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State of the Union
Interview With Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH); Interview With Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT); Interview With Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT); Interview With Sen. Tom Cotton. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired January 04, 2026 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:00:55]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Takeover. A stunning U.S. attack leaves Venezuela's leader in custody and the region on edge.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to run the country until such time as the proper transition can take place.
BASH: Who's in charge? What comes next? And will American troops be deployed again? Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton is ahead.
Plus: in the dark. The Trump administration bypasses Capitol Hill.
REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): This is insane. What the hell are we doing?
BASH: Did the president cross a line by sending U.S. troops to Venezuela without buy-in from Congress? Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and Democratic Congressman Jim Himes joined me.
And America first? Trump promised MAGA voters he'd end foreign wars.
TRUMP: I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars. I'm the president of peace.
BASH: Did he break that promise? Republican Congressman Jim Jordan will be here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union might now include Venezuela?
It has been a dizzying 24 hours after the U.S. launched a major military operation inside Venezuela, toppling the country's longtime dictator, Nicolas Maduro. Maduro is now in custody on U.S. soil, where, last night, he was treated to a perp walk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLAS MADURO, VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT: Good night. Happy new year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: It is a stunning culmination of President Trump's monthslong pressure campaign against Maduro, all the more so with this announcement from the president:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. It's largely going to be for a period of time the people that are standing right behind me. We're going to be running it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: The president offered a few specifics, but did not rule out deploying more U.S. troops on the ground inside Venezuela in the days ahead.
Here with me now is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.
The first question is, what is your understanding of the meaning behind "We are going to run the country until such time as we can do safe, proper and judicious transition"? What does it mean for the U.S. to run Venezuela?
SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Well, who's not running Venezuela anymore is Nicolas Maduro. And that's a great thing, and it's a great day for America and for the people of Venezuela and really the civilized world.
Nicolas Maduro was an indicted drug trafficker in U.S. courts. He was an illegitimate communist dictator. His drugs had killed hundreds of Arkansans, thousands of Americans, and he was in league with anti- American countries around the world like Cuba and Iran or Islamic terrorists.
It's a good thing that he's in a jail now in New York City. The president said that -- when the president said the United States is going to be running Venezuela, it means that the new leaders of Venezuela need to meet our demands.
Our demands are now what they were before yesterday, that we want them to stop the drug trafficking, we want them to stop the weapons trafficking, we want them to expel the Cubans and the Iranians and the Islamic radicals, and we want them to return to the civilized world and be a good neighbor that contributes to stability, order and prosperity in our own backyard.
BASH: But he literally turned around and pointed to his secretaries of state defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and said, they're going to run Venezuela.
COTTON: Well, I know that Secretary Rubio in particular is in consultation with other members of the Maduro government. He's also in consultation with members of the opposition.
They're working through what kind of -- what an interim or transition government would look like. Obviously, Secretary Hegseth and General Caine and our entire military deserve our praise, an amazing raid, maybe the most complex operation that's occurred in the five years Donald Trump has been president, without a single American life being killed, being lost.
[09:05:06]
And I think we will see whether the vice president of Venezuela, who is sanctioned by the United States and many other countries, who was in league and hand-chosen by Maduro, wants to turn over a new leaf. And I think we will see whether or not they're going to let the opposition back into the country and have new elections, which is what the opposition itself wants.
So there's still a lot of questions to be answered, but it's a great day that Nicolas Maduro, an illegitimate communist dictator and indicted drug trafficker, is no longer in charge of Venezuela.
BASH: But I guess the question is, who is right now? The vice president, who you talked about, who I will get to in a minute, Rodriguez, she technically, I guess -- the Supreme Court said that she is in charge. Is she the person that the U.S. does officially recognize as a leader?
COTTON: I -- well...
BASH: And then again, I just want to go back to, the president of the United States said, we Americans are now in charge, are now running Venezuela. I mean, that's a big statement.
COTTON: We don't recognize Delcy Rodriguez as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela. We didn't recognize Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate ruler.
BASH: Right.
COTTON: For that matter, neither did the Biden administration nor the European Union.
BASH: Absolutely.
COTTON: It is a fact that she and other indicted and sanctioned officials are in Venezuela. They have control of the military and security services. We have to deal with that fact. But that does not them a legitimate leader.
What we want is a future Venezuelan government that will be pro- American, that will contribute to stability, order, and prosperity, not only in Venezuela, but in our own backyard. That probably needs to include new elections that are legitimate, that are fair and free, that include leaders of the opposition who are currently in exile around the world.
There's a lot of steps to take in the future. We don't know what every twist and turn is going to hold. But we do know that Nicolas Maduro, an illegitimate communist dictator and drug trafficker, is in prison in the United States. And that's a great thing.
BASH: I think there is a lot of concern among Americans right now that nobody knows what comes next. I mean, you just laid out the possibilities, but it can go either way at any step along the way.
And we saw with Iraq what happens when you remove a dictator -- Maduro definitely, was a dictator, Saddam Hussein was a dictator -- without a clear understanding of what comes next and the leadership in this country. And I don't need to tell you. I mean, you won the Bronze Star for your military service in Iraq.
A number of your fellow combat veterans there, Senator Gallego, Congressman Jason Crow, Congressman Jake Auchincloss, they are saying that they're deeply worried about the U.S. repeating the mistakes in Iraq with Venezuela.
COTTON: Well, I think the analogy to the Iraq War is flawed. Latin America is not the Middle East. Venezuela is an ethnically and...
BASH: Some say Venezuela is more complicated.
COTTON: Well, no, it's an ethnically, religiously, culturally homogeneous country. It does have a long history of stability and prosperity and working with America for decades before Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro ruined the country.
I would cite a much more relevant precedent, because it's much closer, both geographically and in circumstances. In 1989, George Bush sent more than 40,000 American troops into Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega, who was an indicted U.S. drug trafficker, and bring him back to the United States.
Ever since, Panama has had a pro-American government. We have worked with them closely. They have been working with the Trump administration to minimize Chinese influence around the Panama Canal. I think that's a much closer analog. That was a successful operation.
I believe, in the long run, this will be too. This will be -- it has a chance to be truly revolutionary here in the Western Hemisphere by removing one of the biggest sources of instability and anti-American activism. So I just want to say once again that it's such a great day that Nicolas Maduro has been removed, just like it was when Manuel Noriega was removed from power in 1989.
BASH: You mentioned that you hope that the former vice president, Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, is somebody who will work with the United States.
She also has been a part of his inner circle. She also happens to be the oil minister in Venezuela. So, is that part of what's going on here, that the administration is trying to install somebody who will be friendly to the United States with regard to oil?
COTTON: Well, I don't think that we can count on Delcy Rodriguez to be friendly to the United States until she proves it.
I mean, there are examples, recent examples, of anti-American leaders around the world turning over a new leaf. If you had Moammar Gadhafi in Libya in 2003. You have Ahmed al-Sharaa, the current leader of Syria. But they made concrete concessions that benefited the United States, where they had a long history of turning a new page and moving in our direction.
[09:10:00]
Delcy Rodriguez and other sanctioned and indicted ministers in Venezuela were in league with Maduro until yesterday. So I don't think we can count on them to be pro-American at all. I hope they turn over a new page. I hope they begin to meet our demands.
BASH: Yes.
COTTON: And it is the case that Venezuela still owes many billions of dollars in legal judgments to American oil companies. It's also the case that Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves.
The United States used to be their number one customer. Many of our refineries are built specifically for Venezuelan oil.
BASH: I mean, that...
COTTON: That oil will give a long way towards financing Venezuela's reconstruction and a return to prosperity and stability.
BASH: You talked about oil. The president talked about oil in his press conference many, many times. Is that what this is about? Is it about money and, again, American oil companies in there and economics?
(CROSSTALK)
COTTON: No, it's primarily about an economic dictatorship that was trafficking drugs into the United States, that was in league with Islamic radicals in Iran and Cuba and China and Russia, that was given many opportunities to step aside, as has happened throughout recent decades in Latin American history.
He refused those opportunities. Our military took bold, audacious, decisive action, and the United States is a safer place today for it.
BASH: The president did not rule out the possibility of sending the U.S. military back in. Would you be comfortable with that?
COTTON: Well, the U.S. military has already been in, as Nicolas Maduro learned the hard way.
But I think Americans now, after five years of Donald Trump's presidency, realize that there are certain signature features of how he uses our military. Take four examples, the raid that killed the ISIS leader in Syria, the drone strikes that killed Iran's terror mastermind in Iraq, the bombing of Iran's nuclear facility, now this raid.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: But those are one-and-done, and they didn't involve regime change.
COTTON: But think about it.
BASH: Forgive me. Forgive me. I just wanted to clarify what...
COTTON: All four of those operations were bold, decisive, audacious and direct. They achieved vital U.S. national interests.
BASH: And so was -- yes, and so was what happened in Venezuela, no question about it. The military was extraordinary there.
The question is about what's next. Will you feel comfortable if the military goes in to protect the oil fields, for example?
COTTON: Well, I think that Delcy Rodriguez and the other ministers in Venezuela understand now what the U.S. military is capable of. And as the president -- as President Trump and Secretary Rubio indicated yesterday, if they don't want to follow in Maduro's footsteps, they need to start meeting our demands.
And it's always an option for our military to protect American citizens, of which we have many in Venezuela, and American interests around the world. The president...
BASH: And the interest is Venezuelan oil fields in this case?
COTTON: We have many U.S. citizens and many American interests. And, again, Venezuela owes many billions of dollars to American companies for their past seizure of American property in that country.
BASH: Chairman of the Intelligence Committee Tom Cotton, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
COTTON: Thank you.
BASH: Coming up: Did President Trump make an end run around Congress? Two top Democrats will join me ahead.
Plus: President Trump ran on ending foreign wars, so how does the MAGA movement feel about him opening the door to a new one?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:17:18]
BASH: Democrats are demanding answers from the Trump administration, saying top officials lied to them about ousting Nicolas Maduro, and questioning whether the president violated the Constitution by attacking Venezuela without congressional approval. Here with me now is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Thank you so much for being here.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Certainly.
BASH: First, just your reaction to this operation?
MURPHY: Well, I mean, clearly, this is wildly illegal. This is a president who has been operating illegally since he was sworn into office, stealing from the American people, seizing spending power...
BASH: What's illegal?
MURPHY: ... now dragging America into a war overseas.
The president cannot run a military operation of this size, cannot invade a foreign country without coming to Congress first, without allowing the American public to weigh in. America doesn't want this war. Nobody asked for this, because it has nothing to do with American national security.
And I think that's the most important conversation to have. Listen, Venezuela is not a security threat to the United States. They're not threatening to invade us. There is no terrorist group like al Qaeda operating there that has plans to attack the United States.
To the extent that you care about the drug trade, yes, they produce drugs, but those drugs go to Europe. Fentanyl is the drug that's killing Americans. That's not coming from Venezuela. Venezuela produces cocaine; 90 percent of it is not coming to the United States.
This seems to be mostly about oil and natural resources. Donald Trump's entire foreign policy is corrupt, Russia, the Middle East, and now Venezuela. It is all about making money for his friends. And Wall Street, the oil industry, they can make a lot of money off of Venezuela if they run it.
You saw within hours of the invasion the announcement of a group of Wall Street investors, energy industry investors planning a trip to Venezuela to make money off of this invasion, off of this ouster.
So, unfortunately, once again, you're seeing that this president's foreign policy, the invasion of Venezuela, the ouster of Maduro is about making his crowd filthy rich. It has nothing to do with American national security.
BASH: Can I just go back to the legality and the point that you made about needing to come to Congress first?
You know that, for decades, Congress has let Democratic and Republican presidents sort of go for it on military actions. I mean, look at President Obama and Libya. And so it's not new that Congress has become, frankly, impotent on issues and matters of war.
MURPHY: That's absolutely true. And Congress needs to own its own role in allowing a presidency to become this lawless.
[09:20:00]
The fact of the matter is that the president's justification makes no sense here. He says that this was just a law enforcement operation. Well, there are people with warrants all over the world. That doesn't give the president of the United States the power to launch a billion- dollar invasion of those countries to bring a fugitive to justice.
Yes, Congress should have stepped in and either authorized or prohibited President Obama's actions in Libya. Yes, the United States Congress has sat on the sidelines to allow presidents to become more and more powerful in foreign policy, but that doesn't mean that it suddenly gives an imprimatur of legality to this massive invasion of a foreign country that the American public didn't ask for.
BASH: You know, there are -- there's no question that Maduro was a destabilizing force, not just in Venezuela and the region. And there are people celebrating in the streets all over South America and Venezuelan expats abroad.
So is it fair to say that there is some benefit in Maduro not being in power?
MURPHY: But what changes? I mean, you just heard Senator Cotton effectively not be able to explain who's running the country now.
Delcy Rodriguez is a very powerful figure in her own right, handpicked by Maduro. Russia and China still provide enormous support to that country. What changes? Why would Venezuela stop its export of drugs, its harassment of U.S. interests in the region?
There's really no explanation for how American interests are changed at all with a Rodriguez administration that right now seems to be intent on carrying through and carrying forward the policies of Nicolas Maduro.
BASH: In 2019, you wrote an op-ed and you called for Maduro to be gone. You said: "Let's get one thing straight, there should no longer be any debate about Maduro's lack of democratic legitimacy. The Trump administration is right to put restoring Venezuelan democracy at the center of our approach to this crisis. A return to a stable democracy is in the interest of the Venezuelan people and the United States and the hemisphere."
We don't know what's going to happen with regard to the civilian leadership there. Tom Cotton was just here saying that he hopes that there are democratic elections. Isn't that what you want?
MURPHY: Well, the rest of that article, right, was a criticism of President Trump's early moves to saber-rattle around regime change.
Listen, there are evil, brutal dictators all over the world. That does not give the American president the right to invade those countries, in large part because we have seen how this script plays out. I watched your interview with Senator Cotton. You asked him what the difference was between Iraq and Venezuela.
He didn't say the difference was, we aren't going to invade Venezuela like we invaded Iraq. He said that, if we invade Venezuela, which may be part of the president's plan, it's going to go really well. Over and over again, we have seen these warmongering neocons, many of which have influence in this White House, cheerlead us into war under the guise of removing a very bad man.
That ends up getting a lot of Americans killed. And if this is really just about the oil, if this is really just about the natural resources, if this is just about getting a bunch of Donald Trump's friends on Wall Street even richer, I don't think there's a single American family who would support having their son or daughter put into harm's way to defend the interests of Wall Street.
This is once again American oil interests, American financial interests coming before the actual national security interests of the United States.
BASH: I do want to ask about a briefing that the secretary of state and defense held with senators -- you were there last month -- about Venezuela.
MURPHY: Yes.
BASH: Can you talk about what they said and whether or not that actually came -- bore out?
MURPHY: Well, I can certainly tell you the message that they sent was that this wasn't about regime change. They came to Congress and they literally lied to our face. They said, this is just a counternarcotics operation. This is about trying to interrupt the drug flow to the United States.
Right around that same time, the White House chief of staff said publicly, if we ever had boots on the ground in Venezuela, of course we would have to come to Congress.
Listen, there's no way to trust this administration. They aren't being straight with the American people. There isn't even a briefing scheduled for Congress next week to explain, A, what happened and, B, what the plan is moving forward.
But, yes, I think everybody in that briefing heard the administration say this is just a targeted counternarcotics operation, this has nothing to do with regime change. They knew they weren't telling the truth in that room.
[09:25:02]
BASH: Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for being here.
MURPHY: Appreciate it.
BASH: Happy new year.
MURPHY: You too.
BASH: Up next: President Trump says the U.S. is going to make Venezuela great again. Is that what his supporters want?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.
MAGA leader and one-time Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene says that President Trump's attack on Venezuela is -- quote -- "what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy, were we wrong."
Here with me now is Republican Congressman and chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan.
Thank you so much for being here.
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Hey, Dana. Good to be with you.
BASH: One of the things that I know that you know the president's supporters absolutely love is that he has been arguing since he first ran 10 years ago that he's going to end forever wars and put America first.
[09:30:11]
JORDAN: Yes.
BASH: Now he says he's running Venezuela, he's totally open to putting boots back on the ground there, and he's signaling that Cuba and Colombia could be next.
How is that America first?
JORDAN: I mean, look, I trust the president to make decisions that are in the best interest of Americans, of our country. This president gets results.
I think, when you have a guy who's not recognized as a head of state, who's head of a narco-terrorist criminal operation, who's cozying up to Iran and China, and he's doing it right here in our hemisphere, bringing that individual to justice, I think that's a good thing. Most Americans think that's a good thing.
And that's consistent with keeping drugs off the streets. I know folks in the Fourth District of Ohio and what fentanyl and other drugs have done to some families that I get the privilege of representing.
BASH: But fentanyl doesn't come from Venezuela.
JORDAN: And helping deal with that -- helping deal with that, I think, is a good thing. And Americans recognize this for decisive action that makes a difference for us and, frankly, for Venezuelans.
BASH: Right. Fentanyl doesn't come from Venezuela. And there's definitely... JORDAN: Cozying up to China and Iran, which are part of that, certainly does.
BASH: But, again, cozying up to China and Iran, talking about what matters on the world stage, is different from what most people who voted for Donald Trump heard him say, which is, I'm going to focus on Americans. I'm going to focus on groceries. I'm going to put American dollars back here.
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: And President Trump has done that. President Trump said he'd cut taxes. He did. President Trump said he'd secure the border. He did. President Trump said he'd get men out of women's sports. He did. President Trump has said he'd lower gas prices. He did.
President Trump said he'd make sure Iran didn't get nuclear capability. He did.
BASH: Yes, but let's move forward.
JORDAN: He did all those things in one year's time. That is certainly making America great again.
BASH: How are they...
JORDAN: That is certainly consistent with what he said. And getting a bad guy brought to justice who's had a five-year arrest warrant, that is certainly consistent with that theme and that message as well.
So I think the American people appreciate that. And, frankly, I think that's the message we go tell the American people in this midterm election. President Trump and Republicans did what we said we would do. We're doing that.
BASH: How are they going to feel about the fact that he, the president, said that America is committed to rebuilding Venezuela, particularly the oil fields, spending money to do that, not necessarily at home?
JORDAN: Well, again, I think Americans recognize, when that country took assets that belonged to American companies, that's wrong. That's all President Trump is saying is going to change in the future relative to oil. I think that makes sense. They took property from American companies. That makes sense that there's going to be some kind of compensation, some kind of reckoning for that.
I think that's consistent with putting American interests first, which is what the president has talked about since he first came down the escalator 10 years ago.
BASH: But he's also not ruling out putting boots back on the ground in Venezuela. He said that we, the United States, the people behind him at the time yesterday, was -- were the people in charge of the State Department, the Defense Department, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs are now in charge of Venezuela. That is definitely not what people thought he meant when he said
America first.
JORDAN: Well, again -- again, we will see. We don't know what that exactly means.
But what we do know is, President Trump's track record at getting results is, I think, stellar. I mean, I -- why do you think Hamas released the hostages back to Israel? Because President Trump took out Iran's nuclear capabilities. Why do you think that we got the Abraham Accords in his first term?
BASH: Yes, but let's stick with -- let's...
JORDAN: Because he kept his word and put the embassy in Jerusalem.
Why do you think European countries are now giving more to NATO?
BASH: There's no question that the Maduro...
JORDAN: Because President Trump made it happen.
BASH: There's no question that the Maduro mission was successful.
JORDAN: Amazingly successful.
BASH: But the question is -- but the question is, what's next? And what is the American...
JORDAN: And what I'm saying is, we will see.
BASH: ... tax dollar, taxpayer on the hook for?
JORDAN: I trust this administration. I trust Secretary Rubio. I trust Secretary Hegseth. I trust President Trump and his making decisions that, again, are in the best interests of the American people.
And, frankly, I trust our military. I mean, this operation, the courage, the precision of this operation truly amazing. God bless them and God bless a commander in chief who takes decisive action.
BASH: The military is extraordinary. The military does missions like this in a way that is just mind-boggling. Again, it's not about the military. It's about the government in Venezuela ahead of time.
I do want to ask more about kind of what the president's mind-set is with regard to policy right now. He explicitly redefined America first in his press conference yesterday. For a long time, again, people thought it meant spending American taxpayer dollars not on foreign wars, not on foreign countries, but at home.
Now he says he's enacting a new strategy where -- quote -- "American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again." That's a shift in his approach.
JORDAN: That's consistent with the Constitution. That's consistent with the War Powers Act. And, most importantly, I think it's consistent with history.
[09:35:03]
BASH: All of that...
JORDAN: You can go James Monroe, Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, President Trump in our hemisphere.
BASH: But he never said he was James Monroe.
JORDAN: Well, no, I know, but operating in our hemisphere, that is consistent historically, constitutionally with...
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: But it's not consistent with what he has said as a candidate.
JORDAN: I think Americans appreciate a commander in chief who demonstrates strength, shows strength and takes decisive action.
Think about -- contrast the president's actions, what took place two days ago, what took place with Midnight Hammer, when he stopped Iran, contrast that with the previous administration. Contrast that with Joe -- Joe Biden let a Chinese spy balloon fly clear across the country and then shot it down.
BASH: Let's focus on the president.
JORDAN: You think President Trump would have allowed that? I think the American people appreciate the fact that he demonstrates strength and he takes decisive action for the benefit of America.
BASH: Here's something that President Trump did. You talk about drugs. And here is something that President Trump did.
After the former president of Honduras went through the American judicial process, was found guilty, was sentenced for a whole bunch of really bad things with regard to sending drugs into the U.S., poisoning American children, as you would say, the president pardoned him.
How is that consistent with going in with this military action?
JORDAN: Look, the president was clear about this, I think, in his press conference. The pardon power, by the way, is exclusive to the president. They can exercise it however they darn well want.
BASH: They can. But should he? Should he have done it?
JORDAN: And he exercised it that way. And he said he thought that the Biden administration treated this individual, the former president, in an unfair fashion. And so he chose to pardon him.
BASH: You're fine with that?
JORDAN: President Biden issued pardons for -- preemptive pardons for people on the January 6 Committee.
BASH: But this is about consistency on drugs.
JORDAN: He issued pardons for his family. So this is a power that our Constitution gives exclusively to the president. And they can exercise it how they choose.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: Let me ask you really quickly, because Maduro is in New York and he is expected to -- maybe as soon as tomorrow, as Monday, to have a hearing.
Are you comfortable with Nicolas Maduro being tried through the American judicial system? Should he have the same rights as American citizens?
JORDAN: Yes, I think that's why he's being tried in our system.
BASH: But you're good with that?
JORDAN: Our system is the best in history, the best on the planet. Of course that's the best system. And that's where the indictment -- the five-year arrest warrant came from the Southern District of New York. Jay Clayton signed the -- I read the indictment yesterday, 25 pages.
This guy's engaged in all kinds of bad behavior, had a five-year arrest warrant, was not recognized as the head of the state, ran a narco-terrorist criminal operation and was cozying up to Iran and China. And he was doing it in our hemisphere, which is just wrong.
And so the idea that he's now being brought to justice, I think, is a darn good thing. And I think most Americans see it that way. And they appreciate the decisive action from their commander in chief, our president, President Trump, as particularly contrasted with what we saw from Joe Biden, who let a Chinese spy balloon flight clear across the country before he even shot it down.
I think you would have shot it down before it went across the country. And I know President Trump would have.
BASH: Mr. Chairman, thank you.
JORDAN: You bet.
BASH: Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
JORDAN: Good to be with you.
BASH: Now, traditionally, the so-called Gang of Eight is notified before major U.S. military operations. But that didn't happen here. The Trump administration notified congressional leaders only after the attacks were under way.
Here with me now is a member of that Gang of Eight, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes. Thank you so much for being here.
It's been more than 24 hours. Have you been briefed by anybody in the administration?
REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): Still haven't gotten a phone call.
Well after the operation yesterday, a staffer at the office of the secretary of defense called the staff on the Intelligence Committee. But, no, look, this is a long pattern and a particularly egregious example of a pattern of this administration not giving a hoot about the United States Congress, which, by the way, Jim Jordan just sort of gave the game away.
I hope you can play that interview over and over and over again, because he gave the game away, right? He said over and over again, I trust the president. I trust -- now, he's being asked to explain an imperial adventure. I mean, you did a pretty good job, an imperial adventure from the guy who was going to be America first and not get into stupid wars.
And his answer is, I trust the president. I trust the president. I trust the president. That is giving the game away, because two-thirds of my Republican colleagues in the Congress wake up every single morning and say, what can I do today to prove my loyalty to the president of the United States?
And Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, seems to be unaware that our whole system, our whole system, Dana, is set up to provide checks and balances, that the job of a member of Congress is to approach the president, regardless of that president's party, with skepticism, with pushback, with checks and balances.
BASH: Well, Congressman...
HIMES: So, again, I hope you can play that video over and over again, so America can see the fact that they no longer have a Congress.
BASH: Congressman, on the topic of Congress and being briefed, what the Trump administration is saying is that they didn't want to notify Congress because leaders, people like you, leak.
The secretary of state said it's just not the kind of mission that you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission. And then the president said, Congress has a tendency to leak. Your response?
[09:40:05]
HIMES: Well, two responses.
Number one, that's not accurate. I have sat in on a number of Gang of Eight meetings talking about the boat strikes in which there have been no leaks. So, number one, that's not accurate. Now, when you brief all 535 members of Congress, there's a higher probability that there could be a leak. But, again, I'm a member of the Gang of Eight and I have yet to get a
phone call from anybody in the administration, right? I talked to Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, yesterday. He got no phone call even after the event. If this were an administration serious about abiding by the law -- and that's the second point that's really important here.
Whether you think Congress leaks or not, the law says you must brief the Congress.
BASH: Yes.
HIMES: So this is just yet another example of absolute lawlessness on the part of this administration. And they get away with it because of what Jim Jordan just told you: I trust the president. I'm not interested in acting as a check or a balance on this imperial exercise of presidential might.
BASH: Let's look ahead. You said removing a leader, however brutal, without a next-day plan is -- quote -- "dangerous and irresponsible."
We can talk about the effective plan, if there is one. We don't know. But Maduro is gone. What do you think should happen right now to prevent chaos in Venezuela?
HIMES: Yes. Yes, I mean, Dana, it's a great question because we're caught up in exactly the euphoria that we got caught up with in 2002 when the Taliban went down, in 2003 when Iraq -- when, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein went down, in 2011, when Gadhafi was killed.
We're caught up in this euphoria of how amazing we are at taking down leaders. But, again, let's tick through those countries, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Post our removal of those leaders, I think all of us would look back and say, oh, my God, we don't want to do that again. We don't want to not have a plan for the next day.
And I don't know about you, but I heard the president yesterday say, we're going to run Venezuela. Now, again, I'm just a member of the Gang of Eight who hasn't yet gotten a phone call from the White House. But as far as I know, we don't have a single person on the ground in Venezuela right now.
So what it means for us to be running this, I don't know. What I can tell you, Dana, is that if you were serious about stability in Venezuela, you would have not done two things that the president did yesterday. Number one, you wouldn't have spent half your press conference talking about oil.
What do Venezuelans hear when they hear Donald Trump talking about oil? What they hear is, they're -- the Americans are here for our resources. And, by the way, I wouldn't have delegitimized probably the most politically popular woman in Venezuela, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
And Donald Trump just out of nowhere says she doesn't have the respect or the standing? He not only made this about oil, but he delegitimized probably the most unifying force in Venezuela right now.
BASH: Well, let me ask you that. Let me ask you about that, because you will know the answer based on your perch on the Intel Committee.
What I have heard about the sort of dynamic there that potentially what the president was saying about Machado, who won the Peace Prize, is that it's about the Venezuelan military. And the Venezuelan military is so powerful that the elected official, not the dictator, like we saw Maduro, but the elected official has to have the backing of the military.
And perhaps Machado or even another candidate who came after her effectively won in 2024, Edmundo Gonzalez, don't have that.
HIMES: Well, I don't even know quite how to respond to that.
Number one, the Venezuelan military demonstrated precisely how powerful they were 48 hours ago, when they couldn't stop an invasion of their own country, and in which not a single American serviceman was killed or a single military asset. So I'm not -- I'm going to be not be terribly sympathetic to the argument that the Venezuelan military is a giant standing astride the globe.
Secondly, my God, we're the United States of America, right? We care or at least we used to care about democratic norms. We used to care about the idea that the people ought to have a little something to say about who governs them.
And, again, Donald Trump yesterday in his news conference basically I think set the stage for a disaster here by making this about the oil and by taking the person, Machado, who is recognized not just in Venezuela, but by the world, as the most legitimate political actor, and saying, ah, she doesn't have the juice. I mean, come on.
BASH: Congressman Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.
HIMES: Thank you, Dana.
BASH: Nicolas Maduro is out of power. Now comes the hard part. We will break down what that could look like next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:48:59]
BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.
President Trump says the attack on Venezuela is about asserting American dominance in the region.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Here with me now to discuss are CNN senior military analyst Admiral James Stavridis and CNN national security analyst, Beth Sanner.
Admiral, I want to start with you because you commanded U.S. Southern Command, SOUTHCOM, as it's known. Do you -- and you understand the region very well. Do you think President Trump is right that American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again?
ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: I don't think American dominance has been questioned. We have, as we saw on full display over the last couple of days, an exquisite military that is capable of conducting really extraordinary operations. There's nothing harder than what we did, saving only perhaps a hostage rescue.
[09:50:04]
So there's never been a question in the minds of the region about dominance. What they worry about is how we use that dominance. I think that will have raised concerns throughout much of the region, because they remember previous U.S. incursions into Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba going back 150 years.
So I think the key for the Trump administration going forward here is to do everything they can to downplay the military aspects here and up-gun the political and the economic aspects of how we intend to engage going forward.
BASH: Do they not go hand in hand? I mean, what the president is doing and threatening to send boots back on the ground there is trying to get the economic situation the way America wants it, meaning the oil, but also the elected officials there, assuming eventually they will be elected -- they certainly haven't been -- to be on board with what America wants.
STAVRIDIS: Yes, two points. It's really not just boots on the ground.
You know the admiral's going to say this. I'm worried about those boots at sea.
BASH: Yes.
STAVRIDIS: We have got 15,000, 20,000 sailors and Marines who've been parked off that coast now for months and months. We have got boots in the air flying these airborne missions.
At some point, we're going to have to downsize that presence. And that brings us back to what next. Quickly, I think there really are only three options here. One, you can run the Iraq playbook and put 250,000 troops there. I think that's a throwaway. We're not going to do it.
Option two, as you have been discussing on the show all morning, you can work with the current regime, all the problems there of their previous malbehavior. And, option three, you can get your weight firmly behind the opposition, behind the Maria Machado, the Edmundo Gonzalez. I think that's where this probably lands.
You're probably going to end up with a kind of a combination of option two and option three, work with the folks who are there now, the ones you can stomach, but bring together some kind of a transitional government.
BASH: Right.
STAVRIDIS: I suspect that's the aim.
BASH: Interesting.
Now, Beth, as somebody -- you were deputy national security -- DNI, deputy national security director. You have experience, being in the room with the bin Laden raid. You have a lot of experience with the ups and downs, a lot of downs, with regard to Iraq.
So, given that experience, Beth, talk about -- maybe even talk about what I discussed with Congressman Himes at the end there...
BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes.
BASH: ... how the military plays into the political in Venezuela and how the Trump administration is trying to game it out.
SANNER: Yes, I think that this is a balance, as Representative Himes was talking about and Admiral Stavridis also was talking about these options.
It's balancing legitimacy, which rests with that election you mentioned in July of 2024, when Edmundo Gonzalez backed by Machado won, a 2-1 margin, and it was ruined, right, and dismissed by Maduro, and pragmatism.
And what we're seeing here is like the weight shifting to this kind of pragmatic, how are we going to get this done? How are we going to avoid a chaos of going a 180 and putting all of our eggs in the opposition basket?
BASH: Because you're not hearing them talk about democracy.
SANNER: No, and you're not -- and I think...
BASH: ... which you heard from George W. Bush and Democratic presidents as well.
SANNER: Right.
So, in Iraq, we made the mistake of de-Baathification, which was like denazification. It was like taking everyone who had anything to do with the regime out. That didn't work. And that's what they're trying to avoid.
And if they would just talk about that, I think in one way that would be helpful. But the point is that it's not like Iraq. We did have an election and we do have a legitimate government. And this is where Senator Cotton is also kind of missing the point, that, in Panama, when we went in Panama, the day that we went in, the justice of Panama swore in the duly elected president who had been also dismissed by Noriega.
But he was sworn in that day.
BASH: Yes.
SANNER: And that's exactly what President Trump didn't do. And so threading this needle between the legitimacy of a democratic process and the pragmatism of having to work with the structures of power that run every single economic organization in Venezuela, and it can keep the peace, that's the thread that needs to be drawn.
[09:55:00]
BASH: That's fascinating.
Admiral, if you were still running SOUTHCOM, and the president asked what you think the leaders in China and Russia were perceiving in your region right now, what would your answer be? We have about a minute.
STAVRIDIS: Two things.
Number one, even the highest levels of both those governments would have been unpleasantly surprised at the utter ruthless competence of the United States military to execute this. And point two, they are going to be thinking, hmm, United States reached in and grabbed a leader, and wonder if I should be thinking about that in Kyiv or thinking about that in Taipei.
So I'd be saying to the president, watch that flank, as well as feel the power of the U.S. military. You need to do both of those things in this kind of dangerous moment.
BASH: I'm guessing you agree.
SANNER: I do. And I would keep an eye on Iran, and I think you're going to cover that next, because maybe...
BASH: Yes.
SANNER: ... the regime in Iran is taking another message, and it's time to crack down.
BASH: Thank you both, Admiral, Beth. Appreciate it.
Thank you for spending your Sunday morning with us.
Fareed Zakaria picks it up next.
