Secretary of State Marco Rubio applauded mainstream media outlets that had learned of, but held off reporting on, the U.S. operation that apprehended Venezuela leader Nicolas Maduro.
Rubio's comments, delivered Sunday on ABC's "This Week," marked a rare moment of public praise from a senior Trump administration official toward major legacy outlets that President Donald Trump has frequently criticized as biased and hostile.
Rubio said the decision by newsrooms to delay publication likely saved American lives, as U.S. forces carried out a high-risk late-night raid.
According to Semafor, both The New York Times and The Washington Post learned of the secret operation shortly before it was scheduled to begin Friday night.
Two people familiar with the communications told Semafor that the outlets held their reporting after administration officials warned that premature publication could expose U.S. troops and jeopardize the mission.
Despite the deep mutual hostility between Trump's White House and much of the mainstream press, the episode offered a rare glimpse of cooperation on a high-stakes national security matter.
Rubio explicitly thanked the press for its restraint, emphasizing that "operational security" was the top priority.
"It would have put the people who carried this on in very — in harm's way," Rubio said. "And frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason, and we thank them for doing that or lives could have been lost. American lives."
For conservatives, Rubio's remarks underscore two realities that often get overlooked in the daily media war.
First, leaks can kill, and second, even adversarial institutions sometimes recognize the gravity of protecting American troops in the field.
The timing of Rubio's praise is particularly striking.
The New York Post recalled Trump's blistering attack on the Times just before Christmas, when he labeled the paper "a serious threat" to national security following a major report about his relationship with the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Yet Rubio's comments suggested that, in this case, editors chose prudence over scoops — a decision the administration argues helped ensure the operation was executed with "stealth" and "precision," as War Secretary Pete Hegseth described it, and without American casualties.
Semafor noted that Hegseth did not mention the press holdback when praising the secrecy of the mission, but the episode fits a long-standing tradition of U.S. media outlets delaying sensitive reporting when disclosure could endanger lives.
The New York Post cited historical examples, including the Times delaying details about 1961's Bay of Pigs preparations, postponing publication about NSA surveillance after 9/11, and news outlets holding back reporting during the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden until U.S. forces were safely out.
The decision also raises fresh questions about how widely knowledge of the operation spread beyond government and media circles.
In a separate exchange with reporters Sunday on Air Force One, Trump confirmed that he spoke with oil companies about going into Venezuela — "before and after" the operation — and said they "want to go in so badly," describing Venezuela's infrastructure as "rusty" and "rotten."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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