Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., criticized the Biden administration’s handling of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, arguing that it has fed his regime’s strongman image and emboldened him in his more authoritarian aims. 

“In my view, it strengthened them internally, and I think gave him the boldness to say: I can get away with this now,” Rubio argued. “I’ll be condemned. They’ll snap back some sanctions, people will say mean things about me, but in a few months… 2 million more people will leave Venezuela. I’ll put some people in jail and crack down on them, and the people around me and the regime will remain loyal, because I’ve proven that I can win and, I can win in negotiations.” 

Rubio explained that he believes the root problem lies with the people President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have around them, which includes “people who are convinced that you can negotiate a good outcome anywhere.”

“There are some people that you simply can’t just close because of their nature and because of their interests,” Rubio insisted. “There isn’t going to be a diplomatic solution, unfortunately, in the short term… particularly when you’re dealing with authoritarians that are trying to figure out how to stay in power.” 

BLINKEN SAYS VENEZUELA’S NICOLAS MADURO LOST ELECTION BEFORE CLAIMING VICTORY WITH ‘NO SUPPORTING EVIDENCE’

Anti-government protests have continued in the days following the late July presidential election that the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council handed to the incumbent with an alleged victory margin of 51%, compared to 44% support for the opposition. 

Pre-election polling (which is illegal in the country) showed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had double the support that Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) had. Venezuelans took to the streets in peaceful protest, but Maduro sent out police to crackdown on them and to clear the streets, leading to violent clashes and escalation. 

Maduro on Wednesday asked the country’s Supreme Court to audit the election, responding to claims that the opposition had won the election and international claims that the election was not fair and free, but many argue that PSUV has such thorough control over every part of the country’s judiciary it is “compromised.” 

Ultimately, the Biden administration on Thursday declared Gonzalez the rightful winner of the election, arguing that, “Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election.” 

MADURO BOWS TO PRESSURE FOR JUDICIAL AUDIT OF ELECTION RESULTS AS ARGENTINA’S MILEI ENCOURAGES PROTESTS

“The democratic opposition has published more than 80% of the tally sheets received directly from polling stations throughout Venezuela,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a press release. “Those tally sheets indicate that Edmundo González Urrutia received the most votes in this election by an insurmountable margin.”

The U.S. State Department stressed that Maduro’s victory followed with “no supporting evidence” and that the U.S. “consulted widely with partners and allies around the world” and “none have concluded that Nicolás Maduro received the most votes this election.” 

Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government protest at the Petare neighborhood in Caracas on Monday, a day after the Venezuelan presidential election. (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. helped broker the Barbados Agreement between the Venezuelan president and the opposition parties in his country last October, seeking free and fair elections in exchange for sanctions relief. Maduro immediately backtracked on the agreement by suspending primaries over alleged corruption just one month after signing the deal. 

The State Department then in April allowed the relief, known as General License 44, to expire. The license allowed Venezuela to perform transactions related to oil and gas sector operations, despite acknowledging that Maduro had delivered on “some of the commitments” on the electoral roadmap. 

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM CALLS ON ISRAEL TO ‘DESTROY’ IRANIAN OIL REFINERIES

A National Security Council spokesperson told Fox News Digital that it is “inaccurate to characterize” the Barbados Agreement as a “quid pro quo.” 

“We significantly changed the sanctions policy we inherited from the previous administration because there is no question that the previous administration’s sanctions policy was not working and led to the exodus of 8 million Venezuelans,” the spokesperson said. 

President Biden and Vice President Harris receive an updated briefing in the White House Situation Room from homeland security and law enforcement officials.

“In October we calibrated our sanctions policy following the Barbados Agreement to show Maduro and his representatives that things could be different, if only they followed through on their commitments — which they now are not doing, and you can anticipate swift USG [United States Government] action very soon,” the spokesperson argued. 

Jorge Jraissati, a Venezuelan foreign policy expert and President of the Economic Inclusion Group, bemoaned that the Biden administration has “not done enough at all” through an “erratic” policy towards Venezuela at a time when America’s support remains essential to achieving meaningful progress.

“It lacks strategy,” Jraissati said. “It has relied on empty promises on the part of Maduro, and, as a result, the Maduro regime has been able to strengthen their position internationally, as well as their finances.”

“To bring freedom to Venezuela, we need a real strategist in the White House,” Jraissati added. “We need a foreign policy doctrine that leverages America’s mind power and its vast geoeconomic tools. We need a president that understands the national security and economic importance of Venezuela.”

“When it comes to the American people, we need their brightest minds to join our cause,” he urged. “We need the strategic mind of U.S. businessmen, new technologies built in Silicon Valley and the intellect of America’s greatest experts.”

The State Department did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Doha, Qatar – Thousands of people on Friday attended the funeral prayer for the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at Doha’s grand mosque amid tight security.

Haniyeh’s funeral prayer was attended by various Palestinian factions, diaspora groups, diplomatic dignitaries and nationals from many countries. He was laid to rest at Lusail royal cemetery north of the capital Doha on Friday afternoon.

Symbolic funeral prayers for Haniyeh have been organised in several Muslim countries, including Yemen, Jordan and Turkey.

Streams of mourners started to arrive at the Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Mosque at about 9am, more than two hours before the Friday prayer, to bid farewell to the Hamas political chief who was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Men and women, many of them wearing the keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf, and carrying Palestinian flags, came to attend the funeral prayers despite Doha’s punishing heat, which hovered around 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

His body was brought to Doha on Thursday after a memorial event in Tehran, which was attended by thousands of people and where funeral prayers were led by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranians waved Palestinian flags and carried pictures of the 62-year-old Hamas leader as they took part in the funeral procession.

Haniyeh, who was the diplomatic face of Hamas based in Qatar, was assassinated in his accommodation in Tehran. He was in the Iranian capital to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has not publicly claimed responsibility. Fuad Shukr, a senior commander with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, was also killed by Israel hours before Haniyeh’s assassination.

Tributes

Hassan Abu Dhr, who lost his leg and hand in an Israeli bombing on Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp in November, came to the funeral prayer to pay tribute to Haniyeh.

“We are in grief. We feel so sad because of his killing. He was like our father,” the 24-year-old, who was evacuated to Qatar for medical treatment, told Al Jazeera. “Ismail Haniyeh was the pride of Gaza. We trusted him, he was the best leader for Gaza.”

Syed Ziaullah, a Pakistani national, also attended the funeral prayers.

“I came here for him; it’s a relationship of brotherhood among Muslims,” Ziaullah told Al Jazeera. “He is a martyr and a patriot who struggled to free Palestine from Israeli occupation.”

Others who were in attendance were from different countries including Sudan, India and Bangladesh.

Many people Al Jazeera spoke to expressed solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, who have been facing Israeli bombardment for the past 10 months. Vast swaths of Gaza have been flattened and nearly 40,000 people have been killed since October 7, when Israel launched its military offensive in the wake of a Hamas-led attack inside its territory. At least 1,100 people were killed during the attack in southern Israel.

“I am here in support of Palestine and in support of our people who are facing genocide for the past 300 days. I am here I because am sad for the death of Ismail Haniyeh and for the death of [Al Jazeera’s] Ismail al-Ghoul and his colleague Rami al-Rifi,” 32-year-old Sara Abdelshafy told Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi were killed in an Israeli attack in northern Gaza on Wednesday.

‘Down to earth’

Haniyeh was a prominent figure and considered accessible and approachable by many in Gaza.

Haniyeh’s popularity partly came from the fact that he embodied a typical Palestinian in the Gaza Strip, said Fathi Nimer, a Palestine policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a think tank based in the occupied West Bank.

“He was a refugee born in the Shati refugee camp … most Palestinians are refugees, especially those in Gaza. His family was ethnically cleansed from Asqalan [Ashkelon, in present-day Israel]. What made him very relatable to people is that he went to a UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] school and worked to support his family,” Nimer told Al Jazeera.

“People talk about him about being very humble and a very down-to-earth person,” he added.

Haniyeh joined Hamas as a student and rose through the ranks to become Palestine’s only democratically elected prime minister in 2006 at the age of 44.

Despite living outside of Gaza since 2019, he was not shielded from the devastation of Israel’s war. About 60 members of his family have been killed, including three of his sons in April, as well as his grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

“Through the blood of the martyrs and the pain of the injured, we create hope, we create the future, we create independence and freedom for our people and our nation,” he said in April.

Haniyeh was a top negotiator in the efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Haniyeh was described as a moderate and a pragmatist — someone who could plan for the long term and someone who could negotiate and deal with nuances of negotiations,” Nimer said.

Haniyeh’s killing, he added, “will have undoubtedly negative consequences for the [ceasefire] negotiations”.

Israel has assassinated numerous leaders from Hamas, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, and other Palestinian groups in the past. Haniyeh had himself escaped an Israeli assassination attempt in 2003 along with his mentor Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, the Hamas spiritual leader and founder.

Nimer said the recent assassinations could backfire on Israel. “Whenever someone is assassinated, instead of killing their memory, they make them into a martyr – a hero for all the people,” he told Al Jazeera.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — New details emerged Friday on the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, with the Kremlin acknowledging for the first time that some of the Russians held in the West were from its security services. Families of freed dissidents, meanwhile, expressed their joy at the surprise release.

While journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva and former Marine Paul Whelan were greeted by their families and President Joe Biden in Maryland on Thursday night, President Vladimir Putin embraced each of the Russian returnees at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, and promised them state awards and a “talk about your future.”

Among the eight returning to Moscow was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a former Chechen fighter in a Berlin park. German judges said the murder was carried out on orders from Russian authorities.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that Krasikov is an officer of the Federal Security Service, or FSB — a fact reported in the West even as Moscow denied any state involvement.

He also said Krasikov once served in the FSB’s special Alpha unit, along with some of Putin’s bodyguards.

“Naturally, they also greeted each other yesterday when they saw each other,” Peskov said, underscoring Putin’s high interest in including Kresikov in the swap.

Peskov also confirmed that the couple released in Slovenia — Artem Dultsov and Anna Dultsova — were undercover intelligence officers commonly known as “illegals.” Posing as Argentine expats, they used Ljubljana as their base since 2017 to relay Moscow’s orders to other sleeper agents and were arrested on espionage charges in 2022.

Their two children joined them as they flew to Moscow via Ankara, Turkey, where the mass exchange took place. They do not speak Russian, and only learned their parents were Russian nationals sometime on the flight, Peskov said.

They also did not know who Putin was, “asking who is it greeting them,” he added.

“That’s how illegals work, and that’s the sacrifices they make because of their dedication to their work,” Peskov said.

Two dozen prisoners were freed in the historic trade, which was in the works for months and unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow freed 15 people in the exchange — Americans, Germans and Russian dissidents — most of whom have been jailed on charges widely seen as politically motivated. Another German national was released by Belarus.

Among the dissidents released were Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated; associates of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny; Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights campaigner, and Ilya Yashin, imprisoned for criticizing the war in Ukraine.

They were flown to Germany amid an outpouring of joy from their supporters and relatives — but also some shock and surprise.

“God, it is such happiness! I cried so much when I found out. And later, too. And I’m about to cry again now, as well,” said Tatyana Usmanova, the wife of Andrei Pivovarov, another opposition activist released in the swap, writing on Facebook as she flew to meet him. Pivovarov was arrested in 2021 and sentenced to four years in prison.

In a phone call to Biden, Kara-Murza said “no word is strong enough for this.”

“I don’t believe what’s happening. I still think I’m sleeping in my prison cell in (the Siberian city of) Omsk instead of hearing your voice. But I just want you to know that you’ve done a wonderful thing by saving so many people,” he said in a video posted on X.