Trump says US will ‘run’ Venezuela until safe transition can take place

The U.S. is “going to run the country,” President Trump said of Venezuela at a press conference after the military captured Nicolás Maduro. He also outlined a plan to send U.S. oil companies to take over Venezuelan oil operations.

During an address to the nation, President Donald Trump said the U.S. will “run” Venezuela.

“We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transitions,” he said. “So we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in and the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.”

He also said U.S. oil companies would be going into Venezuela to restore infrastructure to the country’s oil operations and threatened a second wave of attack if the country resisted.

The capture of the Venezuelan president has drawn mixed reactions, with exiled Venezuelans celebrating in the streets of Miami but leaders in the European Union, Mexico and others decrying the attack.

The Trump administration has maintained the attack was necessary to stem narcotics flowing into the United States from Venezuela.

Maduro and his wife will “face the full might of American justice” and stand trial in the United States, Trump said.

“Right now, they’re on a ship, they’ll be heading to, ultimately, New York, and then a decision will be made, I assume, between New York and Miami or Florida, but we have people where the overwhelming evidence of their crimes will be presented in a court of law,” Trump said.

Maduro was indicted earlier today and charged in connection with narco-terrorism and other crimes.

Trump accused Maduro of allowing drugs to be trafficked into the United States and prompting gang violence in U.S. cities.

No nation in the world “could achieve was America achieved yesterday,” Trump told the news conference.

“It was dark, the lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have,” he said, without giving further details. “It was dark it was deadly.” Venezuelan forces were “completely overwhelmed and very quickly incapacitated,” he said.

“Not a single American service member was killed, and not a single piece of equipment was lost, many helicopters, many planes, many people involved in air flight,” he added.

With the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump and his allies are calling the audacious military operation a major success as the U.S. leader once again demonstrated a willingness to use U.S. forces for risky missions that come with a potential big payoff.

The operation has ousted a South American strongman blasted by Trump’s administration as an “illegitimate” dictator and a “narco-terrorist,” a scourge responsible for a steady of stream of illegal drugs poisoning U.S. and Europe.

“It was a brilliant operation, actually,” Trump told The New York Times shortly after U.S. forces were cleared from Venezuelan airspace. He later added in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” that some U.S. troops were injured in the strike but none were killed.

But the path ahead could certainly be treacherous as the White House faces a series of difficult questions.

--Agencies