Venezuela live updates as Maduro appears in US court, Trump threatens other nations

A vote on war powers is on the horizon when lawmakers return to Washington this week.

Congress has not authorized military force against Venezuela and the Trump administration did not notify lawmakers of the plan in advance.

Most Democrats and some Republicans have sought to limit Trump’s authority to attack Venezuela and ships suspected of drug trafficking in the region, as the U.S. leader says the South American country’s role in drug smuggling poses a threat to national security. But the Senate and House of Representatives have twice failed to limit Trump’s authority to continue the military campaign.

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said the Senate will vote this week on its latest war powers resolution. He introduced the measure in early December, days after the revelation that the United States killed two people who survived the initial explosion of a Sept. 2 attack in the Caribbean Sea.

Kaine’s measure would require “the withdrawal of the United States Armed Forces from hostilities in or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”

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The Swiss government said Monday that it decided to freeze any assets held by Nicolás Maduro or his associates in Switzerland “with immediate effect,” a decision made after Maduro was detained in Caracas and taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges.

Describing the situation as “volatile,” the Swiss government said in a statement that it wanted to “ensure that any illicitly acquired assets cannot be transferred outside of Switzerland in the current situation.”

He also said that “if future legal proceedings reveal that the funds were acquired illicitly, Switzerland will endeavor to ensure that they benefit the Venezuelan people.”

The measure, decided under the Swiss Federal Law on Freezing and Restitution of Illicit Assets in the Possession of Politically Exposed Foreign Persons, is in addition to existing sanctions against Venezuela in force since 2018, which also include asset freezes, the government said.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges stemming from what prosecutors said was your role in a plan importing “thousands of tons” of cocaine into the United States and enriching himself, his family and senior members of the Venezuelan government.

The indictment was unsealed Saturday by Attorney General Pam Bondi after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken into military custody in a nighttime operation and brought to the US to face criminal charges.

“They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi said.

Maduro, Flores and four other people are named as defendants in the indictment, including Maduro’s son, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro.

Maduro faces four charges: conspiracy to narcoterrorism; conspiracy to import cocaine; possession of machine guns and destructive devices; and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Flores is accused of mediating a meeting between a large-scale drug trafficker and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office and allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.

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Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night, President Trump said he has not spoken directly with Venezuela’s interim leader, the vice president. Delcy Rodriguezbut said it was cooperating with the US.

“We are in charge” of Venezuela right now, Trump said.

He said the United States had been prepared for further military action in Venezuela, but that so far they had not been necessary, adding that this could change “if they don’t behave.”

The president said he has spoken with several U.S. oil companies about commitments to rebuild Venezuela’s infrastructure, saying that “they really want to get in.”

After the action in Venezuela, the Trump administration alludes to possible actions in other parts of the region.

Speaking aboard Air Force One Sunday night, Trump mentioned Colombian President Gustavo Petro and said Colombia is “very sick too, governed by a very sick man.”

Trump said he felt Petro “won’t be doing it for a long time” and when asked if he would conduct a military operation there as well, the president responded: “That’s fine with me.”

Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stern new warning to the Cuban government, a longtime adversary of the United States and one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners. Rubio, in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said he believes “they’re in a lot of trouble.”

“I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps and our policies will be now in this regard,” Rubio said. “But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones who were propping up Maduro.”

He said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela before his capture.

“It was the Cubans who protected Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards,” adding that the Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of the Maduro government’s “internal intelligence.”

The Cuban government said Sunday that 32 Cubans were killed during the U.S. military operation to capture Maduro.

Trump said the Cuban economy, battered by years of the U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will plummet further now with the overthrow of Maduro, who provided subsidized oil to the Caribbean island.

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

-News/AP

“Enough is enough,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen said on social media Sunday night, following repeated threats from President Trump to annex the autonomous Danish territory.

“No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies of annexation. We are open to dialogue. We are open to discussions. But this must happen through proper channels and with respect for international law,” Nielsen wrote.

Since returning to the White House a year ago, Trump has repeatedly asserted that making Greenland part of the United States would serve U.S. national security interests, given its strategic location in the Arctic. Greenland is also rich in key critical minerals used in high-tech sectors.

In an interview with The Atlantic magazine published on Sunday, Trump reiterated his desire to seize Greenland. “We need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense,” he told the magazine.

On Sunday night aboard Air Force One, he told reporters: “It’s very strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships everywhere.”

“We need Greenland from a national security point of view, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said.

-News/News

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who is serving as interim leader following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, said in a statement Sunday night that Venezuela seeks “peace and peaceful coexistence.”

“Our country aspires to live without external threats, in an environment of respect and international cooperation,” said Rodríguez. “We believe that global peace is built by first guaranteeing the peace of each nation.”

Rogríguez said he hopes to have a “balanced and respectful” relationship with the United States “based on sovereign equality and non-interference.”

“We extend the invitation to the United States government to work together on a cooperation agenda, aimed at shared development, within the framework of international legality and strengthen lasting community coexistence,” he added.

“President Donald Trump: our people and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war.”

Trump administration officials will give some members of Congress a classified briefing on Venezuela at 5:30 p.m. Monday, according to multiple sources.

Guests include chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations, Senate Armed Services, House Foreign Affairs and House Armed Services committees, as well as the so-called Gang of Eight: the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees and the four leaders of the House and Senate.

The briefing will be given by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, according to an administration official.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are being held in different sections of the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility with the capacity to hold high-security defendants.

The MDC is known to have housed other high-profile defendants, including Luigi Mangione, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Law enforcement sources told News themezone that Maduro is being held on one of the upper floors of the MDC. They say he is not being held in solitary confinement, but is being held with other high-profile inmates.

Their status likely means protection for the general population, said Marc Fernich, a lawyer who represented notorious drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was held in a federal prison a few miles away in Manhattan.

“If Maduro is placed in solitary confinement 24 hours a day, it will be for his own protection or to prevent suicide,” Fernich said.

He added that the Brooklyn jail currently houses many members of Venezuela’s best-known transnational gang, the Tren de Aragua.

There are at least four Americans detained in Venezuela, according to a hostage advocate familiar with the situation. The U.S. government is aware that some Americans who had been detained in Venezuela before the holidays remain in custody there.

When asked on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” about reports of previously detained Americans still being detained in Venezuela, Senator Chris Van Hollen said“I have not received any updates from the administration on those detained Americans. But certainly my view is that we should work to bring back all Americans who are unjustly detained abroad.”

He added: “My opinion is that the administration should designate as unjustly detained any Americans who have been unjustly detained by the Venezuelan government.”

President Trump on Saturday called Maduro an “illegitimate dictator” and alleged that he “was the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal quantities of illicit and deadly drugs into the United States.”

In a US military operation that attacked Venezuelan military installations in the early hours of Saturday, Maduro and his wife were captured and flown to the United States to face charges.

Trump said: “Now Maduro will never again be able to threaten an American citizen or anyone from Venezuela.”

“The dictator and terrorist Maduro finally left Venezuela,” the president said. “People are free.”