During midday this Thursday, news agencies reported that President Joe Biden supported the option of new elections in Venezuela, an idea promoted by governments close to Maduro such as Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Lula in Brazil, instead of pushing for the recognition of opposition leader Edmundo González.
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However, in the following hours, the White House clarified that the president misheard a question while on his way to board a helicopter.
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In what context did Joe Biden speak?
An article by the Washington correspondent of the Argentine newspaper Clarín provides more background on how Joe Biden's response was given.
In her account, Paula Lugones recounts that past midday this Thursday, the President of the United States left the White House to board the Marine One helicopter, for an event with Kamala Harris in Maryland, and answered some questions from the pool of reporters covering all Biden news.
It was then that they asked him if he supported new elections in Venezuela and Biden simply said “I do” without saying anything else. One of the accredited journalists told Lugones that “it was very difficult to hear.”
Hours later, the National Security Council came out to explain the situation, as reported by the Caracol TV correspondent from Colombia in Washington: "More or less, the White House says that the president misheard the question."
In the opening lines of a statement from the National Security Council spokesperson, it says that "the president was referring to how absurd it is that Maduro and his representatives have not told the truth about the elections on July 28th."
Later, Sean Savett, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, wrote on the social network X that "it is quite clear that Edmundo González Urrutia won the majority of votes. We ask that the will of the people be respected and that debates on a transition back to democratic norms be initiated.".
The White House recognizes Edmundo González's victory.
Since the elections were held in Venezuela, the government of the United States has rejected the (dataless) results provided by the National Electoral Council (CNE), an institution controlled by Chavismo.
Furthermore, Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State (the second most important position in the cabinet and similar to a Minister of Foreign Affairs), said two weeks ago that "the electoral data overwhelmingly demonstrate the will of the Venezuelan people: the candidate of the democratic opposition Edmundo González won the majority of the votes."
This past Thursday, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, John Kirby, commented in a press briefing at the White House that "We believe that Gonzalez won the majority of the votes. We believe this through various means and various sources (...) And the fact that Mr. Maduro does not disclose this data certainly speaks to what must be his concern about the transparency that would show... We want to see the data."
Why would Biden take a different path? Aligning with left-wing governments like those of Petro and Lula, and offering a way out for Maduro in a process that would once again be controlled by the CNE, could leave a flank exposed to Kamala Harris and the Democrats with just over two months left until the US presidential elections.