Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson : How Trump Steals Venezuelan Oil

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

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Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, August 31st, 2006. Larry Johnson will be with us in just a moment. Is Donald Trump stealing Venezuelan oil? And does his wall of steel over the street of Hormuz have a lot of leaks? But first, this. Today's headlines aren't just bleak. They're an indictment of a government that has abandoned the Constitution. You are witnessing the direct result of the Federal Reserve's relentless war on the value of your dollar. For centuries, gold and silver have been the ultimate shield against the state's favorite tools. Monetary expansion and runaway inflation. To protect your wealth is to protect your liberty. And you can do that with gold and silver. I own both and continue to buy.

Because J.P. Morgan is now lying gold at over $6,300 an ounce. And Bank of America is suggesting silver could reach $300. That's great news for precious metal investors. Don't wait for Washington to fix a mess they created. Secure your freedom today. Take possession of your precious metals or diversify your IRA by adding gold and silver. Call 800, 511, 4620 to see if you qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus medals. That's 800,5114620 or go to Learjudgeonap.com. Larry Johnson, welcome here, my dear friend. Thanks for accommodating this schedule, as always. Before we get to this scheme to take oil from Venezuela and how they're going to do it and what it's worth

and if it's going to affect the price of gas at the tank for the average American. Trump claimed as recently as yesterday, yesterday, that the United States still has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. Does he know what he's talking about? I can't hear you, Larry. Sorry about that. There you go. Apparently he had not sent that memo to the IRGC,

so the Iranians are unaware of it. And if, in fact, the United States has such control, it begs the question, why did Trump feel compelled to order the bombing of LaRoc Island, which is an island just a little south and east of Kempsh Island in the Strait of Hormuz on the Iranian side. So yesterday we had the first big exchange of fire in over almost a month. I guess it's about four weeks ago that we had the last exchange of missiles, drones, etc. So, you know, Trump persists with this mythology that the United States is,

in control of it, but if that's the case, why isn't the oil flowing and why are they levying sanctions on Iran when it's, I, Trump just put out a true social comment this morning that

Iran is totally defeated. You know, when you have to keep saying something to convince people that it's true, it's probably not. The fact that he has, and And he's now said that the death toll, that the Iranians, the number of protesters

that killed, 100,000. So last number he had was 52,000. So, you know, boy, those Iranians have been busy. So here he is yesterday, and it's really odd. It's a relatively short clip, Larry. And he says two things that I'd like you to dwell on. First, he says, for the first time, as you just pointed out, after saying 50, 60, 70 times we won, we won, we won.

He says as soon as we win, but then he says, we've got total control over Hormuz. Chris, cut number three. I've largely taken care of inflation. By the way, the gasoline is going to go down. The oil is going to go down like a rocket going in the opposite direction as soon as we win that war, complete the war. Already, you know, we've got total control. I would say almost total.

they could be a nuisance, but we have control of the harmless rate. We've swept it of all the mines. We don't have mines there now. We have all of the international. We got rid of them with very little help from other countries. Yeah, I mean, he said he got rid of the mines. There's a large oil tanker that also didn't get that memo this morning because it ran into two mines just off the coast of Oman.

is currently on fire. So, you know, look, it's embarrassing to watch someone like Trump who continually indulges in these fantasies. And, you know, Robert Barnes, our friend has described it as confabulation. And confabulation is a situation in which someone genuinely, truly believes what they're saying is true, even though it is completely divorced from reality. It is not true. But it's not like they're lying or knowingly lying, but they absolutely believe it.

And I think what Trump is, he's indulged in indulging in confabulation. But it was interesting when he sort of slipped out when we win the war. Oh, haven't won it yet. That is the first time I've heard him, I've heard him say that. I don't know if the generals are getting on him to correct his language or who knows how his thoughts are motivated. As you say, he convinces himself of things. Here's the truth social to which you referred, Larry. This is absurd, but here's what he said earlier today.

Iran is officially a failed nation. It is dead, in quotes. They have no Navy. They have no Air Force. Excuse me. They have no currency. They are not paying their soldiers or police. is at 300% and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the

country. The only thing they have is, now in caps, fake news from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters, as you said, Larry, now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity and a good line of, I'm going to quote him in caps, bullshit. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. He's really off the wall, Larry. Yeah, I mean, it's this kind of erratic behavior. I mean,

it, and when you, when you coupled that with his, you know, declaration that Lake Ontario is somehow now Lake America, you know, has, Canada didn't name Ontario, you know, he does it as a retro I'm going to teach Canada. I'm going to change

the name of a lake. That lake is an ancient name. It goes back to the Iroquois. Right. And just as Lake Huron and Lake Erie. These were not names by Americans or Canadians. These were names when the people showed up. That's what the local inhabitants who happened to be Native Americans were calling it.

So, you know, to divorce himself from that kind of reality and then to not come to grips with the energy crisis that is now upon the United States. It's a diesel aviation fuel crisis. It's real, and he's ignoring it. Just before we get into the fuel situation and the stunt he is trying to pull with Venezuela, can you remind everybody who controlled the Strait of Hormuz before the war? Nobody. Right. It's totally, totally open for international passage of, as long as you,

your ship was insured. Hey, so there may be a lawyer job here for you, Judge. Okay. I'm not looking for one, but I'll hear it. Okay. So since Trump has now declared that Strait of Hormuz is the Strait of America and the territory surrounding it is Strait of America, since that's like now American territory, aren't the inhabitants right there like the people on Kemp's Island? Can't they claim like rights as an American under the same sort of circumstances as Puerto Rico and Guam? Certainly

the babies born there would have birthright citizenship thanks to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment. I'm sure that the people around Trump didn't think of that before he proclaimed the Strait of Ormuse America

character. I mean, this is really absurd. Our revenues, which didn't flow to Iran before the war, now flowing to Iran for the ships that passed through, Larry? I don't know if they're actually flowing now, but they're going to. That an agreement has been reached between Iran and Oman. Right. And in fact, that may have been one of the reasons for this attack yesterday. More, if you will, Trump expects his unhappiness that what Iran and Amman have agreed to.

because there will be a regimen that ships that want to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz must follow. Apparently, the Iranians are going to collect a fee on everybody coming in. Remains to be seen if Oman will collect a fee on those going out, or it will simply share in the revenues that Iran is collecting. But Iran is quite serious that no U.S. or foreign warships of any kind, unless approved by Iran will be allowed into the Persian Gulf, and only those ships that are not aligned with Israel in any fashion will be allowed into the Gulf.

And that is going to become the standard operating procedure going forward. And, you know, Trump with these, the only thing he accomplished yesterday by authorizing these new strikes is he's roiled the stock market, Stock market, I'm sure, is going to open up lower, but in the price of oil is soaring again. Wow. All right. As we begin our conversation about what Trump has attempted to pull off on Venezuela, and you can explain, you know, what has to be refined, and how long it takes, and is this going to affect the price of gasoline between now and midterms? A preliminary question.

What is the state of the American strategic? Petroleum Reserve today at the end of August, 2026. The lowest, it's lower than it was two weeks ago, and two weeks ago, it was the lowest in history. So we're nearing the end of it. We may have probably another 25 days left to draw off. Now, in drawing off of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Trump administration has been able to mitigate somewhat the shortage of diesel and aviation fuel that is a result of the cut off of the sour crude, the high sulfur crude that was coming out of the Persian Gulf. And it's a little complicated,

but I'll try to simplify it. When they built refineries, they had a choice. You know, they can say, we're going to have a vanilla refinery or a chocolate refinery. And the chocolate refinery, and the chocolate refinery is the only one that will deal with the high sulfur oil. Well, we built 70% of ours were for the chocolate, not the vanilla. And guess what? That when that was cut off coming out of the Persian Gulf, it wasn't a huge amount for the United States, but represented roughly 8% of our daily, you know, if you will, daily supply.

Well, we've compensated for that by drawing off of the strategic petroleum. reserve. Now the reserves run out. Effectively it's run out. Price of diesel in the United States is now $2.35, $2.45 above what it was in February. And to put this in perspective, if you've got to, if you're a trucker and you've got to put 300 gallons in your truck, Well, you're putting an additional $6,000 of expenses that you weren't doing six months ago. And for farmers who have to, you know, their tractors are going into the field soon to start harvesting, that the price of that is way up. So this means price of food is going up across the board.

So this cascading effect. And there is no short-term or even middle-term solution to this. We're going to, and this shortage is global now. It is not confined just to the United States. It's in Europe. And parts of Europe right now, they're paying upwards of $9 a gallon for diesel fuel. Hey, producer Chris got a deal in Atlanta over the weekend. It only cost him $5.79 a gallon, $200 to fill up his pickup truck.

Now, if he were transporting, food or products he was going to sell, he'd obviously pass the cost onto that product, which is how the price of everything goes up. How does Trump, Heggseth, Bessent, Rubio, whoever the hell else is advising Trump, not understand that. Well, I think they secretly do. This is why Trump's convening a meeting tomorrow. It was described as the secret meeting, but it's not so secret anymore of the oil executives.

You know, the last time he had the oil executives at the Oval Office was in late January. It was before the war started with Iran. But we just, you know, captured, kidnapped Maduro. And so he called him all that. And said, oh, man, now we got all this oil. Let's go, guys, who's going to invest in it? And the head of Exot Mobil said, not us. it cost us a hundred billion he didn't say million a hundred billion dollars to get that place

into shape where we could actually make a profit because the infrastructure is broken the oil that has to be taken that is there yeah there's a there's a huge supply underground but it's it's like pulling tar out it's very thick and and it's almost what they call Batuman. It's not the oil that you can just pour and run, you know, runs easily over your hands. And so the oil companies basically stiff them, you know, Chevron too. No, we're not going to invest there. So, and that has not changed, not one way.

Well, what has he purported to concoct with America's newest? colony, Venezuela. Is the President of the United States orchestrating theft of a national product? Let's call it the intent to steal because they can't get it out of the ground in any quantity. And even the estimates are with even a substantial investment right now, it's going to be two to three years before you would see any kind of product or any kind of oil coming out of there that could then go to the refineries. And look, this is the kind of oil that's not used to make gasoline.

That's what, you know, Trump apparently doesn't understand or has failed to learn. The sweet crude that we produce here in the United States, you know, like West Texas Intermediate, that's what it you know is used to produce gasoline but uh this heavy heavy oil that comes out this very thick oil uh it it is what they call the the middle distilates the middle part of the oil that's used to produce diesel aviation fuel so there's a lot of cooking of it that would have to go into effect but it's it's not and i'll repeat this it's not it's not going to affect the supply of gasoline available to consumers right now. But more importantly, it's not going to change the supply,

the shortage of diesel and aviation fuel. I'm going to keep hammering this. This shortage is real and it is global. And it's going to continue. So the price effects are going to continue to go up. Well, here he is again. I guess this is this morning. The United States, oh, this is over the weekend,

the United States of America has just entered into an agreement with the country of Venezuela on, now in caps, the biggest oil deal in world history. At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with highly respected interim president of Venezuela, Delci Rodriguez, and through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela at no cost to the American taxpayer. This historic transaction more than doubles American oil reserves greatly increases our oil supply

and will substantially lower gas prices for all Americans long into the future while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course toward tremendous success and great prosperity. This transaction will greatly strengthen the already growing relationship between Venezuela and the United States. Thank you for your attention to this. groundbreaking matter, make America great again, President Donald J. Trump. Again, he doesn't know what he's talking about, Larry. It doesn't do any of those things. You know, it's like us saying, he can come out tomorrow and say,

the moon is ours. We claim the moon, and that means Earth, the number of rare earth minerals has quadrupled. We got all those rare earth minerals on the moon. And then you go, I have a question, how are we going to get them off the moon? and back here and processed. Oh, well, that's not going to happen.

So just declaring that something that's under the ground that in theory you're going to control, which is, you know, again, America stealing from another country, stealing the resources of another country for ourselves. But the reality is there's no more oil that suddenly going to spring out of the ground. and understand when oil companies rejected this opportunity, oil companies, they're known to be pretty rapacious.

You know, they don't miss an opportunity to make a buck. And so when they've got, when Donald Trump's essentially saying, hey, I got this all teed up for you, it's all yours, you want it? And X-OnMobile looks at it and goes, that's too expensive. We can't make money off of that. You know, you've got a problem. Um, next week, you and I and, uh, some of our friends and colleagues will be spending some time with, uh, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. It's unclear to me if this is going to be, uh, cocktails in chat or a former, formal Q&A.

But if he lets you ask him anything, what would you ask him, Larry? Uh, off the top of my head, I, I'd say, do, do you now see any realistic, chance of negotiating with Donald Trump. Is Trump seen in the Kremlin as a reliable negotiating partner or not? Wow. Great question. And I'll look forward to hearing it and to the answer and to, if they give me one question, what I would ask him as well.

Safe travels, my friend, I'll see on the other side of the world next week. Yes, sir. We'll be there. Thank you. All the best. Larry. Thanks. Great, great interview.

Very gratifying. Coming up later today, at 10 o'clock this morning, Alistair Crook from Siberia. At 11 o'clock this morning, the golden boy steaming at the false allegations made against him, Max Blumenthal, at two this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer, at 5.30 this evening, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. I'm