DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Last night's U.S. attack on Venezuela is part of a long history of American intervention in the region, and it comes from a Trump administration that's employing the nation's military much more than it did the first time around during President Trump's first term. NPR's senior contributor Ron Elving joins us now. Good morning, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Daniel.
ESTRIN: Panama, Argentina - I won't continue the list because it's just so long.
ELVING: Yes. It goes back well over a century, into the 1800s. And it includes a wide range of incursions and strikes against quite a few countries in the region, especially in Central America and the Caribbean. Some of these amounted to political interference and others to military involvement. Some have drawn in other world powers or been done to counter what was regarded as foreign interference in the hemisphere. But presidents have also had other agendas, including their own opposition to certain regimes in the hemisphere. The closest analogue in time and scale would be the incursion into Panama late in 1989 by President George H. W. Bush. That involved almost 30,000 U.S. troops, and eventually, they seized that country's dictator of the time, Manuel Noriega. Noriega was brought back to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges and spent the next 20 years in various kinds of custody in the United States.
ESTRIN: And, Ron, President Trump is also threatening Iran. During his first term, he did approve a lethal drone strike on an Iranian military leader when he happened to be in Baghdad, right?
ELVING: Yes. And in his second term, Trump has been using military talk like, we are locked and loaded - even more, perhaps than in the first term, and perhaps achieving some of the same effect. But it's not been all talk. Let's remember that just a few months ago, the U.S. took part in a massive airstrike on Iran in cooperation with the Israeli military - a strike against their facilities for creating a nuclear weapon. So there's no question the president is willing to use force inside Iran.
But this situation is quite different from that one, and Trump is not just saying he would punish Iran for repressing dissent in its own country. He is saying he would, quote, "rescue" the victims of that regime there. Now, we understand this was a 3 a.m. posting, so it may have been rather spur-of-the-moment in his choice of words. But what does the word rescue mean in this context? How would he put a stop to the street violence that we've seen in Iran in the past few days? And how would Iran make good on its threats of retribution?
ESTRIN: Different question for you, Ron. Trump said online that he is in perfect health yesterday and for the third time in a row, he aced a cognitive exam, which just leads us to wonder - why is he being repeatedly given cognitive exams?
ELVING: It would make some wonder, yes, just on its own. We don't know the exact time frame of how many of these tests were done in what time frame. But Trump was responding here to questions about his health and mental acuity that were already being raised, and not just by Trump critics. The country has just been through an episode with an octogenarian president, Joe Biden, who seemed to have lost something since taking office, and a White House that was not entirely forthcoming about it. Now Trump is certainly talking about it, trying to dismiss it, but he can expect the topic to linger as we approach his 80th birthday this spring.
ESTRIN: Yeah. And I guess we should not let this week pass without highlighting the New Year's Eve release by the House Judiciary Committee of closed-door testimony last month by former special counsel Jack Smith.
ELVING: It was a remarkable moment that we were not allowed to see live because the House committee chair insisted on closed doors, but we at least have the audio. And we can at least hear Jack Smith's voice as he makes his case. Here's a clip.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACK SMITH: President Trump was, by a large measure, the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. The - these crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol as part of this case does not happen without him.
ELVING: You know, listening to that, I'm reminded of the words of Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, speaking on the floor of the Senate back in 2021. He said that Trump was, no question, practically and morally responsible for the events of January 6. It was all very clear then, and Jack Smith makes it clear again.
ESTRIN: All right.
ELVING: So the case against Trump for January 6 may never be fully adjudicated, but it's not going away.
ESTRIN: No, it's not. NPR's Ron Elving. Thank you.
ELVING: Thank you, Daniel.
ESTRIN: Stay with us all throughout the show as we monitor developments from Caracas, as well as news from here in Washington and reaction throughout the world. We have all the angles. We're updating with news and analysis as it happens. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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