Trump tees up land strikes in Venezuela as ultimatum hangs over Maduro: ‘We know every route, we know every house’

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the US military may soon strike land targets within Venezuela after its sustained assault on narco-terrorist boats allegedly hauling drugs to the US.

During an Oval Office event touting car emission reforms, Trump took questions on his military orders to strike Venezuelan drug traffickers.

The White House has been dealing with repeated questions over whether a September military operation targeting an alleged Venezuelan narco-terrorist boat was legal after the operation’s commander, Admiral Frank Bradley, ordered a second strike on the vessel after it was determined there were two survivors of the initial blast.

‘I think you’re going to find that this is war,’ the president responded to a question about whether Bradley or Secretary of War Pete Hegseth could be punished for the follow-up strike.

‘Very soon we’re going to start doing it on land, too,’ the president ominously added.

‘We know every route, we know every house, we know where they manufacture this crap, we know where they put it all together,’ he continued. ‘And I think you’re going to see it very soon on land.’

Trump’s war on the drug-smuggling cartels comes on the heels of record-breaking overdose deaths in the US, mainly due to the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Since 2021, over a quarter of a million Americans have died from overdose, the vast majority of them being fentanyl-related.

‘I support the decision to knock out the boats … whoever is piloting those boats are guilty of trying to kill people in our country,’ Trump added.

President Donald Trump has said repeatedly this week that the US military may soon strike land targets within Venezuela

The controversy over the second strike is the latest in a string of Pentagon-related disputes embroiling the Trump administration this year

Hegseth said on Tuesday he did not personally watch the second strike

The president’s defense of the strikes comes after Hegseth was spotted at the White House earlier in the day.

Though it is unclear if he met with Trump to discuss the ongoing brouhaha, he was pictured close to the Oval Office near the West Wing’s colonnade.

Trump has labeled various drug-linked cartels as narco-terrorists this year, a move that has enabled the US military to target the drug smugglers like it would ISIS or Al-Qaeda members.

However, much of the fentanyl that makes its way to the US is actually produced in Mexico.

Though it does not matter what drugs foreign countries create for distribution in the US, as Trump has said that any country that feeds America’s ravenous hunger for drugs could become a target.

‘Anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack … not just Venezuela,’ Trump said on Tuesday.

Democrats in Congress have pushed back on Trump’s strikes, claiming that they could be illegal. So have former military officials, like former Pentagon boss Leon Panetta.

The Republican also noted how cocaine production in Colombia is still rampant and that drugs there are being sent to the US.

A screen grab from the September follow-up strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug running boat

Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and President Trump spoke by phone last week

Hegseth was spotted at the White House on Wednesday

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Trump spoke on the phone last week as tensions have boiled between the two countries.

Trump reportedly urged the dictator to leave the country.

Soon after, Trump posted a sinister warning over the weekend that the airspace over Venezuela would be shuttered as a possible US attack loomed. Still, there have been no strikes within Venezuelan territory.

Meanwhile, Maduro has been seen dancing to anti-war songs at his rallies, signifying he does not want conflict with the US.

So far, the administration has authorized over 20 strikes on alleged drug-running boats that have resulted in over 80 deaths.

The US has deployed nearly a dozen warships, a submarine, over 70 aircraft and 15,000 soldiers to the Caribbean in recent months.

‘We’re taking those son of a b****es out,’ Trump said Tuesday when pressed on the strikes.