The United States’s highest-ranking military officer on Saturday briefed the country on the lightning attack Washington carried out on Venezuela overnight.
General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed details about the elite operation that successfully captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during a press conference alongside President Donald Trump.
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The mission involved more than 150 aircraft “launching across the Western Hemisphere in close coordination,” to extract Maadro and his wife from their residence in downtown Caracas while maintaining “the element of tactical surprise,” Caine said.
“Operation Absolute Resolve, was discreet, precise, and conducted during the darkest hours of January 2, and was the culmination of months of planning and rehearsal. An operation that, frankly, only the United States military could undertake,” Caine told reporters at Mar-a-Lago.
Caine said work planning the operation began months ago in collaboration with multiple agencies, including the CIA, National Security Agency, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, as the intelligence community worked “to find Maduro and understand how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, [and] what were his pets.”
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By early December 2025, Operation Absolute Resolve had been cleared and was merely pending a number of aligned events, such as optimal weather, the general said.
“Last night, the weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could maneuver through ocean, mountain, low clouds, and ceilings,” Caine said, explaining that the conditions allowed bombers, fighters, intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, and other aircraft to begin launching from 20 different bases on land and sea.
Helicopters carrying “the extraction force” targeting Maduro flew into Caracas and arrived at Maduro’s compound just after 1 a.m. Saturday morning, as a full joint air operation including bombers and drones provided cover for the special forces, officials said. Trump suggested U.S. intelligence triggered a widespread blackout in Caracas to plunge the capital in darkness during the operation, which held a total duration of around 2.5 hours.
“Maintaining low‑level ingress and surprise, the assault force reached Maduro’s compound at 1:01 a.m. ET, rapidly secured the perimeter, took incoming fire, responded with overwhelming self‑defense, and, with real‑time intel support, compelled Maduro and his wife to surrender,” Caine said.
U.S. forces ended the mission and flew back at roughly 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning, according to the general. No U.S. military personnel were killed, although one helicopter was damaged by incoming fire before safely making it back to base.
“I’m very proud of him,” Trump said of Caine. “I watched last night one of the most precise attacks on sovereignty. I mean, it was an attack for justice.”
“I’ve worked with a lot of generals. I worked with some I didn’t like. I worked with some whom I didn’t respect. I worked with some they just weren’t good. But this guy is fantastic,” Trump added.
The president said that the Venezuelan military appeared cognizant that U.S. action was coming, given the Pentagon’s historic buildup in the Caribbean waters, but still seemed unprepared for the overnight attack.
“Law enforcement caught them in a very ready position. They were waiting for us. They knew we had many ships out in the sea, just sort of, they knew we were coming, so they were in a ready, what’s called a ready position, but they were completely overwhelmed,” Trump said.
The U.S. is going to “run” Venezuela indefinitely, the White House announced Saturday, until “we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” Trump promised a “second wave” of “much larger” attacks on Venezuela “if we need to do so.”
“We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country as their homeland,” the president told reporters at Mar-a-Lago. “We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind … we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.”
The Maduros are being transported to New York, as officials have pledged the former president will stand trial in the U.S. He now faces a new indictment from the Justice Department on narco-terrorism charges and counts related to the possession of machine guns, promising strong prison sentences.
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Washington has sought to justify the attack on the grounds that Maduro’s regime is illegitimate and is responsible for funneling drugs and the notorious Tren de Aragua gang into the U.S.
The Trump administration is seeking to use Article II of the Constitution to justify the attack, as it states the president is the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military.