How Trump's 'Don-roe Doctrine' is different than Bush-era GOP foreign policy

Summary

Podcast Summary: The NPR Politics Podcast

Episode: "How Trump’s 'Don-roe Doctrine' is different than Bush-era GOP foreign policy"

Date: January 12, 2026
Host(s): Myles Parks, Danielle Kurtzleben, Mara Liasson
Main Theme:
This episode explores how Donald Trump’s current “America First” (dubbed the “Don-roe Doctrine”) foreign policy diverges from the neoconservative, interventionist approach typified by the George W. Bush administration, especially in regard to recent U.S. military involvement in Venezuela.

1. Defining Neoconservatism vs. Trump’s "America First" Approach

The Bush/Neoconservative Era

• Key Traits: Exporting American values (democracy, free speech, human rights), nation-building, and international intervention.
• Classic Example: U.S. involvement in Iraq was described as an effort to “establish a broadly representative government in Iraq that has due regard for the various groups and for the human rights, protects the territorial integrity of Iraq” (Dick Cheney, 02:53).
• Analysis:
  • The Bush administration justified foreign interventions not only on national security but as a moral/humanitarian project (03:08).

The Trump Shift

• Trump’s Campaign Stance: Criticized previous interventions, positioning himself as an "America First" president, skeptical of overseas entanglements ("We have destabilized the Middle East. But how does that square with… nation building in Venezuela right now?" – Myles Parks, 01:25).
• Rise of Isolationism: Even Republicans became disenchanted with continued involvement abroad (04:07).
• Mara Liasson: “Neoconservative…was about exporting values, nation building…It’s very, very different than the kind of interventionism we’re seeing now with Donald Trump.” (03:31)

---

2. Trump’s Venezuela Intervention: Ideology and Motives

Analysis of Current Intervention

• Motivation:
  • Trump’s involvement in Venezuela is seen as driven not by democracy-building, but by interests like oil and extradition of indicted leader Maduro (05:21).
  • Mara Liasson: “They went in there to get Maduro and to get the oil. That’s the difference between Trump and neoconservatives.” (05:39)
• Exception to the Rule:
  • Marco Rubio, with neoconservative leanings and personal motivation as a Cuban-American, has ideological reasons for toppling left-wing dictators (06:19).
• Evolution of Trump’s Power:
  • In his second term, Trump is surrounded by loyalists rather than “adults in the room,” enabling him to act on his instincts (07:45).
  • “He can now do what he wants, and he has a very different approach to foreign policy than I can’t think of a modern example in the Republican Party…” (Mara Liasson, 07:45)

---

3. Congressional Response and Republican Party Dynamics

Congressional Response

• Limited Pushback:
  • Senate vote to require Trump to seek Congressional approval for further military action in Venezuela passed narrowly, with only five Republicans joining (09:41).
  • "Five [Republicans] in this Republican era is not nothing…shows there is at least some real concerns about what Trump is doing…” (Danielle Kurtzleben, 10:14)
• Trump’s Reaction:
  • "Trump didn’t like it…said that all five…should not be reelected." (10:32)

Congress and Public Opinion

• Minimal Engagement with Congress/Public:
  • Trump hasn’t sought to win Congressional or broad public support for Venezuelan action, unlike prior presidents.
  • “Trump has done almost none of that. He seems extremely confident of the support he has among the MAGA base, even though this is an intervention…” (Mara Liasson, 11:17)
• Trump on His Base:
  • “MAGA loves everything I do. MAGA loves this. MAGA is me.” (Quoted by Mara Liasson, 11:34)

---

4. Republican Base and Polling

Immediate Reactions

• Polling Numbers:
  • Republican support for the Venezuelan military action shot up to 74% (12:23).
  • However, support is softer for extended occupation or “running” Venezuela.

Base Dynamics

• Cult of Personality:
  • “Trump does have a remarkable ability to do something. And his base says, yeah, okay, sounds great…You can call it a cult of personality, you can call it just tight, tight grip on his base…” (Danielle Kurtzleben, 12:37)

---

5. Implications for Midterms and Political Risks

Foreign Policy & Domestic Issues

• Midterm Impact:
  • Foreign policy generally isn’t a top voting issue, especially in midterms; economic issues dominate (13:29).
  • “It’s a matter of crowding out rather than convincing people they should vote for Republicans because of what he did in Venezuela. That’s not gonna happen, right?” (Mara Liasson, 13:48)

Contradictions in Doctrine

• Affordability vs. Military Spending:

  • Listeners question how costly foreign raids square with the anti-spending, “America First” doctrine.
  • “Were we wrong when we believed him that he wouldn't spend taxpayer dollars overseas and he'd focus on problems here at home?” (Relayed from Marjorie Taylor Greene, 14:32)

• Trump’s Framing:

  • He links Venezuela to oil and potentially lower gas prices, tying foreign policy back to economic benefits for Americans (14:59).

---

6. Limits and Risks of the 'Don-roe Doctrine'

Boundaries of Interventionism

• Selective Use of Force:

  • Trump seems only willing to use force against weaker nations, not other superpowers.
  • “According to the Trump doctrine, the three big aggressive superpowers, China, Russia and the US can pretty much do what they want…” (Mara Liasson, 16:17)
  • No real willingness to challenge Russia (on Ukraine) or China (on Taiwan).

• Personalism Over Institutionalism:

  • Trump told The New York Times, “There’s one thing, my own morality, my own mind” as a check on his power (Danielle Kurtzleben, 17:13).
  • Further: “Right. He went on to say, I don’t need international law.” (Mara Liasson, 17:39)

---

7. The Future of GOP Foreign Policy

Post-Trump Scenarios

• Potential Directions:
  • Depends on next nominee; Marco Rubio represents neoconservatism, while J.D. Vance is uncertain (Danielle Kurtzleben, 17:55).
  • The outcome in Venezuela will shape which vision gains ground (Mara Liasson, 18:18):
    • If Venezuela stabilizes: “Marco Rubio is going to get a big boost.”
    • If not, “that might help JD [Vance]…”

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “[Neoconservatism] is the ideology that sent the U.S. into Iraq and kept them there to try to build a democracy there.” — Danielle Kurtzleben (01:49)
• “They went in there to get Maduro and to get the oil. That’s the difference between Trump and neoconservatives.” — Mara Liasson (05:39)
• “In his first term, [Trump] surrounded himself with people…who curbed his instincts. Now he has people willing to enable him.” — Danielle Kurtzleben (07:16)
• “MAGA loves everything I do. MAGA loves this. MAGA is me.” — Quoting Trump (11:34)
• “There’s one thing, my own morality, my own mind.” — Trump, quoted by Danielle Kurtzleben (17:13)
• “Crowding out [domestic issues] rather than convincing people they should vote for Republicans because of what he did in Venezuela.” — Mara Liasson (13:48)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |--------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:08 | Introduction: Contrasting Trump’s "America First" with Bush-era neoconservatism | | 01:49 | Defining neoconservative foreign policy (Danielle) | | 05:21 | Analysis of Venezuela intervention and contrast with Bush doctrine | | 06:43 | Trump’s evolving ability to exercise policy without traditional constraints | | 09:41 | Senate response and Republican pushback to Venezuela action | | 11:03 | Trump’s relationship with Congress, public, and his base | | 12:23 | GOP base’s polling response to Venezuela action | | 13:29 | Midterm implications and crowding-out effect on domestic issues | | 14:32 | Tension between foreign military spending and "America First"/affordability | | 16:17 | The ‘Don-roe Doctrine’: limits, spheres of power, and superpowers | | 17:13 | Trump’s personalism; checks on power and disregard for international law | | 17:55 | The future of GOP foreign policy post-Trump |

---

Tone and Takeaways

The hosts are analytical and occasionally wry, dissecting the contradictions and evolutions in GOP foreign policy with clear references to recent events, polling, and on-the-ground political realities. The discussion is nuanced, noting both Trump’s unique dominance over his party and the broader uncertainties for Republican foreign policy in the years to come.

Bottom Line:
Trump’s approach to foreign policy—centered on personalist, transactional “America First” principles, with little appetite for international consultation—marks a sharp departure from Bush-era neoconservatism. How this chapter ends, especially in Venezuela, may shape the future of Republican foreign engagement for years to come.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hi, this is Juliana Plews in Benito Juarez Airport in Mexico City. After spending four months studying abroad in Mexico, I'm finally about to head home to the U.S. this podcast was recorded.

[C]

At 12:17pm on Monday, January 12, 2026.

[B]

Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll probably be back in the US Missing my tacos al pastor. Oh, okay, here's the show.

[C]

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[D]

I'm going in February.

[C]

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[D]

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[B]

Send reports back, please. Actually, can you just send us tacos?

[C]

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[B]

Like put them in dry ice.

[D]

You don't want that.

[C]

Okay. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.

[B]

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House.

[D]

And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

[C]

And today on the podcast, Donald Trump is the America first president. He started his political career campaigning against the neoconservative policies that brought years long conflicts and in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here he is talking at a Republican presidential debate in 2016. Obviously, it was a mistake. So George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. But how does that square with what looks to be a little bit like nation building in Venezuela right now? Danielle, I want to start with you give a little bit of context here when we talk about the neoconservative values of the George W. Bush era. What do we mean by that?

[B]

So we're going to talk here about neoconservatism, specifically in the context of foreign policy, which is how it is largely known in the US Right now. And it is largely remembered for its role in the George W. Bush era. Now, during that time, neoconservatism is the ideology that sent the U.S. into Iraq and kept the U.S. there to try to build a democracy there. The idea behind neoconservatism is not only that you go intervene in foreign countries, but also that that you're trying to export American values like democracy, like free speech, like all of the sort of bedrock things that we think of as being part of the usa. So, for example, former Vice President Dick Cheney is considered a leading voice from back then of neoconservatism. And here he was talking in 2003, talking to CBS, about why the US should go into Iraq.

[C]

I think our goal and objective, and.

[D]

I think the objective of many of the Iraqi people and the opposition as.

[C]

Well, too, is to establish a broadly.

[D]

Representative government in Iraq that has due regard for the various groups and for the human rights, protects the territorial integrity of Iraq. All of those kinds of considerations would go into what comes next.

[B]

He's not really talking there about, we're doing this for us. We have some real fundamental reasons to protect the US Going in there. Yes, this administration did promote the idea of WMDs, but when they were selling this idea, they said, no, this is also about human rights, as Cheney said there. This is about building democracy there. So that is what neoconservatism was.

[D]

So neoconservative, fundamentally, was about exporting values, nation building, meaning that the Iraqis were going to embrace the kind of democratic values and human rights that Americans had, that it didn't work out so well. And it's very, very different than the kind of interventionism we're seeing now with Donald Trump.

[C]

Well, I wanna walk through, because I do think this evolution over the last 25 years is fascinating, Danielle, kind of walk through how we end up in the 2015 era then, where Donald Trump kind of opens his political career by being very America first, by being what seems to me to be almost isolationist.

[B]

Yeah. So let's start with the end of the George W. Bush era. Right. By then, the view of what the US had done and was doing in Iraq was slipping. People were just getting really sick of having US Soldiers in Iraq, having sent them there and thinking that they were going to improve things and get out. Well, it turns out it was really hard to do that. So even Republicans had soured on the US Being involved in Iraq. Now, it's not that neocons disappeared over the coming years, but they just got a little less loud and isolationists like former Texas Representative Ron Paul got a bit louder of a voice. So, so, fast forward to Trump. Trump was considered a real rejection of neoconservatism because as you heard him in that debate clip we heard at the top, he talked a lot about, we don't want the US to be spending its treasure and sending its people overseas. We want to keep that here. That is what America first is. Now, there is quite a bit of debate about how isolationist Trump ever was. But he certainly did push the idea that the US Needs to be less involved overseas.

[C]

I mean, just looking at what happened here in Venezuela and Nicolas Maduro, you know, Venezuela's most recent presidential election was considered to be marred by fraud, that this is somebody who was clinging on to power against democratic values. America came in, is that neoconservative, but.

[D]

Not because he rejected the results of an election. America came in and said, we're gonna topple this guy because, well, he's been indicted in the United States for drug crimes. But they didn't go in there because he refused to accept the results of a democratic election. They went in there to get Maduro and to get the oil. That's the difference between Trump and neoconservatives. Except I will say there is one big exception. And as Danielle says, parties are made up of many different people with many different approaches to foreign policy. But there is one big former neoconservative, some people would say he still is one in the Trump administration, and that's Marco Rubio. And he does have an ideological motive for wanting to get rid of left wing dictators in south and Central America. He's a Cuban American. He grew up in the Cuban diaspora. And, you know, you could say he was born this way to devote his life to trying to topple dictators, left wing dictators, and restore democracy and human rights to countries like Venezuela and Cuba.

[B]

So when we're talking about Donald Trump's foreign policy ideology, it is easy to think that, huh, his view of the world and his role in it must have changed from term one to term two, term one, when he really ran in 2015 and 16, on saying, we need to stop getting involved in all of these foreign places, foreign issues. But the foreign policy experts that I consulted for this story, I did on this, said that they think, well, it's not that Trump's ideology changed, it's that his ability to get done what he wants to change that in his first term, he, he surrounded himself with a bunch of people who were kind of considered, quote, unquote, the adults in the room. You know, people like Rex Tillerson, who was Secretary of State, Jim Mattis, who was Secretary of Defense, people who curbed Donald Trump's instincts. And now he has people who are willing to enable him. And so Trump has really just gotten better at using the levers of power and he's just doing a lot more.

[D]

Yeah, I totally agree with that. This is, he can now do what he wants, and he has a very different approach to foreign policy than I can't think of a modern example in the Republican Party that's like Trump and his view of the way the US should wield its power overseas.

[C]

All right, we're going to take a quick break and more on all of this in just a second.

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[C]

And we've been talking about a shift in the foreign policy of the Republican Party with Donald Trump as president. And I'm curious about Republicans in Congress. What has the response been from them on the actions in Venezuela?

[B]

Well, in large part it's been pretty quiet, but you have had a bit of pushback, which during this Trump administration is notable because Republicans in Congress, as we all know, have been remarkably acquiescent to Donald Trump. So there was a vote in the Senate last week to advance legislation that would force Trump to seek approval from Congress to authorize any further military action against Venezuela. And that passed 52 to 47. And it included five Republicans, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Susan Collins from Maine, Todd Young in Indiana, and Josh Hawley of Missouri. So certainly by no means a majority of Republic, but five in this Republican era is not nothing. And it really shows that there is at least some real concerns about what Trump is doing here.

[D]

And Trump didn't like it at all and said that all five of those people should not be reelected. Only one of them is up for reelection this year, Susan Collins of Maine. But he didn't like it one bit, even though, as Danielle says, it wasn't that big of a revolt.

[C]

I mean, how much is Trump doing to try to win over Congress on any of these actions, or the general public for that matter? It's interesting, we talked earlier in the segment about how he just seems to be doing whatever he wants right now. Does he care whether people in Congress or the general public support these actions?

[D]

He certainly doesn't act like he does. You know, when both George Bush's were preparing to go to war in Iraq, they spent a lot of time, they went to Congress, they went to international organizations like the U.N. they explained what they were doing, they tried to communicate and educate the public and get the public on their side. Trump has done almost none of that. He seems extremely confident of the support he has among the MAGA base, even though this is an intervention, the kind of which he campaigned against. One of the reasons he got the support from the public. But when asked about this, when asked about whether the MAGA base would continue to support a foreign intervention like this, he said, maga loves everything I do. MAGA loves this. MAGA is me.

[B]

Yeah, he's not entirely wrong there. Now, look, the US Attack on Venezuela is still young. We don't know a lot about how people have reacted. But what little polling we have. I am looking at polling data right now from YouGov and what you see is that in the last little sliver of time since Trump attacked Venezuela, you saw Republican approval of the US Using military force there just shoot upwards. The latest that they have here is January 6th at 74%. 74% of Republican supporting it.

[D]

Supported the raid. Yes, supported the raid. But when asked, do you think that America should continue to have boots on the ground or run Venezuela, then the polling is different and might change over time. As Danielle said, it's very early.

[B]

Yes, totally true. And that's kind of what I wanted to get at here, which is Trump is like, definitely has something that I don't think we've seen another US Leader have before. You can call it a cult of personality, you can call it just tight, tight grip on his base. Whatever you call it, Trump does have a remarkable ability to do something. And his base says, yeah, okay, sounds great. But Mara is also correct that, gosh, were this Venezuela situation with the US overseeing it, running it to drag out, you can imagine that support eroding. So the unsatisfying answer is Time will tell.

[C]

Well, and obviously, there will be an important inflection point in 11 or so months where people are gonna go vote in the midterms. How much do you think what's happening right now will be reflected in the results?

[D]

I think it will have an effect, but not the way that you might think about it. Foreign policy is generally not something that people vote on, especially in midterms. And right now, we know that economic issues are top of mind for voters. They care about prices of health care and groceries and education. And every day that he spends talking about Venezuela or about what he might do to Greenland or Colombia or Cuba or Mexico, it's a day that he's not convincing people that he has an answer to their economic problems. So I think it's a matter of crowding out rather than convincing people they should vote for Republicans in the midterms because of what he did in Venezuela. That's not gonna happen, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Well, one of the things I've been wondering about is, like, before this all happened, I do feel like the word affordability was in the news all of the time. And isn't military action really expensive for the government to carry out? I mean, does that matter at all in terms of in the midterms? I just don' how you square the whole concept of DOGE and the idea of saving the government money while also spending all of this money to, like, topple a dictator in a country.

[D]

Yes. And, you know, there are some members of maga, prominent members, that have pointed this out. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's left Congress because of a falling out with Trump, said, boy, were we wrong when we believed him that he wouldn't spend taxpayer dollars overseas and he'd focus on problems right here at home in the usa. So there are people who think that there are very few of them who are willing to come out and criticize Trump, but maybe instead of voting against Republicans, maybe they'll just stay home.

[B]

Now, all of that said, Trump hasn't left affordability entirely by the wayside here, in the sense that when he's talking about Venezuela, of course he's talking about oil. And there is this. As yet, we don't really know all the details. I mean, do gas prices go down? Trump loves talking about gas prices, so maybe. But besides that, it's not entirely inconsistent with how Trump talks about things about himself, because Trump also, from 2015, has talked about himself as a tough guy. And this really fits with the whole MAGA idea of very muscular foreign policy, of throwing your weight around and The US Has a heck of a lot of weight in terms of defense. So, yeah, this fits with maga, but do people like it?

[D]

Well, the raid fits with maga.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Running Venezuela on a day to day basis, whatever that means, might not fit with maga.

[C]

Well, and I guess I wonder also, is there a limit to this style of foreign policy? I mean, you listed off all the other countries that Trump has kind of alluded to wanting a role in. I mean, Greenland, Colombia, Iran is in the news right now a lot for what's going on there. I guess if he decides to be more involved in all of these different places, does that, I guess, generate, do you think, more pushback from other Republicans?

[D]

Probably not. He doesn't see any limits on his ability to exercise US Force abroad, except that he doesn't seem to want to do this to other big superpowers. According to the Trump doctrine, the three big aggressive superpowers, China, Russia and the US can pretty much do what they want in their own sphere of influence or neighborhood. In the US Case, it's the Western Hemisphere. Even though he seems very willing to use military force against smaller, weaker countries like Venezuela or maybe Greenland, he is extremely reluctant to confront the other two superpowers. He has not put pressure on Vladimir Putin to reverse his invasion of Ukraine. And he doesn't seem to be talking about doing anything to defend Taiwan against a potential Chinese takeover.

[B]

Right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, as Trump told the New York Times in that long interview they recently did, a reporter asked him if there are any checks on his power. And here's what he said.

[C]

There's one thing, my own morality, my.

[B]

Own mind, which gets back to that whole thing we were talking about at the start of this episode about schools of thought in international relations. You know, the idea of realism or neoconservatism, imperialism, anything like that. And here you have Trump being very, you could call individualist, personalist, but saying, it's all about me, it's all about what I'm thinking.

[D]

Right. He went on to say, I don't need international law.

[B]

Right. Yeah.

[C]

Which also begs the question, I guess for me, looking ahead, he is not going to be in office forever. And so I guess I do wonder where the Republican Party more broadly when it comes to foreign policy, where does it go from here?

[B]

Post Trump depends on who Republicans decide they want to nominate next time around. I mean, if it's Marco Rubio, like Mara said earlier, he has much more of a neoconservative leaning than plenty of other Republicans. I mean, J.D. vance, I mean I'm not sure what J.D. vance, how he would articulate his foreign policy if he were at the top of the ticket. So I think it's very person dependent.

[D]

Well, it also is dependent on how Venezuela looks when the Trump administration ends. You know, it'll depend on what Venezuela looks like. If it looks like a stable country moving towards democracy, Marco Rubio is going to get a big boost. If it looks like a mess, well, that might help JD and also, does.

[B]

The US do anything in Greenland or Iran or anywhere else before then?

[C]

All right. Well, let's leave it there for today. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting.

[B]

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House.

[D]

And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

[C]

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

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