The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday morning after a series of strikes on the South American country, U.S. President Donald Trump announced in a social media post.
Trump said on Truth Social that Maduro and his wife had been “captured and flown out of the Country” after a “large scale strike” that was executed in “conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.” Trump also said he would hold a press conference on the operation at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida country club, at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday morning after a series of strikes on the South American country, U.S. President Donald Trump announced in a social media post.
Trump said on Truth Social that Maduro and his wife had been “captured and flown out of the Country” after a “large scale strike” that was executed in “conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.” Trump also said he would hold a press conference on the operation at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida country club, at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
Trump subsequently told the New York Times in a phone interview that he would address concerns about congressional approval for the strikes at that press conference. He described the assault as a “brilliant operation, actually” that involved a “lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops and great people.”
Trump’s post came hours after a series of explosions were reported at military bases in Venezuela’s capital of Caracas overnight between Friday and Saturday. The Venezuelan government said in a statement that strikes also took place in three other states across the country.
The Trump administration has been ratcheting up its military campaign against Venezuela and Maduro for months, moving thousands of U.S. troops and several ships off the country’s coast and conducting multiple strikes on boats that it claimed were being used by drug traffickers.
Though U.S. military actions thus far had largely been restricted to the Caribbean Sea, Trump indicated on Monday that the campaign had shifted to land strikes, when he said the United States had “hit” a loading dock in Venezuela “where they load the boats up with drugs.” That strike was carried out by the CIA earlier in December, according to a report from CNN.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López denounced what he described as the “most criminal military aggression” by the United States.
“The presence of these international troops that are sowing death, grief, and destruction … is responding to the greed for our natural resources,” López said in a public address shortly after the strikes. “They have spread false lies about narcoterrorism, and they are seeking regime change at the hands of U.S. imperialism.”
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez acknowledged in an interview with Venezuelan state television on Saturday that she did not know Maduro’s whereabouts, asking Trump to provide proof of life for the Venezuelan leader.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has clashed with Trump repeatedly, wrote on X that he would deploy forces to his country’s border with Venezuela to prepare for a potential influx of refugees. “The government of Colombia rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America,” he added.
Meanwhile, Argentine President Javier Milei—a staunch Trump supporter—posted a video of himself previously expressing support for U.S. actions in Venezuela with the Spanish caption: “Long live freedom, damn it.”
U.S. Republican Sen. Mike Lee initially questioned Trump’s authority to order Saturday’s strikes. “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,” he wrote in a post on X. Lee subsequently posted that he had spoken with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who informed him that Maduro had “been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States, and that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant.”
The U.S. Justice Department had charged Maduro with alleged drug trafficking and corruption in March 2020, during Trump’s first term in office, accusing the Venezuelan president of conspiring to “flood the United States with cocaine.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
