Trump might intervene militarily in Venezuela because of expats who golf at his Florida club, Mike Pence

Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, and President Trump in Florida — (Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

If it sounds increasingly like President Trump is headed toward U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, that seems to be the option his top advisers are pushing. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Sunday that "we're gonna do the things that need to be done" to get President Nicolas Maduro out, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been suggestively posting before/after photos of various authoritarian leaders on Twitter, including Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi right before a mob executed him, after Western military intervention. But the driving force behind Trump's hawkish Venezuela turn, Jonathan Swan reports at Axios, is Vice President Mike Pence, who isn't the "impotent toady" many assume him to be.

Trump has been driven by "instincts, personal relationships, aggressive advisers, and political opportunism" in his Venezuela policy, Swan says. The pivot reportedly started when Pence brought the wife of a Venezuelan political prisoner into the Oval Office with Rubio, and Trump was so "taken by their conversation," he told an aide to snap a photo on his iPhone, told Rubio to read and edit his caption, then tweeted out America's new Venezuela policy.

But there is also a personal angle for Trump. "Privately, Trump often talks about his fondness for the Venezuelan expats who frequent his golf club in Doral," Swan reports, noting that he's also mentioned this in public, saying last September that many Venezuelan expats "live in the Doral area of Miami. I've gotten to know them well. They are great, great people." The White House also believes it can tie Venezuela's kleptocratic Bolivarian socialism to the European-style democratic socialist policies proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and some of his Democratic colleagues, while also courting Venezuelan expats. "The fact that the bulk of those expats live and vote in Florida, of all states, is not lost on Trump and his political team," Swan notes. You can read more at Axios.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.