(Picture: 2026 XNY/Star Max)
Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores slammed their heads as they were fleeing US forces trying to arrest them.
As Delta Force closed in during the nighttime raid on their home, Venezuelan President and Flores ran and tried to hide behind a heavy steel door inside their compound.
But the metal frame was too low and the couple both cracked their heads as they tried to escape, officials told CNN.
Delta Force soldiers apprehended them and gave them first aid after they were extracted, the sources said.
Maduro and his wife appeared in New York court on Monday with visible injuries, and Flores’ attorney told the judge that she ‘sustained significant injuries’ during her abduction.
‘Additionally, there’s belief that she may have a fracture or severe bruising on her ribs.’
Her lawyer requested an X-ray and physical evaluation to ensure her health moving forward with the case.
Some Delta Force operators themselves sustained injuries during the operation as a result of a large firefight that erupted with a Cuban quick reaction force that was stationed nearby Maduro’s compound
Latest reports suggest that more than 80 people including Cuban soldiers and civilians were killed in the raid.
‘It was an amazing military feat that took place,’ Donald Trump said, to applause at the newly named Trump-Kennedy Centre on Tuesday.
‘Well, thank you. You know, people are saying it goes down with one of the most incredible – it was so complex, 152 airplanes – many talk about boots on the ground – we had a lot of boots on the ground but it was amazing.’
The president celebrated the lack of fatalities among US special forces while acknowledging that troops guarding Maduro died in the assault. ‘Nobody was killed, and on the other side a lot of people were killed. Unfortunately: I say that.
‘Soldiers – Cubans, mostly Cubans, but many, many killed, and they knew we were coming and they were protected and our guys weren’t. You know, our guys are jumping out of helicopters and they’re not protected, and they were. But it was so brilliant.’
On Maduro, the President said: ‘They’ve been after this guy for years and years and years and you know he’s a violent guy.
‘He gets up there and he tries to imitate my dance a little bit. But he’s a violent guy and he’s killed millions of people. They have a torture chamber in the middle of Caracas that they’re closing up, but he’s tortured people.’
The president also took the time to perform an ugly routine about an alleged transgender weightlifter who broke a longstanding record after transitioning and entering a women’s competition.
As Trump recounted how the alleged record had ‘stood for 18 years’ he noted that the bit he was performing is disliked by his wife, First Lady Melania Trump.
‘And my wife, by the way, my wife hates when I do this … she’s a very classy person, right? She said it’s ‘so unpresidential,’ adding the First Lady dislikes his dancing as well.
He also hinted that Melania didn’t know that wheelchair-bound Franklin Roosevelt had been paralysed below the waist from Polio.
‘She actually said: ‘Could you imagine FDR dancing?’ She said that to me. And I said, there’s a long history that perhaps she doesn’t know, because he was an elegant fellow, even as a Democrat,’ he said.
It came as Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado thanked Trump for his ‘firmness and determination’ and said she would give him her Nobel Prize, despite the president saying he didn’t believe she would be able to govern Venezuela.
The Washington Post reported that Trump didn’t want to install her as Venezuela’s leader believing she should have offered him the Nobel Prize after he was snubbed.
Two White House sources told The Washington Post that the President had lost interest in supporting Machado after her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Machado dedicated the award to Trump after her win, but by accepting it in the first place she was guilty of the ‘ultimate sin’, one said.
According to The New York Times, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had argued against backing the Venezuelan opposition, arguing it would further destabilise the country and would mean a larger military presence would be needed to maintain order.
This view was supported by classified CIA intelligence, a person familiar with the document told the outlet.
