Chevron’s $7 Billion Venezuela Bet & UC Berkeley Homeless Camp Goes Viral | 9.3.26

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**Georgia Howe** (1:02)
Chevron makes a massive investment in Venezuela, doubling production there for the US company as Trump's historic oil deal moves forward.

**John Bickley** (1:10)
We have the latest on the foreign policy front.

**Georgia Howe** (1:13)
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, September 3rd, and this is Morning Wire.

**John Bickley** (1:27)
The Lindsay Clancy jury returns today with a final chance at reaching a verdict while the Tyler Robinson case moves to trial phase.

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I'm going to ask you to come back at 9 o'clock and resume your deliberations.

**Georgia Howe** (1:40)
And the City of Berkeley finds itself battling on multiple fronts over a massive homeless encampment on the edge of its famous university.

**Judge Glock** (1:47)
These encampments are continuing to grow, and unless cities take some action against them, they will attract more people.

**John Bickley** (1:53)
Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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Chevron is making a massive $7 billion investment in Venezuela as the oil giant looks to double its production there over the next five years. This comes after Trump's historic deal with the country. And as oil prices were sent higher just recently by a new exchange of strikes.

**Georgia Howe** (2:47)
Joining us with more is our DC Bureau Chief Tim Rice. Tim, thanks for coming on.

**Tim Rice** (2:51)
Of course, Georgia. Glad to be here.

**Georgia Howe** (2:53)
So let's start first with this huge investment by Chevron. Why is this such a big moment?

**Tim Rice** (2:58)
Yeah, so our listeners might recall that a few weeks ago, the United States brokered a deal with the interim government in Venezuela to open for the first time in years 17 oil fields for use by private companies. So remember, under the Maduro regime, these oil fields were all state controlled. So this has been a major priority of the Trump administrations dealing with the interim government. So they opened these oil fields. The deal is that the United States, the Defense Department will take a 33 percent stake in the oil that is produced from these fields, but otherwise, the companies have 100 percent exclusivity. They get to control the fields and they get the majority of the rest of the profits. Chevron is the first major company to actually sign on and say, we are taking this field, we are expanding our position in this particular basin. And as John said at the top, the goal is to double their oil production, which is currently modest. The goal is if everything goes according to plan by 2031, they will be producing 600,000 barrels of oil a day in Venezuela.
So this is a good sign. I think it's not as crazy as some people are saying. It's not going to radically change the oil supply chain. It's not going to send prices plummeting right away. But it's absolutely a step in the right direction, one, for oil prices in general, and two, for the United States dealings and oil companies' dealings with this interim Venezuelan government, which at this point, we're approaching, what, six months of this government? So it's seeming increasingly likely that this might just be the Venezuelan government for the foreseeable future.

**Georgia Howe** (4:31)
Now, let's turn to the conflict with Iran. CENTCOM is saying that US forces struck Iranian tankers Tuesday night, and Iranians quickly responded with their own missile attacks. They say that that was in response to the US actually allegedly hitting an Iranian wedding, and there were some reports of civilian casualties. What is President Trump saying about what happened there and what he sees going forward?