Trump warns Venezuelan officials may face same fate as Maduro
- WGON
- Jan 3
- 2 min read
President Donald Trump warned political and military leaders in Venezuela that they could face the same consequences as Nicolás Maduro following a US operation that captured the Venezuelan leader.
During a press conference on Saturday morning, Trump said Venezuelan officials should view the capture of Maduro as a direct warning.
“All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they aren't just, fair even to their people,” Trump said. “The dictator and terrorist Maduro is finally gone in Venezuela, people are free. They're free again. It's been a long time for them, but they're free.”
Trump said the operation made both the United States and the region safer.
“America is a safer nation this morning. It's a prouder nation this morning, because it didn't allow this horrible person and this country that was doing very bad things to us. It didn't allow it to happen, and the Western Hemisphere is right now a much safer place to be,” the president said.
US forces conducted an operation Saturday targeting the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, capturing Maduro along with First Lady Cilia Flores. The two were taken out of the capital to face narco-terrorism charges in the United States.
Trump also said the United States would oversee control of Venezuela during a transitional period following Maduro’s capture.
"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition, so we don't want to be involved with having somebody 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 until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition, and it has to be judicious, because that's what we're all about,” he explained.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is poised to lead the country following the capture of Maduro.
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