Trump Strikes A Deal With Venezuela & El-Sayed and Talarico Make Waves | 8.31.26

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**John Bickley** (0:34)
President Trump strikes a historic oil deal with Venezuela while Iran loses more leverage in Hormuz.

**Georgia Howe** (0:40)
We have the latest on the deal and new US strikes on Iranian targets.

**John Bickley** (0:44)
I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, August 31st. This is Morning Wire.

**Georgia Howe** (0:58)
Democrats' hopes of taking the Senate likely depend on Michigan and Texas, where polls are tight and highly controversial candidates are on the ballot.

**Cabot Phillips** (1:06)
You don't want to replace the Second Amendment, do you?

**SPEAKER_5** (1:09)
Well, look, man, I think more people are more worried about whether or not they can see a doctor than whether or not they can have a gun. I'm just going to put that out there.

**Cabot Phillips** (1:15)
I mean, you're dodging the question.

**John Bickley** (1:17)
And the rescue effort in Nepal reaches its sixth day, with thousands still missing, including more than 80 Americans.

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The highest priority, getting accurate information from the region, a hard region to reach at the best of times, made even more so by the devastation and the remoteness that we see.

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Why is China's response now coming under scrutiny?

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**Georgia Howe** (3:08)
This weekend, President Trump announced that the US and Venezuela have reached what's being touted as the largest oil deal in history.

**John Bickley** (3:15)
Joining us now is Cabot Phillips, host of Wired In, for more on this historic agreement. So Cabot, before we get into the details of the deal, give us some context. How did we get here?

**Cabot Phillips** (3:25)
Yeah, so for decades, Venezuela has been sitting on what most considered to be the largest oil reserves on the planet. However, their socialist leaders have greatly restricted access to Western countries and sanctions against the regime meant that for a long time, Americans could not access all of that oil to our South.
Add to that the economic collapse brought on by years of that failing socialist regime, and the country was simply incapable of even tapping in to those vast resources. They've got 17% of the world's oil reserves, and every year they only account for about 1% of oil exports. However, that all changed with the capture of Nicolas Maduro back in January. Yes, he was technically arrested for charges of narcoterrorism and other things back in January. But if you listen to the Trump administration described their motivations for that operation, it had a lot to do with oil, mainly that they wanted a Venezuelan leader who was open to partnering with the US. That is not an exaggeration either. President Trump publicly said that he wanted, quote, total access to the country's oil industry, and if the new president, Delci Rodriguez, did not comply, quote, she's going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro. So basically saying, open up the oil or you're also out. And since then, Rodriguez has complied, working with the US on a number of deals, but none bigger than this.