WASHINGTON — A U.S. raid that captured Nicolás Maduro and installed his deputy has handed President Donald Trump a headline foreign-policy victory — and opened questions about how far the president’s “America First” movement is willing to go with him.
Trump has celebrated the mission, saying aboard Air Force One that voters are “thrilled” and later calling it “brilliant, tactically.” He has said the United States would “run” Venezuela for a time and has not ruled out sending ground troops, a stance that sits uneasily with a political brand built around his warnings against foreign adventurism.
Asked whether he risks losing support if the U.S.’s role drags on, Trump brushed this aside.
“No, MAGA loves it. MAGA loves what I’m doing. MAGA loves everything I do,” Trump told NBC News in an interview Monday.
He said he defines what “America First” means, repeating an assertion that he made last year amid a public disagreement with right-wing commentators over U.S. foreign policy regarding Israel and Iran. “MAGA is me. MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do too,” he added Monday.
While some conservatives have questioned Trump’s endgame in Venezuela, MAGA loyalists and Trump allies who spoke to NBC News this week said that they support the president’s actions in the region so far. And surveys show that, for now, the president’s voters are sticking with him too. According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, just 6% of Republicans oppose Trump’s military action to remove Maduro, while 65% support a stronger U.S. role in Venezuela. And 10% of Republicans polled by The Washington Post disapprove of the operation, while 74% support it.
Delta commandos moved into Caracas overnight Friday, and Maduro was turned over to U.S. authorities on drug-trafficking charges. Since then, Trump and the White House have framed the operation as part of restoring stability in the Western Hemisphere and reviving the Monroe Doctrine, a theme in Trump’s 2025 national security strategy, which asserts that the U.S. has a right to be the dominant influencer in its part of the globe. On Saturday, the president referred to his plan for the U.S. to reassert itself in its backyard as the “Donroe Doctrine.”
“How can you get more ‘America First’ than Manifest Destiny 2.0?” former Trump counselor and “WarRoom” host Steve Bannon said, arguing that hemispheric defense is at the center of Trump’s movement — even as some conservatives have questioned the president’s growing focus on foreign crises from Ukraine to the Middle East and beyond.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a MAGA favorite, said the president’s supporters should see recent actions as “a reinvigoration of the Monroe Doctrine.” He added in a text exchange with NBC News that he is not concerned that a conflict will metastasize, writing: “I trust Trump to keep us out of a forever war there.”
“For too long, American leaders have focused on faraway lands,” said Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump campaign adviser. “MAGA voters understand that a stronger Western Hemisphere will lead to a stronger and more prosperous America.”
The MAGA base is likely to stay in line with Trump on Venezuela, so long as the intervention is swift and doesn’t involve a long-term occupation or result in substantial American casualties or investment, said a MAGA-aligned operative close to the White House who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
Though analysts told NBC News in December that a land war could cause a rift between Trump and his MAGA base, this person added that the early days are more reminiscent of last summer’s strikes in Iran — quick and largely forgotten after some initial handwringing.
It helped, the operative said, that after Trump said at a Saturday news conference that the U.S. “would run” Venezuela, the president clarified in an interview with the New York Post that he was not planning to put troops on the ground if Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez cooperated. Some gamblers, attempting to collect a payout from betting site Polymarket, were frustrated to learn that the operation did not meet the company’s definition of an invasion.
Trump said in his interview with NBC News on Monday that the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela, even as he indicated that the U.S. could launch a second military incursion into Venezuela if Rodriguez stopped cooperating.
The U.S. is seeking to maintain a semblance of stability amid major upheaval in Caracas, said a former Trump administration official close to the White House, with Trump touting revived commercial opportunities for America’s oil companies.
“They want the regime folks to play ball because it’s going to be a lot more work if they’ve got to try and uproot them,” this person said. “The boss wants easy solutions here. He’s not looking for an Iraq 2.0.”
Whether MAGA remains on board is uncertain. Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. is not afraid of “boots on the ground” in Venezuela has fueled concerns about escalation, a sentiment that intensified after he threatened, in a 20-minute span aboard Air Force One, Iran, Greenland, Colombia and Venezuela if “they don’t behave,” while adding that Cuba “is ready to fall.”
“Trump is batting 1,000 right now on these short and sweet and very sharp military actions,” said a White House ally engaged in U.S. foreign policy. “And sooner or later, one of these is going to go bad and that Chinook is going to get blown out of the sky, and we’re going to have 20 dead American kids, and people are going to start asking really important questions about what the hell was that for?”
Supporters often note a condition: They back the move so long as it does not evolve into a long, costly occupation with American casualties. “By the grace of God, this worked out impeccably, but it very easily could have gone somewhere else, and then what are we on the hook for?” the White House ally said.
Not everyone on the right is applauding. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said on X that this is what many in the movement “thought they voted to end.” Others argued the focus should remain at home.
Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News host, said she’s “not in the green-light territory,” citing Iraq and Libya as cautionary tales and comparing laudatory Fox News coverage over the weekend to “Russian propaganda.” “I have seen what happens when you cheerlead unabashedly U.S. intervention,” she said. “Nine times out of 10, they don’t work out well.”
In a press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to weigh in on whether the president intends to act on his threats against Colombia.
A White House official pointed back to last year’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and said critics — or “panicans,” as Trump has called Republicans fearful of his unorthodox actions — were wrong, arguing those actions paved the way for the Israel-Hamas peace deal.
“Rather than repeating the mistakes of past administrations, the president is reasserting and enforcing the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere, control migration and stop drug trafficking,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly. “The president is never deterred by panicans — by delivering a 5% defense spending pledge from NATO allies, ending wasteful foreign assistance, negotiating fairer trade deals, securing major economic investments and more, he has successfully renewed American strength to bring deliverables home to our country.”
On Tuesday, Trump announced that Venezuela would turn over between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to the United States. The U.S. seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker linked to Venezuela after a weekslong pursuit one day later, as well as a “stateless” tanker operating in the Caribbean Sea.
Bannon called Trump’s approach to Venezuela “high risk,” but said that Trump thrives on breaking norms. “People are down for it as long as you don’t make the mistakes in Venezuela that the neocons made in Iraq — and every indication is that the president and his core team have studied this deeply and are implementing those lessons,” he said.
“Venezuela falls under the Hemispheric Defense, which is the foundational element to dismantle the ‘post war international rules-based order,’” he continued. “This is obviously high risk — but he feeds on breaking norms — Greenland, the Arctic, the Pacific. The globalist pearl-clutching empowers him, turbocharging his don’t give two f—s phase of his presidency.”