Trump says US is going to RUN Venezuela indefinitely after sharing photo of captured president Maduro in tracksuit and revealing that first lady will be charged too
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump says the United States will govern Venezuela indefinitely after sending in special forces to snatch the country’s president as he slept.
Addressing journalists hours after the shocking capture of Nicolas Maduro and wife Cilia in Caracas on Saturday, the president said: ‘We’re going to run the country until as 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 as we had for the last long number of years.
‘So we are going to run the country until we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.’
Trump offered little further detail on the logistics of running Venezuela, which has a population of 30 million, but suggested the country’s vast oil reserves would be used to fund its revival.
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump alleged that Maduro is the leader of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) drug trafficking operation.
The president has accused Maduro and his alleged cartel cronies of flooding the United States with illegal narcotics and has charged him with drug smuggling and weapons offenses.
After his capture by the US Army’s elite Delta Force unit, Maduro was flown by helicopter to the USS Iwo Jima warship.
He will be taken to New York City to face charges at Manhattan Federal Court and will likely be held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, which currently houses alleged CEO murderer Luigi Mangione.
Trump said Saturday that he had not briefed Congress of his plans to snatch Maduro, claiming that had he done so, the news would have ‘leaked’ and potentially helped the Venezuelan leader to evade capture.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado has been tipped as the country’s next president, but Trump made no mention of her on Saturday.
She previously voiced support for Trump’s threats to get rid of Maduro and is hugely popular among the Venezuelan electorate.
Maduro’s capture sparked jubilation from Venezuelan migrants living outside of their home nation Saturday.
Hundreds took to the streets of cities, including Santiago in Chile, to celebrate the ouster of a leader seen as a corrupt authoritarian accused of destroying the economy of his oil-rich country while silencing dissent.
The atmosphere appeared altogether more muted in Caracas.
Locals were photographed lining up outside supermarkets amid fears Maduro’s ouster will lead to even greater economic uncertainty.
Shortly before Saturday’s press conference, the president shared an undignified photo of Maduro in a tracksuit taken after his capture.
He said the Venezuelan president’s wife will also be charged, but did not offer further details.
Maduro was photographed wearing a heavy black plastic eye mask and ear muffs over his ears in an apparent bid to keep his location a secret from him.
He was clad in a gray tracksuit and clutched a plastic water bottle. It is unclear if this is what Maduro was wearing when he was taken or if it was given to him by US forces.
The image was a far cry from his usual appearance in sharp suits or military regalia, with CNN commentators speculating it had been chosen to humiliate the corrupt leader.
There was no sign of Cilia.
Addressing a press conference in Mar-a-Lago Saturday, Trump told journalists that the Venezuelan first lady was part of her husband’s alleged schemes and that she too will face criminal charges in Manhattan.
‘Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice,’ Trump declared.
The Maduros are said to have been frightened of capture by US forces and allegedly took to sleeping in a different place every night.
Their whereabouts was being monitored successfully by CIA spies, with Trump green-lighting the operation to snatch them on Thursday.
Earlier on Saturday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Maduro would face drug and weapons trafficking charges originally filed in 2020 during Trump’s first term in office.
Five other Venezuelan officials face the same charges. But the first lady is not among those names and it remains unclear what charges she will face.
Speaking while flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump said the operation to capture Maduro was one of the most daring in military history.
Shortly after 2am Venezuela time Saturday morning, Delta Force soldiers burst into the Maduros bedroom and captured them.
A source told the network the operation – which struck five Venezuelan sites including three in the country’s capital Caracas – did not result in any casualties.
He hailed the operation as ‘brilliant’ in a brief New York Times interview early Saturday.
The president later called into Fox News‘s breakfast show Fox & Friends, excitedly telling its hosts: ‘I mean, I watched it literally l like I was watching a television show. If you would’ve seen the speed, the violence – it was an amazing thing.’
Explosions were seen ripping across Caracas during the daring raid, with Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek Saab insisting that ‘innocents’ had been ‘mortally wounded’ by the US operation.
Venezuela has yet to share further details on whether any of its soldiers or citizens were injured or killed during the raid.
By JIMMY McCLOSKEY/Daily Mail
