Interior minister told he must back acting president, while Marco Rubio lays out three-point plan for Venezuela

The Trump administration has reportedly put Venezuela’s hardline interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, on notice that he could be next to fall if he does not support the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has been in power since Nicolás Maduro was seized on Saturday.

Reuters reported that US officials were “especially concerned” that Cabello, long seen by many as the regime’s real No 2, could sabotage Washington’s plan to keep key figures from Maduro’s inner circle in place in the name of stability while pursuing a transition and unrestricted access to Venezuela’s oil.

Flores, Nicolás Maduro’s wife, wielded far more power than just being a first lady and played a front line role in politics

Before pleading “not guilty” at her first court hearing after she and her husband, Nicolás Maduro, were captured by US special forces, Cilia Flores made a point of adding, in Spanish: “I am first lady of the Republic of Venezuela.”

But Maduro himself and others close to the couple agree that she was always far more than that. Before her rendition to New York, Flores wielded power comparable with – and at times greater than – that of other figures from the regime, including Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice-president who is now the country’s acting leader.