The Neo-Neoconservative Era

Today’s notice: Trump weighs what’s next for Iran. Busy days for the Republican co-chair of the Congressional Friends of Denmark Caucus. What Trump told us about his plans for Venezuelan oil revenues. And: Jerome Powell feels the heat.

THE LATEST

The Fed. Markets will open this morning into a new kind of uncertainty – U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro’s office is conducting a criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell related to his testimony to Congress about renovations to the central bank’s headquarters.

In a video posted last night, Powell acknowledged receiving a grand jury subpoena but dismissed it as “a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Donald Trump told NBC last night.

Not everyone is buying it. “If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” Sen. Thom Tillis, a key Republican vote on the chamber’s Banking Committee, posted. Tillis vowed to oppose any nominee to fill a Fed vacancy “until this matter is resolved.”

Foreign policy. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday as warnings spread of a violent crackdown on protests pressuring the regime.

This kind of thing lands differently now. Trump is a president more and more people now see as willing to press the “intervene” button, despite years of “America First” rhetoric that seemed to represent a break from that tradition. Trump has been considering “many options” — including involving the military — for days, a senior White House official told Jasmine. And there was a meeting scheduled for Tuesday to brief Trump on more options by his senior-most military officials.

Many would have dismissed this as mere sabre-rattling before the bombings of that regime’s key nuclear sites — and, of course, the recent military intervention in Venezuela.

“No, he’s not a neocon. He’s not an interventionist. But I don’t think he fits neatly into the isolationist bucket, either,” Mike Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short told us for a story about how Trump’s shift is landing with conservatives who have previously supported a neocon foreign policy.

Conservatives who want less intervention are getting bolder in pushing back, suggesting they are starting to think things have changed.

“The only problem I have with saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to bomb Iran,’ is that sometimes it has the opposite effect,” Sen. Rand Paul told ABC News yesterday. “So, when you bomb a country, then people tend to rally around their own flag.”

Trump is not talking about doing less overseas. He’s talking about doing more. On Sunday, he posted a number of times about regime change in Cuba, including a response of “Sounds good to me!” in reply to a post that joked “Marco Rubio will be president of Cuba.” That country will get no more Venezuelan oil, Trump said, and he warned the regime to make a change “before it’s too late.”

“Those words are like, magical,” Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican who represents the heart of Cuban exile country in Florida, said on “Face the Nation” Sunday.

Open tabs: Reference to impeachments is removed from Trump’s Smithsonian portrait (AP); States move to rein in ICE after fatal Minnesota shooting (Politico); Noem says DHS sending ‘hundreds more’ ICE agents to Minnesota (Fox 9 KMSP); Trump Org deepens Gulf push with $10B in Saudi projects (FT)

NEW IN YOUR INBOX: Starting this afternoon, NOTUS readers will receive Final NOTUS, a daily speed read on what you need to know before your evening begins, authored by our editor-in-chief Tim Grieve.

From the Hill

Tough gig: “I didn’t, you know, plan on it being such a Danish-heavy year,” Rep. Blake Moore, the Republican co-chair of the Congressional Friends of Denmark Caucus, told NOTUS’ Helen Huiskes. Moore said he spent last week reassuring Danish officials that there won’t be a military operation in Greenland anytime soon.

From the White House

“Exactly how that’s going to work, that’s going to unfold over time,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CBS yesterday of who exactly is running the Venezuelan oil industry now. He insisted it would not be operated as a state-run entity of the U.S.

An administration official told NOTUS last week that the U.S. will collect all the revenue from Venezuelan oil production and then disburse it from U.S.-run accounts back to the country.

America will wet its beak, however. “We’re going to take care of what they need. There’ll be plenty left over,” Trump told Jasmine at a meeting with oil executives Friday. “We’re going to have a lot of money left over, and the money left over is going to the United States of America, and the oil companies are going to be very happy.”

The executives again warned that nothing significant will happen with Venezuela’s oil industry for a long time, NOTUS’ Anna Kramer reports.

The president did not like that. “I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One last night. He said he’s “inclined” to cut the company out of any new Venezuelan opportunities due to the CEO’s skepticism about investment at the White House event.

From your favorite podcast app

Rep. Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, joins NOTUS’ Reese Gorman for today’s On NOTUS podcast. Aguilar discusses his journey from growing up in a nonpolitical family to becoming a rising star in Democratic leadership.

“It means an added responsibility,” Aguilar told Reese of becoming the highest-ranking Latino in Congress. “I have a responsibility to represent my community back home, but I also know that sometimes when I speak, I speak for a broader group and a broader audience.”

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

NEW ON NOTUS

CFPB cases in limbo: “Nothing has happened. At least, nothing has been told to us,” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforcement attorney Vanessa Buchko, who resigned Friday, told NOTUS’ Jade Lozada. More than a month after the agency announced it would transfer open legal matters to the Justice Department, none of the CFPB’s enforcement cases seem to have proceeded, agency attorneys said.

All that, for what? Trump’s shake-up at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and baseless claims that the agency was inaccurately reporting jobs numbers didn’t change the actual economic trend lines: Job growth slowed significantly during the president’s first year back in office, Jade reports. “All the numbers are pretty much the same,” said Gbenga Ajilore, the chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank.

More: Rep. Byron Donalds Pressed the IRS for Favorable Crypto Rules. His Wife Bought Bitcoin the Same Day, by Dave Levinthal

Dems Welcome Trump Push to Limit Corporate Ownership of Single-Family Homes, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

New Federal Workforce Database Contradicts Noem’s Claim of 12,000 New ICE Agents, by Jackie Llanos

Noem Issues New Order Restricting Lawmakers’ Oversight of ICE Facilities, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOT US

• Inside Minneapolis’ Sprawling Network of ICE Watchers, by Kris Maher, Jim Carlton and Jennifer Calfas for The Wall Street Journal
  
• The Purged: Donald Trump’s Destruction of the Civil Service, by Franklin Foer for The Atlantic
  
• How Trump’s capture of Maduro can be traced to Marco Rubio’s boyhood front porch, by Steve Contorno for CNN

WEEK AHEAD

Sometime this week: Trump said he will meet with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. Rubio is also set to meet with Danish leaders to discuss Greenland.

Tuesday: The military operation in Venezuela is the focus of a closed hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Trump is also scheduled to speak in front of the Detroit Economic Club.

Final Senate vote expected on a bill to require congressional authorization before further military action in Venezuela.

The Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments on whether states can ban transgender girls from competing on school sports teams.

Wednesday: AI day in the House: The Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing on the AI race with China, and a Science Committee subcommittee holds a hearing on “America’s AI Action Plan.”

Thursday: “Kids Screen Time Hearing” at the Senate Commerce Committee.

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