Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft flew over Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on Saturday. They landed in a parking lot, and Marine forces descended from the aircraft. It was quite a spectacle, capturing the attention of people on the ground and across social media. After all, the last time something like this happened, Delta Force was pulling Nicolás Maduro out of his bed and shipping him off to New York for an all-inclusive stay at a federal detention center.
En estos momentos se está llevando a cabo un ejercicio de respuesta militar estadounidense en la Embajada de los Estados Unidos en Caracas. Garantizar la capacidad de respuesta rápida del ejército es un componente clave de la preparación de la misión, tanto aquí en Venezuela como… pic.twitter.com/PpEwghap8r
— Embajada de los EE.UU. en Caracas (@usembassyve) May 23, 2026
As it turns out, it was just a U.S. military response exercise being carried out at the newly opened United States Embassy in Caracas. They practiced various scenarios, like medical evacuation and contingency evacuation of embassy personnel, and the general ability of the U.S. military to respond to anything happening in Venezuela.
"Ensuring the military's rapid response capability is a key component of mission readiness, both here in Venezuela and around the world," the embassy posted on social media. "We continue to advance [President Donald Trump's] three-phase plan for Venezuela."
The drills were approved by Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela's "interim president"/Trump's pawn, and locals gathered to watch in awe. A handful protested the "Yankee drill," probably pushed to do so by remaining regime remnants and Chavista hardliners, but overall, it was uneventful. Here's a look at the "protesters" burning pictures of Trump and Marco Rubio.
🇻🇪🇺🇸 A (very) small group of Maduro loyalists burned Trump and Rubio portraits in Caracas today
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 24, 2026
Burning the pictures is about all they have left.
Most uneven protest optics of the year.pic.twitter.com/TikrR1U8OE https://t.co/kpiLjrszyg
SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan was also in Caracas, meeting with interim government authorities and embassy leadership.
#SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan was in Caracas, Venezuela, today for his second official visit to the country. He took part in bilateral discussions with senior interim government leaders, met with U.S. Embassy leadership and staff, and observed the joint force… pic.twitter.com/M4Ye22UAMc
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) May 23, 2026
If you'd told me five months ago that the U.S. military would be conducting drills openly in broad daylight in Caracas, I would have questioned your sanity, but this is just proof of how far we've come in Venezuela in just a few short months since decapitating the regime and taking control. And, if you ask me, it was also a signal to those who remain. A reminder that they will play by our rules or face serious consequences.
Meanwhile, Venezuela is not the only place in the Western Hemisphere where we're flexing a little muscle. In case you missed it, CIA Director John Ratcliffe took a trip to Havana on Thursday, May 14, to meet with several regime officials, including Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro (Raúl Castro's grandson), interior ministry representatives, and the country's intelligence leaders.
He delivered a personal message from Trump: Get serious about economic and security changes, and cut ties with U.S. adversaries, like Iran, China, and Russia, and maybe we can make a deal. There were rumors that Ratcliffe basically told the regime members he met with to think about what happened to Nicolás Maduro when he refused to cooperate with Trump.
Well, now we're learning a little bit more about the visit. Ratcliffe didn't visit alone and he didn't just tell them to think about Maduro — he brought along a human reminder: one of the Delta Force operators who was directly involved in the January raid that allowed us to capture Maduro in a matter of hours. He reminded them that Maduro had Cuban bodyguards, and those men are now dead.
We aren't letting these dictatorships just miles from our shore off the hook anymore, and we're not going easy on their supporters either, both at home and abroad.
One of the Cuban regime's biggest cheerleaders, Mexico's narco-president Claudia Sheinbaum, has spoken out against the Department of Justice's recent charges against Castro for his role in the murders of three U.S. citizens and one permanent resident in 1996. "What sense does it make to accuse someone now for something that happened 30 years ago?" she asked.
Meanwhile, deputies from Sheinbaum's far-left Morena Party released an unsigned statement condemning the charges against Castro. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called them out on social media:
What catches my attention the most is that there doesn't appear the name of a single person who takes personal responsibility for this statement and the support for an openly dictatorial regime that hasn't allowed a free election in 67 YEARS! and that has destroyed the national economy to such an extent that even sugar is imported and people eat from the garbage dumps. Since when does an absolute dictatorship — which has lasted more than FOUR TIMES the tenure of Pinochet in Chile and which has been sustained only as a parasite to other countries like the USSR and Venezuela — represent 'self-determination' and 'dignity'? Everyone obviously has the right to their opinion, but it seems to me hardly honorable to hide behind anonymity in disseminating statements like this one.
Of course, the Trump administration has been going after various members of the Morena Party in recent weeks, indicting some pretty high-profile officials for working with the Sinaloa Cartel. A few of those officials have already turned themselves in. Defending Castro is not going to gain any goodwill with the administration.
And, in case you missed it, here at home, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued administrative subpoenas to Marxist influencer Hasan Piker and Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin to "find out more about the financial, logistical, and communications information involved in planning [their recent trip to Cuba to support the regime], to determine if they violated any of the many U.S. sanctions on Cuba, including potentially unlicensed travel-related transactions, financing, logistics, delivery of goods, or contacts with sanctioned Cuban entities/government personnel."
It's refreshing to live in a United States that is back to reminding the world — particularly corrupt far-left leaders and dictatorships — who's boss again.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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