Greetings, Dear Reader,

Big, big risk. Trump’s biggest yet. Will it pay off? How is it America First? And who the hell is in charge?

Let’s get after it!

THE TRUMP DOCTRINE

Ten minutes after Trump posted a statement to social media acknowledging the strike in Venezuela, a New York Times reporter cold-called his personal cell phone. It was around 4:30 in the morning.

After three rings, the president picked up.

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Trump’s first covert order as commander-in-chief occurred just nine days into his presidency and did not pan out well. 

A group of SEALs and UAE special forces launched a joint raid in Yakla, Yemen, a home base of AQAP, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The goal was primarily to gather intelligence, disrupt operations, and potentially kill or capture a top Al Qaeda operative. It was an extremely low-visibility, high-risk, high-reward operation, which would become a trend for Trump.

The operation was supposed to remain covert for as long as possible, but it went to shit almost as soon as they landed. Al Qaeda was alerted immediately, and more outfitted and organized than expected. What was supposed to be a quick hit-and-run on a weak and surprised enemy turned into an hours-long battle with entrenched and determined terrorists.

The results were civilians dead, civilian structures destroyed, and locals enraged. Worse, one SEAL was KIA and a damaged MV-22 needed to be destroyed on site during the exfil.

Sure, some terrorists were killed, but the operation could not have panned out more poorly for the fledgling administration. By all accounts, even those from folks on the ground, it was a disaster.

Meanwhile, Trump – and his SecDef, James Mattis – claimed victory regardless.

My guess is Trump learned some valuable lessons in that defeat, as his next major efforts would prove.

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I picture it like a reverse image of Bush getting notified that a commercial plane had rammed into the Twin Towers.

Chinese President Xi is cutting into his chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago, sitting across from President Trump, when a member of the Secret Service calmly walks up and whispers in Trump’s ear.

It was April 2017, still early in Trump’s presidency, so there was likely still griping in the media about Trump taking meetings at Mar-a-Lago. The two had the sit-down on the books and Trump had decided to hold it at his own resort.

If you ask me, this is when the Trump Doctrine really started to emerge.

Xi is chewing on Mar-a-Lago chocolate cake when Trump says he bombed an airstrip Russians were overseeing in Syria.

I wrote about it when it happened here, if you want all the details. The short version is that Trump was shown pictures of Syrian kids dying from sarin gas exposure. Advanced US military radar had pegged a flight around the time of the first reports and tracked it back to its origin.

Trump at first sat on it, but he couldn’t get the pictures out of his head. Then he had an idea.

I........

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