Who is Venezuela's interim president? What to know about Delcy Rodríguez.

Venezuela's new leader Delcy Eloina Rodríguez Gómez has a long political memory that stretches back to her Marxist father, who died in detention during a democratic government before a leftist movement rose in its wake.

Now, President Donald Trump is watching her every move.

The 56-year-old, newly sworn-in president assumed Venezuela's most powerful office as interim president after U.S. forces captured President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3. She formally took the oath of office on Jan. 5, sworn in by her brother Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela's National Assembly.

Here's what to know about her political rise.

'Compliance and cooperation'

Rodríguez, who served as vice president, continues to insist Maduro remains Venezuela's legitimate leader.

She denounced the U.S. strike as a "brutal attack," called Maduro's ouster a "kidnapping" and at one point demanded the United States "show proof of life" following the dramatic strike.

Amid her firebrand talk, Trump issued a direct warning to Rodríguez.

"If she doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro," Trump told The Atlantic a day after Maduro's capture.

But U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested Venezuela's new leadership would work with the Trump administration on issues important to U.S. national security.

"We expect to see more compliance and cooperation than we were previously receiving," Rubio told NBC's Meet the Press on Jan. 4. "With Nicolás Maduro, you could not make a deal or an arrangement."  

Roots in leftist politics

While Rodríguez has deep roots in the country's hard-core leftist politics, she's also seen by the Trump administration as someone willing to negotiate with the United States and its interests in the region, which distinguishes her from Maduro.

Also, unlike Maduro, Rodríguez doesn't face U.S. drug trafficking charges. She has appeared on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of sanctioned individuals for at least a decade, dating back to the Obama administration, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Once head of Maduro's communications ministry, later foreign minister and then vice president, Rodríguez is listed as ranking among Venezuelan officials suspected to be involved in anti-democratic actions or policies, serious human rights abuses and public corruption.

Although Trump initially suggested the U.S. would be running Venezuela, Rubio clarified, "It's not running it. It's running policy."

"We want Venezuela to move in a certain direction, because not only do we think it’s good for the people of Venezuela, it’s in our national interest," he said.

Death of a socialist guerrilla

Venezuela transitioned to democracy after a decade-long military dictatorship that ended in 1958. However, the country's leftists found themselves marginalized in the new democratic elections, which were dominated by two larger political parties.

Rodríguez's father, Jorge Rodríguez, served as secretary general of the Socialist League and participated in a leftist guerrilla movement that never got off the ground.

In the mid-1970s, her father was detained in the kidnapping of American businessman William Niehous in Venezuela. He died while in custody of the government of democratically elected Carlos Andrés Pérez after intelligence officials ordered his beating, according to a CIA missive.

Rodríguez was a university law professor when the military officer and revolutionary Hugo Chávez first attempted to overthrow Pérez in his second term. Chávez was later elected and other guerrillas behind the kidnapping of Niehous eventually became ministers in the government.

She and her brother, also named Jorge Rodríguez, closely aligned themselves with the socialist politics that became known as "chavismo."

As U.S. forces whisked Maduro north to the United States, Rodríguez declared the country would continue carrying out Maduro's policies and would "never be a colony ever again."