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The Situation Room

Marco Rubio Testifies Before Senate. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 28, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: So it's to their benefit to have set up a normal, transparent process that encourages foreign investment, not just in oil, by the way, in other natural resources, but in other sectors of their economy.

I mean, it's unlimited, whether it's retail, whether it's banking. A country that's prosperous and generating economic activity holds the promise of all sorts of economic activity.

SEN. DAVID MCCORMICK (R-PA): Let me try to squeeze in one more question, if I could, just in my remaining seconds.

RUBIO: Yes.

MCCORMICK: Just very briefly, we have heard such differing accounts, and the president has spoken strongly, you have as well on the deaths in Iran and the horrible atrocities are being committed.

Can you give us some sense of -- we see reports of thousands, tens of thousands. What's the State Department's best estimate of what's happened on the ground?

RUBIO: Well, I don't -- in the thousands for certain.

And, look, I think we're going to look, I think regimes, including that one in Iran, have learned that when you start shooting people in the head with snipers, it's effective. I mean, it works, and they have done it, and it's horrifying. And that's what we have seen.

That regime is probably weaker than it has ever been. And the core problem they face, unlike the protests you saw in the past on some other topics, is that they don't have a way to address the core complaints of the protesters, which is that their economy is in collapse.

And the reason why their economy is in collapse is because they spend all their money and all their resources building weapons and sponsoring terrorist groups around the world, instead of reinvesting it back into their society, and as a result have taken on massive global sanctions, which has isolated their economy and their country.

And so that's what the Iranian people are demanding, is that they stop doing that and start caring about them and get these sanctions off them. And this regime is unwilling to do it. So the core challenge is, the protests may have ebbed, but they will spark up again in the future, because this regime, unless they are willing to change and/or leave, have no way of addressing the legitimate and consistent complaints of the people of Iran, who deserve better.

MCCORMICK: Thank you.

SEN. JAMES RISCH (R-ID): Thank you. Senator Murphy.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Listen, I think the scope of the project that you are undertaking in Venezuela is without precedent. You are taking their oil at gunpoint. You are holding and selling that oil, putting for now the receipts in an offshore Middle Eastern account. You're deciding how and for what purposes that money is going to be used in a country of 30 million people.

I think a lot of us believe that is destined for failure. And I know that you're telling us today just to be patient, but a month later we have no information on a timetable for a democratic transition. Maduro's people are still in charge. Most of the political prisoners are in jail.

And, by the way, those that have been let out have a gag order on them from the government. The opposition leader is still in exile. This looks already like it is a failure. You say you're in serious talks, but, as you know, the Venezuelans are great at being in serious talks.

They almost never deliver. So I'm just going to give you my three questions and hope that you will answer them, because I do think we want to try to understand how to judge the efficacy of this as time goes on, because I worry you won't be back before this committee any time soon, and to understand whether this is just facilitating corruption, both in Venezuela and here at home.

So here are my three questions. First, reports are that you have given no-bid licenses to two companies to sell Venezuela's oil. One of them is a massive donor to the president. To many Americans, that reeks.

And so my question is, can you commit that partners for future sales are going to be chosen through a fair, open selection process?

Second, if Delcy Rodriguez, who is an unelected leader, the head of Maduro's torture operation, is still in power six months from now, does that mean that your policy is a success or failure? How do we judge when we have had enough of Rodriguez?

And, third, in your testimony, you reserve the right to use force again in the future if the Venezuelan government isn't complying with your requests. So, if, for instance, they refuse to give you access to the oil in the future, if they said, we're just going to keep it for ourselves, would this cause you to consider military action?

And do you concede that, if you're using military action simply to try to compel cooperation from the government, you absolutely need congressional authorization for that? So if you can answer those three questions.

RUBIO: So the first question was about the trading companies. The second is about Delcy still in power six months from now.

MURPHY: Six months from now.

RUBIO: And the third is on the use of force.

MURPHY: Yes.

RUBIO: OK.

On the first one, the two traders, so here's the problem we faced. The problem we face in the short term is they had no place to put oil. They were running out of storage capacity for their oil. We had to move that oil to market very quickly.

The only way to move it to market very quickly is to plug into these two primary trade companies that could sell it in the open market. That is not the permanent outcome here. That is a short-term fix to a short-term problem, which is they were literally storing oil. They brought in tankers and would have tankers sitting offshore just to hold their oil.

[11:05:05]

At some point, their capacity to produce was going to be shut down and their ability to generate revenue. So we had to move that oil very quickly. The long-term plan is not those two trading companies. The long-term plan is for them to have a normal energy program that sells directly into the market, directly, to refineries and to companies that are exploiting and exploring it.

For example, Chevron has operations there that never stopped. They seek to expand those operations. They don't use -- they don't need those trading companies. So those trading companies were a short-term fix for a very acute problem because we wanted to prevent societal collapse because they had no money for revenue.

On the second point about her being still in power, look, let me say this, a couple things. This is not unprecedented. I can point to a number of places, Spain, Paraguay, two examples of places in which there was a transition from an autocratic regime to a democratic regime, and it took time.

I can't give you a timeline of how long it takes. It can't take forever. It can't -- it's only -- it's not even been four weeks since Maduro was...

MURPHY: Is it six months, a year, two -- two years?

RUBIO: Well, I think we need to be -- let me put it to you this way. We need to be much further along six months from now, even three months from now. That may not be satisfactory, but I'm saying we have to be much further along three, four, five months. Three or four, five months from now cannot look like what today looks

like. And I think there's acknowledgement on both sides of that. I can probably give you a better answer -- and this is not deflecting -- when we finally have people on the ground like the ambassador and the team around her on a daily basis that are interacting.

Because one thing is for me to pick up the phone and talk to Delcy Rodriguez three times a week. And another thing is to have someone on the ground on a daily basis that's following these events, is talking to civil society, but also engaging with interim authorities.

But the fact of the matter is that, yes, we want to see quick progress. As you said, it's unprecedented, OK? All I'm saying to you is, before this, this was stagnant. Before this, we had spent 14 years -- you were involved in some of those efforts -- 14 years trying to change the dynamic in Venezuela, 13, 12, 11, 10. That was a big part of my career in the Senate was spent on this.

This is the first time in over a decade that we see even the glimmer of an opportunity to change conditions. A lot of that will depend on us, but a lot of that will depend on them. And it also will depend on the rest of Venezuelan society. How quickly can we get all these Venezuelans that want to go back to Venezuela and participate in civic and economic life back to Venezuela?

That's going to be critical here. We recognize that. So, yes, we have to be much further along in six months. We expect to be further along. And if we're not, I will tell you. We will tell you.

On the third point of use of force, look, the president never rules out his options as commander in chief to protect the national interest of the United States. I can tell you right now with full certainty we are not postured to, nor do we intend or expect to have to take any military action in Venezuela at any time.

The only military presence you will see in Venezuela is our Marine guards at an embassy, OK?That is our goal. That is our expectation. And that is what everything that outlines towards.

MURPHY: But if you...

RUBIO: That said, if an Iranian drone factory pops up and threatens our forces in the region, the president retains the option to eliminate that threat.

MURPHY: I'm asking a more specific question, because, in your testimony, you suggest that you would use force to compel cooperation, for instance, with oil sales.

Do you agree that you have to come to Congress to get authorization if you were simply using force to try to compel cooperation?

RUBIO: Well, there's two things. There's the constant -- look, there's a...

MURPHY: It seems like an easy... RUBIO: Under the War Powers Act -- no, under the War Powers Act, if we're going to be involved in something that's going to put us in there involved in a sustained way, we have to notify you within 48 hours after the fact. And then if it's going to last longer than 60 days, we have to come to Congress with it.

We don't anticipate either of these things having to happen. Everything is moving in a very different trajectory right now. On the other hand, if we tell them we don't want to see drones from Iran, as an example, pointed at the United States or threatening our forces or our presence in the region or our allies' presence in the region, and they refuse to comply with that, the president does reserve the option in self-defense to eliminate that threat.

We don't see that. We don't anticipate it. But it could happen. But we hope not. We don't want it to happen. On the contrary, if we had to take military action, it would set us back on all these other things that we're talking about. I can tell you, military action is not good for recovery and transition.

That's not what we hope to see. It's certainly not our goal here. A lot of that will depend on them. But I think it would require the emergence of an imminent threat of the kind that we do not anticipate at this time. But that's not -- we -- they get a vote on that too.

RISCH: Senator Barrasso.

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, great to see you. Congratulations. What you and President Trump have demonstrated in the past year is clearly peace through strength. And I appreciate the leadership from both of you.

We have talked a lot about Venezuelan oil. I focus a lot on energy going to China. And three-quarters of all the oil that went from Venezuela out of the country there last year, 75 percent of it went to China. They got it at deep discounts. They sent lots of money back to Venezuela through oil for loan deals.

Since the start of this blockade, basically, Venezuela crude shipments to China have fallen dramatically. Can you assess or talk a little bit about the impact this has on China's broader energy strategy?

RUBIO: Just to be clear, it's a quarantine, not a blockade. A blockade is an act of war. It's a quarantine. And it's been very effective in the sense that it's given us this leverage.

[11:10:02]

In fact, can I just add something? And this might be to Senator Murphy's question as well. The Venezuelan authorities are now identifying ships that they want us to grab. In fact, about a week- and-a-half ago, we grabbed one of these ships.

That was -- because here's what happened in the aftermath of the Maduro -- about five ships took off without authorization from the Venezuelans because they were controlled by some network in the country. With the cooperation of the interim authorities, we seized one of those ships, we brought it back into Venezuelan waters, handed the ship off to the Venezuelans, who in turn fed it into this mechanism, the short-term mechanism that I described to you was created.

So we're seeing cooperation on that front. Now, I think your question more specifically was about China, yes. So, look, China can buy Venezuelan oil, but they're going to have to buy it like everybody else in the world's going to have to buy it.

BARRASSO: Not the discounts, yes.

RUBIO: Yes, at the normal price. And that money is going to flow back to the benefit of the Venezuelan people in a structured way. And I know that in the short term that will involve this mechanism we have described.

In the long term, our intention is that it would be governed by a democratically elected government, you know, like a normal country would handle it. But it's not just about oil. There's other economic activity, the full spectrum.

I mean, Venezuela was and still -- we're not talking about some Third World country here. I mean, we're talking about a country that doesn't just have wealth. It has memory, it has history of economic activity, of people who own chains of pharmacies. I know some of these people, of people who own chains of retail stores, including American retailers who had a presence there.

We just want it to be a normal, prosperous country again, not a playground for Iran, Russia, and China in our own hemisphere. And we're going to try to help them get that because we think it serves our national interest. That will require actions on our part, not money, but, ultimately, that will require them.

This is ultimately going to be on the Venezuelan people and Venezuelan society and Venezuelan leaders to make this happen. We're going to be there to help and assist and create the parameters for it, and we feel like we're making really good progress. If we make as much progress over the next four weeks as we have made in the last 3.5 weeks, I will feel very good about that.

If it slows down or it gets complicated, I will certainly let you know. But our anticipation is that we're going to be able to continue to work cooperatively with them because it's in their interest and ours. But I will point out to this. After this operation happened, look at the people who criticized it.

I mean, there were others. China, Russia, Iran, Hamas, these are the people that were upset about this strike and this raid and what we did. And I can tell you that in many countries in the Western Hemisphere, there was great pleasure in the fact that Maduro was removed and that it didn't involve an all-out war and invasion.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, we're going to continue to monitor this important hearing.

And our special coverage of the hearing, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will resume right after a very short break.

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BLITZER: All right, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia is pressing the secretary of state now why it has taken so long for the Trump administration to actually come before the Senate and start answering sensitive questions about U.S. foreign policy. Listen in.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): I can't tell you why the domestic rationale is hollow and the international rationale is hollow. I can't tell you why the rationale for attacking Venezuela is hollow, because, again, the rationale has been shared with us in a closed setting.

I can't share with you the grim details of the murder of shipwrecked survivors in open waters that we all know because we have seen the videos and we have questioned the U.S. military officials involved about legality, because the administration will not release that publicly.

They released the boat strike videos publicly, but they hid the second strike that killed struggling shipwrecked survivors, even from Congress for nearly three months, but I can't really talk you about it. I can't talk you about the weakness of the targeting criteria being used to attack boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.

I would encourage any colleague, if you have not, go to the classified setting and ask for a briefing on each strike and ask this question. What was the evidence that there were narcotics on that craft? You will be very surprised if you ask that question about every strike.

And so, even in this first public hearing five months in, there's a lot we can't talk about. If it was such a righteous operation, why is the administration and the majority in this Senate so jealously protecting the details about it from being revealed to the American public?

I have Virginians deployed in this operation. I can't answer their families' questions. Thank God we're having a public hearing five months in. This is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world.

Mr. Secretary, who won the July 2024 Venezuelan presidential election?

RUBIO: Oh, I think the whole world would acknowledge it was Edmundo Gonzalez.

KAINE: Who lost that election?

RUBIO: Maduro.

KAINE: And his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez.

Now, you have made the decision, the administration has made the decision in the aftermath of the attack that Delcy Rodriguez should be leading the country. Let me read something that President Trump said about her on January 14 about Delcy Rodriguez, who lost the election with Maduro.

"We just had a great conversation today, and she's a terrific person. I mean, she's somebody that we have worked with very well."

Let me tell you what Delcy Rodriguez said the day after Venezuela was attacked. "Governments around the world are simply shocked that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the victim and target of an attack of this nature, which undoubtedly has Zionist undertones."

What the hell did Delcy Rodriguez mean when she said this attack had Zionist undertones? I'm assuming you have no idea.

RUBIO: Oh, I have an idea what she meant. I mean, what's the question?

KAINE: What does she mean when she says this attack has Zionist undertones?

RUBIO: Look, I would have to answer, but let me answer it in a broader context.

No one here is telling you that this is what we want to see in the long term.

KAINE: OK.

RUBIO: We're not -- this is not a campaign to leave in place the system that's currently in place.

KAINE: Let me switch -- let me...

RUBIO: But we will either have a -- no, no, but I mean, the criticism of us is -- all right, go ahead, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: I'm ready to switch now to talk about somebody that you know well.

RUBIO: I thought you raised an important point. If I could get back to it, I will.

KAINE: ... you know well and you respect well, Maria Corina Machado.

Here's what President Trump said about her, won the Nobel Prize in the aftermath of the attack on Venezuela: "I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect."

What did President Trump mean by that?

RUBIO: Yes.

First of all, I have known Maria Corina for probably 12 years, 13 years, have dealt with her probably more than anybody, as much as anybody on this committee has for certain. And I will be meeting with her today, in fact, and we met with her a couple weeks ago.

So here's the reality, though, and I think what the president was pointing to. And I think Maria Corina would acknowledge this.

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: I talked to her last week.

RUBIO: Well, there's...

KAINE: She's very disappointed in those comments, and so are Venezuelans in my state.

RUBIO: OK, well she didn't share that with me or with us, but I would tell this to you.

What the president is acknowledging is that today, as it stands, whether we like it or not, the elements of control in that country, the people with the guns, the people that control the guns and the institutions of government there are in the hands of this regime.

[11:20:00]

So we either -- on the one hand, we're getting criticized, and people are saying we don't want regime change. On the other hand, we're being criticized for not undertaking regime change.

KAINE: Mr. Secretary...

RUBIO: What we're trying to trigger here is a process of stabilization, recovery and transition to something where Maria Corina and others can be a part of. And that's what we're working towards.

KAINE: You have respect for her, don't you?

RUBIO: Sure.

KAINE: OK, great.

My last question is this.

RUBIO: And so does the president, by the way. He met with her. They had a great meeting. And he actually spoke to her last week in my presence.

KAINE: And here's what he said -- here's what he said after that meeting: "We're talking to her and maybe we can get her involved in some way. I'd love to be able to do that. Maybe we can do that."

We will set the terms for this Nobel Prize winner having a leadership role.

Last question is this. You talked about the speech in Davos. Here's what -- something the president said in Davos: "I'm helping NATO until the last few days when I told them about Iceland. They loved me. They're not here for us on Iceland. That, I can tell you. Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So, Iceland has already cost us a lot of money."

The president repeatedly mistook Iceland for Greenland, right? We're not mad at Iceland. They haven't cost us any money. The president just mistook the two countries for each other, correct?

RUBIO: Yes, he meant to say Greenland.

But I think we're all familiar with the presidents that have verbal stumbles. We have had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.

KAINE: Nice try.

RUBIO: Thanks.

RISCH: I thought he did well.

Let's see. We have got Senator Paul.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Our founders debated extensively over which branch of government should have the power to declare or initiate war.

Virtually unanimously, they decided what was entered into the Constitution was that the declaration or initiation of war would be the power of Congress.

Now, we have many advocates, many of whom are here today, who have been advocates for an expansive notion of presidential power. They often argued that wars are not really wars, that they're kinetic actions or drug busts.

I think, though, if you reverse the circumstances, it becomes very difficult for these arguments to hold up. So, I would ask you, if a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war?

RUBIO: Well, I think your question is about the -- and I will acknowledge you have been very consistent on all these points your entire career. So, let me -- no matter who's in charge.

So, I will point to two things. The first is, it's hard for us to conceive that an operation that lasted about 4.5 hours and was a law enforcement operation to capture someone we don't recognize as the head of state, indicted in the United States, wanted with a $50 million dollar bounty...

PAUL: But my question would be, if it only took four hours to take our president, very short, nobody dies on the other side, nobody dies on our side, it's perfect, would it be an act of war if someone...

RUBIO: We just don't believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of war.

PAUL: But would it be an act of war if someone did it to us? Nobody dies, few casualties, they're in and out, boom, it's a perfect military operation. Would that be an act of war?

Of course it would be an act of war. I'm probably the most anti-war person in the Senate, and I would vote to declare war if someone invaded our country and took our president. So I think we need to at least acknowledge this is a one-way argument.

One-way arguments that don't rebound, that you can't apply to yourselves, that cannot be universally applicable are bad arguments. So my next question would be, let's say it's not a war. We're just going to define it away and say it's not a war. That's one of the arguments.

So it's a drug bust. What if a foreign country indicts our president for violating a foreign law. Should we extradite our president or should we be OK if they come in and get him by force?

RUBIO: Look, I think ultimately we're always going to act in our national interest. And so if somebody comes after our national interest, like the case you have described, which obviously does not exist at this time, but the case you have described, the U.S. always has the right to act in its national interest and to protect itself.

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIO: I don't know about this equivalency, does this justify them doing it? We're always going to do what's best for the United States and America. We're always going to protect our system.

PAUL: But the point isn't -- and you're exactly right. We will act in our national interest and we should, so I'm not disagreeing with you at all.

What I'm saying is that our arguments are empty then. The drug bust isn't really an argument. It's a ruse. The war argument, not a war, is a war, is a ruse. It's not a real argument. And we do what we do because we are -- we have the force, we have the might, we do it because it's in our interest.

So we wouldn't let anybody come in, bomb us, blockade us and take our president. We have had arguments about legitimate, illegitimate presidents, bad elections, rigged elections. So there's all kinds of same arguments that we have had in our country that they have had in Venezuela.

But we wouldn't argue for an indictment. And these things aren't idle speculation. I mean, Netanyahu has been indicted by the ICC. And one of the reasons I object to being part of the ICC, and I would say you and the administration probably agree, is, we're not going to let any international counsel indict our president and arrest him somewhere on foreign soil. We're not going to do that.

[11:25:10]

We actually -- most of us probably object to indicting Netanyahu in that way as well. So I think the arguments are invalid. So we did get the legal opinion that Senator Kaine referred to, the OLC opinion, Office of Legal Counsel.

And I think a lot of it's been released. Plus, they came to our caucus and talked most of the -- open about everything they had classified. So I will talk about at least one of the arguments. They say this war wasn't a constitutional war. Therefore, it doesn't rise to the constitutional notion of us declaring or having to initiate the war. It just doesn't rise.

And one of their main arguments was, not enough people died. And so there is some number that -- they aren't specific, but there is some number. I would assume, although I'm not positive, but the 50,000, 60,000 soldiers who died in Vietnam might be enough for them to call that a war.

But here's the problem. It isn't the number. It's that it happens in retrospect. So the founders gave us the power to initiate or declare war. They didn't give us other powers to execute the war. Those are left to the president.

But if we have to wait to see how many people are killed, we have to wait, as they describe it, as the scope, nature, and extent, if we have to wait to see the scope, nature, and extent, the war has been going on for some time, it's hard to vote to initiate a war that's been going on. And we can say this war is over, but we're still blockading it. And we may go back in.

And -- but there are no clear answers. We put 2,000, we move 2,000 troops in, are we going to call that war and initiate it? So the definition of war is very important. And I think we have to acknowledge the problem to the argument. Calling things kinetic action is a disservice to our soldiers.

You weren't really wounded in war. You don't have a Medal of Honor for war. You have a Medal of Honor for a kinetic action? So I think let's call it what it is. And let's vote on these things. But I think we're in violation of both the spirit and the law of the Constitution by bombing a capital, blockading a country, and removing elected officials.

And we certainly wouldn't tolerate it, nor would I, if someone did it to us.

RUBIO: But we didn't remove an elected official. We removed someone who was not elected and it was actually an indicted drug trafficker in the United States. And their system...

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: Our laws, indicted under our laws. Look, Bolsonaro says that da Silva is not really the president of

Brazil. Our president said Biden wasn't really the president. Hillary Clinton said in 2016 Trump wasn't the president. So you have these arguments. And I agree with you. It probably was and most likely was, most assuredly was a bad election. He wasn't really elected.

But at the same time, if that's our predicate and you don't have to come to us because it's a drug bust, we're just removing somebody, you can see where it leads to. And it leads to chaos. And that's why we have rules like the Constitution, so we don't get so far out there that presidents can do whatever they want.

It is this check and balance. And I would argue for 70 years we have been going the wrong way. It isn't just this president, but it's a debate that I think is worth having.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to take another quick break, resume our special coverage of this important hearing right after this.

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