After months of growing military pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump ordered a brazen operation into the South American country to capture its leader and whisk him to the United States where his administration planned to put him on trial.
In a Saturday morning interview on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Trump laid out the details of the overnight strike, after which he said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were flown by helicopter to a U.S. warship. Later Saturday, Trump and other officials gave more details during a news conference from his Florida residence.
Maduro was in a ‘fortress,’ Trump says
Trump described Maduro as being “highly guarded” in a presidential palace that was “like a fortress.” Maduro had nearly made it to a safe room inside it, Trump told reporters, although “he was unable to close it.”
American forces were armed with “massive blowtorches,” which they would have used to cut through steel walls had Maduro locked himself in the room, Trump said earlier.
