Graham Says Cuba’s ‘Days Are Numbered’ After U.S. Capture of Maduro [WATCH]

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday night that Cuba’s communist government is facing an uncertain future following the U.S. operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, warning that the Havana regime’s “days are numbered.”

Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, made the remarks while traveling back to Washington aboard Air Force One with President Donald Trump after the U.S. raid that led to Maduro’s arrest, as reported by the New York Post.

“You just wait for Cuba. Cuba is a Communist dictatorship that’s killed priests and nuns. They’ve preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered,” Graham told reporters during the flight.

President Trump echoed that assessment, pointing to the long-standing ties between Havana and Caracas.

“Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know if they’re going to hold out,” Trump said. “Cuba only survives because of Venezuela.”

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, appeared Monday before a federal judge in Manhattan after being transported to the United States following the overnight operation.

Federal prosecutors charged the pair with narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, illegal weapons possession, and related offenses.

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U.S. officials said the mission, carried out early Saturday, resulted in no American casualties. Reports indicated that more than two dozen members of Maduro’s security forces were killed during the operation, including personnel linked to Venezuelan armed units and intelligence services.

Cuba’s government responded sharply. A statement posted to Facebook by the office of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the raid as a “criminal attack perpetrated by the United States government.”

The statement described those killed as “victims of a new criminal act of aggression and state terrorism.”

Graham rejected that characterization, saying the operation reflected decisive American leadership.

“Maduro miscalculated our Commander in Chief, and President Donald Trump made clear he will not be trifled with,” Graham wrote Sunday in a post on X, calling the capture of Maduro “America at her best.”

The military operation in Venezuela showed America at her best, all thanks to our incredible men and women in uniform.

Maduro miscalculated our Commander in Chief, and President @realDonaldTrump made clear he will not be trifled with. pic.twitter.com/9zgJvejMJF

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 5, 2026

The South Carolina senator has long argued that Cuba’s involvement in Venezuela has propped up Maduro’s rule and threatened U.S. interests in the region.

Graham has repeatedly said that removing Cuban security and intelligence influence from Venezuela would weaken both governments.

“If Cuba goes, Maduro goes, and we have a history of standing up to Cuban intervention in the past,” Graham said in a 2019 interview with McClatchy.

In that same interview, Graham pointed to a historical precedent for U.S. action in the Western Hemisphere.

“We’re not occupying Venezuela, but if Maduro refuses to go and the Cubans keep using their military apparatus to prop him up, it is in our national security interest to do in Venezuela what Reagan did in Grenada,” Graham said.

In October 1983, President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. forces into Grenada following the execution of the country’s prime minister during a pro-communist coup.

Approximately 6,000 American troops took part in the eight-day operation, which dismantled the Grenadian People’s Revolutionary Government and removed Cuban and Soviet military advisers from the island.

Graham’s comments signal growing confidence among senior U.S. officials that the removal of Maduro could trigger broader political consequences across the region, particularly in Cuba, which has relied heavily on Venezuela for economic and energy support.

As Maduro and Flores now face prosecution in U.S. courts, administration officials have indicated that further diplomatic and security developments in the region remain under active review.

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