Venezuela Live Updates: Trump Says U.S. Will ‘Run the Country’ After Capture of Maduro
President Trump offered few details about how the United States would oversee Venezuela and for how long, but said its oil industry would “make a lot of money” under U.S. leadership. President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were being taken to New York to stand trial on drug and weapons charges.
President Trump said on Saturday that the United States had captured the 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.
Mr. 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 Mr. Trump said he was not afraid of “boots on the ground.”
Delcy Rodríguez, who had been Mr. Maduro’s vice president, was sworn in as interim president at a secret ceremony in Caracas, according to two people close to the government who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Ms. Rodríguez denounced the military operation on state television, calling it “a brutal attack.” But Mr. Trump later told reporters during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, that she had spoken to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary.”
While Mr. 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.
“We are going to run the country right,″ Mr. Trump said as he turned to oil. “It’s going to make a lot of money.” Past Venezuelan governments, he said, “stole our oil” — an apparent reference to the country’s nationalization of its oil industry.
Hours after Mr. Trump announced the military assault that captured Mr. 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 in the unsealed indictment were similar to those contained in a 2020 indictment that the Trump administration has repeatedly cited in calling Mr. Maduro the head of a “narco-terrorist” state.
American special operations forces captured Mr. Maduro with the help of a C.I.A. source within the Venezuelan government who had monitored his location in recent days, according to people briefed on the operation. Mr. Trump posted an image of Mr. Maduro in custody aboard the U.S.S. 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 Mr. Trump against Mr. Maduro. Mr. Trump said that no American 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, Mr. 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,” Mr. 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, “literally like you are watching a television show.” Mr. Trump said that the military repeatedly rehearsed the operation using a replica of Mr. Maduro’s safe house and was able to execute the raid flawlessly, breaking through steel doors protecting Mr. Maduro in “a matter of seconds.”
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.”
Mr. Maduro, a self-described socialist, has led Venezuela since 2013, and the Biden administration accused him of stealing the election that kept him in power last year. 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 C.I.A. 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.
Oil blockade: 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, Mr. 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 Mr. 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.
Genevieve Glatsky and Annie Correal contributed reporting.
Representative Majorie Taylor Greene, just days before she is expected to resign from Congress, accused President Trump of walking away from his promise to end overseas wars. “Americans’ disgust with our own government’s never ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it, and both parties, Republicans and Democrats, always keep the Washington military machine funded and going,” Greene, a one-time Trump ally, posted on social media. “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”
In his first public break with President Trump since taking office two days ago, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City condemned the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, calling it “an act of war” and “violation of federal and international law.”
“This blatant pursuit of regime change doesn’t just affect those abroad, it directly impacts New Yorkers, including tens of thousands of Venezuelans who call this city home,” the mayor said in a statement posted on social media.
With President Nicolás Maduro and his wife en route to New York, the next step in their case will come in federal court in Manhattan. They are expected to appear before a U.S. District Court judge in New York City on the four-count narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking indictment unsealed on Saturday morning. In similar cases, the defendants have been flown to New York Stewart International Airport in Orange County, N.Y., about 72 miles north of the city, and brought to the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan. While it is unclear when they will arrive, security will undoubtedly be tight. It is also unclear whether the Venezuelan leader and his wife are yet represented by defense lawyers.
Even though General Caine did not identify the helicopter unit involved in the operation in Caracas, U.S. officials said it was the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which flies modified MH-60 and MH-47 helicopters.The 160th, nicknamed the Night Stalkers, specializes in high-risk, low-level, and nighttime missions like insertions, extractions and raids. The unit has conducted what the Pentagon calls training missions near the coast of Venezuela in recent months.
Several U.S. airlines, including Delta, American and Southwest, began cancelling flights to the Caribbean on Saturday morning, in compliance with airspace closures from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the extraction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from Venezuela was a “law enforcement” operation, yet the attorney general, Pam Bondi, who has not shied away from the spotlight, was a notable no-show at the news conference announcing what is, arguably, the most significant prosecution of her tenure.
Bondi spent the night and early morning hours watching live feeds inside a secure facility at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, not far from her home, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of her whereabouts who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. It is not clear if Bondi who has access to government aircraft would have had time to fly to New York, which takes around three hours.
Vice President JD Vance briefly met with President Trump at the president’s golf club in West Palm Beach during the day on Friday to discuss the impending strikes, but did not go to Mar-a-Lago that night, a spokesman said. The reason was the National Security team worried a late-night motorcade movement by the Vice President might tip off the Venezuelans.” Instead the vice president joined a secure video conference through the night to monitor the operation. He traveled to Cincinnati after the operation concluded, and was not present at Trump’s news conference.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the capture of Maduro was “entirely inconsistent” with what top officials told top lawmakers in closed-door briefings in recent weeks.
“Because the president and his cabinet repeatedly denied any intention of conducting regime change in Venezuela when briefing Congress, we are left with no understanding of how the Administration is preparing to mitigate risks to the U.S. and we have no information regarding a long-term strategy following today’s extraordinary escalation,” she said in statement.
Adelys Ferro, co-founder of the Venezuelan-American Caucus, a grassroots group representing Venezuelans in the United States, said asylum petitions and immigration proceedings for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans remain suspended. For them, the situation is particularly fraught. They have tried to prove that they have been targets of the Maduro regime in U.S. immigration courts, she said, but at the same time, the Trump administration has cast them as criminals and lawbreakers who should be deported.
“We are victims of the Nicolás Maduro regime, but we are also victims of the Trump administration policies,” she said.
Delcy Rodríguez has been sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president in a secret ceremony in Caracas on Saturday, according to two people close to the government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fears for their safety. Rodríguez is President Nicolás Maduro’s vice president.
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Credit...Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times
A burned vehicle at one of the sites in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, struck on Saturday in U.S. attacks.Credit...Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters
Despite the long American military buildup around Venezuela, the American raid on Caracas to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife produced initial reactions of shock, outrage and skepticism from international leaders, many of them troubled by an exercise of American gunboat diplomacy.
The reactions were particularly angry from Latin America and from leaders who are more on the left and who have struggled with President Trump and his trade, tariff and other policies in the region. Allies of Mr. Maduro like Cuba and Russia predictably condemned the American intervention, despite Russia’s own invasion of sovereign Ukraine nearly four years ago. And some, like a senior Mexican official, said that Mr. Trump was simply after Venezuela’s large oil deposits.
European leaders were more cautious to criticize Mr. Trump, largely appealing for all parties to de-escalate and obey international law.
Most reaction came before Mr. Trump announced that the United States would “run the country” until an unclear transition to local leadership. There were no immediate details on Saturday on how Mr. Trump intends to try to administer Venezuela.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil was particularly scathing. He condemned the U.S. action and said it “recalls the worst moments of interference in the politics” of the region.
“The bombings on Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line,” Mr. Lula wrote on social media. “These acts represent a grave affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty and yet another extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.”
President Gustavo Petro of Colombia wrote on X that he “rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.” He added that he was deploying forces to Colombia’s border with Venezuela, with additional support “in the event of a massive influx of refugees.”
And President Gabriel Boric of Chile, a leftist whose term is coming to an end, also condemned the intervention. “We express our concern and condemnation of the military actions by the United States taking place in Venezuela, and we call for seeking a peaceful solution to the serious crisis affecting the country,” he said on social media. Like many, he called for dialogue to resolve the crisis, “not through violence or foreign interference.”
President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba, a Maduro ally, denounced “a criminal attack” by the United States and called for “urgent reaction” from the world.
The reaction of Russia, another ally of Mr. Maduro, was strongly worded and apparently without irony. Russia, having invaded Ukraine four years ago and continuing to fight there, condemned the U.S. military action as “an act of armed aggression against Venezuela.” The Russian foreign ministry, in a statement, called the American attack “deeply concerning and condemnable,” adding: “The pretexts used to justify such actions are untenable. Ideological hostility has triumphed over businesslike pragmatism.”
Russia said that it supports the leadership of Venezuela and called for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the American intervention.
Iran, which has also been threatened in the last few days by Mr. Trump, issued a statement on Saturday condemning the U.S. attack and accusing the United States of violating the United Nations Charter.
But Mr. Trump has supporters in the region, too. President Javier Milei of Argentina celebrated the capture of Mr. Maduro. “Liberty advances,” he wrote on X.
And Prime Minister Kamla Susheila Persad-Bissessar of neighboring Trinidad and Tobago, who drew criticism for her support of Mr. Trump’s military buildup against Mr. Maduro in the name of combating drug trafficking, emphasized that her country played no role in the American operation and maintains peaceful relations with Venezuela.
The Venezuela intervention in the name of countering drug smuggling recalled to many the invasion of Panama in 1989. Back then, American forces captured Manuel Antonio Noriega, the ruler of Panama, and brought him to the United States to face charges of drug trafficking. He was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison, ultimately serving 17 years after a reduction in his sentence for good behavior. He died in Panamanian custody in 2017.
The Mexican government “condemned energetically” Washington’s unilateral military action in Venezuela, warned of regional instability and urged dialogue, according to a statement from the country’s foreign ministry. “Mexico makes an urgent call to respect international law, as well as the principles and purposes of the U.N. Charter, and to cease any act of aggression against the Venezuelan government and people,” read the statement, which was posted on X by President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico.
Gerardo Fernández Noroña, the president of Mexico’s Senate and an influential leader of the country’s governing Morena party, said the U.S. actions were aimed at taking control of Venezuela’s oil. “President Maduro has not been captured; he was deprived of his liberty through a military intervention by the United States government,” Mr. Fernández Noroña said on social media. “He is a prisoner of war. They seek through this to subdue the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in order to seize its natural resources.”
The Europeans were more circumspect. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said she had spoken to Secretary of State Marco Rubio about events in Venezuela. “The EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela,” she wrote in a social media post. “The EU has repeatedly stated that Mr. Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected. We call for restraint. The safety of EU citizens in the country is our top priority.”
The president of the European Council, António Costa, said on Saturday that the European Union wants de-escalation in Venezuela. Mr. Costa wrote on X that the E.U. “would continue to support a peaceful, democratic, and inclusive solution in Venezuela.”
Spain, with its close ties to Latin America, offered to mediate in the crisis in an attempt to broker a negotiated and peaceful solution. “Spain calls for de-escalation and restraint,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that it was “ready to help in the search for a democratic, negotiated, and peaceful solution for the country.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain was also cautious, saying: “I will want to talk to the president, I will want to talk to allies, but at the moment I think we need to establish the facts.” Asked about condemnation of the American intervention from other politicians, he said, “We should all uphold international law.”
The Europeans have been mostly consumed with Ukraine and helping President Volodymyr Zelensky refine a peace proposal that would satisfy Mr. Trump and then be presented to Russia, which has already made it clear that it is unacceptable in current form. On Saturday, the national security advisers of the main European countries were in Kyiv on that matter, which is of more strategic importance to the Europeans than the fate of Mr. Maduro.
Ukraine itself largely supported the actions of Mr. Trump, arguing, as Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha did, that Ukraine defends “the right of nations to live freely, free of dictatorship, oppression and human rights violations.” He accused Mr. Maduro’s government of having “violated all such principles in every respect.”
France largely followed the European line, criticizing Mr. Maduro, but Paris also raised the challenge of the American intervention to international law. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on social media that the military operation “violates the principle of non-resort to force that underpins international law.” He added: “France recalls that no lasting political solution can be imposed from the outside and that sovereign peoples alone decide their future.”
But perhaps the most interesting criticism of Mr. Trump came from Jordan Bardella, the likely presidential candidate of France’s far right National Rally party, which has received support from Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
“No one will miss” the Maduro regime, Mr. Bardella said on social media. “That said, respect for international law and the sovereignty of states cannot be applied selectively,” he added. “The forcible overthrow of a government from the outside cannot constitute an acceptable response, only exacerbating the geopolitical instability of our time.”
In the face of such intervention, he added, France must “rearm our nation, to strengthen our industrial and military capabilities,” in order to “make its independent voice heard on the international stage, one that respects sovereignties.”
Reporting was contributed by Ana Ionova, Annie Correal, Simon Romero, Genevieve Glatsky, Emma Bubola, Maria Abi-Habib, Jason Horowitz, Lizzie Dearden, Jeanna Smialek and Leily Nikounazar.
Trump’s news conference raises many questions. Who exactly will be running Venezuela, as he stated the United States would do for a period of time? Trump indicated there will be a U.S. military presence in Venezuela “as it pertains to oil.” What will that look like and how many U.S. troops could be deployed?
Amid all the questions, Trump did make clear one thing: This military operation was not just about ousting a leader accused of drug trafficking, but also about expanding U.S. access to Venezuela’s oil reserves.
Trump’s news conference has concluded. The biggest takeaway, of course, is Trump’s announcement that the United States would “run” Venezuela, and the lack of details about how that will work. But it’s also striking how much the president focused on oil and how central that will be to how the United States runs the country.
Trump has made various comments during this news conference showing that this military operation was at least in part about gaining more access to oil in Venezuela.
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Credit...Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times
When asked how running Venezuela follows Trump’s long-stated goal of putting “America First,” the president said, “We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors.”
Trump’s suggestion that Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, would help the United States run the country was stunning because it came just as Venezuelan state television was playing a clip of her denouncing the U.S. military operation.
“Faced with this brutal situation and this brutal attack, we do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores,” Rodríguez said, according to a clip played by Venezuelan state television on Saturday. “We demand immediate proof of life for President Maduro and the first lady from the government of President Donald Trump.”
But Trump just told reporters that Marco Rubio had spoken with her with a different result. “She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump said.
Asked why running a country elsewhere in the Americas is “America First,” Trump said, “I think it is,” citing the need for oil and energy. It’s worth recalling his quote to The Atlantic in which he said that America First is whatever he says it is.
Trump says Rubio and Hegseth will be a “team” working with the people of Venezuela to run Venezuela for this uncertain period of time. It’s unclear who those Venezuelans will be.
