It Happened. Trump Just Crossed the Line.

What happened to "No New Wars"?

I’ve been traveling all day, although I wanted you to hear about this.

The United States just seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela in a move that any honest observer understands to be an act of war. There is no other accurate description for what happened.

Do not confuse this for a defense of Nicolás Maduro. He is a corrupt and brutal leader. The issue is the way Donald Trump is using the full force of the United States like a crew of pirates. We are grabbing tankers with no communication or legal footing. We are striking boats in the Caribbean with no due process. We are closing airspace above a sovereign nation with no warning. This is a reckless escalation that pushes the country toward a regime-change conflict that nobody wants and nobody voted for.

Trump ran on ending wars. Instead he has piled on a series of collapsing ceasefires, failed negotiations, and embarrassing showdowns that have weakened the United States abroad. Now he is dragging us into a dangerous new confrontation. The seizure of the tanker is part of a pattern that already includes dozens of deaths from strikes in the Caribbean. The Coast Guard has admitted that one in four of the boats being hit did not contain drugs. We are striking vessels that may have been completely innocent. When a superpower abandons its own standards like this, it creates excuses for other nations to target our military the same way. If a country hits a United States vessel and cites Trump’s recklessness as justification, our standing is gone. We handed them the precedent.

The most disturbing part is that Trump is doing this without any congressional authorization. There is no declaration of war. There is no debate. There is no mandate from the public. The institutions that should place limits on a president have been so hollowed out that he can take major wartime actions with no one stopping him. This is not the post 2001 environment where people were swept up in fear and propaganda. Polling shows that no one supports a new war. Voters are tired, angry, and stretched thin. Nobody is asking for this.

I am 23. I am of conscription age. Millions of young Americans are paying attention because the stakes are not abstract. They are personal. A president acting alone can create consequences that fall directly onto us.

Part of what makes this even more reckless is Trump’s constant pattern of getting rolled by strongmen. Putin has manipulated him over and over again. Trump’s entire idea of the Russia Ukraine war is that Putin should get whatever land he wants in exchange for vague promises that he never keeps. That mindset has already produced failed ceasefires and humiliating exchanges. Trump screamed at Zelensky in the Oval Office. He ranted about him online. Zelensky still tried to work with him. Putin agreed to nothing. If Trump cannot navigate a basic negotiation with Russia and Ukraine, there is no reason to believe he can manage a regime change in Venezuela. The United States has attempted regime change many times. The list of successes is zero.

There are credible reports that Marco Rubio is influencing this policy from behind the scenes. It mirrors how Stephen Miller controlled Trump’s immigration agenda. Rubio has very personal reasons for wanting Maduro gone. Most of us want Maduro gone too. But not like this. Not through a reckless conflict born out of ego, secrecy, and improvisation.

Trump already declared a no fly zone over Venezuela with no warning a few weeks ago. Now he is seizing tankers. This is the slow crawl into a conflict that nobody asked for. It is happening quietly while institutions look the other way.

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I will be back in Chicago soon. Stay alert, stay loud, and do not let this story slip away. The stakes are enormous.