US will run Venezuela until ‘safe, proper and judicious transition’ – Trump

Donald Trump has given a news conference after the US launched strikes on Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro.

The US president says the US is going to “run” Venezuela “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition”. US oil companies will fix Venezuela’s “broken infrastructure” and “start making money for the country”, Trump added.

He says no US servicemen were killed in the operation and the US is “ready” to stage a second “and much larger” attack on the country if needed.

Just before he began speaking, Trump shared a photo he said was of Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima – the image shows him blindfolded and wearing ear defenders

A little earlier, Maduro was indicted in New York on drugs and weapons charges – the US attorney general says he’ll “face the full wrath of American justice”. Maduro has previously denied being the leader of drug cartel

Venezuela has declared a national emergency, denouncing “extremely serious military aggression” – BBC Verify identifies locations hit in the attack.

Maduro and his wife were at their home in the Ft. Tiuna military base in Caracas when the U.S. “bombed” and “carried out what we would call a kidnapping of the president and the first lady of the country,” Venezuelan ruling party leader Nahum Fernández told the Associated Press.

In addition to Caracas, the U.S. also conducted strikes in the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira overnight, Venezuelan officials said.

Maduro was indicted in the Southern District of New York on charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices, according to an unsealed indictment, the same four charges he faced in 2020, though the fresh indictment also names his son Nicolás Maduro Guerra and Flores as co-defendants.

Trump said no American troops were killed, but suggested in an interview with Fox News some were injured when a helicopter was hit in the operation.

He says they arrived at Maduro’s compound at 01:01 ET and isolated the area. On arrival there, the helicopters “came under fire”, and they responded with “overwhelming force”, he says.

One helicopter was hit but all US aircraft have been able to return home, he says. Maduro and his wife then “gave up” and were taken into custody by the Department of Justice, says Caine, and at 03:29 ET they boarded the USS Iwo Jima.

Donald Trump described the successful military operation in Venezuela with typical bravado. It was a display of “overwhelming military power” and a “spectacular assault”.

He called it “one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history”.

Supporting those boasts is the fact that no American military personnel were killed and, by Trump’s account, no US military equipment was destroyed, while the objective – capturing Nicolas Maduro and his wife – was achieved

Democrats accused the Trump administration of illegally conducting the strikes without proper congressional approval. Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said the strikes prove the Trump administration was lying when it said the months-long military campaign against alleged vessels in the Caribbean is designed to target drug cartels.

“Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change,” Kim wrote on X. “I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress. Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., called the strikes an “unjustified war” that is “illegal” and “embarrassing.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted that bringing Maduro to the U.S. for a trial is “to distract” from ongoing scrutiny of the government’s Epstein files release, as well as rising health care premiums for Affordable Care Act enrollees.

Key Background

The strikes follow a months-long U.S. military campaign against Venezuela the Trump administration has said is designed to target drug cartels. The U.S. has conducted dozens of strikes on vessels in the Caribbean it alleges were being used to smuggle drugs into the U.S., killing more than 100 people.

The U.S. military has also built up its presence in the Caribbean and intercepted Venezuelan oil tankers in recent weeks. It also conducted a drone strike on a dock in Venezuela last month, The New York Times previously reported. Maduro—whom the Trump administration has accused of being a “narco-terrorist”—was indicted in the U.S. in 2020 on charges of heading a violent drug cartel.

The U.S. views him a fugitive and offered an award of up to $50 million for information leading to his arrest and/or conviction.