US President Donald Trump refused to rule out further action against Venezuela, declining to reveal whether the U.S. plans to seize more oil tankers or launch land strikes. Speaking to reporters, Trump said Washington is being “secretive” while claiming record success in shutting down drug trafficking routes by sea and land. He framed the drug crisis as a war killing hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, warning that U.S. targets are drug traffickers wherever they operate — not just in Venezuela.
Trump Administration Highlights: Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Guard Deployment in Portland
Where Things Stand
- National Guard: A federal judge ruled late Sunday that the Trump administration cannot use federalized National Guard soldiers to protect an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Ore., that has been the site of daily protests for almost five months, at least until she makes her final decision in the case. Read more ›
- Venezuela: Addressing the prospect of a war with Venezuela in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” President Trump said, “I doubt it. I don’t think so.” But he refused to rule out land strikes when pressed. Trump added that he believed the days were numbered for the nation’s authoritarian leader. He previously confirmed that he authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela. Read more ›
- Weapon tests: The nuclear weapons tests ordered up by President Trump in a surprise announcement last week would not involve nuclear explosions, focusing instead on “the other parts of a nuclear weapon,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a Fox News interview. Mr. Trump had told reporters the United States halted tests “many years” ago but had to resume them because other, unnamed countries were doing so. Read more ›
- SNAP: A federal court told the Trump administration that it must start funding food stamps this week to help keep low-income Americans fed during the government shutdown, but it was unclear if the White House planned to comply. That leaves the roughly 42 million recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in the dark about when they may see their next round of benefits. Read more ›
Nov. 2, 2025, 11:35 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
Reporting from Portland, Ore.
A judge extends her temporary block on Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Portland.
A federal judge ruled late Sunday that the Trump administration cannot send in National Guard soldiers to Portland, Ore., for another five days, until she makes her final decision in the case. But she strongly suggested that she would keep them out permanently.
Judge Karin Immergut, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, issued a preliminary injunction, which essentially extends her earlier temporary restraining order blocking President Trump from using Guard troops to protect an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the city that has been the site of daily protests since early June.
Judge Immergut said she needed more time to fully consider the “voluminous” evidence and three days of testimony she heard in a trial last week after state and city officials sued to fight the federal government’s deployment plans in Oregon. She said would issue a final ruling on the case by 5 p.m. local time on Friday.
But in explaining the injunction, Judge Immergut, a Trump appointee, said the federal government had not proven its case based on what she had reviewed so far. She also said that the evidence so far indicated that the proposed deployment violated the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which says that powers the Constitution does not give to the federal government belong to the states.
At the trial, Justice Department lawyers argued that the president’s planned use of federalized soldiers was justified for two of three reasons allowed under a statute known as Title 10. The protests in Oregon represented a rebellion or a planned rebellion against the federal government, and the demonstrations have prevented ICE officers from doing their jobs without additional help, government lawyers argued.
The other reason the president is allowed to use Guard troops under federal law would be to defend against a foreign invasion.
But Judge Immergut wrote on Sunday that federal lawyers had not proven either a rebellion was imminent or that ICE could not enforce the law using existing resources.
The mostly peaceful protests in Portland have occurred for nearly five months. They have occasionally turned violent, with demonstrators blocking cars from entering or exiting the ICE facility, and federal officers responding by firing pepper balls and tear gas.
President Trump announced on social media in late September that he planned to federalize and deploy members of the Oregon National Guard to respond to the demonstrations against federal immigration policy.
Oregon and Portland sued to stop the deployment, and Judge Immergut issued a temporary restraining order blocking the use of Oregon soldiers on Oct. 4. Later that day, the Department of Defense sent 200 California National Guard soldiers to Oregon and told members of the Texas National Guard to prepare to work in Oregon. Judge Immergut then issued a second temporary restraining order blocking the use of any National Guard soldiers in Oregon. The second temporary restraining order was scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on Sunday.
Lawyers for Oregon, Portland and California argued that the federal government already had the resources to handle crowd control at the ICE building, and that federal agents had used force indiscriminately. The lawyers used staffing records and nightly reports from the Portland Police Bureau and the federal government to portray the protests as largely under control before the president’s announcement inflamed and expanded the crowds.
And they framed the debate as one that cuts to the core of constitutional principles.
“This is, I think, one of the most significant infringements on state sovereignty in Oregon’s history and now California’s history,” Scott Kennedy, a senior assistant attorney general for Oregon, told the judge in his closing argument.
Justice Department lawyers offered a different account of events in Portland. They argued that federal workers at the ICE building had been too distracted by the protests to meet the administration’s demand: to double the daily immigration arrests made in the region.
Witnesses from the Federal Protective Service and ICE testified that federal officers had often been outnumbered by protesters, who had threatened and doxxed them, and thrown rocks and shot off fireworks at them. They also said that federal officers had received no help from the Portland Police Bureau.
“We’ve seen agitators target the Portland ICE building with violence, intimidation and threats over and over,” Eric Hamilton, a Justice Department lawyer, said in his closing argument on Friday. “This is a rebellion against immigration authority.”
Judge Immergut disagreed with that argument in her preliminary injunction. She noted that the deputy regional director of the Federal Protective Service, the federal law enforcement agency responsible for guarding government buildings, had testified that neither he nor his boss had been consulted about the proposed Guard deployment or had asked for the soldiers.
If the judge’s final ruling upholds her Sunday decision, federal lawyers are expected to appeal the verdict. A similar case involving the president’s deployment of Texas National Guard soldiers to Illinois is before the U.S. Supreme Court.Show more
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Nov. 2, 2025, 11:05 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
Zolan Kanno-YoungsWhite House correspondent
Trump says war with Venezuela is unlikely but suggests Maduro’s time is up.
President Trump said he doubted the United States would go to war with Venezuela in an interview aired on Sunday, even as he warned that the days were numbered for the nation’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.
“I doubt it,” Mr. Trump said of the prospect of war with Venezuela during the interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “I don’t think so. But they’ve been treating us very badly.”
Mr. Trump was pressed on the potential escalation against Venezuela as the U.S. military continues an offensive that has included 15 strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific in the past month. A broad range of legal specialists on the use of lethal force have said that the strikes were illegal extrajudicial killings.
The Trump administration has described the strikes as a counterdrug mission, but U.S. officials privately concede they are part of a larger drive to oust Mr. Maduro. Mr. Trump previously confirmed that he had authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela.
“On Venezuela in particular, are Maduro’s days as president numbered?” asked the CBS journalist Norah O’Donnell.
“I would say yeah,” Mr. Trump responded. “I think so, yeah.”
When asked about the possibility of land strikes on Venezuela, he declined to answer. “I don’t talk to a reporter about whether or not I’m going to strike,” he said.
During the wide-ranging interview, recorded at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, Mr. Trump was also pressed on his deportation campaign, the government shutdown and his recent demand for the U.S. military to resume conducting nuclear tests.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, appeared to clarify that the testing would not involve actual nuclear explosions, but rather that “the other parts of a nuclear weapon” would be tested to ensure they are working properly.
But the president did not make that distinction in the CBS interview.
“Are you saying that after more than 30 years, the United States is going to start detonating nuclear weapons for testing?” Ms. O’Donnell asked Mr. Trump.
“I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes,” Mr. Trump said.
Detonation tests are not common anymore. The only nation that has been regularly doing nuclear tests in the past quarter-century is North Korea, and its last explosive test was in September 2017.
China has rapidly expanded its nuclear stockpile and deployed missiles in new silos, but it has not tested a nuclear weapon since 1996. Russia has not conducted a confirmed test since 1990, although it recently declared that it had tested two exotic delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons.
Mr. Trump claimed without evidence on Friday that those nations were testing nuclear weapons covertly. “Russia’s testing nuclear weapons, and China’s testing them, too,” he said. “You just don’t know about it.”
Days after meeting China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, in South Korea, Mr. Trump said in the CBS interview that he would not allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China. “We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced,” Mr. Trump said.
Jensen Huang, the head of the Silicon Valley chip-making company, said on Friday that he was eager for it to resume selling advanced semiconductors in China. Trump had suggested before his meeting with Mr. Xi last week that the two leaders would discuss Nvidia’s most powerful A.I. semiconductors.
Mr. Trump also discussed his domestic agenda, including his deportation campaign.
Mr. Trump said he did not believe the tactics of U.S. immigration authorities had gone too far, even when he was pressed about videos showing deportation officers and federal agents shoving a young mother, deploying tear gas in Chicago and smashing car windows. “I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges,” Mr. Trump said. “You have to get the people out.”
When asked about his deportation campaign targeting people with noncriminal records, Mr. Trump said, “I need landscapers, and I need farmers more than anybody, OK?”
But he added that his administration’s efforts on immigration must start with a policy. “And the policy has to be, ‘You came into the country illegally. You’re going to go out,’” he said.
Mr. Trump did not provide clarity on his administration’s strategy for helping Republicans and Democrats in Congress reach a deal to end the government shutdown. He said he would not be “extorted by the Democrats,” who have said they will not provide Republicans with the votes to reopen the government until they include additional money for health care programs.
Mr. Trump also repeated his call for Republicans to end the Senate filibuster, something Senate G.O.P. leaders have rejected. Many Republicans worry that any further weakening of the Senate rule that requires most legislation to win 60 votes would backfire if Democrats regained control.
“Republicans have to get tougher,” Mr. Trump said during his interview.
Mr. Trump was also asked to clarify whether he would try to run for a third term, which is barred by the Constitution. The president said he doesn’t think about such a move, even though he has publicly mused about the prospect. He said the Republican Party had an “unbelievable bench” of presidential contenders, noting he liked both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Mr. Trump also offered praise for Bari Weiss, the newly appointed editor in chief of CBS News, calling her “a great new leader,” though he added, “I don’t know her.”
CBS’s owner, Paramount, said in July that it had agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit against “60 Minutes.” The Trump administration then approved Paramount’s sale to Skydance. Skydance later appointed Ms. Weiss, who also runs The Free Press, a website she founded that is often critical of liberals and the mainstream media.
Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting.Show more
Nov. 2, 2025, 8:59 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
Zolan Kanno-YoungsWhite House correspondent
The president said he would not allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China. “We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced,” Trump said, according to a transcript of his interview with “60 Minutes” released by CBS. Jensen Huang, the head of the company, said on Friday that he was eager for the Silicon Valley chip-making company to resume selling advanced semiconductors in China. Trump had suggested before his meeting with China’s president in South Korea last week that the two leaders would discuss Nvidia’s most powerful A.I. semiconductors.
Nov. 2, 2025, 8:27 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
President Trump offered some praise for Bari Weiss, the newly appointed editor in chief of CBS News, calling her “a great new leader,” though he added, “I don’t know her.” CBS’s owner, Paramount, paid to settle Trump’s lawsuit against “60 Minutes.” The Trump administration then approved Paramount’s sale to Skydance, which later appointed Weiss.
“One of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership,” Trump said. “I think it’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.”
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Nov. 2, 2025, 8:13 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
Zolan Kanno-YoungsWhite House correspondent
Asked during his “60 Minutes” interview to clarify whether he would try to run for a third term, which is barred by the constitution, Trump said he didn’t think about such a move. He has, however, mused about the prospect repeatedly.
Trump then said the Republican Party had an “unbelievable bench” of presidential contenders. “I do love JD Vance. I like Marco Rubio,” he said.
Nov. 2, 2025, 8:08 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
Zolan Kanno-YoungsWhite House correspondent
Addressing the prospect of a war with Venezuela in his interview with “60 Minutes,” President Trump said, “I doubt it. I don’t think so,” but he refused to rule out land strikes when pressed.
The U.S. military has conducted 15 strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific in the past month, targeting vessels suspected of smuggling drugs. A broad range of legal specialists on the use of lethal force have said that the strikes were illegal extrajudicial killings because the military was not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence.
Trump added that he believed President Nicolás Maduro’s days were numbered. He previously confirmed that he authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela.
Nov. 2, 2025, 8:03 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
Zolan Kanno-YoungsWhite House correspondent
Trump told “60 Minutes” that he had discussed denuclearization with both President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China. He defended his decision to order the testing of nuclear weapons earlier this week. “I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test,” Trump said, claiming that China and Russia were both testing their nuclear weapons.
China has rapidly expanded its nuclear stockpile and has deployed missiles in new silos. But it has not tested a nuclear weapon since 1996. Russia has not conducted a confirmed test since 1990, although it did recently declare that it had tested two exotic delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons. Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, earlier Sunday said the administration’s testing would not involve nuclear explosions and would instead focus on “the other parts of a nuclear weapon” to ensure they were working properly.
Nov. 2, 2025, 7:52 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
Zolan Kanno-YoungsWhite House correspondent
Trump told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he did not instruct the Department of Justice to prosecute Letitia James, the New York State Attorney General. But in a Truth Social post in September, Trump implored his Justice Department to take legal action against James, who he called “guilty as hell.”
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Nov. 2, 2025, 7:51 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2025
Zolan Kanno-YoungsWhite House correspondent
When asked about his deportation campaign targeting people with non-criminal records, President Trump said, “I need landscapers, and I need farmers more than anybody, OK?”
But, he added in his interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” the United States must start off with a policy. “And the policy has to be, ‘You came into the country illegally. You’re going to go out,’” he said.