Trump won't say if US will strike Venezuela, but says Maduro's reign may soon end
As the United States masses warships and fighter jets off Venezuela's coast, Trump would not say whether the U.S. will carry out land strikes on the country but answered in the affirmative when O'Donnell asked whether Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's days as president were "numbered."
Asked if the U.S. was going to war with Venezuela, Trump told O'Donnell: "I doubt it. I don't think so." But asked later if the U.S. would carry out land strikes, he said: "I'm not saying it's true or untrue. ... I don't talk to a reporter about whether or not I'm gonna strike."
In the interview, Trump accused Venezuela of dumping "hundreds of thousands of people into our country" and said the U.S. was launching strikes on boats in Caribbean waters because the vessels carry drugs. Trump has also accused Maduro of being the head of a drug trafficking network, a claim Maduro denies.
In the last two months, the U.S. has carried out several fatal strikes against vessels the administration alleges were being run by "narcoterrorists." Last month, Trump said he was considering military strikes against land-based targets in Venezuela, where the government is urging civilians to prepare for the worst. More recently, though, Trump said such strikes were not being contemplated.
A top Justice Department lawyer also told lawmakers last week that the Trump administration does not consider a law that requires congressional approval for any military action that exceeds 60 days to apply to strikes against alleged cartels, The Post reported.
O'Donnell noted that illegal crossings at the southern U.S. border were at a 55-year low but questioned whether raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement had gone too far. She mentioned scenes of agents tackling a young mother, the use of tear gas in a Chicago residential neighborhood and car windows being smashed during raids.
Trump defended the operations, saying, "I think they haven't gone far enough because we've been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama."
Asked whether he was "okay" with ICE's tactics, he said, "Yeah, you have to get the people out." He suggested that the people targeted in raids were violent criminals and individuals with mental health conditions, describing them as "murderers," "killers" or "from insane asylums."
Asked if the administration intends to deport people without criminal records, Trump said that the policy is to deport those who come into the country illegally.
"We have to start off with a policy, and the policy has to be you came into the country illegally, you're gonna go out," he said.
With the current government shutdown closing in a record length, Trump blamed Democrats for the impasse, which has seen more than 750,000 government workers go unpaid for a full month and generated direct consequences for millions of Americans who rely on federal food stamps or government-funded health and education programs.
Trump said he would not be "extorted" by Democrats who want to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans before they agree to reopen the government. Republicans say they won't negotiate on health care until the government has reopened.
Trump told O'Donnell his plan to end the shutdown is to tell Democrats to vote to end it. Republicans, he said, are voting "almost unanimously" to reopen the government. "We'll get it solved," Trump said. "Eventually, they're gonna have to vote."
If Democrats don't vote, then the "nuclear option" would be to abolish the filibuster, Trump said. Republican congressional leaders have not been eager to embrace that idea.
The president added that he would not put forward a health care plan but that he would work on fixing the "terrible health care" available that is "too expensive for the people."
O'Donnell asked Trump about his pardon over a week ago of cryptocurrency billionaire Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering in connection with his crypto exchange platform, Binance.
At the time, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said Binance's "willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals and child abusers through its platform." Zhao also served four months in federal prison.
Asked about the pardon, Trump said: "I don't know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. And what I wanna do is see crypto, [because] if we don't do it it's gonna go to China."
"My sons are involved in crypto much more than me. I - I know very little about it, other than one thing. It's a huge industry," he added. Trump has long said that he would pursue a more lenient regulatory environment for crypto, signing in July the Genius Act, the nation's first major regulation for the industry that will make crypto more accessible and mainstream.