STUPID WARS

Is the U.S. about to go to war with Venezuela? Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on Nicolás Maduro, raising concerns about possible regime change.

• President Donald Trump has been vowing to keep the U.S. out of “stupid wars” for a decade. But suddenly, he seems obsessed with the possibility of maybe starting one himself, and he’s got his eyes on Venezuela.

• His administration has deployed spy planes, warships, and thousands of Marines to the country’s coast. American fighter jets buzzed the country’s border yesterday. Today, Trump announced that the U.S. seized an oil tanker near Venezuela, and said he wouldn’t rule out sending troops into the country — amid reports that the U.S. could conduct airstrikes. Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s “days are numbered,” Trump told Politico.

• All this saber-rattling is making plenty of observers anxious — including members of Trump’s own party. And it’s raising questions about what Trump’s endgame really is.

• “I’m getting vertigo,” Stephen Wertheim, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told What A Day. “Trump, who has repudiated destabilizing regime-change wars in the Middle East, may get himself into a big one in Venezuela.”

• Ironically, Trump is simultaneously chasing a Nobel Peace Prize, and attempting to cast himself as the ultimate peacemaker… even as he bangs the drums of war. Last week, he prompted mockery by accepting a made-up “peace prize” from the FIFA soccer organization. Some took note of the irony. Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” quipped: “Did this meaningless award mean nothing to you?”

Progressives in the U.S. aren’t fans of Trump’s approach. Among the Venezuelan opposition, the situation is more complicated.

• Opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf today, has praised Trump’s approach to Venezuela as “absolutely correct.” She even supports his controversial strikes on alleged drug boats. Machado’s allies argue that Maduro — an authoritarian socialist who remained in power last year despite losing reelection — is an illegitimate leader who needs to be replaced.

• Machado has “decided the only option to end Maduro’s authoritarian regime is by force,” Renata Segura, an expert at International Crisis Group, told What A Day.

• What, then, should the world make of Trump’s new obsession? “To better understand the president’s foreign policy, one must study the behavior of small children,” The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait writes. “You can wait him out or try to appease him, but you can’t talk him into a rational assessment of cost versus benefit, or assume his stated preference will hold true for very long.”

• Some experts think he’s applying external pressure to Venezuela in hopes of achieving regime change without an actual invasion. And yet with the pressure running high, there’s plenty of room for error, as well unintended consequences.

“More likely Trump is seeking to ramp up pressure on the regime — to shake the tree and see if Maduro falls out,” Wertheim said.

THIS AIN’T WORKIN’

Senate Democrats want to go on record fighting against Trump’s efforts to make it harder for immigrants to work — even though they know it’s an uphill battle.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) is introducing a resolution to overturn a recent Trump rule that ended automatic extensions of work permits, she exclusively told What A Day. Why does that matter? The rule barred immigrants with legal status — who had already been vetted — from working while they wait for their permit renewals to be approved.

“This unfair rule change [will force] thousands of immigrants with legal authorization to stop working or be fired by their employer,” Rosen said in a statement. Ten other senators co-sponsored the resolution.

This move is largely symbolic, as these types of resolutions are rarely successful, especially with Republicans in control. But the Democrats are sending a message that they aren’t standing by as Trump’s team attacks immigrants — and moves like this can stake out the battlegrounds for upcoming elections, like next year’s midterms and the next presidential race in 2028.

WHAT ELSE?

The Trump administration unveiled the “Trump Gold Card” today, which allows foreigners to “unlock life in America” by paying the American government over $1 million, according to the card’s website. Applicants must pay a $15,000 non-refundable fee to even be considered. “A direct path to Citizenship for all qualified and vetted people. SO EXCITING!” Trump wrote on social media. There’s also the Trump Gold Corporate Card and the Trump Platinum Card (coming soon). Is there anything this guy can’t turn into some kind of weird grift?

The Federal Reserve cuts rates today for the third-straight time, capping a whirlwind year for the central bank’s officials, who deserve some holiday relaxation to recuperate from Trump’s repeated verbal assaults.

House Republicans are doing their best to cover Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ass, pledging to end its probe of the deadly Caribbean boat strike scandal. “It’s done,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) told reporters. “I’ve got all the answers I needed.” Meanwhile, Democrats are calling for public hearings, a full investigation, and the release of the video of the strike.

On that note, the U.S. gave the International Criminal Court an ultimatum: Change your rules to ensure that Trump and his top officials can’t be prosecuted, or face new sanctions, according to Reuters. The Trump administration also wants the court to drop its probes of Israeli leaders’ conduct during the Gaza war and American soldiers’ actions in Afghanistan.

Trump’s USAID just pulled a bizarre move: It hired Mike Benz, a far-right influencer who once spread conspiracies about the agency. His goal is to “use the agency’s archives to substantiate his own allegations about USAID’s pernicious influence in the world — its role in foreign regime change, its promotion of ‘state-sponsored hit pieces,’ and its suppression of free speech,” The Atlantic writes. This is the same guy who also claimed that Taylor Swift is a secret NATO asset.

Senate Republicans’ national campaign arm spent the past few months trying to push Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) into the Senate race, believing she would be easy to defeat. The efforts included robocalls to voters, encouraging them to encourage Crockett to run, and releasing polls with her name included. “The more I saw the poll results, I couldn’t ignore the trends that were clear,” Crockett said while announcing her campaign. Oof!

The Trump administration is planning to ask foreign tourists to turn over the past five years of their social media history, including countries whose citizens don’t require visas to visit the U.S., like the UK and France.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared war… on a font. He’s decrying the Biden-era change from Times News Roman to Calibri as too woke. “Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s official correspondence,” Rubio said in a statement. This is peak snowflake behavior.

Democrat Eileen Higgins defeated a Trump-backed candidate last night to become mayor of Miami, making her the first Democrat to hold the post in nearly 30 years.

UnitedHealthcare shooting suspect Luigi Mangione wrote himself a list of to-do items after the alleged killing: “Keep momentum, FBI slower overnight,” said one note, revealed in court. “Change hat, shoes, pluck eyebrows,” another read. Dude, you would need to wax those things.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE EMAIL…

Federal judges have recently ruled in favor of many immigrants who have challenged the Trump administration’s policy to detain people facing deportation. “This is a classic example of the government putting their policy and agenda ahead of the law,” Matt Adams, legal director at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, told the Washington Post.

Humans were ranked the seventh-most monogamous mammal in a recent study, between the Eurasian beaver and the lar gibbon primate. Less than 10 percent of mammals are monogamous, according to researchers. But “securing child care might have been a driver of monogamy,” the Wall Street Journal writes, noting that humans invest significant energy in taking care of their offspring. Okay, fair enough, but I bet a lar gibbon spinoff of “Love Island” would be absolute fire.

Ever wonder how TikTok knows what videos you wanna see? The Washington Post published an interactive deep-dive on the platform’s algorithm, breaking down how user preferences are tracked, which hash tags you’re likely to see, and how people who don’t like Taylor Swift may still see content about Travis Kelce. Another fun fact: “Cat videos often are watched by people who also enjoy LGBTQ+ and music content. If you watch a lot of content on cats, you’re also likely to see more videos about those other topics,” the outlet writes. Wait, I have many more questions!

UNESCO declared that Italian cooking is “intangible cultural heritage,” so I expect my Italian friends to brag about their chef skills even more than they already do.

A small town in Oregon didn’t have enough money to clear snow, so residents are selling nude calendars to raise money. The hilarious pictures mostly feature middle-aged and elderly men and women, posing without clothes while gardening, or sitting in an outdoor bathtub. “I’ve gotten a few comments like ‘Oh, it’s a good thing that harvesting bag was as big as it was,’” said one male model. The town has earned around $13,000 from the calendars so far.