The United States has taken one of the boldest, most necessary actions in recent memory by moving decisively against the narco-regime in Caracas — a U.S. operation that President Trump says resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife in the early hours of January 3, 2026. This was not a symbolic gesture; it was a targeted operation designed to remove a corrupt dictator who has long run Venezuela as a narco-state and a regional threat to American security.
According to officials and reporting, Maduro and Cilia Flores were taken into U.S. custody and are expected to face criminal charges related to narcotics and narco-terrorism, a move decades in the making by law enforcement and intelligence agencies fed up with the hemorrhaging of American life at the hands of foreign cartels. This is the kind of law-and-order action Americans of every background can understand — bring the accused to face American justice rather than letting them hide behind foreign tyrannies.
On Newsmax’s America Right Now, retired Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt put the capture in context, calling it part of a “much bigger operation” and defending the President’s authority to act when the enemy across our hemisphere funnels lethal drugs into our communities. In plain terms, Holt and other national security voices rightly framed this as more than regime change: it’s about protecting American lives from a steady stream of poison that flows through corrupt state machinery.
Let’s be blunt — tens of thousands of Americans die from drug overdoses every year, a carnage driven in large part by fentanyl and the cartels that traffic it. When the choice is between empty condemnations from the coastal elites and decisive action that saves American lives, patriots should side with results, not moralizing lectures. The raw numbers show why urgency is not an option; it is an obligation.
Predictably, the global left and regimes that enable dictators cried foul and demanded lectures about sovereignty while ignoring Venezuelans who have suffered under Chavez-Maduro misrule for decades. Those defenders of the status quo should answer the families of overdose victims before they posture about international norms; sovereignty cannot be a shield for narco-terrorists who export death to American streets. The world will debate legality and precedent, but Washington’s first job is to protect its people.
This operation — if it truly is the opening move of a larger, sustained campaign to dismantle cartel networks and the corrupt regimes that harbor them — deserves support from every citizen who cares about safety, rule of law, and the sanctity of American life. Hardworking Americans sent leaders to Washington to put country before convenience; when those leaders act, we should stand with them, demand transparency, and insist on follow-through until the job is done.
