🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "We [Rubio, Hegseth, Caine, Trump] are gonna run the country [Venezuela] for the time being." - President Trump, when asked who will be running Venezuela on the interim.

🇺🇸🇨🇴⚡️- "Well, he has cocaine mills, and they're sending it into the United States. So yes, he [Petro] has to watch his ass." - President Trump when asked if Colombian President Gustavo Petro should be afraid.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "This was a law enforcement mission to apprehend a wanted fugitive, so Congress did not have to be notified." - Secretary of State Rubio.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "Congress will leak, and we don't want leakers." - President Trump.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "It could've happened." - President Trump when asked if Maduro could have been killed during the operation.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "With me, that's not true. We've had a perfect track record of winning. We win. A lot." - President Trump when asked by a reporter if the US would add to its 'poor track record' of ousting dictators in Latin America.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "We have to rebuild Venezuela. Their infrastructure is rotted. Oil is very dangerous, it's a dangerous thing to take out of the ground. The infrastructure is old, it's rotted, much of it is stuff we put there 25 years ago. We're gonna be replacing it." - President Trump when asked how long the US would run Venezuela.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "You're gonna have peace, justice, you're gonna have some of the riches that you should've had a long time ago. You're gonna have safety, you're gonna have a real country." - President Trump, when asked what he has to say to the Venezuelan people.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "We know who they are, we're on them, and they're acting much differently than they acted two days ago." - President Trump when asked if he's concerned about 'bad actors' from the Maduro regime.

🇺🇸🇨🇺⚡️- "The people there have suffered for many years. I think Cuba is something that we'll end up talking about, because they're a badly failing nation." - President Trump when asked if Cuba is next.

🇺🇸🇨🇴🇨🇺⚡️- President Trump implies that future military action against Colombia and Cuba may occur.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- "No. We're gonna have a presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil." - President Trump when asked if American troops will be boots on the ground in Venezuela.

🇺🇸🇷🇺🇻🇪⚡️- "We never spoke about Maduro. I'm not thrilled with Putin. He's killing too many people." - President Trump when asked if he spoke with Putin about Maduro.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- The press conference at Mar-A-Lago regarding the attack on Venezuela has ended.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- Democratic Party is fundraising against the Maduro arrest.

🇺🇸🇻🇪 - Ousted Venezuelan President Maduro's photograph has been changed on the 2024 Venezuelan election Wikipedia page.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- With Nicolás Maduro out of the picture, many assumed María Corina Machado would assume power as the rightful president of Venezuela. However, President Donald Trump repeatedly stated that she would not be in charge of the country because she did not “have the support needed.” Instead, a U.S.-led coalition would run the country until further notice.

Maduro’s regime remains intact. In Caracas, pro-regime gangs and militias have been deployed into the streets to maintain order. Maduro’s vice president, defense minister, and the Ministry of Transportation have all issued statements condemning the removal of Maduro and declaring they will refuse “U.S. imperialism.”

Many questions remain regarding how the United States will proceed with the next phase in Venezuela, particularly the removal of government and military officials appointed by Maduro, who—for now—have refused to negotiate with the United States.

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️- Pro Maduro-regime militias being deployed onto the streets of Caracas.

They can be heard shouting: "The revolutionary forces of the people defending the Venezuelan President Maduro have been mobilized!"

I don’t care about arguments regarding the legality of the action or spurious connection to Israel, what matters to me is the breadth and scale of the political and military commitment to Venezuela.

Initially the reporting said there had been a settlement reached to deliver Maduro to the US, which was the sticking point in the deal reached by Caracas and Grenell in 2025. But since they unveiled this half-baked “plan” during the press conference, this sounds like a complete disaster.

Two things can be true at once; there are legitimate American interests in securing Venezuela (which we wholeheartedly support,) but it has to be done correctly.

Trump made a statement and then backtracked in the press conference, leaving more questions than answers. Given that the Venezuelan regime is still largely intact, it will take more than a US Special Forces insertion to get what we want, especially if it's primarily confined to counter-narcotics and oil ventures.

TLDR: We here at Rerum Novarum wholeheartedly and unapologetically support the mission of the US military in toppling, securing, and pacifying Venezuela, even if it results in a boots-on-the-ground invasion.

But we do not want a permanent situation where US forces are on the ground in perpetuity, like in Iraq or Afghanistan.

This must be done correctly.