What happened
The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most advanced U.S. aircraft carrier, and its three accompanying warships entered the Caribbean region yesterday, adding to President Donald Trump’s unusual buildup of naval might off the coast of Venezuela. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the carrier strike group “will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking” in the region. But Venezuela said yesterday it was mobilizing its entire military, including weaponry and troops, in preparation for a possible U.S. attack.

Who said what
The massive “firepower” of the Ford strike group “goes beyond what is required to strike the small boats that the Trump administration says are being used to smuggle drugs,” The Wall Street Journal said. The “only reason” to move a strategic asset like an aircraft carrier from the Middle East to the Caribbean “is to use it against Venezuela,” Mark Canican at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told The Washington Post. Now that the Ford has arrived, “the shot clock has started” for President Donald Trump to “use it or move it.” 

America’s military “dwarfs Venezuela’s, which is debilitated by a lack of training, low wages and deteriorating equipment,” Reuters said. So the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has “bet on two potential strategies” — a publicly disclosed “guerrilla-style defense” and a secret “anarchization” plan to “create disorder on the streets” and “make Venezuela ungovernable for foreign forces.”

What next?
The Trump administration has “developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela,” but the president “has yet to make a decision about how or whether to proceed,” The New York Times said, citing officials. Trump was reportedly “reluctant” to put U.S. troops in danger or risk “an embarrassing failure,” but “many of his senior advisers are pressing” for “ousting” Maduro. 

What happened
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) yesterday cast himself as a “stable and reliable” American partner on climate change at the United Nations COP30 conference in Belém, Brazil. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax,” declined to send any officials to this week’s summit, making the U.S. one of just four countries not represented, alongside Afghanistan, Myanmar and San Marino.

Who said what
Newsom was “swarmed by conference attendees and cheered for representing the U.S.” amid Trump’s boycott, Reuters said. Although California is just one state, “its economy is the world’s fourth-largest” and it has “among the world’s most ambitious climate change policies.” Trump and his “acolytes” are “doubling down on stupid as it relates to climate policy,” Newsom said, but while the administration is “dumb” on green energy, “California is not.” 

Newsom used his “many packed sessions” to paint Trump as a “threat to American competitiveness by letting China dominate electric vehicles, solar panels and other clean energy technologies of the future,” The New York Times said. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said it was “embarrassing” that “Newscum flew all the way to Brazil to tout the Green New Scam.”

What next?
The U.N. on Monday “released updated calculations” showing “projected 2035 global greenhouse gas emissions 12% below 2019 levels,” from 10% before new national pledges “rolled in” last month, The Associated Press said. But the latest figures “depend on a U.S. pledge that came from the Biden administration in December — before Trump returned to the White House and began working to boost fossil fuels and block clean energy like wind and solar.” Trump “is temporary,” Newsom told COP30 attendees. “California’s commitment is strong, and we’re in this for the long haul.”