https://youtu.be/QnVi3rLEHAI?si=5w9abwWZUMWsgEeh

https://youtu.be/HdmEmfVaBmw?si=_AZ7s8BR3kt3cmp2

https://amgreatness.com/2025/12/29/the-pence-mirage-why-the-right-isnt-leaving-trump/

To listen to the chatter of the Important People, you would think that a “decent and elevated conservatism”™ was about to return, has returned, or is just about to triumph in the person of—cue the drum roll—Mike Pence, former vice president and perpetual Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.

?itok=zxWFy9RH

Yes, that’s right, because a baker’s dozen of less-than-fully gruntled employees of the Heritage Foundation decamped to Pence’s “Advancing American Freedom” sandbox, we are supposed to believe—at least, we are supposed to say—that a “https://freebeacon.com/policy/heritage-foundation-scholars-jump-to-mike-pences-group-in-reorganization-of-the-conservative-movement/

” is underway.

What do you think?

Does the mutiny at the Heritage Foundation signal a “significant shift within the American right?” Or is it just the familiar anti-Trump palaver we’ve been used to since the media’s “https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/familiar-quotations/4423-edmund-burke-1729-1797-john-bartlett/

” on Donald Trump?

I think it’s the latter. I think so, in part, because Mike “Mr. Morality” Pence is a political non-entity and in part because the colossus he faces is not the Heritage Foundation but his old boss, Donald Trump.

These days, any mention of the Heritage Foundation or its president, Kevin Roberts, acts like a ringing bell before the canines of Ivan Pavlov. Instead of salivating, susceptible souls start shouting “Tucker Carlson.” I have written about that melodrama a couple of times—https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/09/the-heritage-foundations-meltdown/

. I don’t really have more to add about that controversy beyond acknowledging that I like it better when conservatives train their fire on leftists rather than on one another. Perhaps the motto “no enemies on the right” is deficient as a matter of principle. As a matter of practical politics, however, there is a lot to be said for it.

In any event, it has been amusing to watch Mike Pence pretend that he might become the new standard-bearer for that “decent and elevated conservatism” I mentioned above. The line comes from Bill Kristol, who, in 2019, insisted that Donald Trump was destroying the “https://x.com/BillKristol/status/1080867256593199104?s=20

.” I suppose that was the elevated thing to say. It was not the vote-getting thing to say.

Meanwhile, as Pence looks forward to a lifetime of losing gracefully and basks in the warm glow of moral indignation, Donald Trump has been busy actually doing things.

People in Pence’s orbit, and Pence himself, have suggested that Trump’s MAGA agenda is old news, that it has run its course, and that it needs to be retired for something more decent and more elevated. The great https://open.substack.com/pub/donsurber/p/remembering-peak-trump?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

recently that the beautiful people in the media and in the know have been predicting “Peak Trump” at least since the moment he rode down the elevator in Trump Tower to announce his bid for the presidency in 2015.

I hate to crash that party, but it is worth noting that Donald Trump has yet to pass the one-year mark of his current four-year term.

In that brief time, he has sealed the southern border, overseen the deportation (self- and assisted-) of more than two million illegal immigrants, and dismantled the insidious racist institution of DEI. He is in the process of destroying the archipelago headquarters of the Teachers Union, also known as the Department of Education, and those bits of the EPA that are concerned more with virtue signaling than with maintaining clean air and water. He has also begun the long process of defunding the international empire of Democrat satellites, the myriad of so-called “Non-Governmental Organizations,” which turn out on closer inspection to be semi-camouflaged proxies for the progressive agenda. Then there are little things like brokering peace in the Middle East, destroying ISIS, and stanching the flow of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into the U.S.

On the debit side, I suppose we could list making our European allies angry by pointing out that their Orwellian culture of censorship (free speech, https://x.com/ricwe123/status/2003722093377257733?s=20

who attempt to censor or fine U.S. individuals and businesses.

Meanwhile, Trump has flooded the economy with trillions of dollars of foreign investment and ramped up domestic energy production. We were warned that Trump’s populist policies would precipitate economic disaster. It hasn’t worked out that way. Just a few days ago, the news broke that growth for the third quarter of this year was an astonishing 4.3%, while inflation, predicted to be over 3 percent, came in at 2.7 percent.

People have been complaining about “affordability.” Trump has been effective in addressing that, too. Travel in the U.S. is way up. Why? Because the cost of energy is way down. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/23/oil-prices-holiday-road-trip-december-aaa.html

, a typical headline reads, “fall to four-year lows as millions embark on holiday road trips.” Rents are falling, private sector employment for Americans is up, and the trade deficit is half what it was under Biden.

Then there is crime. Trump’s decision to send the National Guard into various violent, dysfunctional cities put many knickers in a twist. But last week we learned that https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2003898361611493387?s=20

, “Removing murderers from the streets works wonders.”

Notwithstanding the anti-Trump Casandras, the Mike Pence Show is a limited-run engagement in an off-off-off Broadway venue patronized mostly by people like Bill Kristol and various disaffected policy lemmings. The New York Times, CNN, and Politico will continue to attend to the headlines on their marquee. Denizens of the deep state will applaud. But the main stage belongs to Donald Trump, internecine squabbles notwithstanding.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Mon, 12/29/2025 - 18:25

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pence-mirage-why-right-isnt-leaving-trump

https://youtu.be/xx7WboaZsaM?feature=shared

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPtUVm4GBlyKhm1WlIsV6lLfvoKUkAm2t&si=onO7Bg8yAyz43gRV

https://open.substack.com/pub/theaicommons/p/centralized-ai-monopolies-vs-decentralized?r=482bcq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

https://open.substack.com/pub/theaicommons/p/ai-infrastructure-colonialism-the?r=482bcq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=sVpKn_wnD96xzvES&v=aa0WzdFIs2g&feature=youtu.be

————

• Ghostarchive

> https://ghostarchive.org/archive2

• Telegraph

> https://telegra.ph/ZOOMANIA-2-Neuer-Trailer-German-Deutsch-2025---YouTube-12-29

• archive.today

> archive.today is unavailable.

• Internet Archive

> https://web.archive.org/web/20251229215637/https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=sVpKn_wnD96xzvES&v=aa0WzdFIs2g&feature=youtu.be

https://youtube.com/shorts/Y2Rtqawpzj0?si=LtGYyodB8e4uzFcg

https://youtu.be/fjOeJssZX_Q?si=HVBWOiVOcdJ6TwQ4

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=m3NOcEcxBc8&si=fI7VhXyhNLxFmY3h

https://youtu.be/JScGqHkNDO0?si=xoYd0GdInrzLSNMD

Allegations of welfare fraud involving Minneapolis daycare centers tied to Somali operators have circulated in the news cycle for years with limited traction; however, it was not until a high-visibility, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/network-mapping-nick-shirleys-empty-minnesota-daycares

by citizen journalist Nick Shirley that the topic was reignited and thrust back into the news cycle. The focus is now shifting from Democrat-run Minneapolis to what is being framed as a potentially nationwide welfare fraud epidemic.

On Sunday, Breitbart News published an interview with Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke, who alleges that members of the Somali community in Ohio have defrauded millions of dollars from the state's Medicaid program.

"So these individuals tried to report the fraud that was happening in Ohio and eventually came to me saying that we are watching providers rubber-stamp paperwork for home health.

And there are many states like this, Pennsylvania and others too, where you can go in and say, 'My aging parent needs home health care. I want to provide it.'

The state will, as long as a doctor has approved it, continue to pay you. It could be for 10 hours, 12 hours, up to 24 hours when it is critical care.

So you could sit at home without caring for an elderly parent who really does not need it and make about $75,000 to $90,000 a year. Now you add two parents, that is $180,000. Now you add your in-laws, $250,000.

You continue to add this and you wonder, what services are actually being provided? So a lot of providers came to me and said fraud is occurring because we refused to rubber-stamp this paperwork.

So they went to other providers in their home health care networks saying, 'We will make it worth your while.' Well, that sounds like a kickback to me.

So we really need to investigate the Medicaid system, how much it has expanded since the Somali population arrived, and who truly needs critical care, because that is meant for the disabled, the elderly, and people who genuinely need it, not for people to live off the system.

And that is what is happening in Ohio. I think it is ridiculous. I think it is despicable. But authorities are now looking at it, from the Attorney General's office to the U.S. Attorney's office.

I flagged them all because these are Ohio tax dollars and we have to take it seriously. I am tired of people telling me, 'Well, this is the way it has always been. It is subjective, and we cannot really check.'

No, you can. Audit America. Audit Ohio now."

.https://twitter.com/MehekCooke?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

: Taxpayer-funded medical fraud is also widespread in Ohio.

"We really need to investigate the Medicaid system and how much it's increased since the Somalian population came." https://t.co/8pJCzjK4qo

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) https://twitter.com/BreitbartNews/status/2005293757038547151?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Elon Musk, the former DOGE head who was investigating this kind of fraud on the federal level, noted, "The fraud of your taxpayer money is happening nationwide and is liberally applied to attract illegal (and some legal) immigrants who will reliably vote Democrat. The more you look, the more you find. And you don't need to be a world-class detective to figure it out. This is brazen, daylight robbery."

Rep. Ismail Mohamed (D-OH):

Bragging about naming a street in Ohio after the Father of Somalia…

Bragging about Somalian’s infiltrating the City, State, and Federal level, and says he’s in a Group Chat with them and their main objective "Our main objective is to discuss all… https://t.co/vidX6mCKPh

— Papo (@Papo352) https://twitter.com/Papo352/status/1956374072138281039?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Remember, it was the Democratic Party that threw a fit when DOGE began investigating fraud, waste, and abuse on the federal level. And now we know why. What comes next is likely an expansion of DOGE-esque investigations (perhaps with an army of citizen journalists) aimed at blue states suspected of massive welfare fraud schemes.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Mon, 12/29/2025 - 14:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/i-flagged-them-all-attorney-says-us-govt-investigating-somali-welfare-fraud-ohio

https://open.spotify.com/track/6GtX0jaNL8IjVQfrDBx81z?si=HnWVYpZbSNCRN0egZpwNfg

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-helps-us-dollar-reserve-status-coinbase-ceo

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has claimed Bitcoin provides healthy competition for the US dollar, which in turn pressures policymakers to maintain fiscal discipline and helps preserve the greenback’s dominance.

“[Bitcoin] provides a check and balance on the dollar in the sense of if there's too much deficit spending or inflation in the US, people will flee to Bitcoin in times of uncertainty,” Armstrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Re3uyOoPQ

in an interview on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin on Thursday.

“It might be okay to have 2-3% inflation if the economy is growing at 2-3% but if inflation outstrips the growth of the economy, you'll eventually lose the reserve currency status, and that would be a massive blow to the United States.”

He said that Bitcoin indirectly keeps the dollar in check by ensuring the Federal Reserve and financial regulators avoid actions that could undermine confidence in the US economy.

“So I actually think in a strange way, Bitcoin is helping extend the American experiment,” the Coinbase boss concluded.

Bitcoin is good for USD.

It creates competition in a way that’s healthy for the dollar, which helps to provide a check and balance against high inflation and deficit spending. https://t.co/iHjQCJVqCb

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/2005399228173140204?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

America’s debt is growing at $6B a day, nearing $38T

US national debt has boomed to $37.65 trillion, and is now rising by $70,843 per second — or nearly $4.25 million per minute —https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/debt-dashboard#mdu

to the US Congress Joint Economic Committee’s debt dashboard.

In early October, https://cointelegraph.com/news/geopolitical-tensions-us-elections-bitcoin-debasement-trade-jpmorgan

and gold as the “debasement trade” amid increased uncertainty in the dollar.

Bitcoin soared to a $126,080 high on Oct. 10 but has since retraced 30% to $88,210, while gold has continued its tear, setting its latest high of $4,545 per ounce on Friday.

The Trump administration signed an executive order to establish a https://cointelegraph.com/news/white-house-crypto-report-bitcoin-reserve

in March, a move that several US senators said could mitigate the nation’s mounting debt.

However, the reserve currently stockpiles seized Bitcoin without purchasing any and the https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-act-reserve-to-exceed-1-million-law-decoded

— which purports to support the SBR — is still in the early legislative stages in Congress.

Stablecoins may do better at preserving dollar dominance

Other industry pundits argue that stablecoins have a bigger role in cementing the US dollar’s status as the reserve currency than Bitcoin.

In addition to creating strong demand for US debt, stablecoins are pushing the US dollar into the hands of individuals and businesses worldwide, Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal https://x.com/sandeepnailwal/status/1986638580895117535

last month.

“Dollarisation 2.0 is happening in real time — from LatAm to Africa, entire economies are being rewired around digital dollars.”

?itok=-KjqKYOH

Source: https://x.com/antoniogm/status/1939810804137972154

The US passed thehttps://cointelegraph.com/news/genius-act-clause-limits-big-tech-stablecoin-power

in mid-July, seen as one of the most comprehensive stablecoin frameworks to date.

The stablecoin market currently https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/stablecoins

.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Mon, 12/29/2025 - 13:00

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/bitcoin-helps-usds-reserve-status-strange-way-coinbase-ceo

The Democratic Party entered Monday morning facing a massive firestorm following the viral spread of citizen journalist Nick Shirley's on-the-ground bombshell investigation into alleged https://www.zerohedge.com/political/network-mapping-nick-shirleys-empty-minnesota-daycares

siphoning taxpayer funds and operating as apparent front companies.

Shirley's exposé earned 111 million views on X within three days, significantly increasing public awareness of what appears to be large-scale welfare fraud in Minnesota. The magnitude of the alleged welfare fraud suggests systemic failures in Democrat-run government oversight, with a high probability that irregularities occurred at the local, county, and potentially state levels.

The Democratic Party's propaganda machine would usually be firing on all cylinders in corporate media outlets at about now to counter the welfare fraud narrative, labeling anyone who investigated or even questioned the suspiciously run Somali-linked child daycare, adult and autism care, home health care, and non-emergency medical transportation industries raking in taxpayer funds as "racists" and "fascists."

Well, Forbes appears to have received its marching orders.

Truly amazing headline work here https://twitter.com/Forbes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/2005473613940428945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Continued silence from much of the corporate media only reinforces what we already know: MSM acts less as news organizations and more as de facto public relations firms for Democrats.

Not CBS

Not PBS

Not CNN

Not ABC

Not MSNBC

Not Fox News

Not 60 Minutes

Not New York Times

Not Washington Post

Not Associated Press

But an independent Journalist on 𝕏, exposed millions of Fraud with a hoodie and a camera

KEEP GOING NICK SHIRLEY https://t.co/40RX4wW3go

— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2005011311756017964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Shirley's exposé was a left-field event for Democrats, as it exposed state-level fraud - something Elon Musk and DOGE had been attempting to uncover and dismantle at the federal level. Instead, recall that earlier this year, Democrats mobilized the https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/new-report-reveals-soros-open-society-funneled-80-million-pro-terror-groups

of dark-money-funded NGOs against Musk and Tesla. There was even alarming left-wing terrorism against Tesla showrooms.

Let's not forget what happened here...

Remember when a Tim Walz appointee murdered the only lawmaker who tried to stop the fraud in Minnesota?

Is it starting to make sense now? https://t.co/q4NBuUUNfD

— Bruce (@Bpeters1558) https://twitter.com/Bpeters1558/status/2005411202944655788?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

What America First is beginning to understand is that the success of exposing welfare fraud in Minnesota through a citizen-journalist model needs to be replicated across blue states in a coordinated blitz campaign that overwhelms whatever narrative control the Democratic Party's propaganda machine still retains.

SPAC King Chamath Palihapitiya on X wrote, "I trust @Cernovich instincts here. If he thinks a grant program can unlock tens of investigative journalists to uncover the breadth and scale of California, many people will support it."

Palihapitiya's response was directed at an X user's idea about a crowdfunding grant program to support citizen journalists who expose fraud in California.

I trust https://twitter.com/Cernovich?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

instincts here. If he thinks a grant program can unlock tens of investigative journalists to uncover the breadth and scale of California’s fraud, many people will support it.

Cerno? https://t.co/yoWfLMV8Lb

— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) https://twitter.com/chamath/status/2005364804870140074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

What could soon emerge is an early, crowdfunded, DOGE-like network of citizen journalists - funded by tech bros, supported by private investigators, guided by tips and prior research, and aimed at systematically exposing and documenting alleged Democratic Party fraud across blue states. Such an effort could flood the news cycle with so many egregious fraud cases that Democrats would face immense difficulty mounting any compelling counter-narrative. This is info war gearing up before midterm election cycle.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Mon, 12/29/2025 - 12:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nick-shirley-effect-sparks-calls-crowdfunded-citizen-journalist-grant-program-expose

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5yYFWn1HOtwvKOqmpdisqY?si=lta6Po2zQuqgKnHY6Nzy1Q

The Salvadoran national, released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in early December, created a new TikTok account and has posted at least two Spanish-language videos showing him lip-syncing to songs in what appears to be a suburban neighborhood. One video features him singing along to a track by Danny Berrios, an American singer known for Spanish Christian music, andhttps://www.newsweek.com/kilmar-abrego-garcias-viral-video-of-biblical-song-angers-dhs-11276396

.

MS-13 terrorist Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released by a rogue judge and is now making TikToks.https://t.co/MlJwkRAmLH

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/2004974075756810454?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, appointed to the Tennessee federal bench by President Barack Obama, issued a gag order in October, ordering federal prosecutors to warn Department of Justice and DHS employees against making any statements he deemed prejudicial about Abrego Garcia.

The order restricted federal officials from publicly using terms such as "gangbanger," "serial wife beater," or "human trafficker" to describe him while the case proceeds. Crenshaw recently canceled the criminal trial and scheduled a hearing for January 28, 2026 to determine whether the prosecution for human smuggling was vindictive.

Tricia McLaughlin, DHS Assistant Secretary, expressed frustration on X on Saturday over the absurdity of the situation.

"So we, at [the Department of Homeland Security] are under gag order by an activist judge and Kilmar Abrego Garcia is making TikToks," McLaughlin said.

"American justice ceases to function when its arbiters silence law enforcement and give megaphones to those who oppose our legal system," she added.

So we, at https://twitter.com/DHSgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

, are under gag order by an activist judge and Kilmar Abrego Garcia is making TikToks.

American justice ceases to function when its arbiters silence law enforcement and give megaphones to those who oppose our legal system. https://t.co/11pNrHQUK6

— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) https://twitter.com/TriciaOhio/status/2005001843664191934?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

On December 11, 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis, another Obama appointee, ordered the immediate release of Abrego Garcia from ICE custody. Xinis cited the absence of a final removal order against him and stated that his removal could not be regarded as reasonably foreseeable, imminent, or in accordance with due process. "Since Abrego Garcia's improper [deportation] to El Salvador, he has been detained, again without lawful authority," Xinis wrote. She subsequently extended her temporary restraining order, which keeps Abrego Garcia out of federal custody through the Christmas holiday period.

In 2019, police in Marylandhttps://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1396906/dl?inline

Abrego Garcia in official documents as affiliated with MS-13, one of the most violent street gangs in the world. Abrego Garcia was arrested in March 2019 at a Home Depot parking lot in Hyattsville, Maryland, where officers deemed him a member of MS-13 based on his clothing and other factors, including tattoos linking him to the gang.

This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such “a fine and innocent person.” They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found… https://t.co/31sNr2k1SK

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1913358867708493982?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Court records also show that Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez, filedhttps://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/documents-reveal-second-protective-order-filed-by-wife-against-kilmar-abrego-garcia

he punched and scratched her, leaving her bleeding, and ripped off her shirt.

In 2022, during a Tennessee traffic stop, police caught Abrego Garciahttps://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/hlddeported-el-salvadoran-drove-vehicle-owned-alien-previously-plead-guilty

. Officers observed that none of the passengers had any luggage and that each gave Abrego Garcia's address as their own, and the car he was driving belonged to a known smuggler.

Earlier this year, federal prosecutorshttps://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kilmar-abrego-garcia-was-mistakenly-deported-el-salvador-will-face-fed-rcna211514

on smuggling-related counts. The grand jury indictment alleges that while illegally in the U.S., Abrego Garcia made more than 100 trips across the country smuggling illegal migrants, and that he participated in a years-long human smuggling operation from 2016 to 2025.

The indictment alleges that from about 2016 to 2025, Abrego Garcia and others conspired to bring migrants illegally to the United States from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador and elsewhere, through Mexico and across the Texas-Mexico border.

Abrego Garcia and a co-conspirator “ordinarily picked up the undocumented aliens in Houston, Texas area” after they had crossed the border. The pair then allegedly would transport “the undocumented aliens from Texas to other parts of the United States to further the aliens’ unlawful presence in the United States,” the indictment said.

In the indictment, the government said Abrego Garcia and six other uncharged and unnamed co-conspirators communicated using cellphones and social media to unlawfully transport the undocumented immigrants.

They allege that Abrego Garcia would hold the cellphones of those he was transporting within the U.S. and would return them at the end of their trip, “they did this to ensure the undocumented aliens could not and would not contact anyone else during the trip,” the government said in the indictment.

Abrego Garcia has been locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration since his March 2025 deportation to El Salvador and subsequent return to the United States. Since his return in June, the government has pushed to deport him to various African countries, including Liberia, Uganda, Eswatini, and Ghana. His attorneys say he would accept deportation to Costa Rica, which has already guaranteed he could live there freely, but the government has made no apparent effort to pursue that option. Prosecutors continue to seek his permanent removal despite his release from ICE custody.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Mon, 12/29/2025 - 10:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/abrego-garcia-free-make-tiktok-videos-while-dhs-kept-silent-under-gag-order

"They have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from," Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q546LcdpRQ

, though he did not explicitly identify the exact location or even country attacked. "Two nights ago we knocked that out."

According to the full remarks in context, the president said:

"But every time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives. It's very simple. And what's happening is they're having a hard time employment-wise, they can't get anybody.

And we just talked out, I don't know if you read or you saw, they [Venezuela] 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. But drugs are down over 97 percent. Can you believe it?"

Some unnamed American officials https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/us/politics/trump-drug-facility-venezuela.html

:

Trump did not name the location of the facility, though American officials https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/us/politics/trump-drug-facility-venezuela.html

the New York Times that the president was referring to a drug facility in Venezuela that was eliminated. The president’s comment is the only report of such an attack. No other Latin American government, including Venezuela, has disclosed a strike of this sort.

But information or confirmation other than that disclosure remains a mystery, as neither the CIA nor Pentagon have commented, as the NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/us/politics/trump-drug-facility-venezuela.html

:

If Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the United States had struck a site in the region proves accurate, it would be the first known attack on land since he began his military campaign against Venezuela. U.S. officials declined to specify anything about the site the president said was hit, where it was located, how the attack was carried out or what role the facility played in drug trafficking. There has been no public report of an attack from the Venezuelan government or any other authorities in the region.

Listen to the audio below:

Trump speaking on Venezuela appear to suggest the U.S. has already carried out land strikes. Listen for yourself.

“But every time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives. It's very simple. And what's happening is they're having a hard time employment-wise, they can't… https://t.co/uySMAu23Bi

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) https://twitter.com/FaytuksNetwork/status/2005406011650461851?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Speculation has quickly begun in an effort to identify which facility was hit and what damage was done. Some analysts have highlighted the below explosion reported by local Venezuelans, given the timing fits (Wednesday, Dec. 24).

The local reporter's commentary reads according to (machine) translation, A new large explosion was reported from the Industrial Zone of the San Francisco municipality, Zulia state, in the early morning of this December 24.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/24Dic?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Una nueva gran explosión se reportó desde la Zona Industrial del municipio San Francisco, estado Zulia, la madrugada de este 24 de diciembre.

Vía: https://twitter.com/Jhormancruz1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

— El Martillo Venezuela (@ElMartilloVen) https://twitter.com/ElMartilloVen/status/2003820528709329359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

This is in Venezuela's second largest city, in the northwest corner of the country, and near the coast.

If the Pentagon did indeed take out a "large facility" on land, as Trump's words indicate, it suggests the US may not initiate a major war in quick 'shock and awe' style, but will opt for sporadic strikes which limit military action to specified targets. So the 'war' might be a slow burn after all - which also means the Pentagon force build-up in the Caribbean is there to stay for a while.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Mon, 12/29/2025 - 09:20

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-land-strikes-venezuela-campaign-began-last-week-no-one-knew-it