| | | |  | | By Jack Blanchard with Dasha Burns | Presented by United for Cures | With help from Eli Okun and Ali Bianco The Playbook Podcast is back! On today’s episode: Jack and Dasha discuss the impact of Trump’s military action in Venezuela and what it means for his own political future.
| 
| Good Monday morning. This is Jack Blanchard, thrilled to be back in your inbox after some much-needed family time. Get in touch. In today’s Playbook … — The world watches as Nicolás Maduro is due in court. — Trump says U.S. will run Venezuela and threatens other nations with intervention. — Congress is back — and there’s only one topic top of mind.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, Jan. 4. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo | MADURO AFTERMATH: Nicolás Maduro will appear in a New York courthouse today charged with drug-trafficking and weapons offenses. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores will be hauled before 92-year-old Judge Alvin Hellerstein at noon for the start of an epic, likely yearslong prosecution through the U.S. federal court system following their stunning capture and arrest by U.S. forces. It’s hard to conceive of a more rapid fall from grace for a man who as recently as last Friday night was still the all-powerful, untouchable leader of an oil-rich nation. But in truth, the court case in Manhattan already appears to be a sideplot. As usual, the bigger story is unfolding inside the White House. Emboldened by audacious military successes in Iran and Venezuela, President Donald Trump is leaning heavily into his new status as an interventionist, ready to aggressively reshape the world in America’s favor. And with three years to go of this presidency, the end point is anyone’s guess. Top tip: One of the best ways to understand this administration is simply to listen to the president, given that he speaks in public almost every day with little or no filter. But even by his own standards, Trump’s conflab with reporters on his way back to D.C. from Mar-a-Lago last night was one for the ages. A president who once chastised his predecessors for endless foreign wars and fruitless nation-building announced that America is now “in charge” of Venezuela and is “going to run everything” — before casually threatening five more nations around the world with U.S. intervention. He might even mean it. “We’re in charge,” Trump told reporters asking about Venezuela, adding: “We’re going to run everything. We’re going to run it, fix it.” And the immediate focus, he made clear, will be Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. “We’re in the business of having countries around us that are viable and successful and where the oil is allowed to freely come out,” he said. “Because that’s good, it gets the prices down.” Asked what the top priority should be for Maduro’s successor, Trump said: “We need total access. We need access to the oil.” It’s brazen stuff — and contrary to all international law, writes POLITICO’s legal columnist, Ankush Khardori. “The Trump administration has illegally abducted the leader of Venezuela, a country that has engaged in no hostilities with the United States, without even the appearance of an effort to enlist the support of the American public or their elected representatives in Congress, and without even the semblance of a stated plan for how the country will be governed,” Ankush writes. Certainly, Trump’s newfound focus on oil — it was barely mentioned in the monthslong discourse leading up to Saturday’s attack — rather undercuts the administration’s previous insistence that this campaign was purely a clampdown on drug-smuggling. Furthermore, the president seems remarkably disinterested in quickly restoring democracy to Venezuela. “Right now, what we want to do is fix up the oil, fix up the country, bring the country back — and then have elections,” he said. Delcy’s midnight runner: That means Venezuela will remain for now in the hands of Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as acting president in the early hours of Saturday morning. The WSJ has published a useful profile, pitching her as both a “socialist true believer” and a “ruthlessly ambitious and Machiavellian political operative.” Naturally, Trump’s critics want to know why Maduro’s closest allies should be allowed to remain in power. Trump’s supporters say it’s a practical approach that stands in contrast to the disastrous “De-Ba'athification” of postwar Iraq — a purge of Saddam Hussein’s loyalists that ultimately helped fuel insurrection. But will it work? As Reuters notes, “the Trump administration is gambling that it can intimidate the Venezuelan leader's inner circle into toeing the U.S. line.” (We saw Trump deliver a preemptive threat to Rodriguez via The Atlantic yesterday that she will face the Maduro treatment if she doesn't play ball.) And sure enough, last night the new leader issued a conciliatory statement about U.S. engagement. “We invite the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence,” Rodriguez wrote. Hmm: But truthfully, it all seems a little half-baked, as WaPo notes. The glaring differences between how Secretary of State Marco Rubio sees American involvement compared with Trump were plain to see yesterday, and did not give the impression of a carefully considered plan being rolled into action. Strikingly, WaPo reports the multi-hatted Rubio already has too much on his plate to take an active day-to-day role, and suggests White House policy chief Stephen Miller may be elevated instead.
| | | | A message from United for Cures: The United States leads the world in lifesaving medical research, and Americans benefit from its advances daily. Diagnoses that were once death sentences are now treatable and even curable. And more progress comes every year. We can't lose our leadership now. Millions still need cures — which means they still need federally-funded medical research that leads to more treatments, more cures, and more lives saved. Support Cures. Increase federal funding for lifesaving medical research in FY26. | | | | Also going viral from the WaPo piece: A claim that Trump is refusing to support opposition leader María Corina Machado for the presidency because she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize this year, an award he has long coveted. “If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” said a “person close to the White House” quoted in the piece. Reminder: How this all plays out in Venezuela will be crucial to any domestic political fallout, with the midterms looming later this year. History suggests the initial success of a regime change mission is only the first hurdle to be cleared. After all, it’s easy to forget the euphoria that followed the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan; the fall of Saddam in Iraq; and the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, given how those incursions played out in the end. MAGA world is largely toeing the Trump line so far, but there is plenty of nervousness if you scratch the surface, as the NYT reports. That could quickly blow into the open if the U.S. gets more sucked in. But Trump is already setting his sights further afield, with foes and allies around the world now seriously spooked about what might come next. And quite possibly with good reason; Trump last night offered up ominous threats to half a dozen different nations and territories around the world. First, more strikes on Venezuela. Trump confirmed a plan for further U.S. military action on Saturday was shelved because the operation against Maduro was such a success. But he warned Rodríguez she will face similar aggression if she does not acquiesce to U.S. demands. “If they don’t behave, we will do a second strike,” he said. Then, a direct threat to Colombia. “Colombia is very sick too,” Trump said. “It’s run by a sick man [President Gustavo Petro] who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. He’s not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.” Asked whether that meant we could see U.S. military operations in Colombia, Trump replied: “That sounds good to me.” Next, regime change in Cuba? “Cuba only survives because of Venezuela,” Trump said. “Now they won’t have that money coming in … Cuba is ready to fall … I don’t know how they can hold out … I don’t think we need any action.” Fourth, Trump raised the prospects of an attack on Iran, should the current anti-regime protests (now entering their eighth day) face violent repression. “If they start killing people like they have in the past,” Trump said, “they are going to get hit very hard by the United States.” Fifth, some form of action in Mexico to quell the flow of drugs across the southern U.S. border. “You have to do something with Mexico,” Trump said. “Mexico has to get their act together. Because [drugs] are pouring through Mexico and we’re going to have to do something. We’d love Mexico to do it. They're capable of doing it. But unfortunately the cartels are very strong in Mexico … The cartels are running Mexico.” And finally, another push for Greenland? “We need Greenland from a national security situation,” Trump said. “It’s so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you.” The obvious question is how seriously to take all this talk. The received wisdom during the bluster of Trump 1.0 was to take the president seriously, but not literally — but things have changed somewhat this past year. The bombing strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in the summer followed by the audacious capture of Maduro on Saturday has confirmed Trump as the most aggressively interventionist U.S. president since George W. Bush. And in case you hadn’t noticed, he appears unencumbered by legal and diplomatic norms. It’s not easy being Green: Denmark — which owns Greenland — is certainly taking the threat seriously. PM Mette Frederiksen issued a statement last night decrying Trump’s words. “It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the U.S. needing to take over Greenland,” she said. “The U.S. has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish kingdom.” Denmark, of course, is a longstanding U.S. ally and a member of NATO, which means in theory that any incursion into its territory should be considered an attack on all NATO countries and trigger a Western military response.
| | | ON THE HILL CONGRESS RETURNS: Lawmakers will begin to reemerge in D.C. today, with (you guessed it) Venezuela at the top of a very packed agenda for the month. To begin, Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, AG Pam Bondi, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine will be on the Hill at 5:30 p.m. to brief top members of Congress. The “Gang of Eight” and Republican and Democratic leaders of the foreign affairs and armed services panels in both chambers will get classified info from the administration. Trump is set to speak with House Republicans tomorrow at their annual retreat at the Kennedy Center. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are also working to schedule an all-senators briefing as soon as mid-week. More from POLITICO’s Inside Congress Also coming up: Democrats plan to force a war powers vote in the Senate this week, Schumer vowed yesterday on ABC’s “This Week.” Don’t expect the resolution — which would force Trump to get the Hill’s approval for further military action in Venezuela — to make it through a GOP-controlled Congress, but the votes will be interesting. Venezuela operations funding could also emerge as a sticking point in Defense appropriations legislation. The politics: Democrats have been broadly (though not uniformly) unhappy with Trump’s Venezuela attack, including the lack of congressional authorization, while Republicans have been broadly (though not uniformly) supportive. Both parties have plenty of substantive and political reasons to wait nervously to see what the ultimate outcome will be for Venezuela and the U.S., as a new x-factor has emerged in the midterms, WaPo’s Hannah Knowles reports. Some Dems think Trump’s interventionism could turn voters away from the GOP; others want to impeach him, NOTUS’ Amelia Benavides-Colón notes; and still others think the party is making a mistake in not backing Maduro’s downfall, Axios’ Andrew Solender reports. Maverick Massie: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) remains the rare Republican to criticize Trump. “Wake up MAGA,” he warned yesterday. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.” This could emerge as a crucial wedge in the Trump-backed primary challenge to Massie, POLITICO’s Lisa Kashinsky reports. Opponent Ed Gallrein, who said he took part in the similar operation against Manuel Noriega in 1990, said Massie “chose to side with Democrats and the Squad.” AND PLENTY MORE GOING ON: Congress has three-and-a-half weeks to pass appropriations bills or a continuing resolution to avert another government shutdown at month’s end. Democrats and a handful of Republicans could push a discharge petition-fueled extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies through the House as soon as this week. A discharge petition on Russia sanctions is close to 218, while another on banning stock trading by members of Congress is also bubbling in the background. And the ongoing release of the Jeffrey Epstein files could continue to dominate conversation, including at a hearing with Bondi. Sound familiar? Yes, many of these are the same headaches that bedeviled Speaker Mike Johnson before the holidays, back to needle him again in the new year, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill writes in a table-setter this morning. He will try to steer Republicans’ focus instead to a bipartisan housing cost package, the Minnesota fraud scandal and perhaps supporting Trump on Venezuela. Discharge petition notwithstanding, the prospects for a bipartisan deal on health care that could extend the ACA credits actually coming together look poor. Shutdown showdown: But talks have been moving forward on government appropriations, and a “minibus” of the Interior, Energy-Water and Commerce-Justice-Science bills could get to the House floor Thursday. Schumer said he doesn’t expect a showdown, though House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries didn’t answer directly when asked if he’d support one on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” N.B.: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) officially resigns today.
| | | BEST OF THE REST ANOTHER VENEZUELA ANGLE: Today is also the deadline by which federal judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to file plans for how it will return or provide due process to the more than 200 Venezuelans it deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison. That would give the men a chance to contest their designation as alleged gang members — for which the administration has largely refused to provide public evidence — under the Alien Enemies Act. But but but: The Justice Department yesterday asked for a weeklong extension, saying that due to the intense upheaval in Venezuela, officials need more time to figure out options, per POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney. First in Playbook — Related read: The Trump administration’s new policy of mandatory mass detention for any immigrants facing deportation proceedings has now been rejected by more than 300 federal judges across more than 1,600 cases, Kyle reports. “Despite the overwhelming legal consensus, there has been no successful nationwide block on the policy,” which has seen thousands of immigrants who haven’t been charged with crimes locked up. “In recent weeks, the judges’ conclusions have become increasingly urgent, describing shocking mistreatment and inhumanity.” LETTER FROM PUERTO RICO: “To Get to Maduro, Trump Went Through Puerto Rico,” by POLITICO's E&E News’ Manuel Quiñones in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico: “Puerto Ricans have a saying — ‘El que se va para Aguadilla pierde su silla’ — which roughly means that if you go to Aguadilla, you will lose your place in line. Aguadilla, a small coastal city in northwestern Puerto Rico, is where my family and I drove Jan. 3 as we scrambled to get a flight back to the mainland after the American military operation in Venezuela disrupted travel for tens of thousands of people planning to fly in and out of the U.S. territory.” MIDDLE EAST LATEST: U.S. envoy Tom Barrack is mediating a Syria-Israel meeting in Paris today, as the Trump administration pushes both countries toward striking a security deal, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports. OFF THE DEEP END: Over the weekend, Trump shared posts with various conspiracy theories about fraud in Minnesota on social media — including a baseless one that Gov. Tim Walz orchestrated the assassination of state Rep. Melissa Hortman to cover up fraud, per WaPo. “In covering for an actual serial killer, he is going to get more innocent people killed,” Walz warned in response, part of a bipartisan backlash. And yesterday, the children of the late Hortman and her husband, Mark, urged Trump to take down his repost and apologize. “The video being shared by the president is another hurdle our family must overcome in grieving,” Sophie Hortman said. One to watch: Walz last night noticed an impromptu news conference scheduled for this morning, per the Minnesota Star Tribune’s Ryan Faircloth. “Walz’s office issued an unusually vague advisory late Sunday, Jan. 4, about the news conference, saying only that he will ‘discuss news of the day.’” Faircloth notes that nearly a dozen Democrats have told the Star Tribune that Walz shouldn’t seek reelection, “including several who compared his run for a third term to President Joe Biden’s doomed 2024 campaign.” Not just Minnesota: Conservative influencers have now made videos in which they show up at day care centers across several other states, many of them run by Somali Americans, and ask questions about fraud, NBC’s David Ingram and Tyler Kingkade report. Meanwhile, a different welfare fraud scandal in Mississippi that has attracted headlines for years will finally result in a trial starting this week, WSJ’s Cameron McWhirter and Scott Calvert preview. THE BRAVE NEW WORLD: “Big Tech won in Texas — but the age-verification fight is just getting started,” by POLITICO’s Brendan Bordelon: “States are mounting a new challenge to Silicon Valley over age verification and parental consent, and while industry just scored an early win, the Supreme Court is likely to have the final say.” WHAT’S NEXT FROM LINDA McMAHON: “Trump’s next plan for the US education system: Lots and lots of rules,” by POLITICO’s Bianca Quilantan: “Trump’s focus on using executive actions leaves a lot of his education legacy at the whims of the next president. To make lasting changes, Trump’s next move will be to make his policies harder to unravel. … [H]e is actually short on time to make that happen because writing regulations is often long, detailed and painstaking work. It’s the type of labor that would have been done by the career employees he spent months pushing out of their jobs.”
| | | | A message from United for Cures: The United States leads the world in lifesaving medical research—and Americans benefit from its breakthroughs every day. Thanks to federal funding, several forms of cancer that were once death sentences are now survivable. A cure for diabetes is closer than ever. And in the fight against Alzheimer's, two FDA-approved treatments are already slowing disease progression in patients. But we can't afford to lose momentum. Millions of Americans are still waiting for answers—and they need federally funded research to keep cures coming. Sustained federal investment is essential to keeping America at the forefront of lifesaving medical innovation.
Support Cures. Increase federal funding for lifesaving medical research in FY26. | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | IN MEMORIAM — “Asad Haider, Leftist Critic of Identity Politics, Dies at 38,” by NYT’s Trip Gabriel: “Mr. Haider was an associate professor of politics at York University in Toronto and the co-founder of Viewpoint Magazine … He [wrote ‘Mistaken Identity’ and] also contributed political essays to publications like Salon, The Baffler and n+1.” — “Richard Pollak, 91, Dies; Edited Magazine That Criticized the Media,” by NYT’s Richard Sandomir: He was “the founding editor of More magazine, an irreverent monthly journalism review that during the 1970s critiqued the media’s coverage of contentious subjects like the Vietnam War, President Richard M. Nixon and the oil industry.” TALK OF THIS TOWN — “How the Claremont Institute became a power center in Trump’s Washington,” by POLITICO’s Megan Messerly and Diana Nerozzi: “The Claremont Institute was founded nearly a half-century ago by a ragtag group of Southern California-dwelling conservative political theorists who eschewed Washington orthodoxy. Now, many of its alumni run this town. At least 70 participants in Claremont’s small suite of fellowships over the last decade hold or have held posts in President Donald Trump’s second administration, according to a POLITICO analysis of fellowship lists, LinkedIn profiles, and other public biographies.” TV TONIGHT — The new version of “CBS Evening News,” helmed by Tony Dokoupil as part of the Bari Weiss era at the network, formally debuts tonight at 6:30 p.m., though he technically started Saturday. As Semafor’s Max Tani notes, this is a new approach for the program, as Dokoupil promises to focus more on the perspectives of ordinary Americans and less on experts, and as the show declares that it loves the U.S. unapologetically. MEDIA MOVE — Rylee Boyd is joining The Bulwark as business operations manager. She previously worked at Longwell Partners. TRANSITIONS — Sam Crofts is joining the Interior Department as a senior adviser to Deputy Secretary Kate MacGregor. He previously worked for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. … Kyle Hill is joining Vertex Pharmaceuticals as director of federal government affairs. He previously worked for Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) and is a Steve Israel alum. … Travis Tritten is joining Invariant’s national security comms practice. He previously worked at Military.com and is a Bloomberg Government and Washington Examiner alum. … … The Taxpayers Protection Alliance is announcing several new staff roles and additions: Ross Marchand as executive director, Kara Zupkus as VP of comms, Kevin Carugati as manager of federal affairs and Vladlena Klymova as policy analyst. … Paul Westcott is now president of L2 Inc. He previously was EVP. … Nick Runkel is now chief of staff to Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.). He most recently was deputy chief of staff. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: FCC Chair Brendan Carr … Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine … former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell … Allison Price … WSJ’s Nick Timiraos … Ally Flinn of the Cook Political Report … John Solomon … Jeff Hauser … former Reps. Tom Davis (R-Va.), Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) and Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) … Nick Lanyi … Allison Biasotti of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office … Caroline Anderegg … Pedro Ribeiro … Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Christine Hall … Danielle Melfi … Niskanen Center’s Matthew La Corte … Josh Galper … Kristen Grimm of Spitfire Strategies … former CIA Director George Tenet … David Bauder … Andrew Mills … Patrick Ottenhoff … David Simas … Mimi Mager … Mandi Merritt Risko of FTI Consulting … Alexis Bataillon … Chas Thomas of Thorn Run Partners … Gautam Raghavan … POLITICO’s Russell Vea … Jessie Torres Perkins Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our deputy editor Garrett Ross. | | | | Follow us on X | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Canada Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment