The Trump administration’s strikes on Venezuela and capture of President Nicolas Maduro represent a major victory for foreign policy hawks in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth, who have advocated for an increase in pressure against Venezuela over the last few months in the name of ousting a leader they decried as an authoritarian drug trafficker.
It’s a far cry from his first administration, when Trump floated the idea of invading Venezuela but was talked down by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, and then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
The Saturday morning raid is a brazen escalation of U.S. involvement in a foreign country that landed the same weekend Trump publicly threatened to defend Iranian demonstrators against their own government. It serves as a fitting coda to Trump’s first year back in power, one marked by dramatically more involvement in foreign conflicts than candidate Trump or first-term Trump predicted.
While a small number of Republican lawmakers offered criticism of Saturday’s raid, much of the MAGA movement appears to be falling in line — even Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who often pushes the “America first” agenda, praised the president in the immediate aftermath of the military action, calling it “a bold and brilliant raid.” Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, no Trump ally, called Maduro a “thug” and praised the military action.
It remains to be seen if those advocating regime change in Venezuela will get what they want. A hand-picked ally of Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, is currently ruling the country and it is unclear whether a democratic transition will ultimately materialize. Trump said the U.S. would run the country in the interim.
Still, the move against Maduro would have been almost unimaginable during Trump’s first term and during the heat of the 2024 campaign, when Trump adopted the views of restrainers who were skeptical of unconditional aid to Ukraine and spoke of the need to stop engaging in “forever wars.”
“We are going to run the country” in the wake of the U.S. military operation, Trump said at Mar-a-Lago before explaining that the United States “want to surround ourselves with good neighbors…stability…energy.”
“I’m surprised because we had talked about not doing regime change, but not surprised because this is Marco’s dream,” said a person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation. “Rubio’s stock has been skyrocketing.”
The success came in part because of decisions inside the administration to reframe the issue in Venezuela as a law enforcement operation, which plays well with the MAGA base.
“They get to go out there and message it wasn’t necessarily ‘regime change.’ Sure that happened, but the goal here is executing the warrant, he’s a narco-terrorist,” said the person close to the White House.
Rubio was able to marry his longtime desire for Maduro’s ouster with Trump’s yearslong fixation on clawing back Venezuela’s oil supplies.
“It’s clearly Rubio driven,” said a White House ally familiar with the conversations and also granted anonymity to describe them. The secretary’s arguments, according to the ally: There is American economic incentive for the U.S. because of oil; there is a national security concern about driving China and Russia out of a country close to the U.S.; and it’s a huge political win with Hispanic voters whose families have experienced oppressive regimes.
And finally, Rubio, who has pushed for Maduro’s ouster since at least 2019, argues that Maduro is not the legitimate president of Venezuela. “That’s not just us saying it,” Rubio said in remarks at Mar-a-Lago “The first Trump administration, the Biden administration, the second Trump administration – none of those three recognize them.”
What made the episode even more striking, however, was the lack of an uproar from the right wing of the party which has balked at previous acts of foreign intervention.
While a small number of Republican lawmakers offered criticism, much of the MAGA movement appears to be falling in line. Bannon offered the clearest signal yet.
Even as he criticized Trump’s rhetoric toward Iran as echoing Hillary Clinton’s interventionist playbook, Bannon on his War Room podcast and video show embraced the Venezuela operation on Saturday.
He opened his show by praising the raid and his first guest, Blackwater cofounder Erik Prince, praised U.S. forces for a “magnificent job.” The applause from a figure once synonymous with MAGA’s anti-war instincts underscored how far the coalition has shifted – or how carefully the administration has framed this particular action.
Others close to the MAGA base are justifying the strike as a direct extension of Trump’s core campaign promise: to “make America safe again.”
“The isolationists and the Reaganites don’t agree on much, but one area where they do is the Western Hemisphere,” said a former senior Trump administration official granted anonymity to discuss the intraparty dynamics. “The isolationists are more comfortable being a little more internationalist when it comes to our backyard. But beyond the Western Hemisphere they start to think maybe we don’t have any business getting involved.”
Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a former Pentagon official, said that widespread support, even from isolationists in the administration, was perhaps more of a political calculation than a policy one.
“Reading the tea leaves of where the power is in the administration, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of Stephen Miller or others in the White House close to the president,” he said.
Another former official, however, identified a divide between hawks and restrainers that has emerged around the development of the National Security Strategy, with hawks successfully getting the White House on board with more expansive military goals for Venezuela and the region.
“The Western Hemisphere section of both documents is the most amorphous and the region that is departing from that standard,” said the former official, who said people such as Rubio were successful in connecting flows of immigration and the drug epidemic to military operations in Venezuela, even as restraint-minded officials raised concerns about the Pentagon getting bogged down in the region.
Asked whether MAGA voters would accept the operation, Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz drew a sharp distinction between intervention and what he described as accountability.
“This isn’t regime change, this is justice,” Bruesewitz said in a text.. “Maduro sent thousands of violent and dangerous criminals into our country along with deadly drugs that took the lives of countless Americans. President Trump promised to make America safe again on the campaign trail and he is delivering on that promise.”
That framing — justice rather than regime change — has become central to the administration’s effort to unify its factions.
U.N. ambassador Mike Waltz, another hawkish voice inside the Trump administration, used similar language.
“Maduro was an indicted, illegitimate dictator that led a declared Narco-terrorism organization responsible for killing American citizens,” Waltz said on X.
By tying Maduro directly to crime, migration and drugs, Trump and his allies have recast a dramatic foreign operation as a domestic security measure.
The result is a Republican Party that, at least for now, looks more comfortable with the use of force than it has in years, so long as it is packaged as decisive, limited, Trumpian and somehow still America First.
Even conservatives who’ve had no qualms about taking Trump to task on other issues have thrown their support behind Trump’s move in Venezuela. “The ‘TRUMP DOCTRINE’ puts America First in the Western Hemisphere,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote on X after conversations with Rubio Saturday morning. “… taking out drug cartels, & promoting free markets and democracy.”
But moderate and conservative lawmakers alike are expressing caution about some of the administration’s potentially loftier ambitions in the South American petrostate.
“The only country that the United States of America should be ‘running’ is the United States of America,” said influential moderate Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.). “The United States should join the international community in monitoring and overseeing a free and fair election in Venezuela, allowing the Venezuelan people a pathway to a true democracy.”
Jack Detsch contributed to this report.
