Trump says US will ‘run the country’ after capture of Maduro

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and was taking him to New York to face criminal charges, the stunning culmination of a monthslong campaign by his administration to oust the authoritarian leader. The United States would “run” the country until a proper transition of power could be arranged, the president said hours later, raising the prospect of an open-ended commitment.

Trump offered few details about how the United States would oversee Venezuela, saying only that an unspecified “group” would do so. It was not clear whether that would involve an occupying military force, although Trump said he was not afraid of “boots on the ground.”

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez had spoken to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and told him she was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary,” Trump told reporters during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida. But Rodríguez earlier denounced the U.S. operation on state television, calling it a “brutal attack.”

While Trump said little about how the United States would be “running” Venezuela, he insisted it “won’t cost us anything” because American oil companies would rebuild the energy infrastructure in Venezuela, which holds vast reserves of oil.

Hours after Trump announced the military assault that captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media that they had been indicted on drug and weapons charges and “will soon face the full wrath of American justice.” The charges were similar to those contained in a 2020 indictment that the Trump administration has repeatedly cited in calling Maduro the head of a “narco-terrorist” state.

US Special Operations forces captured Maduro with the help of a CIA source within the Venezuelan government who had monitored his location in recent days, according to people briefed on the operation. Trump posted an image of Maduro in custody aboard the USS Iwo Jima, one of the American warships that have been prowling the Caribbean, and said he and his wife would be taken to New York.

The swift military operation came after months of threats, warnings and accusations of drug smuggling by Trump against Maduro. Trump said that no US troops had been killed but suggested in an interview with Fox News that some had been injured when their helicopter was hit.

In a brief phone interview with The New York Times after the announcement, Trump celebrated the mission. “A lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops and great people,” he said. “It was a brilliant operation, actually.”

In a lengthy telephone interview later Saturday with “Fox & Friends,” Trump said that he and key members of his administration watched the Delta Force raid in real time from a room at Mar-a-Lago. Trump said that the military repeatedly rehearsed the operation using a replica of Maduro’s safe house and was able to execute the raid flawlessly, breaking through steel doors protecting Maduro in “a matter of seconds.”

“I watched it literally like you are watching a television show,” the president said. “It was an amazing thing.”

Venezuelan officials said in statements that some of their citizens had been killed but that the death and injury toll was still being assessed. A state of emergency was declared in response to the attacks, which occurred in Caracas and in the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira, according to a statement from the Venezuelan communications ministry.

Venezuela “rejects, repudiates and denounces” U.S. military aggression, the ministry said. It called on “all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”

Maduro, a self-described socialist, has led Venezuela since 2013, and the Biden administration accused him of stealing the 2024 election that kept him in power. His inner circle appeared to have survived.

Here is what else to know:

Military buildup: Since late August, the Pentagon has amassed troops, aircraft and warships in the Caribbean. The U.S. military has attacked many small vessels that U.S. officials maintained were smuggling drugs, killing at least 115 people. And the CIA conducted a drone strike on a port facility in Venezuela last month, according to people briefed on the operation. A broad range of experts on the use of lethal force have said that the strikes on small vessels amount to illegal extrajudicial killings, but the Trump administration has asserted they are consistent with the laws of war because the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels.

Last month, C-17 cargo planes — largely used for transporting military troops and equipment — conducted at least 16 flights to Puerto Rico from U.S. military bases, according to flight tracking data. U.S. Southern Command has said that some 15,000 troops are already deployed in the Caribbean, one of the largest naval deployments to the region in decades.

Oil blockade: In recent weeks, the United States has also carried out a campaign against tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, throwing the country’s oil industry into disarray and jeopardizing the government’s main source of revenue. The United States seized one sanctioned tanker carrying oil as it sailed from Venezuela toward Asia. It intercepted and detained another oil vessel that was not under U.S. sanctions. And the U.S. Coast Guard tried to board a third tanker as it was on the way to Venezuela to pick up cargo.

Cartel accusations: In March 2020, Maduro was indicted in the United States on charges that he oversaw a violent drug organization known as Cartel de los Soles. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Maduro is actually at odds with one group, Tren de Aragua, and analysts say the Cartel de Los Soles does not exist as a concrete organization. The term has been used to refer to the involvement of many high-ranking military officers in the drug trade, though there is no evidence that Maduro directs the effort.