US Forces Capture Maduro After Trump’s Venezuela Strikes

Unexpected US military strikes rock Venezuelan capital city.

According to President Donald Trump, US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife early Saturday morning. Multiple explosions and “low-flying aircraft” were reported over Caracas around 2 a.m. local time in what Trump later confirmed was a “large scale strike” on the Latin American nation’s capital.

The president said the operation was executed “in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.” A news conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. Eastern at Mar-a-Lago.

Strikes on Venezuela

The attack marks a major escalation after months of growing military pressure between the United States and Venezuela. As Liberty Nation News previously reported, the Trump administration “has been building its naval presence in the Caribbean,” sending guided-missile destroyers, guided-missile cruisers, at least one amphibious ready group with three amphibious warships, and the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier with approximately 75 aircraft on board to the region.

Earlier this week, Trump said the US had “knocked out” a facility linked to Venezuela:

“We just knocked out — I don’t know if you read or you saw — they have a big plant or big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said in an interview with WABC radio in New York. “Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”

Shortly before news of the strikes in Venezuela were revealed, War Secretary Pete Hegseth praised a new report highlighting a recent surge in US military operations.

“It’s called PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH,” Hegseth wrote on X. “After the disastrous years of Joe Biden — where America was woke, weak & in retreat — President Trump and the @DeptofWar are RE-ESTABLISHING DETERRENCE. We will never back down.”

Venezuela’s Response

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said officials in the nation “do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.”

“We demand proof of life,” Rodríguez added. Venezuelan law requires the vice president to take power if something happens to the president. It is unclear if this transfer of power has taken place, according to the Associated Press.

The Venezuelan government condemned the attack in a statement posted on X and translated by the Embassy of Venezuela to the United Kingdom, denouncing it as an “extremely grave” military operation that allegedly targeted both civilian and military locations:

“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejects, condemns, and denounces before the international community the extremely grave military aggression carried out by the current Government of the United States of America against Venezuelan territory and population, targeting both civilian and military locations in the city of Caracas, the capital of the Republic, as well as the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira. This act constitutes a flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations, particularly Articles 1 and 2, which enshrine respect for sovereignty, the legal equality of States, and the prohibition of the use of force. Such aggression threatens international peace and stability, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, and places the lives of millions of people at serious risk.”

Before the early morning strike, the latest news out of Caracas was that Maduro finally seemed willing to discuss a drug-trafficking deal with the US. As LNN National Security Correspondent Dave Patterson explained: “Recent events have shown that the US can take whatever action against Venezuela it chooses and that Maduro is powerless to prevent it. With that understanding, the Venezuelan dictator has taken a more conciliatory tone.”

Patterson added, however, that such claims ring hollow as Maduro’s actions belied any earnest effort to take any real action toward ending drug trafficking in Venezuela. As The New York Times reported: “Venezuelan security forces have detained several Americans in the months since the Trump administration began a military and economic pressure campaign against the government of the South American nation, according to a US official familiar with the matter.” Arresting US citizens doesn’t exactly show the Trump administration a real willingness to negotiate in good faith.