Connect with us

Business

Trump needs to calm the GOP after saying he’s not afraid to put troops in Venezuela

Published

3 days ago

on



President Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela will pose a fresh test of his ability to hold together a restive Republican coalition during a challenging election year that could be defined by domestic concerns like health care and affordability.

While most Republicans lined up behind the president in the immediate aftermath of the stunning U.S. mission to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and bring him to New York to face criminal charges, there were signs of unease across the spectrum within the party. In particular, Trump’s comments about the U.S. positioning itself to “run” Venezuela have raised concerns that he is abandoning the “America First” philosophy that has long distinguished him from more traditional Republicans and helped fuel his political rise.

“This is the same Washington playbook that we are so sick and tired of that doesn’t serve the American people, but actually serves the big corporations, the banks and the oil executives,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a former Trump ally who is resigning on Monday, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

Those concerns were shared by some who are not associated with the party’s far-right flank.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a moderate who is one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the November midterms, said in a statement that “the only country that the United States of America should be ‘running’ is the United States of America.”

Those comments reflect the sensitive dynamics between Trump and his fellow Republicans at the outset of an election year in which their party risks losing control of Congress. While the president’s dominance remains undisputed, the ironclad grip that he has held over the party has faced unusual challenges in recent months. Blocs of Republicans have banded together to pressure Trump to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Others have been vocal in encouraging Trump to take concerns about affordability more seriously.

Trump’s aggressive vision of U.S. dominance

Few issues are as central to Trump’s political brand as ensuring that the U.S. does not get entangled in seemingly endless foreign conflicts at the expense of domestic goals. During a 2016 Republican presidential debate, for instance, he described the war in Iraq as a “big, fat mistake.”

But on Saturday, Trump said he was “not afraid of boots on the ground” in Venezuela if that was deemed necessary, and he framed his actions as prioritizing the safety and security of Americans. He articulated an aggressive vision of U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, and he told reporters it was important to “surround ourselves with good neighbors.”

However, much like the Iraq War, a president’s early confidence after a dramatic military action can sometimes meet more sobering realities that drain domestic political support.

In Venezuela, U.S. troops could be placed in harm’s way again as Trump warns that more military operations may be in the works. An ongoing conflict could worsen the hemisphere’s refugee crisis, something the White House has tried to tamp down with stricter border controls. In addition, there are questions about how much cooperation the U.S. will receive from officials still in Venezuela or how easily the country’s oil reserves could be tapped to fulfill Trump’s goal of extracting more energy with Maduro out of the picture.

Trump’s comments this weekend about revitalizing the oil industry in Venezuela are in line with some of the earliest critiques he made of the handling of the Iraq War. During a 2013 speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said the U.S. should “take” oil from Iraq and “pay ourselves back.”

Frustration with the handling of the Iraq War contributed to major gains for Democrats in the 2006 election and helped create the conditions for Barack Obama to be elected to the presidency two years later. Given the baggage surrounding those wars, Trump allies insist that the actions this weekend in Venezuela are different.

“Venezuela looks nothing like Libya,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on “Meet the Press. “It looks nothing like Iraq. It looks nothing like Afghanistan. It looks nothing like the Middle East other than the Iranian agents that are running through there plotting against America, okay?”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton argued that the 1989 ouster of Manuel Noriega in Panama is a better comparison.

“That was a successful operation,” Cotton said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I believe, in the long run, this will be too.”

Still, amid some of the pushback about the U.S. taking expansive responsibility for managing Venezuela, Rubio suggested a more limited role. He said that Washington would not handle day-to-day governance of the South American country other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine” on Venezuela.

There’s not much organized GOP opposition to the strikes

It is not clear that any forceful, organized opposition to Trump’s Venezuela policy is emerging within the GOP. Instead, many lawmakers appear to be giving the Republican administration some room and, at most, offer some warnings.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who faces a potentially challenging reelection campaign this year, called Maduro a “narco-terrorist and international drug trafficker” who should stand trial even, as she said “Congress should have been informed about the operation earlier and needs to be involved as this situation evolves.”

Even Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who often criticizes military interventions, did not specifically oppose Trump’s actions. He wrote on social media that “time will tell if regime change in Venezuela is successful without significant monetary or human cost.”

Many Democrats denounced Trump’s actions in Venezuela and the Democratic National Committee quickly sought to raise money by blasting “another unconstitutional war from Trump.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., rejected the administration’s argument that it was combating drug crimes, saying on X that the White House is instead focused on “oil and regime change” while seeking to “to distract from Epstein + skyrocketing healthcare costs.” Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the strike was part of an “old and obvious pattern” where an “unpopular president — failing on the economy and losing his grip on power at home — decides to launch a war for regime change abroad.”



Source link

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Business

Employees can’t coast after graduation anymore thanks to the rise of AI, says VC CEO

Published

20 minutes ago

on

January 7, 2026

By



Top consulting and venture capital leaders say the idea learning ends after college is outdated in today’s AI-driven economy.

While many assume formal learning is limited to a bachelor’s or master’s degree, both the CEO of VC firm General Catalyst, Hemant Taneja, and McKinsey’s top executive, Bob Sternfels, say that’s not the case anymore.

Employees must skill and re-skill constantly to stay afloat, said Taneja, whose VC firm has invested in companies such as Anduril and Anthropic. Taneja discussed this during  a live taping of the All-In podcast, hosted by entrepreneur and investor Jason Calacanis Tuesday at CES 2026, a massive annual tech trade show in Las Vegas.

“This idea that we spend 22 years learning and then 40 years working is broken,” Taneja said.

Yet, in a workplace where AI agents can be trained quicker than employees, workers don’t only need knowledge, they must find ways to stay relevant, said host Calacanis, who himself made early investments in trading app Robinhood and Uber.

“You’re going to have to show chutzpah, drive, passion,” he said.

McKinsey’s global managing partner, Sternfels, said he’s seen first-hand how AI is transforming the workplace. McKinsey has used the tech to grow client-facing consultant roles by 25%, simultaneously cut the same number of jobs in non-client-facing roles, all the while increasing its output 10% overall.

McKinsey will have just as many AI agents as it has human employees by the end of the year, Sternfels said. Currently, its human employees outnumber AI agents 40,000 to 25,000.

“Our model has always been synonymous that growth only occurs with total head count growth. Now it’s actually splitting,” Sternfels said. “We can grow in this part, the client-facing side, and we can shrink in this part and have aggregate growth in total.” 

AI job anxiety

McKinsey’s stark results from incorporating AI agents play to the heart of workers’ fear about how AI will disrupt their jobs as adoption increases. Some could argue young workers have a right to worry. 

A study by the Stanford University Digital Economy Lab in November found early career workers between the ages of 22 to 25 in occupations at most risk of disruption have experienced a 13% relative decline in employment levels since 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT. Another study by Gallup from last year found 37% of workers claimed their workplace had implemented AI.

As Sternfels and Taneja said, the added pressure of AI means learning and evolving is more essential than ever. Yet, some have pushed back on the idea that more AI means entry-level workers don’t matter.

Despite the increased push by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy to implement AI at the company, Matt Garman, the CEO of subsidiary Amazon Web Services, has repeatedly said entry-level workers are essential to a healthy organization. Without entry-level workers, “you have no talent pipeline,” Garman told Wired.

Thus, replacing entry-level workers with AI is “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard,” Garman said on the Matthew Berman podcast last year.



Source link

Continue Reading

Business

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health in a push to become a hub for personal health data

Published

51 minutes ago

on

January 7, 2026

By



Millions of people already use ChatGPT to ask questions about their health. In fact, OpenAI has previously said it is one of the most common use cases for its popular chatbot. Some upload blood test results, medical scans, and other deeply personal data.

Now OpenAI is leaning into this trend as it seeks to build out more products to keep users engaged and establish itself as the new digital interface that will mediate interactions between different industry sectors—from e-commerce to finance to, yes, wellness and healthcare—and their customers.

Today OpenAI announced the debut of ChatGPT Health — a dedicated experience inside ChatGPT where it says users can securely connect medical records and wellness apps such as Apple Health, Function, and MyFitnessPal to further personalize conversations. OpenAI said it would not train its models on personal medical data.

During a press preview, Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, introduced ChatGPT Health by sharing a personal story about how ChatGPT helped her after she was hospitalized for a kidney stone last year and developed an infection. A resident had prescribed a standard antibiotic, but she checked it against her medical history in ChatGPT, which flagged that the medication could reactivate a serious life-threatening infection she had suffered years before.

“The resident was relieved I spoke up, she told me she only has a few minutes per patient during rounds, and that health records aren’t organized in a way that makes it easy to see,” she said. “I’ve heard many stories like this from people who are using AI to help connect the dots in their healthcare system that really wasn’t built to see the full picture.”

Five months ago, OpenAI signalled its push into healthcare with two high-profile hires: Nate Gross, the cofounder and former chief strategy officer of Doximity, a leading digital platform for medical professionals, leads OpenAI’s healthcare strategy. Ashley Alexander, former co-head of product at Instagram, leads healthcare product. But Karan Singhal, who leads health AI at OpenAI, said during the press preview that the company had been laying the groundwork for ChatGPT Health for about two years.

According to an OpenAI blog post, the company analyzed deidentified ChatGPT conversations and found that more than 230 million people globally ask health- and wellness-related questions on ChatGPT every week. Even with that massive user base, however, that doesn’t mean the company has an easy road ahead: They are joining a fast-moving race among Big Tech and startups to become the AI front door for consumer healthcare. 

For example, for ChatGPT Health OpenAI has partnered with b.well, a health management platform which combines patients’ health records, financial information, and wearable and other healthcare data. But Google also announced a partnership with b.well in October 2025 – potentially setting the stage for future AI-driven consumer health tools, though the internet giant has not yet announced a health-specific feature set for its AI chatbot product Gemini. 

ChatGPT Health will not be widely available immediately. There is a waitlist for access to a small group of early users, but the company said it will make Health available to all users on web and iOS in the coming weeks. Electronic Health Records (EHR) integrations and some apps are available in the U.S. only. 

OpenAI does not describe ChatGPT Health as HIPAA compliant (consumer health apps are not covered by HIPAA) but says it adds layered protections for sensitive health data and excludes health conversations from model training by default. It also says users can enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) to add an extra layer of protection to help prevent unauthorized access, and that access to medical records can be removed at any time in the “Apps” section of Settings.”

ChatGPT Health also fits a broader pattern at OpenAI: building vertical-specific experiences on top of its core models, rather than relying solely on general-purpose chat. In education, the company launched Study Mode, a ChatGPT spinoff for students, in July to compete with Google’s Gemini for Education. It has also rolled out agentic shopping and shopping research features. There are also reports that a finance-specific experience is also in the works.

OpenAI also clarified that ChatGPT Health was not part of the company’s eight-week long “code red,” announced in early December by Sam Altman in an internal memo. “[ChatGPT Health is] actually sitting outside of Code Red,” said Simo. “We have been working on health for a very long time…we know this is a core use case of ChatGPT, we’ve known that we wanted to make that use case even better and serve even more of people’s needs with the changes that we’ve made.”



Source link

Continue Reading

Business

Jensen Huang might be fine with a billionaires tax, but Google cofounder Larry Page is already dumping California

Published

1 hour ago

on

January 7, 2026

By



Google cofounder Larry Page appears ready to bid farewell to the state where he established his tech giant and much of his wealth.

Page is converting several of his assets out of California, according to filings reviewed by Fortune, cutting ties with the state following the proposal of a wealth tax that would impact California’s roughly 200 billionaires. While some billionaires have started fleeing the Golden State, others appear unbothered, like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who says he doesn’t care about the tax.

Koop, Page’s family office, was converted out of California and incorporated in Delaware on Dec. 23, filings in the respective states show. Flu Lab LLC, a health care testing services company linked with Page, as well as One Aero, reportedly Page’s shell company that has funded his ventures to develop a flying car, were likewise moved from California to Delaware. Ocean science nonprofit Oceankind, founded by Page’s wife Lucy Southworth in 2018, was also incorporated in Delaware last month, having previously been in California.

These assets were converted out of California ahead of a de facto end-of-year deadline. If the ballot initiative wins approval after the November election, it will retroactively apply to California residents as of Jan. 1, 2026.

The proposed tax calls for California residents with more than a $1 billion net worth to pay a one-time tax equivalent to 5% of their assets. The tax can be paid over five years, and 90% of the payments would be allocated to health care spending. 

By that math, Page, who is worth about $270 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, would owe the state roughly $13 billion in taxes, should the proposal pass.

Though the fate of the proposal won’t be decided by voters for months, Page is seemingly not taking any chances. The Google co-founder has reportedly already left the state, an anonymous source told Business Insider, which also first reported Page converting his businesses out of California. The New York Times reported last month that Page, as well as billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, were considering leaving California by the end of 2025.

Fortune could not reach Page for comment.

Billionaires’ great escape from California

Many tech leaders have made their opinions about California’s proposed wealth tax clear, arguing the initiative would exacerbate the trend of the ultra-wealthy leaving the state for destinations with fewer taxes and regulations, ultimately leaving California with fewer resources. Garry Tan, CEO of tech startup accelerator Y Combinator, warned additional levies would scare off the state’s billionaires, driving capital out of California—and eventually threaten innovation and support for health care services the tax is meant to support.

Indeed, California’s high levies, including corporate, sales and use, and franchise taxes, as well as a stricter regulatory environment, is the oft-considered reason why once-residents of Silicon Valley have shifted their business operations to other states. Elon Musk’s 2020 move from California to the income-tax free Texas—now the headquarters of Tesla, SpaceX, X, and the Boring Company—may have saved him an estimated $18 billion in capital gains taxes. Oracle, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Charles Schwab are among other major companies that have relocated from California to the Lone Star State. Delaware, where Page has incorporated several entities, does not require limited liability companies (LLC) owners to publicly disclose their names.

But not every billionaire is in such strong opposition to the proposal. Nvidia CEO Huang, the world’s ninth richest man worth $155 billion, appears to be unbothered by it.

“I haven’t thought about it even once,” Huang told Bloomberg Television in an interview on Tuesday. “We chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes I guess they would like to apply, so be it. I’m perfectly fine with it.”

In fact, Nvidia is likely increasing its Silicon Valley footprint, having reportedly finalized its first office lease in San Francisco in November 2025, defying concerns of widespread divestment or talent loss in California.

“We work in Silicon Valley because that’s where the talent pool is, and we have offices all over the world, wherever there’s talent,” Huang said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © Miami Select.