{"id":48593,"date":"2025-10-15T19:40:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T00:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=48593"},"modified":"2025-10-15T21:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:45:10","slug":"president-trump-says-cia-authorized-to-operate-in-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=48593","title":{"rendered":"President Trump says CIA authorized to operate in Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oct. 15 (UPI) — The CIA is authorized to conduct operations in Venezuela and likely has been for at least a couple of months, President Donald Trump<\/a> confirmed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump commented on a possible CIA deployment in Venezuela when a reporter asked why he authorized the CIA to work in the South American nation during a Wednesday news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president said he has two reasons for authorizing the CIA to be involved in Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They have emptied their prisons into the United States,” Trump said. “They came in through the border because we had an open-border policy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They’ve allowed thousands and thousands of prisoners, people from mental institutions and insane asylums emptied out into the United States,” Trump said. “We’re bringing them back.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president said Venezuela is not the only country to do so, “but they’re the worst abuser” and called the South American nation’s leaders “down and dirty.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said Venezuela also is sending a lot of drugs into the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, so you see it,” the president explained. “We’re going to stop them by land, also.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump declined to answer a follow-up question regarding whether or not the CIA is authorized to “take out” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president called the question a fair one but said it would be “ridiculous” for him to answer it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president’s answer regarding CIA deployment in Venezuela comes after he earlier said the U.S. military obtains intelligence on likely drug smuggling operations in Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such intelligence enabled the military to strike a vessel<\/a> carrying six passengers off the coast of Venezuela on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narco-terrorist networks and was transiting along a known [designated terrorist organization] route,” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the military strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All six crew members were killed in the lethal kinetic airstrike on the vessel, and no U.S. forces were harmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump told media that Venezuela and a lot of other countries are “feeling heat” and he “won’t let our country be ruined” by them, ABC News<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president in September notified several Congressional committees that the nation is in “active conflict<\/a>” with transnational gangs and drug cartels, many of which he has designated as terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua is among those so designated, and the United States has a $50 million bounty on Maduro, whom Trump says profits from the drug trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Trump’s first term in office, the CIA similarly worked against drug cartels in Mexico and elsewhere in Central and South America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration continued those efforts, including flying drones over suspected cartel sites in Mexico to identify possible fentanyl labs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

upi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oct. 15 (UPI) — The CIA is authorized to conduct operations in Venezuela and likely has been for at least a couple of months, President Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday. Trump commented on a possible CIA deployment in Venezuela when a reporter asked why he authorized the CIA to work in the South American nation during a Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":48594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[26227,1870,1230,3172],"class_list":["post-48593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-authorization","tag-cia","tag-trump","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48593"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48596,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48593\/revisions\/48596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}