US President Donald Trump on Saturday night gave a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, speaking about the US' recent capture of Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
According to Trump, the US is "going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition."
He claimed, "We don’t want to be involved with having someone else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country."
Praising the US operation, he said, "No nation in the world could achieve what America achieved yesterday, or frankly, in just a short period of time, all Venezuelan military capacities were rendered powerless as the men and women of our military, working with us, law enforcement, successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night. 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... We had many helicopters, many planes, many, many people involved in that fight."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared "Maduro had plenty of chances to go somewhere else, and now has different problems on his hands. We will meet for talks with anybody, but this is not a president who plays games."
Answering questions from reporters, President Trump said that the USA would govern Venezuela via several of the secretaries present at the conference, and that the USA's focus would be on rebuilding the oil industry in Venezuela and returning the profits to the Venezuelan people.
"We will be taking a lot of money out to rebuild their infrastructure. We will be selling oil in very large quantities," Trump stated. He added that there would be a team of American officials working with the Venezuelans to run the country. "They don't have a choice - if we just left, Venezuela would not have a chance. We will run it properly and professionally, with the biggest oil companies coming in to take out billions and billions of dollars. There will be money going back into Venezuela. We will take back oil that we should have taken back years ago, and they will reimburse us everything we spent."
Secretary Rubio noted that the operation was a law enforcement operation, and so the requirements for congressional notification did not apply. President Trump added that he did not trust Congress to keep such notifications confidential.
Trump revealed that Maduro was captured while trying to reach a safe room. "You've had only victories with me - Sulemeini, Al-Baghdadi, Midnight Hammer," he stated.
He added threats to Cuba and Colombia during the conference. Secretary Rubio claimed that "Cuba had taken over Venezuela from a security standpoint." Trump recounted how several candidates endorsed by him have succeeded.
Trump specified that the US military presence would be limited to oil and reparations. "We will have a presence in regards to oil, and taking wealth out of the ground. That wealth will go to the people of Venezuela and to reimbursing the USA for the damages caused by Maduro."
Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed that the operation had been codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve and described it as a highly precise, months-long mission involving all branches of the military and intelligence agencies. He emphasized the extraordinary intelligence efforts that tracked Maduro's every movement - what he ate, wore, where he lived and traveled - and highlighted the operation's complexity, which included over 150 aircraft from 20 bases, low-flying helicopters, and extraction forces facing armed resistance. Caine noted that one U.S. aircraft was hit but remained operational, all forces returned safely, and he praised the mission's flawless execution, stating that "failure is never an option for America’s joint force."
Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking alongside President Trump, called the operation a "historic success that showcased the strength of the American warrior." Like Trump, he took the opportunity to remind the conference of Operation Midnight Hammer as well: "Nicolás Maduro had his chance, just like Iran had their chance, until they didn't."