The President's Daily Brief
December 31st, 2025: CIA Carries Out Drone Strike Inside Venezuela & Russian Society Is Starting to Fall Apart
31 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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It's Wednesday, the 31st of December, the very last day of 2025, and my, what an eventful year it's been. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. night. Let's get briefed on this last day of the year, shall we? First up, we've got new details on a covert U.S.
strike inside Venezuela as the CIA reportedly launches a drone attack on a port facility, signaling a sharp escalation against the Maduro regime. Later in the show, new reporting from The Washington Post shows how Russia's war is taking an increasing toll at home as social strain and public disillusionment deepen.
Plus, Saudi Arabia bombs a Yemeni port city after a weapons shipment from the UAE, exposing a deepening rift between the two key Gulf allies. And in today's Back of the Brief, a 21-year-old Texas man faces terrorism charges for allegedly supplying bomb-making materials to ISIS. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. The U.S.
has now confirmed that it carried out a strike inside Venezuela, reportedly destroying a port facility or dock facility linked to drug trafficking. This was, according to what details are currently available, and there's not many of them, not a conventional military operation. According to an exclusive report from CNN, the strike was not conducted by the U.S.
military at all, but by the Central Intelligence Agency. Sources familiar with the operation confirmed that the CIA carried out the covert drone attack, targeting a remote port facility along Venezuela's coast. U.S. officials believe the facility was being used by the gang Trandaragua, or TDA, to store drugs and then load them onto boats for export to America's shores.
No one was reportedly present at the site at the time of the strike, according to the sources, and no casualties were reported. The facility itself and the boats associated with it were, again, reportedly destroyed. Now, using the intelligence community, meaning the CIA, instead of military forces, does signal a different kind of operation. The U.S.
military's legal authority in Venezuela has largely been limited to counter-narcotic actions at sea, not strikes on land inside the country. The CIA, however, operates under a different set of authorities than the U.S.
military, authorities the Trump administration has expanded and leaned on as it increasingly casts Venezuela-linked trafficking networks as a national security threat rather than purely a criminal one.
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Chapter 2: What details emerge about the CIA drone strike in Venezuela?
Regional governments have also remained notably silent, despite public resistance to any overt US military action tied to Venezuela. Now, that silence matters, particularly given the broader campaign unfolding under Operation Southern Spear.
That campaign, as we've long discussed here on the PDB, centers on Washington's expanding counter-narcotics buildup across the Caribbean, although the larger context appears to be the removal of Maduro. After all, it's hard to paint this as just a counter-narcotics or narco-terrorism operation after President Trump posted on social media that,
that pressure won't let up until Venezuela returns the oil and land that it stole from the U.S. Over the past several months, the Trump administration has dramatically expanded U.S. naval patrols, aerial surveillance, and maritime interdictions across the region. As you're aware, U.S.
forces have been striking boats along known smuggling routes in international waters and imposing a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. This week, that tally grew after U.S.
forces struck a vessel in the eastern Pacific that the military said was engaged in drug smuggling, killing two people and bringing the total number of boat strikes to at least 30, with at least 107 deaths reported since September by the Trump administration.
The White House has framed those actions as counter-narconics, but senior administration officials have also made clear that the campaign is being viewed through a wider lens. Washington has repeatedly described Venezuela not simply as a failed state, but as a hub for what it calls narco-terrorism, explicitly linking Venezuelan drug trafficking networks to the Maduro regime.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has compared Venezuela's drug traffickers to al-Qaeda, signaling that the tools and logic of counterterrorism are increasingly being applied to criminal networks in the region.
Seen through that framework, the CIA strike appears less about the destruction of a dock or small warehouse and more about testing a model, one that blends covert action and strategic ambiguity. We'll provide updates as more details become available.
All right, coming up next, new reporting shows Russia's war is straining society at home, while Saudi airstrikes in Yemen expose a growing rift with the UAE. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, as we move into the brand new year, many of us are, of course, looking to build more intentional lives, right? To live deliberately and better aligned with your purpose and values.
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Chapter 3: What implications does the CIA's operation in Venezuela have?
And the entire team at the President's Daily Brief wishes you a very safe and happy and successful 2026. It's been an amazing year, and we very much appreciate you being a part of the PDB community. Thank you. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back later today with the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.