6 events in Passaic County with a date

Trump: U.S. plans to run Venezuela

Bondi says Maduro faces drug trafficking charges

By: Cyele Mayes-Osterman
Davis Winkle
Bart Jansen
Jeanine Santucci
Eduardo Cuevas
and Francesca Chambers
USA Today

..... The United States will "run" Venezuela following an overnight [01/03/2026] military operation in which Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife were captured and explosion rocked the country's capitol of Caracas, President Donald Trump said January 3. [2026]
..... "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Trump said at a press conference form Palm Beach, Florida.
..... The president did not provide details of how the United States will run Venezuela, but he said his administration is determining who will be in charge of he country. He declined to endorse Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025, to lead the country. He also did not provide a timeline for how long the United States will run the country, saying that it will be " a period of time" as Venezuela's infrastructure is rebuilt.
..... The United States "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," Trump said on Truth Social. "This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement."
..... Maduro, who is under a federal drug trafficking indictment in New York, "will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts," Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X.
..... The federal indictment charges Maduro with narc-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and cocaine weapons courts.
..... The indictment also sought the seizure of any belongings that resulted from the alleged criminal conspiracy.
..... Other defendants include Diosdado Cabello Rondon,, Venezuela's minister of interior, justice and peace; Ramon Rodriquez Chacin, the former minister of interior and justice; first lady cilia Adela Flores de Maduro; the president's son, Nicolas Ernesto Maduro Guerra, a member of the country's national assembly; and the alleged leader of the crime gang Tren de Aragua, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores.
..... Maduro began his third term in January 2025 after claiming he won Venezuela's last election. International observes and several governemnts, including the United States, cast doubt on the official results.
..... The attack came after a U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, a series of U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats, the seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers, and threats by Trump against Maduor and his government.

Running Venezuela

..... Trump indicated the administration had not spoken to Machado about leading the country and argued that she does not have the internal support.
..... Trump said it would be "very though" for Machado to lead the country.
..... "She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the county," he said.
..... Asked whether U.S. troops will remain in Venezuela as part of the Untied States "running: the country, Trump said, "We're not afraid of boots on the ground."
..... "We're going to make sure hat country is run properly," eh said. "We're not doing this in vain."
..... General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces "remain in the region at a high state of readiness."

Oil industry in Venezuela

..... Trump said "very large oil companies" will spend "billions of dollars" in Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves of any nation worldwide.
..... "The oil business has been a total bust," he said of Venezuela's oil industry, which is controlled by a government-run company. "They were pumping almost nothing in."
..... "Very large U.S. oil companies" will "Go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure," and "start making money for the country," Trump said.
..... Chevron is the only American company that currently has access to Venezuelan oil, through a joint venture with the state-run company.
..... Trump said Venezuela's infrastructure we put there 20 years ago," he said, apparently referencing the nationalization of the industry in 1976.
..... "We're going to be replacing it, and we're going to take a lot of money out so we can take care of the country," Trump said.

Delta Force carries out strike

..... Members of the Army's secretive Delta Force led the raid to capture Maduro and his wife,according to CBS News.
..... Delta Force, considered the Arny's equivalent to the Navy's SEAL Team 6, is trained in counter-terrorism and raids against important targets.
..... Caine described the complex raid, characterizing it as "an audacious operation that only the United States could do."
..... The Air Froce general emphasized the amount of planning that went into the mission to capture Maduro, nothing that ti required coordination between all branches of the military and intelligence agencies including the CIA, National Security Agency and National Genospatial-Intelligence Agency.
..... "The word integration does not explain the sheer complexity of such a mission, an extraction so precise it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western Hemisphere is close coordination," Caine said. "Failure of one component of this well-oiled machine would have endangered the entire mission, and failure is never an option for America's joint force."
..... David Smolansky, a spokesperson for Machado, told USA Today that strikes targeted several critical infrastructure and military facilities, including Fuerte Tiuna, the main military base in Caracas; La Carlota, a military airbase; a site for signal antennae and communications infrastructure on a peak overlooking Caracas called El Volcan; and a port on the Caribbean coast called La Guaira.
..... Trump told Fox news in a phone interview that, as far as he knows, no U.S. craft were lost during the overnight strike on Venezuela.

HOME