House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday morning, calling it justified accountability for a leader he says is responsible for hundreds of thousands of American deaths.
Hours after President Trump announced the strikes, Johnson said he spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the operation. The Speaker said Maduro is directly responsible for trafficking illegal drugs and violent cartel members into the United States.
“Nicolas Maduro is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans after years of trafficking illegal drugs and violent cartel members into our country — crimes for which he’s been properly indicted in U.S. courts and an arrest warrant duly issued — and today he learned what accountability looks like,” Johnson said.
How U.S. Forces Captured Maduro
U.S. forces launched strikes on multiple targets in Venezuela around 2 a.m. local time Saturday, according to reports from Caracas. Explosions hit military installations, including Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, and La Carlota military airport in the capital.
The Army’s Delta Force executed the capture operation, U.S. officials confirmed. President Trump said Maduro and his wife were flown out of Venezuela aboard the USS Iwo Jima and the military is taking them to New York to face federal charges.
Trump told Fox News the operation “could not have been better” and that no U.S. personnel were killed. A few were hit but came back and are expected to recover. He said the military was prepared for a second wave of strikes but the initial operation proved sufficient.
The Narco-Terrorism Charges
Maduro and his wife face indictments in the Southern District of New York, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Saturday. The indictments come from charges filed in 2020 during the first Trump administration.
Maduro faces four charges: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
The 2020 indictment says Maduro led the Cártel de Los Soles and worked with the Colombian guerrilla group FARC to traffic cocaine into the United States. Prosecutors accused Maduro of corrupting Venezuela’s institutions to protect drug trafficking operations.
“Maduro and the other defendants expressly intended to flood the United States with cocaine in order to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation,” then-U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman stated when the charges were filed.
Congressional Response and Next Steps
Johnson said the Trump administration will brief members of Congress next week when they return to Washington. The White House briefed congressional leadership only after the operation began, sources told CBS News.
Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah said Secretary Rubio told him the U.S. anticipates no further military action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in custody. Lee first asked about the constitutional basis for the operation, but later said Rubio explained the kinetic action was deployed to protect personnel executing the arrest warrant.
“This action likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack,” Lee wrote on X.
Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, said Venezuela’s interim government must now decide whether to continue drug trafficking and working with adversaries like Iran and Cuba or act like a normal nation.
Trump Administration’s Venezuela Strategy
The move caps months of escalating pressure against Maduro’s government. In September 2025, U.S. forces began striking suspected narcoboats in the Caribbean and Pacific. By late 2025, those operations had killed over 115 people in 35 strikes.
In November, the Trump administration designated the Cartel of the Suns a terrorist organization. In December, the U.S. seized multiple oil tankers near Venezuelan waters and announced a naval blockade of sanctioned vessels.
Trump has accused Maduro of rigging last year’s election to remain in power. Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, hasn’t commented on Saturday’s operation.
Trump told The New York Times the operation resulted from “a lot of good planning” and called it “a brilliant operation, actually.”
