“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump announced on Truth Social at 4:21 EST. “This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow.”
“Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York,” she explained in a post on X. “Nicolas Maduro has been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States. They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
Bondi then thanked President Trump for “having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American People,” as well as a “huge thank you to our brave military who conducted the incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers.”
While Venezuelans hit the streets in wild celebration, popping bottles and celebrating freedom, Democrats in Washington, D.C., clutched their pearls and went into full meltdown mode, accusing Trump of getting us into a war and violating the Constitution.
“Trump’s unilateral operation last night was an illegal act of war without Congress’s authorization,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) claimed.
“Maduro is a brutal dictator who has oppressed the Venezuelan people, but our constitution does not yield for bad people. If Congress is to survive as an institution, the Republican majority must join us exercising our power to hold this administration accountable for this flagrant violation of the constitution.”
He wasn’t the only Democrat to claim that Trump acted illegally.
“Without authorization from Congress, and with the vast majority of Americans opposed to military action, Trump just launched an unjustified, illegal strike on Venezuela,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) claimed.
“He says we don’t have enough money for healthcare for Americans—but somehow we have unlimited funds for war??”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also chimed in.
“President Trump’s unilateral military action to attack another country and seize Maduro — no matter how terrible a dictator he is — is unconstitutional and threatens to drag the U.S. into further conflicts in the region,” she argued.
“The American people voted for lower costs, not for Trump’s dangerous military adventurism overseas that won’t make the American people safer.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) similarly accused Trump of getting the United States into an “illegal” war.
“This war is illegal, it’s embarrassing that we went from the world cop to the world bully in less than one year,” he said.
But these claims don’t hold water.
“Trump does not need congressional approval for this type of operation,”explains constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley. “Presidents, including Democratic presidents, have launched lethal attacks regularly against individuals. President Barack Obama killed an American citizen under this ‘kill list’ policy. If Obama can vaporize an American citizen without even a criminal charge, Trump can capture a foreign citizen with a pending criminal indictment without prior congressional approval.”
Turley likened the operation to the 1989 capture and prosecution of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. U.S. courts upheld the “abduction” model and rejected head‑of‑state immunity and extradition‑treaty objections.
“Legally, Trump has the upper hand in this case. Maduro will replay the arguments from the Noriega case. However, he presents an even weaker case on the merits under the controlling precedent than did Noriega,” Turley explained.
A series of executive orders followed by actions against the status quo in both K–12 and higher education that would save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars prompted pushback from Democratic governors and the national teachers’ union. Several lawsuits will continue into 2026.
“These are reforms that conservatives have championed for decades,” the Department of Education proclaimed in a year-end post on its website. “And in one year, we’ve made them a reality.”
Here are five things to know about Trump’s education policy in 2025.
Ending the Department of Education
Trump appointed Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who supports his goal of returning policy decisions to states and shifting funding mechanisms to other federal agencies, thereby potentially putting herself out of a job. Both have acknowledged that officially eliminating the Education Department requires congressional approval.
McMahon immediately cut her staff in half and closed satellite offices outside Washington. So far, she’s announced plans to move all functions except special education, student loans/financial aid, the office of civil rights, and data and information services to other departments, though she previously suggested those programs could be absorbed by Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department, Justice Department, and Census Bureau, respectively.
Eliminating the federal bureaucracy would get more money directly into classrooms, McMahon announced last month, adding that these interagency agreements are allowed under the Economy Act, which authorizes agencies to conduct transactions with one another in the absence of cheaper private alternatives.
In the months ahead, as state block grant programs are established to replace the current federal education grant systems, McMahon will continue her nationwide school visits, gather input from education leaders, and establish best practices for districts and states aimed at improving K–12 academic achievement.
The National Education Association teachers’ union has called the moves “illegal, cruel, and shameful.”
Civil Rights
Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices such as race-based hiring, admissions and curriculum; mandatory diversity training; and affinity groups by race or ethnicity. This was followed by orders condemning campus anti-Semitism and protecting women’s sports programs under Title IX.
The Education and Justice departments immediately began enforcing these policies in schools, launching investigations and withholding billions in federal funding to colleges and universities with recent histories of civil rights violations and disruptive or violent anti-Semitic protests.
Columbia will pay a $200 million fine plus $21 million to Jewish employees harassed by co-workers and students. Cornell University, also cited for both discriminatory student admissions practices and anti-Semitism, agreed to pay a $30 million penalty to the federal government and invest $30 million in research that directly benefits U.S. farmers.
The University of Pennsylvania, which was sanctioned for allowing a male to compete on the women’s swim team, was required to strip that athlete, Lia Thomas, of all awards, including his 2022 NCAA national championship, and send a letter of apology to all female swimmers who competed against him.
Trump attempted to freeze more than $500 million in research grants to the University of California-Los Angeles, but the school obtained a federal court order that said the funding must be released.
A legal battle with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard, is also ongoing. Trump’s attempt to withhold billions of dollars in research grants to the institution was met with a lawsuit, though the two sides have discussed a settlement. In September, Trump said a settlement could include $500 million for trade school programs that provide instruction on artificial intelligence, engines, and other vocations.
But most U.S. colleges and universities have not challenged federal policies and have removed online references to DEI programs.
“Faculties had collectively owned universities, and problems had been allowed to fester for years,” Jay Greene, formerly of the Heritage Foundation and now a member of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, previously told The Epoch Times. “Senior leadership at these schools gains back control. They are relieved, and they get to blame Trump. It’s a total win.”
Trump has taken far fewer civil rights actions against K–12 institutions, though he has threatened to withhold federal funding from states that allow males to compete in girls’ sports or permit schools to withhold information about their child’s sexuality or chosen gender from parents.
Higher Education Compact
After the 2025–2026 academic year began, the Trump administration presented its proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education to nine universities.
They were offered preferred consideration for federal grants and flexibility in research costs if they agreed to eliminate preferential treatment by race, require SAT scores in student applications, limit undergraduate admission of foreign students to 15 percent, freeze tuition for five years, maintain a policy of institutional neutrality on political and social issues, and accept all transfer credits from military members and veterans.
Seven schools declined the offer, announcing that such a deal would compromise their institutional independence. The remaining two schools, Vanderbilt and the University of Texas, haven’t announced a decision yet.
The Education Department hasn’t indicated whether the compact has been, or will be, offered to additional colleges and universities.
Universal School Choice
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress this year, includes a federal scholarship tax program supporting private school vouchers.
The program, which takes effect in 2027, allows a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donors to qualified scholarship-granting organizations or to cover associated costs like transportation and supplies. There are income eligibility guidelines in place to prioritize needy families.
The program is optional for states, and governors will consider it in the months ahead.
Trump and McMahon have promoted school choice, saying the one-size-fits-all approach of assigned schools by ZIP code is largely to blame for declining test scores across the nation.
In April, the president spoke to Republican Texas state legislators before they passed a bill that provides $1 billion for private school vouchers in the first year of the program, plus $2,000 per student for homeschooling expenses and up to $30,000 for special education students who chose a different school.
In June, McMahon boosted federal funding to publicly funded charter schools by $60 million for an annual total of $500 million. Her Republican supporters in Congress plan to introduce a federal tax credit for charitable donations to start up new charter schools.
Student Loans and Higher Education Transparency
Trump overhauled the student loan policies of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, who attempted to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in delinquent debt to more than 5 million student borrowers. He also capped student loan programs that under Biden allowed students and parents to borrow unlimited amounts.
“The Trump administration is righting this wrong and bringing an end to this deceptive scheme. The law is clear: If you take out a loan, you must pay it back,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a Dec. 9 statement.
The Education Department will soon begin garnishing wages of borrowers who default on loans. The agency has also denied almost 380,000 requests for lower monthly payments. The American Federation of Teachers has sued the administration to maintain Biden-era payback arrangements.
In applying for federal student aid, meanwhile, borrowers are now informed of their post-graduation earning potential based on data from colleges and universities.
In 2026, Trump is expected to push the bipartisan College Transparency Act, which would task the National Center for Education Statistics with analyzing higher education costs and financial aid, as well as evaluating student enrollment patterns, completion rates, and post-collegiate outcomes.
A divided federal appeals court voted to revive a lawsuit by school district employees who say they were forced to self-censor and make statements they disagreed with to finish so-called anti-racism training.
On Dec. 30, 2025, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit voted 6–5 in Henderson v. Springfield R-12 School District to reactivate the employees’ lawsuit, holding that the chilling effect from the mandatory 2020 training gave them standing to sue for First Amendment violations.
Standing refers to the right of someone to sue in court. The parties must show a strong enough connection to the claim to justify their participation in a lawsuit.
The district court had previously found that because the employees of the Springfield, Missouri, school district were not punished for disagreeing with the training’s content and were allowed to express their own views, they did not suffer an injury and therefore did not have standing. That court found the plaintiffs’ claims were weak and awarded attorney’s fees to the school district. A panel of the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal for lack of standing but found the plaintiffs’ claims were not frivolous, so it overturned the award of attorney’s fees.
The full Eighth Circuit reversed the dismissal and sent the case back to the federal district court for reconsideration.
Plaintiffs Brooke Henderson and Jennifer Lumley sued in 2021, alleging that while attending a compulsory district-wide equity training program for staff, the school district engaged in viewpoint-based discrimination, caused them to self-censor, and forced them to accept beliefs they rejected.
For example, a PowerPoint presentation told the plaintiffs they had to do things such as “Lean into your discomfort,” “Acknowledge YOUR privileges,” and “Hold YOURSELF accountable,” Circuit Judge Ralph Erickson wrote in the majority opinion.
The plaintiffs argued that the training was “essentially an indoctrination focused on the school district’s views and its interpretation of white supremacy.” The district expected staff members to adhere to its definition of white supremacy, which it defined as “the all-encompassing centrality and assumed superiority of people defined and perceived as white.” An “oppression matrix” slide shown during a presentation listed “racism, sexism, transgender oppression, heterosexism, classism, ableism, religious oppression, and ageism/adultism,” as “types of oppression,” the opinion said.
The district taught staff that American culture “positions white people and all that is associated with them (whiteness) as ideal.”
The district said during trainings that “silence from white people is a form of ‘white supremacy’” and indicated that it would not tolerate the plaintiffs rejecting the materials being taught, according to the opinion.
“It is of little consequence that ultimately no one was forced to leave the training, and the school district did not reduce anyone’s pay because a plaintiff is not required to first suffer a consequence before she may bring a claim,” the opinion said.
“The harm is in the suppression of the speech itself,” Erickson wrote.
Chief Circuit Judge Steven Colloton wrote in his dissenting opinion that the plaintiffs failed to establish they suffered an injury and therefore lacked standing to sue.
“A public employee is not injured in a constitutional sense by enduring a two-hour training program with which the employee disagrees,” he said.
The plaintiffs experienced “no tangible harm,” took home full pay, and received professional development credit for their attendance, Colloton wrote, adding that Lumley earned a promotion soon after the training.
The Southeastern Legal Foundation, a nonprofit that represents the plaintiffs, said the decision by the federal appeals court was “a huge victory for the First Amendment.”
“We are hopeful it gives others the courage to fight back against discriminatory equity trainings,” the foundation said.
The Epoch Times reached out to the school district for comment. No reply was received by publication time.
Socialist Mamdani Becomes First NYC Mayor Sworn In With Quran
Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was sworn in at midnight as New York City's 112th mayor, placing his left hand on the Quran as New York State Attorney General Letitia James administered the oath of office in a private ceremony at a former City Hall subway station that has been closed since the 1940s. It has become customary for NYC mayors to take the oath at midnight, ahead of a larger swearing-in celebration the next day.
Zohran Mamdani sworn in as NYC mayor on the Quran hours ago.
First Muslim in the role, leading the center of US finance.
In a second swearing-in Thursday afternoon, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VA) administered the oath of office to Mamdani. According to The New York Times, Zohran used three Qurans throughout the day, including his grandfather's and one dating to the late 18th or early 19th century, for last night's ceremony.
MOMENTS AGO: Sen. Bernie Sanders swears in Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor of New York City. pic.twitter.com/rf8saXq3pC
Mamdani's ascent has been nothing short of groundbreaking for progressives. His socialist platform for tackling affordability, from free bus rides to government-run supermarkets, amounts to parasitic redistribution policies intended to paper over the damage Democrats caused to the nation over decades, including out-of-control "green" spending which helped fuel the worst inflation shock in a generation and mass migration pushed rents higher.
Mamdani has blasted President Trump as a "fascist," while the president has labeled him a Marxist. However, during a November meeting, the two agreed to work together to make NYC more affordable.
Spotted earlier at Zohran's inauguration at City Hall...
🚨Domestic terrorist Mahmoud Khalil spotted at the inauguration of Zohran Mamdani at City Hall.
Shameful that he is still even on American soil, the world is laughing at us. pic.twitter.com/X2dQXk8u5k
Speaking to GB News, Chairman of Republicans Overseas UK Greg Swenson noted, "And I think that's the least of the problems with Comrade Mamdani. You know, this is a lot. He has a lot of similarities to Sadiq Khan in London, and I think we can sort of see this movie before. You know, same with Chicago where we've had Brandon Johnson, who's a well-known Christian—allegedly very much a progressive left socialist. And so I think the similarities are vast between Mamdani and Sadiq Khan."
Chairman of Republicans Overseas UK Greg Swenson reacts after Zohran Mamdani becomes the first New York mayor to be sworn in using a Koran.
Zohran Mamdani is set to be the first Mayor of New York City to be sworn in on the Quran.
Swearing on the Quran implies a commitment to Islamic law (Sharia) over U.S. laws. This erodes the separation of church and state, ignoring that the oath is to uphold the Constitution… pic.twitter.com/C1IKjn5lVN
Ethics Questions Swirl Around Somalia's UN Ambassador Tied To Ohio Healthcare Company
Somalia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Abukar Dahir Osman, is facing growing scrutiny over his connections to the Ohio healthcare company Progressive Health Care Services Inc. This comes as federal investigations into suspected Somali-linked welfare fraud, stretching from Minnesota to Washington, Ohio, and Maine, continue to intensify, with allegations that some entities (daycares, healthcare, or transportation service companies) were merely front operations to extract taxpayer funds.
The most entertainingly ironic outcome is the most likely
The story surrounding Osman is certainly a strange one, with the news and analysis outlet Horn Diplomat publishing a report titled "Ethics Questions Surround Somalia's UN Envoy, as U.S. Healthcare Fraud Scandals Heighten Scrutiny."
Here's the report:
Public corporate filings and professional records have raised questions about transparency and potential conflicts of interest involving Abukar Dahir Osman, Somalia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
The scrutiny comes as Somalia prepares to assume the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council on January 1, 2026, a role that places the country at the center of global diplomatic decision-making on peace, security and sanctions.
Ohio state corporate records show that Osman was listed as the statutory agent for Progressive Health Care Services Inc, a Cincinnati-based home healthcare company, while simultaneously serving as Somalia's top diplomat at the United Nations.
Filings with the Ohio Secretary of State, electronically submitted on October 22, 2018, identify Osman as the company's agent. He had been appointed Somalia's UN ambassador in June 2017, creating an overlap of nearly two years between his diplomatic role and his involvement with a U.S. healthcare provider operating within Medicaid-funded systems supported by U.S. taxpayers.
Professional records, including publicly available LinkedIn information, indicate Osman served as Managing Director of Progressive Health Care Services Inc. from 2014 until May 2019, alongside his UN posting in New York.
The overlap has drawn attention because the U.S. home healthcare sector has repeatedly been identified by federal authorities as one of the areas most vulnerable to fraud, abuse and improper billing.
That vulnerability was highlighted by a sweeping fraud scandal in Minnesota, one of the largest public-assistance fraud cases in U.S. history. In an investigation reported by The New York Times, federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program designed to keep children fed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to that reporting, law-enforcement officials said fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota's Somali diaspora, where individuals established companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars in social services that were never provided. Federal prosecutors have said 59 people have been convicted so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds was stolen across three major investigations—an amount exceeding Minnesota's annual corrections budget.
Prosecutors and state officials have emphasized that such crimes reflect the actions of specific individuals and organizations, not communities as a whole.
Against that broader backdrop, regulatory and compliance records show that Progressive Health Care Services Inc.was subject to billing and compliance scrutiny in 2019. No publicly available court records show that Osman has been charged or convicted of any crime, and no judgment has established criminal liability against him.
Transparency advocates say the timing of the revelations has intensified attention.
"When a country is about to assume the presidency of the Security Council, unresolved questions about financial disclosures and overlapping roles inevitably draw closer scrutiny," said a governance expert familiar with UN ethics standards.
Somalia's assumption of the council presidency will place its UN mission in charge of setting agendas, chairing meetings and representing the Security Council before the wider UN membership.
There was no immediate response from Osman or Somalia's UN mission to requests for comment.
The United Nations maintains an internal ethics framework governing conflicts of interest among senior officials, though oversight of permanent representatives largely depends on disclosures made by member states themselves.
Observers say the case underscores a broader debate over whether diplomatic status should shield officials from scrutiny when regulated industries and taxpayer-funded programs are involved.
As one X user pointed out, "2026 is off to a great start: Somalia (most corrupt nation on Earth) chairs UN Security Council, WHO run by Ethiopia's Tedros, WTO by Nigeria's Okonjo-Iweala. Global governance brought to you by the bottom of the Corruption Index. Time to #DefundTheUN?"
