Bulwark Takes - Sen. Gallego: Trump Wants Venezuelan Oil and a Place to Deport Migrants

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) joins Sam Stein and Lauren Egan to give his take on why Trump’s Venezuela policy risks another disastrous war. A veteran of the Iraq War, Gallego says the administration is lying about its intentions, prioritizing oil interests and deportation deals over stability and democracy. He also discusses his Senate amendment to block military force against Greenland, Trump’s threats to NATO, and what the January 6 anniversary tells us about the state of American democracy.Go to https://GetSoul.com and use the code BULWARKTAKES for 30% off.

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein. Managing Editor at the Bullwark. And today we are pleased to be joined by Senator Ruben Gallego of the great state of Arizona and my colleague, Lauren Egan, who is the author of the opposition newsletter, which traces how Democrats are trying to get out of the wilderness and back into power. Senator, thanks so much for doing this. We're talking on a somber anniversary, January 6th. It's been five years. We're hoping to get a question on that. But we initially booked you because we wanted to talk about Venezuela and what's happening. in the country. You've been, your approaches have been interesting for a variety of reasons, but among them is that you have direct combat experience. You're veteran of the Iraq war. And so you come at this from a different lens than a lot of lawmakers.

And I have a two-part question for you. One is just sort of how that experience has impacted your view of what we're doing in Venezuela. I know they're different to a degree. But two, I want to talk about the kind of democratic politics of this, too, which is, I mean, I lived through it, obviously, and you served in it. But back then in 2002, 2003, it really felt like the Democratic Party had this incredible vulnerability when it came to national security issues.

And a lot of them rushed to support the war effort because they felt it was politically advantageous to do so. I don't sense that same mindset now. In fact, I kind of sense something dramatically different. But I'm wondering if you can, if you feel that way as well, if you sense there is a different type of philosophy when it comes to engagements overseas? Maybe, you know, like for me, that's a, try to answer, but for me, it is personal first. Like, you know, I was a young man, infantrymen in the Marines serving in some really

ugly, ugly wars, I'm sorry, ugly battles in Western Iraq. And knowing this is 2005 that it was, I was there in an illegal war largely to satisfy George Bush's, you know, lust to prove his daddy wrong and to get more oil money just drove me nuts. And then after seeing my best friend die and a bunch of other friends dying and getting injured and then coming back from the war, all of us dealing with the fallout of that, you know, us, you know, myself having PTSD, my friends having PTSD, TBI, all this kind of stuff that we're still dealing with, some of them dying because of rare cancers. The idea that we were just going to rush into this war in Venezuela really pissed me off. And also because they were just lying to

us the whole time. And we all knew they were lying to us the whole time. This whole bullshit that there's a, oh, they were going after a bunch of drug boats and they had, you know, a whole flotilla of our U.S. Navy there, plus F-35 based out of Puerto Rico was for, you know, a bunch of, you know, $50,000 boats. We all knew it was wrong. We all knew they were lying. We all knew they were trying to trigger a war. And they got one. And they went, they invaded. And now you have, have the lies again from Mark Rubio to say, well, this is a police action. The other reason ended up being a police action, by the way, is because it was successful. It probably would have ended up triggering a bigger war if, for example, we had lost a couple of helicopters, if there

had been some casualties. And what makes me even matter now is that the president is clearly saying, again, like, this is about oil. This is about us, you know, being the bully in the Western Hemisphere. And you have, you know, Republicans are largely saying, okay, we're cool with that. And I think Democrats finally are understanding that the American public is not pro-war and we're not afraid to push back on this administration. So I think that's where this all come from. And I think we're seeing, you know, results of also a lot more younger, and I say younger people around my age involved in politics and elected officials that grew up during the Afghan-Iraq war versus the people that were voting in 2001 were all the men and women

that were dealing with the blowback from, you know, Democrats being considered, you know, soft on, you know, communist from the Vietnam War. And they were afraid, I think, to actually keep going down that line versus I think now, you know, some of us younger veterans that are elected aren't afraid to lead in the front when it comes this kind of issue. For sure. Lauren. I want to play this clip for you of Stephen Miller on CNN last night, and then we're going to watch it with you, and then I want to get your reaction on the other side of this. You say that military action against Greenland is off the table. It would be military action against Greenland. Greenland has a population of 30,000 people, Jake.

The real question is, by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim? What is their basis of having Greenland as a colony of Denmark? The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States. And so that's a conversation that we're going to have as a country. That's a process we're going to have as a community of nation.

So you can't take it off the table that the U.S. would use military force to seize Greenland. I understand, Jake. I understand you're trying very hard to, which again, is your job. I respect it. It's great to get exactly the headline, right, that catchy headline. I'm trying to get an answer that says Miller refuses to rule out. The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. So I feel like earlier this year, we all kind of thought that the Greenland thing was like maybe a joke.

Like, what's your reaction to Miller's comments there? Well, first of all, let's actually understand what's happening here. It's more simple than that. This has nothing to do with national security. This has to do with Donald Trump. wanting to see a big, big island as part of the United States, because it looks big on the map, and then he could brag as part of his legacy

that he added to the territory of the United States. Because it doesn't do with national security. National security is already taken care of because it's already a NATO country, right? Anything happens to Greenland, you have the response of NATO under Article 5. This is all about humoring this dumb man, and then you have that prick who is just going to help him out too.

and in the process, they are going to mess up all of our national security as a nation. Because if we do anything in Greenland, yes, there's not going to be much of a fight, but NATO is destroyed at that point. The security apparatus that we have been using that has kept Western Europe and our hemisphere largely secure and safe is now gone. And that's when China and Russia can start picking off all of our former friends and allies, and we are weaker altogether. These guys think because we are strong

and we are the strongest, you could just bully, bully, bully, and there will be no pushback. There will be no repercussions. If you look at the world history, that has never been the case. Every time there is any type of hegemon that tries to bully the rest of the world,

there's always an alignment of people to push back. We don't need to do that. There's a reason why we have NATO. There's a reason why we could work constructively with our allies to make sure that we have safety and security in the Arctic Ocean. The only difference is the reason this is really happening

is because Donald Trump wants to see that big island as part of the United States because he is that much of an idiot. And I mean, everyone needs to stop overthinking this. It has nothing to do with, you know, minerals or anything else like that. Donald Trump just wants a freaking Greenland Island map with an American flag on it. So you could brag about it. And the problem is like everyone else around them,

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military forces against Greenland. But like, what can you, what difference does that make? Even if you could get Republicans on board with that, like, what makes you think Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, would frankly give a shit? Well, because it's, uh, it would actually limit the amount of money. So if, if, you know, they want to invade, they'd have to figure out how to pay for it, but there's only certain, you wouldn't be, wouldn't be restrictive, they would be restricted from paying using the defense budget.

Number two would be illegal. So given other reasons to give us to hold them accountable. But also, lastly, we need to have a public statement from Republicans that is affirmatively saying that we are against this. I know there's members of the Senate that if I have to put, you know, put them in the situation, they'll actually do it. But in the meantime, they'll be coward. So I'm going to basically try to create that wedge. Wait a second. There are members of the Senate, Republicans, who you think would if you call them out say, yeah, we're not going to do, we're going to support a resolution.

Yeah, or else what else would I be doing this? like so but now are they are you getting conversation are you having conversations with republicans right now in private that are different within how their posturing in public about venezuela yeah what are they saying in private well not so much venezuela either my agreement but in terms of greenland and support of our nato alliances and and they think it's stupid and it's actually very dangerous to our right relationship now will they come out in the press and say that no if given the opportunity and forced to they would vote their way that i think is and will make a very long and strong message.

There'll be other actions, by the way, that I'm putting together to actually try to push back on this, including, you know, making sure that we're sending overtures out both to the White House and to other parts of the world that they know that, you know, even if you are able and successful to take this land for whatever reason you think you can do that, it's going to be very difficult for us to even take it in because, you know, you're going to have a very, very, very strong opposition in the Senate that's just not going to allow you to just take foreign land in. So I don't know if there's a way to thread all these needles around Trump's foreign policy because there's no foreign policy. You guys, there is no foreign policy.

This is just Trump, whatever he's, that comes up in his brain while he's on the toilet. And then it's it's a toy to him. The biggest danger right now, guys, is that he has had success, quote unquote, for these military operations. And at the same time, he's failing domestically. So what does he do? A smart person would double down on trying to fix a domestic situation. A dumb person like Donald Trump is going to continue doing what he knows is working, which is I'll try to have more military success. And hopefully that'll make me more popular. The problem with that is at some point he's going to mess up and people are going to die. Yeah, there's some validity to. I think Michael Weiss has talked about this where he likes the act of war but not engaging in war.

So he likes a clean and a successful military operation but doesn't want to do anything in the long haul. You have put out a couple of theories around the Venezuela operation that I think are persuasive to a degree. And I'm curious if you could just expand on them. One is that this is for oil. And I think there's contemporaneous reporting now where he was briefing oil executives about this. And of course, since then he's talked about the need for them to go in there and invest a lot of money. The second one, which has been a little bit less public in terms of an explanation, is for deportations. where you said DHS is finally going to hit its yearly quotas.

I don't think you were saying that tongue in cheek when you tweeted it. So talk a little bit about that. Look, I think at the end of the day, you're going to see a very unfortunate outcome, I think, for our Venezuelan Americans and Venezuelan community, refugee community here, is that, you know, what the president wants is not going to be an outcome that is beneficial to the Western Hemisphere or to, you know, norms or anything else like that. he wants to be claim of victory. So his claim of victory is going to be oil production for the United States. I think the current dictator of Venezuela will absolutely agree with that. It's like, okay, if I give you oil concessions, you still give us as a state, as a country,

our royalties. Why do I care as long as I get to stay in power? She'll agree with that. And number two, I think because they're having difficulties, finding places to deport people, especially some of these Venezuelans that are no longer covered, by the way, under temporary particular services, Stephen Miller is going to negotiate so that way Venezuelans and other people in this country that are going to be deported, will be deported to Venezuela. And if you, again, if you are the dictator of Venezuela and you just saw your other dictator get snatched, why wouldn't you agree to that? And I think that's going to be a win-win for Donald Trump. And that's what he's going to negotiate out of this.

I'm curious how you think that's all going to tie into midterm messaging. Like, how do you connect the dots? Does this play into the anti-corruption message? Does it play into affordability? How do you paint that whole picture? The only, and that corruption really only matters. It does matter, but in terms of how the voters think, once it starts affecting them, if we end up using, you know, young Marines from, you know, New Mexico, Ohio, where I was serving from, you know, from North Carolina to go protect a bunch of greedy oil executives shareholders, shareholdings. Yeah, then people are going to be pissed.

They're going to see that corruption now definitely affects them. I think at the same time, even if nothing happens, if everything stays the norm, let's say there is some kind of oil concession that happens. But prices are still high. You can't buy a house, can't rent. We have the highest amount of delinquency right now on car loans, highest amount of delinquency on credit cards. People, you know, kids are graduating from college, aren't getting jobs. And then this president keeps focusing overseas. there's going to be a big, big hurt of coming for the Republicans because people feel that they're not paying attention to what they really care about.

Most Americans do not care about foreign policy, especially when they're barely making ends meet. And they're certainly not going to care about it when it comes to oil and oil executives. Very quickly, because I know we have almost no time, but this is January 6. We're recording on January 6. Look, we're five years on. It, to me, was a success. He's in power. all the Republicans have basically apologized for it, all the institutions that went against him for it have come back into the fold.

How can people not interpret January 6 as a successor to Trump? And how concerned are you that there will be other types of January 6 moments in this country? Well, there are January 6 moments happening right now. What do you think gerrymandering is, right? We have mid-district gerrymanding happening across the country. That's never happened. After January 6, one of the things I warned about was, you know, there was the actual, you know, insurrectionist that we saw. And then there's the Brooks Brothers insurrectionist, the people.

they're going to go and start dismantling democracy as much as they can by whatever means they can. So what does that look like? You know, you have mid-century mid-decade gerrymandering to help keep this, you know, Republicans in power. You're having, you know, the Supreme Court basically just give any power away to the executive. So you might see some more stuff when it comes to campaign finance and donations, when it comes to voting rights, when it comes to all these type of issues. They're doing January 6 over and over and over again. And, you know, we have to re, you know, whenever we have a chance to correct us, we have to correct this. But we also need to remember the mistakes that we made. Number one, Merrick Garland, it's entirely the blame for this, you know, in this right now, the situation we're in right now.

Merrick Garland's cowardice and his, you know, want to protect the institution of the DOJ instead of the institution of democracy is what is the biggest problem that we're dealing with right now, obviously absent the actual criminals like Donald Trump. and the cowards of Republicans that are backing them up. And the next time we find ourselves in this situation, we need to do what the, you know, the Brazilians have done, right? They've been arrested Bolsonaro. They've arrested the people that actually were insurrectionists. You know, we have to understand the moment of time to defend democracy is immediate and not process-oriented,

which we ended up doing and really not accomplishing much because we're more worried about process than about, you know, protecting democracy. And again, you know, our next round of president, our next president used to make sure that they appoint real defenders of democracy and not cowards like Merrick Garland. We'll leave it on that. Senator Ruben Gallego, thank you so much for taking the time. We covered a lot of topics here. I really appreciate it. And thank you all for watching. Appreciate that as well. Subscribe to Bulwark Takes for more takes like this. Talk to you soon.