Just minutes after an earth-shaking Truth Social post announcing the U.S. operation to capture and exfiltrate Nicolas Maduro and his wife, President Donald Trump hailed the success of the covert operation.
"A lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops and great people," Trump told The New York Times in a 4:30 a.m. ET call that reportedly lasted less than a minute. "It was a brilliant operation, actually."
Trump has planned an 11 a.m. news conference at Mar-a-Lago to outline the indictment of Maduro on narco-terrorism charges after the "large-scale strike" exfiltrated Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
Trump in a televised interview said there were few injuries but no U.S. forces killed in the covert operation when they cornered Maduro in his compound.
"He was in a house that was more like a fortress than a house," Trump said in the televised interview. "It had steel doors, it had what they call a safety space where it's, you know, it's solid steel all around. He didn't get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but he got bum rushed so fast that he didn't get into there.
"We were prepared. We had, you know, massive blow torches and everything else that you need to get through that steel, but we didn't need it. He didn't, he didn't make it to that area of the house."
Newsmax national security correspondent Carla Babb wrote on X that "Newsmax has confirmed from a military source and a former US official that the operation to capture #Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro last night was carried out by the @USA elite Delta Force and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment."
Trump, who has been at odds with Democrats and "leakers" in Congress, told the Times "we'll discuss" what advance authorization he sought.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., reportedly was not told in advance of the operation.
"House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries did not get a heads up that President Donald Trump's administration was planning to strike Venezuela and capture President Nicholas Maduro, per sources," Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman wrote on X.
The House Armed Services Committee was reportedly not given advance notice either.
"HASC was not briefed either," Sherman added. "This has been pretty standard for the Trump administration."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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