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The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Doug Burgum on the Future of Venezuela and the Lies about Data Centers
00:24:16
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- [00:00]
Tudor Dixon
This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.
- [00:04]
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- [00:39]
Tudor Dixon
Welcome to the Tudor Dixon Podcast. Today I am excited because we have the Secretary of the Interior with us, Doug Burgum. You also know him as the former North Dakota governor, but now he is the US Secretary of the Interior and the chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council and a guy who just got back from Venezuela, which is very interesting. Welcome to the podcast.
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Doug Burgum
Well, Tudor, great to be with you. And yes, just got back from Venezuela late last night.
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Tudor Dixon
That is so that's why. So we're getting you fresh back from Venezuela, which I think is very exciting because I, I hear a lot of people that are concerned what's actually happening over there? What is going on with oil, what's going on with gas, gas prices here. And there has been this kind of remarkable deal made with Venezuela on the oil side. Tell us a little bit about that.
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Doug Burgum
Well, first of all, I just want to say to President Trump, I mean, without his courageous, decisive leadership on January 3rd, that we wouldn't even be having this conversation and I wouldn't have been in Venezuela. I mean, two months ago, Venezuela was a sanctioned adversary, and now they're one, becoming one of our most important strategic allies in the Western Hemisphere. I mean, this is a country that has, the only country in the world that has larger oil reserves than Saudi Arabia is Venezuela. And it had been going out, you know, at a discount to people like China when it used to flow in five days to the Gulf of America refineries along the coast of Texas and Louisiana, and which was great for keeping prices down in America, was great for American jobs. It was great for handling their, they're heavier crude because we built these refineries to do it. And, you know, they went down a path on, you know, socialism under corrupt leadership. And thank, you know, President Trump, you know, with his, I guess, with his action, our military, it's basically a new dawn for the people of Venezuela. People in Venezuela, I'm telling you, they will, they will, they will. Outside of this building, there's the interior building in Washington D.C. there's a statue to Simon Bolivar, the guy that liberated Venezuela and Bolivia back, you know, centuries ago. There will likely be a statue of President Trump and streets renamed after him in Caracas, because this is a guy that his action has, you know, created this new dawn of opportunity for people in Venezuela. And only, and only they remember what it was like just over 20 years ago when they had a market. Their economy has shrunken by a factor of four. I mean, their GDP today is one fourth of what it was back when their industry was really going. And that affects everybody in the country. They're just a much poorer country than they were before. So quite exciting to go down there and be working on getting that oil and gas flowing back to America again to benefit Americans.
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Tudor Dixon
I think it's kind of a critical message as we go into the midterms, though, what Venezuela became and how the United States is coming to the rescue to. To rebuild it, because we are hearing these messages of socialism. In fact, we had an Argentinian, Argentinian politician recently in Germany sitting next to a. And AOC is talking about a wealth tax, and she's talking about socialism. And this woman was so gracious, but she said, what President Trump did for Venezuela is, I have seen the people cheering. They've come to my country to get away from Venezuela. This is such a critical moment for people to understand the infrastructure, the oil infrastructure there was destroyed by socialism. And the opportunity here is to come together as partners to rebuild that, correct?
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Doug Burgum
Yeah, absolutely. Part of our delegation that we went down on this trip, we had dozens of American companies across oil and gas and mining, because they're rich. A country rich in critical minerals. That matters to every American. Because if you use a cell phone, drive a car, have a refrigerator in your house, you're using critical minerals. I mean, some of these, you know, like some of the phones today might have 42 of the 60 critical minerals that China controls. All the processing is in your. Is in your phone, AKA the supercomputer in your pocket. So we just can't. We can't be a country and have our independence, have our sovereignty, if another nation controls the supply chain for things that we need to support our economy, to support daily life. So across all this. But these companies that we brought down there, some of them had been kicked out of the country 20 years ago when their companies were nationalized, aka their assets were stolen. Well, you know what happened? The people that were the Venezuelans working for American companies, they didn't stay. They left. They left. I mean, and where'd they go, they went to places like Houston. I mean, there's one of the companies there said, we have 600 Venezuelans that are now Venezuelan Americans working as engineers, technicians or leaders in our company in Houston. They're chomping to go back down there, increase production, get it shipping back to the US and again, like I said, it's, it's the, one of the things that's going to help bring that energy, the, the center of the energy world out of the Middle east, which would be important right now, get it back to the Western Hemisphere, you know, between the US And Venezuela. We've got everything we need right here. You know, how fantastic will that be?
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Tudor Dixon
That's been an interesting message that I've heard from both people in the United States that want to go back to Iran and Venezuela. It's people who were driven away by these radical policies. And it, and you said leaders, leaders, the wealth, all driven away from these countries. But you also talked about the rare earth minerals. And I want to clarify something there because I think that people in America have always felt like we can only rely on China for these. Do we have another option now? Can we take that control back?
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Doug Burgum
Well, absolutely, because across the US We've got vast resources of minerals, but we got ourselves completely out of the mining game. And that was, I don't say that was a team effort. I mean, that's been going on for 30 years. 30 years. You know, started back under Clinton. Obama accelerated it. Biden really took it to the max, you know, but it was basically like, we're not going to permit mines. We're going to fight these things any way we possibly can. And we're going to save the planet by not doing it in America. Well, you know, we saved nothing because in the US we did a cleaner, smarter, safer than anywhere else. And then we outsourced to China. China goes to the Congo in the middle of Africa, they go to Indonesia. They have no reclamation. They have no child labor laws. They have, they have no, no epa, if you will. And so some of the biggest ecological disasters are occurring where China is doing mining and then, and then they mine it. And they don't care about that place. It's not China. They just tear it up, bring it back to China, control the processing in China. And then, and then they basically have got the whole world hostage when they control 90 to 100% of some of these minerals. That's the only place you can get a refined product is from China. You know, that's why we had a ministerial as they say it's a new word I'm learning here from the State Department. But it was like, you get all the energy ministers and all the mining ministers from all the world. We had 51 countries come to D.C. a couple weeks ago. They all want to cut a deal with the US to be part of this club of nations where we will all trade amongst each other. We'll have price floors so that China can't do illegal dumping. We, and we'll have a solution that will take the rest of democracy, the democratic Western countries. We'll all be able to have a secure supply of critical minerals without being reliant on China. So again, moving at Trump speed to solve some of these important national security issues. But Venezuela, human rights issues. Yeah, that's right. Yes, in human rights issues. But Venezuela can also be a key part of that as well. And now just last night, we normalized relations with Venezuela, meaning they're recognizing our ambassador, they're recognizing theirs. We're going to open up our embassy in Caracas again. They'll have an embassy here, relationships for, for businesses to start capital start flowing and goods from Venezuela to keep flowing to the U.S. i mean, it's just incredible. I mean, all the doubters about President Trump on the day that he did this rage, go back and watch the tape because here, two months later, like, again, we're, we're building incredible positive momentum. And we've got US Companies that know that they can do great things for America by working in Venezuela again, because that's where, that's where many of these companies were 20 years ago.
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Tudor Dixon
The naysayers will criticize this and they'll say, this is the United States stepping in and Donald Trump just wants to take their oil. But I want you to explain how this changes the GDP and the, the opportunity for growth and prosperity on the ground in Venezuela, because it is not. Venezuela was really under the control of China, I believe, when it came to their oil, oil supply and under the, under the control, really a very nefarious players. And it's critical for the United States to free them from that.
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Doug Burgum
Yes. Well, I'll give you one example. It's pretty simple because they were, you know, their, their oil industry under socialism had gone from almost 4 million barrels a day down to less than 800,000 barrels a day. I mean, North Dakota, for example, produces 1.2 million barrels right now. So North Dakota was producing more than Venezuela. I mean, that's just a, I mean, it's kind of amazing how socialism can wreck an economy. But that was Just one industry, but that was their big source of revenue. Well then normally if you're Venezuela and you have a, they have a state controlled oil company, like many countries do, I'm going to sell it, I'm going to sell it for $60 a barrel. Well, if I'm, you know, producing a million barrels a day, I'm getting $60 million in. If you sell one barrel, you get $60. China was saying, oh no, we loaned you money, you owe us some money. Oh, and by the way, you know, you guys are sanctioned. And so we're not going to pay full price. So they take a $60 barrel, they get a $30 discount and then they would take it. So then since Venezuela was getting $30 instead of 60, but then China would go, but you owe us money, so we're going to take 15%, apply that against your debt or I mean another $15. So then in some cases, as recently as two months ago, Venezuela on a $60 barrel of oil, 15, 15 million, you know, or 1/4 of it, $15 out of every barrel were coming to, to, to Venezuela. So it means like literally China was taken three quarters and they were taking one quarter. So for them to be back and be able to sell oil on the world market at the full price and then, and then work to split those proceeds with the U.S. you know, just overnight we were doubling the revenue that they were getting on the same production. But now we bring in U.S. equipment, U.S. technology, U.S. team players. Chevron, who was one of the companies down there on Wednesday, hit record production in two months. I mean, they're, everything is scaling up for Venezuela. The people there have a sense of optimism about their future. And of course, capital is in human talents ready to flow back in that country, which will have a huge benefit for the United States.
- [11:55]
Tudor Dixon
And what is the leadership feeling like there? I know there was some concern having the Vice president kind of step into that role. And was that also going to be a problem, that they would be loyal to Maduro? But it seems like President Trump is pleased with what's going on in leadership. There's.
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Doug Burgum
Well, he's very pleased. And President Trump even tweeted about it yesterday while I was in the meeting with the acting president, Delsey Rodriguez. So, you know, a Trump truth comes out, talking about how he thinks he's doing a fantastic job. So that was very fun that that happened. Then of course, we met the next day and then last night Marco Rubio and President Trump, you know, tweeted and truthed out that we were, you know, formalizing and recognizing the country. So very fun, Very fun. Time to be there. And of course, one of the other things we talked about, they've got enormous gold reserves. And so there'll be news coming on that because just like oil and critical minerals, the US can be a buyer of those products. And that's going to also be helpful on the precious metal side for America as well.
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Tudor Dixon
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tudor Dixon Podcast.
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Alliance Defending Freedom Announcer
It's happening across America. Men are being allowed to compete in women's sports, robbing girls of scholarships, medals, titles and safety. For the first time in history, the U.S. supreme Court heard two cases that could decide the future of women's sports nationwide. Alliance Defending Freedom needs your voice today. Visit joinadf.comdixon or text DIXON to 83848 to add your name and side with truth and fairness. That's joinadf.com Dixon paid for by Alliance Defending Freedom.
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Tudor Dixon
Do you think that the future of Venezuela will continue to rise up or do you think there will be an undercurrent of the Maduro folks that could come back?
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Doug Burgum
I think that somewhere between 8 out of 10 or 9 out of 10 people in Venezuela are celebrating the fact that Maduro's gone and they see President Trump as their liberator. I mean, this is a country that respects the U.S. they love, they love following the NBA. They love following Major League Baseball. They're, they're tied, you know, they're in the same hemisphere. They're, you know, they're only time zone wise. They're one hour ahead of, of east coast time zone. So they're aligned that way in terms of, you know, our news cycles or their cycles. So I, I just sensed a lot of optimism and positiveness on there, you know, and back when your question about what can we do on, on minerals, the other thing is like President Trump says, drill, baby, drill. We've got a mind b mine. Also, we've got to get back in the mining business even for things like copper, you know, those are things that we need for our power grid. We need them for electronics. And there's industries where we've got enormous, the United States has got enormous resources. We just have to have the will to develop them. But when we do, we know we'll do it cleaner, smarter, safer than anywhere in the world. So that's, that's also great. That's also great for our heavy resource states.
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Tudor Dixon
You are speaking my language now because I come from a manufacturing background and we used to do a lot. We used to make a lot of steel castings for mining companies. And those mining companies were not doing much mining in the United States. And those are big, big pieces of equipment to build and ship and move. And I know that even in the state of Michigan, we had had the availability to mine in the up and there were so many jobs lost under Obama and Biden and all of these, these Democrats that want to shut down any type of mining. But that was the, that was what we always said about not just mining, but also the foundry industry. You think that this is to, in your mind, this is a dirty job. The United States does it better than any other country. We do it cleaner. This is where you want to have these things done. And you've been, you've been sold a book of lies to get all of this shut down. One other area I want to ask you about, because we're not familiar with this is this new data center area. You, this is kind of like this is your bread and butter. This is where you grew up in the data area. So, so it's a big controversy right now in our state. I know across the country people are going, I want local control. I don't want this in my backyard. They're getting a really bad rap on being huge pieces or huge buildings taking up massive amounts of land, not a lot of jobs, lots of noise. Energy costs are increasing, but they are also the future. So how do we marry that together and get people to understand that we can't demonize data centers, but we also have to have local control?
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Doug Burgum
Well, my first, my first comment on this is for everybody locally is just stay curious. I mean, and don't believe everything you say because you talked about China early China doesn't want us to build any, any of these. They're not data centers per se. They call them that, but this is where we manufacture intelligence. I mean, electricity has been a miracle. I mean, we were able to, you know, with going back to Thomas Edison, produce light out of electricity. I mean, the light bulb invention and then using electricity for heat, capturing that, harnessing that, that was, that changed the world. But now electricity can be converted into intelligence. And so being against a manufacturing plant that manufactures intelligence and people have all these complaints. Well, first of all, technology is going to solve some of the noise issue relates to fans. They're building these AI manufacturing sites right now, or AI data centers. They're, you know, they're building them where they're liquid cooled. And so instead of a bunch of fans using a bunch of power. You're recycling and cooling liquid over them. So that's one piece. There are big advances that are happening on nuclear and geothermal that are just around the corner. They're going to help power these. And then yesterday at the White House, we had the ratepayer protection event where the five big companies in America, the five big tech companies that are building most of these and have the big capital budgets, they all agreed that they're going to, I call it byop, bring your own power. They're going to be building power. And so when they build it, they'll build enough to run their data center or they'll build extra to be able to dump some back on the grid. In North Dakota, when I was Governor, still just 15 months ago, we could. We were finishing up a project there where we were able to get the actual electric rates down for everybody in that rural area where the thing was going not up because the company agreed to help buy down everybody's rates. I mean, electricity is worth more than ever has been before. So versus instead of like getting out the pitchforks and the torches and hating on these proposals, I just would encourage local policymakers and, and state officials to go talk to these data center folks and say, what do you need? And then say, what do we need? I mean, we need lower electric rates. We need it to be quiet. Oh, and by the way, if you're going to build here, we would like to have you take some of your AI capacity and create a, a personalized tutor for every school kid in the whole state. And they will probably go, yes. Or they'd say, oh, we want you to partner with this hospital chain to go cure cancer. Because so we need, you know, some percentage of the AI you're generating has to go here to solve a problem in our state. I mean, it's, it's like having a hundred thousand geniuses move into your backyard. But they're not going to, they're not going to, you know, compete on housing. I mean, they're not going to compete for your. You don't need to build more roads for them. You don't need to build more subdivisions. I mean, whatever. But all of a sudden you got all this brain power that shows up and start negotiating with these companies to get what you, to get what you need to make it work for you. But to put a ban and say, we don't want that stuff, they're just going to go to the places, and the places that end up with these are going to see quality of life improvements, educational improvements, Health improvements. And there are all these benefits because being. Being close to a, to. And again, when I say intelligence, you know, I've interviewed thousands of people in my tech career. I've never met anybody who speaks 27 languages fluently and is in the top 1% of the software developer coders in America. Even the generic AI today can do those two things. I mean, translate to more languages than you could ever imagine and can code. I mean, so there'll be software companies that get started tapping into this power. And so, you know, this is an asset and we need it strategically to compete against China. Absolutely, we need that. And any of the state, any of the locals or states that say that they think they're winning, you know, by, by banning. Banning this stuff, they're. They're buying it. They're buying into basically a narrative that China's pushing because China, China's building enormous amounts of electricity right now, enormous amounts of AI data centers. They'll do anything, including have misinformation campaigns online to get us to not do that.
- [20:51]
Tudor Dixon
So I think this is actually so critical right now because that's what we're hearing in campaigns. Like I said, we're going into the midterms. This is a big discussion in our state. In many states, people are very scared. But I don't think that there's. We don't understand it like you do when you talk about intelligence. People on the ground don't understand what the opportunities are or what the consequences are of not having these, these intelligence manufacturing centers because we could get so far behind in why China would want us behind. So I will just say that perhaps the tour of Secretary Burgum and Tudor Dixon should continue because, you know, we did that great chat up in Traverse City. But I'm. I mean, in reality, I do think that if we could get people to kind of explain this in more detail. So I will. I will say I would love to have you back sometimes so that we can talk about what exactly that intelligence is and people can understand a little bit deeper why it's important. And from a military standpoint, a national security standpoint, all of these things is so new to us who aren't in it every day. We don't get it. But I thank you so much for the time that you did spend here today. Secretary Doug Burgum, thank you so much. Thanks for explaining this and thank you for what you're doing at home and overseas.
- [22:05]
Doug Burgum
Well, you're welcome. Tutor. And if you want some bonus, a bonus minute. If I could. I'll just say one other thing. I mean the, the, the war that's, that are happening right now, I mean if Iran is launching like they did last year, 500 projectiles at Israel in one day and Israel shoots down 495 of them. That was last year during that 12 day war. And then, and then at home here in America we go, oh, what was the score of the ball game? I mean it's like no artificial intelligence is at work right now protecting all of our allies in the Mid East. I mean you don't shoot down, you know, 95 or 98% of the incoming things if it's just a bunch of guys with good aim. No, it's like you've got to be sophisticated on the targeting because in that particular example, 400 of those were low flying drones that took six hours to get there. Another almost 100 were going to get there in two hours, throwing some ballistic ones that go out of the atmosphere and come down, going to land on Israel in 12 minutes. They're all time to arrive at the same time. Well, if I got, If I got 20 rockets and they all shoot at one incoming, then 19 get through, you know, so, so the, the complexity to be able to do that missile defense work absolutely requires AI. We cannot lose the AI arms race. I mean that, that is a, that, you know, they're in their tide. I mean Iran having a nuclear weapon, existential threat, losing the AI arms race, existential threat. If we want prosperity in the world and peace at home, we gotta do both those things. And the last thing for, for, for those that live, Citizens of Michigan, I don't know if you, what you think your property taxes are, but the other thing you can do in North Dakota, this is a 1.2 billion or data center in a town of 800 people, you know, I mean a mile and a half out of town on some farmland, that thing is going to pay more property taxes than the whole town combined. So it's kind of like, like what do you guys want? New school, new gym, new uniforms, new park? Oh, you want to eliminate your property taxes? Great. Just shift the whole burden over to this, you know, this multibillion dollar data center. So I mean people, I say stay curious, ask questions. There's big opportunities for those communities that are interested and those that just say not here, you know, they might miss out. Some, some states and some communities will be curious enough to end up with a really great opportunity to benefit them for generations to come.
- [24:21]
Tudor Dixon
I'm just gonna say, I've said this before. But President Trump has the absolute best and most intelligent cabinet on the planet in history. In the history of the United States. Thank you. I mean, honestly, I'm so impressed every time I talk anybody who is working in this administration, but everybody has this great knowledge base and you're so willing to share. And I will just say, behind the scenes, everybody says to us that they love working with you. You are very. You've always been so kind and special to us. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing this. It's meaningful to me, but to all the people out there that are trying to figure this out, it's so meaningful that you spend time with us.
- [25:00]
Doug Burgum
Well, thank. Likewise, Tutor. Thank you for all you do. And thanks for using your voice and your talent, your skill to reach people and help people understand what the truth is and make sure that they can help make informed decisions, because that's what we need to keep democracy going.
- [25:16]
Tudor Dixon
Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you all for listening to the Tudor Dixon Podcast. Make sure you check out the next episode at tudor dixon podcast.com and have a blessed day.
- [25:30]
Alliance Defending Freedom Announcer
It's happening across America. Men are being allowed to compete in women's sports, robbing girls of scholarships, medals, titles and safety. For the first time in history, the U.S. supreme Court heard two cases that could decide the future of women's sports nationwide. Alliance Defending Freedom needs your voice today. Visit joinadf.comdixon or text DIXON to 83848 to add your name and side with truth and fairness. That's joinadf.com Dixon paid for by Alliance Defending Freedom.
- [26:05]
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- [26:35]
Alliance Defending Freedom Announcer
This is an I heart podcast.
- [26:37]
Tudor Dixon
Guaranteed human.