WASHINGTON — President Trump told The Post that a secret new weapon he calls “The Discombobulator” was essential to the daring US raid that captured Venezuela’s drug-dealing dictator Nicolas Maduro.
Trump boasted that the mysterious weapon “made [enemy] equipment not work” when US helicopters swooped into Caracas on Jan. 3 to arrest Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on federal drug and weapons charges — without losing a single American life.
“The Discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump said during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office.
“I would love to,” the president added, before confirming its use in the stealth operation.
“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.”
Trump commented on the weapon when asked about reports this week that the Biden administration purchased a pulsed energy weapon suspected of being the type that caused “Havana Syndrome.”
Not much is known about the weapon, but those reports followed on-the-ground accounts from Venezuela describing how Maduro’s gunmen were brought to their knees, “bleeding through the nose” and vomiting blood.
One member of the deposed strongman’s team of guards recounted afterward that “suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation.”
“The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn’t know how to react,” he said, saying that helicopters then appeared — “barely eight” — carrying about 20 US troops into the area.
“The Discombobulator” then was aimed directly at Maduro’s defenders.
“At one point, they launched something; I don’t know how to describe it. It was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside,” the witness said.
“We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move. We couldn’t even stand up after that sonic weapon — or whatever it was.”
Maduro, 63, is now locked up in a Brooklyn federal jail awaiting trial on narcoterrorism charges, while his former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, serves as Venezuela’s interim leader.
“We have a great relationship with the new president,” Trump said. “She’s been terrific.”