US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Washington would govern Venezuela until a \u201csafe, proper and judicious transition takes place\u201d after the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a military operation on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
American forces had captured Maduro and his wife early on Saturday morning after launching a \u201clarge-scale strike\u201d on the South American country.<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump said, \u201cNo nation in the world could achieve what America achieved yesterday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2018t 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,\u201d the US president said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re going to run the country, until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. We\u2019re going to run it, essentially.\u201d<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump speaks to the press following US military actions in Venezuela, at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, the US on January 3. \u2014 AFP
\nTrump added: \u201cAll Venezuelan military capacities were rendered powerless as the men and women of the US military, working with law enforcement, successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moreover, he said that the US military caused a blackout in Caracas to execute the operation to capture Maduro.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was dark. The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
He added that the US is ready to launch a second and much larger wave of attacks if needed, adding that Washington assumed a second wave would be necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first wave \u2026 was so successful we probably don\u2018t have to do a second, but we\u2019re prepared to do a second wave, a much bigger wave,\u201d Trump stated.<\/p>\n
Continuing his address, Trump said that Venezuela\u2019s oil industry \u201cwas a bust\u201d and that US oil companies would come in, repair the oil infrastructure and \u201cstart making money for the country\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, Trump brushed aside Nobel Peace Prize-winning opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as a potential interim leader of Venezuela, as he said Washington was working with the deposed Maduro\u2019s vice president.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn\u2019t have the support within or the respect within the country,\u201d Trump said. \u201cShe\u2019s a very nice woman, but she doesn\u2019t have the respect.\u201c<\/p>\n
Moreover, both he and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested potential action against Cuba and Colombia.<\/p>\n
\u2018Months of planning and rehearsal\u2019
\nThe US military operation to extract Maduro in a nighttime raid in Caracas took \u201cmonths of planning and rehearsal\u201d and more than 150 US aircraft were used, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine told reporters at Trump\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe word integration does not explain the sheer complexity of such a mission, an extraction so precise \u2014 it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western Hemisphere,\u201d Gen Caine told a joint press conference with President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
He added that Maduro\u2019s wife, Cilia Flores, surrendered to US forces in Caracas before being extracted.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaduro and his wife, both indicted, gave up and were taken into custody by the Department of Justice, assisted by our incredible US military with professionalism and precision, with no loss of US life,\u201d Gen Caine said.<\/p>\n
In a Truth Social post earlier today, Trump wrote: \u201cThe 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Washington would govern Venezuela until a \u201csafe, proper and judicious transition takes place\u201d after the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a military operation on Saturday morning. American forces had captured Maduro and his wife early on Saturday morning after launching a \u201clarge-scale strike\u201d on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14857,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14855\/revisions\/14857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}