The U.S. military captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Saturday, bringing them to the United States, where the 63-year-old pleaded not guilty Monday to narco-terrorism and corruption charges in a New York City federal court, charges that government prosecutors allege stretch back 25 years.
As early as 2019, however, Maduro told ABC News that he was bracing for a war with the United States over his country's oil and accused the U.S. government of "trying to fabricate a crisis" to escalate a military conflict in South America.
"The United States wants oil from Venezuela and is willing to go on a war for oil," Maduro told ABC News in an interview at the presidential palace in Caracas.
At the time, Maduro was facing mass protests across Venezuela, led by the U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido, amid the country's spiraling economic and humanitarian crises, including a food and medicine shortage and rolling blackouts.
In the wake of Saturday's raid, Trump has spoken extensively about extracting and selling Venezuelan oil, as well as that the U.S. was going to "run" Venezuela. But officials in his administration have insisted that Maduro's capture was a "law enforcement operation."
'They always invent pretexts'
The 2019 ABC News interview occurred about a year before Maduro was initially indicted in the Southern District of New York. Maduro did not say if he was aware that he was under investigation for narco-terrorism, and gave no hint that he was about to be indicted.
"They always invent pretexts, always inventing excuses," Maduro said of the United States. "To invade Iraq, they invented that there were weapons of mass destruction, and then it was embarrassment when it was known that it was all a lie; it was just an excuse for a pretext."
Leading up to Maduro's capture, the U.S. military conducted a series of air strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific that Trump administration officials alleged were loaded with drugs and headed to the United States from Venezuela. At least 35 strikes have been carried out since September, killing 115 people, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was traveling with Trump on Air Force One on Sunday, told reporters that Maduro rejected a deal from the United States to step down and leave Venezuela in exchange for a life in exile.
In the 2019 interview with ABC News, Maduro said "I will never surrender."
"I would never betray our people, I will be loyal to our people in all circumstances, and, in the end, I will be rewarded with victory. I am sure of that," Maduro said. "And my country is being attacked by the most powerful force that has ever been known in history. They want to swallow us. They haven't been able to because we are real. They want our oil, they want our wealth. This is an oil war."
At the time, Maduro said he rejected the United State's offer to send humanitarian aid to Venezuela, describing the offer as a "Hollywood show" he alleged was designed to "cover up the true intensions of an escalation to control and dominate our country."
"They are trying to fabricate a crisis to justify political escalation and military intervention in Venezuela, to bring war to South America," Maduro said.
Trump alleges oil was stolen
Just hours after Maduro's capture, Trump announced at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that the U.S. would "run" Venezuela for an unspecified "period of time." And the president emphasized the importance of Venezuela's oil production.
"We'll run it properly. We'll run it professionally. We'll have the greatest oil companies in the world go in and invest billions and billions of dollars and take out money, use that money in Venezuela, and the biggest beneficiary are going to be the people of Venezuela," Trump said.
Trump alleged the oil was stolen and said "we're going to take back the oil that, frankly, we should have taken back a long time ago." He said that in addition to the United States, the proceeds would benefit "the people of Venezuela and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela."
In a press gaggle on Sunday, Trump did not give a timeline about when elections would take place and instead insisted that Venezuela was a "dead" country that had to be brought back.
Delcy Rodriguez, who has served as Venezuela's vice president since 2018, was sworn in on Monday as the country's interim president.
Asked what the U.S. needs from Rodriguez, Trump said, "We need total access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country that allow us to rebuild their country."
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who was also traveling with Trump on Air Force One on Sunday, mentioned other natural resources in Venezuela.
"They have a great mining history that's gone rusty. So, steel, aluminum, minerals," Lutnick said. "It was once upon a time one of the great economies and cultures of the world, but it was destroyed and now President Trump is going to fix it and bring it back."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced the U.S. operation to capture Maduro while also describing Maduro as a "horrible, horrible person."
"You don't treat lawlessness with other lawlessness, and that's what's happened here," Schumer told ABC's "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Other Democrats suggested the purpose of the Maduro mission was regime change and exploiting the country's oil reserves.
"This is another broken promise by an unfocused President who is more concerned with foreign oil and regime change than solving Americans' most pressing economic challenges," said Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
The Maduro prosecution is also prompting renewed questions over Trump's full pardon last month of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted in 2024 of trafficking drugs into the United States. In a statement on Saturday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, "Hypocrisy underlying this decision is especially glaring."
Trump said in a Nov. 28 social media post that he was pardoning Hernandez because the former leader was "treated harshly and unfairly" according to many "people that I greatly respect."
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