CHICAGO (WLS) — Community meetings were planned across the Chicago area on Sunday after the U.S. military’s strikes in Venezuela and capture of the South American country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife.
Protesters gathered in downtown Chicago on Saturday just hours after President Donald Trump announced details of the attack. Many say they are against his decision to carry it out.
Federal Plaza in the Loop was packed with demonstrators pushing back against the Trump administration on Saturday. They say his actions were an unnecessary act of war.
Conversely, many Venezuelan nationals are happy to see the regime removed, but there are questions over how the operation was carried out without Congress being made aware.
Some demonstrators want the Trump administration to be focused on issues unfolding in the United States. Others ABC7 spoke with say this attack on Venezuela reminds them of previous U.S. involvement in international conflict.
Trump says the U.S. is going to run Venezuela in the interim until a transition can happen.
Maduro is currently being held in a Brooklyn, New York, detention center and faces drug and weapons charges. Venezuela’s vice president, meanwhile, addressed the country on state television after the attack, calling for Maduro’s release.
Sunday afternoon’s community meetings are expected to take place in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood and in north suburban Schaumburg.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will appear in Manhattan federal court Monday for arraignment on a four-count indictment that charged him with leading a 25-year narco-terrorism conspiracy.
Hours after an audacious military operation that plucked Maduro from power and removed him from the country, President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States would run Venezuela at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.
The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on the South American nation and its autocratic leader, and months of secret planning resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Watch President Trump’s full address following strikes on Venezuela and the capture of Maduro and his wife.
Legal experts immediately raised questions about whether the operation was lawful, and Venezuela’s vice president demanded in a speech that the U.S. free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader.
Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro’s capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.
“We’re going to run the country,” Trump said following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro and his wife, seized overnight from their home on a military base, were first taken aboard a U.S. warship on their way to face prosecution for a Justice Department indictment accusing them of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy. A plane believed to be carrying the deposed leader landed Saturday evening in New York.
A person in custody was escorted off the jet, gingerly making his way down a stairway before being led across the tarmac surrounded by federal agents. Several agents appeared to film the person on their phones.
Photos obtained by ABC News show a handcuffed Maduro being escorted by Drug Enforcement Administrator Terry Cole and other federal agents after landing in New York.
After arriving at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, Maduro was taken by helicopter to New York City and then to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The legal authority for the incursion, done without congressional approval, was not immediately clear, but the Trump administration promoted the ouster as a step toward reducing the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. The president touted what he saw as other potential benefits, including a leadership stake in the country and greater control of oil.
Trump claimed the U.S. government would help run the country and was already doing so, though there were no immediate signs of that. Venezuelan state TV continued to air pro-Maduro propaganda, broadcasting live images of supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.
“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.”
Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges, but the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, that painted the regime as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro as the country’s leader.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, details the U.S. military’s mission in Venezuela
Trump posted a photo on social media showing Maduro wearing a sweatsuit and a blindfold on board the USS Iwo Jima.
President Trump posted a photo on Truth Social allegedly showing Venezuelan President Maduro after his capture, writing, “Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima.”
Early morning attack
The operation followed a monthslong Trump administration effort to push 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.
Maduro had decried prior military operations as a thinly veiled effort to topple him from power.
Taking place 36 years to the day after the 1990 U.S. invasion of Panama that led to the surrender and seizure of leader Manuel Antonio Noriega, the Venezuela operation unfolded under the cover of darkness early Saturday as Trump said the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights” in the capital city of Caracas while forces moved in to extract Maduro and his wife.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had rehearsed their maneuvers for months, learning everything about Maduro – where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and his clothes.
“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again,” Caine said. “Not to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.”
Early Saturday, multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas. Maduro’s government accused the U.S. of hitting civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets.
The assault 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 saw 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 but 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 electricity.
Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. But Rodriguez stressed during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power. She called for Maduro’s release and pronounced him president.
“There is only one president in Venezuela, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros,” she said.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would face charges after an indictment in New York.
Some streets in Caracas fill up
Venezuela’s ruling party has held power since 1999, when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, took office, promising to uplift poor people and later to implement a self-described socialist revolution.
Maduro took over when Chávez died in 2013. His 2018 reelection was widely considered a sham because the main opposition parties were banned from participating. During the 2024 election, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner hours after polls closed, but the opposition gathered overwhelming evidence that he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
In a demonstration of how polarizing a figure Maduro is, people variously took to the streets to protest his capture and celebrate it.
At a protest in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez joined a crowd demanding Maduro’s return.
“Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up!” the crowd chanted. “We are here, Nicolás Maduro. If you can hear us, we are here!”
Earlier, armed people and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party.
In other parts of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. 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.”
In Doral, Florida, home to the largest Venezuelan community in the U.S, people wrapped themselves in Venezuelan flags, ate fried snacks and cheered as music played. At one point, the crowd chanted “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!”
Eleazar Saldivia was forced to flee Venezuela after political pressure and death threats.
Questions of legality
Some legal experts raised immediate concerns about the operation’s legality.
The U.N. Security Council, acting on an emergency request from Colombia, planned to hold a meeting on U.S. operations in Venezuela on Monday morning, according to a council diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet made public.
Lawmakers from both political parties in Congress have raised reservations and flat-out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling near the Venezuelan coast. 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.”
Toropin and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela, Lisa Mascaro, Michelle L. Price, Seung Min Kim and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Farnoush Amiri in New York and Larry Neumeister in South Amboy, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Donald Trump’s plan to take control of Venezuela’s oil industry and ask American companies to revitalize it after capturing President Nicolás Maduro in a raid isn’t likely to have a significant immediate impact on oil prices.
Venezuela’s oil industry is in disrepair after years of neglect and international sanctions, so it could take years and major investments before production can increase dramatically. But some analysts are optimistic that Venezuela could double or triple its current output of about 1.1 million barrels of oil a day to return to historic levels fairly quickly.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky has the latest on what lies ahead for Maduro.
“While many are reporting Venezuela’s oil infrastructure was unharmed by U.S. military actions, it has been decaying for many many years and will take time to rebuild,” said Patrick De Haan, who is the lead petroleum analyst at gasoline price tracker GasBuddy.
American oil companies will want a stable regime in the country before they are willing to invest heavily, and the political picture remained uncertain Saturday with Trump saying that the United States is in charge, while the current Venezuelan vice president argued, before Venezuela’s high court ordered her to assume the role of interim president, that Maduro should be restored to power.
“But if it seems like the U.S. is successful in running the country for the next 24 hours, I would say there would be a lot of optimism that U.S. energy companies could come in and revitalize the Venezuelan oil industry fairly quickly,” said Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group.
And if Venezuela can grow into an oil production powerhouse, Flynn said “that could cement lower prices for the longer term” and put more pressure on Russia.
Oil isn’t traded over the weekend, so there wasn’t an immediate impact on prices. But a major shift in prices isn’t expected when the market does reopen. Venezuela is a member of OPEC so its production is already accounted for there. And there is currently a surplus of oil on the global market.
Proven reserves
Venezuela is known to have the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves of approximately 303 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That accounts for roughly 17% of all global oil reserves.
So international oil companies have reason to be interested in Venezuela. Leading companies, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday. ConocoPhillips spokesperson Dennis Nuss said by email that the company “is monitoring developments in Venezuela and their potential implications for global energy supply and stability. It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments.”
Chevron is the only one with significant operations in Venezuela, where it produces about 250,000 barrels a day. Chevron, which first invested in Venezuela in the 1920s, does business in the country through joint ventures with the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., commonly known as PDVSA.
But even with those massive reserves, Venezuela has been producing less than 1% of the world’s crude oil supply. Corruption, mismanagement and U.S. economic sanctions saw production steadily decline from the 3.5 million barrels per day pumped in 1999 to today’s levels.
The problem isn’t finding the oil. It’s a question of the political environment and whether companies can count on the government to live up to their contracts. Back in 2007, then President Hugo Chávez nationalized much of the oil production and forced major players like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips out.
“The issue is not just that the infrastructure is in bad shape, but it’s mostly about how do you get foreign companies to start pouring money in before they have a clear perspective on the political stability, the contract situation and the like,” said Francisco Monaldi, who is the director of the Latin American energy program at Rice University.
But the infrastructure does need significant investment.
“The estimate is that in order for Venezuela to increase from one million barrels per day – that is what it produces today – to four million barrels, it will take about a decade and about a hundred billion dollars of investment,” Monaldi said.
Strong demand
Venezuela produces the kind of heavy crude oil that’s needed for diesel fuel, asphalt and other fuels for heavy equipment. Diesel is in short supply around the world because of the sanctions on oil from Venezuela and Russia and because America’s lighter crude oil can’t easily replace it.
Years ago, American refineries on the Gulf Coast were optimized to handle that kind of heavy crude at a time when U.S. oil production was falling and Venezuelan and Mexican crude was plentiful. So refineries would love to have more access to Venezuela’s crude because it would help them operate more efficiently, and it tends to be a little cheaper.
Boosting Venezuelan production could also make it easier to put pressure on Russia because Europe and the rest of the world could get more of the diesel and heavy oil they need from Venezuela and stop buying from Russia.
“There’s been a big benefit for Russia to see Venezuela’s oil industry collapse. And the reason is because they were a competitor on the global stage for that oil market,” Flynn said.
Complicated legal picture
But Matthew Waxman, a Columbia University law professor who was a national security official in the George W. Bush administration, said seizing control of Venezuela’s resources opens up additional legal issues.
“For example, a big issue will be who really owns Venezuela’s oil?” Waxman wrote in an email. “An occupying military power can’t enrich itself by taking another state’s resources, but the Trump administration will probably claim that the Venezuelan government never rightfully held them.”
But Waxman, who served in the State and Defense departments and on the National Security Council under Bush, noted that “we’ve seen the administration talk very dismissively about international law when it comes to Venezuela.”
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Associated Press writers Matt O’Brien and Ben Finley contributed to this report.
CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said its president, Nicolás Maduro, had been captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington – an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack.
Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas, the capital, as Maduro’s government immediately accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations. The Venezuelan government called it an “imperialist attack” and urged citizens to take to the streets.
It was not immediately clear who was running the country, and Maduro’s whereabouts were not immediately known. Trump announced the developments on Truth Social shortly after 4:30 a.m. ET. Under Venezuelan law the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, would take power. There was no confirmation that had happened, though she did issue a statement after the strike.
President Donald Trump says Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife have been captured.
“We do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores,” Rodriguez said. “We demand proof of life.”
Maduro, Trump said, “has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow.” He set a news conference for later Saturday morning.
The legal implications of the strike under U.S. law were not immediately clear. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted on X that he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who briefed him on the strike. Rubio told Lee that Maduro “has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States.”
The White House did not immediately respond to queries on where Maduro and his wife were being flown to. Maduro was indicted in March 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges in the Southern District of New York.
Maduro last appeared on state television Friday while meeting with a delegation of Chinese officials in Caracas.
The explosions in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, early on the third day of 2026 – at least seven blasts – sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report hearing and seeing the explosions. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties on either side. The attack itself lasted less than 30 minutes and it was unclear if more actions lay ahead, though Trump said in his post that the strikes were carried out “successfully.”
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ban on U.S. commercial flights in Venezuelan airspace because of “ongoing military activity” ahead of the explosions.
The strike came after the Trump administration spent months escalating pressure on Maduro. The CIA was behind a drone strike last week 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.
For months, Trump had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land following months of attacks on boats accused of carrying drugs. Maduro has decried the U.S. military operations as a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.
Some streets in Caracas fill up
Armed individuals and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party. But in other areas of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. Parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.
Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape sky as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed an urban landscape with cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. Unintelligible conversation could be heard in the background. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.
Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.
“The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes,” said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. “We felt like the air was hitting us.”
Venezuela’s government responded to the attack with a call to action. “People to the streets!” it said in a statement. “The Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”
The statement added that Maduro had “ordered all national defense plans to be implemented” and declared “a state of external disturbance.” That state of emergency 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, issued a warning to American citizens in the country, saying it was “aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas.”
“U.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place,” the warning said.
Reaction emerges slowly
Inquiries to the Pentagon and U.S. Southern Command since Trump’s social media post went unanswered. The FAA warned all commercial and private U.S. pilots that the airspace over Venezuela and the small island nation of Curacao, just off the coast of the country to the north, was off limits “due to safety-of-flight risks associated with ongoing military activity.”
U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted his potential concerns, reflecting a view from the right flank in the Congress. “I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force,” Lee said on X.
It was not clear if the U.S. Congress had been officially notified of the strikes.
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 on boats near the Venezuelan coast and the Congress has not specifically approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.
Regional reaction was not immediately forthcoming in the early hours of Saturday. Cuba, however, 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!”
The U.S. military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September. As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
They followed a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.
Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. and asserted that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
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Toropin and AP journalist Lisa Mascaro reported from Washington.
