This Is What Greedy Trump's Really Up To With Oil

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

News & Politics

4.6 • 7.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anthony Scaramucci joins Joanna Coles for a frank conversation about what Donald Trump is really doing in Venezuela—and why the chaos is the point. Scaramucci argues that the Venezuela move is driven less by democracy or security than by oil, money, and self-enrichment, and is shaped by conspiracy thinking and political pressure. He also breaks down Trump’s appetite for cruelty and spectacle, the warning signs in ICE’s escalating violence, the quiet sidelining of allies like Marco Rubio and JD Vance, and why Republicans who know better still fall in line. The takeaway: Trump isn’t unraveling—he’s focused, transactional, and increasingly willing to burn institutions to stay powerful.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Vance probably thinks that if he has distance from Trump, that's good for him because if it doesn't work,
0:06.3	he can say, well, I had distance from him. And of course, if it works, he can tag himself part of the administration.
0:12.7	But, I mean, that's not going to work for Vance because the only thing you can see dangling from Trump's ass are Vance's ankles.
0:19.9	He's a colonoscopy. He's so far up there. He's a colonoscope of Trump's ass or Vance's ankles. He's a colonoscopy. He's so far up there.
0:22.4	He's a colonoscope of Trump's ass, and he's in there, and he's got to own everything
0:27.2	that Trump does, and so his political future's over.
0:31.4	I'm Joanna Coles. This is The Daily Beast podcast, and there is so much to unpack.
0:37.0	ICE, Venezuela, Trump's physical and mental health, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio,
0:43.0	who's a great Kremlinologist, so sit down and figure this out with, you know who?
0:49.0	Anthony Scaramucci. And guess where he is? He's here right now in the studio to unpack what has been a crazy start to 2026.
1:03.0	Anthony Scaramucci, happy New Year. Is it a happy year? Well, I was just going to say.
1:07.0	I mean, it's a happy New Year for me, but I mean, for some people, it's sort of like a mixed new year so far. We've had a year transpire of history in eight days. Right, right, right, right. So can we begin with, I mean, where do we begin? There's so much to talk about. We're recording this on, I don't even know what day it is. It's the eighth of January. Okay,th of January, Thursday. So five Republicans have just joined
1:31.1	with the Democrats in the Senate to say they don't want to authorize U.S. troops in Venezuela.
1:36.5	But let's step back what the hell is going on in Venezuela. What is this all about?
1:40.4	Well, I think before we got on the air, I think you pointed out correctly, it's probably just a show vote, if you will.
1:45.7	They've got constituents that they're probably trying to please and they know it's ineffectual.
1:50.7	And I'm sure the president will probably ignore that because it doesn't have any impact on anything.
1:55.6	Right. But what's Venezuela about? Why is he doing this?
1:59.0	I mean, so if you listen to my podcast, I said six weeks ago that
2:02.7	they were going to launch a strike against Venezuela, they were going to bring about
2:07.0	narco-terrorism, and then they were going to snatch Maduro. And people say, why are you saying
2:12.2	that? I said, because that is their plan. And that is their plan because they're being
	...

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