President Donald Trump said Saturday that U.S. military and law enforcement personnel had carried out an overnight operation in Venezuela during which they arrested the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, also declaring Washington in control of the South American nation.
“Late last night and early today, at my direction, the United States armed forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela,” Trump said at a late-morning news conference from his Florida home. The operation featured, he said, “overwhelming American military power — air, land and sea was used to launch a spectacular assault.”
“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 [and] law enforcement, successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night,” Trump said, adding that Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, was also arrested and detained.
