Trump holds Venezuela Oval Office meeting amid growing questions about his military moves

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 21, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/File via CNN Newsource)

U.S. President Donald Trump and top national security officials huddled at the White House Monday to discuss next steps on Venezuela, as the administration faces renewed called from lawmakers to release more information – particularly about a controversial decision in September to strike a boat in the Caribbean twice, killing remaining survivors in the second blow.

Key members of Trump’s Cabinet and national security team, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been expected to attend, sources familiar with the matter said, as well as White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

The Oval Office meeting, which attendees began arriving for just before 5 p.m., comes as the United States has increased pressure on Venezuela with strikes on drug vessels and a military asset buildup in the Caribbean. The U.S. military has amassed more than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops in the region as part of what the Pentagon has branded “Operation Southern Spear.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Trump was “meeting with his national security team on this subject and on many matters,” adding, “It’s part of his responsibility to ensure that peace is ongoing throughout the world.”

The meeting also comes as Trump and his top military officials are facing growing questions about the legality of the US strikes on alleged drug boats in the region killing more than 80 people. The U.S. is not officially in a war with Venezuela, and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have said they plan to examine reports that the U.S. carried out a follow-up strike on a suspected drug vessel after an initial attack did not kill everyone on board.

“The law is clear,” Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent, told CNN on Monday morning. “If the facts are, as have been alleged, that there was a second strike specifically to kill the survivors in the water — that’s a stone-cold war crime. It’s also murder.”

On Monday, Leavitt identified the official who ordered the follow-up strike – Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command – and said he was acting “well within his authority.”

“On September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Adm. Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” Leavitt said.

Pressed on the legal justification for the strike, Leavitt said it was “conducted in self-defence to protect Americans” and was carried out “in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict.”

Hegseth similarly defended Bradley, writing on X, “Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since.”

Trump told reporters Sunday evening that he personally would not have wanted a second strike and seemed to cast doubt on the idea Hegseth had ordered it.

“No. 1, I don’t know that that happened, and Pete said he did not want them — he didn’t even know what people were talking about,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “So, we’ll look into it, but no, I wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike.”

Leavitt said Hegseth had spoken with lawmakers who expressed concerns, but she did not specify which ones. She generally defended the amount of information the administration has shared with Congress about the escalating campaign.

“There have also been 13 bipartisan briefings to Congress on the Venezuelan strikes. There have been a number of document reviews for members of Congress to review the classified DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion and other related documents,” Leavitt said.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he and Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton are engaging on the issue, and he expects to have a preliminary conversation this week with Bradley.

“We’ve got to get to the bottom this,” he said, also calling on the Trump administration to release an unedited video of the strike to help determine “whether these individuals were in the water, on the boat, still combatants or not.”

King, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said before the White House’s revelation of who gave the order that Congress would seek to interview “people up and down the chain of command.”

“The question is, what order did the secretary of defence give and how was that executed? And we’re going to be talking to people, as I say, all the way up, up to the top of the chain of command and down to the people that actually triggered that attack,” he said.

And the administration has shown no signs of slowing its activity in the region. The president said last week that the U.S. would be stopping Venezuelan drug trafficking by land, in addition to sea, “very soon.”

Over the weekend, the president issued a broad directive on social media, warning airlines, pilots and criminal networks to avoid Venezuelan airspace. He told reporters Sunday, however, not to read into the announcement.

Trump also confirmed he had spoken with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro over the phone, but didn’t address what was discussed. The administration last week formally designated Maduro and allies of his government as members of a foreign terrorist organization, a move officials argue will give the U.S. expanded military options for striking inside Venezuela.

GOP Rep. Maria Salazar, meanwhile, said she felt Trump’s announcement that he planned to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, effectively erasing a major U.S. drug-trafficking conviction, sent a mixed message as the administration escalated its campaign against Maduro.

“I would have never done that,” the Florida Republican told CNN’s Dana Bash.

Leavitt on Monday defended the move, arguing that the former Honduran president’s U.S. drug-trafficking conviction was a result of Biden-era “over-prosecution.”

“President Trump has been quite clear in his defence of the United States homeland, to stop these illegal narcotics from coming to our borders, whether that’s by land or by sea,” Leavitt said. “He’s also made it quite clear that he wants to correct the wrongs of the weaponized Justice Department under the previous administration.”

By Natasha Bertrand, Alayna Treene, CNN