President Trump and Elon Musk grabbed dinner together at Mar-a-Lago following the US military’s operation to arrest and remove Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. 

Via @michaelsolakie

Trump had dinner with Elon at Mar-a-Lago and within an hour Starlink was being deployed to Venezuela to aid in the transition and the U.S. oil operation.

He never stops working. It’s amazing. pic.twitter.com/4HaSmEKCSh

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) January 4, 2026

Musk called the arrest a “win for the world, that would send “a clear message to evil dictators everywhere.”

Congratulations, President Trump!

This is a win for the world and a clear message to evil dictators everywhere. https://t.co/GRI0XOxQFU

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2026

During the dinner, which included several Trump advisers and Silicon Valley executives, Trump reportedly praised Musk for his support – noting the billionaire’s offer to provide free Starlink internet access to Venezuelan citizens. 

In support of the people of Venezuela 🇻🇪 https://t.co/JKxOFWsikP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 4, 2026

The dinner all but solidifies Musk and Trump’s reconciliation after he publicly criticized Trump’s legislative package in June 2025, which added to the national debt and reversed cuts to waste, fraud and abuse found by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Trump hit back, with Musk warning that Trump appears in unreleased Jeffrey Epstein files, to which Trump called Musk ‘CRAZY.” 

Obviously this is water under the bridge, as the two began mending fences at Charlie Kirk’s memorial last year, and Musk offering a public apology along with deleting offending posts that he said went “too far.” 

Maduro was captured by elite Delta Force operators, who stormed his compound in Caracas’s Fuerte Tiuna complex in an overnight raid – with air defenses disabled via precision strikes before they handcuffed and blindfolded Maduro, who was taken aboard the USS Iwo Jima and flown to New York where he faces federal charges for narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, and ties to terrorist-designated groups. 

Since Trump’s Venezuela operation went down just over 24 hours ago, there’s been an avalanche of reporting detailing the high risk gambit of American forces entering the capital of Caracas to kidnap Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

Admin officials appear eager to spike the proverbial football and divulge the details, akin to what happened after the complex SEAL raid which took out Osama bin Laden, or the later special forces killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria.

First, it has been divulged that President Trump a mere week earlier gave Maduro once last chance to relinquish power willingly in a phone call. “You got to surrender,” Trump told the press Saturday in reference to Maduro. Trump referenced that he actually “came close” to stepping down – whereafter he possibly would have headed to safer climes in Dubai, Qatar, or even Moscow (where he could join Assad).

via FOX

But at the very moment the Venezuelan leader was on the phone with Trump, a CIA team was already in country monitoring his every move. According to a variety of fresh reporting in NBC and others, the CIA closely watched where he stayed, what he ate, and how he moved.

Likely the CIA would have been developing local assets over a period of years. An ‘asset’ can be anyone from local citizens or military officers – or even high ranking Colonels in Generals in the national army. One thing is clear at this point – the Pentagon had ‘insider help’ within the socialist regime.

Details of what was dubbed “Operation Absolute Resolve” have at this point been revealed by more than a dozen officials across the White House, administration, and Congress. There have also been very clear public remarks, and the obvious fact of the months-long Pentagon build-up in the southern Caribbean.

For example, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan “Raizin” Caine said Saturday that US intelligence even knew the names of Maduro’s pets.

Elite forces had trained for months, which even involved rehearsals at a mock-up of Maduro’s compound built from intelligence reports, and troops practiced utilizing “massive blowtorches” in the event they would have to breach steel barriers protecting Maduro’s safe room.

One theme of the new reporting on the secretive operations was just how few in the US administration knew about it. The operation was strictly held to only the highest officials. Even Pentagon officials were unaware of the exact timing until Friday night, two US officials told NBC News.

The mission might have been ordered days before if not for unclear skies, but it finally proceeded Friday night when the weather cleared and it was a full moon. “Good luck and Godspeed,” Trump told military commanders upon giving the final order.

The New York Times reports that this is what finally pushed Trump to send Delta Force to storm Caracas and abduct Maduro: https://t.co/e4bmnTgaDy pic.twitter.com/cf1cd03ZCr

— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) January 4, 2026

Those most directly involved in the planning will also reportedly play roles in governing Venezuela until there is some kind of agreed-upon political transition – including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

Below are highlights of different aspects of how the unprecedented successful raid went down in the heart of Latin America, compiled from various sources [emphasis ZH]:

* * *

Brief mission with ‘significant resistance’

The mission took about two hours and 20 minutes and continued into early Saturday, when Mr. Maduro and Ms. Flores “gave up,” General Caine said.

U.S. forces encountered significant resistance, Mr. Trump said. At least 40 people were killed, including military personnel and civilians, according to a senior Venezuelan official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe preliminary reports. —NY Times

Helicopters flying low after power cut

At least 150 aircraft flew toward Caracas from 20 different bases on land and sea. The fleet included bombers, fighters and craft that specialized in intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, Caine said. The crews ranged in age from 20 to 49.

Darkness cloaked the Venezuelan capital. Trump suggested that the U.S. had cut the electricity in Caracas to gain an edge in the battle. Flying at 100 feet above the water, helicopters carried the special forces and law enforcement officials who plucked Maduro from his residence, Caine said. Other aircraft fired weapons to disable Venezuela’s air defense systems and clear a path for the helicopters, he added.

Flames were seen billowing from explosions at Fort Tiuna, a large military complex in Caracas. —NBC

The Delta Force breach of Maduro’s presidential complex

By 1 a.m. ET Saturday, U.S. soldiers had reached the compound in Caracas where Maduro was staying. “A heavily fortified military fortress,” Trump called it.

When Delta Force breached Maduro’s residence, he and his wife were taken “completely by surprise,” Caine said. Maduro tried to escape into what Trump described as a steel safe room but didn’t make it in time. The forces took Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, into custody.

A firefight broke out after Maduro was captured, Caine said, and a U.S. helicopter was hit. No Americans were killed, though there were several injuries to U.S. troops, all of whom are stable, according to a U.S. official and a White House official.

By 3:30 a.m. ET, U.S. forces were safely out of the country, Caine said. At that time, the air in Caracas smelled of gunpowder and smoke. The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela cautioned American citizens there to shelter in place. —NBC

High placed CIA assets in govt. coordinated the raid

The assets included a CIA source operating within the Venezuelan government who assisted the United States with tracking Maduro’s location and movements ahead of his capture, one source briefed on the operation told CNN.

The detailed timeline and the revelation that a CIA team has been operating inside Venezuela for so long sheds new light on the administration’s pressure campaign on Maduro for the past several months, even as senior officials publicly stated their goal was not regime change. —CNN

The extraction of a sitting head of state

The helicopters with the extraction team reached Maduro’s compound at 2 a.m. local time in Caracas, the general said. Upon arrival, the helicopters came under fire and one was hit but remained flyable. The US returned fire in defense, Caine added.

“As the operation unfolded at the compound, our air and ground intelligence teams provided real-time updates to the ground force, ensuring those forces could safely navigate the complex environment without unnecessary risk,” he said.

Caine said Maduro and his wife “gave up” to the US military personnel before being flown out of the country. Maduro and Flores were placed aboard the USS Iwo Jima… —CNN

* * *

More information on the highly secretive op is likely to come out in the next days and weeks, as the history books are already being written.

Authored by Eric Peters,

It is six years now since the advent – and normalization of – sickness psychosis (also known as weaponized hypochondria) and it shows a remarkable persistence.

Because of course it has been normalized.

More than that, actually. It continues to be affirmed as a reasonable rather than aberrant behavior.

This business, that is, of seeing but pretending not to notice people walking around with a surgical mask over their porthole.

More finely, of normal (in the head) people seeing such people – interacting with them, even – and pretending they’re not seeing something indicative of serious mental illness.

Seeing a person wearing a “mask” and pretending not to see it is not unlike seeing a person who is in the process of wetting their pants while talking to you and pretending not to see it.

We saw three such “maskers” the other day at the supermarket. One was working behind the counter, where food is handled.

They are becoming a more common sight – probably because they’ve been told about the Super Flu that’s flitting about.

It’s no longer just the flu, of course. Just as it’s no longer just raining – or snowing. Or winter now – and then summer. It’s a bomb cyclone or some other fearful-sounding term, engineered to arouse panic.

Keeping the masses in a state of perpetual panic being the ideal state – from the point of those engineering these now-endless panics.

One follows the next like the night follows the day such that the masses never get a breather from the panic; such a breather might result in them calming down and using their heads again.

H.L. Mencken wrote about this a century ago. Unfortunately, probably not one in a hundred Americans knows who H.L. Mencken was.

Hospitals – those dens of science – are re-imposing “mask” requirements on visitors. It is a metric of the metastasization of the engineered sickness psychosis that has afflicted this country for six years now. Medical professionals (sic) who presumably have some understanding of how viruses are transmitted and who by now have no excuse for continuing to believe that people who aren’t sick can make others sick (the “asymptomatic spreader” idiocy) when it comes to viral bugs because people who aren’t contagious don’t cough spittle or sniffle.

They therefore don’t emit viral particles.

And even if they did, a “mask” doesn’t (for Christ’s sake) “stop the spread” of particles so small they sneeze right through the porous to viral-sized-particles “mask.”

Besides which, it is insane to spend your life in morbid dread of catching a cold. It is part of normal life to get sick occasionally.

One does not need to spend several years at medical school to understand these facts. Yet there are still apparently lots of people who did spend years at medical school who either do not understand the facts or play along with the lies. This latter is almost certainly the thing going on. It is understandable why it is going on.

Most doctors are just employees – like most of the rest of us – and they must do what their employer says, if they wish to remain employed.

In the case of most doctors, it is mostly the big hospital/health care chains and the insurance cartels that are the employer and when they say “jump” (or “mask” up) the doctors say how high?

And that wearing is caring.

Doesn’t this instill in you great confidence in the independent judgment of your doctor? What else are they telling people they need to do that they (the doctors) have been told they’d better tell people they need to do?

It brings to mind a rhetorical question voters were asked once about Richard Nixon: Would you buy a used car from this man? Well, would you buy into the pills (or surgery) your doctor is trying to sell you? The same guy who says you’ve got to wear a “mask” to be allowed to sit in his waiting room?

Integrity, once sold, is not easily re-purchased.

Just as sanity, once lost, is not easily regained.

We may soon see just how many people have not yet recovered. Not just their sanity. Their balls.

The symptoms are passivity and compliance when they are told they must – once again – “mask up” to be allowed within.

How many won’t believe the lies but will go along with them – again – to avoid a confrontation or some inconvenience? I need to see the doctor. Then maybe it will be I need to go to the store.

How many will defy the social pressure to be compliant and refuse to play along, no matter the inconvenience?

Everything depends on such people.

Venezuela’s former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is now president of the country, U.S. President Donald Trump said, hours after a U.S. military operation captured former leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Jan. 3.

“She was just sworn in, but she was, as you know, picked by Maduro,” Trump said.

He said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “is working on that directly. Just had a conversation with her, and she’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again. Very simple.”

The overnight surprise attack resulted in Maduro and Flores being shipped to New York to face charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Courtesy of Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times, here is what we know about Rodríguez.

Who Is Rodríguez?

Rodríguez was born and raised in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on May 18, 1969.

​The 56-year-old leader graduated from Universidad Central de Venezuela, became a lawyer, and quickly rose through the political system in the past decade.

Rodríguez served as the Communication and Information Minister in 2013 before she pivoted to a Foreign Ministry position from 2014 to 2017 and eventually served as the head of the Constituent Assembly, which expanded Maduro’s powers.

Vice Presidency

Maduro selected Rodríguez as his vice president in June 2018, describing her as “a young woman, brave, seasoned, daughter of a martyr, revolutionary, and tested in a thousand battles.”

In August 2024, Maduro assigned Rodríguez to manage sanctions on oil between the United States and Venezuela.

Acting Leader

Trump announced from Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 3 that the United States will “run” Venezuela until a peaceful transition can be made, while saying that Rodríguez has agreed to work with the United States after being “sworn in” as Venezuela’s new president.

Trump said Rodríguez had spoken with Rubio but didn’t provide details on how the United States would work with Rodríguez to run the country.

“She really doesn’t have a choice,” Trump said.

“We’re going to have this done right. We’re not going to just do this with Maduro, then leave like everybody else, leave and say, ‘Let it go to hell.’ If we just left, it has zero chance of ever coming back.

“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 going to be the people of Venezuela.”

In an address broadcast on state television shortly after Trump’s briefing, Rodríguez – who was identified as vice president by a ticker at the bottom of the screen – did not address Trump’s claims that she was now acting president. Instead, she demanded that the United States free Maduro, who she called the country’s rightful leader.

“Here, we have a government with clarity, and I repeat and repeat again … we are willing to have respectful relations,” Rodríguez said.

“It is the only thing we will accept for a type of relationship after having [been] attacked.”

Maduro’s Exit Plan

Before Maduro was captured, he floated the idea of staying in office for three more years before having Rodríguez take over and finish his term through January 2031.

The proposal was rejected by the White House, which openly questioned the legitimacy of Venezuela’s 2024 election and accused Maduro of overseeing a narco-terrorist state.