Are we going to invade Venezuela?

Summary

---

Today, Explained — “Are we going to invade Venezuela?”

Date: October 29, 2025
Host: Estad Herndon (filling in), produced by Vox
Guests: Alex Horton (Washington Post), Jonathan Blitzer (The New Yorker)

---

Overview:

This episode examines the recent dramatic escalation of U.S. military action in and around Venezuela — including kinetic strikes on suspected drug boats and the buildup of U.S. forces in the region — and explores whether the U.S. is on the brink of war with Venezuela. Guests Alex Horton (Pentagon reporter) and Jonathan Blitzer (The New Yorker) break down policy rationales, shifting White House power dynamics, legality, and deeper motivations behind the Trump administration’s moves.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Timeline and Nature of Escalation

• Initial Events:

  • September: U.S. launches a series of deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean allegedly tied to Venezuelan narco-terrorists, killing 57 over two months. (00:02–00:33)
  • Deployment of significant military assets: guided missile destroyers, thousands of troops, B-52 bombers, special ops helicopters (03:59–04:14).

• Unprecedented Policy Shift:

  • Historic precedent: U.S. Coast Guard would intercept, arrest, and prosecute suspects; now, military strikes are used instead.
  • Alex Horton: “That changed completely... when the U.S. started striking these vessels in the open ocean and Caribbean.” (03:06)

2. Justification for Action: Drugs & Regime Change

• Administration’s Claims:

  • President Trump alleges Venezuela (President Maduro) is sending both violent gang members and drugs (notably fentanyl) into the U.S. (05:06–05:18).

• Evidence (or Lack Thereof):

  • Horton notes the administration provides little hard evidence to support its claims. “What we know about these strikes officially comes from Truth Social posts... They haven’t tried to lay out a body of evidence.” (07:07, 07:20)
  • The ‘receipts’ or proof typically shown to justify military intervention (e.g., images of drugs, documented links to trafficking groups) are missing.

• Quote:

  • Alex Horton (on lack of evidence): “Are they oysters, or is it cocaine? I don’t know. So that’s about the extent of what we can know officially.” (08:11)

3. Alternative Motives: Oil & Resource Interests

• Alternative Analysis:

  • Driven less by anti-narcotics and more by economic/reputation factors — Venezuela’s oil, coastline, and potential financial benefit for the U.S.
  • Trump’s track record: tying U.S. interventions to resource leverage (Ukraine-minerals, Gaza-development deals). (09:26–09:50)

• Quote:

  • Donald Trump: “We want something for our efforts... rare earth, they’re very good. Rare earth, as you know, we’re looking for rare earth all the time.” (09:26)

4. Legality and Congressional Oversight

• Is This Legal?

  • Broad consensus among law-of-war experts: targeting suspected criminals with deadly military force is not only outside law enforcement norms but “looks like murder, and is patently illegal.” (10:42)
  • Trump administration is “testing the boundaries of international law… like Jurassic Park, testing the fences.” (10:42–11:48)

• Erosion of Checks and Balances:

  • Post-9/11 legacy: Congress no longer reining in presidential war powers.
  • Horton: “Congress abdicating authority of declaring conflict… this is no exception.” (11:58)

• Quote:

  • Estad Herndon: “Do we know why he’s doing it? Not exactly. And do we think it’s legal? Probably not. Who’s gonna stop him?”
  • Alex Horton: “...the people on Capitol Hill, right?” (11:48)

5. Who’s Driving Policy? The Rise of Stephen Miller

• Internal Administration Divide:

  • Two camps:
    • Camp Rubio (Secretary of State; hawkish, favoring sanctions/military pressure)
    • Camp Grenell (envoy; favors negotiation, de-escalation) (19:34–20:13)
  • Recent shift: Miller (“domestic policy czar”/immigration advisor) supports the Rubio approach, facilitating escalation (18:32–18:54).

• Miller’s Motives:

  • Expanding presidential power: Avoiding Congressional/foreign oversight, “a much more muscular, unfettered display of what the President can do.” (21:32)
  • Domestic messaging: Militarized response to immigration, blaming Venezuelan immigrants for crimes, shaping public perception.
  • “Get used to the idea of militarized American power on a daily level in your lives.” (22:58)
  • Criminalizing Venezuelan immigration as justification for broader action, similarly to the old MS-13 rhetoric, but targeting Venezuelans instead. (24:01)

• Quote:

  • Jonathan Blitzer: “This is language the administration has used. This is the MS-13 playbook, exactly 100%.” (24:31–24:41)

6. Are We Really Going to War?

• Fog and Uncertainty:
  • No clarity on endgame or next steps, even among insiders: “The short answer, as I understand it, is I have no idea. And it’s not clear to me that they have an idea.” (25:23)
  • U.S. posturing creates the impression that invasion is on the table. Jonathan Blitzer: “We don’t know if we’re going to war, but we know they want us to think that we might.” (26:01–26:07)
  • “It’s a really wild game of chicken. It’s hard to believe it’s happening.” (26:07–26:26)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Trump, on the campaign for violence:

  “We’re gonna kill them. You know, they’re gonna be, like, dead. Okay.” — Donald Trump (00:33)

• On Legal Norms:

  “It is hard to find any law of war expert or former military attorney who says, this isn’t law enforcement. This isn’t a military operation. You know, this looks like murder, and it’s patently illegal.” — Alex Horton (10:42)

• Motives and Power:

  “This is an opportunity, in Miller’s view, to expand the power of the President... He can call someone a narco-terrorist, and that’s that. That’s grounds enough to literally launch a premeditated murder attempt.” — Jonathan Blitzer (21:32)

• On Evidence:

  “That’s 10 minutes longer than Pete Hegseth or the President have answered questions about this to the American public... what we’re getting is sort of grainy 10-second videos... Are they oysters or is it cocaine? I don’t know.” — Alex Horton (06:45–08:11)

• On Immigration & Rhetoric:

  “This prison gang from Venezuela is infiltrating American cities. It’s literally invaded the country. This is language the administration has used. This is the MS-13 playbook, exactly 100%.” — Jonathan Blitzer (24:31–24:41)

• On Policy Uncertainty:

  “The short answer, as I understand it, is I have no idea. And it’s not clear to me that they have an idea.” — Jonathan Blitzer (25:23)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:02–00:33 — Escalating military strikes and provocations
• 02:14–04:35 — Pentagon reporter Alex Horton details military escalation, troop and asset deployments
• 05:06–06:03 — Trump’s statements and the ambiguous CIA role
• 07:07–08:11 — Questions raised about evidence for strikes
• 09:04–10:13 — Possibility of ulterior motives: oil, economic interests
• 10:42–11:58 — Legality, congressional abdication of war powers
• 15:40–17:56 — Jonathan Blitzer explains “domino theory” and old/new policy difference
• 18:32–21:02 — Stephen Miller’s entry, the internal administration battle
• 22:58–24:41 — Militarization of domestic policy, Venezuela as new target group
• 25:23–26:26 — Uncertainty: “Are we going to war?”

---

Episode Takeaways

• The dramatic turn in U.S. policy toward Venezuela—escalating from counternarcotics to potential regime change through military means—is occurring under ambiguous justification and without clear legal authority.
• There is a lack of transparency about evidence and motives; economic (oil, minerals) and political (domestic power and immigration politics) factors appear as likely drivers as counternarcotics claims.
• Internally, aggressive voices such as Stephen Miller shape policy direction, shifting military and legal norms, with little Congressional oversight.
• While an actual U.S. invasion of Venezuela has not occurred, military posturing intentionally raises the specter of war—leaving the U.S. public, and much of the government, uncertain and uneasy about next steps.

---

Transcript

[Estad Herndon]

First, it was one alleged truck boat.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

Back in September, US Military forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified trend aragua narco terrorists.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

11 on board were killed.

[Marco Rubio]

When you flood American streets with drugs, you are terrorizing America.

[Estad Herndon]

Then a second strike in the Caribbean. Then another and another. Almost every week for two months in total, the more than a dozen ships have been hit and at least 57 people left dead.

[Donald Trump]

We're gonna kill them. You know, they're gonna be, like, dead. Okay.

[Estad Herndon]

And Trump is still upping the ante. He's sending warships to the coast of Venezuela. But the question is why? And what's Stephen Miller got to do with it? Okay, I'm Estad Herndon filling in around here for the next few months. That and more coming up on Today Explained from vox.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

Support for the show today comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Today's news moves fast, but the most important stories deserve deeper thinking. Whether you're trying to understand the implications of a policy change or connecting dots across breaking stories, Claude, your new AI collaborator can help you go beyond the headlines. Claude doesn't just summarize the news. It helps you explore the context, analyze the patterns, and think through what it all means together. Try Claude for free at Claude. AI Todayexplained support for Today Explained comes.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

From Nuremberg, a film from Sony Pictures Classics. In the aftermath of World War II, as the world confronts the horrors of the Holocaust, a US army psychiatrist is tasked with evaluating Hermann Goering. Oh, God. Hitler's second in command. Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor leads the Allies in forming an unprecedented international tribunal for the trial of the century. Huh? As Dr. Kelly delves deeper into Guring's, a tense psychological duel unfolds. Nuremberg. Starring Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, and Michael Shannon. Only in theaters November 7th.

[Spanish-speaking Announcer]

Estar escucando a hoy explicado today explained.

[Alex Horton]

I'm Alex Horton, and I cover the Pentagon and the military for the Washington Post.

[Estad Herndon]

And you're the exact person to talk to right now because I've been seeing some headlines that seem to indicate that America might be making some steps toward war with Venezuela, but I don't have any sense of how likely that is or why this seems to be happening. I was hoping you can give me the state of play right now.

[Alex Horton]

Sure. It's been a widening conflict since early September, and it's not really clear to me either. You know where this is going when.

[Donald Trump]

You come out and when you leave the room, you'll see that we just over the last few minutes, Literally shot out a boat.

[Alex Horton]

In early September, the US Started striking boats suspected of carrying drugs in the Caribbean.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

President Trump says The strike killed 11 members of the notorious gang Trend. The massive explosion sending debris raining down in international waters.

[Alex Horton]

This is the first time that we know of where the US Military has conducted multiple military strikes in the same day. This was a complete shock to, you know, people who are longtime reporters in the Pentagon and national security because for decades, the policy has been for Americans, specifically the Coast Guard, to, when they see suspected traffickers, is to stop the boat, arrest the traffickers, take the drugs, and send them on for civilian prosecution. That changed completely on its head when the US Started striking these vessels in the open ocean and in the Caribbean. President Trump has long said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is an agitator in the region. He has said that Maduro is overseeing drug trafficking and sending violent gang members into the US and then what happens in September, right, is a ton of forces, you know, relative to their history in the region have come in.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

The Pentagon deployed three guided missile destroyers to international waters near Venezuela.

[Estad Herndon]

The US has deployed thousands of troops to the region, and more are on their way.

[Alex Horton]

B52 bombers are flying off the coast of Venezuela.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

Special operations helicopters were just seen flying.

[Alex Horton]

90 miles from Venezuela's coast. First it was a Marine amphibious assault ship. Now it has grown to a force of 10,000. So within a matter of weeks, that has gone from a relatively quiet backyard of the United States to the most busy military theater in the world.

[Estad Herndon]

So there's been a real escalation in just a matter of months.

[Alex Horton]

That's right.

[Estad Herndon]

I also saw that the CIA was doing some sort of operations there. Where does that fit in in the sort of tools you laid out? And also, why do we know about this, considering that at least I thought the CIA did its work in secret.

[Alex Horton]

Traditionally, the CIA likes to be left to his own devices, which is how we get into some of these pickles around the world. Right. President Trump said he had authorized CIA covert actions in Venezuela.

[Donald Trump]

I authorized for two reasons, really. Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. The other thing are drugs. We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela.

[Alex Horton]

It's unclear if that has begun, but their bread and butter, you know, what they're good at is getting into a country like Venezuela that's already relatively unstable given the authoritarian rule there. The economy has been in shambles for years. There are strong opposition groups with Washington ties that are on the ground. They have powerful lobbying groups in Washington. So the CIA's role in the COVID war anyway would be to work with those opposition groups, make sure they're armed, make sure they have intelligence to give them an edge over Maduro's forces. Shattered, it comes to that.

[Estad Herndon]

Just so I have this kind of clear, you're saying that President Trump has made a show of kind of authorizing covert operations in Venezuela, but we don't exactly know what they're up to and we don't exactly know what those aims.

[Alex Horton]

Are and we don't know if they're doing it. Yeah, so he's turned a covert action into overt action. Right. Like he fancies himself as a dealmaker, a negotiator. So it's possible that he wants to see Maduro leave power and this is one way of coercion that falls short of military action.

[Estad Herndon]

Okay, so as you're saying in the administration's the focus of these operations is to topple a Maduro regime that is allegedly tied to drugs and fentanyl. But we usually hear these claims in relationship to other countries like Mexico or Colombia, not Venezuela. What do we know about these drug boats? Do we have actual, any hard evidence that these are in fact drug boats?

[Alex Horton]

Well, how many minutes have we been on this podcast so far? Like 10 minutes or so?

[Estad Herndon]

Yep.

[Alex Horton]

That's 10 minutes longer than Pete Hegseth or the President have answered questions about this to the American public. What we know about these strikes officially come from truth social posts.

[Estad Herndon]

Truth Social intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narco terrorist networks and, and was transiting along a known DTO route.

[Alex Horton]

They come from Postson X, we don't know. And the administration has not even tried to lay out a body of evidence showing drugs showing connections to Maduro or to trafficking organizations. And maybe it's. They don't have it. But you know, if, if you're going to launch a war in our hemisphere, which is where this could be going, you do want to show your math, you do want to come with the receipts to the American public. And what we're getting is sort of grainy 10 second videos. Now, there was a recent trek that Hexif, you know, just announced one of the boats that they showed like a fan cam of these boats exploding, essentially just like clips of them just blowing up without real context. There are white bags in there. Are they oysters or is it cocaine? I don't know. So that's about the extent of what we can know officially.

[Estad Herndon]

Well, hearing all this, I'm prone to defer to the evidence that says this may not directly be about what the administration says this is about. Maybe this isn't about drug boats. So what are the other possibilities? We know Venezuela has unique reserves of oil that are envy of places across the world. Is this about that?

[Alex Horton]

It could be. You know, when you look at the small circle of people who will decide where this operation goes at the White House, you have a lot of antagonists of Maduro and Venezuela in there. And now some of these levers are starting to look like they're getting pulled. So when you take a step back and say this doesn't make sense that you would target the final node of drug trafficking in a place that doesn't really impact the US that much, which is from Venezuela to the US if that doesn't make sense, if it logically doesn't pass a smell test, then, then what is it actually about?

[Estad Herndon]

Right, right.

[Alex Horton]

And you look at Venezuela, you look at its oil reserves, you look at its pristine coastline, and you start to put these things together. That Trump has been interested in deals and outcomes where the US Benefits financially. We saw that in Ukraine, where he put a lot of emphasis on minerals and precious mining as one possible negotiation tactic with the Ukrainians and support.

[Donald Trump]

I said, well, we want something for our efforts beyond what you would think would be acceptable. And we said, rare earth. They're very good. Rare earth. As you know, we're looking for rare earth all the time.

[Alex Horton]

We see that with his ongoing negotiations in Gaza, with, you know, the administration's interest in developing, you know, Gaza into something that looks more like Trump Hotel.

[Donald Trump]

We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don't want to be cute, I don't want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle east, this could be something that could be.

[Alex Horton]

So it's a thing, it's a theme for him. And there's a non zero chance that there is. Some of that stuff is animating what the administration ultimately wants to do, but we just don't know those outcomes yet.

[Estad Herndon]

You know, regime change in Venezuela, as you mentioned, has been the goal of many Republicans for some time. It's actually outlined in Project 2025. But as you're laying out in the timeline, the escalation on this front is fairly recent and a break with US Policy on the past. If you could think what is the single biggest factor that caused that shift in policy that has gotten us closer to inching toward a conflict with Venezuela than we have been before, what would you say that is?

[Alex Horton]

I would say just taking kinetic and deadly strikes in the region to begin with against people who are, in the end, suspected criminals. It is hard to find any law of war expert or former military attorney who says, this isn't law enforcement. This isn't a military operation. You know, this looks like murder, and it's patently illegal. What is happening there is what these experts pretty much resoundingly have said. And, you know, the administration, I think they're starting to test the limits of the law, of international law, of what you can use the military for. We see the testing the boundaries like Jurassic Park. It's like testing the fences of what the norms and the laws are. And then you kind of walk away with a sense of the. Some of these things are just governed by norms. It was the norm in the Pacific and in the Caribbean to deal with this as a civilian law enforcement matter. And Hegseth and Trump have turned it into a military operation. Is that legal? Maybe not. Is he gonna keep doing it? Probably. Who's gonna stop him? You know the people on Capitol Hill, right?

[Estad Herndon]

No, no, no, you're right, you're right, you're right. I'm like, it's just kind of funny. Do we know why he's doing it? Not exactly. And do we think it's legal? Probably not. Who's gonna stop him?

[Alex Horton]

And this has the roots in the post 911 world of Congress abdicating authority of declaring conflict to the president and not trying to corral him, or fecklessly and failing to do so in numerous occasions. And this is no exception.

[Estad Herndon]

Alex Horton, Washington Post. Coming up, the administration's story on Venezuela doesn't really add up. So why are we inching toward a war? That's next.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

Support for Today Explained comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Every entrepreneur knows that moment when breaking news hits and you're thinking, what does this actually mean for my business? New regulations drop, markets shift, geopolitical events unfold. And suddenly you need to understand not just what happened, but it connects to everything else. Claude by Anthropic is an AI collaborator that can help you work through information in real time. You can upload docs, regulatory filings, or multiple news sources to to help you see the bigger picture. Need to verify claims or research background, context. Claude searches current sources and provides citations you can check. It works through complex news stories step by step, asking questions that reveal deeper meanings and connections others miss. See why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner and try Claude for free at Claude AI todayexplained.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

When will AI finally make work easier? How about today? Say hello to Gemini Enterprise from Google Cloud, a simple, easy to use platform letting any business tap the best of Google AI. Retailers are already using AI agents to help customers reschedule deliveries all on their own. Bankers are automating millions of customer requests so they can focus on more personal service, and nurses are getting automated reports, freeing them up for patient care. It's a new way to work. Learn more about gemini [e-mail].

[Alex Horton]

Support for.

[Spanish-speaking Announcer]

The show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. We've all had pivotal decision points in our lives that, whether we know it or not at the time, changed everything. This is especially true in business. Like did you know that autonomous drone delivery company Zipline originally produced a robotic toy? Or that Bolt went from an Estonian transportation company to one of the largest rideshare and food delivery platforms in the world? That's what Crucible Moments is all about. Hosted by Sequoia Capital's managing partner, Roelof Bothe, Crucible Moments is back for a new season with stories of companies as they navigated the most consequential crossroads in their journeys. Hear conversations with leaders at Zipline, Stripe, Palo Alto Networks, Klarna Supercell, and more. Subscribe to Season 3 of Crucible Moments and catch up on Seasons 1 and [e-mail] on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Crucible Moments today.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

You're listening to Today Explained.

[Estad Herndon]

I'm Estad Herndon. This week a headline in the New Yorker got my attention. The Real Target of Trump's War on Drug Boats, by Jonathan Blitzer. The reporting seemed to suggest there was a through line between Trump's actions in Venezuela and his actions here at home. So I called Jonathan to learn more.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

There have been elements of the Republican establishment that have wanted Maduro ousted in Venezuela, and they've wanted him ousted for a bunch of typical sort of establishment reasons. On the kind of hawkish neocon Right.

[Alex Horton]

Now is the time to rid the civilized world of Nicolas Maduro. Now is the time to act. We must keep the pressure on and continue to isolate and delegitimize Maduro's regime.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

Mainly that if you lose Venezuela or if the regime in Venezuela collapses, then there is a kind of domino effect among other socialist regimes across the region, in Cuba, in Nicaragua and elsewhere that would fall because they depend in many ways on the strength of the Venezuelan regime. They get oil from Venezuela and they've Kind of all been sort of oriented around Venezuela going back decades now. And so, for people like Marco Rubio, who obviously, during Trump's first term, was just a senator, there was a kind of axiomatic view among these types that you had to pressure Maduro to leave office.

[Marco Rubio]

The Maduro regime is not a government. They are a Mafia. You have to think of them as an organized crime ring, and everybody around Maduro is a criminal. And so you break them the way you break an organized crime ring. You put pressure on all of them until these thieves and these criminals that have no honor, they start turning on each other.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

And that the way to do it was to impose sanctions. It was to threaten military action. And interestingly, during the first Trump term, the administration itself wasn't willing to go much farther than issuing threats. So nothing much happened. And Trump himself was someone who, it seems fair to say now, was not comfortable with the idea of a kind of direct military intervention. He was into making all kinds of threats. He was into the rhetorical side of it, but wasn't quite ready to face the music of what an actual kind of military engagement would involve.

[Estad Herndon]

And so what changed then, from the first term of Donald Trump, where he was unwilling to kind of make that next step, to this next term? Is it just that Marco Rubio has a bigger role and he's now the Secretary of State?

[Jonathan Blitzer]

Well, that's what's so interesting, as I see it, in terms of what's happening right now, because you'd think on paper that this represents the kind of triumph of Marco Rubio viewpoint he brings into the administration. Now. He's the Secretary of State. He's the acting national security adviser. You'd think that this. This recent turn toward overt military action would reflect his consolidated influence inside the administration, right? I'm not clear that it necessarily does.

[Estad Herndon]

What do you mean?

[Jonathan Blitzer]

Oh, I think more than anything else, what this recent turn toward outright militarism reflects is that there are a new set of players who are weighing in on this issue. And the most important of them is Stephen Miller.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

These people chose to invade us. So there's a lot of concern from the corporate media about the invaders, but it's our responsibility to return them back to where they came from or another country willing to take them.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

The president's sort of chief immigration advisor, his sort of domestic political czar, if you want to call him that, the deputy chief of staff at the White House, the Homeland Security advisor at the White House. As far as I can tell from my sourcing, he was the person in this particular instance who put his thumb on the scales for the Rubio position inside the administration. Because at the start of the second Trump term, there were two different main factions on how the administration should proceed with Venezuela. One was very much what we've outlined, the Rubio vision of things, you know, ramp up sanctions, ramp up hostility, you know, try to force the issue and oust Maduro from power.

[Estad Herndon]

And one hand, Camp Rubio.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

That's right. And on the other hand, Camp Rick Grenell, who was the president's special envoy and had a kind of more conciliatory view of what the US could do in Venezuela. So, for instance, in the winter of this past year, he flies down to Caracas, to the capital of Venezuela, meets directly with Maduro, and starts to engage in negotiations on prisoner exchanges. There are American prisoners held in Venezuelan jails. He tries to get them back. He tries to, in some ways, continue some of the policies of the Biden era in terms of, you know, not necessarily ramping up sanctions, but trying to find a kind of middle path.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

Not only did we get the hostages back without paying a penny, but we also got the Venezuelan government to take illegal immigrants in our country from Venezuela back to Venezuela.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

And so Rubio and Grinnell are kind of at cross purposes going into this past summer. And what I've been told is beginning around August is when the dynamic shifts and Grinnell starts to recede and that the Rubio position starts to win out. But again, that's not necessarily because Rubio has sold the president on a kind of ideological premise for militarism. It's because now there's a new set of players who are actually weighing in. And Miller has a slightly different argument that he's pushing that seems to be carrying the day, and everything is falling into place from there.

[Estad Herndon]

The problem I'm kind of seeing here isn't Miller a domestic policy guy? Obviously, he's famous for leading the administration's charge on immigration enforcement.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

We can't take the risk of letting these Biden illegals roam around freely, unchecked, uncontrolled, unvetted, uninvited by the American people.

[Estad Herndon]

And things that more so are happening within the United States. What's he doing kind of leading the administration policy or at least weighing in to this extent when it comes to Venezuela? Absolutely.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

I mean, this is my main question, too. I mean, what is. This is not Miller's kind of typical portfolio. And my understanding is that there are two things here that are principally motivating Miller. The first and Fairly basic one. This is an opportunity, in Miller's view, to expand the power of the President. I mean, the President should be said right now, in launching these strikes on boats, first in the Caribbean Sea and now in the Pacific, is completely circumventing Congress. He has basically said that we owe Congress and foreign governments zero explanation. This is an opportunity to really engage in a much more muscular, unfettered display of what the President can do, how he can act. He can call someone a narco terrorist, and that's that. That's grounds enough to literally launch a premeditated murder attempt. And so it's very important to kind of take stock of that. And I will say, in addition, as one former administration official told me, you know, even though what you're seeing is happening in an international theater, in some ways, you have to understand it against the backdrop of what's happening in the U.S. here's a look at a U.S.

[Alex Horton]

Army Reserve base in suburban Chicago where National Guard troops from Texas arrived today. It's not every day you see the.

[Estad Herndon]

National Guard in Memphis this afternoon.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

The governor directed dps and the National Guard to deploy to Austin this weekend.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

The clock is ticking, and unless a higher court intervenes, we could see National Guard troops on the streets of Portland within the next hour.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

In some ways, according to this particular source, the way to think about some of these strikes in that context is as an attempt by the administration and by this Millerite kind of wing inside the administration to basically flex its muscles and say, you know, get used to the idea of militarized American power on a kind of daily level in your lives. That's prong one of it. And the second prong is, you know, Miller has waged a campaign against immigrants of all sorts living in the United States, but particular Venezuelan immigrants.

[Podcast Announcer/Host]

You have a Venezuelan gang that is taking over entire apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado, and that's responsible, by the way, for some of the most heinous crimes that have happened all over the United States.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

And that has been, in many ways, how the administration, at least in its early months, justified its crackdown on immigrants writ large in the United States. It basically tried to criminalize the identity of Venezuelan immigrants in much the same way that it did to Central American immigrants during the first Trump term when it used Central American gangs like MS.13 to try to create this impression that all immigrants are criminals.

[Donald Trump]

We had gangs from countries that you wouldn't believe. More than 20 of the criminals we indicted and arrested in the past seven days were illegal aliens.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

What's happened during the Second Trump term, because during the Biden years, you had a large number of Venezuelans arriving in the United States. Was that the current administration is saying Venezuelans who live here are members of this gang called Trenderagua.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

These are heinous monsters, rapists, murderers, kidnappers, sexual assaulters, predators who have no right.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

To be in this country and they.

[Estad Herndon]

Must be held accountable.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

This prison gang from Venezuela is infiltrating American cities. It's literally invaded the country. This is language the administration has used.

[Estad Herndon]

This is the MS.13 playbook, exactly 100%.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

Only the difference from Trump 1 to Trump 2, aside from the obvious fact that now we're not talking about Central Americans and we're talking about Venezuelans, is there is no one inside the administration willing to say to Miller or to Trump, no. And so you're seeing things like these boat strikes internationally, and you have the United States basically declaring war on Venezuela itself.

[Estad Herndon]

I kind of want to end on this question because a lot of listeners would think, okay, I hear you. Executive power, executive authority, the kind of rival teams of the administration. But. But I guess to me, still the most important question is the tangible one in front of us, like, are we going to war with Venezuela? And do we know?

[Jonathan Blitzer]

The short answer, as I understand it, is I have no idea. And it's not clear to me that they have an idea. I mean, I'm constantly sort of pinging my contacts with every new development, asking, like, all right, how do you interpret this? And in a certain sense, there's no question that, you know, the message that the administration is trying to send and it certainly seems willing to deliver in at least some respect, is, you know, we don't need these assets in the region if we're just going to blow up drug boats. These assets get moved into the region for us to begin to launch some sort of incursion on land in a place like Venezuela. So these are. These are huge questions, and it's amazing that they're on the table.

[Estad Herndon]

Yeah, I mean, we don't know if we're going to war, but we know they want us to think that we.

[Jonathan Blitzer]

Might, that that's it. That's it. And meanwhile, like, as you say it like that, like, there's the drumbeat of. I mean, almost every day, you know, the casualties are mounting, the threats are increasing. It's a really wild game of chicken. It's hard to believe it's happening.

[Estad Herndon]

That was Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker. The show today was produced by Hadi Mwagdi, edited by Jolie Myers and Vacczek. By Laura Bullard Our engineers are Patrick Boyd and Adrian Lilly. I'm Estet Herndon. I joined VOX last week after a decade of journalism at the New York Times and the Boston Globe. Get used to this voice. You'll be hearing a lot of me over the next few months while Sean is out. And congrats to Sean. This is TODAY Expl.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Support for the show comes from Charles Schwab. At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your work wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own, plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award winning service, low costs and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Mercury knows that to an entrepreneur, every financial move means more. An international wire means working with the best contractors on any continent, a credit card on day one means creating an ad campaign on day two, and a business loan means loading up on inventory for Black Friday. That's why Mercury offers banking that does more all in one place, so that doing just about anything with your money feels effortless. Visit mercury.com to learn more. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column NA and Evolve bank and Trust Members FDIC.