Tag: donald trump

Trump: We Are in Venezuela Now, and We Are Going to Stay

Following a military operation that captured President Nicolas Maduro, President Donald Trump said the US would run Venezuela until an acceptable government is set up. 

“We are going to run [Venezuela] until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had,” the President said on Saturday. “We are there now, and we are going to stay until the proper transition takes place.”

Trump went on to say that the US is prepared to attack Venezuela again. “We are ready to stage a second, much larger attack if we need to do so.” He continued, “All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they aren’t fair.”

The President did not name a new leader of Venezuela. However, María Corina Machado said, “Today we are prepared to enforce our mandate and take power.” Machado is a Venezuelan opposition figure who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025. She has endorsed US sanctions and military action against Venezuela. 

Trump did say he had not spoken with Machado, adding that she doesn’t have the respect needed to lead the country. 

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said following the attack that she had activated Maduro’s military plans. “The first thing President Maduro told the people of Venezuela was ‘people to the streets,’ activated as militia, activating all the Nation’s comprehensive defense plans,” the vice president said. “No one will undermine the historic legacy of our Liberator father, Simon Bolivar. The people of Venezuela, in perfect national unity, must mobilize to defend their natural resources and what is most sacred: their right to independence and to the future.”

Trump claimed his administration spoke with Rodriguez, who agreed to work with the US. 

When asked by the press, Trump refused to give a timeline on how long American control over Venezuela would last. The President said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth would act as the viceroys of Venezuela.

Trump added that he was willing to deploy American troops to occupy the South American nation. “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” the President explained. He claimed Washington would pay for the occupation of Venezuela with profits from the country’s oil. 

Trump said no Americans were killed and no military equipment was lost in the operation that captured Maduro early Saturday. Caracas has not reported on the Venezuelan casualties from the American raid and strikes. 

Trump said he ordered the attack on Venezuela because Maduro was trafficking narcotics to the US, hosting Washington’s adversaries, and stealing American oil. Venezuela is not a major drug trafficking hub and is not listed by the Drug Enforcement Agency as responsible for fentanyl entering the US. 

The President and Rubio suggested a similar operation could take place in Cuba. 

Keep reading

Let’s talk about…US invasion of Venezuela and “capture” of Maduro

The story is that a meticulously planned special forces raid resulted in Nicolas Maduro and his wife being dragged from their bedroom and whisked out of the country. They are reportedly en route to New York on a US naval ship.

This was foreshadowed late last year, when laughable stories about the US Special Forces “rescuing” Venezuelan “opposition leader” María Corina Machado. The Nobel Peace laureate (ha!) was said to be “in hiding” before that, in fear of the Maduro regime.

It’s a ridiculous story, but we live in the age of ridiculous stories.

In terms of reaction, the predictable people from each side are having their pre-programmed reactions. There’s going to be a lot of talk about sovereignty and the greater good in the next few weeks.

…but I can’t help but feel this is just another story designed to set a meta-narrative.

The US is going to heel turn and take down the notion of national interests and “old-fashioned individualism” in the process. Since it’s about oil, we’ll be told this is one more reason to focus on renewable energy, and that climate change is making warfare more likely and is thus an international security emergency.

People who die in “climate or energy conflicts” will be added to the “climate-related deaths” statistics.

And you know what would stop things like this from happening?

Global government.

Keep reading

Trump SBA SUSPENDS Nearly 7,000 Minnesota Borrowers Amid Suspected PPP and EIDL Fraud

The Trump administration’s Small Business Administration announced Thursday that it has suspended 6,900 Minnesota borrowers after uncovering a widespread suspected fraud tied to COVID-19 relief programs.

According to the agency, an internal review of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) approvals in Minnesota revealed nearly $400 million in potentially fraudulent loans—money that was supposed to keep small businesses afloat and American workers employed during the pandemic.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agency reviewed thousands of pandemic-era loans approved in Minnesota and identified 7,900 PPP and EIDL loans connected to the suspended borrowers.

In a blunt statement posted to X, Loeffler laid out the scope of the action:

“Over the last week, SBA has reviewed thousands of potentially fraudulent pandemic-era PPP and EIDL loans approved in Minnesota.

Today, our agency took action to suspend 6,900 Minnesota borrowers amid suspected fraudulent activity. In total, these borrowers were approved for 7,900 PPP and EIDL loans worth approximately $400M.

These individuals will be banned from all SBA loan programs, including disaster loans, going forward. We will also refer every case, where appropriate, to federal law enforcement for prosecution and repayment.

After years, the American people will finally begin to see the criminals who stole from law-abiding taxpayers held accountable – and this is just the first state.”

Keep reading

Nicolas Maduro and Wife Indicted in Southern District of New York After Being Captured, Flown Out of Country During Venezuela Attack

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife have been indicted in the Southern District of New York following his capture during a US military operation in the middle of the night. 

“Nicolas Maduro has been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said. 

Explosions were reported across Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, early this morning.

This comes after Trump confirmed that US forces conducted the first land strike against a drug trafficking facility in Venezuela earlier this week. “There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago.

President Trump announced the successful “large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader,” adding that Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of the country.

The President further announced that a news conference will be held at his Mar-a-Lago home this morning at 11 am ET.

Keep reading

President Trump Issues the First Vetoes of His Second Term

It took about 11 months, but President Donald Trump has finally issued the first vetoes of his second term.

And like most things involving the president, the moves aren’t without their critics — including some you might not normally expect pushback from.

The “Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act” is a bill aimed at expanding the land set aside for the Miccosukee Tribe inside Everglades National Park by officially including a section known as Osceola Camp.

Trump had a couple of issues with this.

The residential community in that area “was constructed in 1935, without authorization, in a low area that was raised with fill material,” Trump’s explanation read.

“None of the current structures in the Osceola Camp are over 50 years old, nor do they meet the other criteria to be considered for listing in the National Register of Historic Places,” Trump wrote to the House.

He added that, “the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.” That appears to be a direct reference to the tribe’s publicized opposition — including a lawsuit against the Trump administration — to the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in Florida, as noted by The Associated Press.

The “Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act,” meanwhile, is a bill designed to make it easier for rural Colorado communities to complete a long‑planned water pipeline project that will facilitate drinking water to people in the Arkansas River Valley.

Trump appeared to take specific issue with the price tag and repayment plans for this project.

Keep reading

Medvedev’s forecast that Trump is an ‘establishment insider’ proved accurate

At the height of the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, when then-candidate Donald Trump was running around telling anyone who would listen that he would end the Ukraine War within 24 hours of taking office, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s national security council, raised doubts and called Trump an “establishment insider.”

“For all his apparent bravado as an ‘outsider,’ Trump is ultimately an establishment insider,” Medvedev said in September. He said the former president “would ultimately be unable to go against the anti-Russian line of the notorious Deep State, which is much stronger than any Trump.”

Once elected, Trump excited some of his base when he announced on social media that he would not be offering Cabinet positions to neocon warmongers like Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley.

Before long, Trump proved that his new administration would be staffed with a new generation of Israel-first neocon warmongers.

Rachel Belvins, the podcaster, posted, “Trump really said ‘don’t worry, I’m not including ‘Pompeo and Haley’ only to turn around and choose people who would make us wish he brought them back. This is Trump’s Sec. of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who believes there’s no such thing as “dual loyalty” between the U.S. and Israel.”

Keep reading

4 ways Team Trump reminded us of Bush-Cheney in 2025

Earlier this month, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie mocked the idea of a potential U.S. regime change war with Venezuela, ostensibly over drug trafficking.

“Do we truly believe that Nicholas Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington? How did that work out? In Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria?”

“Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, that did not exist,” he added, taking a direct dig at President George W. Bush. Now it’s the same playbook, except we’re told that drugs are the WMDs.”

In 2016 Trump ran for president as the anti-Bush, slamming the Iraq War justifications on the Republican primary debate stage. “Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake, all right? They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none,” Trump said then.

Now Team Trump talks about fentanyl being a WMD and teases war. Massie had a point in comparing Trump to Bush and Dick Cheney in more ways than one.

Keep reading

Pam Bondi Deletes Social Media Post That Accidentally Gave Biden Credit for “Reducing” Drug Overdose Deaths

Attorney General Pam Bondi just handed the fake news media and radical Democrats a gift-wrapped ammunition to attack President Trump’s unbreakable war on drugs.

Bondi was out there bragging about the Trump administration’s heroic efforts to crush the fentanyl crisis, seize millions of deadly doses at the border, and prosecute cartel scum. But her own graph shows the overdose rates plummeting under crooked BIDEN’S watch.

“Since day one, the Trump Administration and this Department of Justice have been fighting to end the drug epidemic in our country,” she wrote.

“President Trump closed the border. DOJ agents have seized hundreds of millions of potentially lethal fentanyl doses. We are aggressively prosecuting drug traffickers and cartel leaders. These are the results.”

“Elections have consequences,” she added. “Electing President Trump and enforcing the law is saving American lives.”

The chart, straight from the National Institutes of Health, shows national overdose deaths dropping from about 32.5 per 100,000 to 25 between October 2023 and October 2024. Every region – Northeast, Midwest, South, and West – allegedly saw huge declines DURING BIDEN’S FAILED PRESIDENCY.

Keep reading

Do the White Thing: Trump’s EEOC Tackling Anti-white Job Discrimination

Here’s an interesting question for those claiming that anti-white bias, and anti-white-male bias in particular, is imaginary.

Why do, as a 2021 study found, more than a third of white students claim racial-minority status on college applications? Is contagious masochism sweeping white America?

The Donald Trump administration knows the answer, and its Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is, essentially, delivering it.

The Washington Post reports on the story, writing:

In mid-December, the nation’s leading workplace civil rights enforcer took to social media to pose a question: “Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex?”

Andrea Lucas, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, appeared in the video, urging those who have to contact the agency “as soon as possible.”

“You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws,” she says in the video, which has amassed nearly 6 million views on X.

… [This] underscores the sea change at an agency central to President Donald Trump’s civil rights agenda — one that began with executive orders gutting the last vestiges of affirmative action, and buttressed by his purge of the EEOC board and a newly installed Republican majority.

Now “fully empowered,” the agency will focus on stamping out “illegal discrimination” stemming from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and “anti-American bias,” Lucas said recently….

Enforcement “will stress ‘individual rights over group rights’ she said, and eschew identity politics,” the Post adds.

Of course, this only makes sense because, constitutionally speaking, there’s no such thing as “group rights.” Our Constitution guarantees rights to individuals.

Keep reading

Aargh! Letters of marque would unleash Blackbeard on the cartels

Just saying the words, “Letters of Marque” is to conjure the myth and romance of the pirate: Namely, that species of corsair also known as Blackbeard or Long John Silver, stalking the fabled Spanish Main, memorialized in glorious Technicolor by Robert Newton, hallooing the unwary with “Aye, me hearties!”

Perhaps it is no surprise that the legendary patois has been resurrected today in Congress. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has introduced the Cartel Marque and Reprisal Reauthorization Act on the Senate floor, thundering that it “will revive this historic practice to defend our shores and seize cartel assets.” If enacted into law, Congress, in accordance with Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, would license private American citizens “to employ all reasonably necessary means to seize outside the geographic boundaries of the United States and its territories the person and property of any cartel or conspirator of a cartel or cartel-linked organization.”

Although still enshrined in Constitutional canon, the fact that American citizens can be empowered to make war in a wholly private capacity skirts centuries-long understanding over “the laws of war.” At best, a letter of marque is to be issued only in the circumstance of a legally issued state declaration of war. Hence, a licensed corsair or privateer is akin to a sheriff’s deputy, who even as a private armed person is sworn to abide by the order and laws of the state.

History, however, does not support this best case. The plain truth — again, over centuries — tells the story of private naval enterprise practically unfettered. These are no Old West deputies under direct command of a U.S. Marshal. These are licensed raiders, serving autonomously, as flag-waving freebooters.

A letter of marque, the King’s signature notwithstanding, is simply licensed predation at sea — and this is under the most favorable aegis, when said letter is actually granted to a private person when the nation is at war. Yet most often, for the last 700 years, a letter of marque is really no more or less legal piracy.

But why would states want to create such a legal justification for attacking rivals and competitors, pesky inconvenient minor states, or in this case, drug traffickers?

Keep reading