President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he ordered a lethal strike on a vessel linked to a designated terrorist organization operating in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility Sept. 19, 2025. (@realDonaldTrump via Truth Social)
Additional strikes could target more drug shipments or drug flights, which often take off from covert airfields near the Colombian border, Ramsey said.
"It's a bad time to be posted in a guerrilla camp on the Colombian border or operating a Tren de Aragua safe house along the Caribbean trafficking route," Ramsey said.
Even so, Ramsey said it would be challenging to strike within Venezuela’s territory. Doing so would require the U.S. to dismantle Venezuela’s air defense system, which would escalate hostilities by openly engaging with Venezuela’s military, he said.
That’s a departure from the current approach, in which the U.S. has intentionally avoided targeting Venezuelan military assets, Ramsey said.
"When two Venezuelan F-16s flew over a US destroyer last month, the fact that those planes weren't blown out of the sky suggests that the US is not interested in a shooting war with Venezuela's military," Ramsey said.
Trump himself has not ruled out conducting strikes within Venezuela though, and signaled such strikes could happen when he told military leaders in Quantico, Virginia, Sept. 30 that his administration would "look very seriously at cartels coming by land."
WAR ON CARTELS? WHITE HOUSE SAYS IT HAS AN IRON-CLAD CASE TO STRIKE NARCO-TERRORIST GROUPS
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks at a press conference in April 2025 in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
"There has been no authorization to use force by Congress in this way," Schiff told reporters Wednesday. "I feel it is plainly unconstitutional. The fact that the administration claims to have a list and has put organizations on a list does not somehow empower the administration to usurp Congress's power of declaring war or refusing to declare war or refusing to authorize the use of force."
However, the measure failed in the Senate by a 51–48 margin Wednesday. Even so, the measure attracted support from Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who voted alongside their Democratic counterparts for the resolution.
Other Republicans have defended the strikes though, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said that Trump’s actions were well within his rights and that the resolution was "unreasonable."
"When he sees an attack like this coming — an attack of drugs or explosives or anything else that's going to kill Americans — he not only has the authority to do something about it, he has the duty to do something about it," Risch said Wednesday before the vote.
Diana Stancy is a politics reporter with Fox News Digital covering the White House.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-refuses-rule-out-striking-venezuela-whats-next-trumps-war-drugs