Donald Trump makes huge blunder as he accidentally reads private note out loud

Donald Trump made a massive blunder by sharing a private note he'd been handed with a room full of journalists during a press conference last Friday (January 9).

The president, 79, had been discussing plans for Venezuela's enormous oil reserves, the largest proven reserves in the world.

It came after the US bombed the Venezuelan capital Carácas and special forces detained the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing charges in New York.

During the meeting, Trump was handed a note by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio which was not supposed to be read out aloud.

But the president seemingly didn't get the memo on that particular element, instead reading it aloud to the room.

After taking the note, Trump said: "Marco just gave me a note."

He then read it out to the room in an extraordinary blunder.

It said: ”Go back to Chevron. They want to discuss something.”

Trump added: "Go ahead, I’m going back to Chevron. Thank you, Marco."

This was referring to oil giant Chevron, who currently produce around 150,000 barrels of oil per day in Venezuela, according to CNN.

Marco Rubio hands Trump a note that was meant to be private and then Trump reads it aloud pic.twitter.com/IwJdl5CsF8

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 9, 2026

Chevron is one of many oil companies in talks with the White House about potential investment into oil infrastructure in Venezuela, and is one of the more developed companies in the country.

Judging by his facial expression, Rubio was not happy when Trump shared the note aloud, before Trump slapped him on the back and laughed.

Some reports suggest that Trump is coming up against more pushback than expected from oil companies who are less keen to invest in Venezuela than he might have wanted.

Big factors in this include continuing instability in the region, as well as Carácas previously seizing US oil assets in Venezuela.

But the meeting showed that Venezuela is not the only foreign territory seemingly in Trump's sights, as he also reiterated his desire to seize Greenland from Denmark, citing national security concerns that if he doesn’t ‘do something on Greenland’ then Russia or China would.

Trump made threats to take action in Greenland ‘whether they like it or not', raising serious questions about the future of NATO if the US acts aggressively towards other member states.

The president also took time away from the press to look out of the window at construction on the ballroom he ordered - a project which required historic parts of the White House to be demolished.

"If the fake news would like to take a look, you can," he said. "You’ll see a very big foundation we are moving. We are ahead of schedule on the ballroom and under budget."

After taking his seat again, he added: "I don’t think there will be anything like it in the world, actually."