Scarcely every week in the past, U.S. warplanes and drones have been streaking throughout the Caracas evening sky to ship a swift finish to the reign of the Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. The extraordinary show of kinetic violence delivered a surprising reminder concerning the attain of the world’s strongest navy—and symbolized the beginning of a brand new chapter for the person who instructions it.
Donald Trump has been emboldened. The president and his advisers imagine that the strike each reignited his political momentum and underscored the shortage of concrete limits on his capacity to wield energy at residence and overseas. He blew previous the necessity for congressional approval—and even notification—and has reveled in brandishing armed forces to intimidate international foes and pals alike. He seized upon a lethal confrontation on a chilly Minnesota avenue to speed up his push to place masked, armed federal officers in Democrat-run cities that didn’t vote for him. And he introduced his marketing campaign of retribution towards perceived political enemies to a brand new goal, one that would undermine religion within the pillars of the nation’s economic system.
Even for Trump, it’s been fairly the week. However that is greater than only a sequence of dizzying information cycles. The White Home, after months of wrestle, believes that it has discovered its footing once more. Trump, although by no means restrained, is now pure id, appearing on impulse and goaded on by advisers who see a possibility to additional increase govt energy.
His ballot numbers are nonetheless low, and the aura of invincibility that he held for the primary half of final 12 months is gone. The MAGA base has been fractured, and a few Republicans have objected to his plans, whereas many extra quietly fear that the president is ignoring the financial points that can doubtless determine this 12 months’s midterm elections. However Trump merely doesn’t care.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s longtime adviser, put it to me this fashion: “It’s a full flex.”
The first days of 2026 have been breathtaking of their share of Wait, he did what? headlines, cable chyrons, and information alerts. The Caracas strike, although rumored for weeks, occurred so shortly that many People who’d gone to mattress unaware {that a} seize operation was underneath approach woke as much as a picture of Maduro carrying a Nike tracksuit and handcuffs. Trump then introduced that the USA would “run” Venezuela—wait, what?—and in addition take a lot of its oil. The navy’s triumph then impressed the president and his advisers to resume a name to grab Greenland, completely alarming European leaders who’ve watched in horror as Trump’s wishes for a strategically positioned however largely uninhabited sheet of ice have escalated from social-media trolling to an existential menace towards the NATO alliance. The place else might Trump wield American energy? Maybe in Iran, which has been engulfed by mass protests, main the president to threaten motion towards an oppressive regime that has bedeviled the USA for practically half a century.
Again residence, an ICE agent in Minneapolis fired three bullets into the automotive of a 37-year-old mom who had been protesting deportation operations. Trump, as an alternative of calling for nationwide unity at a time of tragedy, blamed the sufferer, and his administration despatched extra armed officers to the town. And his retribution marketing campaign—faltering so far, to make certain—focused the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who’s now the topic of a Justice Division investigation. The usually soft-spoken Jerome Powell referred to as it payback for a disagreement on rates of interest and warned that Trump had jeopardized the Fed’s independence, perceived by many because the bedrock of American monetary stability.
Oh, and for good measure, the White Home launched an internet site on January 6 that completely twisted the information of the 2021 rebel, as Trump, as soon as extra, steered that U.S. elections, together with the upcoming midterms, could possibly be rigged. The following day, Trump sat for a two-hour interview with a newspaper he usually derides to precise remorse for not seizing voting machines in 2020 and to bemoan the affect of civil-rights laws on white individuals.
“It’s insane,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia informed me, as he recapped the occasions of the previous week, together with the threats towards Powell and Greenland. “That is past ludicrous. What’s he even speaking about? At what level is sufficient sufficient?”
Many second-term presidents, coming to grips with their destiny as a lame duck, flip to an space through which they’ve essentially the most unilateral management: international coverage. But it’s been shocking to see how firmly Trump has embraced a brand new plan of worldwide motion. He campaigned in 2016 towards so-called without end wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and pledged to keep away from such navy entanglements. However then he fell in love with the “one and completed” technique of a fast burst of navy motion—such because the bombing of Iran’s nuclear amenities final June—and blustered about Maduro for months earlier than green-lighting the strike.
He shocked many—and outraged the isolationist factions of his base—by repeatedly declaring that the U.S. could be closely concerned in Venezuela for years. Besotted with Venezuela’s capacity to flood the market with oil, Trump has arrange what critics say is an extortionist racket of the South American nation. He has informed its new chief, in essence, Give us the oil we wish, and we’ll allow you to keep in energy, and has privately joked that Venezuela could possibly be within the operating to turn out to be the 51st state, two individuals near him informed me.
There’s doubtless extra to return. Some within the administration imagine that Cuba could possibly be subsequent, and White Home aides informed me that Trump will probably be briefed tomorrow on an array of choices for intervention in Iran, together with some navy operations which can be ostensibly meant to guard the protesters however that would additionally hasten the top of the regime. Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out utilizing navy pressure to grab Greenland, despite the fact that it might shatter the globe’s most enduring and profitable alliance. Greenland is a part of Denmark, a fellow member of NATO (Article 5 of NATO’s constitution declares that an assault on one is an assault on all). European leaders are so spooked by Trump’s bellicose rhetoric that they’ve publicly rebuked the USA. Germany and the UK are contemplating troop deployments to Greenland. Trump, although, appears unbothered by the blowback to his menace to redraw the world’s maps. Making a deal as an alternative of utilizing pressure could be “simpler,” the president informed reporters final evening on Air Pressure One, including, “However by some means, we’re going to have Greenland.”
Trump, after all, isn’t any stranger to the technique of flooding the zone with outrageous statements and acts, making it laborious for his political opponents and the media (to not point out most people) to maintain monitor. White Home aides and shut allies privately acknowledged to me that they’ve been grateful to regulate the information cycle within the early days of 2026.
However Trump continues to be set to start the second 12 months of his time period far weaker than he was within the first. He’s an unpopular president, per polling, and most People dislike each the strong-arm deportation ways on the heart of the Minneapolis protests and Trump’s efforts to make use of the Division of Justice to hold out his political vendettas. West Wing aides have been desperate to shift the dialog away from the continuing Jeffrey Epstein controversy, which, when it erupted over the summer time, was the primary second when many Republican lawmakers appeared keen to defy Trump. (The DOJ has repeatedly missed deadlines to launch the entire supplies within the case; the story will doubtless spring again to life when extra comes out within the weeks forward.) The White Home has additionally begun to tackle its thorniest political challenge: excessive costs. As a part of its information blitz this month, the Trump administration has unveiled measures meant to drive down the prices of prescribed drugs and credit-card charges, in addition to to make mortgages extra obtainable.
The White Home spokesperson Kush Desai informed me in a press release that the blitz is a part of the administration’s work in “implementing the free market insurance policies like tax cuts and deregulation that do work rectifying the ‘America Final’ insurance policies which have let People down.”
However some within the GOP stay involved that Trump is distracted and that the flurry of foreign-policy flexing will probably be a sugar excessive that wears off shortly. Others have urged him to cease meddling with allies. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, in a flooring speech final week, stated that he was “sick of silly” and urged Trump to give attention to his home legacy.
Certainly, Republican lawmakers have despatched phrase to the White Home that affordability, not navy interventionism, stays prime of thoughts for his or her constituents, and that voters don’t a lot care about what’s getting into distant lands resembling Venezuela and Iran—and may discover Greenland on the map solely as a result of it’s drawn disproportionately massive.
