Trump Says He’ll Ban Big Investors From Buying Single-Family Homes

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0:33The U.S. says it'll control Venezuelan oil sales indefinitely and seizes two more oil tankers at sea. So the U.S. isn't just going after Venezuelan oil. It's going after all of those countries that rely on this dark fleet to carry its sanctioned oil. Plus, why President Trump wants to ban institutional investors from buying homes. And new dietary guidelines say you should probably be eating more protein. It's Wednesday, January 7th. I'm Alex Osula for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. It's a full day of news from the Trump administration.

1:13First up, we're reporting that the president says he'll be banning large investors from buying single-family homes. Wall Street firms and other institutional investors have bought up hundreds of thousands of homes in the U.S. that they rent out. That's a tiny slice of the overall housing market. But some housing analysts say it leaves fewer homes for sale and drives up prices in some neighborhoods, even as the country faces a lack of affordable housing. The president asked Congress to codify a ban. It's not clear he could ban such sales himself without congressional approval. Turning to Venezuela, Trump is tightening his grip on the country's oil industry.

1:49This morning, you heard about the administration saying Venezuela intends to give the U.S. up to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil. That's as much as 15 percent of the country's output. And now the White House says the U.S. will sell Venezuela's oil indefinitely. An administration official says the U.S. is rolling back some sanctions so Venezuelan crude can be sold to global markets. Meanwhile, the U.S. also seized two more oil tankers, in the Atlantic and near the Caribbean, as it cracks down on Venezuela's oil exports. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright says the administration is using oil to pressure Venezuela's government, in comments at a conference today filmed by CNBC.

2:29We need to have that leverage and that control of those oil sales to drive the changes that simply must happen in Venezuela. For more on the Trump administration's plans for Venezuelan oil, I'm joined now by senior video correspondent Shelby Holiday. Shelby, let's start with these oil tankers. The U.S. has indicated that it will continue seizing vessels near Venezuela. What is the administration's goal with going after these tankers? Well, before the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. was seizing tankers and the oil that was on them to exert pressure on the Maduro regime. Now that he's out of power and there's this interim government in Caracas, the U.S.

3:04has indicated that it's going to continue seizing tankers and continue seizing oil to exert pressure on this new leadership. Secretary Rubio said the best leverage the U.S. has is the oil, and so it will continue enforcing what it calls this quarantine of Venezuelan oil to get what the U.S. wants. One of the tankers that U.S. forces went after didn't actually hold any oil, and they pursued it for like two weeks. Why did they go after something that wasn't actually holding oil? That's a very good question. So this tanker, which is formerly known as the Bella One, an analyst said it was empty. It didn't have any oil on it.

3:38The Coast Guard continued to pursue it. And halfway across the Atlantic, this ship changed its registration to Russia, and it claimed Russian protection. Russia asked the U.S. to back off of the ship. The U.S. clearly did not do that. It boarded the ship this morning with a ton of firepower and special forces. And this rusty old oil tanker became a flashpoint in U.S.-Russia relations. One of the strategies that the U.S. has articulated is not just that it wants to control Venezuela, but it wants to get rid of Russian influence, Iranian influence, Chinese influence across the Western Hemisphere.

4:13And so that could potentially be why the U.S. thought it was so important to seize this tanker, was just to show the Kremlin that these tankers will not be tolerated in America's backyard. Can we expect any pushback or blowback from Russia on this? Russia put out a statement saying that it hopes the U.S. treats the people on board humanely and that it expects them to return to their homeland as soon as possible. It hasn't indicated that it will retaliate, but that is certainly a concern for authorities. How does seizing oil tankers fit in with the Trump administration's intention to sell Venezuelan oil?

4:48What do those two pieces mean together? So these tankers are known as dark fleet tankers. They essentially hide what they're transporting. They transport Venezuelan oil, but they're also part of this global fleet that transports black market oil to and from countries like Russia, China, India, Cuba. So the U.S. isn't just going after Venezuelan oil. It's going after all of those countries that rely on this dark fleet to carry its sanctioned oil. Now there's a very clear new strategy that if you take the tankers out of operation, you can clamp down on this broader black market of oil. So it's a war essentially on sanctioned global oil.

5:27Yes. Illicit oil and illicit tankers that are engaged in deceptive practices. Which then puts pressure on U.S. adversaries. Exactly. And how is Venezuela responding to this approach? It's still really early. Maduro was only captured a few days ago. So I think the Venezuelan government is still trying to find its footing. It hasn't responded to a lot of our requests for comment. What we're hearing on the U.S. side is that U.S. officials are working with the Venezuelan government with respect to oil. I think it still remains to be seen how willing they are to play ball. That was WSJ senior video correspondent Shelby Holliday.

6:05Thank you, Shelby. Thanks for having me.

6:11In Minneapolis, the Department of Homeland Security said an ICE officer shot and killed a woman today. Federal and city officials had different narratives about what led to the shooting. DHS says the woman tried to run over officers and that an agent fired in self-defense, while Minneapolis' Democratic mayor disputed DHS's version of events and said that it was a case of, quote, an agent recklessly using power. And turning back to Washington, the administration today released new guidelines for what we should be eating. These recommendations are updated every five years. But today's changes are some of the biggest since the government began the guidelines in 1980.

6:48When Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced them today, he thanked the president as well as Maha Moms, his Make America Healthy Again supporters. These new guidelines will revolutionize our nation's food culture and make America healthy again. Jesse Newman, who covers food for the journal, says the administration is zeroing in on ultra-processed foods and protein. The dietary guidelines have previously said, look, you know, salty and sugary junk food, they've always discouraged those foods. But this is the first time that the dietary guidelines are specifically sort of lumping all these foods in a category, highly processed foods, and telling consumers to reduce them, to avoid them.

7:27Another big change is they are suggesting that people just dramatically ramp up their protein intake as much as a 50 % increase. They are recommending eating protein at every meal and prioritizing protein at every meal. So that's telling Americans to eat a lot more protein when most nutritionists say that Americans already get enough protein. The concern that nutritionists have is that this could, you know, lead people to eat more red meat and more junk food. So getting more protein through a steak or getting more protein through, you know, a protein bar that's highly processed and full of sugar.

8:05Kennedy's promised to root out what he sees as toxins that are bad for children. Maha supporters in particular have been really concerned about ultra-processed foods, about artificial dyes and other additives in food. And so I do think that all of the maha moms that sort of propelled Secretary Kennedy to his current position of power have reasons to be pretty pleased. And yeah, they also are a big message to food manufacturers to say, hey, these processed foods, full of salt, full of sugar, we're advising against these. For more on the new guidelines and to see the new food pyramid, check out the link in the show notes.

8:44Coming up, the Apple credit card finds a new home, why it's so hard to find mental health care covered by insurance, and more of the day stories after the break.

9:00D.C. politicians want to enact harmful credit card mandates that could take away your cash back and rewards points, perks that stretch your budget and make life a little easier. Losing these benefits means less money for your family's everyday essentials like gas and groceries. The perks you rely on could disappear, leaving you with higher costs and fewer options. Tell Congress to guard your card and oppose the Durbin-Marshall credit card mandates. Paid for by Electronic Payments Coalition.

9:33In markets, the Dow dropped nearly 1%. The S &P also slipped, while the Nasdaq ticked up 0.2%. Alphabet, Google's parent, became the second-largest U.S. company by market cap for the first time since 2018. Number one is still NVIDIA. And in other corporate news, people familiar with the matter say that JPMorgan Chase has reached a deal to take over the Apple credit card program from Goldman Sachs. The deal will cement JPMorgan's status as a behemoth in the credit card sector, and it marks the final chapter of Goldman's failed experiment in consumer lending. And Warner Brothers Discovery told its shareholders to reject Paramount's hostile bid for the company.

10:12In a letter to shareholders made public today, Warner said its existing deal with Netflix was still better than Paramount's updated offer. Warner shareholders have until January 21st to decide whether to accept Paramount's tender offer.

10:28More and more Americans are suing their insurance companies over mental health coverage that they say doesn't actually exist. Patients say that when they try to find therapists and other providers that are covered by their insurance, the names they get from the insurance companies can't help them. My colleague Sabrina Siddiqui spoke with WSJ reporter Corinne Ramey about these so-called ghost networks. Corinne, is a ghost network a problem particularly for mental health providers compared with other doctors in fields? Folks who research in this area say that yes, it is. Ghost networks in the context of mental health have been documented for years by lawmakers, academics, regulators.

11:08One way that these are documented is through secret shopper studies, which is where a health researcher will design a study where researchers call, say, all the providers on a mental health list of an insurance company. And they've repeatedly found that the bulk of these providers either don't have any appointments, the contact information is wrong, the providers themselves say they aren't in network, or a few appointments are available. And while ghost networks certainly exist with other doctors, it is particularly acute for mental health. And why is that? Some may be due to reimbursement rates.

11:49Reimbursement rates for therapists, psychologists, other mental health providers are comparatively low. And what are the consequences for patients? When patients can't find in-network care, they often have to pay for out-of-network care. They may delay receiving care or ultimately go without any care at all. One woman I spoke to is a construction company executive named Michelle Mazzola, who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in Connecticut. She said she spent months trying to find in-network treatment for her autistic toddler. She called folks on the website, couldn't find anyone. and ultimately went with out-of-network care, and she pays as much as$20 ,000 a month.

12:30Anthem said it didn't comment on pending litigation and that it meets state law requirements and relies on providers to update their information. Why are insurers' lists of providers inaccurate? So according to the insurers, part of this rests on the providers, and providers should update their information. Some of the patients and providers themselves say that insurers haven't done a good job of keeping their lists updated and are essentially checking the box, like making sure they have lists so that they can comply with laws, but not making sure that they're accurate. That was WSJ reporter Corinne Ramey speaking with our Sabrina Siddiqui.

13:11And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bien-Aimé with supervising producer Tali Arbel. I'm Alex Osola for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

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