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Maduro Lands in New York, Enroute Soon to Brooklyn Detention Center; Venezuela's Maduro Arrives in NY After Capture by U.S.; Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) Discusses About Legality of President Trump's Action; Trump Says U.S. will "Run" Venezuela After Capturing Maduro.

Aired January 03, 2026 - 18:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[18:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: And welcome to a special Breaking News edition of CNN NEWSROOM. Hi, everyone! I am Jessica Dean here in New York.

We have been following this all day. Just moment ago, this is the latest. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arriving on U.S. soil at a military base here in the state of New York, dozens of federal agents seen escorting him off that plane and as soon as Monday, he could be inside a U.S. federal court.

Now, all of this taking place just hours after the Trump administration launched that large scale strike on Caracas overnight, seizing Maduro during a raid that President Trump says killed many Cubans, who he says were protecting Maduro. This is according to an interview with "The New York Post."

A source briefed on the operation telling CNN no U.S. servicemembers died during Maduro's capture, but a handful of troops sustained bullet and shrapnel wounds, none are life-threatening.

Now, there is major uncertainty over how the Trump administration plans to run Venezuela. The President saying that the U.S. will run it now, and what this means for U.S. troops. Could there be boots on the ground? The President saying the U.S. would take control of Venezuela's massive oil reserves, adding U.S. troops would be on the ground to help secure oil.

There are a lot of parts to this, a lot of it is happening in real time, and we have our team of experts and reporters standing by, and we start first with our White House reporter, Alayna Treene, who has been covering this all day.

Alayna, bring us up to speed with the very latest here.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. Look, obviously stunning news today and really remarkable comments that we heard from the President and some of his top National Security officials who surrounded him at that press conference this morning.

One of the things that was most stunning to me was the photo, actually, you showed, you know, Maduro deplaning in New York, but the President also shared a close up of him being captured as he was on the USS Iwo Jima, which was the ship that transferred him before he got on a flight to fly to New York. You could see maduro. I am not sure if we have the photo, but see him in, you know, a gray hoodie with blackout glasses on, handcuffed. Just remarkable to see that.

But some of the other things, of course, are the big questions, really, of what is next and what are the next steps? And the President answered some of this during the press conference, but left a lot, very much unclear. One is who is going to actually fill the power vacuum that Maduro has left.

We know that the Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, was sworn in, and we actually heard the President argue that the Trump administration has been in contact with her and that she has been talking with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about next steps for the future of Venezuela.

And the other thing that was very striking to me was actually his comments about Maria Corina Machado, someone who -- one of the biggest opposition leaders in Venezuela, someone the Trump administration has been in close contact with for weeks now. They said that they have not been in contact with her and this is very much surprising because a lot of people at the top levels of The White House, Jessica, had along, thought that she would be very crucial to setting up a new transitional government in Venezuela should Maduro be ousted from power.

I want you to listen to exactly, or I am not sure if we had the sound, but I will read some of it for you, actually. So essentially, he said that he had not talked to Machado. He said that you know, she is not very much respected in the country, so he is not sure that she would actually be the one to be stood up instead of Maduro, and then he went on to talk about Delcy Rodriguez, all to say a lot of big questions there.

Another big question, though still kind of unanswered is what will the military presence look like? This was a massive regime change. And in order to really make sure that it doesn't, you know, it wasn't an operation in vain, those are the words that the President used, you would need boots on the ground.

And the President said he is not afraid of boots on the ground, but he didn't really go as far to say that there will be a heavy military presence in Venezuela moving forward as they work out this transitional government. Instead, he said that military presence will be used to try and remake Venezuela's energy infrastructure. Notable, of course, because Venezuela has one of the largest, if not the largest oil reserves in the entire world.

So a lot of implications there as well as we look ahead to where this is actually going to lead.

DEAN: Certainly, all right, Alayna with the latest from The White House and the administration.

I want to go to Jim Sciutto now, who has some breaking news that he can share with us -- Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, first, to highlight one of Alayna's points regarding Trump's comments about the opposition, including the Nobel Prize winner, Machado, having just spoken with the Venezuelan opposition, they say that they have been in touch since Nicolas Maduro's arrest with governments across the world, including France, as well as governments in Latin America -- Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay all of whom, according to opposition sources tell me, support "restoring the will of the people in Venezuela."

Notably not on that list, Jessica, is the United States of America, which just of course carried out this opposition, and as some of our colleagues have noted, the language and comments coming from the Trump administration about the Venezuelan opposition have changed in recent weeks and months from public explicit expressions of support to, well, not those same public and explicit expressions of support leading up to what we heard from the President that Alayna just highlighted there.

[18:05:22]

Quite public questioning by the President as to whether Machado and other members of the opposition have the support necessary in that country to then lead whatever follows Nicolas Maduro, so that leaves quite open the question, who does the U.S. support for that role? And by what process will the U.S. support choosing the next government of Venezuela, given the President has said expressly the U.S. is going to be running the country.

The other thing I want to note, Jessica, if I can, I was speaking to a member of the House Intelligence Committee just a short time ago who said that Democrats will be holding an emergency caucus meeting tomorrow regarding their response to this. Of course, as you well know, their hands are tied because they don't have a majority in either the House or the Senate in terms of expressing any sort of congressional authority over U.S. military action abroad.

But they are hoping that perhaps they get additional Republican support for Congress, asserting its power in some way. There were some Republicans who have said there should be congressional authorization, we will, of course, see following this, quite dramatic use of U.S. military force abroad, whether that increases the number of Republican lawmakers willing to do so.

DEAN: Yes, there certainly has been that push from some Democrats to restore that, Jim, and also just so interesting, you're reporting on the potential, you know, tension we could really see between France and these other countries and the United States as we move forward.

Great, great stuff. Thank you, Jim Sciutto. We really appreciate it.

Joining us now is Kim Dozier, CNN global affairs analyst.

Kim, thanks for being here with us as we sort through all of this. There is this question that I think everybody keeps -- there are a lot of questions, but one central question that people keep coming back to, which is what Jim was getting at there, which is this idea that the U.S. will run Venezuela in the interim and not really much more detail beyond that.

Jim is reporting there that the opposition, of course, had been -- the opposition government had been in contact with France and other Latin American countries throughout the afternoon.

How do you see it in terms of where this goes from here?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, this is astounding in that this could have been a day when you talked about this exquisitely executed special operations mission to grab a well-known dictator who was fortified, protected and without any U.S. losses, get him to New York.

Instead, we are talking about, wait, what? The U.S. is going to be running the country? That sounds like occupying Iraq, occupying Afghanistan. Look, President Trump is not known for accurately reporting whatever he was briefed when he tries to explain in public. But this is a massive misunderstanding of what is going on, on the ground in Venezuela from a couple of different ways.

The Venezuelan government follows the Constitution, even though it refuted the election results, and Maduro took power when the opposition candidate won last time, but that Constitution does call for a new election within 30 days or for an election to be called for within a month if the President is infirm or somehow disappears like it happened today.

Also, you know, there was a winner of that last election. It was the candidate for Maria Corina Machado's party, and she wants that candidate to take power, Edmundo Gonzalez, so you have these two systems that are out there that Trump has completely ignored. It is as if he thinks that Venezuela is like a company and this was a hostile takeover, that if you replace the CEO, everybody else will fall in line. And nothing we are seeing in public comments from Venezuela, nothing in its history indicates that and it sure hasn't worked that way in the past at any other country the U.S. has tried to take over.

DEAN: If we look at history. Okay, Kim, stay with us. We do want to come back to you. I want to go to our colleague, John Miller, who has some new reporting as well on Maduro -- John.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So what we've seen at the airport was the teams boarding the plane, then the teams coming off the plane with the President and his wife and then going into that hangar. What we haven't seen is them depart that airport.

[18:10:02]

What we are told from a law enforcement official briefed on the events going on is that they have gone into the hangar with Maduro's wife, Cilia, who is undergoing some further medical checks. So what they did on the plane was, they did the paperwork -- the digital work of admitting them into the United States, paroled as prisoners, facing criminal charges, took their vital signs and interviewed them about how they were feeling. Obviously, being arrested in the middle of the night, dragged out of bed at home and bundled up onto a helicopter and then a battleship, and then an airplane to the state of New York is probably stressful.

Don't know what the nature of the further medical checks is, but they are taking a little time to go over some more vitals and talk to the President's wife, so that is kind of the delay that we are seeing here.

DEAN: In terms of what the next movements will be. And I know, John, as you've been reporting this out, you've noted that Maduro is under arrest under federal law enforcement authority from the DEA. Help people understand how federal law enforcement in the United States is going through this process of arresting and now transporting and, all of it, what role that federal law enforcement will play going forward?

MILLER: Sure. Well, the charges against the President and his wife are this: This is 25 pages of federal charges brought in a DEA investigation that spans many years. So these allegations start with activities that go back to 2004, 2005, 2007, all the way up through 2025. But what you see in the reading of this complex set of charges against President Maduro and against his wife, who held in her own right significant government posts, is that even before he was President, they worked with allegedly drug cartels to allow them to ship massive amounts of cocaine into Venezuela and then use Venezuela as a transshipment point, a jumping off point to ship those thousands of tons of cocaine and other drugs to the United States.

Sometimes working through Mexico and drug cartels there, cartels controlled by people like El Chapo, working with the fast boats that go up through the waters that we have seen so much about in terms of the Trump administration's military actions blowing those fast boats and the people and the drugs in them up, in the water as part of the campaign in Venezuela to slow drug trafficking.

We have seen allegations in this of millions of dollars in bribes being paid from trafficking organizations to President Maduro and his wife. We've seen allegations of shipments of weapons allowing drugs to be escorted by traffickers with AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and other things, and sometimes allegedly, government officials, not just okaying those shipments to move through, but sometimes accompanying them. One of the allegations is that the President's personal aircraft hangar was used to load tons of cocaine into flights there.

So you have this major indictment that was started under the Biden Justice Department, under the Trump Justice Department superseded, then superseded again. Every time they supersede that indictment, Jessica, you know, that means they are adding new charges, additional charges as they gather further evidence. So you've seen this case grow and grow over the years. The one thing that you've also seen is people have been captured. People have been brought to justice. People have pled guilty. You can see some of those people, high level government officials, El Polo among them, senior enforcement people who will probably be witnesses in the case against President Maduro and his wife saying what they did on his orders and what she instructed them to do. In some cases, even meeting with their own national anti-drug agency to make sure that they were on board with letting these shipments go through.

The arrest today, the extraordinary rendition, which is like an extradition, but without the niceties of the process between the State Department and a request for extradition and so on, but moving in with military force and law enforcement to basically grab the people out of their house and a full-on military operation and bring them to the Southern District of New York, where they will be in a courthouse, likely on Monday, and be arraigned on these charges.

[18:15:27]

What will happen to them tonight into tomorrow? They will likely be taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. They will be under the SAMs protocol, Special Administrative Measures, now that's for high profile, high risk prisoners. They will probably be kept in isolation separately guarded.

The question for right this minute is what is this medical wrinkle? Is it going to cause them to be separated if she requires further care? Or is this something where they are just doing more medical checks before they move them together to New York? And we've got to kind of wait and watch for that.

DEAN: We will wait and see, but as of right now, they remain there in Newburgh, with John's reporting that Maduro's wife being checked out for those medical conditions.

Thank you so much, John. Please stand by. We will be back to you.

Joining us now, CNN global affairs analyst, Brett McGurk. He is a former Middle East and North Africa coordinator for the National Security Council and now a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center.

Brett, I am really glad that you're here because I think by this point, it is now 6:16 on the East Coast. We've been sitting with this news. We've been having developments all day. But I want to zoom out for a second because we've been a little bit in the weeds with all the details and I think a lot of people woke up this morning in America and were kind of shocked and didn't really understand what was going on.

Can you walk us through why Maduro and why now?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think you can see this has been building for a series of months. I think I've said on air here on CNN, this looks like it is building towards a regime change operation if you just looked at the assets and forces that were being put into place in the Caribbean and in the Atlantic. So let me take a step back because you made a good point. Overnight, as we were asleep here, we had American Special Forces operators and their intelligence counterparts and other departments and agencies coordinating in a highly risky operation into an urban environment in the dark of night, flawlessly executed. And I think it is worth pausing for a moment and just recognizing that bravery and professionalism of those quiet professionals.

They serve, no matter who is in power, they do the missions that they are asked to execute and what they did last night is quite extraordinary.

On Maduro, Jessica, you know, he is an indicted drug smuggler, as was just stated here about the indictment that has gone through successive administrations in the Southern District of New York. He also has a repeated pattern of taking American citizens hostage and holding them for barter, and for his dealings with international politics with the Americans.

He is also aligned with Iran, with Russia, with China. He directly supports Iran's illicit oil trade and bucking up their economy. So look, no doubt Maduro indicted similar to Noriega in Panama, bad guy. I think it is good for Venezuela that he is out of power. I think we should commend the heroism of our professionals that executed this mission.

But then it gets to the big picture question and here is where it is right to have some concern, because it is unclear exactly what the plan is now in Venezuela, and what looked like a very discreet, limited operation to capture Maduro, put him on trial in New York, again, somewhat similar to Panama, it is not directly parallel, but somewhat similar, a lot of the same types of authorities, President Trump's press conference opened up a lot of questions when he said, we are now going to run the country.

I don't think that actually seems to be the plan. He sometimes says things. He said in the past, Jessica, you recall, I think I discussed on your program many months ago, we are going to basically run Gaza and own Gaza. Obviously, we are not doing that.

So we will see.

Right now, there is the government in Venezuela that is saying that Maduro is still the President of Venezuela, the Vice President, Delcy Rodriguez, has not said that she is now the President. But I suspect there is a lot of discussions going on behind-the-scenes. We do have ties and diplomatic relations with these people, talking about how this transition is going to go, but a lot of open questions.

So, you know, you can have mixed feelings, commend the professionalism of our operators, commend the execution of this operation by the administration, done with secrecy and efficiency, but also have real questions here about what comes next.

DEAN: Yes, I think it is interesting how you say that that's where it really turned was during that press conference when we heard from the first time from President Trump in person since this had happened and he did say that we, the U.S., in his words will be running Venezuela and that did start to open these questions about what comes next, exactly and how might that work?

[18:20:13]

And I think that is where a lot of people are now is how might that work? What does that mean? And it sounds like you're saying is, we don't know right now, and it may not be the case at all, even though he said maybe we will have boots on the ground, you know and what does it mean that American companies would be going in for the -- to work in the oil industry? What might that mean as well?

MCGURK: Well, I sure hope we don't -- I sure hope we don't put American forces on the ground to kind of occupy Venezuela. I do not think that would be wise as someone who spent a number of years in Iraq. But look, there is a government in Venezuela, and the first thing you want to do in a situation like this, this is a lesson from Iraq, you want to try to make sure the security services remain intact. You do not want to see a fragmentation of the entire state. That is how you get civil wars breaking out and you have basically an implosion, a massive power vacuum.

So I think, it is wise to work with the elements of the Maduro regime who are still there, and try to work through a transition. But, you know, there is a legitimate government of Venezuela that we recognize, that most of our allies and partners around the world recognize, led by Maria Machado, which President Trump basically said she is not prepared to take power in the country. There is some truth to that, because she probably does not have the loyalty of the security apparatus, which I just mentioned.

Bottom line, Jessica, this is now extremely complex, and it is going to require deft management, a lot of quiet diplomacy behind-the-scenes and we will have to see where it goes. But I do think it is worth pausing to just commend our operators who carried out this extraordinary mission. This is difficult, difficult to do.

I've been in the Situation Room in operations like this, not as complex as this, but they always carry massive risk. So commend the professionals. I think it is a good day for Maduro not to be in power in Venezuela and in an American jail, but now some serious questions about what comes next.

DEAN: Yes, I have one more question for you, but I do want to note for our viewers that we know you're seeing helicopters in some of that video that was just playing that that was live video. We do not know for sure. This is live, what you're looking at. This is over New York. What we don't know is if the Maduros are on those helicopters. So we are working to confirm that for you.

But that is what we are seeing right now. We are certainly seeing helicopters in the sky. We are just working to confirm if they are or are not on that. So we are going to keep watching that.

But Brett, I want to ask you before I let you go because again, I think this is a broader question that is at the heart of this because the President and the administration have talked a lot about drugs and stopping drug trafficking. Obviously, a lot of these charges -- the charges that Maduro is facing are wrapped up in all of that as well.

There is also the issue of Iran, Russia and China, as you noted and what is the connectivity there? If people are looking at this again from a global perspective, what should they know about those three countries and how they connect to Venezuela and how these pieces might fit together?

MCGURK: Well, on the one hand, if you do disconnect that trade between Venezuela and Iran, that will have a real impact on Iran and kind of their economy, which is completely imploding and Iranians are taking to the streets to protest that regime in Tehran, and rightfully so. We need to support those Iranians in the streets, that will have an impact, same with Russia.

At the same time, a bigger question here is what Trump today called the Don-roe doctrine, this corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that we are going to be focused first and foremost in our hemisphere. Does Xi Jinping in Beijing, does Vladimir Putin read that to mean the Americans are not going to be as concerned in their parts of the world? The kind of dividing the world in spheres of influence, which is exactly what they want.

So it is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, if you're watching this, you say, wow, President Trump is not afraid to exercise American power. There is no country more powerful than the United States and its military forces. On the other hand, is the President perhaps now saying we are going to focus on our hemisphere and not be as concerned in other parts of the world.

And again, this is going to unfold over the coming year. I've called 2026, which we are in now, a hinge year of history when it comes to global power, and that is what we are seeing play out. Venezuela, Taiwan, Ukraine, Iran -- it is all going to play out here over the coming months, Jessica and I look forward to being on your program to discuss it.

DEAN: Yes, we are glad to have you. We are three days in now, so we will see what the rest of the year holds. Brett McGurk, always good to see you. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

MCGURK: Thank you.

DEAN: And we are waiting on Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife to be transferred to a detention center here in New York City. We are keeping an eye on that. We are going to squeeze in a quick break and we will be right back.

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[18:29:00]

DEAN: Continuing our breaking news here, we have the stunning new images showing captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arriving in New York to face drug and gun charges. We are now waiting for him and his wife to fly by helicopter to New York City.

Let's get right to former U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams. He was one of the top officials on Venezuela in the first Trump administration, and has served in the U.S. government in many capacities.

Thank you so much for being here with us. We really appreciate it.

I want to start first with your thoughts about how much of this is about drug trafficking and how much of this is about oil -- Russia, China, Iran? How would you evaluate all of that?

ELLIOTT ABRAMS, FORMER U.S. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR VENEZUELA: Yes, the one word answer is yes, that is, it is about migration. Eight million people forced out of Venezuela. It is about drug trafficking, which that regime at least facilitates. It is about the presence, particularly, I would say, of Iran in Venezuela. It is really the perfect storm from the Trump point of view. It is all of those coming together in one person and one regime.

[18:30:10]

You did mention oil, and I think it's -- it's about that too, but frankly, that's a little bit puzzling to me. I mean, we don't need Venezuelan oil. There's plenty of oil in the world. Venezuela in the next year or so can probably increase its production by about 500,000 barrels a day. The world oil market is 105 million barrels a day, so that isn't going to lower oil prices by $0.01. So, I'm a little bit surprised at the President's emphasis on oil.

DEAN: Yes, and do you have any sense -- I -- I hear you when you say you were surprised -- do you have any sense about what is driving that beyond what you know?

ABRAMS: No, the President has been interested in Venezuela from the beginning. I mean, he discussed it with H. R. McMaster, his first national security advisor in 2017. Then, he -- we increased the pressure in 2019 after the stolen election of 2018. He comes back now, and he really increases the pressure tremendously at the end of his first -- during his first year in office.

He's got a lot on his plate, and it's -- it is a little bit surprising, I think, that he's put this one forward so quickly.

DEAN: All right, Elliott, thank you so much for being here with us. We are moving through with a lot of new information, but we certainly appreciate your perspective on all of it. Thank you so much.

ABRAMS: Sure.

DEAN: And with us now, Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts.

Congressman, thanks for being here. I know you commanded Marines in Latin America. I also know that you have been pushing -- you and I have talked about this before -- you have been pushing legislation that would give Congress more power to approve operations like this, to take back some of that power. I want to just first get your reaction to this military operation today.

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): It's illegal. The President doesn't have authority to do it, which is what Democrats put on the House floor in December and Republicans voted against. Republicans will have a chance in January to change that vote and to stand up for the Constitution's allocation of war-making power to Congress, not to the President.

And if they listen to this press conference this morning, I cannot see how they do not want to do that because this president said that he is not ruling out putting boots on the ground. That should haunt any veteran of these forever wars. And it certainly haunts me as somebody who actually did put boots on the ground in Latin America because jungle and riverine warfare is going to be a nightmare for our service members and they're doing it in pursuit of what? Chevron's bottom line?

DEAN: Is that what you think this is about?

AUCHINCLOSS: Blood for oil. I've been saying it for weeks. This is blood for oil. It's got nothing to do with narco-trafficking. The drugs are mostly going to Europe and cocaine is not the drug that is killing Americans. That's fentanyl coming from China. This has always been about the fact that Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, 300 billion barrels offshore. Chevron has the contract and the Treasury Department's permission to exploit those oil reserves. And this president is making good on his campaign promise to the U.S. oil majors when he told them that if they gave him a billion dollars, he would hook them up. Well, he's hooking them up.

DEAN: The President and -- and some of his cabinet members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, were speaking today. And I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially what Marco Rubio said was, this shows that this is a president that when he says something, it means he's going to act, that he takes this seriously. And they all agreed and told the American people that this makes Americans safer. Do you disagree with them?

AUCHINCLOSS: Tell that to Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump's been kowtowing to Vladimir Putin and walking back on his word for -- for years now. This does not make Americans safer. It certainly does not make active-duty service members who might be deployed to Venezuela any safer. I'm worried about three things in regards to boots on the ground. Number one is the challenges with line of sight, navigation, communications and fields of fire. It's a jungle, right? You don't have very good visibility. U.S. service members are used to operating in deserts, Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a totally new terrain.

Number two, I'm worried about how to use close air support in that environment. Again, you got a dense canopy there. U.S. service members have been training to use drones and -- and fixed wing crewed vessels where they had great line of sight for miles. This is a very different environment.

And then finally, I'm worried about malaria. I know this administration doesn't believe in infectious disease, but it exists. And malaria is endemic in that part of the world.

[18:35:03]

The medications that service members take to prevent that malaria are 50-50 effective at best. This is something that could really damage lives. And again, the President doesn't have the authority to do it. He has not laid out the rationale or the strategy for a Democratic transition to back up this military operation. He just doesn't have -- he hasn't built any confidence or credibility with Congress and the American public on this operation.

DEAN: Congressman, what role does Congress have now? What can you do?

AUCHINCLOSS: Hold back the funds, hold back the authorization. We just need a few brave Republicans. I don't need Mike Johnson to do the right thing. We all know he won't. He's a sock puppet for Donald Trump. But I do need 10 or 15 Republicans in the House and eight to nine Republicans in the Senate to wake up, to read their oath and to -- to remember that their constituents, whether they are America first MAGA voters, whether they are Democrats, whether they are unenrolled, did not sign up in November of 2024 for jungle and riverine warfare to help the U.S. oil majors who bankrolled this president's campaign.

DEAN: All right, Congressman Jake Auchincloss, thank you for your time. We appreciate it.

And tonight, the world watching closely as the U.S. prepares to prosecute Venezuela's leader. Details on what led to this moment in the tumultuous last few decades of politics in Venezuela when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:48]

DEAN: Back to our breaking news now, following a months-long pressure campaign that included building up U.S. military forces in the Caribbean, strikes on alleged drug boats, and seizures of Venezuelan oil tankers, the U.S. has now ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from power and brought him here to the United States. CNN National Correspondent Rafael Romo is joining us now.

Rafael, it is good to take a step back in these moments to get context and -- and to remember how we got here, so help walk everyone through that.

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jessica, that's exactly right. It's important to put the current situation in context, especially for our viewers who may not follow the South American country closely and may be puzzled by what happened overnight. Two men, Jessica, have governed Venezuela in the last 25 years. Hugo Chavez, who described his style of governing as 21st century socialism and died in 2013, handpicked Nicolas Maduro as his successor, who narrowly won an election that year.

During the nearly 13 years that Nicolas Maduro had been in power, Venezuela lost 72 percent of its economy -- 72. An estimated 8 million Venezuelans have voted with their feet by migrating to other countries, including, of course, the United States.

Maduro's politics have been a mix of anti-imperialist and anti-U.S. narrative. As Venezuela's leader and the country's power broker, he's been the face of Chavismo, a left-wing populism held over from the Chavez era. Other figures are part of this confederation of power, including Diosdado Cabello. We see him there on the left, the interior minister, and Vladimir Padrino. We see him on the right, the defense minister. Will they be -- will they and others be able to keep alive the system which enriched a lucky few at the expense of the populace?

There's almost no independent media left, and those in power ignore the press or plainly refuse to answer any questions from journalists, as we found out in 2016 when we tried for months to interview Delcy Rodriguez, who now, as vice president, is constitutionally entitled to be sworn in as president in Maduro's absence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Foreign language) ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: There was no answer, and again, that was in 2016. Rodriguez finally reappeared Saturday afternoon, asserting that Nicolas Maduro is, quote, "the only president of Venezuela." Surrounded by her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, and Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister, and several military leaders, the vice president said that Venezuela, quote, "will never be a colony again."

The last time Venezuela had a crisis of this magnitude, Jessica, was an uprising in 2019. We now know that the U.S. attack targeted at least two airports and a port, as well as Fort Tiuna, a major, major Venezuelan military installation. Jessica?

DEAN: All right, Rafael Romo with a bit of a look back there so we can look ahead. Thank you so much.

Not much reaction so far from Venezuelans' opposition tonight, as the country's vice president declares the country will never be a colony again, says it's saying there's still only one president. More details of the U.S. military operation in Venezuela coming your way next.

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DEAN: Okay, we continue to follow our major breaking news. President Trump saying the United States will now run Venezuela after U.S. forces captured President Nicolas Maduro overnight. President Trump saying the U.S. will assume control of the country until a proper transition of power can take place. There are a lot of questions about how that might transpire. In the meantime, he says the U.S. will rebuild Venezuela's oil

infrastructure and carry out more strikes if necessary. Let's go now to CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller.

John, we are currently waiting for the Maduros, who we last know were there in Newburgh, New York, to be moved from that location via helicopter here to New York City. I'm going to let you pick it up there. What more do we know about their movements?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, what we know is they were taken off the plane, brought into a hangar. We know that there was a delay while they did a further medical assessment, checking vital signs and talking to Cilia Maduro, the President's wife. And then, we saw three helicopters take off from Stewart Air National Guard Base up in Newburgh, New York.

So, while we don't know for certain who is on board those helicopters, the high likelihood is that after she was medically cleared, and I am told by law enforcement sources she was, that -- that they are likely to be on board and headed for New York City.

In New York City, they have some business with federal law enforcement authorities.

[18:50:03]

They have to go through a booking process, which means they have to be brought to a secure law enforcement facility. They need to have their mug shots taken. They need to have their fingerprints taken again. And they need to go through that process like any other federally charged criminal before they are brought to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where they'll be held pending an arraignment, likely on Monday -- and that's where we are right now. So, we're in a little bit of a gap as one move turns into another.

DEAN: Yes. John, stay with us. I want to come back to you. But first, I want to go to our colleague, Evan Perez, who is outside that detention center you just mentioned.

Evan, obviously, you are awaiting their arrival. What else can you tell us from your vantage point?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, a lot of what is happening, certainly this evening, is about giving credit, Jessica, to the agents who've been working this case. This is a case that Drug Enforcement Administration agents have been working for over a decade. And there's been this effort to go after what they believe is essentially the command and control of drug trafficking, a lot of it being based out of Venezuela. And that's what you heard a lot from the President and from the administration in -- recent months, you know, charging or arguing that Nicolas Maduro and his government have been aiding and abetting the trafficking of drugs, not only to the United States, but around the world.

And what you see laid out in this indictment today is sort of the culmination of more than a decade of work for some of these agents. So, that's what you're seeing a little bit of -- you saw at Stewart Air Force Base where the -- the plane landed earlier today. You saw DEA agents being involved in bringing Nicolas Maduro off that plane, where the beginning -- the beginning of the process of -- of bringing him to justice in the United States. The argument here that the -- the administration has been making is that removing Maduro deals a big blow to global drug trafficking.

And so, what we're going to hear over the next few weeks and certainly over the next few months as this case goes -- goes forward is some arguments over exactly what Nicolas Maduro's role is in this. The indictment that was brought -- that -- that was unsealed today, makes the argument that, you know, going back to the years when he was a foreign minister, he essentially sold diplomatic passports. He traded the access of ...

DEAN: Evan, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. I'm sorry to interrupt you. We just got -- we've got some movement of these helicopters. I'm sorry to break in on you. We'll come back to you. I do want to go to Omar Jimenez, who is following these helicopters landing in New York, which you were looking at just moments ago.

Omar, what are you seeing?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, you heard John Miller talking about three helicopters that took off from Newburgh headed out this way. We just saw three helicopters land matching roughly the time it would take to fly by helicopter here. What you're looking at right now is what has been an increased law enforcement, one that's increased pretty steadily over the last few hours since we've been out here.

We actually have been pushed much further back. This is the heliport here where all of this -- the variety of law enforcement, predominantly NYPD, but we've seen federal officers here as well, including DEA agents, a mass of them that just came in within the last few minutes to this area as well.

We're waiting to see where you can hear the helicopters. We saw them land just beyond our view here, three of them, it appeared. So, we're waiting for them to go into what would be sort of this -- this indoor area. And then they would come out, come into presumably one of these vehicles where they would, or they would then go for processing here at a federal building in New York City.

Now, for those that aren't familiar with sort of the geography of Manhattan and New York City, we are on the west side of Manhattan, what's known as the West Side Highway. Both lanes in both directions have been closed off by law enforcement to this point. This is typically a very busy area. We are now seeing lights from the New York Police Department turn on. That has not been the case previously to this point.

We can still hear the motor of the helicopters to this. But I -- I can't stress enough, this has been the highest level of law enforcement presence we have seen to this point, one that has been steadily increasing over the past few hours, Jessica. DEAN: Yes. And Omar, we see the DEA agents there walking past the

cameras as well. Okay, Omar, stay with us. Let's bring John Miller back in to help us understand what we're looking at here. John, Omar describing the scene. We're in the middle -- it's actually very close to where we're broadcasting from right now. It's right behind our building -- but -- but we are in the middle of Manhattan where this is happening. Take us through what you're seeing in this scene.

MILLER: Well, what you're seeing is a joint force.

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You have DEA agents, FBI agents and a contingent of NYPD people broken into specialized units that are going to make this critical move. Obviously, this is done under very tight security because you're dealing with an individual who is charged with being in league with some of the most violent drug cartels in the world, who is also a world leader in his own right, or was at least until this morning.

But what you're looking at there is a armored vehicle that is what they call a BearCat. This is an armored vehicle that contain -- that contains what they call a CAT team, a counter assault team, which is part of this motorcade. So, you'll have a vehicle that will contain President Maduro and his wife, maybe in a separate vehicle. You'll have the escort vehicles, which are from NYPD's highway patrol. They have the route between where they are and the location they are going to frozen as we watch that move out. We see the van and then we're going to see the armored vehicle following that, which is ...

DEAN: John, are ...

MILLER: ... the counter assault team.

DEAN: ... are they -- they're driving to Brooklyn now? Is that the plan?

MILLER: They're driving to a separate location for security reasons. We're not going to get into that location ...

DEAN: Right.

MILLER: ... on the air live, but that location is a secure law enforcement facility. They are going to go through the booking process there and then they are going to go to that other location.

DEAN: I see.

MILLER: So, you see the armored vehicles, you see the van, you see the ambulance, which is part of the contingent because they've already, you know, had to deal with some medical issues along the way.

DEAN: It is pretty remarkable, I mean, I want to go to Omar for a second as we're watching this happen. Omar, where -- this is a Saturday night in Manhattan ...

JIMENEZ: Yes. DEAN: ... and this is just an incredible law enforcement, likely again with -- with the -- with the, you know, now ousted president of Venezuela having traveled here. Describe the scene for us. This is somewhat surreal.

JIMENEZ: It -- it really is. And for those that have even just been passing by on the street, I mean, you see a lot of things in New York City, but the amount of police and law enforcement presence just in this part of Manhattan is -- is even mind blowing for those that live here in the city. And if you were following that motor -- I mean, the motorcade essentially that appeared to hold Maduro and his -- and his wife, but they have all cleared out of this area. It was that quick.

And I can tell you when we were a little bit closer earlier in the day, we were able to get basically right up to the heliport area.

We saw them sort of what appeared to be tracing a path from the exit of the heliport through the gate over there. And the way they positioned their vehicles, it appeared that they were -- it was just going to be a very quick transfer from that heliport into the vehicles pull out. And that is exactly what we just saw happen a few minutes ago here.

DEAN: Yes.

JIMENEZ: And as you saw, the level of law enforcement presence just going down the West Side Highway from the armored vehicles to that variety of law enforcement, it's astounding to see on a -- on a city street here -- here in New York, Jessica.

DEAN: Yes, it certainly is. I want to go back to John Miller if he's still with us, because I have another logistical question for him -- John, which is, you know, when I lived in D.C., you were used to seeing motorcades and they are very used to clearing streets there. Obviously, New York can do that because it gets its fair share of dignitaries as well. But to move through the New York streets like this, what does that take for law enforcement? How do they keep everybody safe?

MILLER: You know, in New York City, and I say that as someone who used to be in charge of these movements for ...

DEAN: Right.

MILLER: ... various presidents, including presidents of the United States. This is a very experienced team. The NYPD Highway Patrol team is used to being able to freeze a route or navigate a route that's unfrozen. In this case, the route between where they landed and where they're -- where they're going was frozen. They have a -- they have a lot of experience in that. And that's for dignitaries.

This is different, Jessica. This is a high-threat prisoner in charge in a major narcotics trafficking case who happens to be formally, as a few hours ago, president of a sovereign nation in -- in our region. So, that is very similar to what they did with the El Chapo situation, where you had the head of a major cartel. This is the kind of person that had a lot of money behind them, the resources to arrange people who could either attack such a motorcade, try to free a prisoner, try to stage a breakout.

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So, layers, and layers and layers are added on. We saw a lot of them right there in terms of the armored vehicle ...

DEAN: Yes.

MILLER: ... the counter ...