Trump: U.S. going to 'essentially' run Venezuela until transition takes place
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump addressed the nation shortly after 11:40 a.m. Saturday, praising the U.S. military operation against Venezuela as a “spectacular assault.”
“Military capacities were rendered powerless as the men and women military working with us, law enforcement, successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night,” Trump said of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who was detained by U.S. authorities alongside his wife.
Trump, speaking during a Mar-A-Lago news conference, said the U.S. will maintain a presence in the oil-rich nation for an unspecified period of time.
“We’re there now, but we're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place,” Trump said. “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 added that U.S. businesses would also have a footprint in the country, saying they would “spend billions of dollars fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure and start making money for the country.”
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
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