Morning all. There is a lot happening today. Will try to get to it all…..
As we’ve been discussing January is going to be a very consequential month in American politics, and potentially a very hard one for Trump and MAGA. The Congress begins to return today from its Holiday break. Here’s what I wrote to you a few days ago:
Congress returns from its break next week, and it is going to be a deeply consequential month ahead. If there is no fiscal year 2026 budget the government will run out of money again on January 30th. The lawlessness of the DOJ and a flood of new Epstein files/photos/video will keep this rancid affair front and center. Trump’s tariffs could be struck down by the Supreme Court, throwing the budget negotiations into chaos; or perhaps worse for the Rs, they will be allowed to continue, further weakening the economy and keeping prices too high. Next Tuesday is the 5th anniversary of Trump’s attack on the Capitol in 2021, and Democrats will be marking it with a day long set of events. The fight to prevent Trump from selling out Ukraine and Europe - and our own security - to Putin continues, as does the fight to stop Trump from continuing to commit War Crimes and violate both US and international law in the Americas. Across the country state and local elected officials at all levels of government are returning to govern against the harms Trump has done to their people - higher prices, rising joblessness, the assault on health care and food assistance, soaring utility prices, an out of control DHS/ICE, worker shortages, struggling farmers and small businesses - which will make the ugliness of what they’ve done far more proximate to people all across the country.
Taken together, it’s all a very powerful rationale for creating a grand diversion, waging the dog, doing a Hail Mary to get his terrible poll numbers up and restore his STRENGTH and MANHOOD, and re-asserting control over his fraying Congressional coalition.
Yesterday we reviewed the first post-invasion poll that showed Trump with only 34% support for the US running Venezuela after the seizure of Maduro. Today we have a new WaPo poll that dives a little deeper. Some highlights, and a caution for the flood of polls we are likely to receive in the coming days - the wordings of the questions clearly matter right now.
40%-42% - Approve/Disapprove - Do you approve or disapprove of the United States having sent its military forces into Venezuela to capture Maduro?
37%-63% - Appropriate/Inappropriate - Was it appropriate for Trump to order the operation on his own, or should it have required approval from Congress?
25%-45% - Support/Oppose - Would you support or oppose the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country?
6%-94% - The US/The Venezuelan People - In your opinion, who should decide the future leadership of Venezuela?
In this poll the country is pretty split on the capture of Maduro, but is firmly against Trump acting without Congress’ approval, and there is currently very little support for Trump taking control of Venezuela and deciding who will lead it.
Last night, once again, Trump asserted that he was in fact was running Venezuela now, that he was it’s leader:
In this same “gaggle” returning to DC on Air Force One the madman running our country also threatened:
What we cannot forget for one moment in all this is that Trump is now acting as if law, or the very concept of law, does not exist. He is acting outside and in violation of the Constitution, domestic American law, and the oath he took; and outside and in violation of the UN Charter, well established international law, and Senate ratified treaties with other nations. There is only him. He can do whatever he wants. L’Etat, C’est Moi. An Uber Man. Along with MBS, Putin, and Xi, one of the rulers of the world, anything, anything but an American President.
As Ruth Ben-Ghiat told us a few weeks ago in our remarkable conversation, Both Sane and Insane, men like Trump see everything as theirs - the country, Congress, the Supreme Court, the wealth of the nation, companies, women’s bodies, the physical Capital itself, and now all of the Americas - all of it - as his.
Yes, Trump has gone completely mad.
As many others have commented in recent days today we will see a foreign leader being tried for crimes committed under American law, while our own laws prevent our leader - a serial criminal, 34 times felon, who has been committing War Crimes, High Crimes, and trampling over domestic and international law - from facing American justice for the outrageous crimes he is committing daily.
After initial elation Venezuelan emigres in the US are starting to wonder whether their nation is actually being liberated. An excerpt from this front-page Miami Herald story cited above:
Katiuska Villegas, a former Miami resident who now lives in Austin, Texas, said she sees little reason to celebrate while the same political figures remain in control.
“People are celebrating that Maduro was captured, but Rodríguez is still ruling,” Villegas said. “So what exactly are we celebrating?.”
Villegas questioned why there was little public outrage when the Trump administration revoked TPS for Venezuelans earlier this year. “When TPS was eliminated, there weren’t protests in Doral like there were last night,” she said. “Trump didn’t even acknowledge [opposition leader] María Corina Machado or her popular support. He didn’t talk about democracy. He only talked about oil.”
In his Saturday remarks, Trump did not clarify whether opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, recognized by U.S. officials as the winner of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, would assume power. Trump also dismissed Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, saying she lacks the “respect” to lead the country, leaving questions about a political transition unresolved. “We are not free; we just changed the regime’s leader,” lamented Villegas, who said that when she saw Maduro get off the plane in New York City last night, a moment she had dreamed of for years, she was shocked. “I didn’t know what to feel. It was overwhelming.”
She questioned why Maduro wasn’t in shackles, facing the same treatment as immigrants like her brother, who crossed the U.S.–Mexico border fleeing political persecution and economic collapse, only to endure detention in the United States. Her brother, Freddy Villegas, has been held for six months in an immigration detention center in Texas despite having a pending asylum case.
And
Liz Alarcón, an American born to Venezuelan parents, said she was deeply disappointed by Trump’s remarks regarding opposition leader Machado.
“I understand that transitions take time, but it was unimaginable to hear President Trump dismiss Machado’s leadership just hours after the shocking news of Maduro’s capture,” Alarcón, 37, a Doral resident said. She pointed out that Venezuelans voted for their leaders in July 2024 and said she hopes Trump will soon clarify how the United States plans to facilitate a transition that allows Machado and the man voting documents show was really elected president, opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, to lead Venezuela.
Here is the home page of the Miami Herald right now:
The Washington Post is reporting this morning that Trump has dismissed the rightful winners of the 2024 election in part because Maria Corina Machado did not turn down the Nobel Peace Prize and give it to him (gift link, remarkable reporting):
Two people close to the White House said the president’s lack of interest in boosting Machado, despite her recent efforts to flatter Trump, stemmed from her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award the president has openly coveted.
Although Machado ultimately said she was dedicating the award to Trump, her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” said one of the people.
“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” this person said.
I also think the idea of restoring the rightfully elected leader due to an authoritarian rigging of an election just doesn’t sit well with Trump. Democracy just isn’t his thing, after all.
And so here we are - Trump furthering lawless autocracies, not democracy; seizing a nation in violation of the UN Charter and our Constitution to strip it of its oil and other resources; and threatening to invade other nations, including our 2nd largest trading partner, Mexico, and Denmark/Europe/NATO, because of this new ludicrous “Donroe Doctrine” has magically crowned him Emperor (Caudillo?) of the Americas.
Here’s what I wrote to you a few days ago in my post, Trump’s Staggering Betrayal Of The Great American Project:
What remains so hard to believe this morning is that Trump and his team have somehow convinced themselves, and are working to convince us, that a world without the American-led, rules-based global order is somehow better for us. That carving up the world - Venezuela/the Americas, Greenland, and Gaza for us; Ukraine/Eastern Europe/All of Europe? for Putin; the Middle East for the Gulf Arab states and Israel; much of the rest of the world, including Taiwan, for China - will somehow be better for the United States rather than just an extraordinary and world altering own goal, one benefiting our adversaries and dramatically weakening us.
For without our allies we are less safe. Without the global trading system we will be less prosperous. Without Pax Americana we will all - every person in the world - be less free. And yet, somehow, in all of his insatiable greed, Olympian corruption, and titanic idiocy, here we are…..
Trump is failing to defend Ukraine from Moscow’s dangerous advances. He is blowing apart the global system as we know it by attempting to seize Greenland and Venezuela’s oil. Last week the Wall Street Journal reported on an astonishing development - “Project Sunrise” - a plan to seize Gaza, and have America fund the building of a modern “Rivera,” and implicitly establish the Trump family as the new Emirs of this new polity (gift link). For the Trump, Kushner, and Witkoff families, all real estate developers, it would be the deal of a lifetime……
……….
It’s pretty clear that the Trump, Kushner, and Witkoff families are approaching the world now the way New York real estate families approach real estate development in The City. We get our stuff, others - in this case the Gulf Arab states, Israel, the Russians, and the Chinese - get theirs, and everyone prospers.
Except, of course, we don’t. We and the world become less prosperous, less safe, and less free. The corruption, the betrayal, the greed, the clear compromise, the War Crimes, and the profound and dangerous idiocy we are witnessing right now demands a far greater response from our leaders, and from all of us. For things are being broken that will be very, very hard - if not impossible - to repair.
With that reminder that we got yesterday that Putin was floating a Ukraine for Venezuela swap to Trump back in 2019, it is reasonable to assume that this entire traitorous, idiotic, ridiculous new NSS strategy that carves up the world, makes Trump the Emperor of the Americas, dangerously turns America from a global to a regional power was something Putin and the Russians worked hard to sell to Trump and his allies over the past six years.
Let us recall what Jeffrey Epstein wrote back in 2018 - a year before that first mention of a Ukraine for Venezuela swap - about the advice he gave to Putin’s team about how they should approach Trump:
It is not complex. He must be seen to get something. Its that simple.
I’m excited to announce that in the last few days of 2025 we hit our most important remaining fundraising goals - $50,000 for our four intrepid House candidates, and $250,000 for the Audacious Expansion Fund - amazing work everyone! As you will see we’ve set new goals for those two critical efforts….
Winning The Midterms - Support Our Candidates
Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $62k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversations with Gov. Cooper and NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $107k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff
Hopium Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $52,500 raised, $250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10)
Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps, Winning In Red States and Red Places (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $259,000 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Enjoy my conversations with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties and to all of you - we have hit our audacious 2025 goal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This recent post recapped our our very productive year together. In three new essays (here, here, here) I look forward to next year and discuss how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up, be loud, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land.
The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got.
Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Defend Our Democracy - We have two recommended actions today:
1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Five-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our now five part agenda:
Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his current efforts to force Ukraine to surrender
Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean and the Pacific - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law
Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world. To put America on a sounder fiscal course due to the enormous deficits brought by Trump’s 2025 tax cuts we should reverse these cuts to the wealthy and corporations
Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE; restoring due process for immigrants across the country; vigorously defending the 1st Amendment; warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents; ending the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress, end the rancid cover up, and release all of the Epstein files
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA, Medicaid and our clean energy investments; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy
2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - This July 4th America celebrates it’s 250th birthday. We need to make this holiday, a celebration of our Declaration Of Independence from a mad king, our day, and not allow it to become his.
One way we can do this is by bringing our Resolutions Project to your community or state. Imagine if by July 4th of next year a large number of towns, counties and states had passed formal resolutions, in the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, defending our Constitution and condemning the “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations” of our mad king. For as our Founders wrote in the Declaration:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
So far Hopium members have introduced or passed resolutions in 85 communities in 23 states. In the coming days we will be convening to discuss how to bring this campaign to more places and start planning to Own The Fourth next year.
Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!
Keep working hard everyone. We had a lot of wins in 2025, but all understand our most important work lies ahead - Simon
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