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President Trump said the U.S. will run Venezuela until a "proper transition can take place," saying he wasn't "afraid of boots on the ground," and defended Saturday's military strikes that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
"We're there now, but we're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place," Trump told reporters from Mar a Lago. "So we're going to stay until such time as we're going to run it, essentially, until such time as a proper transition can take place."
Trump's remarks cap a dramatic few hours that began with reports of explosions in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, the scale of which became apparent only when the president said Maduro and his wife had been captured. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are being brought by the USS Iwo Jima to New York where they'd stand trial.
Trump claimed that having the U.S. "run" Venezuela was in the U.S.' best interest.
"We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors," he said. "We want to surround ourselves with stability."
Trump said a group of people would step in to run Venezuela, including Secretary of State Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and added U.S. oil companies would have military back up as they move into the region.
"We're not afraid of boots on the ground," he said. "And we have to have, we had boots on the ground last night at a very high level. Actually, we're not afraid of it, we're we don't mind saying it, but we're going to make sure that that country is run properly. We're not doing this in vain."
Trump made clear he expects the U.S. to sell seized oil assets and said he expects money will both go to Venezuela as well as the U.S.
"We're going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground, and that wealth is going to the people of Venezuela, and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela, and it goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country," Trump said.
Trump was vague on who would be running the country specifically, but said Rubio had spoken to the current vice president, Delcy Rodriguez.
"We're designating various people, and we're going to let you know who those people are that would run Venezuela," he said. "It's largely going to be for a period of time, the people that are standing right behind me. We're going to be running it."
He said U.S. oil companies would head to Venezuela to operate in their oil reserves, and the military is set to attack again if necessary to secure the effort.
"We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country, and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so," he said.
Trump and other U.S. officials noted there were no fatalities in the operation.
Earlier Trump told Fox & Friends that he watched the "extremely complex" operation unfold "like I was watching a television show."
Trump defended the operation, telling the network, "You know what, we did a great job with stopping drugs from coming into this country, and nobody's been able to do it until we came along. But they should say, 'great job.' They could say, 'Oh, gee, maybe it's not constitutional.' You know, the same old stuff that we've been hearing for years and years and years."
Rubio told reporters the mission wasn't the kind you could notify lawmakers in advance. "It endangers the mission," he said.
Eyder Peralta contributed reporting from Mexico City. Kelsey Snell and Scott Neuman contributed reporting from Washington.
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