Valuetainment - January 13, 2026


＂Trump's Chokehold On China＂ - Trump’s Venezuela Oil Strategy CRIPPLES China


Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

183.65178

Word count

3,284

Sentence count

282

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Trump says the U.S. oversight of Venezuela could last for years. The New York Times tries to corner the president on this. Rob and Pat discuss this and much more in this special episode of the podcast.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 So the president's being asked about Venezuela, right?
00:00:05.220 He's being asked about Venezuela, saying how long is this U.S. oversight going to last?
00:00:10.120 And Tom, I'm going to come to you, New York Times.
00:00:12.800 Trump says oversight of Venezuela could last for years.
00:00:16.820 So what are they going to do?
00:00:19.040 Are they going to be managing this Iran situation and Venezuela for years?
00:00:23.580 Are you automatically assuming you're winning the next election?
00:00:26.900 Is that what we're thinking?
00:00:28.220 Because to me, this can't be a long-term strategy.
00:00:33.460 There has to be something to be taking place next.
00:00:35.680 So Trump says U.S.'s oversight to Venezuela could last for years.
00:00:39.500 On Wednesday evening, he expected us to be there and extracting oil from its huge reserves for years
00:00:45.780 and insisted that the interim government of the country, all former loyalists to the now-imprisoned
00:00:51.060 Nacolos Maduro, is giving us everything that we feel is necessary.
00:00:55.500 Rob, you have the clip on this?
00:00:56.520 Yeah, this is actually audio of President Trump.
00:00:59.260 Go for it.
00:00:59.760 Go ahead.
00:01:00.740 How long do you think you'll be running Venezuela?
00:01:04.440 Only time will tell.
00:01:05.880 Rob, can you raise the money?
00:01:06.660 Three months, six months, a year, longer?
00:01:08.060 I would say much longer.
00:01:09.860 And we have to rebuild the country, and we will rebuild it in a very profitable way.
00:01:16.440 Okay, so Tom, your thoughts on this.
00:01:19.300 So the New York Times met with the president.
00:01:22.340 I think they had four.
00:01:23.680 I think this was where they had, end of last week, they had four reporters in the Oval Office,
00:01:28.920 and he just, you know, went mano a mano with the New York Times.
00:01:34.180 And they're trying to corner him.
00:01:35.480 What they're trying to get him to say is, oh, we'll be out in six months.
00:01:38.360 So that the New York Times can put that off to the side, and six months from now say, you said you'd be out in six months.
00:01:44.460 You said this would be over.
00:01:45.680 It's a gotcha question.
00:01:46.940 And the president merely said, we will rebuild it in a profitable way.
00:01:51.560 Profitable for us, for the investor, and good for the Venezuelan people.
00:01:56.000 He's been very clear about it.
00:01:57.060 And this was a broad interview of a lot of things going on in Venezuela.
00:02:01.200 And he just said, I would say much longer, because they said three months, six months, a year longer.
00:02:06.640 He says, I said much longer.
00:02:08.300 Could that be two years?
00:02:09.920 I don't know.
00:02:10.500 But the president didn't want to be cornered.
00:02:12.160 But the president wanted to be clear that our presence, maybe not our management,
00:02:18.280 but our presence rebuilding and working with the oil companies would be longer.
00:02:24.340 He's talking to the oil companies about making direct investment.
00:02:28.800 And I can talk about this.
00:02:29.880 Is that okay, Pat?
00:02:30.560 Sure.
00:02:31.380 He's talking to oil companies and saying, hey, make direct investment in Venezuela.
00:02:36.260 They have heavy crude.
00:02:38.540 There's different types of pipelines, different types of things we need to get.
00:02:41.880 Let's make direct investment there.
00:02:43.780 And the oil companies say, well, I don't know if it's investable.
00:02:46.620 The code word for that is, I want you, the president, to guarantee that the American taxpayer will be the backup if the loans go bad, like if things go crazy.
00:02:58.880 So that's a little disingenuous by the oil companies, because they invest internationally all the time.
00:03:04.700 Why is Chevron the one oil company with giant investment in Venezuela?
00:03:09.720 Because they thought it was investable, and they've got an awful lot there.
00:03:12.460 And they thought it was more investable than the others did.
00:03:14.900 So the whole thing with the New York Times is they were trying to corner him.
00:03:19.240 But he was making a great point about the strategy.
00:03:22.500 We're going to get oil companies to invest.
00:03:24.360 That's to the benefit of the people.
00:03:26.100 The oil companies will then pay for the oil they take out.
00:03:30.340 That money will go to a working government.
00:03:33.080 And we will be there during the rebuild.
00:03:35.900 You have to remember, we didn't go in there and destroy all their power plants.
00:03:39.680 We didn't do all that.
00:03:40.860 During the regime of Chavez and Maduro, they turned off water plants in certain cities that still have no water right now.
00:03:47.660 And the population had to move.
00:03:49.540 And we see how far and how wide the Venezuelans went.
00:03:52.860 You went and seen?
00:03:53.640 There's like 2 million of them in Peru.
00:03:55.240 There's 2 million of them in Argentina.
00:03:57.120 These people that were educated went to other Latin countries.
00:03:59.700 So the New York Times was just trying to corner the president.
00:04:03.800 But what we saw underneath was strategic leadership about what we're going to do to get Venezuela on its feet and get it rolling forward.
00:04:11.200 But it's an open project that's going to get managed at the State Department level for a little while, including cautioning Americans over the weekend.
00:04:19.800 Hey, there are paramilitary groups that are still down there.
00:04:22.500 That's right. 0.98
00:04:22.840 Cut the head off the snake, but be careful. 0.53
00:04:25.800 You may want to pull back a little bit and let it play out.
00:04:28.560 Yeah, that's right.
00:04:29.120 That was a Guardian story.
00:04:30.160 Here's the president.
00:04:30.860 Rob, if you want to play this clip.
00:04:31.940 The plan is for them to spend, meaning our giant oil companies will be spending at least $100 billion of their money, not the government's money.
00:04:43.660 They don't need government money.
00:04:46.200 But they need government protection and need government security that when they spend all this money, it's going to be there.
00:04:53.160 So they get their money back and make a very nice return.
00:04:56.040 And the plan is for them to spend at least $100 billion to rebuild the capacity and the infrastructure necessary.
00:05:05.440 Venezuela has also agreed that the United States will immediately begin refining and selling up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil, which will continue indefinitely.
00:05:18.480 We're all set to do it.
00:05:19.580 We have the refining capacity was actually based very much on the Venezuelan oil, which is a heavy oil, very good oil, great oil.
00:05:28.580 It's fantastic for certain things like asphalt roads.
00:05:33.620 Best there is in the world for asphalt roads and other things.
00:05:37.280 All of the companies here today are going to be treasured partners in bringing the nation of Venezuela back to life,
00:05:44.500 restoring its economy and generating great wealth for their companies and for their people and also great wealth for the Americans.
00:05:53.500 Rob, do you have the clip of the individual saying it's uninvestable?
00:05:57.020 So here's the clip that went viral.
00:05:59.260 That was all over the place.
00:06:00.220 Exxon CEO says Venezuela is uninvestable right now.
00:06:02.960 Go ahead, Rob.
00:06:04.740 We first got into Venezuela back in the 1940s.
00:06:08.240 We've had our assets seized there twice.
00:06:12.320 And so you can imagine to reenter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we've historically seen here and what is currently the state.
00:06:21.600 If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it's uninvestable.
00:06:29.600 Yeah, today.
00:06:30.660 Today it's uninvestable.
00:06:31.620 Yeah, and by the way, twice seized their assets in Venezuela.
00:06:37.720 You're like, yeah, I'm not going to sit there and do that again.
00:06:40.140 I'm going to have to think about it twice so you're ready.
00:06:41.760 So they need to make sure they build infrastructure before guys like him trust to go back and do business in Venezuela.
00:06:48.180 And Trump said protection, like you said.
00:06:50.260 Protection's huge.
00:06:51.260 And Ted, I can't get over, can you, like, seeing Trump sit there and just spit out everything he's doing,
00:06:58.460 the infrastructure, security, everything, comparing him to the last administration, it boggles my mind.
00:07:04.420 The difference between a leader and somebody that was just taking orders and barely, oh, my goodness.
00:07:10.760 By the way, did you see when Rubio handed him a note?
00:07:13.660 A note, yeah.
00:07:14.500 And then he says, oh, well, you'll make a lot of money.
00:07:17.200 You'll make a lot of money.
00:07:18.280 Did you hear what he was saying to the people?
00:07:19.560 He picks up the note from Rubio and it said, Chevron wants to say something.
00:07:22.620 He wasn't supposed to say it out loud.
00:07:24.400 Watch this, go ahead.
00:07:25.640 Yeah, he's great.
00:07:26.280 Go ahead.
00:07:26.520 Yeah.
00:07:26.740 All right, thank you.
00:07:29.140 You'll make it back.
00:07:30.400 You'll make it back.
00:07:31.140 You're all going to do very well.
00:07:32.240 He's talking to Chevron.
00:07:33.240 I think you're doing very well.
00:07:33.720 Marco just gave me a note.
00:07:35.840 Go back to Chevron.
00:07:38.220 They want to discuss something.
00:07:39.780 Go ahead.
00:07:40.240 I'm going back to Chevron.
00:07:44.100 Aloy slaps him.
00:07:49.460 Marco, if you can update us on operations in the ground and with the appropriate approval.
00:07:55.200 What you might be able to achieve in the next 12 to 18 months, give us a little view from
00:07:59.800 the ground.
00:08:00.540 You bet.
00:08:00.980 You bet.
00:08:01.320 So today, Chevron has 3,000 employees in Venezuela today.
00:08:08.620 And over the past five to seven years, they've taken production from about 40,000 barrels a
00:08:13.360 day to 240.
00:08:15.860 So funny.
00:08:16.860 Yeah, he is funny.
00:08:17.760 But go ahead, Tom.
00:08:18.860 No, but there it is.
00:08:19.520 What's Chevron saying?
00:08:20.420 We've got 3,000 people there.
00:08:22.820 We've gone from 40,000 to 240,000.
00:08:25.540 Right now, the cap capacity for Venezuela is 1.7 to 1.8 million barrels a day.
00:08:33.780 Everybody wants to invest to get up to 5 million barrels a day.
00:08:37.140 And in Houston, on the Gulf Coast, is where we've got refineries that are built for heavy
00:08:43.480 oil refining.
00:08:44.700 Gee, almost like the world's largest supply of heavy oil was just across the water in
00:08:49.280 Venezuela.
00:08:50.160 Do you think they knew that when all this was being built, Vinny?
00:08:52.380 Yeah, weird.
00:08:52.820 Of course they did.
00:08:54.200 And Chevron is there and in place.
00:08:55.840 So Chevron's point that there was, hey, we've got 3,000 people on the ground.
00:09:01.060 You know who helps provide security for them?
00:09:03.680 Chevron.
00:09:04.180 Weird.
00:09:04.620 Chevron's got private security down there.
00:09:06.360 And you've got 3,000 people.
00:09:07.460 And they've been able to get up to a quarter of a million barrels a day out of there.
00:09:12.840 So Chevron is politely saying, hey, with a little bit of support, we could do a lot
00:09:18.540 more and we're already there.
00:09:19.900 Whereas Exxon is like twice our stuff was seized.
00:09:22.920 Tough to get my board to let us to go back in.
00:09:25.740 We just need assurances.
00:09:27.360 Look, you can see both are correct at the same time.
00:09:29.900 But that's capitalism.
00:09:31.520 Chevron found a way to take the risk and Exxon got robbed twice and now they're a little
00:09:37.240 bit more reticent.
00:09:38.620 But guess what?
00:09:39.280 The free market is there.
00:09:40.900 If Chevron wants to triple what they're doing with support, guess what?
00:09:43.900 It's going to happen that way.
00:09:45.260 But 47 has got them all sitting around the table and him saying, who would like to be
00:09:50.060 the ones that come in here and be part of this?
00:09:52.460 So Trump's showing the leadership.
00:09:54.040 Adam, go for it.
00:09:54.780 So you know what question I'm starting to ask more often?
00:09:57.360 And whether it's Venezuela, whether it's what's going on in Iran, whether it's going
00:10:01.840 on in Russia is how does this affect China's attempt to be the number one economy and the
00:10:10.200 number one world superpower?
00:10:11.960 Because all these moves are downstream of how does this affect China?
00:10:16.540 And I got to give a shout out to Glenn Beck and I'll summarize what he said.
00:10:20.380 He said the following.
00:10:22.180 This, what they did in Venezuela, is the most America first thing move ever.
00:10:26.860 What?
00:10:27.560 Why?
00:10:28.240 Yep.
00:10:28.780 Because this isn't isolationism.
00:10:31.520 We're not intervening.
00:10:32.560 This isn't intervention.
00:10:33.740 This isn't we're getting involved in everything.
00:10:35.560 This is complete strategy.
00:10:37.160 Why?
00:10:38.020 Because who buys all of Venezuela's oil?
00:10:41.560 China buys up to 70 to 90 percent.
00:10:45.440 Who does Iran sell 90 percent of their oil to?
00:10:49.880 China.
00:10:50.560 So what happens if this?
00:10:53.180 Venezuela, no more oil to sell to China.
00:10:55.660 China, Iran, no more oil to sell to China.
00:10:58.640 They have how many billion people relying on this oil?
00:11:02.700 Almost two billion people, whatever they have there.
00:11:05.680 So now they can't.
00:11:07.920 They don't have energy.
00:11:09.260 They don't have power.
00:11:10.620 They won't have AI dominance.
00:11:12.800 So United States doesn't need more oil. 0.97
00:11:15.680 I don't drive a car, but I see what gas prices are.
00:11:18.400 They're cheaper than I've ever seen.
00:11:19.960 We don't need more oil.
00:11:20.940 We have a ton of oil here.
00:11:22.920 We're preventing China from energizing their economy. 0.89
00:11:28.560 So, yes, this on the surface doesn't seem like America first, where Glenn Beck basically says this is completely America first because we're preventing China from world domination.
00:11:39.620 Yeah, the strong chokehold being put on China while this whole thing is taking place is a real thing.
00:11:47.560 They're sitting around.
00:11:49.780 Didn't they just have something that happened between the three of them, Tom?
00:11:53.020 Didn't something happen with Iran?
00:11:54.460 They just did.
00:11:54.600 They did.
00:11:54.680 They did.
00:11:55.340 War exercises.
00:11:56.760 Besides.
00:11:57.340 Yeah, they were doing Navy practice.
00:12:00.300 Yeah, showing so a force.
00:12:01.580 Right, this is it.
00:12:02.020 The three of them.
00:12:02.600 Watch this.
00:12:03.000 And demonstrating how small they are.
00:12:03.620 Go ahead, Rob.
00:12:04.060 This is a Navy exercise demonstrating how small they are, Tom?
00:12:09.320 With tugboats.
00:12:10.120 With little baby tugboats.
00:12:11.360 Yeah, they're out there doing this naval exercise, and you compare it to the might of the 7th Fleet, and you're like, okay, so you're saying you're aligned and you're doing this little naval exercise.
00:12:22.240 Okay, that's real.
00:12:23.360 Those are real ships, real bombs, real cruise missiles, real electronic-class cruisers.
00:12:29.400 We get it.
00:12:30.380 But come on, guys.
00:12:31.340 You're doing this right now?
00:12:33.240 Seriously?
00:12:33.640 But if you think about it.
00:12:34.620 Can I say one thing?
00:12:35.380 Yep.
00:12:35.520 One extra thing?
00:12:36.960 You know how you said, Pat, who did you say had the best week ever, best month ever?
00:12:40.520 Delta.
00:12:41.240 You know who might have had the worst month ever?
00:12:43.960 China.
00:12:44.960 Do you know what will happen in China if Venezuela, Iran basically crumble?
00:12:52.500 You know, everything that they're working on with bricks follow the money, right?
00:12:55.940 What's going to happen with bricks basically dissipates?
00:13:00.040 You know, the whole petrodollar, and they're trying to basically deviate from the dollar being the world's reserve currency?
00:13:09.720 This is completely the worst month China's might have ever had indirectly because of Trump's decision.
00:13:16.700 But if you think about it, though, let's not fall asleep.
00:13:19.820 It's us against China, Russia, and Iran. 0.98
00:13:25.500 By the way, because the last time Trump was against China and put all the tariffs and everything, a little virus called COVID just happened to slip out and decimated the world.
00:13:38.740 Now that you have three of these people, I'm not saying, I'm not trying to pump fear.
00:13:42.940 Let's just know, though, these are, Pat, who else is our ally in this situation?
00:13:47.440 It's America.
00:13:48.660 We're by ourselves, and it's Russia, China, and Iran.
00:13:53.300 And, I mean, North Korea, Putin just met the other day with Kim Jong-un.
00:13:57.320 I saw him coming off a plane and.
00:13:58.620 Why do you say we're by ourselves?
00:13:59.900 Who else is going to take our side that's at that magnitude?
00:14:02.840 Dude, Adam, Russia, China, and Iran with a little sprinkle of North Korea, it's us.
00:14:09.600 I've actually thought about this.
00:14:11.840 I'm not saying we're scared.
00:14:12.760 I'm saying we have the most nukes.
00:14:14.160 America, luckily, has allies.
00:14:17.700 And we might have little issues with Canada, with the UK, with France, with Australia.
00:14:25.020 But at the end of the day, like, if you look at the top 10 GDPs, top 50 GDPs in the world,
00:14:32.080 with the exception of three to five of them, 90% of the top countries in the world are aligned with the U.S.
00:14:37.980 Now, Trump challenges them.
00:14:39.580 NATO, you're going to make your pay.
00:14:41.120 What's going on with the wokedness? 0.99
00:14:42.520 I get it.
00:14:43.480 But at the end of the day, it's the world versus these access powers fighting for hegemony.
00:14:50.060 But we're talking about two of the biggest nuclear powers on the planet, and it's Russia and it's China.
00:14:57.100 Do not get it twisted, though.
00:14:58.080 I worked at a nuclear missile base.
00:14:59.460 We got the nukes.
00:15:00.900 Like, you know, Arby's, we got the meat.
00:15:02.880 We have the nukes, but what I'm saying is, though, them playing in the water isn't like a yay little game.
00:15:07.600 That's them saying, hey, listen, this is us.
00:15:10.500 We don't like what you're doing, which I don't give a – we're still going to do what we're going to do,
00:15:13.300 but that's just something to, you know –
00:15:15.500 Vinny, I just got to give you credit.
00:15:16.620 I got up very hungry after that comment.
00:15:18.880 They are responding.
00:15:19.380 We can move on, but they're responding to leadership, and OPEC's remote member is Venezuela.
00:15:27.200 It is effectively about to become under U.S. influence and control, which means that one comes out.
00:15:33.400 So drill, baby, drill, plus Venezuela, plus the Panama Canal.
00:15:37.140 You know who OPEC is now?
00:15:39.080 We are.
00:15:39.980 Yeah.
00:15:40.160 Let me tell you what's going on and who the real MVP in America is the last four weeks, the last three weeks.
00:15:47.000 You know who the real MVP in America is?
00:15:48.880 That, unfortunately, they will not get the credit.
00:15:52.180 They will not be talked about.
00:15:54.000 You will not know their names.
00:15:55.900 You will not be able to give to their GoFundMe.
00:15:58.140 You will not be able to do anything with those guys.
00:16:00.440 You know who the real MVP the last few weeks has been in America?
00:16:03.300 The Delta Force.
00:16:04.960 The Delta Force.
00:16:06.060 When I was in the Army, I asked my orders to be, I was going to go be 18 Delta, fifth group.
00:16:11.160 I did all my interviews.
00:16:12.440 I got my orders.
00:16:13.400 I was going to re-enlist six years, go to DLI, go to SEER school, go to, you know, airborne, go to Special Forces,
00:16:20.160 and then I was going to go straight to Vicenza, Italy to be in that area.
00:16:22.840 My friend ends up getting the orders.
00:16:24.740 He ends up becoming Delta.
00:16:26.640 The stuff you're hearing about on how they're going in in Venezuela and how they got him,
00:16:30.840 the reports that are coming out, unreal.
00:16:33.040 And by the way, you know who's watching that very quickly?
00:16:36.000 Khamenei and Iran better be watching very closely because our Delta Force is really stressed.
00:16:39.840 If they want to do something, they could get a lot of stuff done.
00:16:42.640 So, guess what is back?
00:16:44.200 You know these USA hats that we had, these beautiful USA hats with the future looks bright on the side
00:16:49.680 and the future looks bright on the bottom?
00:16:52.680 These sell out within seconds when we launch these.
00:16:56.000 If you haven't picked one of these up, you love America.
00:16:59.500 There's never been a more important time, especially the 250-year anniversary, to go wear this.
00:17:04.840 This is the USA on the front, American flag on the side, future looks bright on the back,
00:17:10.760 and then you've got future looks bright here.
00:17:12.760 You can go back on this link, Rob, if you can put it below.
00:17:16.480 We also have the shirts to go with it.
00:17:18.420 Go back on that page as well.
00:17:21.280 It's right there.
00:17:22.980 There's the shirts to go with it.
00:17:24.560 There's the different kind of hats for women, for men.
00:17:27.920 Go a little bit lower if you could, Rob.
00:17:29.760 But if you haven't yet ordered one of these USA hats, buy one for yourself, for a friend,
00:17:34.920 for a family member who loves America.
00:17:37.080 Anybody who wears this with the USA being lifted, they love these hats.
00:17:40.760 It's one of the fan favorites that we have.
00:17:43.240 Click on the link below, order a few, give it away to your friends, colleagues, and employees.
00:17:47.400 If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos like this, click here.
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