Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the son of captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, has pledged his ‘unconditional support’ to the newly sworn-in interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, who served as his father’s vice president.

‘My unconditional support for the very hard task you’ve been given,’ Maduro Guerra, often called ‘Nicolasito,’ said, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). ‘Count on me, count on my family, count on our firmness in taking the right steps at the forefront of this responsibility that is now yours.’

Maduro Guerra made the remarks during his first public appearance since his father and stepmother, Cilia Flores, were captured by U.S. forces and extradited to New York. The ousted Venezuelan president’s son, who is himself a legislator, joined other ruling-party lawmakers for a planned swearing-in ceremony of the National Assembly for a term that will last until 2031, The Associated Press reported.

Maduro Guerra condemned the U.S. action, calling it a ‘kidnapping’ and saying that ‘no country is safe.’

‘If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today, it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow, it could be any nation that refuses to submit,’ Maduro Guerra said, according to the CBC. ‘This is not a regional problem. It is a direct threat to global political stability.’

Rodríguez, who was sworn-in on Monday, has served as vice president since 2018. Despite her objection to the U.S. military action that led to her former boss’ arrest, Rodríguez has vowed to work with the Trump administration.

‘I come with sorrow for the suffering inflicted upon the Venezuelan people following an illegitimate military aggression against our homeland,’ Rodríguez said, according to the AP.

Maduro and Flores were captured by U.S. forces early Saturday morning at their home in Caracas, Venezuela. The Trump administration announced the operation on Saturday after successful ‘large-scale’ military strikes targeting the Venezuelan government. The dictator and his wife are now being held in New York while they wait to face narco-terrorism charges against them. The historic move attracted praise and backlash across the globe, with some questioning the legality of the operation.

China and Russia were among powers that condemned the U.S. operation in Venezuela, while some regional allies, including Argentina, applauded the move.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado — who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025 for her fight for freedom in Venezuela — praised the operation, saying Jan. 3 will go down as a ‘day that justice defeated tyranny.’

‘It’s a milestone, and it’s not only huge for the Venezuelan people and our future, I think it’s a huge step for humanity, for freedom, and human dignity,’ Machado said during an appearance on ‘Hannity.’

‘A free Venezuela means, first, a security ally, dismantling the criminal hub of the Americas and turning it into a security shield, the strongest ally to dismantle all these criminal structures that have made so much damage and harm to our people and to the American people as well,’ she said. ‘Secondly, we will turn Venezuela into the energy hub of the Americas. We will bring rule of law. We will open markets. We will give security to foreign investment. Third, we’ll bring millions of Venezuelans that have been forced to flee their country back home, to build a strong nation, prosperous nation, open society,’ Machado added.

Machado, who has spent more than a year in hiding, has vowed to return to Venezuela.

Fox News Digital’s Maria Lencki and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A Miami-area congressman whose district is home to a significant number of Venezuelan refugees says the failed communist state should hold new elections sooner rather than later.

‘It can’t be years, I’ll tell you that right now,’ said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. ‘This is what these regimes do, they just negotiate for time, try to wait you out, so you weaken your will. So it can’t be — I’m talking months, I am not talking years.’

Gimenez is the sole Cuban-born member of Congress, having fled the communist dictatorship as a child and settled in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.

He was also among the first members of Congress to speak with Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. government executed strikes on Caracas before capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores.

Maduro was flown to the U.S. by the military to face trial on terrorism charges at the hands of federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said the U.S. would ‘run’ Venezuela until the country could hold fair democratic elections — which Gimenez warned its people needed to see in the relatively near future.

‘Now the number of months, you know, I don’t know what the number would be, but certainly not years,’ the Florida Republican said. ‘And the people inside Venezuela need to see changes happening pretty quickly. People out here that live in the diaspora need to see that also.’

Gimenez said there were ‘millions of Venezuelans’ outside the country ‘that are waiting to go back home.’

‘The faster that we can transition to democracy and freedom, the faster they can go back,’ he said.

The former Miami-Dade County mayor is a supporter of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who Trump recently said, ‘doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.’

Meanwhile, Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was recently sworn in as acting leader in his place.

But Gimenez said that he believed Machado could win a free and fair election in Venezuela while downplaying the distance between himself and Trump on the issue.

‘I think the president is saying, and kind of rightly so, that at this point nobody in the opposition has the security apparatus needed to maintain order on the country. So you’ve got to deal with what you got right now,’ he said. ‘I’m not happy about it, but it’s just reality. But I do think that in the end, if I were to bet right now, yeah, I think she’d win.’

He did concede, however, that a democratic Venezuela would likely have Maduro’s communist supporters — nicknamed ‘Chavistas’ still within the government.

‘Look, there’s going to be, what, 30% are Chavistas, right? So yeah, I’m sure there’s gonna be 30%, but you can’t ever let it get to the point where they control everything, control elections, control the counting of elections, etc.,’ Gimenez said.

‘These Chavistas have already demonstrated that they will use democracy against democracy, so there has to be safeguards in place so that what happened 25 years ago never happens again.’

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Monday warned about the implications of President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, saying it could be the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 in an interview that Trump’s threats about Greenland should be taken seriously.

‘But I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,’ she said, according to the outlet.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One over the weekend that the U.S. needs Greenland, a Danish territory, for ‘national security.’

European and Nordic leaders pushed back against the comments, with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Denmark’s Ambassador to the United States Jesper Møller Sørensen underscoring their support for Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland and stressing that its future must be determined by Greenland and Denmark alone.

White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland ‘should be part of the United States.’

CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.

‘Greenland has a population of 30,000 people,’ Miller said. ‘The real question is by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland. What is the basis of their territorial claim? What is their basis of having Greenland as a colony of Denmark?’

‘The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,’ he added.

Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Monday statement posted on Facebook that his country is ‘not an object of superpower rhetoric.’

‘We are a people. A land. And democracy. This has to be respected. Especially by close and loyal friends,’ Nielsen wrote in part.

‘Threats, pressure and talk of annexation do not belong anywhere between friends,’ he added. ‘That’s not how you talk to a people who have repeatedly shown responsibility, stability and loyalty. This is enough.’

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s wife arrived to court in New York City wearing bandages on her face and complaining of bruises on her ribs, according to her lawyer.

Her attorney, veteran prosecutor Mark Donnelly, told the court that Cilia Flores suffered ‘significant injuries’ when U.S. forces raided the couple’s compound in Caracas on Saturday. Donnelly requested that Flores receive a full X-ray to determine whether she fractured a rib in the incident.

Flores was already wearing two bandages on her face, one on her forehead and another above her eye.

Both she and her husband pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism and other charges in their first appearance on Monday.

Maduro faces four charges: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Flores faces three charges, including cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Donnelly filed a motion to serve as counsel for Flores earlier Monday. He previously served 12 years at the Department of Justice, including as senior advisor to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.

‘Mark has extensive experience investigating white collar cases, having run the Southern District’s fraud division for over two years. His white collar practice included FCPA investigations, Healthcare Fraud, joint SEC matters, large scale investor fraud, and cyber security matters,’ Donnelly’s biography on the website for the Parker Sanchez & Donnelly law firm reads.

The Texas House of Representatives also enlisted Donnelly to assist in the 2023 investigation and impeachment trial for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton’s impeachment case made it to the Texas Senate, but he was ultimately acquitted on all charges.

Maduro and Flores, who have been married for 12 years, were first introduced while working closely with Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez. At the time, Maduro described her as having a ‘fiery character,’ according to Reuters.

The pair did not marry until nearly two decades after first meeting, after Maduro was elected president in 2013.

Fox News’ Emma Bussey contributed to this report.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has vowed to return to Venezuela ‘as soon as possible’ following America’s capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro, warning that the current regime is escalating an internal crackdown on dissent and journalists.

Speaking to ‘Hannity’ on Monday, Machado said the moment is now right for her return after spending more than a year in hiding. She secretly escaped Venezuela last month and traveled to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which she dedicated to President Donald Trump.

‘Well, first of all, I’m planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,’ Machado said. 

‘As I’ve always said, Sean, every day I make a decision where I am more useful for our cause. That’s why I stayed in hiding for over 16 months, and that’s why I decided to go out, because I believed that at this moment I’m more useful to our cause, being able to speak out from where I’m at right now. But I’m going to go as soon possible back home.’

Machado said developments in the past 24 hours have been deeply concerning, pointing to what she described as a sweeping executive order signed by Maduro on the same day he was captured and flown out of the country by U.S. forces.

‘What we’re seeing right now in the last 24 hours is really alarming,’ she said.

Machado said the order mandates the persecution of Venezuelans who support Trump’s actions and claimed at least 14 journalists have been detained. A state of emergency decree issued Saturday, but published Monday, orders police to ‘immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack by the United States,’ the text of the decree reads, according to Reuters.

She said the situation must be closely monitored by the United States and the Venezuelan people, arguing that the transition away from Maduro must continue.

‘So this is very alarming. This is something that has to be followed carefully, I’m sure, by the United States government and by the Venezuelan people,’ she said. ‘And certainly we believe that this transition should move forward.’

Machado also sharply criticized Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, calling her unfit to lead any transitional authority. Rodríguez, who has been vice president under Maduro since 2018, was sworn in as interim president on Monday.

‘Delcy Rodriguez, as you know, is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco trafficking,’ Machado said. ‘She’s the main ally and liaison with Russia, China, Iran, certainly not an individual that could be trusted by international investors. And she’s really rejected, repudiated by the Venezuelan people.’

Machado’s comments came just two days after the Trump administration announced that U.S. forces had captured the dictator and his wife, Cilia Flores, after successful ‘large-scale’ military strikes targeting the Venezuelan government. The dictator and his wife are now being held in New York while they await trial on narco-terrorism charges.

Fox News’ Maria Lencki and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump is set to huddle with House Republicans on Tuesday morning, days after the U.S. government executed strikes in Venezuela and captured the country’s leader Nicolás Maduro. 

Trump will address GOP lawmakers at the newly renamed Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, multiple sources told Fox News Digital. 

A White House schedule released late on Monday said Trump will speak around 10 a.m., and that his remarks will be streamed live.

House Republicans will be at the Trump Kennedy Center for an all-day policy forum Tuesday aimed at discussing their agenda for 2026, according to an email obtained by Fox News Digital.

It comes the day House lawmakers return from a two-week recess for the end-of-year holiday period.

Part of the day’s agenda was meant to include remarks by Trump to rally Republicans around their legislative priorities, but three sources told Fox News Digital they anticipate Venezuela will be a focus of the day as well.

‘My guess is he does 30 minutes on Venezuela and five on policy,’ one House GOP source told Fox News Digital.

Another source told Fox News Digital, ‘I would expect him to give a pretty typical rally-type speech … but who knows.’

That source expressed frustration that Republicans were waiting ‘until we get back to work to strategize.’

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., also said he expected Trump’s remarks to focus heavily on Venezuela.

‘I think the president is going to walk through not only the justification he had for it, which is the court of law in the United States, but also the fact that, how legitimate is a country if the… Canadians, the [European Union], and the United States, no one recognizes this guy? The only people who recognize him are our enemies,’ the Florida Republican said.

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, who is challenging Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, for his Senate seat, said he anticipated Trump to discuss November’s elections as well.

Asked what he thought he’d hear from the president, Hunt told Fox News Digital he could see Trump discussing ‘the successes of the administration, how important it’s been, what happened in Caracas a couple of days ago…codifying his agenda, and winning the midterms.’

‘I think we’re going to hear a lot of that,’ Hunt said.

President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will temporarily ‘run’ Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro may prove to be a defining moment for the Western Hemisphere — either a disciplined effort to restore regional stability or the opening chapter of an avoidable, open-ended entanglement.

At his Mar-a-Lago press conference on Saturday, the president stated plainly, ‘We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.’ He added that members of his national security team standing behind him would oversee the effort and did not rule out ‘boots on the ground.’ Hours later, speaking aboard Air Force One, he sharpened the message further: ‘We’re going to run it, fix it.’

The strategic logic is easy to understand. Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves and has become a hub for narcotics trafficking, corruption and malign outside influence. The administration’s December 2025 National Security Strategy explicitly embraces what it calls a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine — pledging to deny non-hemispheric competitors such as China, Russia and Iran control over strategically vital assets in the Americas. In that framework, Venezuela is not merely a humanitarian tragedy; it is a test case.

But this is precisely where experience should sober ambition.

The first problem: Who is actually in charge?

A central contradiction now confronts Washington. How does the United States ‘run’ Venezuela when its constitutionally designated vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has already been sworn in domestically as interim president following Maduro’s removal?

Rodríguez’s claim to authority — backed by Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice and regime-loyal institutions — is rejected by Washington as illegitimate. Yet in practical terms, ministries, security forces and regional authorities inside Venezuela remain staffed by officials loyal to the old system. That means the United States is not governing Venezuela in name, law or day-to-day administration — even as presidential rhetoric suggests otherwise.

This disconnect between declared authority and actual control is where post-conflict operations often fail.

Lessons written in blood: Iraq and the cost of improvisation

I learned that lesson firsthand. In 2002 and 2003, I served as a member of then–Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Military Analyst Group. We were given extensive access — briefings, travel and candid discussions with officials planning both the Iraq invasion and what would follow.

In early 2003, several of us met with retired officers outlining postwar governance plans. We asked basic but essential questions: Who would secure ministries? How would local governance function? How would electricity, water and fuel distribution be restored? The answers were often vague, more aspirational than operational.

After the invasion, I visited Baghdad and met with Coalition Provisional Authority officials under Ambassador Paul Bremer. Again, the gaps were obvious. We had removed a regime but had not built the machinery needed to prevent the vacuum that follows. 

One decision still echoes: the CPA’s order dissolving Iraq’s security institutions, including the Ministry of Defense. RAND’s official history records that the order was issued with little objection at senior levels, even as misunderstandings were masked by apparent consensus. The result was predictable — security collapsed, insurgency surged and the U.S. presence expanded far beyond its original scope.

Venezuela now risks a similar mistake. Capturing Maduro may prove to be the easy part. Governing what comes next is the hard part — and the part America has too often improvised.

Panama is the wrong analogy

Some have compared Venezuela today to Panama in 1989, when U.S. forces captured Manuel Noriega and quickly installed Guillermo Endara as president. The comparison is tempting — and deeply misleading.

Panama was small, U.S. forces were already present, and a recognized successor government was ready to assume power. Venezuela, by contrast, has 30 million people, no broadly accepted transitional authority and entrenched military-criminal networks embedded throughout the state. What worked in Panama cannot simply be scaled up to Caracas.

‘Not day-to-day governance’— what that really means

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since clarified that the United States does not intend to govern Venezuela ‘day-to-day.’ That clarification matters — but it raises its own questions. If Washington is not running ministries, courts, budgets or police forces, what does that leadership look like?

In real terms, it appears the administration is signaling a model of indirect control rather than occupation. The primary lever is economic, especially oil.

Venezuela’s political and military elites survive on access to oil revenues. Whoever controls export permissions, sanctions relief, insurance access and dollar-denominated transactions controls the real center of gravity. Conditioning access to those revenues — while freezing assets abroad and coordinating sanctions enforcement with allies — offers Washington leverage over the top of the system without governing the country outright.

That approach amounts to influence without occupation: pressure without American administrators running Caracas.

A narco-state is not a one-man show

There is also a dangerous illusion at work — that removing Maduro dismantles the regime.

Maduro sat at the apex of a narco-state and was indicted in U.S. courts on charges of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism. But he did not act alone. His power rested on a network of generals, intelligence chiefs, judges, energy officials and cartel intermediaries who enriched themselves under the existing system. Many of those figures remain in place today.

They are unlikely to surrender quietly. Some will seek accommodation; others will resist through bureaucratic sabotage, violence or the manipulation of public fear. Without a credible transitional framework anchored in Venezuelan civil society and supported by international legitimacy, the system Maduro built may survive him.

The questions that must be answered — now

If the administration wants to avoid repeating Iraq, it must answer several questions publicly and soon.

What is the legal basis — and limit — of U.S. authority? Who provides immediate security, and under what rules? Which Venezuelan partners will be empowered to lead? What economic plan serves Venezuelans first, not just foreign interests? And how does this mission end?

Once the United States assumes responsibility for ‘running’ another country, it inherits responsibility not only for success but for failure.

The Trump administration can still make Venezuela a model rather than a warning. But doing so will require discipline: clearly defined objectives, credible Venezuelan partners, continuity in security forces, transparent reconstruction tied to humanitarian relief and an exit strategy that is real — not rhetorical.

Venezuela is not Iraq. But history has a way of repeating itself when preparation yields to improvisation.