A model of this story appeared in NCS’s What Matters publication. To get it in your inbox, join free here.
In want of a reset on a number of coverage fronts, the Trump administration isn’t afraid of turning to some good old style rebranding.
► Tired of listening to about how Epstein emails launched by a House Democrats function President Donald Trump?
Trump requested Attorney General Pam Bondi to examine any Democrats who, like Trump, have been Epstein associates and are talked about within the emails. As the House strikes towards a bipartisan demand for the FBI to launch its Epstein recordsdata, Trump is attempting to flip the script on what he’s now calling the “Epstein Hoax.”
► Need a reset for the unpopular navy coverage within the Western hemisphere?
Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the operation a brand new identify, “Southern Spear.”
► Hoping to make individuals imagine a militaristic deportation technique is concentrated on harmful criminals as an alternative of the preschool lecturers and dad and mom who’ve featured in latest information tales?
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unveiled “Operation Dirtbag,” wherein ICE pronounces the deportation of beforehand convicted intercourse offenders, amongst moms, in Florida.
That Noem announcement got here the identical week a choose in Illinois ordered a whole lot of detainees rounded up in ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” to be launched.
On affordability — Trump’s most obvious political problem in the meanwhile — he’s working arduous to reframe his insurance policies round that time period to argue that they are going to drive prices down. In reality, tariffs are possible to drive prices up, and tax cuts handed by Republicans will predominantly benefit the wealthiest Americans.
But it’s the new identify for Trump’s Venezuela coverage that has the obvious really feel of a whole relaunch.
Though it has not gotten authorization from Congress, the Pentagon has overseen the apparently extrajudicial killings of 80 alleged drug traffickers within the Caribbean and Pacific — and counting.
The administration says it’s defending Americans from “narco-terrorists,” though it’s not clear the strikes will do a lot to cease the stream of medication into the nation, and it’s deeply unpopular — less than a third of Americans stated they supported it in a Reuters ballot launched this week.
It’s not clear the technique has modified, however Hegseth gave the technique a brand new identify this week.
“Today, I’m announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR,” Hegseth stated on X from his official “Secretary of War” account.
It looks like “a rebranding of an operation that started back in January of 2025,” navy analyst retired Maj. Mike Lyons stated Friday on “NCS This Morning.”
“I think the Navy thought they wrapped it up during the summertime,” Lyons added.
NCS has reported that Pentagon briefers went additional, laying out navy choices to Trump for US navy motion inside Venezuela.
Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and Air Force veteran, has stated presidents ought to make the argument for why navy motion was in American pursuits and, when essential, get authorization from lawmakers, because the Constitution requires.
None of that has occurred but relating to Venezuela or the focusing on of suspected drug boats, Bacon advised NCS’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday.
“I implore the president and his team, make your case to the American people, when you’re using our military and you’re going to pursue hostilities there has to be support from the people, and you need to get support from Congress,” Bacon stated.
Trump may look to the legacy of President George H.W. Bush, who launched the favored Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi invasion within the early ‘90s.
Bush additionally launched Operation Just Cause in 1989 to arrest and depose Gen. Manual Noriega in Panama. That operation could have performed properly for him within the US and led to the seize of Noreiga, however Panama at the moment marks its anniversary with a national day of mourning for the a whole lot of civilians who have been killed.
Trump’s methods for bending public notion are well-documented. He virtually by no means says “Democrats” with out additionally including “radical left,” for example.
His go-to technique for defusing an issue and reframe one thing within the public’s thoughts is to name it a “hoax.”
A severe investigation by a particular counsel into contacts between Trump’s marketing campaign and Russians in the course of the 2016 election has years later, by drive of his fixed repetition, been became the “Russia Hoax.”
Now he’s doing the identical factor by attempting to flip calls to launch the Epstein recordsdata into the “Epstein Hoax.”
On coverage that touches individuals’s lives, rebranding is tough
Republican lawmakers took Trump’s cue and formally named the large tax and spending minimize regulation they handed because the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” That’s its identify in US regulation.
“That was good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s all about,” Trump stated again in August. He has but to give you one thing higher, however he could also be extra centered at the moment on attempting to persuade Americans he’s addressing the affordability disaster.
He claims costs have fallen, however Americans aren’t experiencing that of their every day lives.
Is the MAGA model larger than Trump?
Trump has additionally struggled not too long ago to management his personal most well-known catchphrase, MAGA, or “make America great again.”
It is his model, however he was at odds with different MAGA adherents with regards to immigration.
In a sometimes-contentious interview with the Fox News personality Laura Ingraham, Trump defended the concept of visas for skilled immigrants. He stated the US didn’t have sufficient staff for sure jobs, which didn’t sit properly with Ingraham. She argued that MAGA believers suppose the US has loads of expertise.
“Don’t forget, MAGA was my idea. MAGA was nobody else’s idea,” Trump shot again. “I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else, and MAGA wants to see our country thrive.”
But he could also be dropping slightly little bit of management over the MAGA model.