The Pentagon’s Unprecedented Plan for Venezuelan Oil

Steve Hayes is joined by Jonah Goldberg, Kevin Williamson, and Mike Nelson to discuss the Trump administration’s oil deal with Venezuela and the state of the Iran war six months in. The Agenda: —Venezuela oil deal —Delcy Rodríguez’s presidency —The Venezuela model in Iran —NWYT: Milos Yiannopoulos’ deportation Show notes: Steve Hayes is CEO and editor of The Dispatch, based in Annapolis, Maryland. Prior to co-founding the company in 2019, he worked at The Weekly Standard for 18 years, covering Washington, politics, and national security. Steve is the author of two New York Times bestsellers. He also worked as a contributor at CNN and Fox News, and currently serves as a political analyst at NBC News. When Steve is not focused on The Dispatch, he’s probably traveling with his family, grilling, or riding his mountain bike. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch and is based in Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review, worked as the theater critic at the New Criterion, and had a long career in local newspapers. He is also a writer in residence at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. When Kevin is not reporting on the world outside Washington for his Wanderland newsletter, you can find him at the rifle range or reading a book about literally almost anything other than politics. Mike Nelson is a retired Army Special Forces officer and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project. He is formerly of the Institute for the Study of War and the National Security Institute. You can find him on x.com at @mikenelson586. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Steve Hayes 0:00 [instrumental music] Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm your host, Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we return to Venezuela and discuss what President Trump is calling, quote, "The biggest oil deal in history," unquote. And then Iran. What is the state of the war 6 months in? And finally, a true not worth your time, the deportation of Milo Yiannopoulos. I'm joined today by The Dispatch's Editor-in-chief, Jonah Goldberg, National Correspondent Kevin Williamson, and Dispatch contributor, retired Special Forces Officer, Mike Nelson. Let's dive right in. [instrumental music] Steve Hayes 0:50 Gentlemen, I wanna start today on Venezuela. President Trump, late last week, announced with great fanfare a deal that the United States had struck with the leadership of Venezuela that would give the United States access to the vast proven oil reserves of Venezuela. After the capture of Nicolas Maduro and the US decision to shore up the unelected socialist government of Delcy Rodriguez, the Trump administration had pushed US oil companies to invest in Venezuela's oil industry and didn't make a lot of progress. Now it appears the investment is coming from the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital, Steve Hayes 1:34 with US taxpayers slated to take a, up to a 35 percent stake in the company. Let me, for the purposes of level-setting, Steve Hayes 1:44 read the top of a very detailed and comprehensive Wall Street Journal article about this published over the weekend. "President Trump spent months declaring his ouster of Venezuela's leader had secured the country's oil for America. When US energy companies resisted investing at the speed and scale he wanted, his administration devised an extraordinary solution to turn his vision into reality: make the US government itself an investor. The agreement announced Friday evening would transform the US government from a broker of American oil investments in Venezuela to an investor itself. It would give Washington a direct financial stake in a private company that would be granted centuries-long rights to some of the world's largest proven oil reserves and tie the US more closely to the unelected government that is granting those rights. The private company, led by controversial Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, would have the opportunity to develop 17 oil fields said to contain 65 1000000000 barrels of oil, or one-5th of the country's reserves. The Pentagon, in a striking expansion of its remit, will finance the oil venture and reap the rewards of its future output." Kevin, when you saw this news and read about what the president was announcing, Steve Hayes 3:05 what was your 1st reaction? Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like