Trump says US knocked out ‘big facility’ as part of Venezuela campaign
By Kevin Liptak, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump said the United States had taken out a “big facility” last week as part of a pressure campaign against Venezuela but did not provide further details on the reported US action.
“We just knocked out — I don’t know if you read or you saw — they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told John Catsimatidis, the major Republican donor whose radio show airs on WABC. The interview occurred on Friday.
The stray comment came amid a discussion of the president’s ongoing campaign against Venezuela and its leader Nicolas Maduro, including strikes on alleged drug boats and a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers.
Trump did not expand on the action that he claimed took out a plant or facility, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment. It is also unclear to what facility the president was referring or where it was located.
One US official said the president was describing a drug facility, but declined to provide further detail about the action. There have been no reports from Venezuela of a major facility being destroyed.
Trump has been threatening strikes on land in Venezuela for weeks as the US has launched strikes destroying 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. American officials have said previously that targets could include drug production facilities or known trafficking routes.
The president has also authorized covert CIA action inside Venezuela as part of the campaign to increase pressure on Maduro.
During a Christmas Eve phone call to troops aboard the USS Gerald Ford, which Trump recently ordered deployed to the Caribbean Sea, Trump called the region an “interesting place” to be, and said the US would be “going after the land.”
If the timing the president referred to during his interview is correct, the strike on the facility would have occurred around the same time.
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