The day before, Trump had effectively dismissed the prospects of Venezuela’s democratic opposition, including Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, whose stand-in candidate, Edmundo González, won more than two-thirds of the vote in an election last year that saw Maduro refuse to leave office.

“It’d be very tough for her to be the leader,” Trump said when asked about Machado on Saturday, adding that she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country.”

Associates of Machado, who covertly escaped Venezuela last month with the help of the United States to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony in Norway, were caught off-guard by Trump’s comment, according to a person close to her team.

On Sunday, she and her supporters once again urged the Venezuelan diaspora to rally in the streets. But with the two most prominent leaders outside the country — González fled to Spain last year after the election, and Machado’s location is not known — there was little they could do to mobilize a response inside Venezuela.

One Venezuelan opposition leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said Trump’s remarks were difficult for many in the opposition movement to hear, but “in every transition, you have to swallow some bitter pills.”

This person said the next 48 hours could help clarify whether Rodríguez could usher in a “soft transition” by replacing hard-line ministers or rather continue Maduro’s government with “gringo guardianship.”

Two people close to the White House said the president’s lack of interest in boosting Machado, despite her recent efforts to flatter Trump, stemmed from her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award the president has openly coveted.

Although Machado ultimately said she was dedicating the award to Trump, her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” said one of the people.

“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” this person said.