In need of a reset on multiple policy fronts, the Trump administration isn’t afraid of turning to some good old-fashioned rebranding.
► Tired of hearing about how Epstein emails released by a House Democrats feature President Donald Trump?
Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate any Democrats who, like Trump, were Epstein associates and are mentioned in the emails. As the House moves toward a bipartisan demand for the FBI to release its Epstein files, Trump is trying to flip the script on what he’s now calling the “Epstein Hoax.”
► Need a reset for the unpopular military policy in the Western hemisphere?
Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the operation a new name, “Southern Spear.”
► Hoping to make people believe a militaristic deportation strategy is focused on dangerous criminals instead of the preschool teachers and parents who have featured in recent news stories?
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unveiled “Operation Dirtbag,” in which ICE announces the deportation of previously convicted sex offenders, among mothers, in Florida.
That Noem announcement came the same week a judge in Illinois ordered hundreds of detainees rounded up in ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” to be released.
Trying to make the people believe on affordability
On affordability — Trump’s most obvious political problem at the moment — he is working hard to reframe his policies around that term to argue that they will drive costs down. In fact, tariffs are likely to drive costs up, and tax cuts passed by Republicans will predominantly benefit the wealthiest Americans.
But it is the new name for Trump’s Venezuela policy that has the most obvious feel of a complete relaunch.
Though it has not gotten authorization from Congress, the Pentagon has overseen the apparently extrajudicial killings of 80 alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific — and counting.
The administration says it is protecting Americans from “narco-terrorists,” although it’s not clear the strikes will do much to stop the flow of drugs into the country, and it is deeply unpopular — less than a third of Americans said they supported it in a Reuters poll released this week.
It’s not clear the strategy has changed, but Hegseth gave the strategy a new name this week.
“Today, I’m announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR,” Hegseth said on X from his official “Secretary of War” account.
To military watchers, Southern Spear sounds like more of the same
It seems like “a rebranding of an operation that started back in January of 2025,” military analyst retired Maj. Mike Lyons said Friday on “CNN This Morning.”
“I think the Navy thought they wrapped it up during the summertime,” Lyons added.
CNN has reported that Pentagon briefers went further, laying out military options to Trump for US military action inside Venezuela.
Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and Air Force veteran, has said presidents should make the argument for why military action was in American interests and, when necessary, get authorization from lawmakers, as the Constitution requires.
None of that has happened yet regarding Venezuela or the targeting of suspected drug boats, Bacon told CNN’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 said.
Trump could look to the legacy of President George H.W. Bush, who launched the popular Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi invasion in the early ‘90s.
Bush also launched Operation Just Cause in 1989 to arrest and depose Gen. Manual Noriega in Panama. That operation may have played well for him in the US and led to the capture of Noreiga, but Panama today marks its anniversary with a national day of mourning for the hundreds of civilians who were killed.
Call it a hoax
Trump’s strategies for bending public perception are well-documented. He almost never says “Democrats” without also adding “radical left,” for instance.
His go-to method for defusing a controversy and reframe something in the public’s mind is to call it a “hoax.”
A serious investigation by a special counsel into contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russians during the 2016 election has years later, by force of his constant repetition, been turned into the “Russia Hoax.”
Now he’s doing the same thing by trying to turn calls to release the Epstein files into the “Epstein Hoax.”
On policy that touches people’s lives, rebranding is difficult
Republican lawmakers took Trump’s cue and officially named the massive tax and spending cut law they passed as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” That’s its name in US law.
“That was good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s all about,” Trump said back in August. He has yet to come up with something better, but he may be more focused today on trying to convince Americans he is addressing the affordability crisis.
He claims prices have fallen, but Americans aren’t experiencing that in their daily lives.
Is the MAGA brand bigger than Trump?
Trump has also struggled recently to control his own most famous catchphrase, MAGA, or “make America great again.”
It is his brand, but he was at odds with other MAGA adherents on the subject of immigration.
In a sometimes-contentious interview with the Fox News personality Laura Ingraham, Trump defended the idea of visas for skilled immigrants. He said the US did not have enough workers for certain jobs, which did not sit well with Ingraham. She argued that MAGA believers think the US has plenty of talent.
“Don’t forget, MAGA was my idea. MAGA was nobody else’s idea,” Trump shot back. “I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else, and MAGA wants to see our country thrive.”
But he may be losing a little bit of control over the MAGA brand.
