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A day after Venezuela's exiled opposition leader returned to Caracas with great fanfare, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a veiled warning against interfering with the country's fragile democratic transition pushed by the Trump administration. "You're not going to street-protest your way into a democracy," Rubio told reporters Monday without explicitly mentioning María Corina Machado . Why it matters: Machado's demands for elections next year — and her criticism of a massive U.S. oil deal struck with the current Caracas regime — have put administration officials on edge after her surprise return. "Rubio is on a political edge," said a White House source familiar with his thinking. "Venezuela is the top foreign policy achievement of this administration, and if the progress we made gets undone and Machado is a spoiler, nobody wins." A Machado spokesperson didn't return messages seeking comment. Zoom in: Machado and U.S. officials agree that Venezuela needs to hold elections. But she has demanded they be held in 2027, while U.S. officials aren't sure. They want three things to happen first: Reform Venezuela's Supreme Court. It's stocked with loyalists of Nicolas Maduro, who was seized Jan. 3 by the U.S. and spirited to New York City to face narcotrafficking charges. The State Department hopes a new court is picked by year's end. Reform Venezuela's National Electoral Council. It's also filled with Maduro's people, and with the Supreme Court it helped him steal his last two elections as president. The State Department hopes a new council will be in place by early next year. Fix Venezuela's debt. Venezuela has one of the world's largest sovereign debt problems — $300 billion, more than its gross domestic product. The hoped-for timeline regarding this hurdle is less clear, and Rubio didn't explicitly discuss it Monday. Between the lines: As Axios first reported in September, Trump discussed all three of those issues with Rodriguez when he also told her privately that elections need to happen one day. In a transcript of Rubio's briefing, a senior State Department official added another possible issue: reforming the security services, which also could take time. "If you want a democratically elected government to succeed, you don't want them to inherit an economic apocalypse that brings it down," the official said, according to the transcript. "What happens when the security forces that are not loyal to the system decide they're not gonna follow orders from — no matter who got elected? They're not gonna follow their orders; they're not gonna follow through. Now Caracas once again becomes the murder capital of the Western Hemisphere, maybe the world." Rubio did not specify any timelines. He told reporters he wouldn't allow Venezuela's current government, run by former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, to stall out Trump's administration, which ends in January 2029. "What if they just try to wait us out for two years? That's not going to happen," Rubio said. "I mean, we have timelines that are agreed to, and so far they've met every one of the timelines." To call for a new election, Rodriguez would have to declare a vacancy in the presidency. That would trigger an election six months later, State Department officials said. So under the most optimistic timeline, Rodriguez could call for an election for next June. Trump administration officials emphasized to Axios that no date for an election is clear, and that it could take place next year or in 2028. Rubio also said he wants to stay on the job as long as possible: "Best-case scenario, I'm in this job for two more years and two months. So I clearly intend to see this thing well in advance of the time I leave" the administration. The intrigue: Rodriguez and Machado (whom Maduro banned from running in 2024) have made clear their mutual opposition to each other. Without naming her rival, Rodriguez told reporters Monday that Machado should feel remorse or regret for supporting the "external onslaught, that external military-style aggression against Venezuela." That's code for the U.S. seizing of Maduro, but Rubio told reporters he's paying attention to Rodriguez's actions and not her words. So far, he said, she's delivered on eliminating Iranian and Cuban influence in the country and extraditing former Maduro ally Alex Saab, a cooperating witness against him. "If at the end of the day we have a new [Supreme Court], a new [Electoral Council], a new election, and a new ... system of government, that's what we want," Rubio said. "And no matter what people say along the way, as long as it happens, this is a results-based process." The bottom line: Rubio said Venezuela has "got to change the infrastructure of the elections. Not in 10 years. Not in five years. Not in two years. It needs to happen quickly under the timelines that we've established." "But if anybody tries to derail that process, they're doing great harm to Venezuela."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Venezuela's interim government told the U.S. "weeks and weeks" earlier that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado could return to the country without interference.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the Trump administration told Venezuela's interim authorities "weeks and weeks ago" that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado should be allowed to return as the country moves ahead with preparing for elections next year.