It has only been days since a daring US raid was hijacked Nicolas Maduro From a Venezuelan military base and being rushed to a prison in Brooklyn, however, Aaron Tobin, a Trump supporter in the Detroit area, can see it all on the big screen.
It is expected to be the subject of films for years to come. “I’m very happy.” Plenty of others who voted for President Donald Trump and spoke to The Associated Press about the raid are also applauding — at least for now.
The arrest of the authoritarian Venezuelan leader and his wife has led to a recalculation of the Make America Great Again coalition, which had already been shaken by the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis. Jeffrey Epstein files And tense before High health insurance premiums And costs of living.
Trump promised his voters that the slogan “America First” would stand in the way of more foreign entanglements. Instead, it forcibly and without congressional approval enters a new border, a South American capital so far from Washington that Google Maps says it “can’t seem to find a way there.”
The geopolitical action movie Toobin has in mind is only in its opening scene, before all the complexities of uprooting a foreign government on the orders of an American president roll in. American forces entered and exited quickly. But what will happen next?
Early on, resistance from Republicans in Congress and Trump’s core constituencies was cautious, in contrast to their uproar over the Epstein incident or the tensions running through Republican politics over the now-expired health insurance subsidies.
Against this backdrop, Trump voters interviewed by Associated Press journalists across the country praised the process and expressed confidence in Trump’s course. But faith is not always without limits. Not all of them supported Trump’s claim that those who “voted for me were thrilled. They said, ‘This is what we voted for.'”
“I support him so far,” Paul Bonner, 67, told the Associated Press while browsing a Trump merchandise store in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. “Until he makes a mistake, I support him.”
Trump’s apparent desire to continue intervening in Venezuela and his intense rhetoric about expanding US power elsewhere in the hemisphere are making some of his die-hard supporters nervous.
They haven’t all reached the popcorn yet.
Chase Lewis, 24, of Philadelphia, Mississippi, said the move surprised him, and he’s still not sure whether he supports it or not. “It’s good to finally be freed from that dictatorship, but I don’t know what it will cost us,” he said of Venezuelans.
He added: “I don’t want my friends who are serving now to be dragged into a war because we went and stuck our noses into Venezuelan affairs.” He pointed out that Trump campaigned against starting new wars. “Depending on how you look at it, this was an act of war,” he said.
Lewis, a trained electrician who gave up his delivery job because he needed to make more money, said he wants to see the Trump administration focus on cutting costs for young people like him. He also wants the president to make life better for veterans and fears plunging the country into more conflicts.
For Trump voter Travis Garcia, leaning against his red pickup truck on a cold evening in Castle Rock, Colorado, it was a crushing blow. “Of course I would be happy because they arrested a dictator who keeps sending us drugs,” he said. “If we don’t do it, who will?”
The 45-year-old, who works in reconstruction, said the operation reinforces Trump’s position as “a strong man who keeps his word and is not going to be timid and timid and allow other countries to enforce the rules.”
Mary Lussier, 48, a flight attendant from Larkspur, was so amazed by the success of the mission in Venezuela that she would not accept any more such operations. She recalled videos of Venezuelans tearfully celebrating Maduro’s ouster, and said that reducing the number of bad leaders “would make the world a somewhat less bad place.”
However, Lussier did not want American soldiers to be stuck in a protracted conflict, and much of her admiration for the operation was based less on the potential benefits for the United States than on the effortless efficiency and courage of the raiders.
Outside a Safeway grocery store in Castle Rock, Patrick McCann, 66, said mildly that Trump’s intervention was “a little bit counter to what he campaigned on.”
“I would like to see more of a diplomatic way to bring about change,” the retired engineer said. However, he said, thinking for a moment: “I think in this case it might have been justified.”
Instead of playing ball, Maduro was “playing chicken with Trump, and Trump doesn’t like chicken,” he said, laughing from under his Baltimore Ravens baseball cap.
Trump supporters in Colorado interviewed by the Associated Press praised the smoothness and “sophistication” of the military operation, as one described it. But this support may decline if the United States is drawn into a longer-term conflict, which neither would support.
Few mentioned Trump’s plans for Venezuela’s oil, but they believed that removing Maduro would benefit citizens and slow the drug trade and immigration to the United States.
At the Golden Dawn Diner in Levittown, Pennsylvania, Ron Soto, 88, expressed absolute confidence in the president’s ability to manage what comes next. The retired trailer driver regularly visits the restaurant to meet friends, drink coffee and catch up.
He said Maduro is a “terrible man.” But should American forces go to other countries, such as Cuba, as they did in Venezuela? “I don’t think they’ll have to,” he said. “Because he (Trump) instilled fear in them.”
As for Trump’s comment at one point that his administration would “run” Venezuela, Soto said the president “will straighten this country up and turn it into a democracy if he can. I don’t know if he can.”
At the Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, retired firefighter Kevin Carey, 62, announced his support for what Trump did but understood the risks.
“I wouldn’t say thrilled, but I’m cautiously optimistic,” he said. Carey recalls Taking American hostages By Iranian revolutionaries in 1979 as an indication of what would happen if the conflict escalated. But he added of Trump, “I think he will take every measure to avoid that.”
On any More foreign intervention Curry burst out laughing when he said: “He wants Greenland to be part of America!”
At the Trump merchandise store where Bonner shops, signs and other items advertising “Trump 2028” are on display. Trump is constitutionally prohibited from running in 2028.
“I know he can’t run for president” in 2028, said Bonner, a propane gas company worker. However, he wanted a sign on the lawn “just to piss people off” but couldn’t find one.
The apparent military operation clearly left him affected. “They came in and they went out, and they did what they had to do,” he added. “He is an enemy of the United States, so I support Trump 100 percent,” he said of Maduro.
Mark Edward Miller, 75, of nearby Morrisville, said as he exited a Walmart store in Martinsville, Indiana, that the only thing that surprised him about Trump’s intervention was that the news had not leaked beforehand. The consistent Trump voter was an aircraft maintenance specialist in the Air Force before his retirement.
“I don’t feel like he’s actually taken over a country,” Miller said. “I think it does exactly what our country should do — support governments that are friendly to us, especially in our Western Hemisphere” and challenge those that are hostile.
Tobin, the man in Michigan who sees a cinematic future for the raid, not only approves of the operation, he wants more of it.
“Especially if they were as successful as the latter, where we didn’t lose any troops, we didn’t lose any planes or ships,” Tobin said during a visit to the Oakland County Republican Party headquarters, where he was surrounded by Trump and GOP memorabilia. “I’m happy and surprised” by what happened.
“Cuba is very tense now,” he said. “The Cuban people are suffering greatly from their terrible situation and economy. Iran may be next.”
The three-time Trump voter is an active member of the local Republican Party, a certified firearms instructor and president of a cycling group in his hometown of Oak Park, Michigan.
The conclusion he said: “President Trump does not talk idly. If he says he will do something, he does something.”
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Pedine reported from Colorado, Catalini from Pennsylvania, Homeowner from Michigan, Bates from Mississippi, Lamy from Indiana, and Woodward from Washington.