Jonathan Swan: Trump Has This Colonial Mindset About The World, Comfortable With Spheres Of Influence

Jonathan Swan: Trump Has This Colonial Mindset About The World, Comfortable With Spheres Of Influence centers on remarks from Axios CEO Jim VandeHei and The New York Times’ Jonathan Swan during an interview about Swan’s book “Regime Change.” The conversation revisits Trump’s post-return-to-power period, describing an intense final stretch of the election followed by a more “housebound” routine at Mar-a-Lago, with aides encouraging engagement on topics such as a housing bill. Swan characterizes Trump’s worldview as having a 19th-century colonial mindset and comfort with a “spheres of influence” approach. The article says Swan and the reporting they cite interpret Trump’s statements about the Western Hemisphere as treating territories like Greenland, Canada, and Venezuela in non-sovereign terms, including the idea of Venezuela as an oil field and references to it as a potential “51st state.”