Venezuela: From Revolution to Recolonization It is impossible to tell how much resistance Venezuela could have put up against the US attack because the leadership chose not to fight. Almost overnight, the acting government has seamlessly transitioned from vowing to fight imperialism by any means necessary to outsmarting Trump and his ilk. In a speech to the UN General Assembly a day later, Rodríguez repeated her gratitude to Trump while promising a "democratic transformation" of her country. The acting leaders are traveling to New York, just nine months after the January 3 bombings in the US and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Celia Flores, whose government effectively challenged Maduro and Flores' sovereign immunity argument to drop their charges. U.S. Justice Department prosecutors told the court that Carcass, through its U.S. embassy, argued to Rodriguez's State Department for presidential immunity in an unrelated civil suit in Florida.