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President Donald Trump<\/span> said in a radio interview that the United States had knocked out \u201ca big facility\u201d last week as part of his administration\u2019s ongoing pressure campaign to topple Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from,\u201d Trump told<\/a> John Catsimatidis, a billionaire and Trump donor who owns New York\u2019s WABC radio station, on Friday, seeming to reference a facility involved in the drug trade or boat building. \u201cTwo nights ago, we knocked that out. We hit them very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump initially did not provide further details about the supposed attack on the \u201cbig plant,\u201d which if true would be the first known U.S. attack on Venezuelan soil.<\/p>\n On Monday, Trump said that the United States had \u201chit\u201d an \u201cimplementation area\u201d in Venezuela. \u201cThere was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,\u201d Trump told reporters<\/a> at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, residence. \u201cThat\u2019s where they implement, and that is no longer around.\u201d<\/p>\n It was not clear what target was hit nor which U.S. government agencies were involved. Asked if the CIA had carried out the attack, Trump said: \u201cI don\u2019t want to say that. I know exactly who it was but I don\u2019t want to say who it was.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has publicly acknowledged he authorized CIA operations<\/a> in Venezuela.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have any guidance for you,\u201d CIA spokesperson Lauren Camp told The Intercept.<\/p>\n During a Christmas Eve phone call to troops aboard<\/a> the USS Gerald R. Ford, which is deployed to the Caribbean Sea as part of the campaign against Maduro, Trump seemed to reference the strike. \u201cI\u2019m tremendously grateful for the work that you\u2019re doing to stop drug trafficking in our region,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we\u2019re going after the land. The land is actually easier.\u201d There has been no public report of an attack from the Venezuelan government.<\/p>\n The Pentagon did not reply to repeated requests for comment on the strike. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not respond to a request for comment on the U.S. official\u2019s contention that Trump\u2019s claim was \u201cmisleading.\u201d<\/p>\n If a strike did occur on December 24, it was the night before Trump attacked Nigeria<\/a>. The president will have made war<\/a> in Iran<\/a>, Iraq<\/a>, Somalia<\/a>, Syria<\/a>, Venezuela, Yemen<\/a>, and the Caribbean<\/a> Sea and Pacific Ocean in 2025, despite claiming<\/a> to be a \u201cpeacemaker<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The United States has been attacking boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific since September<\/a>. U.S. forces have conducted almost 30 attacks that have killed more than 100 civilians.<\/p>\n Experts in the laws of war and members of Congress say the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians \u2014 even suspected criminals \u2014 who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. The summary executions are a significant departure from standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs<\/a>, in which law enforcement agencies arrested suspected drug smugglers<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\u201cEvery time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n During the summer, Trump signed a secret directive<\/a> ordering the Pentagon to use military force against <\/a>certain Latin American drug cartels. In August, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth signed an execute order, or EXORD, directing Special Operations forces to sink suspected drug smuggling boats, destroy their cargo, and kill their crews, according to government officials. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives,\u201d Trump claimed to Catsimatidis. The statement is untrue. Between May 2024 and April 2025, some 77,000 people<\/a> died in the U.S. from drug overdoses. If Trump\u2019s claim were accurate, the 30 attacks would have saved almost 10 times the number of lives lost to overdoses in the U.S. in a single year.<\/p>\n White House chief of staff Susie Wiles recently indicated that the boat strikes are specifically aimed at toppling Maduro. \u201cHe wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,\u201d Wiles said.<\/p>\n Upon entering office a second time, Trump renewed long-running efforts<\/a>, which failed during his first term<\/a>, to topple Maduro\u2019s government. Maduro and several close allies were indicted<\/a> in a New York federal court in 2020 on federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. Earlier this year, the U.S. doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro\u2019s arrest to $50 million. (Meanwhile, Trump pardoned<\/a> Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, the right-wing former president of Honduras who had been convicted of drug trafficking.)<\/p>\n
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\nOne U.S. official who spoke with The Intercept on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the target was a \u201cfacility,\u201d but would not disclose its location or if it was actually attacked by the U.S., much less destroyed. The official cast some doubt on Trump\u2019s initial public statement. \u201cThat announcement was misleading,\u201d said the official without providing any clarification.<\/p>\n