Trump launches large scale attack on Venezuela

U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife during a stunning, large-scale attack on their nation overnight. American authorities said Saturday morning that the couple had been indicted in New York on drug-trafficking charges.

The U.S. military operation was conducted in coordination with American law enforcement authorities, U.S. President Donald Trump said in an early morning post on Truth Social.

“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement,” Trump said.

Trump is expected to discuss the attack on Venezuela in a press conference at 11 a.m. ET. Prior to the start of the press conference, the president apparently posted a video of the operation on Truth Social.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York.

The Maduros have been charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of weapons and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices against the U.S., according to Bondi’s post.

“They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” she wrote.

CBS News reported that the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force unit was involved in the capture of Maduro.

In an interview with “Fox and Friends Weekend” on Saturday, Trump said the U.S. suffered a few injuries but no deaths in the operation, and that U.S. forces waited four days to launch the attack due to weather conditions.

Trump also said Maduro and his wife were flown to the USS Iwo Jima following their capture and will head to New York to face the narco-terrorism charges. 

“They’ll be heading to New York…They’re on a ship, and they’ll be heading into New York. The helicopter took them out,” the president said.

The Pentagon declined to answer CNBC’s queries and referred questions to the White House. The White House, which reposted Trump’s Truth Social statement on its X account, didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who had earlier questioned whether the U.S. attack was constitutional, said in a X post on Saturday that…