US President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News that there was no agreement with Venezuelan authorities to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“A lot of people wanted to make a deal, but we decided to do it this way“, the president said when asked by a reporter whether “there was any deal made with Venezuelan authorities to remove“ Maduro,.
The president claims that the operation was carried out without the cooperation of Maduro's inner circle. According to Trump, Washington has deliberately rejected the mediation of Venezuelan elites on this issue.
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth said on December 5 that approximately 200 American soldiers were in downtown Caracas during the US operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
According to Hegseth, “nearly 200 prominent Americans went to downtown Caracas“ to “capture the man indicted by the United States and wanted by the American judicial system“. The secretary reiterated that there were no casualties among the American military. “It seems that those Russian anti-aircraft systems didn't work all that well, did they?“, Hegseth also said, speaking to employees at a shipyard in Virginia.