OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
2:17 PM – Saturday, January 3, 2026
President Donald Trump took questions about the United States’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who explained why Congress was not notified about the plans prior to the attack on Caracas.
Invited by Trump to speak to the executive branch’s decision on Saturday, Rubio clarified that legislators were notified immediately afterward.
“This is not the kind of mission that you can do a Congressional notification on,” Rubio explained. “It was a trigger-based mission in which conditions had to be met night after night. We watched and monitored that for a number of days.”
“It’s just not the kind of mission that you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission,” he asserted.
“Congress has a tendency to leak,” Trump added. “If they leaked … I think it would have been a very different result.”
Rubio reminded the press of the Trump administration’s position that Maduro is “not the legitimate president of Venezuela.”
“That’s not just us saying it. The first Trump administration, the Biden administration, the second Trump administration — none of those three recognized him. He’s not recognized by the European Union and multiple countries around the world,” the secretary contended. “He is a fugitive of American justice with a $50 million reward.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a $50 million bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of President Maduro in August. Rubio noted that the U.S. government supposedly saved $50 million in tracking and apprehending him alone, to which Trump jokingly responded, “We should make sure. Don’t let anybody claim it.”
Rubio emphasized that Maduro had brought this move upon himself by fraternizing with Iran, confiscating American oil, holding Americans hostage during the Biden administration and flooding the country with gang members and narcotics.
“Nicolás Maduro had multiple opportunities to avoid this. He was provided multiple very very generous offers and chose instead to act like a wild man, chose instead to play around,” said Rubio.
“The 47th president of the United States is not a game-player,” he added.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said they had spoken with executives about the operation after its conclusion.
“President Trump’s decisive action to disrupt the unacceptable status quo and apprehend Maduro, through the execution of a valid Department of Justice warrant, is an important first step to bring him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States,” Thune said in a statement.
“I look forward to receiving further briefings from the administration on this operation as part of its comprehensive counternarcotics strategy when the Senate returns to Washington next week,” he added.
Johnson also made a statement that he had spoken with both Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and that “today’s military action in Venezuela was a decisive and justified operation that will protect American lives.”
Johnson said that the administration will schedule briefings with Congress as they return to D.C. next week.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also defended the Trump administration’s decision to avoid notifying Congress.
“That’s probably one reason it didn’t leak over these four days as they were waiting for the right weather,” Cotton told Fox News. “Congress isn’t notified when the FBI is going to arrest a drug trafficker or cyber criminal here in the United States, nor should Congress be notified when the executive branch is executing arrests on indicted persons.”
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