The Rubio Doctrine

Today’s notice: Reading the tea leaves on Trump’s latest comments re: Venezuela. Congress is happy to pass the buck for now. A victory for vaccine skeptics. And: Did Marco Rubio change — or has everyone else?

THE LATEST

A very open question. “I don’t know exactly what he means by that,” Sen. Bill Cassidy told NOTUS’ Hill team Monday of Donald Trump’s repeated pledge that the United States will run Venezuela for the time being.

A lot of Republicans were also unsure. “Well, we’re gonna try and get more information about that,” John Thune told CNN.

Official White House briefings have begun, first with top Hill officials yesterday and later today with Republican lawmakers at the (Trump-)Kennedy Center. Thune got one of the briefings and told reporters afterward it was “a very robust discussion about the operation, and, I think, about the path forward,” but did not elaborate on what that meant.

There were some signs of a coalescing narrative, however. And that is the people who were in charge of Venezuela before are kinda in charge now — but we’ve got more leverage. “This is not a regime change,” Mike Johnson told reporters after the briefing. “This is demand for change of behavior by a regime. The interim government is stood up now, and we are hopeful that they will be able to correct their actions.”

Future demand for change of behavior preview? “The real question is, what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?” Stephen Miller told CNN yesterday — just one of several post-Caracas moments where administration officials have coyly suggested more regimes could be a-changin’.

Open tabs: Mark Kelly Vows to Fight His Demotion ‘With Everything I’ve Got’ (NOTUS); Documents outline potential cuts affecting thousands of FEMA disaster responders (WaPo); Trump’s Hint to Oil Executives Weeks Before Maduro Ouster: ‘Get Ready’ (WSJ); Corporation for Public Broadcasting Votes to Shut Down (NYT)

From the Hill

Where behavior does not change: Despite some bipartisan outcry over the White House launching action in Venezuela without notifying anyone in Congress, the vast majority of Republicans remain uninterested in flexing legislative branch muscle in this week’s vote on a bipartisan war powers resolution, NOTUS’ Ursula Perano and Hamed Ahmadi report. The bill is not expected to pass.

“All I can do is count for my vote,” said Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican co-sponsor of the bill that would require congressional approval before the use of military force.

From DHS

Gonna need to see your TPS report: “Applicants are only eligible for refugee status prior to entering the country,” a DHS spox told NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos on Monday, a day after agency head Kristi Noem told Fox News that “every individual that was under TPS will have the opportunity to apply for refugee status, and that evaluation will go forward.” Noem was asked about Venezuelans in the U.S. who had Temporary Protected Status that the Trump administration has stripped away.

The clarification means what Noem said was untrue for the Venezuelans already in the United States who the White House is seeking to deport back to their home country, which their advocates argue is now even riskier given the political upheaval following U.S. intervention.

That’s not how DHS sees it. “Secretary Noem ended Temporary Protected Status for more than 500,000 Venezuelans and now they can go home to a country that they love,” the spox said.

From HHS

A quiet victory for vax skeptics: Major changes to the CDC’s vaccination schedule for children were announced yesterday on an administration background conference call with reporters, NOTUS’ Margaret Manto reports.

There is no scheduled public event to announce the new schedule, which reduced the number of vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule from 17 to 11, cutting immunizations for rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A and hepatitis B from the list.

When one reporter on the call explicitly asked why senior administration officials were remaining “on background,” a senior official said they were “really here just to provide the background as to what we’re doing.”

THE BIG ONE

The Rubio Doctrine: “He has a little bit of the Dear Leader syndrome,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, one of the Democrats who voted unanimously last year with their Republican colleagues to confirm Marco Rubio as secretary of state, said yesterday of the former senator, NOTUS’ Daniella Diaz and Ursula report.

This is just the latest iteration of a trend: Democrats who really thought Rubio would be a stabilizing, traditionalist force in the second Trump administration regretting their confirmation vote. “I don’t recognize Secretary Rubio,” Sen. Jacky Rosen told him to his face at a Senate hearing last May.

But is traditionalism in the eye of the beholder? When Rubio backed and then took over the dismantling of USAID, he was fulfilling a decades-long dream of a certain kind of conservative. His role as the public face of U.S. military action in Venezuela can be seen as a return to a kind of neoconservative ideal that was long a part of the pre-MAGA Republican Party. And that aspect of things is not creating regrets.

Many Democrats are tip-toeing around criticizing the actual invasion of Venezuela, Daniella and Ursula report. The seemingly unprecedented choice to leave Congress out of the loop entirely is their focus. And Rubio’s decision to go along with that move is the political shift that has Democrats wishing for a revote on his confirmation.

NEW ON NOTUS

Affordability politics winner? “I saw it as a creative and aggressive way to take on the utility companies and take on the regulators and challenge a really frankly corrupt system,” Rep. Josh Riley told NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak of his repeated efforts to fight energy rate hikes by becoming an official party to cases brought before New York’s Public Service Commission.

Riley says he is the only member of Congress to do this. Politically, it’s a strategy that Shifra reports could prove the Democrat is serious about bringing down energy prices. But there are risks, too: The commission already ruled against him and in favor of rate hikes in one case, and another is ongoing.

More: Democrats Fume as DOJ Misses Key Epstein Documents Deadline, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

Hilton-Branded Hotel Apologizes for Refusing to Book Rooms for DHS Agents, by Jackie Llanos

DHS Deploys Massive Force to Minneapolis in Response to Welfare Fraud Scandal, by Adora Brown

Tim Walz Will Not Seek Reelection, by Christa Dutton

PERSPECTIVES

Is AI good for democracy? A NOTUS forum featuring Adam Conner, Kay Firth-Butterfield, Michael Kleinman, Clara Langevin, Farah Pandith, Nicol Turner Lee, Patrick Utz and Andrew Yang.

NOTUS Perspectives: In Conversation. Join us for a live discussion with Perspectives contributor Alyssa Rosenberg and editor Richard Just. The virtual event will take place on Jan. 14 at 12 p.m. ET. RSVP here.

NOT US

• We texted 1,000 Americans about U.S. actions in Venezuela. Here’s what they said. By Scott Clement and Eric Lau for The Washington Post
  
• Trump’s Washington is packed with Claremont fellows. That’s no accident. By Megan Messerly and Diana Nerozzi for Politico
  
• A Mystery Trader Made $400,000 Betting on Maduro’s Downfall, by Alexander Osipovich and Caitlin Ostroff for The Wall Street Journal

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