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Last night, I joined The Weekend Primetime on MS NOW for a panel discussion with hosts Ayman Mohyeldin, Antonia Hylton, and fellow panelist former Rep. Max Rose on one of the most consequential developments of Trump’s second term: the administration’s escalation in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
The conversation focused not just on foreign policy, but on the politics of this moment—how Democrats and Republicans are responding, how “America First” voters are reacting, and what this could mean heading into the 2026 midterms.
You can watch the key moment in the clip above. Below is a deeper breakdown of the argument I made on air, and why I believe this issue is going to matter far more than the administration expects.
Americans did not vote for this
I started with what I think is the simplest and most important point: the American people did not vote for a war in Venezuela.
During the campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly promised “no new wars” and sold himself as an anti-interventionist president. At his inauguration, he put it plainly:
“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, by the wars we never get into.”
In Venezuela, he is doing the exact opposite.
Polling on this is not ambiguous. A CBS News poll in November found that 70% of Americans oppose U.S. military action in Venezuela, and that most do not view the country as a major national security threat. In mid-December, Quinnipiac found 63% of voters oppose the U.S. taking military action in Venezuela, and only 25% of voters are in support.
That includes Republicans. That includes independents. This is not a fringe position. It is the mainstream American view.
No one is defending Maduro—but that’s not the point
I made a point on air that’s worth repeating: no one is shedding a tear for Nicolás Maduro.
This is not about rehabilitating a dictator or pretending his regime hasn’t inflicted enormous suffering on the Venezuelan people. The question is not whether Maduro is bad. The question is whether launching a regime-change operation—with no congressional authorization, no clear real rationale, and after more than 100 extrajudicial killings tied to U.S. operations—is lawful, moral, or strategically sound.
History should have taught us something here.
Trump once forcefully called the Iraq War a “big mistake” during the 2016 GOP primary. In 2026, he is now running a strikingly similar Bush–Cheney playbook: regime change justified after the fact, sold with vague moral language, and underpinned by strategic and economic interests that the administration barely bothers to hide.
Trump has even said outright that the United States is going to “run” Venezuela. That is not liberation. That is imperial language.
This isn’t about democracy or drugs. It’s about power, oil, and Project 2025
If this were about democracy, Trump wouldn’t be keeping the same regime in place or dismissing Venezuela’s democratic opposition figures as lacking the “respect” to lead. He wouldn’t be sidelining them rhetorically. And he certainly wouldn’t be framing the outcome as U.S. control.
This is about power and oil.
Venezuela holds roughly 17 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, and that fact sits at the center of this decision, as Trump has openly signaled.
Project 2025 makes this explicit. In the State Department chapter—page 184—the document calls for “re-hemisphering,” bringing energy and industry back under U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.
That agenda aligns neatly with the motivations of key figures inside the administration.
As The New York Times reported, this push also reflects overlapping drives by Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller. For Rubio, it’s a long-standing goal of toppling Maduro’s regime in Venezuela as a means to weaken its ally Cuba. For Miller, it’s an opportunity to advance his mass deportation agenda and expand executive power to bypass due process rights.
According to the reporting, Miller has explicitly argued that if the U.S. and Venezuela are deemed to be at war, the administration could have a real justification to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to expedite the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans currently protected under Temporary Protected Status.
That is not incidental. That is part of the plane.
The politics are already turning
On the panel, I argued that Americans are going to see this not as strength, but as distraction.
A president who promised lower costs and no new wars is now pursuing regime change while affordability remains unaddressed. Wall Street firms are openly preparing to profit from Venezuela. Oil companies that Trump courted are positioned to benefit. Meanwhile, the promises made to voters are once again deferred.
This is not happening in a vacuum. China is watching how the U.S. conducts itself with eyes on Taiwan. Every reckless intervention provides a permission structure for other regimes to do the same.
The bottom line is this: Trump lied his way into office on affordability. He lied about Project 2025. And he lied about no new wars.
Americans didn’t vote for this. And as this story develops, I don’t think they’re going to accept it quietly.
As always, thank you for reading and for supporting my work.
