'If You Can Keep It': American Intervention Abroad

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0:31In the space of just one week, President Trump ordered the seizure and arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, asserted control over the country's government, and took over its crude oil industry. According to Venezuela's Interior Ministry, 100 people died in the United States attack and arrest of Maduro. Since September, the administration has killed at least 115 people in 30 boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific. But President Trump's military actions in the region are raising serious questions about U.S. intervention abroad. I am a Venezuelan-American, very disgusted with what President Trump said and is doing with my country.

1:12The person that is in charge is Delphi, is not Maduro. My friends and families are being detained every time in the highways, in the streets, and as for documents, and they cannot see anything or say anything about the government. They have to go to the streets to protest for the liberation of Maduro. So the person in charge is Delphi. The U.S. government took the clown of the circus, and left the circus running. Maduro has to be here in prison, but Trump is doing that very badly. Now, last week, the Senate advanced a measure limiting President Trump's power to take further military action in Venezuela.

2:00President Trump has also now threatened military intervention in Iran amid crackdowns on protests in that country where 500 protesters have been killed. And meanwhile, here in the U.S., federal agents shot three civilians last week, injuring a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon, and killing a woman in Minneapolis. This weekend, there were protests across the country. For this installment of our weekly politics series, If You Can Keep It, what does President Trump's military intervention abroad mean for the focus on issues at home? I'm Jen White. And I'm Todd Zwilling. Stay with us. We've got a lot to get to.

2:40Joining us for this conversation is Paul Post. He's non-resident senior fellow of foreign affairs and public opinion at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs. He's also an associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Professor Post, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. I want to start with this clip of then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking from the campaign trail in 2024. What a strong and powerful military, and ideally we don't have to use it. You know, we had no wars. Four years, we had no wars, except we defeated ISIS. We defeated ISIS in record time, but we had no wars.

3:18They said, he will start a war. I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars. And we should note that the claim that ISIS has been defeated is false. Last month, ISIS killed two U.S. soldiers and one American civilian interpreter in Syria. In response, the U.S. launched several rounds of retaliatory strikes against ISIS. But Professor Post, let's start with President Trump's military actions in Venezuela. Just briefly remind us what he's doing in the country and how it fits into the administration's broader and interventionist policies. So in a nutshell, the best way to think about what Trump is currently doing in Venezuela is to put in the context of something that he has made very clear.

3:56and I have said a number of times, which is that Trump is going to be a great 19th century president. And the reason why I said that is, obviously, that's a bit of a problem when you're in a 21st century world. But what I mean by that, and this is something that he has made very clear going back onto the campaign trail, is that he admires 19th century presidents, but he admires the policies that were pursued by them. Now, he typically would bring this up in the context of William McKinley and with respect to tariffs, but he has also talked a lot about intervention. And recently, he has brought up time and again, the Monroe Doctrine, which of course goes back to 1823 of President Monroe.

4:36And it was a policy of non-intervention by European powers in the Western Hemisphere. And then that was updated by Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century with the Roosevelt corollary kind of asserting that the U.S. had a right to intervene in other countries. And with his most recent national security strategy, which was issued back in December, they put forward what they're now calling the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which is a further assertion of this ability to be able to intervene in the Western Hemisphere and kind of having this focus on the Western Hemisphere and any issues that they think are a threat to U.S.

5:14national security. So I think that's kind of Overall, a very important piece of context for then thinking about what is happening in Venezuela. And then the specifics with Venezuela is that even going back to his first term, he has viewed Maduro as against U.S. interests. And, of course, that's actually not even unique to him. That goes back to other U.S. presidents as well, Obama, even going back to Chavez, who, of course, was the successor to Maduro and looking at the Bush administration. But what we've seen is that Trump has gradually ratcheted up this pressure, going from just sanctions to then, of course, the military strikes, the boat strikes that we saw in September, to the mobilizing naval forces more fully in the region, and then finally culminating in this capture of him.

6:02Of course, that happened right after the first of the year, just last weekend. So that is, again, the context in which we should be thinking about this action. And what we've seen is just this gradual ratcheting up of pressure towards Venezuela culminating in where we are right now. It's certainly true as we played that clip of Donald Trump from back in the campaign. There were not a lot of indications of the coming new imperial Trump presidency if you were following that campaign back in 2024. But Professor Gillespie, as we mentioned at the opening of the hour here, the Senate advanced a bill just last week to limit Trump's military actions in Venezuela.

6:37I think seven, maybe eight Republicans voted for that. Can you tell us about this measure and the significance of it coming from a GOP-controlled Senate at this time? Well, it's important to put it into context. So you have a handful of Republican defectors. This is largely Democrats voting in a block and then having some support from some Republican senators. There has been some concern about separation of powers, and you will occasionally hear senators actually expressing the need for Congress to reassert its Article I authorities in terms of making sure that if the United States is going to be engaging in military action, anything that looks like military action at the hands of the commander in chief, that it has authorization from the president.

7:27And so you have some usual suspects like Rand Paul and Tim Kaine who have long been, I mean, they were even pushing President Obama on these issues to make sure that they weren't abusing the War Powers Act and basically using every type of defense authorization kind of based on terrorism from the 9-11 attacks as an excuse to go around the world and play policeman. And so this is just another example of some senators actually attempting to assert that. The problem is the institutional rules about bill passage in Congress basically rendered this action largely symbolic. So, yes, they get it in under a simple majority in the Senate, but it's got to get through the House and then it would actually have to survive the veto process.

8:11And so I don't see it getting through the House. I certainly don't see it having two-thirds majorities in both chambers to be able to withstand a presidential veto. But what it does do is it does put, you know, the senators who voted for this authorization, who voted for this proscription of presidential power on the record, that they actually are trying to assert checks and balances and separation of powers kind of on this president who seems to really want to challenge this at every turn. And one of the things that I do think is interesting about this is that if you pay attention to where the defections are, the one name that really surprised me when I heard about this vote last week was Senator Josh Hawley.

8:54So, you know, I was expecting to see Lisa Murkowski. I was expecting to see Susan Collins. I knew Rand Paul would be a part of this. But to see somebody who was a staunch conservative and somebody who has supported MAGA causes before, like Josh Hawley, is something that's very interesting and noteworthy. Professor Myrick, we started off talking about Venezuela, but President Trump is also pressing for the U.S. to control Greenland. On Friday, he said, quote, we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not. How does this administration's foreign policy diverge from or overlap with past administrations, especially when it comes to aggressive foreign intervention?

9:33Right. So President Trump's America First foreign policy agenda has this stated focus of prioritizing core U.S. security interests, rebuilding certain industries domestically, and not being involved in these costly protracted foreign conflicts. But, you know, there are lots of features of Trump's foreign policy that are a clear departure from recent presidents. And to me, what feels most distinctive is President Trump's approach to interacting with the rest of the world, which is, as you mentioned, much more confrontational, more transactional, and specifically more unilateral. There's a strong rejection of international law, of acting through multilateral institutions, and of supporting longstanding alliances.

10:16And that really differs from foreign policy rhetoric from the Biden administration. Let's take a quick pause here. We'll be back with more of the conversation in just a moment.

10:30For today's installment of our weekly politics series, If You Can Keep It, we're discussing what happens when foreign policy deflects from unrest at home. Well, we got this email from Jim who says, when things aren't going well at home, distract the people by starting a war. With his polls in a nosedive, Trump does a raid to kidnap a head of state, ostensibly because he's a drug dealer, and immediately turns to Trump's real objective to take over that country's oil industry and further enrich his already generous supporters in the oil business. Jim, thanks for that message. But, Professor Post, you say you don't necessarily think that the Trump administration has turned its attention to Venezuela to deflect from domestic issues, as Jim suggests.

11:13Why not? Well, it's totally understandable about why – for the reasons that Jim said. for why someone would say, oh, well, because of his declining poll numbers, because of the Epstein files, et cetera, there's reasons for him to have an incentive to be able to engage in foreign policy to distract. And there's definitely precedent for these type of actions to happen. But I don't think that's the case here for a few reasons. Number one is because of what I was saying earlier. There's actually a long track record of the Trump administration gradually ratcheting up pressure on Maduro. And I think this is consistent with that.

11:50Number two is because I actually think the big trigger for this is the fact that Marco Rubio is his secretary of state. And Marco Rubio is one of the most powerful secretary of states we've had in a long time. Since Kissinger, he's someone who was both secretary of state and national security advisor. And prior to entering this role, Rubio is very much a hawk vis-a-vis Cuba and also towards the Maduro regime. So I think that a lot of this had to do with his own pressure and his own influence on Trump, if you will, for why Trump is now pursuing this policy with respect to Venezuela. We got this from Dan, who writes, It does seem that much of Trump's foreign antagonism is to distract the populace from his cratering domestic popularity.

12:33This is this in no way undercuts the seriousness of these actions. He is dealing severe damage to our alliances and putting the U.S. in increasing opposition, even to our closest friends. Trump seems to hope this chaos will make us all forget all the damage he is inflicting at home. Now, Professor Myrick, we heard Professor Post's analysis there, but I want to add to this because you've said that based on the research, turning to foreign intervention rarely draws away from domestic unrest. Why not? Right. I think most political scientists would agree that we don't have a lot of evidence that what we might term as diversionary foreign policy, this tendency to try to distract away from domestic politics, tends to be very effective.

13:15And I think there's a few reasons why that's the case, especially in our current political environment. The first is that, you know, American voters rarely tend to base their vote in national elections on foreign policy. You know, it tends to be the case that Americans care about the economy, about domestic priorities, and with rare exceptions, national elections don't tend to be won or lost on the basis of foreign affairs. But another reason why I think diversionary tactics that aim to sort of rally the public around the flag, if you will, don't often work in American politics is that when the public is very polarized, Americans already have very strong views about the president.

13:59So what President Trump is doing right now with respect to Venezuela will likely not very dramatically impact his approval ratings. More generally, I think in order for a foreign threat to heighten national unity and boost the popularity of the leader, there needs to be some degree of consensus around that threat. And I don't think we have that in the Venezuela case. Both the capture of Maduro and the associated issues of migration, organized crime, have been and continue to be very polarizing issues. So I think it's unlikely we'll observe a large or sustained boost in President Trump's public approval as a consequence of this action.

14:39But Professor Myrick, you know, we often talk about domestic issues and foreign policy in different buckets. As you said, we talk about how foreign policy doesn't really drive voters' decisions at the polls. But where is the intersection between the domestic and foreign policy agendas for any president? Well, I think the lines between foreign and domestic policy are increasingly blurring, in part just due to the nature of the security threats that the United States is facing right now. These are threats that are often very diffuse. They're not attributed to one coherent, well-defined foreign adversary.

15:17These are things like climate security and border security, which have both domestic and international dimensions. And in this type of environment, I often think it's the case that leaders have incentives to further their own policy goals by trying to internationalize domestic issues or frame domestic issues as matters of national security. Because that really elevates the attention on these issues and enables leaders to circumvent other sorts of democratic norms and procedures to enact their agenda. And I think we've seen a lot of examples of this from the Trump administration. Dr. Gillespie, what do you think about this dynamic?

15:57I mean, one theory of the interaction between foreign policy and domestic concerns right now is that President Trump is approaching, if he's not already at lame duck status, it's creeping up around his ankles or his knees. He lost a big vote on the Epstein files. He lost a vote on Venezuela in the Senate. Marjorie Taylor Greene has left the fold. Senators are pushing back on threats against the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell. The list goes on. And one of the theories here is that as President Trump approaches lame duck status domestically, he'll rely more on his commander in chief foreign policy powers where people can't interfere and he can appear and be strong.

16:38Where do you come down on this this relationship we're talking about? I don't disagree with that. I think I would frame this in a slightly different way, even though I completely agree with my colleagues. it's really hard to disentangle the domestic from the international here. So by seizing Venezuelan assets, one, President Trump is trying to renationalize infrastructure that was paid for by American companies that had been seized by Hugo Chavez. But he's also trying to make a claim that he's going to increase the oil supply in the United States, which he hopes will have a positive effect on domestic politics, particularly gas prices.

17:17So it's addressing a domestic issue. And there's also the immigration component on this. And so we would be remiss to not understand, like, you know, what's going on here and to see long term whether or not this is tied to the status of Venezuelans who got temporary protected status in previous administrations. administrations. And then I think kind of to your point, this is about aggrandizing power. And President Trump has been all about expanding executive power to himself and possibly for his not just national benefit, but perhaps also for the benefit of people who are close to him. You know, if people, you know, take some of the allegations and the tracing kind of seriously with that.

18:02And so it makes sense for him to front load that while he still kind of has power, as opposed to trying to do this perhaps in a Democratic-controlled Congress where there will be more checks and balances or at a period where he becomes less relevant and there's going to be less public support for that. Joe emails, I think Donald Trump and his administration are focused on enriching themselves with little regard for the people of Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, and Mexico. Overthrowing dictators is this administration's excuse for the imperialistic grabbing of the wealth that these countries offer Trump.

18:31What I would like to see are policies that actually help the American people. And Barbara writes, instead of concerning himself with other countries and their problems, this president should be doing something to help those in this country who don't have health care, housing, and healthy food to eat. Professor Post, when you think about the Trump administration's approach thus far, what are the broader implications and risks you see of the kind of intervention we're seeing from the Trump administration, especially when it comes to reshaping the global stage? Well, there's two levels to kind of look at the risk.

19:05You could look at the risk very much at a micro level, and that being the risk to both Trump, the mega movement, if you will, the very fact that he is viewed as someone who many people saw as epitomizing what we could call the restraint school of U.S. foreign policy. That is the view that for too long the U.S. was too involved abroad. We were too worried about issues dealing with other countries, and we need to kind of pull back the U.S.'s global footprint. And Trump was going to be the person who was going to do that. And obviously the very tenor of our conversation here is pointing to the fact that that doesn't seem to be the case.

19:42And so on that sense, it could lead to the view of, well, if Trump isn't going to do that, would anybody be able to ever do that? So I think that's the first one. The second one, though, is it kind of points the idea that many people have labeled Trump as isolationists or even the mega movement as isolationists. But I think that's very clear that it's not the case. That Trump is not isolationist. What he is is he's someone who is, if you will, a unilateralist. He's not big on working through multilateral institutions. He's not necessarily keen on deferring to U.S. allies. He very much buys into the idea that was well expressed by Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State years ago, that the U.S.

20:25is an indispensable nation. I think he believes that, but he believes that it's indispensable through him. He thinks he can go around and fix these problems or he can go ahead and use U.S. military force economic pressure abroad. So in that sense, I think that is a key part is it's very much changing not whether the U.S. is engaged in the world but how the U.S. is engaged and how it's being perceived as engaged in the world. Well, we got this message from William who says, I wish I could say that Trump's foreign policy is a distraction from other more important priorities. But distraction is a relatively neutral word that the U.S.

21:03would attack Greenland militarily and the framing language by Stephen Miller. They're shocking. These attacks will haunt us for generations and will stoke retaliation decades from now. Professor Myrick, what do you think about what Dr. Post has to say about isolationism and Trump's use of power? Donald Trump is not an isolationist, but I think isolationists thought he was an isolationist when he ran for president. Turns out that's not true. So what is the MAGA movement finding out now about the way Trump is using power? I think that's really right. I think a lot of Trump supporters are surprised to see that the administration possibly has a greater appetite for foreign intervention than was anticipated.

21:49And this, of course, is reflected not only in Venezuela, but also in the frequency with which the president's threatening military action in lots of other places. And I think right now the administration is trying to frame its actions in Venezuela as part of an America First strategy in a few ways. You know, for one, they're saying this is fundamentally a direct threat to U.S. national security interests, so that's in line with core priorities. It's an issue related to drug trafficking and migration. But the administration is also saying that the types of military actions the U.S. has taken in Venezuela and elsewhere are these sort of decisive surgical types of military strikes.

22:32They're not the costly, protracted foreign conflicts that we associate with the early 2000s. So that's what they're trying to tell the more isolationist wing of that party. Of course, whether or not that narrative is going to resonate with Trump supporters is going to depend on what happens in Venezuela next. And I think, of course, here we've heard very conflicting accounts about whether this is simply the removal of one individual leader or whether this is the start of a much more extensive intervention in the country or in various countries in the region. And that will really, I think, dictate the tension within the restrainer wing of the party versus the more traditional conservative wing of the party.

23:16Professor Gillespie, as we've been discussing, it's not just Venezuela. There's also Iran. There's Greenland. And although foreign policy often isn't a top issue for U.S. voters, over the last few years, we have seen increasing engagement on issues like the war in Gaza and Ukraine. So what could this administration intervention in foreign countries mean for the midterm elections, especially in a moment when some Americans are paying attention to the administration's actions at home and abroad? This might sound a little circular, but it's going to matter for the people for whom this is very important.

23:48So if we go back and we look at 2006 and we look at what vote choice looks like in exit polls from people who cited the Iraq war as an extremely important item, they broke 60-40 for the Democrats on the generic ballot in exit polling. And so for people for whom these issues are very important, this, yes, could be a deciding factor depending on sort of like what party they think is the better party that is able to address these issues. I think that this plays into what I perceive the larger Trump strategy to be, which is in addition to everything that my colleagues have said, which I agree with, his strategy is everything, everywhere, all at once.

24:31And I mean, you know, as much as, you know, we were talking about, you know, this particular segment. Right. And then Minnesota happens and now he is, you know, investigating Jerome Powell. Right. So it seems like it is throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. And so I think that this becomes part of this larger narrative that is inclusive of both domestic and international issues of whether or not you like the governance style and what this actually portends for what your view of what a healthy democratic kind of American governmental institution looks like. So I think it will play. I think the ultimate kind of success and trajectory of these, you know, of all of these campaigns will also be really important in terms of figuring out whether or not President Trump can actually keep his base together.

25:18His base is largely still supporting him. So the Economist YouGov poll, which was done within the last week, has come out. And you still see kind of based on, you know, partisanship and based on whom you voted for in 2024, you still people still see people sticking to their camps. But I think the question is, is that if something happens and this isn't as successful as the Trump administration hopes that it will be, whether or not you will see the Republican base still sticking with with President Trump. So I think it's everything and, you know, and all of it all at the same time. So it's both domestic and it's foreign policy.

25:54It's really hard to kind of disentangle the two, given the way that he is going about kind of remaking government in his image. Well, we'll leave the conversation there for now, but we'll continue to follow this. That was Andra Gillespie. She's an associate professor of political science at Emory University. Also with us today, Rachel Myrick, an associate professor of political science at Duke University and Paul Post. He's a non-resident senior fellow of foreign policy and public opinion at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs. Thanks to you all. Today's producer was Haley Blassingame. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR.