Trump Warns Venezuela’s Interim Leader She’ll Pay ‘Bigger’ Price Than Captured President Nicolás Maduro if She Doesn’t Comply with U.S.

President Donald Trump issued a sharp warning to Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured following what Trump described as an armed U.S. intervention.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic on Sunday, Jan. 4, referencing the capture that he said occurred in the early hours of Saturday, Jan. 3.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump again mentioned Rodríguez and insisted, “We’re in charge,” when asked about the interim leader. He said he had not yet spoken with her directly, adding, “Yeah, at the right time I will.”

When asked to clarify his warning, Trump said Rodríguez could face consequences “probably worse than Maduro,” claiming Maduro “gave up immediately.”

“He gave up … and he did the right thing, but he gave up,” Trump said. “So we were actually… we were so effective. And it was so fast and violent. It was very violent, but we were so effective. He raised his hands, he gave up.”

Trump said on Saturday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken with Rodríguez and that she told him, “We’ll do whatever you need,” according to the BBC. Trump added that Rodríguez “doesn’t have a choice.”

He also said he would seek “total access” for U.S. oil companies to Venezuela’s vast reserves, according to NBC News.

Trump has accused Maduro of drug trafficking, “forcing” migration to the United States, and using oil money to fund alleged drug-related crimes. The Venezuelan government under Maduro—who took office in 2013—has denied the accusations, according to CBS News.

Officials previously told CBS News and the BBC that Trump ordered airstrikes on multiple locations in Venezuela. Among the sites struck were the main military base, Fuerte Tiuna, and the main airbase, La Carlota, as well as El Volcán, a signal antenna site, and La Guaira Port, a seaport on the Caribbean coast, David Smolansky, a spokesman for Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, told CBS News.

The attacks were denounced in a statement by Maduro, who accused the U.S. of trying to “seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals” and “forcibly break the nation’s political independence,” the BBC reported.

At Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, Trump argued the United States would now “run” Venezuela.

“No nation in the world could achieve what America achieved, successfully capturing Maduro in the dead of night,” Trump said.

“We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be… we’re gonna run it properly. We’re gonna make sure the people of Venezuela are taken care of,” he added.

Asked whether U.S. troops would be deployed on the ground amid the takeover, Trump said, “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground. We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level. We’re going to make sure that country is run properly. This is not in vain.”

“We’re going to run the country right,” he continued. “It’s going to be run very judiciously, very fairly. And it’s gonna make a lot of money. You know they stole our oil. We built that whole industry and they just took it over like we were nothing. So we did something about it. We’re late, but we did something about it.”

He later added, “We’ll be selling large amounts of oil [from Venezuela] to other countries.”

Asked what message he had for Venezuelans, Trump replied, “You’re going to have peace, justice… you’re going to have a real country.”

In his remarks, Trump called the capture of Maduro and Flores “an incredible thing to see,” adding that, “Not a single American service member was killed, and not a single piece of American equipment was lost.”

“We’re going to run the country until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” he said. “It has to be judicious, because that’s what we’re all about.”