WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump said Saturday after the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro that he would not allow anyone to “take over where he left off”.

“We’ll be involved in it very much. And we want to do liberty for the people,” Trump told Fox News in a telephone interview, adding that the daring raid by US special forces showed that Washington was “not going to be pushed around”.

In the meantime, Trump said the Venezuelan leader and his wife had been extracted by helicopter to a ship, and would be taken to New York to face federal charges.

“They’re on a ship but they’ll be heading into New York. The helicopters took them out,” he said.

The US president on Saturday revealed that US forces had captured Maduro after launching a “large scale strike” on the South American country.

READ: Trump says Maduro ‘captured and flown out’ of Venezuela

The announcement followed months of steadily mounting US military and economic pressure on leftist leader Maduro and his country’s oil-export-dependent economy, and came two days after Maduro attempted to engage with Trump, offering cooperation on fighting drug trafficking and illegal migration.