Washington Funding the Next War

Architectural columns with a background of U.S. currency

As Tucker Carlson warns that “war is coming” and calls Trump’s massive 2027 Pentagon plan a “war budget,” conservatives are left asking whether Washington is quietly steering America toward another open-ended foreign conflict while our own borders and wallets bleed.

Story Highlights

Tucker Carlson says members of Congress were briefed that “a war is coming” and ties the warning to U.S. moves against Venezuela.
Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion 2027 military “Dream Military” budget is being branded by Carlson as a full-scale “war budget.”
Blockades, a raid capturing Nicolás Maduro, and expanded Caribbean deployments raise questions about mission creep and war powers.
Conservatives must weigh strong defense against the danger of globalist-style regime-change wars that drain resources and erode constitutional limits.

Carlson’s Warning: From Failed Prediction To Bigger Alarm Bell

On December 16, 2025, Tucker Carlson told his audience that members of Congress had been briefed “a war is coming” and that President Trump would announce a U.S. invasion of Venezuela in a primetime address that night. That specific announcement never happened, and critics immediately pounced on Carlson’s credibility. Yet instead of backing down, he went on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” the next day and broadened his concern from one speech to the entire way Washington now wages war.

On Napolitano’s show, Carlson repeated that he had been told members of Congress were warned a war was coming, while candidly admitting his information was limited and unverified. From there he shifted to a deeper critique: for decades, both parties have normalized undeclared, open-ended interventions sold under vague “national security” labels. He argued that Venezuela fits into the same regime-change pattern as Iraq and Libya, where ordinary Americans paid the price while elites walked away untouched and unaccountable.

Venezuela Escalation: Blockade, Raid, And A Dangerous Precedent

While no formal declaration of war has been made, U.S. actions against Venezuela have already crossed lines that would have shocked previous generations. Trump ordered a naval and oil blockade and ramped up military activity in the Caribbean, moves that Caracas denounced as illegal aggression at the United Nations. Then, early in 2026, U.S. forces carried out a raid inside Venezuela, capturing dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, effectively decapitating the regime in a single stroke and broadcasting American reach to other hostile actors.

Supporters see Maduro’s capture as long-overdue justice against a corrupt socialist strongman and a deterrent warning to Iran, Hamas, and other enemies that American red lines now carry real consequences. But constitutional conservatives hear a different alarm: another major foreign operation undertaken without a formal declaration of war, without a serious national debate, and with Congress largely sidelined. When the executive can topple a foreign head of state by raid and blockade while legislators shrug, the Founders’ vision of shared war powers starts to look more like a rubber stamp than a safeguard.

The $1.5 Trillion Question: Strong Defense Or Open-Ended War Machine?

Just weeks after the $901 billion 2026 defense bill was signed, Trump proposed an eye-popping $1.5 trillion military budget for 2027, marketed as building a “Dream Military” to keep America “safe and secure regardless of foe.” Tucker Carlson’s response was blunt: this is not a peacekeeping plan; it is a “war budget, a big war budget,” the sort of spending level a country adopts when it expects a large regional or even global conflict, not when it is simply maintaining deterrence.

For many conservatives, this creates a real tension. On one hand, after years of Biden-era weakness, open borders, and endless capitulation to globalist institutions, a strong, well-funded military sounds like overdue insurance. On the other hand, pouring $1.5 trillion into the Pentagon while Washington still refuses to secure our own southern border, stop illegal immigration, or rein in debt and inflation looks dangerously like the old uniparty playbook: endless money for foreign adventures, belt-tightening for American families. Carlson’s warning taps into that frustration and skepticism.

History gives conservatives plenty of reason to be wary. Carlson and Napolitano point back to Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011 as textbook regime-change disasters: wars launched on shifting rationales, sold as quick fixes, then dragging on for years while costs ballooned and local chaos opened doors for terrorists and hostile powers. Venezuela, with some of the world’s largest oil reserves and a strategically sensitive position in the hemisphere, could easily become another quagmire if mission creep takes hold and clear objectives are never honestly defined.

Constitutional Limits, America First, And What Comes Next

At the core of this debate is a question conservatives have been asking since the Founding: who decides when America goes to war, and for what purpose? The Constitution vests Congress, not the president, with the power to declare war, precisely to prevent impulsive adventures and to keep the people’s representatives accountable. Yet decades of vague authorizations and judicial deference have allowed presidents from both parties to treat war powers as a near-personal tool, with legislators content to posture on cable news while avoiding tough votes.

Carlson’s “war is coming” refrain should not be taken as prophecy, but as a prompt for hard questions. If Washington is preparing for a larger conflict—whether centered on Venezuela or spread across multiple fronts—Americans deserve transparency, clear goals, and a serious accounting of costs. An authentic America First approach means defending our homeland, our borders, and our constitutional order before chasing another round of globalist regime change. Patriots who fought against woke agendas and open borders should not now accept permanent war footing on autopilot.