Regime Change Is Back. Maga Is Getting Comfortable With It.

President Donald Trump built his America First movement, in part, on the promise of keeping the U.S. out of foreign entanglements.

On Tuesday, he teased an imminent land strike against Venezuela and even suggested he might attack other countries as well.

The whiplash has some anti-interventionists — among Trump’s most ardent backers — on the back foot as it appears all but certain that Trump is ready to use force to oust Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. The specter of the Iraq war is ever present and they worry that unintended consequences from Maduro’s ouster could mire the U.S. in conflict for years, destabilize the region, ruin Trump’s legacy and tarnish MAGA’s brand with voters.

Other Republicans, critical of past foreign engagements, are left defending the policy by drawing distinctions that at times appear strained or artificial. They argue intervention in the Western Hemisphere is more defensible than the Middle East wars they spent years denouncing, and that Trump isn’t pursuing real regime change, but rather trying to force a change in Venezuelan leadership without remaking the country’s political system.

“He’s not trying to play God with what regime is in which country,” said Alex Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff and deputy assistant to the president during the first Trump administration. “This is the purest example of him realigning our interests and our focus to something that actually matters to core American interests.”

Gray, who counts himself among those skeptical of foreign intervention, said Trump sees Venezuela as central to Western Hemisphere security: “I think the under-appreciated story is how America First this actually is.”

The Trump administration has avoided saying it is pursuing regime change in Venezuela, noting that it does not recognize Maduro as its rightful president and instead characterizing him as a drug boss who is being targeted as part of a U.S. military campaign against the cartels. With more than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops in the region, the president last week gave Maduro an ultimatum to leave Venezuela or face the consequences, according to two people familiar with details of the call, granted anonymity to discuss them.

“No one is more bullish than the president on this,” said a third person familiar with discussions around Venezuela, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The person added that the focus on striking Venezuela comes from the top.

It has left a contingent of prominent MAGA advocates — who were optimistic that the administration would focus on problems at home and avoid military strikes at all cost — hoping that whatever happens in Venezuela looks more like the recent quick, targeted action in Iran rather than decades-long quagmire in Iraq.

“There’s definitely a little bit of trepidation, like, okay, where are we going here? Let’s not turn into George W. Bush and before you know it, we’re in charge of Venezuela,” said a former senior Trump adviser who aligns with the anti-interventionist wing, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But as far as nation building, and forced regime change and boots on the ground, all of those would be definite red lines for me, and I think for most people within the America First world.”

The anti-interventionist wing’s relatively muted response ahead of a possible Venezuela strike represents a sharp pivot for a party thought to have turned its back on its neoconservative bloc and the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice under the tutelage of Trump.

Vice President JD Vance is among a cluster of MAGA-aligned intellectuals who spent years arguing that toppling dictators and engaging in foreign entanglements risked repeating the mistakes of Iraq. Many of those same voices fiercely objected when Trump ordered strikes on the Houthis earlier this year — a move Vance called a “mistake” in a Signal chat that inadvertently included a reporter.

But Vance and others have altered their line depending on the circumstance. Vance defended Trump's strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities in part because they were limited, accomplished an important U.S. objective and didn't involve sending U.S. troops onto Iranian soil.

And in a post on X on Tuesday, Vance couched any potential action in Venezuela as crucial to hemispheric security.

“We've been told for decades the US military must go everywhere and do the impossible all over the world,” Vance said. “But the red line for permanent Washington is using the military to destroy narco terrorists in our own hemisphere.”

Asked about disagreements within MAGA over intervention in Venezuela, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump was “elected on his promise to eliminate the scourge of drug deaths in our country, including his commitment to secure the southern border and take on the cartels” and that he will “continue to put Americans first by striking designated narcoterrorists bringing deadly poison to our shores, just as he was elected to do.”

Staunch anti-interventionists concede the debate within MAGA has shifted from a philosophical one — whether America First should support intervention at all — to a technical one about what counts as intervention, how much force is acceptable and how to do so with as little bloodshed as possible.

Opponents of intervention caution that removing Maduro likely won’t be the end of the U.S.’s problems with Venezuela. Toppling the regime could leave a power vacuum that fuels migration, strengthens criminal or cartel-linked groups or destabilizes energy markets — fallout reminiscent of the years the U.S. spent rebuilding Iraq that’s unlikely to be easily ignored.

“He wasn’t talking about regime change when he ran [in 2024],” said Ian Bremmer, the president of the Eurasia Group, a global risk assessment firm based in New York. ”That’s a NeoCon idea he couldn’t have been farther from that’s been discredited around the world. So the U.S. would be going in unilaterally without much support from other countries or the American people and no clear rationale.”

Some advocates for restraint remain hopeful that Trump will opt against using military force against Venezuela, noting the discontent about potential intervention raging through the president’s base.

“Trump is a canny political animal and realists and restrainers are still optimistic he will conclude a broader Venezuela war is a disaster in the making, that some of his subordinates are doing him a grave disservice, that he can still take a pass on a building nightmare,” said Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine.

Yet the president’s top officials are insisting that whatever decision he makes on Venezuela will align with that America First policy, the disagreements within the president’s coalition notwithstanding.

“Is it going to make us richer? Is it going to make us safer? If it is, he is for it,” Rubio said during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. “If it is not, he’s against it. If something is going to make America weaker or poorer or less safe, the president is going to be against it.”

Eli Stokols and Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.