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Interview with Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI): Trump to NYT, "Only Time Will Tell" How Long U.S. Runs Venezuela; White House: Entire Administration Stands Fully Behind ICE; Trump Administration Weighs Options for Acquiring Greenland. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired January 08, 2026 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Are you comfortable with this idea of U.S. oversight of Venezuela lasting years?

REP. DERRICK VAN ORDEN (R-WI), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: What I'm comfortable with is making sure that we follow through with the commitment to allow the Venezuelan people to have self-determination. I do not support uniformed military members conducting ground operations, combat operations in Venezuela. What I do support is making sure that we can use all the elements of the United States government to facilitate freedom in Venezuela.

However long that takes, you know, I can't answer that question. It's going to be an iterative process.

KEILAR: OK, but there's of course a possibility that this could involve the U.S. military. It already has involved the U.S. military, so it seems that option could be on the table. And just to be clear about this, I mean, you are someone in Congress with a very unique perspective.

You spent decades in the SEAL teams, years and years downrange, and you have talked in the past about losing friends and how that experience shaped your understanding of the stakes in foreign policy decisions. It's a first-hand perspective, like I said, just not many lawmakers have. I want to play some of what you've said in the past for our viewers.

Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN ORDEN: You know, I've had some of my friends killed. From 9-11 on, about 50 of my friends, actually, and I'm only 53 years old, so that really brings home the seriousness of what you're doing. I held one of my friend's hands as he died in Afghanistan, listening to his wife crying to a satellite phone into his ear because she knew she'd never see her husband alive again.

Again, that brings home the seriousness of what we're doing. Oftentimes people are legislating and they don't understand the long- term or even short-term ramifications of these policy decisions that they're making. We've seen that over and over and over again, and it's time to stop.

We can't say that we need to get out of Afghanistan so quickly that we abandon thousands of American citizens and our allies, and then the next day get involved into another conflict where we don't have any type of metrics. When are we actually going to leave? What do we want to see achieved before we stop pouring American resources into these different conflicts?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I just heard you talk about self-determination for Venezuelans. Elections are not a priority for this administration. This is the Maduro regime, minus Maduro in charge here.

Do you think that you have those metrics that are so important to you for risking American blood and treasure in Venezuela?

VAN ORDEN (on camera): That's exactly why I do not want to have uniformed members of the United States military conducting ground combat operations in Venezuela. Like a some point -- like for instance, let me give you a real world example. We get an embassy in Caracas.

Do you know who guards an embassy? It's the United States Marine Corps. So if the Marines are guarding the embassy, they're not conducting combat operations.

If they're accompanying State Department personnel to work with the Venezuelan government to protect them, they're not conducting combat operations. So I stand by everything I just said. We just have to understand that this is a much more nuanced thing that people think about, and that's why I can't give you a timeline because I don't know how intricate the entire problem set is going to be.

KEILAR: OK, but the Trump administration just put out video of special operators like yourself, you know, doing work like you used to do, operating in Venezuela. Isn't it imprudent to dismiss the possibility that U.S. military could be operating and getting injured, as they just did in Venezuela? It just happened.

VAN ORDEN: Well, that was a raid. It was not an invasion. Getting the special operators, which by the way, is one of the most exquisite special operations raid that has ever taken place in the history of warfare.

I think we should all be very thankful that we can sleep at night because these men and women are out there protecting us. So let's just put that over here. Like I said, and I don't know how I can say this anymore strenuously, I do not support uniformed members of the United States military conducting, I guess you could add the word, sustained combat operations in Venezuela.

So I -- as a special operations guy, I don't view a raid as an invasion. I don't view a raid, and by definition, it's not a sustained combat operation. You get in, you get your business done, you leave, and that's exactly what took place in Venezuela. And I am unaware of any plans of putting boots on the ground to -- excuse me, uniformed military personnel to conduct sustained combat operations in Venezuela. I'm absolutely unaware of any of that taking place. And again, like I said, I don't support it.

KEILAR: OK, but there weren't plans for boots on the ground in Ukraine, and you were very consistently demanding timeline and metrics for that.

VAN ORDEN: Yes. Yes, I mean, the answer to that is yes.

KEILAR: OK.

VAN ORDEN: I'm also aware that there's billions of dollars in fraud taking place with Ukraine.

KEILAR: OK, so don't you want to know metrics and timeline?

[14:35:00]

You're talking about here, the U.S. being in charge of Venezuela as the president is describing it for a long time, that he is not even committing to what that length would be, but you don't have metrics, you don't have a timeline. Why don't you want those things?

VAN ORDEN: Well, actually, you and I are violently agreeing, so I do want those things. I want a timeline. I want metrics.

I want to know what the cost is going to be to the American taxpayers, if any, if we can offset that cost by selling Venezuelan oil. We're saying exactly the same thing in a different manner.

KEILAR: OK, so how --

VAN ORDEN: I completely want to have all of these metrics in place.

KEILAR: How do you want to get that from the administration? How are you demanding that?

VAN ORDEN: Well, we need to work with the Department of State primarily, the Department of War, if they're going to be conducting any type of security operations. Those are the big ones, with the Treasury, for instance. We have to make sure that we have a full holistic approach to this, and that's a whole of government approach.

If they need to help understand how to legislate effectively, you know, members of Congress can help them with that. Now, there's arguments saying that members of Congress couldn't tell people how to legislate effectively. That's another story.

But we need to look at this holistically, and we need to not rush into things. So we cannot rush into failure. We stayed in Afghanistan 19 years longer than we should have.

We never should have gone into Iraq, so we just can't repeat the same mistakes. We should not have been in Vietnam. So we're not going to do that anymore.

How you don't get involved in these protracted, sustained ground combat operations is you just don't. And you have a plan, you have a metric, you figure out when you're going to leave before you get in.

KEILAR: Is it clear to you the White House has a plan for how to get out of this when the president just said he doesn't have a plan for when this is over?

VAN ORDEN: It is absolutely clear to me that Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth know exactly what the heck they're doing.

KEILAR: Congressman Derek Van Orden, appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much.

VAN ORDEN: Yes, ma'am. It's great to see you. Happy New Year.

KEILAR: Happy New Year to you as well.

Training for ICE agents is now in question following yesterday's deadly shooting. After the break, a former ICE leader joins us to break down what the different angles of this shooting, because there are a number of them and they are all important.

We'll be looking at that video and talking about it ahead.

[14:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The Trump administration is doubling down on its position that the ICE agent who shot and killed a Minneapolis woman yesterday was following proper officer training and safety procedures. We just heard from Vice President J.D. Vance, who stands by DHS claims that the driver who was killed here, Renee Good, intentionally tried to run over the unidentified ICE agent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ramming an ICE officer with your car, that's what justifies being shot. It's not a good thing, by the way, but when you force somebody to engage in self- defense, it's almost a preposterous question. I'm not saying that funding some of this stuff justifies capital punishment.

Nobody would suggest that. The reason this woman is dead is because she tried to ram somebody with her car and that guy acted in self- defense. That is why she lost her life and that is the tragedy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joined now by John Amaya. He's a former ICE deputy chief of staff serving during the Obama administration. He managed policy oversight and execution.

He was instrumental in creating operational guidance for worksite immigration enforcement. So first, we do have a lot of videos of this, but first, I just want to go over, as we talk so much about what was proper, what wasn't, what is the usual process for what an ICE officer should do when it comes to engaging with a member of the community related to a vehicle, related to drawing a weapon and using a weapon?

JOHN AMAYA, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Sure, that's a great question. I think, you know, without going into the specifics of this, because I don't want to pass judgment of the particular incident as the professional responsibility team at ICE and potentially inspector general's office, and certainly the FBI, they will be assessing this for further adjudication.

But generally speaking, it is policy guidance department-wide that officers don't chase vehicles. It is also policy that officers do not shoot at vehicles to either stop them or slow them down. Unless, like the general policy for use of deadly force, there's imminent danger or threat, and there is no reasonable alternative.

In other words, if the officer could have just jumped out of the way and let the car pass, that's what he should have done. And the questions will be raised to him when he's asked by the various investigators in this case as to whether or not he reasonably could have jumped out of the way, because it would have been a requirement for him to do so.

KEILAR: What about, you know, there's a lot of other officers. You also have to think about where other officers are in the scheme of things when discharging a weapon. And we've seen other cases in one other immigration operation. An ICE officer actually shot a U.S. Marshal. And that's something you're trying to avoid, that kind of crossfire. At what point does an officer have to consider how close another officer is to the line of fire?

[14:45:00]

AMAYA: Well, that's part of the rules of engagement. They're supposed to consider everyone around them, not just officers, but potential media, potential bystanders. And I will tell you that this is something that actually goes to the heart of my concern for the last year.

You know, shortly after the surge and the cooperation agreements with Marshals and the FBI and DEA and CBP to conduct interior enforcement, coupled with the fact that the standards for recruitment had been lowered so much, and they were bringing a surge of new ICE officers. I have heard from a number of career professionals within the agency that one of their concerns, before any of this ever happened, was that these people were not going to be trained properly. They were going to be thrown into the field and collectively thrown into operations that they have no business conducting because they're not trained for crowd control.

That someone was going to end up shot, either a citizen, either a migrant, someone from the press, some other innocent bystander or another fellow agent. And so this has been something that's been haunting me since I heard that Miss Good was killed, that this was something that we saw coming. And until some policies change, it's going to happen again.

KEILAR: Now, inexperience that doesn't appear to be the case here. This appears to be an experienced individual, part of a special response team, which maybe you can speak to kind of what that is. That's a more like elite response team.

But also we heard from the vice president that this was someone who several months ago, in a totally separate incident, was dragged by a car for 50 yards, injured, had 36 stitches in his leg. The vice president's sort of saying, oh, so you think he was a little sensitive. I mean, obviously someone might be from that, but you still have a responsibility to not let that somehow impact your future professional behavior, I would imagine.

AMAYA: No, absolutely. And the thing is that there's a lot of resources within the agency. So that way, people with, you know, confidence and confidentiality can go speak to someone to see if they're actually, you know, traumatized by prior engagements. By whether it be, you know, stripping a child from a mother's arms or discharging your weapon, whether psychologically you're able to continue working without harm of being demoted or having your firearm taken away.

Hopefully that, in fact, happened. But I will tell you that regardless of what, you know, the experience may be in terms of length of years, the agency is not trained to deal with large crowds. The agency is not trained like local law enforcement is to deal with members of the community.

This was a recipe for disaster. And it's one that we knew was going to happen sooner or later for those of us that are concerned with which way the agency is now being managed.

KEILAR: You feel like you saw it coming?

AMAYA: Absolutely. And it haunted me since I heard of the passing away yesterday.

KEILAR: John Amaya, thank you so much for being with us. We'll be right back.

[14:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Just into CNN, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee says Denmark is not willing to sell Greenland after a meeting with the ambassador. Senator Roger Wicker, telling reporters that it was Denmark's, quote, prerogative and right to decline talks over the sale of its territory.

CNN's Nic Robertson just arrived in Greenland and filed this report for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Everyone here in Greenland is worried about President Trump's threats for national security reasons to take control of Greenland. They're worried that he could do it by military force. The vast majority of people here, the last polling, only 6 percent said they wanted the United States to take control.

The vast majority of people here do want independence, but eventually, not necessarily right now. And just speaking to one person after we arrived here, he said to me, President Trump thinks he's a big man, but we don't see him that way. We think of him as a small person.

They like their life here, he tells me. They're worried that it's going to change irreversibly if the United States takes control. Danish politicians are worried.

Greenland politicians are worried. We know that the foreign minister from Greenland is expecting to meet, along with the foreign minister of Denmark, expecting to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio next week. The Danish foreign minister asked for that meeting.

He said it's necessary because we need to get nuance into the conversation. They feel that the United States doesn't understand what Denmark offers, what Greenland has on tap for them already in terms of resources and potential troop deployments. The foreign minister of Denmark also said that we need to bring the rhetoric down, tone it down.

But the Danish prime minister has used even stronger language and said, look, President Trump takes this area by force, Greenland, then that's the end of NATO. And the European Union is standing lockstep behind Denmark and Greenland right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Nic Robertson, thank you for that report.

And now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour. California Governor Gavin Newsom delivering his final state of the state speech today, highlighting efforts there to fight homelessness, crime and rising health care costs.

He's also declaring his state a blueprint for the rest of the nation. This is the first time Newsom has delivered the speech to lawmakers in person since 2022. He has submitted a written address in previous years.

[14:55:00]

Character.AI and Google agreed to one of the first legal settlements over alleged harm to young people using AI chat bots. The company settled five lawsuits in four states, including one from Florida mother Megan Garcia, whose son died by suicide after developing a deep relationship with Character.AI bots. The terms of the settlements were not immediately available, but both companies have since implemented new safety measures for younger users. Also, NASA is postponing a spacewalk outside the International Space

Station scheduled for today, citing a medical concern surrounding one of the SpaceX crew members. A spokesperson says the crew 11 member is in stable condition and that NASA is, quote, actively evaluating all options, including an early end to the crew's mission, which is slated to wrap up as early as next month. The crew is made up of two Americans, one Japanese and one Russian cosmonaut.

And a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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