Trump: U.S. Captures Maduro, Will Run Venezuela Temporarily

In a stunning escalation of U.S. military action in Latin America, President Donald Trump announced Saturday that American forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, during an overnight raid on Caracas following airstrikes on military targets.

Trump, speaking at a news conference from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, declared that the United States would temporarily administer Venezuela pending a transition to new leadership.

"We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Trump said."We’re going to run it, essentially."

The president did not rule out a prolonged U.S. military presence.

"We’re not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to," Trump said. "We had boots on the ground last night, at a very high level, actually."

Trump emphasized U.S. interests in Venezuela's oil sector.

"We’re going to have [a] presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil," he said.

Invoking the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, Trump quipped that it had been updated.

"They now call it the Don-roe doctrine," he said.

Flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Trump dismissed concerns about past U.S. interventions in Latin America or conflicts with his America First policy.

"We’re going to run the country right, it’s going to be run very judiciously, very fairly," Trump said.

The operation followed months of heightened tensions, including U.S. sanctions and a $50 million bounty on Maduro related to 2020 narco-terrorism charges accusing him of leading the Cartel of the Suns.

Trump described the raid as flawless.

"Not a single American service member was killed," he said. "It was dark. The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have. It was dark. And it was deadly."

Maduro and his wife are en route to New York to face federal charges, Trump said, comparing the case to the 1989 prosecution of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.

Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the couple would face justice under a 2020 indictment.

"They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts," Bondi posted on X.

Trump praised the mission as "one of the most stunning effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history."

On Venezuela's political future, Trump questioned opposition leader María Corina Machado's viability.

"I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country," Trump said. "She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect in Venezuela."

He said Maduro's former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, had indicated cooperation.

"She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again," Trump said.

The president outlined plans to restore oil production, reimburse affected parties and rebuild infrastructure.

"We’re going to reimburse people that were taken advantage of," he said. "We have to rebuild their whole infrastructure."

He slammed Maduro as the "kingpin of a vast criminal network" responsible for countless American deaths and warned the regime's oil output had been a "total bust for a long period of time."

“They were pumping almost nothing," Trump said.

The president said U.S. actions would "make the people of Venezuela rich, independent and safe."

Venezuela's Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, also wanted on U.S. drug charges, denounced the operation as an "invasion" and called for international condemnation.

"Desperation is the invader’s ally. Let us avoid chaos and anarchy. They have attacked us, but they will not break us. We will prevail, Padrino López said.

As of Saturday, parts of Caracas remained without power, and the full extent of U.S. control on the ground was unclear.

President Trump has thrust the United States into direct administration of a foreign nation for the first time in decades—a bold move that reasserts American dominance in the Western Hemisphere and raises profound questions about the future of Venezuela.