US used ‘The Discombobulator’ in Maduro raid
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said the United States used a secret weapon he called “the Discombobulator” to disable Venezuelan equipment when the United States captured Nicolas Maduro. Trump also renewed his threat to conduct military strikes on land against drug cartels, including in Mexico.
Trump made the comments in an interview on Friday with the New York Post.
The Republican president was commenting on reports that the United States had a pulsed energy weapon and said, “the Discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
He said the weapon made Venezuelan equipment “not work.”
“They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets and they never got one off,” Trump said in the interview. “We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us.”
Trump had previously said when describing the raid on Maduro’s compound that the United States had turned off “almost all of the lights in Caracas,” but he didn’t detail how they accomplished that.
‘Hit the cartels’
The president also indicated the United States will continue its campaign of military strikes and could extend it from South America into North America as the administration tries to target drug cartels.
“We know their routes. We know everything about them. We know their homes. We know everything about them,” Trump said. “We’re going to hit the cartels.”
When asked if the strikes could occur in Central America or Mexico, Trump said: “Could be anywhere.”
36 strikes
The United States on Friday carried out a strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the first such action since Maduro’s capture.
It marks at least 36 known strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since early September that have killed at least 117 people.
Trump said the United States has removed the oil aboard seven oil tankers connected to Venezuela that it has seized, but wouldn’t reveal where the ships are now.
“I’m not allowed to tell you,” Trump said. “But let’s put it this way, they don’t have any oil. We take the oil.”
