Trump confirms the CIA is conducting covert operations inside Venezuela

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Trump confirms the CIA is conducting covert operations inside Venezuela

2025-10-17 02:55 Last Updated At：03:01

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump confirmed Wednesday that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela and said he was weighing carrying out land operations on the country.

The acknowledgement of covert action in Venezuela by the U.S. spy agency comes after the U.S. military in recent weeks has carried out a series of deadly strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. U.S. forces have destroyed at least five boats since early September, killing 27 people, and four of those vessels originated from Venezuela.

Asked during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday why he had authorized the CIA to take action in Venezuela, Trump affirmed he had made the move.

“I authorized for two reasons, really,” Trump replied. “No. 1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America," he said. "And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”

Trump added the administration “is looking at land” as it considers further strikes in the region. He declined to say whether the CIA has authority to take action against President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump made the unusual acknowledgement of a CIA operation shortly after The New York Times published that the CIA had been authorized to carry out covert action in Venezuela.

On Wednesday, Maduro lashed out at the record of the U.S. spy agency in various conflicts around the world without directly addressing Trump’s comments about authorizing the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.

“No to regime change that reminds us so much of the (overthrows) in the failed eternal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so on,” Maduro said at a televised event of the National Council for Sovereignty and Peace, which is made up of representatives from various political, economic, academic and cultural sectors in Venezuela.

“No to the coups carried out by the CIA, which remind us so much of the 30,000 disappeared,” a figure estimated by human rights organizations such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo during the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). He also referred to the 1973 coup in Chile.

“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups? Latin America doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them and repudiates them,” Maduro added.

The objective is “to say no to war in the Caribbean, no to war in South America, yes to peace,” he said.

Speaking in English, Maduro said: “Not war, yes peace, not war. Is that how you would say it? Who speaks English? Not war, yes peace, the people of the United States, please. Please, please, please.”

In a statement, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday rejected “the bellicose and extravagant statements by the President of the United States, in which he publicly admits to having authorized operations to act against the peace and stability of Venezuela.”

“This unprecedented statement constitutes a very serious violation of international law and the United Nations’ Charter and obliges the community of countries to denounce these clearly immoderate and inconceivable statements,” said the statement, which Foreign Minister Yván Gil posted on his Telegram channel.

Early this month, the Trump administration declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and pronounced the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them, justifying the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

The move has spurred anger in Congress from members of both major political parties that Trump was effectively committing an act of war without seeking congressional authorization.

On Wednesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said while she supports cracking down on trafficking, the administration has gone too far.

“The Trump administration’s authorization of covert C.I.A. action, conducting lethal strikes on boats and hinting at land operations in Venezuela slides the United States closer to outright conflict with no transparency, oversight or apparent guardrails,” Shaheen said. "The American people deserve to know if the administration is leading the U.S. into another conflict, putting servicemembers at risk or pursuing a regime-change operation.”

The Trump administration has yet to provide underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that the boats targeted by the U.S. military were in fact carrying narcotics, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration has only pointed to unclassified video clips of the strikes posted on social media by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and has yet to produce “hard evidence” that the vessels were carrying drugs.

Lawmakers have expressed frustration that the administration is offering little detail about how it came to decide the U.S. is in armed conflict with cartels or which criminal organizations it claims are “unlawful combatants.”

Even as the U.S. military has carried out strikes on some vessels, the U.S. Coast Guard has continued with its typical practice of stopping boats and seizing drugs.

Trump on Wednesday explained away the action, saying the traditional approach hasn't worked.

“Because we’ve been doing that for 30 years, and it has been totally ineffective. They have faster boats,” he said. ”They’re world-class speedboats, but they’re not faster than missiles."

Human rights groups have raised concerns that the strikes flout international law and are extrajudicial killings.

Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

European troops and warplanes join Paris Bastille Day parade in a show of unity for Ukraine

PARIS (AP) — Ukrainian fighter pilots and troops took pride of place in France's national Bastille Day celebrations Tuesday as a massive parade showcased support for Ukraine and symbolically flexed European military muscle.

On President Emmanuel Macron’s last Bastille Day as president, he hosted around 30 other leaders for an event that appeared aimed at showing both Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump that Europe is united and stepping up to defend itself.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was given an ovation from the assembled European leaders as he arrived and his country's troops got the biggest cheers of the day from crowds on the tree-lined Champs-Elysees avenue. Zelenskyy and Macron shared repeated hugs at the end of the parade.

France's biggest national holiday coincided with raging forest fires and a red-alert heat wave that forced the cancellation of traditional fireworks and firefighters’ balls.

Here’s what to know about Bastille Day this year.

It’s celebrated on July 14 because that’s the day Parisians stormed the Bastille fortress and prison in 1789, helping spark the French Revolution that overthrew the monarchy and sent King Louis XVI and his queen Marie-Antoinette to the guillotine.

Bastille Day holiday is central to the French calendar and national identity. Presidents use it to vaunt France’s accomplishments, mayors across the country host village festivals and families gather for holiday meals.

The centerpiece is the Paris parade beneath the Napoleon-era Arc de Triomphe and along the Champs-Elysees avenue, which inspired Trump to stage his own parade last year.

A huge French tricolor flag hanging below the monumental arch rippled in the wind as a military band on horseback rode down the tree-lined avenue followed by Macron standing in an open military vehicle to kick off the parade.

Spectators wore hats and brandished small fans to fend off the heat as a formation of air force planes roared overhead trailing red, white and blue smoke.

Zelenskyy joined Macron along with some 30 other heads of state or government in the special viewing area for the parade.

Ukrainian troops marched along the cobblestoned avenue, and Ukrainian co-pilots trained in France were on board two Mirage 2000B fighter jets alongside French air force pilots.

“I feel very proud for the fact that they’re here and for the fact that we’re marching alongside of them and I think it as well it will create better ties with them and NATO and to be a part of that history,” 21-year-old U.K. soldier Lance Cpl. Patrick Risso said of the Ukrainian involvement.

On the ground, the parade opened with around 500 troops from the ″coalition of the willing″ grouping of countries that have pledged to help with Ukraine’s postwar security.

Macron said Monday night that it’s a ″great honor″ to welcome to the parade ″all the partners in the coalition of the willing and our Ukrainian friends who will march with us and illustrate its strategic reawakening and our unity.″

The foreign fighters in combat fatigues and dress uniforms marched with their national flags, in a break with tradition — usually only one foreign country is invited to take part in the parade. It was the first time in some 20 years that British troops took part. Ukrainian forces got the loudest cheers from the crowd.

In the skies, aircraft from Germany, the United Kingdom, Croatia, Poland, Denmark, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Italy were taking part.

The parade set a record in terms of number of troops: The Paris military governor said 7,600 troops were marching this year, compared with 5,810 in 2025. Thousands of soldiers started taking up positions early Tuesday, many taking selfies as helicopters flew overhead.

Forest fires are raging in the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris and in areas of southern France, as the country suffers through its third heat wave this year.

As a result, authorities in some regions — including the French capital — banned fireworks and firefighters' balls customarily held around Bastille Day.

The Eiffel Tower's fireworks and drone show was maintained, however, and held Monday night, including a drone formation shaped like the Statue of Liberty — a gift from France to the United States that arrived in New York in 1885 to mark the U.S. centennial, the end of the American Civil War, and friendship between the two countries.

Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.