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Uncle Joe

(64,239 posts) Mon Jan 5, 2026, 11:30 AM Monday

What's Next in Trump's War on Venezuela?

Democracy Now! discusses the attack on Venezuela with two Venezuelan American scholars: Alejandro Velasco, an associate history professor at New York University, and Miguel Tinker Salas, emeritus professor of history at Pomona College. The professors react to President Trump’s comments on the presence of oil in the region and claims that Venezuela had “stolen” oil from U.S. companies. “There was no taking of 'American property or American oil' — it was Venezuelan oil,” says Tinker Salas. “It belonged to Venezuela.”

Velasco also comments on Marco Rubio, a central figure in the U.S. campaign against Venezuela, who may have another country as his ultimate target. “Rubio’s primary interest in the region is not Venezuela, it’s not Colombia, it’s not Mexico — it’s Cuba,” says Velasco.

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What's Next in Trump's War on Venezuela? (Original Post) Uncle Joe Monday OP

MaddowBlog-'Slush fund': Democrats push back against Trump's plan to control Venezuelan oil sales LetMyPeopleVote 6 hrs ago #1

LetMyPeopleVote

(175,007 posts)

1. MaddowBlog-'Slush fund': Democrats push back against Trump's plan to control Venezuelan oil sales

Reply to Uncle Joe (Original post)

Fri Jan 9, 2026, 01:28 PM

6 hrs ago

The president said he’d create a pool of money from Venezuelan oil sales. Democrats said that can’t legally happen.

Legal: Congress has whatâ€™s known as â€œthe power of the purse.â€

Illegal: When Trump says, â€œIâ€™ve decided to create my own purse.â€
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-01-08T14:45:48.486Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/slush-fund-democrats-push-back-against-trumps-plan-to-control-venezuelan-oil-sales

Late Tuesday, Donald Trump announced his intention to sell Venezuelan oil to create a massive pool of money that he can distribute at his own discretion. On Wednesday morning, the pushback began in earnest. The New York Times reported:

President Trump’s declaration that he would personally control the proceeds from oil produced in Venezuela drew instant condemnation on Wednesday from Democrats in Congress who noted that the president had no constitutional authority for such an undertaking.

‘The president cannot grab Venezuela’s oil for his own slush fund. Period,’ Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the Appropriations Committee, said on Wednesday.

As constitutional debates go, this one’s easy. The sitting American president announced a plan in which Venezuela would “turn over” roughly $3 billion in oil to the United States. The Republican administration would then sell the foreign country’s resources and, according to Trump’s written statement, the resulting money would be “controlled by” him.

In the U.S., the president can’t create his own pile of money that Congress never approved and then start allocating those funds as he pleases. The Appropriations Clause of the Constitution gives lawmakers what’s known as the power of the purse. When Trump effectively responds, “I’m going to have my own purse,” there’s a problem.....

In other words, the American president is seizing control of a foreign country’s resources, selling those resources and generating a pool of money. Now he’s planning to give the foreign country (of which he claims to be in charge) some undetermined amount of the proceeds, to be spent on American products.

It sounds less like a “deal” and more like a “shakedown.”

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