Nick Doms

Trump: You see this pen right here? This pen is very inexpensive. But it writes well. I like it. Sharpie. I came here. They had $1,000 pens. You hand out pens. You hand them to people. 30, 40 people. They were $1,000 a piece. Beautiful pen, ball point. I hand out to kids that don't know. It's kid getting a pen for $1,000. They have no idea what it is. I had another problem. They didn’t write well. I sign—no ink. I have all you people looking and say there must be something wrong with Trump. There is no ink in the pen. It cost $1,000.

The narrative that U.S. pressure on Venezuela is “about oil” misses the point. This is Monroe Doctrine 2.0 in a Cold War 2 environment: preventing DragonBear actors from embedding themselves in Washington’s near-abroad. Maduro isn’t just an autocrat; he is a Russian–Chinese–Iranian client. The real driver is non-interference, regional power projection, and breaking that axis.

Full-scale military operations appear to be underway against Venezuela, with dozens of helicopters with the U.S. Army spotted over the capital of Caracas.

The European Union has triggered Article 122 to indefinitely immobilise the assets of the Russian Central Bank, worth a whopping €210 billion. I explain what just happened and why this is such a big deal for Europeans. 🧵 Long thread.