Government supporters display posters of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, right, and former President Hugo Chávez in downtown Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country. Matias Delacroix/AP

In a steep escalation in the United States’ ongoing military offensive in the region, President Donald Trump said early Saturday that the US had captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. 

Trump did not seek congressional approval for this move.

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that the US had “successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader” in an operation “done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.” Later, he posted a photo that he said was of a captured Maduro, blindfolded.

During a Saturday morning press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said several times—without citing any international rule of law that would permit such an action—that the US was “going to run the country” until “we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” signaling an American occupation of Venezuela. The president, flanked by national security officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Stephen Miller, said the capture of Maduro and his wife was a “spectacular assault” like “people haven’t seen since WWII.”

Trump also warned that the US is prepared to attack Venezuela again if necessary, and claimed that if other leaders go against the US, they may face military action: “What happened to Maduro can happen to them,” he said.

In an earlier........

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