US will ‘run’ Venezuela following capture of Maduro

US President Donald Trump said at the weekend the US will “run” Venezuela after the US military raided the country and captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, who are being transported to New York.

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“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 at his Mara-Lago private club in Florida.

“We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country,’ he said.

“We're there now. We're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place,” Trump added, offering no timeline for how long such a transition of power is expected to take.

He later said top US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, would work with a team to help run Venezuela.

‘Trump refused to rule out the possibility of further US military involvement. “We're not afraid of boots on the ground,” he said.

Dan Caine, chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the press conference that the US troops will remain in the region following large-scale strikes on Venezuela and the capture of Maduro.