State Department warns US citizens to leave Venezuela

Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said during an appearance on Fox News Saturday morning that he spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who confirmed there were personnel wounded -- but not killed -- during the operation in Venezuela.

"This operation was executed almost flawlessly. I spoke with Secretary Rubio this morning. He did share that we did have wounded personnel, but no killed, but that is never guaranteed in advance," Cotton said on Fox News.

"You never know how a mission is going to be carried out. So I really commend President Trump for having the nerve to go forward with this and the operational security surrounding the mission for the days when they were waiting for good weather and it didn't leak out, it didn't therefore ruin the mission," he added

Cotton said members of Congress were not briefed ahead of action.

"Not in advance, and that's probably the reason it didn't leak over these four days as they were waiting for the right weather," Cotton said.

"Congress doesn't need to be notified every time the executive branch is making an arrest. And that's exactly what happened this morning in Venezuela, and now Maduro is going to come to the United States, and he's going to face justice," Cotton continued.

-ABC News' Allie Pecorin

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in an X post Saturday he has spoken to Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth in "the last several hours" and called the military action in Venezuela "decisive" and a "justified operation that will protect American lives."

"President Trump is putting American lives first, succeeding where others have failed, and under his leadership the United States will no longer allow criminal regimes to profit from wreaking havoc and destruction on our country," the speaker said.

Johnson said the Trump administration is working to schedule briefings next week when Congress returns to D.C. The House returns for the legislative session Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m.

-ABC News' Lauren Peller

In a phone interview with Fox News, President Donald Trump shared details of the U.S. attack on Venezuela overnight that led to the capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

Trump said he believes there were no U.S. deaths, but that one U.S. helicopter was hit.

"I think we had nobody killed, I have to say, because a couple of guys were hit, but they came back," Trump said. "And they're supposed to be in pretty good shape, but that we had nobody killed. ... We got it all back. One of them was hit pretty hard, but a helicopter, but we got it back."

The president shared new details of the capturing of Maduro, saying he was "bum rushed" and U.S. forces had "massive blow torches" to get through the steel doors at Maduro's complex.

"But he was ... in a house that was more like a fortress than a house. It had steel doors. It had what they call a safety space, where it's solid steel all around," Trump said.

Trump continued, "He didn't get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but he got bum rushed so fast that he didn't get into that. We were prepared. We had massive blow torches and everything else that you need to get through that steel. But we didn't need it. ... He didn't make it to that area of the house."

Trump also revealed that Maduro and his wife are being taken to the USS Iwo Jima and will be "heading to New York" to be indicted.

Trump, who has been on holiday in Florida, said he watched the attack from Mar-a-Lago and that he watched with others but did not specify.

-ABC News' Hannah Demissie and Michelle Stoddart

Trump and his top aides have offered shifting explanations about taking action against Venezuela since the president's military buildup in Latin America began earlier this year.

Initially, Trump defended his military operations near Venezuela as keeping drugs out of the U.S., although experts say the cocaine that passes through Venezuela winds up mostly in Europe while fentanyl is sourced from China.

Trump also accused Maduro of emptying Venezuela's prisons and "mental institutions" into the U.S., although there's no evidence of these claims.

According to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have settled in the U.S. in recent years due to economic and political stability in their home country.

By mid-December, Trump accused Maduro of "stealing" U.S. oil and land. Trump appeared to be alluding to work done in the 1970s in Venezuela by Western oil companies before the government there opted to nationalize its reserves, eventually forcing out American companies.

In a Dec. 17 social media post -- around the same time sources say Trump was making a decision to greenlight the Jan. 3 military operation -- Trump said the U.S. military threat to Venezuela will "only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before -- Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us."

Two days later at a press conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a more general explanation than access to oil reserves, calling Maduro's presidency "intolerable" because it was cooperating with "terrorist and criminal elements" instead of the Trump administration.

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-ABC News' Anne Flaherty