Donald Trump shuts down Venezuelan airspace to halt surge in drug trafficking
US President Donald Trump has made a shock order to close a nation’s airspace “in its entirety” as tensions explode.
US President Trump is shutting down Venezuelan airspace “in its entirety” amid a surge in drug trafficking from the South American nation, he announced..
“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Mr Trump wrote in a morning Truth Social post.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The measure comes just two days after the President said he would begin bombing land-based drug trafficking targets.
“The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon,” Mr Trump told reporters.
The US has been conducting a sea-focused campaign since September, bombing alleged drug boats originating in Venezuela and other Latin American nations.
Mr Trump claims “poison” trafficking via sea has dropped by 85 per cent since the bombings started, a practice Democrats, scholars and human rights experts have described as extrajudicial executions.
The administration has since carried out at least 21 fatal strikes on the boats.
In one such bombing, the US allegedly killed survivors after bombing a drug boat near Trinidad in a so-called “double tap” strike under orders from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to “kill everybody” — which the former Fox News contributor called “fake news.”
Mr Trump spoke with Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro last week and discussed a possible meeting between them — which would mark the first-ever encounter between the authoritarian Venezuelan leader and a US president, the New York Times reported.
The President has previously slammed Maduro as an illegitimate leader and the leader of the drug trafficking organisation known as Cartel de los Soles.
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TRUMP FINDS LOOPHOLE TO ‘TERMINATE’ BIDEN DOCUMENTS
Donald Trump said all documents signed by autopen under Joe Biden were “terminated,” in a legally uncertain move as the US president escalates attacks on his predecessor.
“Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92 per cent of them, is hereby terminated, andof no further force or effect,” Trump said on social media.
“I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally.
The Autopen is a machine used to automatically reproduce a person’s signature, most commonly the President’s.
Many previous US presidents have used the autopen, which has been around since the 1940s – 1950s.
Nearly every modern president has relied on it for routine correspondence.
TRUMP LASHES OUT AT PRO-IMMIGRATION LEADERS
President Trump unleashed a furious tirade on Truth Social shortly after thanksgiving, ripping into “seriously retarded” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and suggesting politician Ilhan Omar “probably came into the USA illegally”.
Mr Trump, 79, hurled the insult as he accused Mr Walz, who had been Kamala Harris’ running mate in her failed presidential election bid, of allowing an influx of hundreds of thousands of Somalian migrants to take over his “once great state.”
“Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone,” he wrote in the blistering late-night Truth Social post.
“The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how ‘badly’ she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation …”
Mr Trump said the US had become “divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish countries throughout the World, for being ‘Politically Correct,’ and just plain STUPID, when it comes to Immigration.”
He claimed the tax dollars of American citizens had been funding 53 million foreigners “from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” and who were on welfare.
“A migrant earning $30,000 with a green card will get roughly $50,000 in yearly benefits for their family. The real migrant population is much higher. This refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America,” Mr Trump opined.
The rant came as Mr Trump vowed to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghan immigrant.
Mr Walz responded to President Trump’s vicious attack by questioning the president’s own mental state.
“Release the MRI results,” Mr Walz wrote on X, referring to the results of Mr Trump’s latest medical check-up, which he touted at the time as “perfect.”
BARRON TRUMP TOWERS OVER DAD DONALD AT THANKSGIVING
Barron Trump is going viral after he was seen towering over his father, President Donald Trump, as they arrived at Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving dinner.
The footage shows the 19-year-old New York University student entering the opulent dining room with the President and his mother, first lady Melania Trump, as guests stand and clap, and music plays.
The 2.06-metres tall teenager was dressed to the nines in a suit and tie – and towered over his parents as they shuffled to their table, with the President flashing a thumbs up.
“Incredible sight as Donald Trump, First Lady Melania, and BARRON arrive for thanksgiving dinner at Mar-a-Lago,” tweeted @FLVoiceNews reporter Eric Daugherty.
“The room is ELECTRIC! Barron is TALL! “
“Very thankful 47 is representing and leading us right now!” he added.
Nineteen-year-old Barron, already a head taller than Trump and Melania, walked with the steady gait of an adult in a dark suit, accompanied by his parents into the glittering grand ballroom of Mar-a-Lago. The entire room erupted in applause. The camera panned across rows of… pic.twitter.com/ZRYyUsDUHS
— Malisa Ping (@MalisaPing1127) November 28, 2025
On the Friday after thanksgiving, Melania Trump announced that she had created her own production company, Muse Films, ahead of the release by Amazon of a documentary on the first lady.
“PRESENTING: MUSE FILMS My new production company. MELANIA, the film, exclusively in theatres worldwide on January 30th, 2026,” she tweeted.
Amazon paid $40 million to license the film.
It was not immediately clear if Muse Films will be licensing the same biographical movie to other companies.
PRESENTING: MUSE FILMS
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) November 28, 2025
My new production company.
MELANIA, the film, exclusively in theaters worldwide on January 30th, 2026. pic.twitter.com/JgdG1vnOrC
Melania Trump rarely grants interviewers, increasing intrigue into the 55-year-old Slovenian-born former model.
Amazon’s deal for the film was widely seen as an attempt by the internet giant to curry favour with then-incoming President Trump, who had clashed with Big Tech during his four years in political exile, including with the company’s founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post.
TRUMP SAYS US WILL PAUSE MIGRATION FROM ‘THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES’
The Trump administration said it was reviewing permanent residency status of immigrants from 19 countries, including Afghanistan, in its latest response to the shooting of two National Guard soldiers near the White House.
The FBI meanwhile said it had launched an international terrorism investigation as new details emerged about the alleged gunman, a 29-year-old Afghan national who had served with US troops in Afghanistan.
The shooting, which officials described as an “ambush-style” attack, cast a grim shadow over the thanksgiving holiday and triggered a hard-line, anti-immigrant response from President Donald Trump.
In a brief video statement in which he called the shooting an “act of evil,” Mr Trump on Wednesday painted immigrants as an existential threat to national security, while his administration ordered an immediate halt to the processing of immigration applications from Afghanistan.
“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,” the president said.
Joseph Edlow, Trump’s director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said Thursday that he had ordered a “full scale, rigorous re-examination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”
His agency later pointed to a list of 19 countries – including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and Myanmar – facing US travel restrictions under a previous order from Trump in June.
The incident brings together three politically explosive issues: Trump’s controversial use of the military at home, immigration, and the legacy of the US war in Afghanistan.
ANOTHER ICONIC US SITE GETS TRUMP RENO
President Trump unveiled the next phase in his revitalisation of the nation’s capital, aimed, he said, at erasing former President Joe Biden’s “filth and incompetence.”
“This is the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool before Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and I fix it,” Mr Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Wednesday alongside a video set to Andrea Bocelli’s “Time to Say Goodbye.”
“Study it hard because you won’t be seeing this Biden filth and incompetence much longer!” he wrote.
The 29-second video featured footage of workers draining water from the famed national landmark close to the White House and clearing green algae that had collected on the sides.
“Make DC Beautiful Again,” a message read in the video.
Mr Trump did not share specific renovations to the pool, which comes after his controversial renovations East Wing of the White House with a new ballroom.
The National Mall and Memorial Parks shared a photo of crews clearing the pool ahead of the holidays.
“Just like straightening up the house before your holiday company arrives, we’re cleaning the Reflecting Pool,” the National Parks page wrote on Facebook.
“The Super Scrubber will be in action the next few days as our fearless Facilities Management crew gets the fallen leaves, trash, and stinky goose poop out of the pool. It will then take several days for the pool to refill. Please, DO NOT WALK in the Reflecting Pool.”
The 1923 pool underwent an 18-month reconstruction to address issues that caused it to sink and leak. It reopened in August 2012 at a cost of $30.74 million.
Trump has been busy renovating the White House, putting his own touches into the residence since taking office in January.
His second-term construction projects at the White House have blown away the pace of changes during his first term.
So far this year, he has installed massive flagpoles on the north and south lawns, paved over the Rose Garden lawn with white stone, gilt with gold leaf both the Oval Office and Cabinet Room, gutted the Lincoln Bedroom’s bathroom, re-marbled the Palm Room that connects the main White House and West Wing, and installed his photographic “Presidential Walk of Fame” on the West Wing Colonnade.
– with AFP and the New York Post
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