Mike Baker

helicopters moved into Caracas on the 3rd of January to arrest Maduro and his wife on federal drug and weapons charges.

Trump said, quote,

the discombobulator.

I'm not allowed to talk about it.

Confirming its use while making clear there are limits to what he can publicly explain.

Still, he offered enough to possibly understand the effect.

As we've discussed here on the PDB, Venezuelan forces had Russian and Chinese supplied rocket air defenses and radar in place for decades.

in anticipation of an eventual U.S.

attack.

But nothing happened the night of the operation.

Trump said, quote, They never got their rockets off.

We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked.

And quote, It's a shame they never got their rockets off.

That's got to be frustrating.

The way Trump tells it, this wasn't a scramble or a near miss.

Regime defenses simply failed to respond, allowing U.S.

forces to move in and secure their target without losing a single American life.

Trump's comments came after he was asked about reports that the Biden administration previously purchased a pulse energy weapon tied by some researchers to the so-called Havana syndrome.

Now, for those unfamiliar, that term refers to unexplained neurological symptoms reported by American diplomats and intelligence personnel overseas, including dizziness and cognitive problems, which some officials suspect may stem from directed energy exposure.

And while little is publicly known about the system that Trump described, what stands out is how closely his account aligns with what was reported on the ground in Venezuela in the aftermath of the raid.