Donald Trump said the US must ‘nurse’ Venezuela back to health with the help of oil companies and taxpayers might have to help foot the bill.
Trump said it will cost ‘a lot of money’ to rebuild the South American country’s energy infrastructure but thinks the US can do it ahead of that 18 month timeline.
However, he added that the American taxpayers may be on the hook for it, as the oil companies may receive assistance to do so.
‘I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money,’ he told NBC News.
‘A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue.’
When asked if Trump’s ‘America First’ base would stand for nation-building overseas, the president backed himself to maintain the support of his voters.
‘MAGA loves it. MAGA loves what I’m doing. MAGA loves everything I do. MAGA is me. MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do, too,’ he said.
Trump also told NBC News that the project could take the next 18 months before Venezuelans elect a new president.
‘We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,’ Trump said.
Donald Trump said that the US must ‘nurse’ Venezuela back to health for the foreseeable future and may offer taxpayer-funded subsidies to oil companies to help rebuild.
The president said that they may need 18 months to rebuild Venezuela after the capture of Nicolas Maduro
‘No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have — we have to nurse the country back to health.’
The president shouted out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller as people responsible for overseeing the process.
However, ultimately he said ‘me’ when asked who was responsible.
He also insisted the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela.
‘No, we’re not. We’re at war with people that sell drugs. We’re at war with people that empty their prisons into our country and empty their drug addicts and empty their mental institutions into our country,’ he said.
Trump said that Marco Rubio ‘speaks fluently in Spanish’ to interim President Delcy Rodriguez but would not say whether he’d spoken to her yet.
Trump hasn’t minced words about the larger message he’s trying to send the world with the raid to capture Maduro and spirit the deposed Venezuelan leader and his wife to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges.
Trump said that Marco Rubio ‘speaks fluently in Spanish’ to interim President Delcy Rodriguez but would not say whether he’d spoken to her yet
The preliminary hearing for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro devolved into chaos as the deposed leader’s fury boiled over, sparking a shouting match with a man who claimed he had been jailed by Maduro’s regime and warned he would ‘pay’
‘American dominance in the Western Hemisphere,’ Trump declared following Maduro’s capture, ‘will never be questioned again.’
In the days since the audacious raid, Trump and his team have doubled down on the notion that the new focus on American preeminence in the hemisphere is here to stay.
He also held up Maduro’s capture to make the case to neighbors to get in line or potentially face consequences.
In the aftermath of the operation, Trump’s tough talk has been been directed at titular allies in Greenland – where he renewed calls for the US to take over the Danish territory for national security reasons – and Mexico. Trump says America’s southern neighbor needs to ‘get their act together’ fighting drug cartels.
Maduro was hauled before a federal court in Manhattan on Monday, where scenes outside descended into chaos as protesters clashed and police were forced to intervene.
The deposed President of Venezuela got into a shouting match with a man who claimed he had been jailed by Maduro’s regime.
Maduro screamed back at Pedro Rojas, who was in the public gallery, that he was a ‘prisoner of war’ after Rojas warned him he would ‘pay’ for his crimes.
The extraordinary exchange happened at the end of the 30-minute hearing at the federal court in Manhattan where a judge told Maduro to stop talking midway through a rant about how he had been ‘kidnapped’ by US forces.
Maduro arriving at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport Monday morning, as he headed towards the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse for an initial appearance
It was a humbling moment for a man who three days earlier was a head of state.
Maduro, 63, walked into courtroom 26A wearing a blue T-shirt with an orange T-shirt underneath and tan issue prison pants.
His hands were cuffed behind him, and they were released as he walked into the court through a side door: his legs were shackled.
His wife Cilia Flores, 69, was wearing similar clothes and was also shackled, sitting on the same bench with a pained expression on her face.
Behind both in the packed courtroom sat two US Marshals.
As he walked in through a side door Maduro nodded to multiple people in the audience and said in English: ‘Happy New Year.’
The White House signaled on Sunday that it was not seeking full regime change, but rather Maduro’s removal and the installation of a compliant new government – even one staffed by many of his former allies.
Anointed by mentor Hugo Chávez before his death in 2013, Maduro maintained an iron grip on power until his dramatic capture by US forces on Saturday.
He ruled alongside his wife, Cilia Flores, and three other dominant figures: Delcy Rodríguez, now Venezuela’s interim leader; her brother Jorge Rodríguez; and their longtime rival, hardline Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.
‘It’s like a club of five,’ a diplomatic source in Caracas told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Washington’s stance has left Venezuela’s opposition – which the Trump administration says was cheated out of victory by Maduro – sidelined and furious.
Meanwhile, countries with deep ties to Maduro’s government, including China, Russia and Iran, swiftly condemned the operation, while some US allies, among them the European Union, voiced alarm.
