The United States has confirmed plans to take control of Venezuela following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
President Donald Trump said the operation, which neutralized all Venezuelan military capacities, was executed flawlessly, and Maduro was seized in the dead of night.
The US now intends to govern Venezuela “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”
“We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club.
He added, “So, we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition, and it has to be judicious. We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela.”
Trump confirmed that no American service members were killed and no US equipment was destroyed during the operation.
CNN reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the mission, saying it “was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on.”
He explained the operation was carefully timed, “It was a trigger-based mission in which conditions had to be met night after night. We watched and monitored that for a number of days. So it’s just simply not the kind of mission you can call people and say, ‘Hey, we may do this at some point in the next 15 days. It’s just not the kind of mission you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission. It was largely a law enforcement function.’”
Rubio noted that Maduro and Flores were aboard the USS Iwo Jima, on their way to New York to face trial.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine told CNN that one US aircraft was hit during the operation but remained fully operational.
He praised the critical role of intelligence teams, “Our air and ground intelligence teams provided real-time updates to the ground force, ensuring those forces could safely navigate the complex environment without unnecessary risk.”
Caine added that US forces encountered resistance while withdrawing but would remain in the region.
“There were multiple self-defense engagements as the force began to withdraw out of Venezuela,” he said.
Describing the mission as a “testament to the dedication and unwavering commitment to justice and our resolve to hold accountable those who threaten peace and stability,” Caine thanked everyone involved in the operation.
