Ben Rhodes

Well, and I also want to ask about Republicans.

You know, you have worked with Thomas Massey, a Republican from Kentucky.

He's been willing to break with Trump on a number of things.

On your War Powers Resolution, it strikes me that this is kind of the opposite of what Trump promised his MAGA base, right?

Ending forever wars was a key part of his attraction to a lot of people who were exhausted by spending money or deployments overseas.

In talking to Republicans...

maybe who still feel like they have to say nice things about Trump in public.

Do you have any sense that that MAGA base is cracking a little bit?

Because you see it among the kind of MAGA commentariat.

But is there an opportunity for Democrats to reach different voters or even maybe different colleagues of yours who don't like this kind of imperial foreign policy?

Well, yeah, and one more thing I want to ask you, which is I know it's early days after this and people are digesting it, but you were at home when this happened.

Have you gotten any sense of how this is going down with your constituents and how this might factor into the case that you'll be making next year about whether Trump is doing what he's elected to do?

Yeah.

Well, it's interesting, too, because part of the Western Hemisphere piece of this is also that you have, first and foremost, that concern of troop deployments again and the risk that could pose to our troops.

You have that concern about, why are we doing this again?

We're spending money over there instead of fixing the affordability crisis here.

But also, because it's closer to home...

All these countries he's threatening, they're huge diaspora populations in this country.

Now, the Venezuelans had mixed... Some of them were happy to see Maduro gone, although I think they're surprised to learn that the Maduro regime is staying in place.

That's a whole other question.