‘He was in a fortress… it felt like watching television show’: Trump on Maduro’s capture

West Palm Beach (United States): President Donald Trump said Saturday he watched live as US special forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a daring raid, saying it looked like "a television show."

"I mean, I watched it, literally, like I was watching a television show. And if you would have seen the speed, the violence," Trump said in a telephone interview with Fox News.

"We watched every aspect of it," he said. 

Trump also said that Maduro was captured from a highly guarded "fortress," adding that no Americans were killed in the operation.

"He was in a fortress," Trump added.

"You know, that we had nobody killed was amazing," he said, adding that a "couple of guys were hit, but they came back and they're supposed to be in pretty good shape."

Trump also added that the United States will be making decisions on what is next for Venezuela after capturing the Latin American country's president and flying him out of the country.

“We’ll be involved in it very much” as to who will govern the country, Trump said.

“We can’t take a chance in letting somebody else run and just take over what he left, or left off,” Trump said hours after the capture.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan ruling party leader Nahum Fernández told The Associated Press that Nicolás Maduro and his wife were at their home within the Ft. Tiuna military installation when they were captured.

“That’s where they bombed," he said. “And, there, they carried out what we could call a kidnapping of the president and the first lady of the country.”

The legal authority for the attack, and whether Trump consulted Congress beforehand, was not immediately clear. The stunning American military action, which plucked a nation’s sitting leader from office, echoed the U.S. invasion of Panama that led to the surrender and seizure of its leader, Manuel Antonio Noriega, in 1990 — exactly 36 years ago Saturday.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would face charges after an indictment in New York. Bondi vowed in a social media post that the couple would “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”

Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges, but it was not previously known his wife had been and it wasn’t clear if Bondi was referring to a new indictment.

Early Saturday, multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through the Venezuelan capital. Maduro's government accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets.

With the Venezuelan leader's whereabouts not known, the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, would take power under Venezuelan law. There was no confirmation that had happened, though she did issue a statement after the strike, demanding proof of life for Maduro and his wife.

(with inputs from AP & AFP)