Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, drawing more attention to his standoff with the White House over President Obama’s pick to be an ambassador to Caracas, is suggesting alternate candidates, including Sean Penn and Bill Clinton.

"I hope they name Oliver Stone. I'll suggest a candidate ... Sean Penn, or [Noam] Chomsky. We have a lot of friends there. Bill Clinton!" Chavez said in a televised speech on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

He also mentioned that when he met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration ceremony over the weekend, he asked about her husband.

Chavez rejected Obama’s nomination of Larry Palmer to be the American envoy in Caracas after the nominee raised concerns about the low morale of the Venezuelan government.

Last week, Chavez dared Washington to “cut diplomatic relations” with his country and even expel his own ambassador; Bernardo Alvarez Herrera’s visa was consequently revoked and the ambassador was forced to leave the country.