On November 6th, a day after the disappointing results in New Jersey and Virginia's off-cycle elections, and the coronation of Comrade Zohran Mamdani to be the Marxist-in-chief of New York City, Politico came out with the headline - Donald Trump Enters His Lame Duck Era. In two weeks, Donald Trump will have wrapped up year one of his second four-year stint as president of the United States, and after the events of this past weekend alone, the only thing that's lame is the alliance of elected Democrats, their allies in Resistance Media, and Stage Four Never Trumpers who think every day that Donald Trump wakes up is a bad day.
I'd like to think I had a fairly productive weekend. I took down all the Christmas lights and decorations (parts of two days), saw Avatar 3, the Stranger Things 5 finale, and reorganized the garage. By comparison, Donald Trump removed an international drug trafficker holding his country hostage through illegitimate rule, served a 6-year-old arrest warrant in person backed by the might of U.S. Special Forces, and locked him and his wife up in New York City awaiting trial. He also has economically squeezed the mullahcracy in Tehran so tight that protests have entered their ninth consecutive night. And as of last night, the protesters are approaching near parity with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in weapons and overwhelming them in numbers. The people have armed themselves, are fighting for their country, and Trump is giving them rhetorical cover. In short, the President didn't reorganize the garage. He took great steps to reorganize the world to ensure this will once again be the American century.
On March 26th, 2020, Donald Trump's Justice Department indicted Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan strongman, on multiple charges of narco‑terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices. Four-plus years later into the Joe Biden regency, Maduro rigged the presidential election in Venezuela and claimed he would never leave power. The Biden regency called the election fraudulent, and by January of 2025, when Biden was out to lunch and out the door, the regency behind him called Maduro's rule illegitimate and refused to recognize it. So did the rest of the international community, with the exception of China, Russia, and Cuba. But that's as far as Biden was willing to go. All mumble, no rumble.
The difference between Trump's administration and Biden's? Biden claimed to be respected in the world once again, specifically because we wouldn't do anything to enforce our will on the world stage. Trump showed yet again he is a man of action. The final week of Never Trump, Inc.'s 2025 began with full-throated defense for Somali fraud all over the country, scorn at the journalism exposing the fraud, and defense for drug runners getting blown up by land and by sea. The first weekend of 2026 brought a virtual hydra of responses to the Maduro raid and capture. 'It was an act of war' (it wasn't), 'Trump didn't get prior Congressional approval' (he didn't have to), 'the arrest was illegal' (he was Mirandized), 'he was poorly treated while transferred to U.S. soil' (he was treated better than the Americans he took hostage late last week), 'the additional hit on the Hugo Chavez mausoleum was just gratuitous' (I wonder if his remains smelled like sulfure afterwards?), 'it's all just about oil (I'd rather have it than China and Russia), and my favorite - 'okay, well, why you were there, why didn't you arrest every terrorist drug runner working for Maduro?'
Let's work our way through how the media covered the surprise raid and arrest of Maduro, because honestly, the story and related clips are just fun for the whole family.
On Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, the MVP of the first year of the Trump administration by far, Secretary of State/National Security Advisor/National Archivist/USAID director Marco Rubio easily countered the charge the raid was a naked theft of another country's oil reserves.
🚨 HOLY SMOKES. In an incredible moment, Sec. Marco Rubio declares the Western Hemisphere is OURS, Russia, China and Iran must GET OUT
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 4, 2026
WELKER: Why does the US need Venezuelan oil?!
RUBIO: "Why does CHINA need their oil? Russia? Iran? This is the West, THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE."🔥… pic.twitter.com/ZJU6L2BkNo
Keep in mind that in the afternoon, before U.S. forces pulled off an operation that literally no other country in the world could pull off, a handful of Communist Chinese Party diplomats met with Maduro to negotiate future oil shipments. I'm not entirely certain they had left the country to return to Beijing before discovering that the paper they had in their hands was now null and void, thanks to Donald Trump and U.S. Armed Forces. This one operation alone accomplished:
- Narco-trafficking, which had been constant for the last decade, essentially ends.
- CCP Secretary-General Xi Jinping loses a foothold in the Western Hemisphere, with roughly $110 billion dollars in loans to Venezuela that were secured by oil as collateral. Those loans are now worthless.
- The United States, for all intents and purposes, now has a seat in OPEC with the regime change ultimately leading to a more U.S.-friendly government.
- This raid serves as a double blow to Vladimir Putin in Russia. Venezuela had recently signed an extension to develop and deliver oil to Russia through 2041. That, in all likelihood, is over. In addition, the billion-plus dollars Russia committed to Cuba for infrastructure is heavily dependent upon Venezuelan oil powering it. That's also gone.
We'll get to what comes next for Venezuela in a bit, because that's very fluid. But back to the media's Trump treatment, we next go to Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation, who must have had Bari Weiss banging her head against a wall after this exchange with Sec. Rubio.
.@SecRubio: "It is not easy to land a helicopter in the middle of the largest military base... kick down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter... and you're asking me why we didn't do that in five other places at the same time!?" pic.twitter.com/Pm9Jy1AKp3
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 4, 2026
Margaret is a lefty. No doubt about it. And honestly, she's not an idiot. She was openly hyper-partisan in the pre-Weiss era at CBS, and then suddenly began to relearn her journalism chops at times once the new boss moved in. But this exchange? I've got no defense. I don't seem to recall Brennan asking Obama officials why they didn't just kill off all the other jihadi terrorists, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, when Navy SEALs dispatched Osama bin Laden. As I said on X, this is the journalistic equivalent of Clark Griswold's father-in-law coming out in the cold Chicago winter to see the Christmas lights finally work in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and noting, disgustedly, that the little lights aren't twinkling.
Filling the willfully obtuse lane on the Sunday shows was George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week. Rubio explained to him three times what we did and why we did it, and poor George just couldn't summon the brain cells to rub together and understand it all.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos attempted to trip up Secretary of State Marco Rubio by asking the same question about Venezuela three different times.
— Overton (@overton_news) January 4, 2026
“What is the legal authority for the United States to be running Venezuela?”
And three times, Rubio shut him down.
RUBIO: “I… pic.twitter.com/HaXJH2AyOv
George Stephanopoulos was a special assistant to President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton when the U.S. fought the Battle of Mogadishu during the Somalia crisis. You'll be surprised to learn that A) Clinton did not seek, nor was he granted, Congressional approval to do so, and B) no one had to explain the 'why' to George. About a year later, after another election that was rigged, Clinton intervened in Haiti to do regime change. Again, on staff, Stephanopoulos didn't seem to have a problem with Clinton's actions, but can't comprehend Trump's actions. He's not that dumb. He's just a partisan hack doing partisan hackery masked as journalism.
One way to ascertain how much of a lame duck the current President is, is to investigate what was said about this past weekend by the even lamer duck, the one that Trump beat a year ago. Ten days before Trump took the oath of office, the Biden-Harris administration put out a $25 million dollar bounty on the head of Nicolas Maduro. Nearly a year later, after he was arrested, Harris has had a change of heart.
Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 4, 2026
That Maduro is a brutal, illegitimate dictator does not change the fact that this action was both unlawful and unwise. We’ve seen this movie before. Wars for regime change or oil that…
Not exactly a big stick, she's carrying. About the toughest thing Harris has to negotiate these days is how to pierce the top of a box of Sauvignon Blanc with a straw.
Chuck Schumer, presumably the leader of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate, was a fierce critic of Donald Trump in 2020 because Trump had failed to act to remove Maduro from power.
2020. Chuck Schumer criticizes Trump for not bringing an end to the Maduro regime.
— MAZE (@mazemoore) January 4, 2026
Schumer: "The President brags about his Venezuela policy? Give us a break. He hasn't brought an end to the Maduro regime." pic.twitter.com/kMkwSWd0yl
Five years later, after Trump took the very action Schumer criticized him for shirking, Schumer said this to Stephanopoulos.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticizes the U.S strike in Venezuela and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro: “It's a violation of the law to do what they did without getting the authorization of Congress.” https://t.co/aSFDwCl1fl pic.twitter.com/6XgO2OVWwi
— ABC News (@ABC) January 4, 2026
Schumer has become a hypocritical cartoon figure. I don't think AI could come up with a version of Chuck that can turn on a dime that fast on so many different issues.
I do have to pause and recognize this Never Trumper for today's 'Blind Squirrel Finds Acorn' award - Adam Kinzinger.
Maduro was never the legitimate president of Venezuela.
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@AdamKinzinger) January 3, 2026
The precision action by Delta to get Maduro without massive military occupation is a how it should be done.
This was the right call. May Maduro face justice and the people of Venezuela be free
It took the alleged lame duck status of Donald Trump to get Connecticut Senator Chris Van Hollen on the record against bringing in at least one Latin-American narco-terrorist/human trafficker to the United States - Nicolas Maduro.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) tells @margbrennan “it's my view that the Trump administration has been lying to the American people. This has never been about stopping drugs from coming to the United States.”
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 4, 2026
He added that Democrats support stopping drug trafficking in the region,… pic.twitter.com/Gi86BhOQ1Y
And finally, it took this weekend's actions by our military, led by Delta Force, to get Hamas to finally come out against raiding other countries and kidnapping people.
Hamas Backs Terrorist Fascism in Venezuela
— ME24 - Middle East 24 (@MiddleEast_24) January 5, 2026
Hamas, the despicable Islamist fascist group that literally kidnapped babies, toddlers, teenagers, women, the elderly, and innocent civilians on October 7 and murdered dozens of them, not to mention the 1000-plus that it slaughtered… pic.twitter.com/2tHJq6qBIX
So what happens next for Venezuela? The same media and political left in this country that has been wrong about Donald Trump with Swiss precision accuracy will undoubtedly get it wrong again.
International hearts are for Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Prize winner from 2025 (beating out Donald Trump). She probably did win the 2024 Venezuelan elections, but was cheated out of it by the fraudulant Maduro. Donald Trump and the U.S. military went in and rescued her weeks ago. She would otherwise be the sentimental favorite, except the reality on the ground in Caracas is that the military never respected her, and probably wouldn't respect her now. If she can't control the military, she's not going to control the country, and Trump, Rubio et al. know it. So the plan seems to be to force the next in line to fall in line. That's Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez.
Rodriguez is every bit the Marxist whackjob Maduro is, but has shown in the last 48 hours to be as pliable as a paper clip.
After the spectacular raid and capture of Maduro and his wife, leaving Russian surface-to-air-defense systems in smoldering piles of scrap metal just like they were in Iran when we took out the nuclear program at four sensitive sites, Rodriguez' initial reaction, from Russia where she was previously dispatched for meetings, was defiance.
“We will never be the colony of any empire,” said Delcy Rodríguez. “What is being done to Venezuela is barbaric.” She is the vice-president whom Donald Trump described as “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again” https://t.co/tv71fEhUKo
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 4, 2026
She also continued in the antisemitic traditions of her ideological grandfather, Hugo Chavez. It's the Joos' fault this happened.
It took only a few hours for Delcy Rodríguez—Venezuela's vice president—to fabricate an antisemitic conspiracy linking Zionists to the U.S. operation that captured Nicolás Maduro. Antisemites do have a wild imagination! pic.twitter.com/SYntTTanwb
— GnasherJew®גנאשר (@GnasherJew) January 4, 2026
You could almost feel the left begin to seize and pounce. Yes, they do that, too. Seizing and pouncing is not just a Republican skill set. 'Trump's adventurism isn't going to result in any meaningful change,' you could sense would be the line of attack. And that may have been the case with any other president not named Donald John Trump. Instead, it took one telephone interview with the Atlantic to make its way around the world.
In a telephone interview this morning with The Atlantic, President Donald J. Trump issued a threat against Venezuela’s Interim President Delcy Rodríguez, saying that, “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” adding that… pic.twitter.com/2xR8kE38ey
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) January 4, 2026
A price higher than the one Maduro is paying? He's alive, awaiting trial. Trump just showed that America can strike anywhere they want, when they want, on their terms. They had an arrest warrant for Maduro and acted on it, destroying Venezuelan defenses in the meantime. There will be no warrant this time for Rodriguez, and weaker defenses. She'll just get killed, and there's really not anything she can do to stop it if she doesn't play ball.
Less than a day after that threat went public, Marco Rubio was suddenly on the phone with a very compliant Rodriguez, pledging total cooperation.
BREAKING: Interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez on Sunday night invited U.S. President Donald Trump “to collaborate” and said she seeks “respectful relations” in a newly conciliatory message. https://t.co/kPq8vZ3dwF
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 5, 2026
Mind you, the Trump administration is not endorsing Rodriguez for any long-term assignment running the country. She's a stopgap for stability, preventing the need for American forces to go in and become peacekeepers. But she's on a short leash and knows it. One of the jerks on her new collar is going to be calling for a new election shortly, and let Venezuelans decide freely and fairly who will govern them next. If it's Machado, so be it. Regardless, the days of the Marxists running the country seem to be limited.
It's worth reminding what signal this sends to adversaries of the United States, large and small, around the globe. How soundly do you think despots and dictators are sleeping these days, knowing Trump has three years left and a very cold heart when it comes to those internationally who mean to do Americans harm?
Kim Jung Un in North Korea had begun to make noise in late 2024. Heard him rattling any sabers lately? How does Miguel Diaz-Canel in Cuba feel? What about Khamenei? There's a school of thought that believes Trump's action this weekend all but green-lights Xi's desire to go in and take Taiwan. It's a wrong school of thought, but it's certainly a take. Xi has been knocked back in the Middle East. He's just been defeated in South America. And even he does not know if his military and navy, albeit with a quantity advantage, are ready to match up with a resurgent American Armed Forces.
The bottom line is this. If you're a bad guy, Trump is out there at the other end of the equation, and thus far, after only a year in, bad guys have gotten the short end every single time. And when Trump does engage kinetically, the new Axis of Evil – Russia, China, North Korea, Iran – is not there to lend a hand. Thus far, whether in Nigeria, Syria, Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, or now Venezuela, being an adversary of the U.S. is a very lonely business. The friends you think you have aren't going to be there when you need them.
This is the very heart of America First. The United States is the world's big dog once again after four years of self-doubt caused by a feeble nincompoop and his incompetent word salad of a number two at the helm, and we are safer for it. If that meets your definition of a lame duck, I'll take that six days a week and twice on Sunday.
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