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

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

President Trump strikes a historic oil deal with Venezuela – while Iran loses more leverage in Hormuz. Democrats’ hopes of taking over the Senate likely depend on Michigan and Texas – where polls are tight and controversy circles around Abdul El Sayed and James Talarico. And, the rescue effort in Nepal reaches its sixth day, with thousands still missing, including more than 80 Americans. Reporting from Cabot Phillips, Ben Domenech, and Megan Basham. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 3066- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit https://JoinADF.com/WIRE or text WIRE to 83848 to make TWICE the impact for freedom today. My Patriot Supply - If you’re serious about preparedness like we are, you’re gonna want to head over to https://PREPAREWITHWIRE.COMM right now. Lean - Go to https://BalanceofNature.com today and subscribe to the Whole Health System—or any of their other subscriptions—and get an additional 10% off your subscription with promo code WIRE.Ship Station - Get started with ShipStation today and get 60 days free at https://ShipStation.com with code WIRE.- - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacymorning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Democrats' hopes of taking the Senate likely depend on Michigan and Texas, where polls are tight and highly controversial candidates are on the ballot. You don't want to replace the Second Amendment, do you? 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. I mean, you're dodging the question. And the rescue effort in Nepal reaches its sixth day, with thousands still missing, including more than 80 Americans.

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. Why is China's response now coming under scrutiny? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Freedom is given to us by God, not government, but its ability to endure rests with the people. We're seeing our God-given rights tested, threatened, and violated right now, and we must stop it before it's too late.

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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 do we get here? 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 into 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 Nicholas Maduro back in January. Yes, he was technically arrested for charges of narco-terrorism 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 U.S. 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 U.S. on a number of deals, but none bigger than this. And how big is this agreement? Can you put some numbers on it? Yeah, the text of the official thing has not been released yet. But from what we've heard from the two countries, it is, again, just enormous. According to President Trump, it offers the U.S. majority control over 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. For context, that is nearly as much oil as the U.S. has in all of our proven oil reserves combined.

As Trump put it on Truth Social, the deal, quote, greatly increases our oil supply and will substantially lower gas prices for all Americans long into the future at no cost to the American taxpayer. Now, as for the Venezuelans, President Rodriguez said it would have a, quote, significant impact on our nation's revival. And she sort of put it in layman's terms on Saturday saying, quote, each party contributes what it does best. Venezuela contributes oil. The U.S. contributes the capital and technology needed to recover and develop those assets. And this really is a unique arrangement because the U.S. is taking an investment role here. Can you explain that? Exactly. And that's why this is so historic. So Trump was reportedly not satisfied with the speed at which American oil companies were investing in Venezuela after Maduro's Alster. So he took the rare step of making the federal government itself the key investor. Essentially, the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital is going to partner with a private existing Venezuelan oil company to finance the development of 17 oil fields. Again, the details are still a bit more. murky, but the New York Times reports that the U.S. is going to get preferential access to

purchase oil from those fields at a discount and then also take home 55% of the profits from that joint venture. All the while, American consumers are hopefully in the future going to get lower prices at the pump as that influx of oil raises supply. So big picture, what does this mean for the U.S.? So President Trump has been adamant in his second term that the U.S. exert more power in the Western Hemisphere. He's coined the phrase Don Roe Doctrine, which is a play on Monroe Doctrine, which essentially argues that the U.S. should be in control of what's taking place in their backyard. By opening up these oil reserves, the U.S. will theoretically be even less reliant on the Middle East, which is very important given the Iranian's desire to block the Strait of Hormuz in the long run.

In fact, to that many analysts have been pointing out over the last few weeks that Iran's leverage with Hormuz was already slipping. Shipping is back to around two-thirds of what it was pre-war, so there has been major progress there, but this is going to help even more. This deal is another major blow to their power in the future, at least. It also comes at a time when the U.S. and Canada are engaged in a brewing trade war, and one of the big pieces of leverage for the Canadians has been accessed to their oil. So that's another factor to keep in mind. Now, in the short term, it is going to take time to build out the infrastructure needed

to actually get all of this oil to the U.S. So gas prices could drop a bit in the next month based on future expectations, but this is definitely more of a long-term play, think months to years as opposed to weeks. And it is worth noting also, this could be just the start. Chevron, America's second biggest oil producer, is reportedly in advance talks on a separate deal that would allow them access to other portions of Venezuela's oil fields. That deal could be finalized by the end of this week, which again would just further bolster Trump's argument that he's doing everything possible to lower energy costs. And one more thing before you go. You mentioned Iran earlier.

There has been more activity in the Middle East over the last 24 hours. What is the latest? Yeah. So on Sunday afternoon, the U.S. launched airspace. strikes against Iran for the first time since the end of July. Last week, President Trump announced that the U.S. had successfully cleared the straight of all underwater mines, and then he warned that any vessels placing new mines moving forward would be, quote, immediately and systematically destroyed.

And on Sunday, it looks like he followed through. Pentagon officials said that we targeted two rocket facilities that were, quote, prepared to launch rockets with sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz. For their part, the Iranians responded, as you'd expect, with new threats, saying that the latest strikes, quote, will be answered by the sun. of Iran and will result in the punishment of the aggressor. So now we wait and see how they respond. Meanwhile, Trump has always presented himself as the dealmaker in chief in this Venezuela deal, may be the biggest. It is huge. Yeah, Kevin, thanks so much for reporting. Absolutely.

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That's Shipstation.com, code wire. Station.com code wire. Taxes and fees apply. The highly coveted control of the Senate comes down to four seats that Democrats must take from Republicans. Two of those almost certainly need to be in Michigan and Texas. Joining us now with the latest on the key races is Ben Dominic, Daily Wire opinion editor and host of the Big Ben Show. Great to have you back on. Great to be back with you. So we're two months out and a lot of the focus nationally has come down to just a handful of states, of course. Let's start with Michigan. Democrats are finding themselves really on the defensive

there with their candidate Abdul El-Sayed. His radical statements are coming back to haunt them at this point. Where does that race stand now? Well, one of the things that I think is interesting about Michigan is that everyone really knew going into this that if they ended up in a situation where El-Sahed was the nominee, that this race would be nationalized. It's one where it basically gave Republicans a narrative about this election. These people aren't just radical. They're anti-American. And that's something that I think was a gift to Republicans. And El-Sayed, quite frankly, has done himself no favors since winning the nomination in terms

of the comments that he's made, in terms of his difficulty in distancing himself from some of the influencers who have backed him. I think that this is going to be a race that ultimately every Democrat across the country has to answer for in one way or another. Yeah, Hassan Piker, a major name, one of the influencers. he's been associated with. How big a problem is Hassan Piker for Democrats? I think he's a big problem.

And one of the reasons I think he's a big problem is because this is something where, you know, it's a new character on the scene. For people who are online, unfortunately, I have to admit that includes myself, Hassan Piper is not that new. We know who he is. Okay, but when he's introduced onto the scene

to the actual normal voter, they react to him in a very strong degree. In this instance, you basically have someone who is connected to this candidate at the hip and who he has a problem distancing himself from because he helped him win the election. It was a narrow primary win. And ultimately, I think a lot of these influencers would have some backlash against El Sayed if he were to come out with some kind of definitive statement. He hasn't done that yet. I don't think he ultimately will be able to do so because Hassan Piker is just too important to this radical wing of the Democratic Party. Now, turning to Texas, we have two controversial candidates. Republicans have Ken Paxton. He has his own baggage. But Democrats have James Tala Rico, who himself has made a series of radical statements. How is that race shaking out? And what are the key issues? Well, the polling in that race is not encouraging for Republicans. We've had numerous polls now that show in one shape or form. The governor, Greg Abbott, who is running for re-election, leading by a significant margin,

by seven to ten points, even as Ken Paxton is shown as losing his race, again, by single digits, but he shouldn't be losing if the governor is winning by that much. Ken Paxton has enormous baggage, and it's a real problem, particularly with female voters in Texas, and particularly, I think, for those moderate women voters who, you know, are ubiquitous in places like Dallas and San Antonio and Houston, who are critical for winning the state. In terms of the issues going forward, though, Tala Rico's record is terrible. It's not like it's something that should appeal to any of those voters. Does Texas turn blue with a candidate who's actually worse, weaker than Beto O'Rourke or somebody like that?

Colin Al-Read was a stronger candidate than James Talarico. And yet, Tala RICO may be able to pull it off simply because Paxton has the baggage that we know of. Before we'll let you go, real quick, what are some of the other key races where you think Democrats actually do have a chance to pull off an upset. Well, look, I think that one of the big things that is going to be critical going into this cycle is whether they're able to pull off any of these states that went for Donald Trump. North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, they shouldn't be competitive there. We have this weird situation in Alaska where they have a candidate with the same name

going into this situation. It's dirty tricks out of the wazoo. And yet, I think that ultimately, I think that Republicans will be able to hold those. It's very funny, I will say, to see a situation right now where no one's talking about Susan Collins and Maine anymore. Everybody just assumes she's going to win. And Michigan and Texas are more on the minds of people. I will say, Republicans need to reset in September. They have this upcoming midterm convention.

They want to have a reset of the message, I think, that helps them run through to November. I think they have the capability to do that. Whether they're going to be able to pull it off, though, we'll have to see. Yeah, you never know until November comes along. Ben, thanks so much for coming on. Great to be with you. Search crews in Nepal are still racing against time after a glacier collapse triggered catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border. Nearly 800 are now confirmed dead, and 3,000 are still missing, including dozens of Americans. Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham, is here now with the latest.

So, Megan, before we get into assessing where some of the blame lies for this whole tragedy, let's start with the numbers. Where do they stand today? Yeah, Georgia, they are grim and still climbing. So as John said, as of the latest count, at least 750 people are dead in Nepal and Tibet combined with more than 3,000 still unaccounted for. And that's up sharply from just a couple of days ago when the number was 470. But unfortunately, that death rate is likely to rise rapidly. as search teams are only now reaching some of those hardest hit river valleys. Morgs in Nepal are so overwhelmed that we're hearing reports that authorities have begun taking DNA from hundreds of unidentified victims so that they can be put into temporary graves and so that their loved ones will be able to identify them later. What we know right now is that roughly 85 of those who are missing are U.S. citizens, though right now we do not have any confirmed Americans who have died in this disaster.

But the State Department spokesman Timothy Piggott told ABC yesterday that the Trump administration has mobilized to offer all the help that it can. The situation on the ground, as you just saw, in terms of the mud and other things, means that we have to get the right assistance in their Nepal government. We're coordinating with them on what they need. We have activated from the State Department $3.6 million in emergency humanitarian assistance. That includes up to three months. of emergency food for up to 10,000 flood-affected households. So we have immediately activated that.

But, of course, restrictions that the CCP puts in place on outside aid can really cause a problem here. And it's important to know that Nepal may not be out of the woods just yet because Chinese authorities reported that another unstable body of water high up in those mountains may yet bring another sudden flood and rescuers may have to pull back. I certainly hope we don't see any more flooding. What have we learned now about what led to this disaster? And could anything have been done to prevent it, including on the Chinese side? Yeah, really important questions, John, especially because information tended to change on this issue.

So scientists now believe that an enormous glacier and underlying rock collapsed high up in the Himalayas. And that collapse is actually what triggered the seismic activity that was initially mistaken for an earthquake. Now, that debris then surged into the river system, and the Tresciuli River reportedly rose by as much as 27 feet in just 30 minutes. So what that means is that experts are saying that fast-moving, you know, a mixture of mud, water, ice that they compared to actually concrete basically was powerful enough to destroy bridges, power plants, entire communities before anyone had a chance to react or escape. Now, some international reporting is pointing the finger at China. Three months before this catastrophe, Nepali officials knew that the danger was growing, and they explicitly asked Chinese officials for better information about glacier movement and about potential flood threats. That's the kind of information that they say India regularly provides. But two Nepali officials told Reuters that

China never provided all that data that they asked for after that meeting. Now, Beijing is in insisting that they did provide this data, but at the same time, on its own side of the border, they're actually restricting how much information the public is getting. So multiple outlets in the UK and Australia are reporting that China is scrubbing disaster footage from Chinese websites. This was part of a report from Australia's national public broadcaster. You've probably seen this really harrowing video of the moment the landslide hit the China-controlled Tibet border crossing into Nepal. It's very clear evidence of how bad this disaster is.

But hours after it emerged online here in China, it began to disappear. Beijing's censors were at work. And now when I search for it online, it's not existent. And a former Nepali lawmaker told the telegraph that China is preventing Nepali families from crossing over into Tibet to search for their missing loved ones. Well, particularly concerning, considering there's still a high risk of the happening again. Megan, thanks for reporting. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for waking up with us. The reporting that fuels this show is only possible because you tune in every day and because

of our Daily Wire subscribers. To enjoy the show, add free and join our mission, become a member at DailyWire.com. We'll be back this evening. More news you need to know. What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With pray.com, You can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the pray.com app today.