Donald Trump, US President, says he watched the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro unfold live from his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, describing the operation as fast, violent, and unlike anything he had seen before.
In a phone interview with Fox News on Saturday, Trump said he followed the mission in real time alongside senior US military generals.
“I was told by real military people that there’s no other country on Earth that can do such a manoeuvre,” Trump said. “I watched it literally like I was watching a television show.”
Trump said the operation involved US forces breaking through heavily reinforced locations designed to withstand attacks.
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“They broke into steel doors that were put there for just this reason, and they got taken out in a matter of seconds,” he said. “It was an amazing thing. There’s nobody else who could have done anything like it.”
According to CNN, the Trump administration began preparing for the secretive operation in mid December. The plan involved US special operations forces supported by FBI agents and a large air presence, including helicopters and fighter jets.
Trump said no Americans were killed during the mission, though some were injured. One helicopter was hit but safely returned.
“We lost no aircraft. Everything came back,” he told Fox News.
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Trump also confirmed that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are aboard the USS Iwo Jima and heading to New York, where Maduro is expected to face drug and weapons charges in federal court in Manhattan.
“Yes, the Iwo Jima, they’re on a ship,” Trump said. “They’ll be heading into New York.”
The US Justice Department is expected to file new charges against Maduro and his wife in a superseding indictment, according to CNN, citing sources familiar with the matter. Maduro was first indicted in 2020 in New York, Washington, and Miami on charges including narco terrorism and conspiracy to flood the United States with cocaine.
At the time, Geoffrey Berman, then US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Maduro had “very deliberately deployed cocaine as a weapon” against the United States.
The capture has raised urgent questions about what comes next for Venezuela. Trump signalled that Washington intends to play a direct role in shaping the country’s future.
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“We’re making that decision now,” he told Fox News. “We can’t take a chance of letting somebody else run it and just take over what he left off. We’ll be involved in it very much.”
Trump stopped short of endorsing opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, saying only that the administration would “have to look at it.
Venezuela’s government has rejected the US claims. Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said Maduro remains the country’s constitutional president and demanded his immediate return, calling the US action a violation of sovereignty.
Maduro’s supporters have accused Washington of seeking to control Venezuela’s oil resources, while US officials argue the operation was necessary to dismantle drug trafficking networks they say have operated under Maduro’s protection for years.
