Chevron’s $7 Billion Venezuela Bet & UC Berkeley Homeless Camp Goes Viral | 9.3.26

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. Chevron makes a massive investment in Venezuela doubling production there for the U.S. company as Trump's historic oil deal moves forward. We have the latest on the foreign policy front. I'm Georgia Howe with daily wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Thursday September 3rd and this is Morning Wire. Lindsay Clancy jury returns today with a final chance at reaching a verdict while the Tyler Robinson case moves to trial phase. I'm gonna ask you to come back nine o'clock and resume your deliberations. And the city of Berkeley finds itself battling on multiple fronts over a massive homeless encampment on the edge of its famous university. These encampments are continuing to grow and unless cities take some action against them they will attract more people. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Freedom is not guaranteed. In fact right now it's very survival is in question. We're seeing free speech violated religious freedom trampled biological truth rejected. Alliance defending freedom is taking on these threats in courtrooms across the country. Your gift today powers the legal battles that are defining freedom's future. Every dollar you give to ADF will be matched for a limited time. Visit join ADF.com/wire or text wire to 83848 to give today. Chevron is making a massive $7 billion investment in Venezuela as the oil giant looks to double its production there over the next five years. This comes after Trump's historic deal with the country and as oil prices were sent higher just recently by a new exchange of strikes. Joining us with more is our DC bureau chief Tim Rice. Tim thanks for coming on. Of course Georgia glad to be here. So let's start first with this huge investment by Chevron. Why is this such a big moment? Yeah so our listeners might recall that a few weeks ago the United States broker to deal with the interim government in Venezuela to open for the first time in years 17 oil fields for use by private companies. Right so remember under the Maduro regime these oil fields were all state controlled. Right so this has been a major priority of the Trump administrations dealing with the interim government. So they open these oil fields. The deal is that the United States the defense department will take a 33% stake in the oil that is produced from these fields but otherwise the companies have a hundred percent exclusivity they get to control the fields and they get you know the majority of the rest of the profits. Chevron is the first major company to actually sign on and say we are taking this field we are expanding our position in this particular basin and as John said at the top the goal is to double their oil production which is currently modest. The goal is if everything goes according to plan by 2031 they will be producing 600,000 barrels of oil a day in Venezuela. So this is a good sign I think it's not it's not as crazy as some people are saying it's not going to radically change the oil supply chain it's not going to send a price is plummeting right away but it's absolutely a step in the right direction one for oil prices in general and two for the United States dealings and oil companies dealings with this interim Venezuelan government which at this point you know we're approaching what six months of this government so it's seeming increasingly likely that this might just be the Venezuelan government for the foreseeable future. Now let's turn to the conflict with Iran sent calm is saying that U.S. forces struck Iranian tankers on Tuesday night and Iranians quickly responded with their own missile attacks they say that that was in response to the U.S. actually allegedly hitting an Iranian wedding and there were some reports of civilian casualties. What is President Trump saying about what happened there and what he sees going forward? Yeah so important to note that the president has not yet acknowledged or commented on the allegations that the United States attacked a wedding sent calm has said of course that they are looking into these allegations from Iranian state media and that the United States under no circumstances targets civilians. So for what it's worth the Iranian state media they do this occasionally it's often propaganda it's unclear again this is still an emerging situation so that's that otherwise yes hostilities have come back and forth the president has commented on that he said that the Iranians gave us a love tap and that we came in and gave them a full blown strike and that we are prepared and willing to do it again and again as necessary this is the most re-engaged the president has been with the war and while obviously hostilities as we said are are coming back up Iran is attacking not just the United States but also some of our allies and it's also important to remember that the president in recent weeks when he's been asked about how the ongoing conflict in Iran could affect the midterm elections has basically said I am not thinking about this in terms of domestic politics I don't care what happens I'm not trying to resolve anything before the midterms which is probably unwelcome news to a lot of Republicans who are on the ballot but he's clearly in this for the long haul and how long this current stretch stretch of back and forth goes nobody knows but the president is making very clear to Iran and to anyone else who's listening that the United States will not back down we also wanted to ask you about reports of a string of recent cyber attacks on US infrastructure linked to Iran what do we know about those attacks yes so very little right now which is frightening in its own right another frightening dimension to an already frightening story but it's exactly what you said john apparently an Iranian hacking group I believe that they're not technically it's not technically the Iranian government although of course in situations like this they're probably acting on behalf of the Iranian government but it's a hacking group tried to hack into America's energy grid it's water towers it's it's it's broadband and internet basically all of the infrastructure that we use right so this is sort of the the nightmare scenario from what we can tell obviously these attacks have been foiled we did not the Iranians did not successfully hack any of these things but it's worth noting that another Iranian group did successfully hack into and temporarily disable a water processing plant in the united kingdom just last week so this is something that is happening this is something that clearly whoever these hackers are whether they are government agents or extra government agents they're this is not just a flailing attempt they've they've made landfall with one of our allies and this is clearly something that they're going to try so again not as not as much information as I would like to have on this one at the moment but definitely something that we should keep an eye on hopefully we'll have to hear too much more about in the future but something to keep an eye on for sure all right well Tim a lot of irons and the fire as usual thanks for keeping us up to date of course guys 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15% off your first order plus free shipping at bowl and branch dot com slash wire with code wire that's bowl and branch B-O-L-L-A-N-D branch dot com slash wire code wire to unlock 15% off exclusions apply the jury returns today for what is expected to be the final day of deliberations and the Lindsay Clancy trial after twice coming to a deadlock while the Tyler Robinson case moves forward to the trial phase that so criminal host Lyndon Blake is here to break it all down so Lyndon this jury twice came back deadlocked twice was sent back to deliberate more what can we expect from this final phase yeah the judge kind of has his back against the wall right now and I say that because he can only send the jury back two times a third time the jury would have to consent and be like you know what okay we'll go back and talk again so on this second time when the jury came to him saying hey we still cannot get to a unanimous decision is when judge Sullivan gave this dynamite charge a Massachusetts is called the two e Rodriguez charge and basically to put it in simple terms he is saying I need you to consider the majority consider the other side don't go against your personal convictions this is kind of like the hill married you try to get them to come to unanimous decision on this case here's judge Sullivan giving that charge I'm gonna ask you to come back tomorrow morning nine o'clock resume deliberations remember my instructions so I said his backs against the wall because again if they come back and they don't want to consent to go back and continue deliberating judge will have to call a mistrial and we discuss this earlier this week then the options kind of open to what the prosecution may want to do very common in a murder case which this is a murder case for the prosecution to say let's do this all again now there was also some drama outside the courtroom where a woman was charged with supposedly trying to intimidate the jury. Tell us about that. - Yeah, just so you think outside this courtroom and Massachusetts couldn't get any more strange, it does. A woman by the name of Dawn White. This was on Tuesday night. She was trying to take pictures of the jury. Now, she claims she was trying to take pictures of Lindsey Clancy. She was in an area that was restricted access. She was not supposed to be there. She got arrested, made her appearance Wednesday morning for intimidating jurors. This could be a pretty heavy sentence for her up to 20 years in prison. There wasn't a bell set. She wasn't dyed it though. But the most bizarre scene was her leaving the courtroom. Just like we've seen with Kevin Reddington the lead defense attorney, she was sworn with reporters and frankly, some people that are there are just filming on their phones asking questions why she did what she did. And it looked like to me, and this is my opinion, that she was showing no remorse for her actions. She was enjoying her time in the spotlight. Again, a very strange case. So much so. I thought on Wednesday morning because of that incident that there was going to be an automatic mistrial when the judge called everyone into the courtroom. I had my phone ready. I was recording it, but he didn't. He sent the jury back to deliberate, which brings us to this morning. They're going to try to go do that again. And from the sounds of it, this might be the final day of deliberations. Yeah, depending on who you talk to, a lot of experts thought the final day would be maybe two days ago. After the first deadlock, experts are saying, they won't do this again. But here we are. The reason this could be the final day is again. The judge is out of options. So will today bring a unanimous verdict? Will it bring a mistrial? We will have to wait and see. But the clock is ticking. And like I said earlier, Judge Sullivan has his back against the wall at this point. Meanwhile, we have the Tyler Robinson case moving forward officially to the trial phase. What comes next in that case? Yes, the Tyler Robinson, bound over on all seven charges to a trial. We saw on Tuesday his team try to kind of pick away at the aggravated murder charge. That carries the greater death penalty. You could see his defense team trying to paint Charlie Kirk in this bad light. Again, at this point, they're just trying to save their client's life. So right now, Tyler Robinson entered a non-guilty plea. There is still time before a trial date is set that a plea deal could come to the table. I spoke to the experts back in July during this preliminary hearing and I was told by several that they don't think this could even go to trial because they think they'll take a plea deal so you get the death penalty thrown out the window. That is to be determined as of now, a trial date could be set in October. All right, well, two cases definitely to watch. Lyndon, thanks for reporting. Thanks, guys. Homeless encampments outside UC Berkeley have sparked growing backlash within the community. But the city says the plans to clean up the area are not so simple. Joining us now to discuss this judge-glock of the Manhattan Institute. Great to have you back on. Thank you so much for having me again. So first of all, why is there so much concern about this particular homeless encampment? How bad is this? Well, if you've seen the semi-viral video on social media, it's a pretty bad encampment. And it's also pretty much cheek by jaw next to the actual UC Berkeley student housing and offices and so forth. So it's a problem. But it also, if you look at it, it looks like a lot of campuses in campments across America. There's a lot of bicycle parts, a lot of what looks like stolen goods and a lot of tents that are covering the sidewalk out into the street. All right, so the general sort of danger is posed by that, but also some illegal activity likely going on there. Yes, I forget who is the mayor who said this, but a mayor who spent some time in homeless encampment said there should be another name for them. And that is open air drug markets. That's not the case in every single encampment, but that is unbelievably common with the public encampment. You're going to see drug sales, drug deals, and drug use. And you're going to see a lot of fairly unsanitary things. One thing we know here is there was something called a leptospirosis outbreak in this encampment that led to it death. This is a sort of disease you typically don't see in the first world, but this encampment is breeding exactly that sort of problem. Wow, now there have been some disputes about what to do with this particular encampment, whether you can do anything about it. Can you explain what each side is saying in this debate? Yeah, so this is America. So almost anything a government tries to do on the streets and on the sidewalk. It's going to attract some litigation. And there have been many lawsuits to try to prevent the city of Berkeley from removing these encampments. And to my surprise, the US district judge in this case has been pretty open to those lawsuits. And therefore, pretty suspicious of the city of Berkeley's ability to clear those encampments. That's despite the fact that we did have a Supreme Court case just a few years ago, known as Grants Pass, that said that cities across America did have a right to clear these sorts of encampments. So I do hope and imagine that judge at some point will realize that he's going a little far over his keys here and that this sort of restriction on basic public safety and sort of sanitary clearances probably needs to end. Now, there was a September 8 deadline for the city to remove this encampment. Is that still on? Are they still planning to take action? The city looks like they want to go ahead with that clearance. But as my understanding, the judge is also considering still whether or not he's going to block that. Again, he's blocked these sort of clearances many times before the groups that are suing the city continue to claim this illegal. And it's particularly detrimental to people with disabilities in the camp. Maybe the irony of that, there's been many disabled plaintiffs across the United States have sued cities because of the existence of encampments, precise because people with wheelchairs or with mobility problems can't get down sidewalks if they're covered with tents. Now, broadening out a bit. California has, of course, been the hub of homelessness in America for several years now. Is it getting any better? Obviously, Berkeley's having its own problems. But what about the other cities? Are they making progress? Unfortunately, it doesn't look so, at least in California. California, according to some of the recent numbers, still has pretty close to half of all of the unsheltered homeless in America. That's the homeless out on the streets, sidewalks, and parks. And yeah, that doesn't look to be changing anytime soon. These encampments are continuing to grow. And unless cities take some action against them, they will attract more people as they've attracted people in those cities that haven't taken any action to clear the encampment. When you think some of these lessons would have been learned long ago, but apparently not. Judge, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. 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 with more news you need to know. 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