By focusing on Venezuela and pushing for greater US reach, President Trump is moving away from America’s biggest concern: the economy.
President Trump: If Republicans lose in the midterm elections, they will be impeached
In a lengthy speech to the House Republican training camp on January 6, the president referred to himself as “the king” and twice mentioned reelection.
WASHINGTON – Even before the United States took control of Venezuela and ousted its leaders, some of President Donald Trump’s allies worried that he was focusing too much on foreign countries, while Americans made clear their biggest concerns were the economy and cost of living at home.
President Trump has already begun talking about other foreign goals following the arrest of Nicolas Maduro.
President Trump has said the United States intends to “run” Venezuela and take advantage of the country’s vast oil supplies, while next he has warned that Cuba is on the brink of collapse, threatened military intervention in Colombia and renewed his call for the United States to occupy Greenland, which is part of Denmark. He even gave his foreign policy a name: the Donroe Doctrine, a renaming of the early 19th century Monroe Doctrine.
Add all this up and it risks undermining President Trump’s efforts to restore American faith in the economy by presenting Democrats with a new line for the midterm elections, one in which Trump and the Republican Party are more obsessed with oil and American imperialism than with the checking accounts of ordinary Americans.
House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on January 5, “The American people are rejecting the prospect of another unjust foreign war that appears to be on the horizon because of President Trump’s desire to reward big American oil companies while doing nothing to improve the lives of the American people.”
The White House claimed the military’s January 3 operation demonstrated American power overseas. Trump administration officials have also sought to defend Democrats, stressing that Maduro’s leadership has been widely condemned by both parties. Former President Joe Biden has offered a $25 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.
President Trump has routinely denounced the concept of nation-building and criticized previous presidents for dragging the United States into foreign affairs. But the president rejected any suggestion that his actions in Venezuela contradicted his “America first” beliefs, insisting that the seizure of Venezuelan oil was vital to U.S. national interests.
“We want to be surrounded by energy,” President Trump said at his first press conference about the Venezuela operation. “There’s a huge amount of energy in that country, and it’s very important to protect it. We need it for ourselves, and we need it for the world.”
However, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that only one in three Americans supports a military attack on Venezuela, and 72% are concerned about the United States getting too involved in the country. Only 23% of independent voters, a key voting group for the outcome of the midterm elections, said they supported action in Venezuela.
Democrats aim to force Maduro out of office to strengthen affordability case
Meanwhile, according to a Gallup poll, President Trump’s approval rating was 36% in December, and only 24% of Americans said they were satisfied with the current state of the economy. A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll conducted last month found that 57 Americans disapproved of President Trump’s handling of the economy.
“The American people don’t want boys and girls in Florida, Nebraska and Arizona fighting for Big Oil,” Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego said on MS NOW’s Morning Joe on January 5. “That’s not what the last election was about,” the senator added, referring to President Trump’s 2024 pledge to cut costs from day one.
“How does it make the cost of living lower? How does it help people buy a house? How does it help a kid who just graduated from college get a job?” Gallego said.
Former Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown was quick to seize on Trump’s attack on Venezuela during his campaign to return to the Senate after losing re-election in 2024.
“Hundreds of thousands of Ohioans are struggling to make ends meet, and Washington is making their lives even harder by prioritizing a foreign country over their own,” Brown said in a post on X. “Ohioans face higher costs across the board and desperately need leadership to provide relief. We should be focusing more on improving the lives of Ohioans, not Caracas.”
Democrats used affordability as an underlying campaign message, performing well in special 2025 House elections across the country and winning off-year gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia by double digits. This is expected to be a central message for Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections as they seek control of the House and Senate.
“The economy, particularly inflation and economic growth, is likely to remain the primary issue,” said Whit Ayers, a longtime Republican strategist and president of North Star Opinion Research. “But whether that really happens depends on how other foreign interventions work. If we were to get into a shootout with another country, the situation would be very different.”
Ayers said Democrats will try to argue that he is preoccupied with the administration’s business in Venezuela and other countries, but “that’s not going to work once inflation goes down and the economy gets back on track.”
President Trump says Republicans have ‘plenty of ammunition’
President Trump began his speaking tour in December with rallies in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, in response to Americans’ bleak outlook for the economy, even as inflation rates have fallen from post-pandemic peaks under the Biden administration. President Trump has called affordability a “hoax” promoted by Democrats and blamed them for soaring inflation during Biden’s presidency.
In an 84-minute speech to House Republicans at a convention in Washington on January 6, President Trump touted the stock market at an all-time high, strengthened 401(k) retirement plans, and efforts to lower drug prices through a new “most-favored-nation” policy. President Trump also urged Republicans to implement tax cuts and other measures in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” bill passed last year.
“We have a lot of ammunition. Just sell ammunition,” Trump told his Republican allies. “We have to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, they’re going to find a reason to impeach me. I’m going to be impeached.”
If Trump’s efforts to take control of Venezuelan oil by U.S. companies are successful and U.S. energy prices fall, Trump could claim that his intervention directly improved the lives of Americans.
But in his remarks to House Republicans, Trump also pointed to the long history of the incumbent president’s party often losing midterm elections, calling it an “amazing phenomenon.” He also acknowledged that the poll numbers have been weak.
“I want you to explain what’s going on in the minds of the people, because we have the right policies,” Trump told the Kennedy Center crowd. “They’re not like that,” he added of Democrats. “They have terrible policies.”
But it remains to be seen whether most Americans agree with him on Venezuela. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who unofficially resigned from Congress on January 5, was among those who last year urged Trump to spend less time with foreign leaders and focus on domestic policy, ahead of a dramatic falling out with the president.
“This is what many in MAGA believe they voted to end,” Greene said in a post for the X after Maduro’s arrest, criticizing President Trump for focusing on regime change in other countries “while Americans continue to face rising costs of living, housing and health care, and learn about fraud and tax fraud.”
John Anzalone, a veteran Democratic pollster, said not a single person in the United States woke up on January 3 and said, “We’re very concerned about Venezuela. We really hope President Trump does something about it.” Anzalone said that in several focus groups he conducted through the end of 2025, Americans told him exactly the opposite: “They want him to focus solely on the economy.”
“I think it’s even more emphasized today because he’s playing military instead of focusing on the fight, and that’s where he ends up losing people,” Anzalone said.
Anzalone, the 2020 Biden campaign’s chief pollster, compared Trump’s situation to the disconnect Biden suffered during his first term in office, as Trump’s Democratic predecessors touted economic gains while Americans expressed economic dissatisfaction.
“President Trump is moving into Joe Biden territory here, and that’s a problem for him,” Anzalone said.
X Contact Joey Garrison at @joeygarrison.
