By The Associated Press undefined
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 he doesn’t 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 Monday.
Here’s the latest:
Trump’s vague claims of the US running Venezuela raise questions about planning for what’s next
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.
▶ Read more about U.S. planning for Venezuela
Few Venezuelans approved of the US government, Gallup poll shows
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
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 favor 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
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
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.
All-senators briefing on Venezuela scheduled as questions mount
Rubio, Hegseth and other top Trump administration officials are set to brief all senators as questions mount over the Venezuela operation.
That’s according to a person familiar with the private meeting who insisted in anonymity to discuss it.
It comes ahead of a war powers vote this week in the Senate that would prohibit further military action in the South American country without approval from Congress.
The classified briefing is set for Wednesday.
— Lisa Mascaro
UN human rights office sharply criticizes the US military’s intervention in Venezuela
The United Nations human rights office warns the military operation made “all states less safe around the world.”
Speaking to reporters Tuesday in Geneva, Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk, said that far from being a justified response to the Venezuelan government’s appalling human rights record, the Trump administration’s seizure of President Nicolás Maduro “damages the architecture of international security.”
“Accountability for human rights violations cannot be achieved by unilateral military intervention in violation of international law,” Shamdasani said.
What Americans think about the situation in Venezuela, according to recent polls
There are few signs that President Trump’s supporters wanted the United States to become more embroiled in foreign conflicts ahead of its military actions in Venezuela — even as many Republicans show initial support for his military strike there, according to an Associated Press analysis of recent polling.
Most Americans wanted the U.S. government to focus in 2026 on domestic issues, such as health care and high costs, rather than foreign policy issues, an AP-NORC poll conducted last month found. Meanwhile, polling conducted in the immediate aftermath of the military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro suggests many Americans are unconvinced the U.S. should step in to take control of the country.
And despite Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. may take a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere, Republicans in polling last fall remained broadly opposed to the U.S. getting more involved in other countries’ problems.
▶ Read more about the recent polling
Cuba faces uncertain future after US topples Venezuelan leader Maduro
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.”
▶ Read more about the impact of the strikes on Cuba
A rare ‘thank you’ to the media from the Trump administration
In the wake of last weekend’s U.S. military action in Venezuela, the news media got something it has seldom heard from the Trump administration: a “thank you.”
Rubio credited news organizations that had learned in advance about last Saturday’s strike with not putting the mission in jeopardy by publicly reporting on it before it happened.
Rubio’s acknowledgment was particularly noteworthy because Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has cited a mistrust of journalists’ ability to responsibly handle sensitive information as one of the chief reasons for imposing restrictive new press rules on Pentagon reporters. Most mainstream news organizations have left posts in the Pentagon rather than agree to Hegseth’s policy.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Rubio said the administration withheld information about the mission from Congress ahead of time because “it will leak. It’s as simple as that.” But the primary reason was operational security, he said.
“Frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason,” Rubio said. “And we thank them for doing that or lives could have been lost. American lives.”
▶ Read more about Rubio’s comments
Rubio, Hegseth brief congressional leaders as questions mount over next steps in Venezuela
Republican leaders entered the closed-door session at the Capitol largely supportive of Trump’s decision to forcibly remove Madurofrom power, but many Democrats emerged with more questions as Trump maintains a fleet of naval vessels off the Venezuelan coast and urges U.S. companies to reinvest in the country’s underperforming oil industry.
A war powers resolution that would prohibit U.S. military action in Venezuela without approval from Congress is heading for a vote this week in the Senate.
“We don’t expect troops on the ground,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said afterward.
“This is not a regime change. This is demand for a change in behavior,” Johnson said. “We don’t expect direct involvement in any other way beyond just coercing the new, the interim government, to get that going.”
But Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, emerged saying, “There are still many more questions that need to be answered.”
▶ Read more about the briefing
US allies and adversaries use UN meeting to critique Venezuela intervention as America defends it
Both allies and adversaries of the United States on Monday used an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to voice opposition to the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela that captured leader Nicolás Maduro.
Before the U.N.’s most powerful body, countries critiqued — if sometimes obliquely — President Donald Trump’s intervention in the South American country and his recent comments signaling the possibility of expanding military action to countries like Colombia and Mexico over drug trafficking accusations. The Republican president also has reupped his threat to take over the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests.
Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the mineral-rich island, carefully denounced U.S. prospects for taking over Greenland without mentioning its NATO ally by name.
“The inviolability of borders is not up for negotiation,” said Christina Markus Lassen, Danish ambassador to the U.N.
She also defended Venezuela’s sovereignty, saying “no state should seek to influence political outcomes in Venezuela through the use of threat of force or through other means inconsistent with international law.”
▶ Read more about the UN’s emergency meeting