Trump, ramping up pressure on Maduro, says it would be ‘smart’ for Venezuelan leader to step down
U.S. President Donald Trump announced the creation of the “Trump-class” battleship during a statement to the media at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on December 22, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump announced the new class of ship will become the centerpiece of his “Golden Fleet” program to rebuild and strengthen the U.S. shipbuilding industry. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
(FLORIDA) — President Donald Trump is continuing to ratchet up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, saying it would be “smart” for him to step down and warning him not to play “tough.”
Trump, taking reporter questions at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Monday evening, was directly asked if his administration’s ultimate goal in Venezuela is to force Maduro from power.
“Well, I think it probably would. I can’t tell him. That’s up to him what he wants to do. I think it would be smart for him to do that. But again, we’re going to find out,” Trump said.
At the same time, Trump issued a warning to Maduro.
“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.
The president added, “We have a massive armada for him. The biggest we’ve ever had and by the far the biggest we’ve ever had in South America.”
The U.S. has built up its military presence in the region in recent weeks, with 15,000 U.S. troops and several warships standing ready in the Caribbean.
Trump last week also 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.
Maduro said Venezuela would continue to trade oil in the face of the “blockade,” and has said regime change “will just not happen, never, never, never.”
Separately, since September, the U.S. military has launched dozens of strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean allegedly carrying drugs. These strikes have killed more than 100 people, according to numbers provided by the administration. The strikes have several raised legal questions from lawmakers of both parties and legal experts, though the administration’s justified the use of lethal force as part of what it calls its “war” on drug cartels.
“We’ll be starting the same program on land,” Trump said on Monday. “The land is much easier.”
While Trump continued to tease that land strikes on Venezuela, he also took it a step further and threatened land strikes on other countries.
“Anywhere drugs are pouring in. Anywhere, not just Venezuela,” Trump said when asked if he was only referring to Venezuela land strikes.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump renewed his pledge to crackdown on immigration following the shooting of two National Guard members in the nation’s capital.
The White House posted a video Wednesday evening in which Trump called the shooting an “act of hatred,” and noted the alleged suspect, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national, was among hundreds flown to the U.S. during and after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 during the Biden administration.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted on X that the suspect entered the U.S. “under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021.” It wasn’t clear whether the flight was part of the evacuation or resettlement process. Officials have confirmed Lakanwal worked for the CIA and the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
Trump railed against immigrants and those fleeing war-torn countries, calling for the reexamination of all Afghan immigrants admitted under Biden.
“This attack underscores the greatest national security threat facing our nation,” he said. “The last administration let in 20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners from all over the world, from places that you don’t even want to know about. No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival.”
“We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country, who does not belong here, or add benefit to our country. If they can’t love our country we don’t want them,” he added.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Wednesday evening that it had paused immigration applications from Afghans.
“Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” the agency said in an X post.
While Trump was quick to blame Biden, Lakanwal applied for asylum in 2024 and was granted asylum in April 2025, under Trump’s second administration.
Groups that have supported Afghan nationals pushed back against the administration’s actions.
Richard Bennett, the U.N. special Rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, said Thursday that “the perpetrator should face accountability but the entire Afghan community must not be punished due to the actions of one individual.”
“That would be terribly unjust and complete nonsense,” he said.
Shawn VanDiver, the president of Afghan Evac, an organization that helps Afghans immigrate, also condemned the suspect but called on leaders to “not demonize the Afghan community for the deranged choice this person made.”
“Afghan immigrants and wartime allies who resettle in the United States undergo some of the most extensive security vetting of any population entering the country,” he said in a statement.
The president on Wednesday night went on to attack Somalis living in Minnesota, which comes in the wake of his decision to once again attempt to terminate temporary protected status (TPS) for Somalis living in the state.
“An example is Minnesota, where hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country and ripping apart that once great state. Billions of dollars are lost and gangs of Somalians come from a country that doesn’t even have a government, no laws, no water, no military, no nothing as their representatives in our country preach to us about our Constitution and how our country is no good,” Trump alleged.
“We’re not going to put up with these kind of assaults on law and order by people who shouldn’t even be in our country,” he added.
In the past, Democrats and immigration advocates have pushed back against the president’s immigration restrictions, including on asylum seekers, contending that he has exaggerated national security concerns and turned away millions of families in need.
“It’s not surprising that the President has chosen to broadly target an entire community. This is what he does to change the subject,” Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said in a social media post this week after Trump announced he was ending TPS protections for Somali nationals.
(NEW YORK) — The knives came out during Wednesday night’s second and final New York City mayoral debate.
While answering questions on policy issues such as housing and education, the candidates onstage — Democratic candidate and state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, Republican candidate and “Guardian Angels” founder Curtis Sliwa, and independent candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — relentlessly attacked each other over what they said were each others’ shortcomings.
Some of the most acrimonious moments came during what were ostensibly meant to be discussions on policy.
Cuomo said that the number of homeless people in New York City had “more than doubled” since he stepped down as governor, criticizing what he claimed was Mamdani’s lack of action on the issue as an assemblyman.
Cuomo, who resigned the governorship in 2021 amid allegations of sexual harassment that he has long denied, used the phrase “since I left,” to refer to the end of his tenure — which Sliwa quickly jumped on.
“Andrew, you didn’t leave. You fled! From being impeached by the Democrats in the state legislature — you fled!” Sliwa cried out.
A question to Mamdani about his position on schools turned into a free-for-all between him and Cuomo.
“I did things — you have never had a job,” Cuomo said to Mamdani at one point. “You’ve never accomplished anything. There’s no reason to believe you have any merit or qualification for 8 and 1/2 million lives … Shame on you. Shame on you.”
Mamdani countered, “Always a pleasure to hear Andrew Cuomo create his own facts at every debate stage. We just had a former governor say in his own words that this city has been getting screwed by the state. Who was leading the state? It was you!”
“Governor Hochul, Governor Hochul,” Cuomo countered, referring to current Gov. Kathy Hochul. “You were the legislator–“
They both continued to talk over each other until a moderator intervened.
Sliwa seized on the fighting to get in a shot.
“I heard the both of them again, fighting like kids in the schoolyard,” Sliwa said. “Zohran, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin, and Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.”
Overall, on the issue of dealing with President Donad Trump, the candidates were asked what combination of “defiance, diplomacy and cooperation” they’d use if the Trump administration attempts to interfere in the running of the city or threatens to cut funding.
Sliwa, who has a frosty relationship with Trump — and has not courted his endorsement — criticized the other two candidates as too confrontational.
“My adversaries have decided to bump chests with President Trump to prove who’s more macho,” Sliwa said. “You can’t beat Trump. He holds most of the cards … So if you’re all of a sudden going to get adversarial, you’re going to lose and who gets hurt? The people of New York City. With Trump, it’s always the art of the deal.”
Cuomo, meanwhile, said the mayor has to both confront and work with the president — and then painted a mayoral victory by Mamdani as an invitation for Trump to wreak havoc.
“He has said he’ll take over New York if Mamdani wins, and he will, because he has no respect for him,” Cuomo said. “He thinks he’s a kid, and he’s going to knock him on his tuchus” — using the Yiddish slang term for someone’s rear end. He added that the mayor both has to combat and work with the president at different points
“We first just heard from the Republican candidate for mayor, and then we heard from Donald Trump’s puppet himself, Andrew Cuomo,” Mamdani retorted. “You could turn on TV any day of the week, and you will hear Donald Trump share that his pick for mayor is Andrew Cuomo, and he wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor, not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him.”
In terms of the running of the city, the debate moderators asked Mamdani about recent reports that he would ask New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to remain in her position if elected, which he said he would.
“Commissioner Tisch broke the status quo, started to deliver accountability, rooting out corruption and reducing crime across the five boroughs. I have said time and again that my litmus test for that position will be excellence, and the alignment will be of that position,” he said.
Cuomo said he would ask Tisch to stay on and said he didn’t believe Mamdani’s pledge.
Sliwa said he, too, also would ask Tisch to stay on the job “for stability” but said he didn’t think she would serve in a Cuomo or Mamdani administration.
As for the support of incumbent Democratic Mayor Eric Adams — both Mamdani and Sliwa said they would not accept an endorsement from Adams, who suspended his reelection campaign late last month.
Cuomo said he would and posted a photo of himself online sitting courtside with Adams at a New York Knicks game after the debate.
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks during a news conference on the government shutdown at the U.S. Capitol on October 09, 2025 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As the government shutdown plows forward with no end in sight, many civilian federal workers are feeling the impact as they receive only a partial paycheck on Friday, the 10th day of the impasse.
For many federal workers, the partial paycheck is the last payment they will receive until the shutdown ends.
“You’ve got millions of American families who will now have to figure out how to make their mortgage, how to cover their rent, pay the car note and keep food on the table — because Democrats, Chuck Schumer, his colleagues in the Senate are here playing games,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a Friday morning press conference.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries fired back in his own Friday morning press conference saying Republicans are “not serious about reopening the government” and that Democrats are open to having meetings to discuss off-ramps. He urged Republicans to work with Democrats to “pay our federal employees and at the same time address the Republican health care crisis.”
On Thursday night, the Senate again failed to pass the clean seven-week funding bill. Following the seventh failed vote, senators left town for the weekend — ensuring the shutdown lasts for at least two weeks with the next chance to vote to fund the government on Oct. 14.
House Republican leaders on Friday canceled votes for all of next week.
The latest failed Senate vote guarantees that some 2 million military service members will miss their paycheck on Wednesday, Oct. 15 and won’t be paid until the government reopens.
The last time service members went without pay was in 2018 when the Coast Guard went without money in a shutdown under President Donald Trump’s administration. Other troops haven’t gone without pay in decades, although private financial institutions are offering zero percent loans.
Johnson said that Trump is “working on ways” to ensure the military troops get paid during the shutdown but did not provide specifics.
“The executive branch, the president is working on ways that he may have as well to ensure that troops are paid,” Johnson said Friday morning. “The Republican party stands for paying the troops; the Democrats are the ones that are demonstrating over and over and over – now eight times – that they don’t want troops to be paid. This could not be any simpler than it is – look at the record.”
Pressed by ABC News on the worsening effects of the government shutdown and the millions of federal employees and soldiers going without pay, Jeffries was firm, saying Democrats will not buckle without health care concessions from Republicans.
“Republicans have the House, the Senate, and the presidency. They decided to shut the government down. Republicans in the House have decided to remain on vacation,” Jeffries said.
The shutdown already appears to be impacting many military families, with some lined up at food pantries around the country.
On Thursday, a military mom called into Johnson’s appearance on CSPAN and begged him to bring the House back to session to pass a standalone bill to provide military troops pay during the shutdown, saying her “kids could die” if her family experiences a lapse in pay on Oct. 15.
The National Military Family Association estimates that one in five military and veteran families are experiencing some level of food insecurity. Also, 25% of military families report having less than $500 in savings, the association found in its most recent report.
The next vote on clean House-passed funding bill in the Senate will be Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. ET — which will be Day 14 of the shutdown.
