President Donald Trump decided to approve the capture of Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro after his repeated rejections of deals to leave power in exchange for amnesty, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was pushing for a harsher approach for months, but Trump held off, seeking to strike a deal first. "We're doing it my way," he told Rubio, according to the outlet.
However, Trump approved of the operation in late December after the repeated rejections and Rubio managing to convince the president that Maduro wouldn't relinquish power on his own.
The outlet also quoted former aides of Maduro and business leaders close to the regime who said he believed Trump's pressure campaign to be a bluff.
The fact that Maduro made public appearances ever since dismissing U.S. threats and dancing to a remix of a speech of his saying "no crazy war" helped some in the Trump team to move forward with the operation to capture him, The New York Times added in a report of its own.
The White House then taunted Maduro after his capture, posting a picture of him arriving in a DEA office in New York.
"Perp walked," reads the caption of the White House's rapid response social media account. The video shows Maduro walking into the building along with different officers saying "good night, happy new year."
Maduro was captured after Trump gave the green light to "Operation Absolute Resolve." Elite troops had trained for months to execute the operation, even using a replica of the presidential compound based on gathered intelligence.
Months earlier, the CIA had sent a small team inside the South American country to track Maduro's locations and movements, providing key intelligence that led to his capture.
Maduro and Flores are set to make their first court appearances on Monday, where they are set to face narco-terrorism conspiracy charges.
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