrow the governments of Venezuela and Cuba" because they “overthrew our republic.”  

In November, Trump promoted a right-wing show on social media during which a guest said “there are at least a dozen people in Venezuela that have more money and power” than the CIA, adding: “This is the largest transnational criminal organization in the world that no one knew about, or no one wanted to talk about, until they stole our election in 2020."

For all of the right-wing media claims that Maduro interfered in the 2020 election, it’s worth underscoring that in 2002 the United States at least tacitly supported a failed coup against then-President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez. During Trump’s first term, his administration engineered an unsuccessful campaign to oust Maduro and install opposition figure Juan Guaidó.

Despite those failures, conservative media have embraced Machado in a way that’s reminiscent of earlier episodes in U.S. foreign policy, when media and government officials celebrated opposition figures in the early years of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. As The New York Times notes, Machado has been a “darling” of Washington for decades, and her people are in constant contact with Secretary Rubio, the Trump administration figure leading the charge to topple Maduro. One possible reason Washington has been enthralled with her for so long is that, according to Bloomberg, she “favors privatizing all industries in Venezuela,” including the state-owned oil company, if the United States takes out Maduro. Ian Bremmer noted that U.S. action in Venezuela would be “in large part about the oil.”

Should Trump's plan move forward, Machado is the most likely candidate for his administration to rally behind. She’s already won over right-wing outlets — but as U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan showed, sometimes an opposition figure’s charm offensive is the easiest battle of the war.