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The Venezuelan leader told journalist Breno Altman that his role and that of Lula is to prioritize relations between Caracas and Brasilia. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said that despite the differences between the foreign ministries of Brazil and Venezuela, both countries are committed to overcoming these differences and strengthening their bilateral relations.

Maduro's remarks came during an exclusive interview the Venezuelan leader gave to Opera Mundi founder Breno Altman in a special edition of the 20 MINUTES program: For the president, who began his third term on January 10 this year, his and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's role is to “understand each other and our countries and turn the page”.

“(We must) see the new scenario of world geopolitics, the situation of Our America and prioritize relations between Brazil and Venezuela, peaceful relations, of cooperation, of brotherhood, of economic progress,” he said.

Regarding Brazil, Maduro once again affirmed that “there has been no crisis, there is no crisis, and there will be no crisis” between Caracas and Brasilia, pointing out that the “only way” for the relationship to maintain a link is through “understanding for Latin America, for the Caribbean, for peace and for the development of our countries”.

The Lula government did not recognize Maduro's victory in the July 28 presidential election, but sent a diplomatic representation to his inauguration. In addition, Brazil vetoed Caracas' entry into the BRICS, culminating in a worsening of relations between the countries. Maduro believes that it is necessary to “look to the future” and for progress to be made in “recognizing what is already a reality, that Venezuela belongs to the BRICS”.

Breno Altman: "President Nicolás Maduro, I'd like to start our interview with a question that is on many people's minds. Some foreign governments, such as the United States, did not recognize your victory on July 28, even announcing that they recognized Edmundo González as president-elect. Do you think your inauguration on January 10 and the weakening of the extreme right will put an end to this controversy?"

Nicolás Maduro: "The weakening and defeat of the fascist far right in Venezuela, which intoxicated and contaminated the right and center-right throughout Latin America and the Caribbean for more than 20 years, is the expression that everything they did to them on the networks, in the media, the whole operation around this candidacy was an operation orchestrated by the US government that just left, which took advantage of the negotiations with the diplomacy of deception, the diplomacy of the carrot, and did not speak clearly or seriously."

Nicolás Maduro: "In fact, all the agreements we made were totally violated and disrespected by them, they were never complied with, they only served as a pretext to once again prepare the ground for the destabilization of Venezuela. After 2017, we managed to consolidate a process of peace and political stability. In 2017 and 2018, we suffered a bombardment of missiles and sanctions, which caused us great economic damage."

Nicolás Maduro: "Then, in 2019, the government of the time, the officials of the time: John Bolton, Mike Pence, John Kelly, Mike Pompeo, drew up the Guaidó project and convinced the president at the time, Donald Trump, that it was very easy to appoint and recognize a president called Guaidó, who nobody knew, and that this would immediately imply the takeover of Venezuela, an international coup d'état. We managed to denounce him, confront him, defeat him and, in the midst of this struggle, we managed to recover society and the economy. In the midst of this hard-won stability, with our own efforts, Joe Biden's administration unfortunately missed a golden opportunity to get along with us, to respect the agreements we had talked about and signed, and devised a Guaidó 2.0, as he is called, Guaidó part 2, which ended up having a very bad ending, Guaidó part 2 ended up having a very bad ending. So they knew what was coming for a long time, they did everything."

Nicolás Maduro: "Here in Venezuela, no less than a billion dollars were invested by the oligarchy, called the technological oligarchy, owners of the big networks, all the networks turned against us: Facebook, Instagram, X, formerly Twitter; TikTok, and they created a national and international situation that they believed was infallible."

Nicolás Maduro: "We suffered this on July 28, something that I denounced immediately, on July 29, as the first cyber-fascist coup in the modern history of Latin America, and I could say of humanity, we defeated it in 48 hours, and we have been consolidating the victory. The country is at peace, the institutions are working, the five branches of government are functioning, the economy is growing and recovering. And the vast majority of Venezuelans, as all the polls show, more than 80% repudiate these coup attempts, 80% of Venezuelans want to turn the page on this destabilization and follow a safe course of growth, recovery and respect for Venezuela."

Richard Grenell requested a formal meeting with President Nicolas Maduro. On Friday, Richard Grenell, the special envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump, arrived in Caracas to meet with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The purpose of his visit is to secure Venezuela’s acceptance of deportation flights for undocumented migrants and to obtain the release of U.S. citizens detained in local prisons, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, the official in charge of Latin America at the U.S. State Department.

Washington has faced difficulties in deporting Venezuelans for years due to the deterioration of bilateral relations, especially following the diplomatic rupture in 2019 during Trump’s first term (2017-2021), when the U.S. recognized opposition politician Juan Guaido as “transitory president.” Since then, deportation flights have been scarce. In October 2022, under the Biden administration, these flights briefly resumed but were suspended again four months later.

Venezuelan Communications Minister Freddy Ñañez confirmed that Grenell requested a formal meeting with Maduro. This request was accepted by the Venezuelan president to establish a “zero agenda,” a move that reactivates dialogue between the two countries after years of tensions.

Grenell is a key political operator within Trump’s inner circle. His career has included strategic roles such as: U.S. Ambassador to Germany (2018-2020), where he took a hardline stance against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline; Acting Director of National Intelligence (2020), becoming the first openly gay member of a Republican presidential cabinet; and Special Envoy for negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo (2020), where he promoted economic agreements as a prelude to diplomatic normalization.

Truth Mission’s Research and Analysis Group published an article highlighting that during his first term Trump attempted a secret rapprochement with the Venezuelan government through Grenell, who held meetings with Venezuelan officials in Mexico in 2022. These conversations took place without informing then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo or the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau.

Although the effort did not succeed, the episode demonstrated that Trump prioritized parallel diplomatic channels, bypassing certain sectors of his own administration. This precedent suggests that he could repeat the strategy: negotiating with Caracas without consulting key figures such as Marco Rubio.