Trump Says US Going To Run Venezuela After Nabbing Maduro

President Donald Trump said in a news conference Saturday that the United States will “lead” Venezuela until a “sensible” transition can take place in the country.

Trump announced in a message published Saturday morning in Truth Social that U.S. military forces conducted a law enforcement operation capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas early Saturday morning. At his press conference later in the day, Trump said the United States would also seek to repair the infrastructure of Venezuela’s oil industry. (RELATED: Trump Teases Next Potential Target for Military Intervention After Capture of Venezuelan Dictator)

“We’re going to lead the country until we can make a safe, appropriate, wise transition. So we don’t want to get involved in someone else coming in and we’re in the same situation we’ve been in for the last several years,” Trump said. “So we’re going to lead the country until we can make a safe, appropriate, and judicious transition, and it has to be judicious because that’s who we are.”

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“We want peace, freedom and justice for the great people of Venezuela, including many Venezuelans who now live in the United States and want to return to their country. This is their homeland,” Trump continued.

Many congressional Democrats have accused Trump of illegally engaging in a “regime change” operation. Trump said Venezuela could “make money” once its infrastructure was repaired.

“We’re there now, but we’re going to stay there until a proper transition can take place,” Trump said at the news conference. “We’re going to basically make it work until a proper transition can take place.”

“As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela was a fiasco, a total fiasco for a long time. They were pumping next to nothing compared to what they could have pumped and what could have happened,” Trump continued. “We’re going to see our very large American oil companies, the largest in the world, come in, spend billions of dollars, repair the badly damaged infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”

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