Trump’s Tariff Threat Hits China, DOGE Cuts Waste Amid VA Dispute

This pod­cast, dat­ed March 26, 2025, reports Chi­na halt­ing Venezue­lan oil purchases—estimated at 500,000 bar­rels daily—after Trump threat­ened a 25% tar­iff on goods from any coun­try buy­ing it. The VA Sec­re­tary refutes staffing short­age claims at new clin­ics, while polit­i­cal ads tar­get Trump-flipped con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts, warn­ing of VA and Social Secu­ri­ty cuts to flip the House, where Repub­li­cans hold a slim mar­gin. DOGE, mean­while, axes 113 redun­dant con­tracts, sav­ing $3.3 bil­lion from a $4.7 bil­lion ceil­ing, tack­ling agency over­lap.

• China’s pur­chas­es stall after Trump’s tar­iff threat on buy­ers of Venezue­lan oil. Trump threat­ens 25% on goods of any coun­try buy­ing Venezue­lan oil. Chi­na is the biggest buy­er of Venezue­lan oil and is esti­mat­ed to be import­ing via var­i­ous chan­nels about 500K bar­rels per day of crude oil and fuel from Venezuela. 
• VA sec­re­tary dis­putes staffing claims at new clin­ics. 
• The con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts are being set up, start­ing to send out mail­ers, adver­tis­ers, and send­ing out social media ads about the cuts in the VA and social secu­ri­ty cuts may delay the checks. They are throw­ing it against the wall. They will focus on all the seats that Trump bare­ly flipped. All they have to do is have 2 or 3 to flip the House. We are work­ing on a very thin mar­gin. 
• We have mul­ti­ple agen­cies that have dupli­cate ser­vices. DOGE ter­mi­nat­ed 113 waste­ful con­tracts with a ceil­ing val­ue of $4.7B and sav­ings of $3.3B.