Maduro pleads not guilty, insists still Venezuela president

Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges at a defiant appearance in a New York court Monday, two days after being snatched by US forces in a stunning raid on his home in Caracas.

Maduro, 63, told a federal judge in Manhattan "I'm innocent. I'm not guilty."

Smiling as he entered the courtroom and wearing an orange shirt with beige trousers, Maduro spoke softly.

"I'm president of the Republic of Venezuela and I'm here kidnapped since January 3, Saturday," Maduro told the court, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. "I was captured at my home in Caracas, Venezuela."

Maduro's wife Cilia Flores likewise pleaded not guilty. The judge ordered both to remain behind bars and set a new hearing date of March 17.

The presidential couple were forcibly taken by US commandos in the early hours of Saturday in airstrikes on the Venezuelan capital backed by warplanes and a heavy naval deployment.

Thousands of people marched through Caracas in support of Maduro as his former deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, was sworn in as interim president.

Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado slammed Rodriguez, saying she was "rejected" by the Venezuelan people and calling her "one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narcotrafficking."

Speaking from an undisclosed location to broadcaster Sean Hannity on Fox News in her first public comments since the weekend, Machado added that she plans to return to Venezuela "as soon as possible" after leaving under cover last month to accept her Nobel Peace Prize.

After the raid, Trump declared that the United States was "in charge" in Venezuela and intends to take control of the country's huge but decrepit oil industry.

The 79-year-old president also dismissed the idea of Caracas having new elections in the next month.

"We have to fix the country first. You can't have an election. There's no way the people could even vote," Trump told broadcaster NBC News in an interview aired Monday.

However, US House Speaker and Trump ally Mike Johnson said he thinks an election "should happen in short order" in Venezuela.

- 'Access to oil' -
Maduro became president in 2013, taking over from his equally hardline socialist predecessor Hugo Chavez.

The United States and European Union say he stayed in power by rigging elections -- most recently in 2024 -- and imprisoning opponents, while overseeing rampant corruption.

The crisis after a quarter century of leftist rule now leaves Venezuela's approximately 30 million people -- and the world's largest proven oil reserves -- facing uncertainty.

Trump has said he wants to work with Rodriguez and the rest of Maduro's former team -- provided that they submit to US demands on oil.

And after an initially hostile response, Rodriguez said she is ready for "cooperation."

Brian Naranjo, a former US diplomat in Venezuela before he was expelled by Maduro in 2018, said that he has "not been so worried about the future of Venezuela, ever."

"There's a very real possibility that things are going to get much, much worse in Venezuela before they get better," he told AFP.

The deputy head of the US mission to Caracas from 2014-2018 pointed at two men who could try and usurp power from Rodriguez: Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and her own brother, Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela's legislature.

"Delcy had better be sleeping with one eye open right now because right behind her are two men who would be more than happy to cut her throat and take control themselves," Naranjo said.

- Cuba, Greenland next? -
Trump, who has shocked many Americans with his unprecedented moves to accumulate domestic power, also now appears increasingly emboldened in foreign policy.

On Sunday, he said communist Cuba was "ready to fall" and he repeated that Greenland, which is part of US ally Denmark, should be controlled by the United States.

Brian Finucane, of the International Crisis Group, told AFP that Trump "seems to be disregarding international law altogether" in Venezuela and added that US domestic law also appeared to have been broken.

Details of the US operation in Caracas were still emerging Monday, with Havana saying 32 Cubans were killed in the attack.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that nearly 200 personnel went into Caracas on the surprise raid. Some injuries and no deaths were reported by US officials.

Shots fired near presidential palace

Shots were fired late Monday near Venezuela's presidential palace, witnesses said, days after US forces captured the now-deposed president Nicolas Maduro in a military raid.

A source close to the government said the situation was under control.

Unidentified drones flew over the Miraflores palace in central Caracas and security forces opened fire in response around 8:00 pm (0000 GMT), the source said, hours after Maduro's deputy Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as interim president following his removal.

Bursts of gunfire rang out but not as strong as in the pre-dawn attack Saturday that toppled Maduro, according to a person who lives five blocks from the palace, who said the incident lasted about a minute.

"The first thing that came to mind was to see if there were planes flying ovehead but there were not. I just saw two red lights in the sky," the resident near the palace said on condition of anonymity.

"Everyone was looking out their windows to see if there was a plane, to see what was happening."

The Communications Ministry did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

Video posted on social media shows what appears to be tracer bullets fired into the sky.

The video showed many security force members rushing to the palace after the shots.

US House Speaker backs elections

US House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that Venezuela should hold elections soon, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio called voting premature following the toppling of president Nicolas Maduro.

Speaking to reporters after a briefing to lawmakers from Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, Johnson added he did not expect the United States to send troops to Venezuela, a possibility that President Donald Trump refused to rule out publicly.

"I expect that there will be an election called in Venezuela," said Johnson, the top member of Trump's Republican Party in Congress.

"Some of these things are still being determined, of course, but it should happen in short order. And I think it will need to be, so that their economy can remain stabilized and the country can remain stabilized," he said.

The United States for years described Maduro as illegitimate after successive elections that observers said were riddled with irregularities.

But Trump said after US forces snatched Maduro that the United States would secure interests -- notably access to oil -- by forcing cooperation with Maduro's vice president turned interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez.

Trump also dismissed the leader of the democratic opposition long championed by Washington, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado.

Rubio, in an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday, said that discussion of elections "is premature at this point."

Johnson defended the legality of the operation and the lack of prior notice to Congress, which constitutionally has the authority to declare war.

"We are not at war. We do not have US armed forces in Venezuela and we are not occupying that country," Johnson said.

"We don't expect troops on the ground. We don't expect direct involvement in any other way, beyond just coercing the new -- the interim -- government"

Democrats left the briefing skeptical. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said: "Regime change and so-called nation building, it always ends up hurting the United States."

"I left the briefing feeling that it would again," Schumer said, adding more questions were raised than answered.

Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the timing of the attack "is suspicious to me," suggesting Trump wanted to divert attention from issues at home including health-care costs.