Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference as U.S. President Donald Trump listens at Mar-a-Lago club on January 03, 2026, in Palm Beach, Florida. During the event, President Trump confirmed that the U.S. military carried out a large-scale strike in Caracas overnight, resulting in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to the United States to face charges, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the mission is also about ending Iran and Hezbollah activity inside Venezuela, JTA reported.
Rubio made the remarks on U.S. television a day after elite U.S. forces carried out a pre-dawn raid in Caracas that resulted in Maduro’s capture and his transfer to federal custody in New York.
President Donald Trump and Rubio have framed the mission as aimed at dismantling narco-trafficking networks and foreign influence tied to Caracas.
Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Rubio said the United States will exert leverage, including continued sanctions and pressure on Venezuela’s oil sector, to ensure that the country “no longer cozy up to Hezbollah and Iran in our own hemisphere.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he offered a shorthand for U.S. goals: “No more drug trafficking, no more Iran Hezbollah presence there and no more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world.”
Rubio also dismissed comparisons between the Venezuela operation and U.S. military interventions in the Middle East, saying Venezuela’s Western Hemisphere context is different.
“The whole foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya, everything is Iraq, everything is Afghanistan,” Rubio told CBS. “This is not the Middle East. And our mission here is very different. This is the Western Hemisphere.”
The Venezuela operation drew attention in Israel, where leaders used it to signal a warning to Tehran amid mounting unrest inside Iran.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X that “the regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela,” framing the U.S. action as a broader message to a government facing intensifying protests and riots at home.
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said the capture of Maduro struck a blow to what he called the “global axis of evil” and sent a “clear message” to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei about the consequences of supporting narcoterrorism and militant proxies such as Hezbollah, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“Maduro did not run a country; he ran a crime and drug empire that directly fueled Hezbollah and Iran,” Chikli said. “The president’s decisive steps have proven once again that strong leaders are the only way to defeat dictators.”