Trump says U.S. will run Venezuela after capture of Maduro

CARACAS METROPOLITAN DISTRICT, Venezuela — The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him out of the country in an extraordinary nighttime operation that was accompanied by a flurry of strikes following months of escalating Trump administration pressure on the oil-rich South American nation.

No American service members were killed and no military equipment was lost in the capturing.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. planned to run Venezuela until a transition of power can take place. He claimed the American presence was already in place, though there were no immediate signs that the U.S. was running the country.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference where he boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”

Venezuelan state TV broadcast live images of small groups of Maduro supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.

The legal authority for the attack was not immediately clear.

U.S. prosecutors argue they have jurisdiction because the alleged conspiracies were aimed at flooding the United States with cocaine and involved foreign terrorist organizations, allowing charges to be brought even though the conduct occurred largely outside U.S. territory. 

The stunning American military action, which plucked a nation’s sitting leader from office, echoed the U.S. invasion of Panama that led to the surrender and seizure of its leader, Manuel Antonio Noriega, in 1990 — exactly 36 years ago Saturday.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would face charges after an indictment in New York.

The indictment accuses Maduro, Flores and other senior Venezuelan officials of running a decades-long conspiracy to traffic massive quantities of cocaine into the United States while partnering with U.S.-designated terrorist and criminal organizations, including Colombia’s FARC and ELN guerrillas, Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and the Tren de Aragua gang. Prosecutors allege the scheme relied on corruption inside Venezuela’s military, intelligence services and government institutions. 

Bondi vowed in a social media post that the couple would “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.” 

Prosecutors said the case stems from a superseding indictment filed in federal court in New York that expands earlier charges first brought in 2020. The newer filing explicitly names Flores and Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, accusing them of playing direct roles in drug trafficking and weapons conspiracies tied to the alleged operation.

Trump said the couple were aboard the U.S. warship Iwo Jima and headed to New York.

Trump, who was set to speak Saturday morning, posted on his Truth Social account a photo of Maduro blindfolded and in a sweatsuit aboard the ship.

Early Saturday, multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through the Venezuelan capital. Maduro’s government accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets.

The attack lasted less than 30 minutes and the explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they’d seen and heard. Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, without giving a number. Trump said some U.S. forces were injured in Venezuela but he believed none were killed.

Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.

Smoke was seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.

Venezuelan ruling party leader Nahum Fernández told The Associated Press that Maduro and Flores were at their home within the Ft. Tiuna military installation when they were captured.

“That’s where they bombed,” he said. “And, there, they carried out what we could call a kidnapping of the president and the first lady of the country.”

Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. There was no confirmation that had happened, though she did issue a statement after the strike, demanding proof of life for Maduro and his wife.

The strike followed a months-long Trump administration pressure campaign on the Venezuelan leader, including a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America and attacks on boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean accused of carrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September.

As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes was 35 and the number of people killed at least 115, according to the Trump administration. Trump said that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has justified the boat strikes as a necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S.

Maduro has decried the U.S. military operations as a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.

Venezuela’s government responded to the attack with a call to action: “People to the streets!”

Armed people and uniformed members of a civilian militia headed into the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party.

At a pro-Maduro protest in the capital, Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez joined a crowd demanding Maduro’s return.

“Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up!” the crowd chanted. They also said: “We are here Nicolás Maduro. If you can hear us, we are here!”

In other parts of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack, as residents absorbed events. Some areas remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.

“How do I feel? Scared, like everyone,” said Caracas resident Noris Prada, who sat on an empty avenue looking down at his phone. “Venezuelans woke up scared, many families couldn’t sleep.”

Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.

Smoke was seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.

The Venezuelan government’s statement said Maduro had “ordered all national defense plans to be implemented” and declared a state of emergency that gives him the power to suspend people’s rights and expand the role of the armed forces.

The website of the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, a post that has been closed since 2019, urged American citizens to shelter in place.

The Armed Services committees in both houses of Congress, which have jurisdiction over military matters, have not been notified by the administration of any actions, according to a person familiar with the matter and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Lawmakers from both political parties in Congress have raised deep reservations and flat-out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling near the Venezuelan coast and Congress has not specifically approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.

Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence that would justify Trump striking Venezuela without approval from Congress and demanded an immediate briefing by the administration on “its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.”

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine called the action a “a sickening return to a day when the United States asserted the right to dominate the internal political affairs of all nations in the Western Hemisphere,” adding, “we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.”

“Our Constitution places the gravest decisions about the use of military force in the hands of Congress for a reason,” Virginia Sen. Mark R. Warner said. “Using military force to enact regime change demands the closest scrutiny, precisely because the consequences do not end with the initial strike.”

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said the military action and seizure of Maduro marks “a new dawn for Venezuela,” saying that “the tyrant is gone.” He posted on X hours after the strike. His boss, Rubio, reposted a post from July that said Maduro “is NOT the President of Venezuela and his regime is NOT the legitimate government.”

Cuba, a supporter of the Maduro government and a longtime adversary of the United States, called for the international community to respond to what President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called “the criminal attack.”

“Our zone of peace is being brutally assaulted,” he said on X. Iran’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the strikes.

President Javier Milei of Argentina praised the claim by his close ally, Trump, that Maduro had been captured with a political slogan he often deploys to celebrate right-wing advances: “Long live freedom, dammit!”

Toropin and Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro reported from Washington.

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