This report was updated at 1:30pm ET with new information from the president’s press conference.
WASHINGTON — The US military launched what President Donald Trump called a “spectacular assault” on the Venezuelan capital of Caracas overnight that took leader Nicolas Maduro into American custody and has set the stage for the US to “run” the South American nation indefinitely.
The military operation, dubbed Absolute Resolve and involving scores of aerial assets as well as a special operations ground team, was able to capture Maduro and his wife at his presidential palace as, according to Trump, Maduro was attempting to flee to a safe room.
Though the American assault force came under fire, no American servicemembers were killed.
MORE: 150 aircraft, cyber effects and ‘overwhelming force’: How the Venezuela operation unfolded
Speaking at Mar-a-Lago Saturday morning, Trump praised the operation as a “display of American military might and competence,” before fielding several questions about what comes next.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” the president said.
Trump offered few details on what that means for the immediate future but suggested that his national security team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, would be working with Venezuelan figures like current Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, to form a stable caretaker government.
Trump said Rubio had spoken with Rodríguez and that she seemed amenable to working with US, though Trump acknowledged that “she really doesn’t have a choice.” Trump said the US would be ready to launch a second, larger strike if necessary. However, just hours later Rodríguez appeared on Venezuelan television calling for Maduro’s release and reiterating that he alone is the president of the country.
But while Maduro is being charged with drug and weapons crimes, Trump repeatedly came back to another motivating factor for the operation and one driving his envisioned transition plan: oil.
“We’re going to take back the oil that frankly we should’ve taken back a long time ago,” the president said, apparently referring to the Venezuelan seizure of US oil companies’ assets in the 1970s.
“They did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about. They took all of our property; it was our property. We built it,” he said, saying the infrastructure was “taken from us like we were babies.”
So now, Trump said, “we’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastucture, and start making money for the country.”
The money, he said, would benefit the Venezuelan people, Venezuelans in exile, and the United States. As for whether the oil companies would need American security, Trump suggested a small American military force could be deployed on the ground during the transition phase.
The military operation was also designed, Trump said, to be a warning to others in Venezuela who may “threaten” American “sovereignty” or lives.
“All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they aren’t just, fair and even to their people,” he said.
Outside Venezuela, when asked if he has any words for Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has sharply criticized Trump, the American president accused Petro of “making cocaine.”
“So he does have to watch his ass,” Trump said.
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