The White House welcomed a surprise visitor on Friday.
Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News star who has found himself at the center of a MAGA civil war in recent months, attended a meeting at the White House with oil and gas company executives about the Trump administration’s invasion of Venezuela and seizure of its oil reserves.
Looking more gaunt than usual, Carlson could be seen standing against the wall of the East Room, red-faced and applauding President Donald Trump as he entered.
Carlson has found himself at odds with the president, and the MAGA movement more broadly, several times since Trump’s inauguration, breaking ranks to criticize Trump’s foreign policy, particularly U.S. support for Israel and the administration’s attack on Iran in June, while also clashing with fellow firebrands Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer over his decision to interview white supremacist troll Nick Fuentes for his podcast in October and for his alleged close ties to Qatar.
Despite previously criticizing U.S. intervention overseas, Carlson appeared cautiously optimistic about Trump’s actions in Venezuela, arguing that it was different because the president was upfront about being driven by a desire to control Venezuela’s oil.
“Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserve in the world,” Carlson said on his podcast on Wednesday. “It’s in our hemisphere. It’s going to China. And how about, no, this is our hemisphere. It’s going to go to us. He just said it out loud.”
“There’s something kind of thrilling about that,” Carlson continued. “There’s something thrilling about the honesty there. There’s no fakery. No, we’re the U.S., we’re not going to put up with that. This is our interest and we’re going to protect it. That’s what the president said.”
On Monday’s episode of his podcast, Carlson said that it seemed like a “wiser approach” to keep Venezuela’s existing government structure in place but work on “making sure it’s pro-American.”
Carlson has looked noticeably thinner in recent weeks, with his appearance in a photo posted by James Fishback following their interview for Carlson’s podcast prompting speculation about his weight loss online.
Dropping soon 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/aTx43HilVM
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) January 7, 2026
Carlson has previously talked about the negative impact his role at Fox News had on his lifestyle, telling a podcast guest in June 2025, “I just got fat. I mean, it’s incredibly hard physically. Everything about it is the hardest job I ever had.”
At the White House meeting, Trump met with executives from oil giants like Chevron and ExxonMobil where he promised them “total safety, total security” in the hopes of convincing them to invest $100 billion in Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, which is in a state of disrepair.
“We’re going to be extracting numbers in terms of oil like few people have seen,” he told the assembled executives on Friday. “Venezuela is going to be very successful, and the people of the United States are going to be big beneficiaries.”
Mark Nelson, the vice chairman of Chevron—the only major U.S. oil company that regularly exports Venezuelan oil—said that his company “has been a part of Venezuela’s past, we are certainly committed to its present, and we very much look forward as a proud American company to help it build a better future.”
Exxon chief executive Darren Woods said that currently, Venezuela was “uninvestable” and that the company expected “significant changes” to its legal and commercial landscapes before it would consider investing.
“We’re confident that with this administration and President Trump, working hand-in-hand with the Venezuelan government, that those changes can be put in place,” Woods said.
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