President Trump has been holding high-level diplomatic meetings at Mar-a-Lago during the Christmas holiday week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with the president over the weekend, where progress on a deal to end the Ukraine-Russia war was reported, but how many times have we heard that before? If Trump is successful in ending this conflict, the Nobel Peace Prize should be a lock.
Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the president. The two men have a close relationship, but there have been points of disagreement, specifically on Gaza, where Trump did not accept the Israeli claims of no starvation in the region that’s been devastated by war, thanks to a genocidal terror attack committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Jerusalem was likely not pleased that we signed off on an arms deal with Saudi Arabia that gave them F-35 fighters. And there’s some divergence vis-à-vis the future of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The Trump White House seems open to civilian use, whereas Bibi doesn’t trust the Iranians with any such materials, and for good reason. Right now, Netanyahu’s government is concerned about Tehran revamping its ballistic missile program.
Three things were dropped by Trump today. One, he confirmed what Charles reported earlier today about land strikes in Venezuela in our ongoing operation against narco-terrorists in the region (via The Guardian):
Further to our earlier report on Trump’s comments on Venezuela, we have some more details of his quotes.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said.
“We hit all the boats, and now we hit the area … it’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
It was not immediately clear what target was hit nor which part of the US government acted.
Asked if the CIA had carried out the attack, Trump said: “I don’t want to say that. I know exactly who it was but I don’t want to say who it was.
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Trump said the reconstruction of Gaza will be underway, but in typical fashion, did not reveal a hard timeline to the media.
“Pretty soon” is what we got:
Trump says there are “five major subjects” he and Netanyahu will be discussing, and Gaza will be one of them.
Trump adds in response to another question that he thinks the reconstruction of Gaza would begin “pretty soon”.
Third, he promises to “knock the hell out of Iran” if it gets cute with his nuclear weapons program again (via USA Today):
President Donald Trump threatened to "knock the hell" out of Iran during an appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu where he expressed concerns about the country rebuilding its capabilities after being targeted by Israeli and U.S. forces over the summer.
"Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again," Trump said. "And if they are we're going to have to knock them down."
"We'll knock the hell out of them," Trump added. "But hopefully that's not happening."
Netanyahu arrived at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort Dec. 29 for a meeting in which the leaders were expected to discuss Iran’s ballistic missile program, which has been a concern for Israel. Israel fought a 12-day war against Iran earlier this year that included attacks on ballistic missile sites, and Trump ordered a U.S. military strike on Iranian nuclear sites in June.
There usually is a lull between Christmas and New Year's—not with this White House.
.@POTUS meets with @IsraeliPM @netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago: "This is a very good group. We made a lot of progress already. We had about a five minute meeting, and we've already settled about three of the difficulties." pic.twitter.com/pyDSUgxV1S
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 29, 2025
.@POTUS: "The new President of Syria is working very hard to do a good job, he really is... You're not going to get a choir boy to lead Syria... So, I hope they're going to get along." pic.twitter.com/iAZqPTZ9IG
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 29, 2025
.@POTUS: We're going to be dealing on Gaza, that's why @IsraeliPM @netanyahu is here right now... We have about 5 major subjects that we're discussing. pic.twitter.com/S0iwUYfIWd
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 29, 2025
.@POTUS on his phone call with President Putin: "It was a very productive talk... We have a couple of issues that we're going to get resolved, hopefully." pic.twitter.com/2vopVu8oGt
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 29, 2025
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