As fallout from the Epstein scandal continues to rock his presidency, Donald Trump on Thursday suddenly announced new branding for military operations in South America.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Operation Southern Spear would be undertaken by U.S. Southern Command, which covers 31 countries through South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. “This mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” Hegseth wrote in a tweet.
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The Trump administration has spent months conducting bombing campaigns against boats operating in South America, claiming without evidence that the vehicles are involved in drug trafficking.
The branding campaign for the strikes is being launched in the same week that emails from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were released to the public, renewing a scandal that has dogged Trump for much of the first year of his second term. In the emails Epstein relays that Trump “knew about the girls,” an apparent reference to the underage girls that were being trafficked.
Pressure is also mounting on Trump from Congress, where Democrats are leading an effort to pass legislation that would force the federal government to release Epstein documents that are currently being withheld by the Trump team. Some Republicans have signed on to the effort, much to Trump’s anger.
Trump has made clear that he is unhappy with the focus on Epstein—and a military bombing campaign could be seen as a way to pull attention away from his Epstein problem.
On Friday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social about how mad he is about the Epstein storyline being a topic of conversation.
“The Democrats are doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again, despite the DOJ releasing 50,000 pages of documents, in order to deflect from all of their bad policies and losses, especially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT, where their party is in total disarray, and has no idea what to do,” Trump wrote.
He added, “Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish. Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!”
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Trump has conducted the strikes without congressional approval and has not briefed Congress on his activities. The legality of the strikes has been repeatedly questioned and The New York Times reported on Friday that the internal legal justification for the strikes appears to be Trump’s own rhetoric. Trump is a serial liar who has promoted multiple conspiracy theories, and is not an expert on terrorism, global politics, drug trafficking, or national security.
In fact, the United Kingdom reportedly recently suspended some intelligence sharing operations with the U.S. in response to the likely illegality of the operations.
Trump may not get the shift in focus he wants from the strikes anyway, because the public isn’t supportive. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Friday found that only 29% support the strikes without the involvement of the legal system. 51% said they opposed the killings.
Trump wants people to turn away from Epstein coverage and seems to believe some kind of war will do the trick. But that seems to be a pipe dream, at best.
