CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins has spotlighted a significant contradiction in President Donald Trump's foreign policy stance, juxtaposing his long-standing promises to avoid foreign wars with his recent defense of U.S. military action in Venezuela.
From Campaign Pledges to Military Action
During Monday's broadcast of The Source, Collins presented a compelling side-by-side comparison. The montage featured clips of Trump, both from before his 2016 election win and during his 2024 campaign, vehemently opposing American intervention in foreign conflicts. "We will stop racing to topple foreign ... regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with," Trump declared in one vintage clip.
In a second clip, he denounced what he called "stupid foreign wars in countries that you’ve never heard of." This rhetoric stood in sharp contrast to footage from a weekend press briefing, where Trump defended the Saturday capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces.
Expanding Threats and a Warning from a Former Ally
Collins noted that the president's Sunday briefing, held aboard Air Force One, included threats directed at the leaders of Mexico and Colombia. He also made a cryptic hint about a potential U.S. invasion of Greenland for national security reasons.
"The questions are not — when it comes to what’s next — are not just limited to Venezuela," Collins stated. "We’ve also heard the president threatening several other nations just in the last 48 hours alone."
The segment aired just before Collins interviewed former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Once one of Trump's most unwavering supporters, the Georgia politician expressed deep unease with the president's recent foreign policy decisions, labeling them "disturbing."
A Cautionary Tale from Past Interventions
While acknowledging relief over Maduro's arrest, Greene urged caution by referencing America's history of regime change. "We can say thankfully that Maduro has been arrested, we can say we’re happy for the Venezuelan people, but we can also look to all the regime changes before — in Iraq and Libya and Syria — and we said the same things for the people of those countries," Greene remarked.
She painted a grim picture of the potential aftermath, noting that those nations often descended into chaos. "We watched those countries fall into turmoil and civil war and we’ve watched the rise of ISIS and terrorism, and we watched U.S. troops remain in those countries for a very long time and many flag-draped coffins come home," she concluded, offering a sobering perspective on the potential long-term consequences of the intervention in Venezuela.
