Washington, 26 January 2026 (dpa/MIA) - US President Donald Trump said a secret jamming weapon played a decisive role in the US military operation in Venezuela, which led to the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro.

In an interview with the New York post Trump boasted about the weapon, which he referred to as "The Discombobulator."

He said that the jammer "made [enemy] equipment not work," adding: "I'm not allowed to talk about it."

The president said the tool disabled Venezuelan equipment, allowing Maduro's capture and preventing Venezuelan security forces from responding to the US attack.

"They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us," he told the Post.

On January 3, US forces removed and detained Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores during a military operation in Caracas and took him to the US. He has since been charged in New York with drug offences.

According to Venezuelan authorities, at least 100 people were killed in the operation, including Venezuelan and Cuban security officials. According to Washington, no US soldiers were killed.

NYT: Russian defence systems were destroyed beforehand

There are other explanations in the US press for the failure of the Venezuelan defence. The New York Times cited US officials as saying that Venezuela's state-of-the-art Russian air defence systems were not even connected to the radar when US helicopters appeared over Caracas to capture Maduro.

According to the report, Venezuela had had difficulty maintaining the Russian equipment.

Additionally, prior to Maduro's capture, the US military is said to have bombed locations where Russian Buk-M2 ground-based air defence systems were stationed or stored.

MIA file photo