Trump says ‘we are going to run the country now’ after removing Venezuela’s president

This is a developing story.

President Trump said the U.S. will run Venezuela until a “proper transition can take place,” as he defended Saturday’s military strikes that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

“We’re there now, but we’re going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place,” Trump told reporters from Mar a Lago. “So we’re going to stay until such time as we’re going to run it, essentially, until such time as a proper transition can take place.”

Trump’s remarks cap a dramatic few hours that began with reports of explosions in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, the scale of which became apparent only when the president said Maduro and his wife had been captured. Trump later told Fox & Friends that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were being brought by boat to New York where they’d stand trial.

He said U.S. oil companies would head to Venezuela to operate in their oil reserves, and the military is set to attack again if necessary to secure the effort.

“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, and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so,” he said.

Watch President Trump’s remarks

Trump said there were some U.S. injuries sustained during the operation to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, but no fatalities.

“This is something that gee, I don’t know, is amazing and to have a few injuries but no death on our side was really amazing,” Trump told Fox and Friends ahead of his Mar-a-Lago address.

Trump told Fox that he watched the “extremely complex” operation unfold “like I was watching a television show.”

Trump defended the operation, telling the network, “You know what, we did a great job with stopping drugs from coming into this country, and nobody’s been able to do it until we came along. But they should say, ‘great job.’ They could say, ‘Oh, gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’ You know, the same old stuff that we’ve been hearing for years and years and years.”

He was asked by Fox about China’s concerns about control of the oil and responded that he has a good relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“There’s not going to be a problem, and they’re going to get oil. We’re going to allow people to have oil, but we can’t take a chance after having done this incredible thing last night of letting somebody else take over, where we have to do it again,” he said.

Trump did not outline clear next steps for regime change, but noted Venezuela does have a sitting vice president and sent a warning to anyone who might continue supporting Maduro.

“Well, if they stay loyal, the future is really bad, and really bad for them. If they convert, there’s a conversion factor. I would say most of them have converted. He’s had very little loyalty,” he said.