Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Nothing Succeeds like Success 👍🏻

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NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 p.m. ET show, delivered straight to your inbox.

Editor's note📝: Welcome back to "War Notes" — I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's with your friends and family.

Most interesting thing I learned🤓: Resolutions and goals are easier to keep if they are PROCESS-based
- For example:
  - Process📞: I'll place five sales calls per day
  - Performance🗓️: I'll onboard five new clients a month
  - Outcome💰: I'll achieve $100 million in sales this year
🤞🏼Good luck with your New Year's resolutions!

Your help🫵🏼: We need your help launching our segment with the worst and most absurd takes of the day.

📺Each night, we will feature a soundbite from the Left and Right that perfectly encapsulates how 30% of America has lost their minds.
- 🥁Drum roll, please, for tonight's contenders —
  - 🎙️Tucker Carlson saying President Trump arrested President Maduro to bring gay marriage to Venezuela
  - 🎙️Jimmy Kimmel saying getting taken off the air for a few days was a "near-death" experience
📱We need your help naming the segment — please reply to "War Notes" or tag us on social media @lelandvittert with your suggestions.

Essential Truths 👀

‼️Let me begin the new year by telling you something NOBODY else on TV will say tonight — I don't know.

🤷🏼‍♂️I have no idea how America's arrest of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro will end up a month, a year, a decade from now — anybody telling you differently is lying.
👀Instead, let me offer a few things that are unquestionably true:
- 📹Today's video of Maduro shackled and humiliated is a GREAT start to 2026.
  - ‼️Maduro's Cuba-backed regime murdered, drug-ran, helped Hezbollah, tortured its own people, ran gangs into America and stole from its own people while wrecking their country.
    - 🤷🏼‍♂️That's not me saying it — the Biden administration offered a $25 million bounty on his head for that and more.
- ‼️The world is a safer and better place when America is a force against evil.
  - 🤦🏼The wannabe communists and socialists now protesting at Maduro's defense wouldn't last 10 minutes under his dictatorship.
    - 🗣️Protests in New York and Chicago popped up almost instantly — funny how that works. Many are likely the same folks who waved Palestinian flags to support Hamas.
      - Will they wave Cuban or Colombian flags next if Trump goes after those regimes?
    - 🤦🏼In fact, the Chicago teachers union encouraged its members to attend protests supporting Maduro — think about that.
  - ‼️Moments like this fully expose Trump Derangement Syndrome
- 🗣️Trump largely does what he says he will, and the world should pay attention.
  - I am old enough to remember the chaos created by American presidents who talked tough, MSNBC salivated, and then, when the moment came, both President Obama and President Biden blinked.
  - 🤷🏼‍♂️Like it or not — the world's bad boys wondering if Trump really has the chutzpah to follow through on his threats is unquestionably good.
👀Will Venezuela capitulate?
- 🤷🏼‍♂️Who knows? A war would be very, very messy, and Trump doesn't like messy.
- I hold the rank and file of the state department in low regard — can Secretary of State Marco Rubio run Venezuela through force of will? I'll sign up.
💰Will America get billions or trillions in oil revenue from Venezuela — seems doubtful, but I don't know.

📺We've often said Trump views the presidency in TV episodes

Much like when he was executive producer of "The Apprentice"
Think about how many episodes we've had since he took office
Since he controls the metrics of success, he will always win.

For example⏱️: 60 hours since announcing the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuela episode is over.

👀Trump is already threatening Colombia and Iran.
- ✏️"We are locked and loaded and ready to go," says Trump.

🎤As I said, we will only report what we know to be unquestionably true — and this is unquestionably true.

👀If the Venezuela raid means one thing, the leaders of Colombia, Cuba and Iran would be wise to pay attention.

Watch tonight📺: Bill O'Reilly on how the world changed.

Plus, with all the focus on the "Western Hemisphere," is the message to President Xi of China and President Putin that they can do what they want in their hemisphere?
Bonus➕: Is Trump really going to take Greenland?

Deafening Silence 🤫

‼️Once again, the cries of Iranians are ignored by the very people who preach tolerance, women's rights and LGBTQ acceptance.

🚨Under the ayatollah, women are beaten and killed for not wearing a hijab, and gays are hanged from cranes.
🔇Yet when the Iranian people risk their lives (yet again) to rise up against the regime, all the progressives in America are silent.
- ❓Where is Mamdani, who promises taxpayer money to fund gender transitions for anybody in America?
- ❓Where are the liberal women senators who talk all the time about abortion as health care for women?
- ❓Where are the liberal men who clutch their pearls over Trump's treatment of women?

Watch tonight📺: Senator Dave McCormick, R-Pa., on what can and should be done to overthrow the regime in Tehran.

Hint 💭: It's not just kicking the ayatollah out — Iran needs another revolution, and for all of you who say it didn't work in Egypt or Syria, you are correct. Iran is very different from both of those countries.

Democrats in 2026 🫏

👎For Democrats, 2026 isn't going well.

🎤Minnesota Governor Tim Walz just announced he's not running for reelection because of the massive Somali fraud
🤦Seattle's mayor went full socialism in her first few days
🟢New York Governor Kathy Hochul wants to light up the One World Trade Center green in honor of Muslim Pride Month
🎙️New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a soundbite machine for Republican ads
- Since getting sworn in on January 1, he's produced a few doozies —
  - 🎤"We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism," said Mamdani
  - 🎤"I called the president and spoke with him directly to register my opposition to this act. And to make clear that it was an opposition based on being opposed to a pursuit of regime change to the violation of federal and international law," said Mamdani.

Watch tonight📺: Shelby Talcott and Laurie Watkins on the Democrats' start of the year — can it get worse from here?

WATCH ON BALANCE WEEKNIGHTS AT 9P/8C

Every night during On Balance, Leland Vittert asks "why?" about the most pressing matters of the day, with an intellectual, balanced and sometimes irreverent take on the news.

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