Trump Targets Venezuelan Oil, Floats Greenland Options (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: President Trump going after Venezuela's oil now that former leader Nicolas Maduro has been deposed by the United States. Posting on Truth Social, quote, I am pleased to announce that the interim authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of high-quality sanctioned oil to the United States of America. This oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me as president of the United States of America to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States. I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan immediately. It will be taken by storage ships and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States. At today's prices for oil on the open market, a shipment of that size would be worth approximately between $1.8 billion and $3 billion. CNN's Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlin Collins joins us shortly with more on this. Also tonight, the Trump administration stating in no uncertain terms that it is considering a variety of options on possibly acquiring Greenland. And that the deployment of the United States military is not off the table. Of course, this is coming just days after the military's successful capture of Venezuela's leader Maduro. In a statement late today to CNN, White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt said, quote, President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it's vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region. The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal. And of course, utilizing the U.S. military is always an option. Now, Greenland is more than 830,000 square miles. It's got a lot of natural resources, including rare earth minerals, which are increasingly crucial to the global economy. It's a former Danish colony and now an autonomous territory of Denmark. Today, America's major European allies express support for its current status, saying Greenland belongs to its people. And it's up to Greenland and Denmark to decide its future. Denmark's prime minister says that Greenland does not want to be part of the United States. But President Trump has been talking about this, as you know, for some time.

[00:02:03] Speaker 2: We need Greenland from a national security situation. It's so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be able to do it.

[00:02:22] Speaker 1: And the president's top policy advisor, Stephen Miller, said this to our Jake Tapper.

[00:02:28] Speaker 3: Greenland should be part of the United States. The president has been very clear about that. That is the formal position of the U.S. government. Right, but can you say that military action against Greenland is off the table? The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. There's no need to even think or talk about this in the context that you're asking of a military operation. Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.

[00:02:54] Speaker 1: Well, tonight, a source tells CNN that Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has told lawmakers that Trump administration is considering buying Greenland and that he's downplaying concerns about U.S. military intervention in the short term. We start tonight with Caitlin Collins, CNN chief White House correspondent and the anchor of The Source. So, the president says he'll control this money made from those 30 to 50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan oil and that'll benefit the people of both Venezuela and the U.S. Is it clear to you at all how that would work exactly, what that actually means?

[00:03:24] Speaker 4: No, and I'm not even sure it's clear inside the administration. What they would do with the money made from this oil. This is very real, this deal that is coming together to deliver this oil from Venezuela, tens of millions of barrels to the United States. I've been talking to some officials about this tonight, Anderson, and basically what I'm told is that a majority of this is already produced and stored in barrels right now. It's actually, a lot of it's on boats currently. It's headed for U.S. facilities in the Gulf. That's where it's going to be refined. And they're basically making the argument that the reason this is happening so quickly is that it can't be stored for very long. Heavy crude that comes out of Venezuela. But I do think the question going forward is, is this the one step, is this one step of many that is going to happen going forward? Is this what the new U.S. relationship with Venezuela is going to look like? And what the president plans to do with the profits from that Venezuelan oil that he says is being handed over to the United States? And so those are all still big unanswered questions that we don't really know. But I think the one thing that has broken through ever since Saturday, but really, Anderson, long before that, when the president made clear that he thought, you know, Maduro should not be in power in Venezuela, is that this oil is of high importance to the president. He's in a meeting with oil executives. We are told by sources as soon as this week at the White House and his energy secretary has been working on this. And so has the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, as well. And so what this really is evidence of is just how quickly they are putting this in place. I mean, it was only a few days ago that Maduro was ousted from power. And now this oil to 30 to 50 million barrels, according to the president, his post is already on its way to U.S. facilities in the Gulf.

[00:05:00] Speaker 1: And on Greenland, I mean, this was talked about a while ago. Now it seems back to the fore. How real is this drumbeat from the White House?

[00:05:07] Speaker 4: It's always been real. I think this is one thing that maybe has not fallen out of the headlines at points. But when I've been talking to officials at the White House, this is something that the president has been pretty consistent on since he took office. And it is something that when you speak to officials, they say he is serious about it. And so I think just the calculation of what's happened in Venezuela has changed people's perspectives, on this in terms of lawmakers and how seriously they're taking this. But you hear a lot of skepticism or just, you know, sidestepping from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill when they are asked whether or not this is even necessary. As the president, you know, argues it's against U.S. adversaries and it's to benefit the national security of the United States. You know, that hasn't always been well articulated. But there have been working groups at the White House working on this very issue. And so we'll see how Secretary Rubio's comments. To lawmakers, according to the Journal, that they want to buy it, not invade it, pans out. Because, again, we've heard from Denmark that they have said it's not for sale. And so that would likely cause some issues. But what Rubio seemed to be arguing, according to the Journal, is that the military bluster and what you've been hearing is to try to get those officials to work with them on actually purchasing it.

[00:06:17] Speaker 1: Caitlin Collins, thanks. We'll see you at the top of the hour on The Source. Joining me right now is Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss. Massachusetts is a Marine who served in Afghanistan, as well as in Special Operations. He's been a U.S. Air Force officer in the United States and in Panama. Congressman, as we mentioned, the market price for 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil would be somewhere up to $3 billion. For perspective, the Pentagon budget is about $900 billion. The U.S. national debt is more than $38 trillion. Does the money from that oil justify the cost of America's involvement there militarily and otherwise?

[00:06:47] Speaker 5: No, and I don't think either the American people or Venezuelan people are ever going to get the benefit of that money regardless. closeted up in some Trump meme coin somewhere. Congress right now, Anderson, really has three jobs amidst this chaos created by the White House. Number one, we've got to prevent boots on the ground in Venezuela, we don't want jungle warfare. Number two, we've got to prevent Latin American nations, particularly Brazil, from further drifting towards China, ironically in violation of the Monroe Doctrine. And then third, we've got to protect our alliances. We have to make clear that the military is indeed off the table in regards to Greenland.

[00:07:27] Speaker 1: If this sanctioned oil deal plays out the way the president says it will, does that signal the U.S. is likely to get cooperation on access and infrastructure from what he referred to as Venezuela's interim authorities, I mean, without further U.S. military action? I mean, do you see there being any actual change in like the human rights situation in Venezuela? There were an awful lot of people arrested by Maduro, tortured, who were in jails.

[00:07:52] Speaker 5: No, I don't. And this is what's so alarming, is that Marco Rubio was trying to project this sense of calm and competence, but to quote his predecessor, Colin Powell, from two decades ago, before the disaster of Iraq, you break it, you buy it. Well, the United States just deposed the strong man of Venezuela. They left in charge the same gang of thugs who have been helping him to brutalize the Venezuelan people, and there's no plan. The president says he wants Chevron to go drill oil. Well, Chevron's going to ask for oil. Well, Chevron's going to ask for security assistance. Does that mean that U.S. troops are going to be armed guards for a bunch of oil executives? That's not what service members signed up for. It's not going to help the Venezuelan people. There's no strategy here, and yet Republicans in Congress continue to acquiesce to their dear leader, as opposed to doing their constitutional job.

[00:08:41] Speaker 1: I mean, literally when President Trump ran the first time, I remember interviewing him way back when, I think more than 10 years ago. And he was saying that in Iraq, the U.S. military was going to be able to do that. And he was saying that in Iraq, the U.S. military was going to should have just surrounded oil fields, and the U.S. sucked the oil out while the U.S. military kind of held a perimeter. That was his plan back then. Do you have any sense of, I mean, is there a plan from this administration?

[00:09:07] Speaker 5: What I'm hearing are the negatives. And what I mean by that is the president refused to rule out boots on the ground. Now, my boots have been on the ground in Latin America. I've seen what the tactics of jungle warfare would require. Now, remember, that two generations of the U.S. military have trained in long line of sight tactics, navigation, and close air support. You can see for long distances in the desert. Dense canopy in the jungle, very different. Our troops would be dealing with close-in combat against enemies who have grown up and practiced in jungle warfare. You would be dealing with malaria. I know RFK doesn't believe in it, but it exists. And these are not things that this administration has planned for. These are not things that Congress has debated. These are not things that the American public supports.

[00:09:53] Speaker 1: With regards to Greenland, what do you make of what you're hearing from the White House? The president has consistently said since the start of his second term, the United States needs Greenland due to national security. Denmark is a NATO ally. I mean, if the president wanted to station additional U.S. military assets or radar stations there, I assume he could negotiate with Denmark to do so.

[00:10:12] Speaker 5: Yes, and indeed, Denmark has never rejected a U.S. request for an expanded military presence on Greenland. We're the only military presence there. I don't know what the president is talking about. Yes, we are an Arctic power. Yes, we need ice cutters in the polar. Yes, we need to push back on Russian and Chinese expansionism in the Arctic. We can do all those things. That's the thing about NATO is that we're actually super close allies with Denmark, and this belligerence is only undercutting the united front that we need while NATO is facing two conflict points now, not just Ukraine, but also the Western Balkans. The last thing it needs is a third caused by its own member, the United States, and this is something, Anderson, that Republicans in Congress should be able to do. They're too weak to take the president on regarding Venezuela, but goodness gracious, they should be able to say the military is off the table against a NATO ally.