Trump says US captured Venezuela’s president and plans to “run the country”

In a steep escalation in the United States’ ongoing military offensive in the region, President Donald Trump said early Saturday that the US had captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. 

Trump did not seek congressional approval for this move.

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that the US had “successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader” in an operation “done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.” Later, he posted a photo that he said was of a captured Maduro, blindfolded.

During a Saturday morning press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said several times—without citing any international rule of law that would permit such an action—that the US was “going to run the country” until “we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” signaling an American occupation of Venezuela. The president, flanked by national security officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Stephen Miller, said the capture of Maduro and his wife was a “spectacular assault” like “people haven’t seen since WWII.”

Trump also warned that the US is prepared to attack Venezuela again if necessary, and claimed that if other leaders go against the US, they may face military action: “What happened to Maduro can happen to them,” he said.

In an earlier morning interview with Fox News, the president said that Maduro and Flores were taken to the U.S.S. Iwo Jima, one of the American warships that have been operating in the Caribbean. They are set to be taken to New York, where “he will face drugs and weapons charges in Manhattan federal court,” according to CNN. 

Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez addressed the US’s actions on a state-run television station, calling it a “brutal attack” and adding that she does not know the whereabouts of Maduro or his wife. Rodríguez, who is next in line to step into power, demanded “proof of life” from Trump. 

The Trump administration’s announcement on Saturday came after months of military action in the region with the purported goal of stifling drugs coming into the US. Starting in the late summer, US forces conducted 35 known strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in South American waters, killing at least 115 people. Videos appearing to show these strikes—which also did not go through a congressional approval process—have been shared on social media by members of the Trump administration. The US has also seized multiple oil tankers off the country’s coast, conducted a CIA-led drone strike on a dock where drugs were allegedly being prepared for loading on boats, and, early on Saturday in connection with the capture operation, carried out several strikes throughout the Venezuelan capital.

During Trump’s Saturday interview with Fox News, he said the US is “going to be very strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil reserves. The country is home to the largest known oil reserve in the world, controlled by a nationalized company called Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA. For the US, greater control over that industry could be a boon. Following one of the US seizures of tankers off Venezuela’s coast last year, Trump was asked what the US planned to do with the oil on board. He answered: “Well, we keep it, I guess.”

Several leaders from around the region condemned Saturday’s US operation in Venezuela. Cuba’s President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, accused Washington of carrying out a “criminal attack,” President Claudia Sheinbaum posted an article in the UN Charter on refraining from threat or use of force, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that these moves recall the “worst moments of interference” by the United States into Latin American politics. 

Trump and others in his orbit have held that they do not need congressional approval for military actions in the region because they are part of a larger anti-drug operation. Yet, as The New York Times reports, “Venezuela is not a major source of drugs in the United States.” The nation “does not produce fentanyl” and the cocaine that passes through Venezuela “is grown and produced in Colombia, and then moves on to Europe.”

In a 2020 indictment in New York, the US charged President Maduro with participating in and supporting a narco-terrorism conspiracy. The investigation into him was overseen by Emil Bove III, a former criminal defense lawyer to President Trump. Per reporting from the Times, one of the prosecutors who was on that case, Amanda Houle, now leads the criminal division of the Southern District of New York—where Maduro and his wife’s current indictment will play out. Flores was not indicted in 2020. 

In a scathing piece, The New York Times’ editorial board decried Saturday’s actions, saying Trump was violating US law. “We fear that the result of Mr. Trump’s adventurism is increased suffering for Venezuelans, rising regional instability and lasting damage for America’s interests around the world,” the board wrote, adding, “We know that Mr. Trump’s warmongering violates the law.”