According to the Miami Herald, President Donald Trump has made the decision to strike military targets inside Venezuela, and the war could begin at any minute. Congress has not given any authority to the White House to wage war against Venezuela.
On Friday, the Herald reported, speaking with sources who explained the strikes would target the leadership of Cartel de los Soles. The White House claims that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is the leader of the cartel, an assertion that is disputed by US intelligence and other reports.
“Maduro is about to find himself trapped and might soon discover that he cannot flee the country even if he decided to,” the source told the outlet. “What’s worse for him, there is now more than one general willing to capture and hand him over, fully aware that one thing is to talk about death, and another to see it coming.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has led the charge inside the White House for regime change in Venezuela, claimed the Miami Herald was duped by fake information. “Your ‘sources’ claiming to have ‘knowledge of the situation’ tricked you into writing a fake story,” he wrote on X.
Your “sources” claiming to have “knowledge of the situation” tricked you into writing a fake story https://t.co/YCIVkZaTiz
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 31, 2025
The report follows the US targeting ten vessels in the Caribbean that the Department of War claims were engaged in trafficking drugs to the US. Dozens have been killed in the strikes, and the Ecodorian government has freed survivors after it determined they were not engaged in wrongdoing.
Trump administration officials and other top Republicans have repeatedly threatened regime change in Caracas. Congress has not declared war or otherwise given the White House any approval to conduct war against drug traffickers or against Venezuela.
The US has engaged in a massive military buildup in the Caribbean and has conducted mock bomb runs with B-52 flying up to Venezuelan territory.
A few Congressmen have said Trump’s war on the drug cartels is illegal. Senator Rand Paul has condemned the strikes on alleged drug boats as extrajudicial killings.
