President Donald Trump claimed early Saturday that the U.S. had spirited Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of the country and taken him into custody, with the abduction marking an apparent regime change effort.
Hours after U.S. airstrikes lit up the night sky across the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, Trump claimed credit for the attacks and said that Maduro had been taken into U.S. custody.
“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.”
The U.S. has not made such a direct intervention in Latin America since the invasion of Panama in 1989 to depose military leader Manuel Noriega.
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Trump is set to address the nation from Mar-a-Lago at 11 a.m.
According to CBS News, the operation to capture the 63-year-old Maduro was carried out by Delta Force, the elite unit of the U.S. Army special operations. According to Sky News, sources within the Venezuelan opposition described the capture as a “negotiated exit.”
U.S. Special Operations Command referred questions about Delta Force involvement in the operation to the White House. The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Trump finally broke his silence about the attacks just before 4:30 a.m. with his post to Truth Social. Senior administration officials, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, immediately shared the post.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote on X that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he “anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in U.S. custody.”
In a telephone interview with a Colombian news station, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez appeared to confirm the capture when she demanded that the U.S. provide proof of life of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro.
The Venezuelan government said in a statement that attacks struck the states of Aragua, Miranda, and La Guaira, in addition to Caracas, framing the strikes as part of a broader, nationwide assault.
“The Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack,” the statement read. “Venezuela reserves the right to exercise legitimate defense to protect its people, its territory, and its independence.” read a Venezuelan government announcement issued early on Saturday.
The Trump administration’s abduction of Maduro is an extension of long-running efforts to topple the Venezuelan president which failed during Trump’s first term. Maduro and close allies were indicted in a New York federal court in 2020 on charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. Earlier this year, the U.S. doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million.
On Saturday, Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced that Maduro had been indicted in the Southern District of New York alongside his wife, Cilia Flores, who had not previously been charged. She did not make clear whether Maduro was facing a new indictment or additional charges on his existing one.
Bondi wrote on X that Maduro had been charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States.” Of Maduro and Flores, she wrote, “They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
In a March filing related to Maduro’s 2020 indictment, the Trump administration claims that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was acting as “a de facto arm of” Maduro’s government, but the Office of the Director of National Intelligence determined earlier this year that the “Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.”
The U.S. maintains that Tren de Aragua is both engaging in irregular warfare against and in a non-international armed conflict with the United States. These are, however, mutually exclusive designations which cannot occur simultaneously.
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The Trump administration also claims that another criminal organization, Cártel de los Soles, is “headed by Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals,” despite little evidence that such a group exists. Secretary of State Marco Rubio continued to make such claims on X on Saturday.
“[Maduro] doesn’t want to fuck around with the United States,” Trump told reporters in October.
Last month, Trump told Politico that Maduro’s “days are numbered.”
History Rhymes
Following the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, its president Manuel Noriega was captured and brought to Miami for trial over alleged drugs offenses. After 20 years in U.S. custody, he was extradited to France. Noriega later returned to Panama, where he died in 2017.
According to The Associated Press, the attack on Venezuela spanned roughly 30 minutes, leaving areas of the city without power as smoke rose above a military base in the capital.
Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, told The Intercept he heard “heavy aircraft” at high altitude, while other witnesses reported hearing low-flying aircraft, and videos on social media appeared to show helicopters flying low over the city.
Jose De Bastos, a Venezuelan journalist based in Washington, D.C., told The Intercept that his friends and family in Caracas reported hearing the attacks from all over the capital.
“Everyone I know there woke up with the explosions,” De Bastos told The Intercept just before 4 a.m. ET. “For maybe two hours they kept saying that the explosions had stopped but they kept hearing helicopters and planes, but they say it’s quiet now.”
“Most people didn’t really believe this would happen,” De Bastos said.
Representatives of the U.S. military were tight-lipped on Saturday.
“We have no comment to add,” Steven McLoud, a spokesperson for U.S. Southern Command told The Intercept when asked for additional details. “The President is scheduled to make an announcement later this morning concerning the strikes overnight.”
In a security alert posted early Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, which has been shuttered since 2019, issued a warning via the U.S. embassy in neighboring Colombia to any U.S. citizens in Venezuela or planning to travel there.
“U.S. Embassy Bogota is aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas, Venezuela,” the alert read. “The U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, warns U.S. citizens not to travel to Venezuela. U.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place.”
The attacks drew swift condemnation from Gustavo Petro, the left-leaning president of Colombia.
“The Government of the Republic of Colombia observes with deep concern the reports of explosions and unusual aerial activity recorded in recent hours in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as the consequent escalation of tension in the region,” Petro said. “The Republic of Colombia reiterates its conviction that peace, respect for international law, and the protection of life and human dignity must prevail over any form of armed confrontation.”
Trump declined to say whether he sought congressional approval before launching strikes on Venezuela and seizing Maduro, the New York Times reported.
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Congressional Democrats roundly condemned the attacks. “Without authorization from Congress, and with the vast majority of Americans opposed to military action, Trump just launched an unjustified, illegal strike on Venezuela,” wrote Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the ranking member of the powerful House Rules Committee, who previously introduced a war powers resolution to block strikes on Venezuela.
“Let us be clear: these strikes are illegal,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., wrote on X. “The President does not have the authority to declare war or undertake large-scale military operations without Congress. Congress must act to rein him in. Immediately.”
“I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force,” wrote Lee, the Utah senator.
Lee’s concerns were apparently assuaged by Rubio. “He informed me … that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant,” wrote Lee. “This action likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack.”
The Trump administration has used the same Article II argument to justify its boat strikes.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Intercept that Rubio had “repeatedly denied to Congress that the Administration intended to force regime change in Venezuela,” and added that the Trump administration owed Congress answers.
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Since late August, the Pentagon has flooded the region with troops, aircraft, and naval warships in the Caribbean. The U.S. military has attacked more than 30 alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing at least 115 people. Experts in the laws of war and members of Congress, from both parties, have said the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence.
The U.S. also seized one tanker carrying Venezuelan oil and menaced others. The C.I.A. conducted a drone strike on a port facility in Venezuela late last month, according to a government official briefed on the operation.
The U.S. has intervened to oust governments in Latin America a total of at least 41 times — about once every 28 months from 1898 to 1994 — including 17 direct interventions by the U.S. military, intelligence agencies, or locals employed by U.S. government agencies, according to ReVista, the Harvard Review of Latin America.
Washington attempted at least 18 covert regime changes in Latin America during the Cold War alone, Foreign Affairs noted earlier this year, which included deposing nine governments that fell to military rulers in the 1960s, about one every 13 months.
In 1954, the U.S. helped overthrow Guatemala’s democratically elected government, ushering in a military junta that jailed political opponents, igniting an almost two-decade long civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. In 1961, the U.S. also backed the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and fomented a coup in the Dominican Republic, which sparked years of unrest and U.S. election meddling. This, in turn, led to a 1965 invasion of the island nation by U.S. Marines.
In 1973, a U.S.-backed coup in Chile, led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, ousted and resulted in the death of Salvador Allende, that country’s democratically elected president. A brutal, 17-year dictatorship marked by state torture, enforced disappearances, and killing followed, leaving more than 40,000 dead.
The U.S. also supported coups in Brazil in 1964, Bolivia in 1971, and funded the Contra rebels in Nicaragua throughout the 1980s. None of these interventions produced a stable, pro-American democracy and often resulted in authoritarian regimes and vicious cycles of violence.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
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