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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said that the United States “knocked out” a “big facility” in Venezuela last week, in what appears to be a reference to a strike on a drug trafficking site in the country.

Trump, in a radio interview with on WABC’s “Cats and Cosby” on Friday, was discussing his administration’s effort to stop drug trafficking from the region, including strikes against alleged drug boats, when he made the comment.

“And we just knocked out, I don’t know if you read or you saw, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from. Two nights ago we knocked that out, so we hit them very hard,” Trump said in the interview.

The New York Times reported that American officials said that Trump was referring to a drug facility in Venezuela and that it was eliminated, but gave no further details.

If Trump’s comments are accurate, then it would mark the first known attack on land in Venezuela since the Trump administration began its campaign against the country.

ABC News has reached out to the Pentagon and the White House for comment; the Pentagon referred ABC News to the White House for comment. The CIA declined to comment on the matter.

Trump has teased land action in Venezuela for weeks, confirming in October that he authorized the CIA to operate inside the South American nation.

The U.S. has also built up its military presence in the region, with 15,000 U.S. troops and several warships standing ready in the Caribbean. Earlier this month, Trump ordered what he called a “complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela, targeting the government’s main source of revenue.

Further ratcheting up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, Trump said last week it would be “smart” for Maduro to step down.

“He can do whatever he wants, it’s alright, whatever he wants to do. If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’s ever able to play tough,” Trump said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly on Tuesday called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s investigation into him a “bunch of bull****” and said he believes it’s about sending a message to retired service members not to speak out against the president.

“This is very performative for him,” Kelly told reporters about the investigation.

Kelly said Hegseth raised the investigation during a closed-door briefing to senators on the military’s campaign in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea targeting boats believed to be carrying drugs. According to Kelly, he asked a question about the boat strikes and Hegseth responded by chastising Kelly and other democratic lawmakers for posting a video urging troops not to follow illegal orders.

Hegseth asked Secretary of the Navy John Phelan to review Kelly for “potentially unlawful conduct” after the Arizona senator was featured in the video with five other Democrats who have served in the military and U.S. intelligence.

The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday in a prepared statement that it was “escalating” its review into Kelly from a preliminary review to an official “command investigation.”

Hegseth has said he believes the video by Kelly and others created confusion among troops and could encourage insubordination. Hegseth said he’s looking into whether the military should call Kelly, a retired Navy captain, back to active duty to face a court martial or some kind of administrative punishment.

On Monday, Kelly’s attorney, Paul Fishman, said in a letter to Phelan that if the Trump administration moves ahead with proceedings against Kelly in any forum, “all appropriate legal action” will be taken.

“To be clear: there is no legitimate basis for any type of proceeding against Senator Kelly, and any such effort would be unconstitutional and an extraordinary abuse of power. If the Executive Branch were to move forward in any forum—criminal, disciplinary, or administrative—we will take all appropriate legal action on Senator Kelly’s behalf to halt the Administration’s unprecedented and dangerous overreach,” Fishman wrote in the letter obtained by ABC News.

Kelly said he hasn’t heard anything from the Defense Department since he retired in 2011 when he was recognized for his 25 years of service.

“This is all bunch of bull****,” Kelly said Tuesday.

Kelly later added: “This is just about sending a message to retired service members, active duty service members, government employees — do not speak out against this president, or there will be consequences.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Kelly’s remarks to reporters on Tuesday.

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(RALEIGH, N.C.) — The North Carolina House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to pass a new congressional map into law, two days after the state Senate approved it, giving the Republican Party the chance to net a new seat in the 2026 midterms. 

Republican legislators said they want to adopt the new map to bolster President Donald Trump and the effort comes as the White House continues encouraging Republicans to redraw their state maps ahead of the midterm elections in order to help Republicans flip more seats. 

In a striking moment just ahead of a committee vote on Tuesday, protesters in the hearing room chanted “Berger’s maps are racist maps!” — referring to state Sen. Phil Berger, who introduced the redistricting proposal, and “Fascists!” as they were led out by law enforcement. 

Democrats argue the new map could impact Black voters and could cause U.S. Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat and one of three Black members of the state’s congressional delegation, to lose his seat in the midterms. 

At a rally outside the Capitol ahead of Tuesday’s vote, U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, another member of the state’s Democratic delegation, said, “We know they’re lying when they say, ‘Well, it’s not racial.’ It is racial. They’re going to take out, trying to take out, the only Black male that we have.”

Republicans argue the map was not drawn with racial considerations and is meant to combat Democratic-aligned congressional map-drawing in other states, such as California.

Berger, who announced the mid-decade redistricting push last week, wrote on X on Tuesday morning ahead of the vote, “Across the country, Democrat-run states have spent decades ensuring that Republicans would be drawn out of Congress. North Carolina Republicans will not sit quietly and watch Democrats continue to ignore the will of the people in an attempt to force their liberal agenda on our citizens.”

North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Josh Stein, has slammed the redistricting effort but has no power to veto any district maps, according to an analysis of state law by the Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics

Currently, North Carolina’s congressional delegation is made up of 10 Republicans and four Democrats.

Trump himself has been openly supportive of the effort. In a post on his social media platform on Friday, he called on legislators to adopt the map: “this new Map would give the fantastic people of North Carolina the opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 Midterm Elections, which would be A HUGE VICTORY for our America First Agenda, not just in North Carolina, but across our Nation.”

Davis, the Democratic member whose seat is put at risk by the new map, told ABC News in a statement on Tuesday that he has never heard any requests from constituents for a new map.

“In the 2024 election with record voter turnout, NC’s First Congressional District elected both President Trump and me,” Davis wrote. “Since the start of this new term, my office has received 46,616 messages from constituents of different political parties, including those unaffiliated, expressing a range of opinions, views, and requests. 

“Not a single one of them included a request for a new congressional map redrawing eastern North Carolina. Clearly, this new congressional map is beyond the pale.”

One of the speakers who joined a rally with North Carolina Democrats on Tuesday, Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier, has her own experience with fighting mid-decade redistricting — as one of the Texas House Democrats who left the state to deny a quorum when Republican legislators tried to push through a new congressional map. Collier also was temporarily confined to the Texas House after she refused a law enforcement escort for having previously broken quorum.

She told ABC station WTVD’s Michael Perchick that she has been telling legislators to continue to fight, and to “Never quit. Keep fighting. That means take it to the streets and into the courts. We’ve got to fight this in the court system.”

ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.

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