Trump Gives Maduro Opportunity to Leave Venezuela Safely, According to Report
The Daily Signal 12/1/2025 7:55:32 AM
 

President Donald Trump has reportedly guaranteed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his family safety, but only if they flee the country right away.  

Trump and Maduro spoke on the phone in November, and according to a report, the White House told Maduro to leave the country and allow for democratic leaders to assume rule of the nation. Sources told the Miami Harald that Maduro, his wife Cilia Flores, and his son Nicolas Ernesto Maduro Guerra, 35, would be given safe passage out of the country, but only if Maduro resigns.  

On Sunday, Trump confirmed the call with Maduro had taken place, telling reporters aboard Air Force One the call was neither good nor bad.  

“It was a phone call,” the president said, declining to comment further.  

On Saturday, Trump said the airspace over Venezuela should be considered “closed.”  

“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.  

When asked if the comment should mean an airstrike on Venezuela is eminent, Trump told reporters to not read “anything” into the remarks.  

The tension between Trump and Maduro is growing as the U.S. continues to carry out strikes on reported narco-terrorists’ vessels off the coast of Venezuela. On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered a strike on a vessel on Sept. 2 that was, according to the administration, carrying members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua. When two survivors were seen in the water after the first strike, a second strike was reportedly conducted.  

The targeting of the men “amounts to murder,” Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces, told The Washington Post.  

Asked about the incident, Trump said he did not “know anything” about it, adding, Hegseth “said he did not do it.”  

The Trump administration has now carried out more than 20 strikes on alleged narco-vessels.  

Hegseth has repeatedly defended the strikes, and on Saturday, following The Washington Post’s report on the second strike targeting the two men, he blamed the “fake news” for “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.” 

“As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes.’ The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,” Hegseth wrote on X.  

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