The assault that captured the president of Venezuela was the result of months of intense rehearsal to ensure that hundreds of aircraft and thousands of troops could carry out myriad interlocking tasks to the second, the Joint Chiefs chairman said Saturday.

“The word ‘integration’ does not explain the sheer complexity of such a mission,” Gen. Dan Caine said at a press conference held at President Trump’s Florida compound. “An extraction so precise it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western Hemisphere in close coordination, all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single purpose, to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical surprise. Failure of one component of this well-oiled machine would have endangered the entire mission.”

“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again, not to get it right, but to ensure that we cannot get it wrong,” Caine said.

For months, the general said, U.S. intelligence teams had been watching Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cecilia Maduro. The teams sought “to find Maduro and understand how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets.”

In the meantime, Caine said, leaders and troops in all branches of the military, plus officials with intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, developed plans and began to rehearse the operation.

In early December, he said, “our force was set pending a series of aligned events,” including finding “the right day to minimize the potential for civilian harm and maximize the element of surprise, and minimize the harm to the indicted personnel [the Maduros] so, as the president said, they could be brought to justice.”

ABC News has reported that Christmas Day had been considered for the Venezuelan operation, which was pushed back while the U.S. military bombed targets in Nigeria in actions against “ISIS terrorist scum,” as Trump put it last week.

Caine said weather in particular was a factor in the timing of the Venezuelan operation, dubbed Absolute Resolve.

“Last night the weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world can maneuver through—ocean, mountain, low cloud, ceilings, but when tasked with a mission, this organization does not quit,” he said in apparent reference to the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne).

At 10:46 p.m. Eastern time on Jan. 2, Trump gave the order to proceed, Caine said.

More than 150 aircraft and drones began launching from about 20 bases and warships “across the Western Hemisphere,” he said, including F-22, F-35, and F/A-18 fighters; EA-18G electronic warfare aircraft; B-1 bombers; reconnaissance planes; and more. Aerial tankers likely took part as well.

“Our youngest crew member was 20 and our oldest crew member was 49,” he said.

Helicopters carrying an “extraction force” of U.S. troops and Justice Department personnel took off and flew at 100 feet above the water toward the Venezuelan shore, he said.

The force also included members of Delta Force, elite special operators often assigned to hostage-rescue missions, Task and Purpose reported.

As this team approached Venezuelan airspace, Caine said, “the United States began layering different effects provided by SpaceCom, CyberCom, and other members of the interagency to create a pathway.”

This included airstrikes on military facilities, he said: “dismantling and disabling the air defense systems in Venezuela, employing weapons to ensure the safe passage of the helicopters into the target area.”

U.S. forces plunged Venezuela’s capital city into darkness, Trump said at the press conference. 

“The lights of Caracas were largely turned off, due to a certain expertise that we have,” he said.

Caine said that tactical aircraft overhead covered the extraction force as mission commanders monitored their approach.

“As the force crossed the last point of high terrain, where they'd been hiding in the [radar] clutter, we assessed that we had maintained totally the element of surprise.”

The helicopters touched down at Maduro's palace at 2:01 a.m. local time (1:01 a.m. Eastern) on Jan. 3, and soon came under fire, to which the U.S. team responded with “overwhelming force in self-defense,” he said. “One of our aircraft was hit, but remained flyable.”

Meanwhile, he said, “The apprehension force descended into Maduro's compound and moved with speed, precision, and discipline towards their objective, and isolated the area to ensure the safety and security of the ground force while apprehending the indicted persons.”

Caine continued, “As the operation unfolded at the compound, our air and ground intelligence teams provided real-time updates to the ground force, ensuring those forces could safely navigate the complex environment without unnecessary risk. The force remained protected by overhead tactical aviation. Maduro and his wife, both indicted, gave up, and were taken into custody by the Department of Justice, assisted by our incredible U.S. military with professionalism and precision, with no loss of U.S. life. 

Finally, the general said, “After securing the indicted persons, the force began to prep for departure. Helicopters were called in to exfiltrate the extraction force, while fighter aircraft and remotely piloted aircraft provided overhead coverage and suppressive fire. There were multiple self-defense engagements as the force began to withdraw out of Venezuela. The force successfully exfiltrated and returned to their afloat launch bases, and the force was over the water at 3.29 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, with indicted persons on board. And both Maduro and his wife were embarked aboard the USS Iwo Jima.”

No U.S. troops were killed, nor any U.S. aircraft lost, Caine said. 

“While the past two decades have honed the skills of our special operations forces, this particular mission required every component of our joint force, with soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and guardians, working in unison with our intelligence agency partners and law enforcement teammates in an unprecedented operation,” he said. “We leveraged our unmatched intelligence capabilities and our years of experience in hunting terrorists. And we could not have done this mission without the incredible work by various intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA and NGA.”

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U.S. intelligence agencies supported an overnight operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, the nation's capital, which also included strikes against several military sites throughout the city.

Multiple U.S. spy offices stood up crisis action teams that provided intelligence to Special Operations Command and Southern Command throughout the operations, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter.

The National Security Agency, which monitors foreign signals and communications, also oversaw geolocation support to gather intelligence used to aid in the operation, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to communicate sensitive details.

NSA also used its capabilities to conduct indicators and warning support, which monitors communications and signals that help specify if a foreign adversary orders troop movements or intends to activate radar systems, the official added.

Joint chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said in a press conference that the CIA, NSA, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency were involved in the mission. The NGA uses imagery and mapping data to support military activities.

In the months leading up to the operation, U.S. intelligence agencies built a granular portrait of Maduro’s daily life, tracking how he moved, where he lived and traveled, what he ate and wore, and even details about his pets, Caine said.

Multiple reports indicated the CIA aided the Army’s elite Delta Force in tracking and locating Maduro, though Defense One could not independently confirm this by publishing time. For months, the CIA has been conducting covert operations in Caracas, using assets that are among the U.S. intelligence community’s most protected secrets.

Lights in Caracas “were largely turned off due to an expertise that we have,” President Trump said at the Saturday press conference. He did not elaborate on the capabilities and methods that allowed the U.S. to shutter lights in Venezuela’s capital city. 

U.S. Cyber Command, which is authorized to carry out offensive cyber operations, participated in the operation, Caine said, though he did not elaborate on what actions the digital combatant command took.

Maduro and his wife are now bound for New York, where he is expected to face narco-terrorism charges. President Donald Trump said the U.S. will run Venezuela for now, and will not rule out having additional U.S. servicemembers on the ground.

The operation drew opposing reactions from the top Republican and Democrat leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“This is a U.S.-indicted drug trafficker. Such people will never have safe haven no matter where they are or what they call themselves,” said committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark. in a Saturday appearance on Fox & Friends. “It’s just a reminder to adversaries around the world of what our military is capable of when we have a commander-in-chief with the strength and resolution to deploy that military when necessary to defend vital US national interests,” he later added.

In a statement, Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., said Maduro is a corrupt authoritarian leader, but the overnight action could give a runway to foreign adversaries who want to take similar actions against their neighbors.

“If the United States asserts the right to use military force to invade and capture foreign leaders it accuses of criminal conduct, what prevents China from claiming the same authority over Taiwan’s leadership?” Warner said. “What stops Vladimir Putin from asserting similar justification to abduct Ukraine’s president? Once this line is crossed, the rules that restrain global chaos begin to collapse, and authoritarian regimes will be the first to exploit it.”

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The United States will “run” Venezuela in the wake of an assault on the country centered on the capture of the country’s leader in Caracas, President Donald Trump said Saturday.

More than 150 aircraft took part in the attack, which destroyed and suppressed Venezuelan air defenses before Delta Force operators landed at the presidential palace and seized Nicolás Maduro and his wife just after 2 a.m. local time, officials told reporters. The capturing force then withdrew from the country. The regime-change operation, dubbed Absolute Resolve, proceeded without authorization from Congress or with international sanction.

Trump, who had long denied that the months-long buildup of forces in the Caribbean was aimed at ousting Maduro, said on Saturday that the United States would “run” Venezuela “for a period of time.”

“We'll run it properly. We'll run it professionally. We'll have the greatest oil companies in the world going in and invest billions and billions of dollars and take out money, use that money in Venezuela,” he said during a press conference at his Florida compound.

Asked just how that will work, the president said, “It's all being done right now. We're designating people. We're talking to people.”

“There's going to be a team that's working with the people of Venezuela to make sure that we have Venezuela right. Because for us to just leave, who's going to take over? I mean, there is nobody to take over. You have a vice president who's been appointed by Maduro, and right now she's the vice president, and she's, I guess, the president.”

“We're not going to just do this with Maduro, then leave like everybody else, leave and say, you know, let it go to hell. If we just left, it has zero chance of ever coming back,” Trump told reporters. 

Asked whether this would involve keeping U.S. troops in Venezuela, the president said, “Well, you know, they always say boots on the ground. So we're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have. We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level, actually. We're not afraid of it. We don't mind saying it. But we're going to make sure that that country is run properly. We're not doing this in vain. This is not, this is a very dangerous attack. This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly. Could have gone very badly. We could have lost a lot of people last night. We could have lost a lot of dignity. We could have lost a lot of equipment. The equipment is less important. But we could have lost a lot.”

The assault drew condemnation from Congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans.

“Protecting democracy should not be done through illegal means,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said in a Saturday statement. “This military action is the next stage in President Trump’s incoherent and arguably illegal Venezuela operation. In recent briefings to Congress, senior administration officials said they were focused on combatting drug trafficking, not regime change, and made clear they had no plan for what would happen if Maduro was removed or overthrown. This was clearly false, and furthermore, a military operation to capture and overthrow a president – even an illegitimate one – is an act of war that must be authorized by Congress.”

Next week, the U.S. Senate will consider a joint resolution, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.; Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.; and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to effectively block Trump from continuing to pursue military action in Venezuela without explicit Senate approval. “Congress hereby directs the President to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force,” it reads. Kaine and Paul put forward a similar resolution in November that failed to pass.

“Since the founding of our Republic, the Constitution has vested one power clearly and exclusively in Congress: the power to declare war. Let’s be clear: Congress has not declared war on Venezuela,” Schumer said in a joint statement.

The administration did not notify Congress of the impending assault on Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the press conference. 

“This is not the kind of mission you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission,” Rubio said.

At the press conference, Trump and other administration figures initially framed the assault as fundamentally a law-enforcement matter: the extradition of Maduro on charges brought in 2020 and a new indictment today.

“The illegitimate dictator Maduro was the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States,” Trump said, reading from a statement. “Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice and stand trial on American soil.”

But he spent much of the press conference talking about the benefits for the American energy industry.

“We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the “pretexts cited to justify such actions” were “unfounded.” The Russian government, which invaded Ukraine in 2014 and then escalated its invasion in 2022, is a close ally of the Maduro regime. Russia, along with Venezuela, South Africa, and Columbia, is calling for a full meeting of the U.N. Security Council. 

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a statement posted on X, “The EU has repeatedly stated that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected. We call for restraint.”

At the press conference, one reporter said, “Mr. President, the U.S. has something of a mixed track record of ousting dictators without necessarily a plan for what comes afterwards. Did that weigh on your decision?”

Responded Trump: “Well, that's where we had different presidents. But with me, that's not true. With me, we've had a perfect track record of winning.”

Analysts said the Venezuela operation sets a dangerous precedent.

“I am concerned about what comes next, because it's clearly not over and it has a lot of ways it could go wrong,” Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank told Defense One. “But I'm also worried about the precedent that it sets going forward, because if the U.S. can go in and declare your leader illegitimate, arrest him, remove him, and then occupy the country—then why can't other countries do that?”

Thomas Novelly and Lauren C. Williams contributed to this report.

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