Because apparently capturing a dictator isn’t enough unless you grab everyone else too—at the same time.
The legacy media’s outrage over President Donald Trump authorizing a successful law enforcement operation to arrest socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, continues to reach impressive new levels.
This time, it was CBS’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan who seemed baffled—not by the complexity of the mission, but by the fact that the United States didn’t arrest even more people while it was at it. As if precision operations work like a grocery run: grab one, get five free.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on the program Sunday morning and, at points, looked like he was struggling not to laugh as he dismantled what he called an “absurd” premise. Brennan questioned why other Venezuelan officials—such as Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez—weren’t also taken into custody during the raid.
“I’m confused,” Brennan said, asking why they weren’t arrested if the U.S. was targeting a narcoterrorist regime.
Rubio fired back immediately. “You’re confused?” he replied. “I don’t know why that’s confusing to you.”
He then walked Brennan—and viewers—through the real-world logistics she seemed to be ignoring. The operation, Rubio explained, was already highly sophisticated and complex. The U.S. captured the top priority: a man who illegitimately claimed to be Venezuela’s president, along with his wife, who was also indicted.
Rubio noted that Maduro was living on a military base, making the mission especially risky. U.S. forces had to land helicopters in the middle of the country’s largest military base, breach the location within minutes, detain Maduro, read him his rights, and extract him—all without losing a single American or American asset.
“That’s not an easy mission,” Rubio said, emphasizing the difficulty of executing such an operation cleanly and quickly.
He pushed back hard on the suggestion that the U.S. could simply repeat the process in multiple locations simultaneously. Critics were already complaining about this single operation, he pointed out. Imagine the reaction if U.S. forces had stayed for days attempting to capture several additional targets.
“And you’re asking me why didn’t we do that in five other places at the same time?” Rubio said bluntly. “I mean, that’s absurd.”
Rubio’s message was clear: the U.S. got the number one target, carried out the mission successfully, and did so without casualties. That’s not incompetence—that’s precision.
Maduro and his wife have been indicted on multiple charges in the Southern District of New York and could make their initial court appearance as early as Monday.
For all the media handwringing, the facts remain simple: a dictator is in custody, the operation succeeded, and American lives were protected. Under President Trump, results—not performative outrage—are what matter.
