After briefing, Johnson says he doesn’t expect US troops to deploy to Venezuela

Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio and oth­er top of­fi­cials briefed lead­ers in Con­gress late Mon­day on the strik­ing mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in Venezuela amid mount­ing con­cerns that Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is em­bark­ing on a new era of U.S. ex­pan­sion­ism with­out con­sul­ta­tion with law­mak­ers or a clear vi­sion for run­ning the South Amer­i­can coun­try.

Af­ter the brief­ing, House Speak­er Mike John­son told re­porters that he does not ex­pect the Unit­ed States to de­ploy troops to Venezuela, em­pha­siz­ing that U.S. ac­tions there are “not a regime change” op­er­a­tion.

De­mo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers said the ses­sion lacked clar­i­ty about the Trump Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s plans for Venezuela. Sen. Chuck Schumer said the ses­sion “posed far more ques­tions than it an­swered.”

De­posed Venezue­lan leader Nicolás Maduro plead­ed not guilty to fed­er­al drug traf­fick­ing charges in a U.S. court­room on Mon­day.

Sev­er­al an­a­lysts and some world lead­ers — from Chi­na to Mex­i­co — have con­demned the Venezuela mis­sion. Some voiced fears that Maduro’s ouster could pave the way for more mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tions and a fur­ther ero­sion of the glob­al le­gal or­der. On Sun­day evening, Trump put Venezuela’s neigh­bour, Colom­bia, and its left­ist pres­i­dent, Gus­ta­vo Petro, on no­tice.

Mean­while, the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to show its peo­ple and the world that the coun­try is be­ing run in­de­pen­dent­ly and is not be­ing con­trolled by the Unit­ed States.

Law­mak­ers aligned with the rul­ing par­ty, in­clud­ing Maduro’s son, gath­ered Mon­day in the cap­i­tal to fol­low through with a sched­uled swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny of the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly for a term that will last un­til 2031.

Venezuela’s in­ter­im pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, who called Maduro’s cap­ture an “atroc­i­ty” in the hours af­ter the op­er­a­tion, has since in­vit­ed Trump to “col­lab­o­rate with us on an agen­da of co­op­er­a­tion”. Her con­cil­ia­to­ry mes­sage came af­ter Trump threat­ened that she could “pay a very big price” if she didn’t fall in line with U.S. de­mands.

HERE ARE THE LAT­EST DE­VEL­OP­MENTS…

‘Dis­agree­ment about how to pro­ceed’

By MATTHEW LEE

The dis­crep­an­cy be­tween what Trump and Ru­bio have said pub­licly hasn’t sat well with some for­mer diplo­mats.

“It strikes me that we have no idea what­so­ev­er as to what’s next,” said Dan Fried, a re­tired ca­reer diplo­mat, for­mer as­sis­tant sec­re­tary of state and sanc­tions co­or­di­na­tor who served un­der both De­mo­c­ra­t­ic and Re­pub­li­can ad­min­is­tra­tions.

“For good op­er­a­tional rea­sons, there were very few peo­ple who knew about the raid, but Trump’s re­marks about run­ning the coun­try and Ru­bio’s un­com­fort­able walk back sug­gests that even with­in that small group of peo­ple, there is dis­agree­ment about how to pro­ceed,” said Fried who’s now with the At­lantic Coun­cil think tank.

Trump’s vague claims of the US run­ning Venezuela raise ques­tions about plan­ning for what’s next

By MATTHEW LEE

Pres­i­dent Trump has made broad but vague as­ser­tions that the Unit­ed States is go­ing to “run” Venezuela af­ter the ouster of Nicolás Maduro but has of­fered al­most no de­tails about how it will do so, rais­ing ques­tions among some law­mak­ers and for­mer of­fi­cials about the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s lev­el of plan­ning for the coun­try af­ter Maduro was gone.

Seem­ing­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments from Trump and Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio have sug­gest­ed at once that the U.S. now con­trols the levers of Venezue­lan pow­er or that the U.S. has no in­ten­tion of as­sum­ing day-to-day gov­er­nance and will al­low Maduro’s sub­or­di­nates to re­main in lead­er­ship po­si­tions for now.

Ru­bio said the U.S. would re­ly on ex­ist­ing sanc­tions on Venezuela’s oil sec­tor and crim­i­nal gangs to wield lever­age with Maduro’s suc­ces­sors.

The un­cer­tain­ty on de­fin­i­tive next steps in Venezuela con­trasts with the years of dis­cus­sions and plan­ning that went in­to U.S. mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tions that de­posed oth­er au­to­crat­ic lead­ers, no­tably in Iraq in 2003, which still did not of­ten lead to the hoped-for out­comes.

Few Venezue­lans ap­proved of the US gov­ern­ment, Gallup poll shows

By LIN­LEY SANDERS

On­ly about 2 in 10 Venezue­lans ap­proved of the U.S. gov­ern­ment, ac­cord­ing to a 2025 Gallup World Poll con­duct­ed over the sum­mer.

That mea­sure was among the low­est ap­proval rat­ings from Venezuela record­ed in the poll go­ing back to 2006. About two-thirds of Venezue­lans dis­ap­proved of the U.S. gov­ern­ment, which is in line with de­clines across Latin Amer­i­ca be­tween 2024 and 2025.

Maduro wasn’t es­pe­cial­ly pop­u­lar at home, ei­ther. About 4 in 10 Venezue­lans ap­proved of Maduro’s lead­er­ship and the coun­try’s lead­er­ship over­all, ac­cord­ing to that poll.

The coun­try’s fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion has been a point of con­cern for many Venezue­lans. About 6 in 10 said they didn’t have enough mon­ey to af­ford food in the past 12 months, and rough­ly half said that about shel­ter. Just 1 in 10 Venezue­lans re­port­ed they were liv­ing com­fort­ably on their in­comes, among the low­est in the re­gion.

Macha­do says she hasn’t spo­ken to Trump since re­ceiv­ing her No­bel Peace Prize last Oc­to­ber

By IS­ABEL DE­BRE

In her first tele­vised in­ter­view since the U.S. cap­ture of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezue­lan op­po­si­tion leader ex­ten­sive­ly praised the US. pres­i­dent, even say­ing she hoped to per­son­al­ly of­fer him her No­bel Peace Prize.

She did not ac­knowl­edge Trump’s snub of her op­po­si­tion move­ment in favour of work­ing with Maduro loy­al­ist Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

“I spoke with Pres­i­dent Trump on Oct. 10, the same day the prize was an­nounced, not since then,” she said on Fox News late Mon­day. “What he has done as I said is his­toric, and it’s a huge step to­ward a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion.”

Trump hasn’t said if or when de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions will be held in Venezuela.

Op­po­si­tion leader Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do vows to re­turn to Venezuela

By MEG KIN­NARD

Speak­ing to Fox News host Sean Han­ni­ty on Mon­day night, Macha­do said she’d try to re­turn “as soon as pos­si­ble.”

Macha­do, in ex­ile for more than a year, al­so sharply crit­i­cized Venezuela’s new in­ter­im leader, Del­cy Ro­dríguez, call­ing her un­fit to lead any tran­si­tion­al au­thor­i­ty and “one of the main ar­chi­tects of tor­ture, per­se­cu­tion, cor­rup­tion, nar­co traf­fick­ing.”

Short­ly be­fore Trump’s Sat­ur­day news con­fer­ence on Maduro’s cap­ture, Macha­do called on her al­ly Ed­mun­do González — a re­tired diplo­mat wide­ly con­sid­ered to have won the coun­try’s dis­put­ed 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion — to “im­me­di­ate­ly as­sume his con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date and be rec­og­nized as com­man­der in chief.”

Asked about Macha­do, Trump said he felt it would be “very tough” for her to lead.

More Amer­i­cans say the US should not run Venezuela

By LIN­LEY SANDERS

Amer­i­cans were split about the U.S. cap­tur­ing Maduro — with many still form­ing opin­ions — ac­cord­ing to a poll con­duct­ed by The Wash­ing­ton Post and SSRS us­ing text mes­sages over the week­end.

About 4 in 10 ap­proved of the U.S. mil­i­tary be­ing sent to cap­ture Maduro, while rough­ly the same share were op­posed. About 2 in 10 were un­sure.

Near­ly half of Amer­i­cans, 45%, were op­posed to the U.S. tak­ing con­trol of Venezuela and choos­ing a new gov­ern­ment for the coun­try. About 9 in 10 Amer­i­cans said the Venezue­lan peo­ple should be the ones to de­cide the fu­ture lead­er­ship of their coun­try.

Re­pub­li­cans broad­ly ap­proved of cap­tur­ing Maduro, while a Quin­nip­i­ac poll from De­cem­ber found that Re­pub­li­cans were more di­vid­ed on mil­i­tary ac­tion in Venezuela. About half were in sup­port, while about one-third were op­posed and 15% didn’t have an opin­ion.

Cu­ba faces un­cer­tain fu­ture af­ter US top­ples Venezue­lan leader Maduro

By DÁNI­CA CO­TO, AN­DREA RO­DRIGUEZ

Cuban of­fi­cials on Mon­day low­ered flags be­fore dawn to mourn 32 se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers they say were killed in the U.S. week­end strike in Venezuela, the is­land na­tion’s clos­est al­ly, as res­i­dents here won­der what it means for their fu­ture.

The two gov­ern­ments are so close that Cuban sol­diers and se­cu­ri­ty agents were of­ten the Venezue­lan pres­i­dent’s body­guards, and Venezuela’s pe­tro­le­um has kept the eco­nom­i­cal­ly ail­ing is­land limp­ing along for years. Cuban au­thor­i­ties over the week­end said the 32 had been killed in the sur­prise at­tack “af­ter fierce re­sis­tance in di­rect com­bat against the at­tack­ers, or as a re­sult of the bomb­ing of the fa­cil­i­ties.”

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has warned out­right that top­pling Maduro will help ad­vance an­oth­er decades-long goal: Deal­ing a blow to the Cuban gov­ern­ment. Sev­er­ing Cu­ba from Venezuela could have dis­as­trous con­se­quences for its lead­ers, who on Sat­ur­day called for the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to stand up to “state ter­ror­ism.”

On Sat­ur­day, Trump said the ail­ing Cuban econ­o­my will be fur­ther bat­tered by Maduro’s ouster.

“It’s go­ing down,” Trump said of Cu­ba. “It’s go­ing down for the count.”

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Sto­ries edit­ed by BRID­GET BROWN and BERNARD MCGHEE | As­so­ci­at­ed Press