Donald Trump was worried that the Nicolas Maduro takedown could have gone wrong and been a failure that defined his presidency.
The president confided that if the special forces operation to capture Maduro from Venezuela went awry, it would be compared to Jimmy Carter’s 1980 failed Iran hostage rescue and Joe Biden‘s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal – both resulting in the death of American servicemembers.
But no US forces died in the Delta Force operation on Saturday, January 3, 2026, while approximately 70 Venezuelans and Cubans were killed in the course of the two-hour feat.
As many as seven US forces were injured in the mission, with five already returning to duty.
The flight leader who planned the extraction and was piloting the Chinook was struck three times and suffered serious injuries, current and former US officials told the New York Times. He and another soldier are recovering in a hospital in Texas, the military announced on Tuesday.
Trump, speaking with the New York Times, contrasted this mission’s success to the failures of his predecessors.
‘You know you didn’t have a Jimmy Carter crashing helicopters all over the place, that you didn’t have a Biden Afghanistan disaster where they couldn’t do the simplest maneuver,’ he said.
The president also said during the two-hour interview that he plans for the US to operationally run Venezuela – and control its oil extraction – for years to come.
Donald Trump said while he was watching the Nicolas Maduro capture operation he was worried if it failed he would be compared to Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden. Pictured: Trump watches from his Mar-a-Lago ‘situation room’ with CIA Director John Ratcliffe (right) as special forces captured and extracted Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores
The president was worried that he could have a ‘Jimmy Carter disaster’ if the operation went awry. Pictured: A US helicopter that crashed in a failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980 that killed eight US servicemembers
Trump also didn’t want a repeat of the Abbey Gate terrorist attack (pictured) during Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan where 13 American servicemembers were killed
Asked if the US would remain overseers of the country for months, a year or longer, Trump revealed: ‘I would say much longer.’
‘Only time will tell,’ he added when asked for a specific timeline.
Trump watched from a make-shift situation room in the ‘winter White House’ at Mar-a-Lago while the January 3 operation unfolded in Venezuela.
Throughout the whole thing, the president said he was worried it could end up being a ‘Jimmy Carter disaster.’
‘That destroyed his entire administration,’ Trump insisted. ‘I don’t know that he would have won the election, but he certainly had no chance after that disaster.’
Carter green-lit an effort in April 1980 to free 52 American hostages held in Iran. But a helicopter crash during the operation resulted in the deaths of eight service members – five Airmen and three Marines – and no hostages were freed. The crisis continued for months until the hostages were finally released as Carter left office in January 1981.
His reelection loss was largely credited to that hostage rescue failure.
More than 40 years later, Biden had a similar high-profile military defeat as he withdrew all US forces from Afghanistan in his first year in office.
Thirteen American service members died on August 26, 2021 during a terrorist attack at Abbey Gate, Kabul Airport, while assisting in evacuations. This included 11 Marines, one Army soldier and one Navy corpsman.
Another 170 Afghan civilians died in the attack, and the handling of the withdrawal was largely seen as a failure of the Biden administration when it was supposed to be a massive win in finally bringing an end to the 20-year war.
Trump told the Times that he closely tracked training of the special forces who conducted the operation.
They erected at a military facility in Kentucky a life-size replica of Maduro’s compound so forces could practice the operation.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and President Donald Trump monitor from a makeshift situation room in Palm Beach, Florida the special forces operation in Venezuela to capture and extradite Nicolas Maduro
Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores arrived in Manhattan for the former Venezuelan leader’s arraignment Monday, January 5, 2026 in the Southern District of New York on narcoterrorism charges
During a 5:30PM intelligence briefing at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, January 2, 2026, Trump gave the green-light for the operation to move forward. It was conducted that night in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Trump said that the interim government, all former Maduro-loyalists, are ‘giving us everything that we feel is necessary.’
Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, was installed as acting president and has been holding calls with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
‘We will rebuild it in a very profitable way,’ Trump told the New York Times. ‘We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.’
The US plans to assume control of selling oil extracted from Venezuela as part of a three-phase plan Rubio outlined for members of Congress this week.
Lawmakers were not notified of the operation ahead of time, with Trump saying at a Saturday press briefing that he didn’t want Congress to leak anything and risk the successful capture and extradition of Maduro.
