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U.S. Pursuing Another Oil Tanker; Vance Appears to be Frontrunner; Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) is Interviewed about the MAGA Infighting; Paramount Makes New Offer; Record Setting Holiday Travel This Year. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 22, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Clearly thinks that the stakes here are massive. He put up on Truth Social yesterday a post in which he said that this case presents "literally, life or death for country."

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN, NEW York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, U.S. forces chasing a tanker on the high seas. What happened when they tried to board the ship?

And just moments ago, brand new CNN polling out on who Republicans want to see run for president besides just that guy.

And a record number of Americans expected to travel for the holidays. How much should that stress you out?

I'm John Berman, with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, a dramatic chase through international waters. Right now, U.S. forces are in active pursuit of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. The ship was sailing towards Venezuela to pick up oil. It is under U.S. sanctions for alleged links to Iranian oil. A U.S. official says that when the Coast Guard attempted to board the ship, it refused to stop. This is the latest escalation in President Trump's attempt at a total and complete blockade on sanctioned vessels in and out of Venezuela. U.S. forces have already seized two other ships this month. It's drawing some critique, even among some Republicans who fear this could lead to war.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is live in West Palm Beach for us this morning.

What are you learning this morning about the scenario that we now see is happening in the high seas?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, it's been an extraordinarily dramatic weekend there in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela, including this episode which began yesterday when the Coast Guard tried to interdict this massive oil tanker, it's called the Bella One, carrying what the U.S. -- or going towards Venezuela, hoping to pick up Venezuelan oil. The U.S. official saying that it was under sanctions, that it was flying a false flag, that it's part of what the U.S. views as this shadow fleet that transports sanctioned oil across the world, but that it sort of refused to submit when the U.S. tried to board it, turned around and essentially fled into the international waters off the coast of Venezuela, leading to what one U.S. official described to me as a, quote, "active pursuit."

Now, this was the second ship that the U.S. attempted to board just this weekend. A day earlier, the U.S. was successful in boarding the ship called The Centuries, and the Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, actually tweeted out video of a Coast Guard helicopter hovering over the deck as Coast Guard personnel intercepted that vessel.

Of course, earlier this month, the U.S. also seized the ship called Skipper, which is now at anchor off the coast of Texas. All of this meant to cut off Venezuela's top economic lifeline, its oil industry. Really what has allowed the president there, Nicolas Maduro, to retain his grip on power.

But it has all led to questions from Democrats certainly but even some Republicans who wonder where all of this is headed.

Listen to Rand Paul, the Republican from Kentucky, speaking yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): I consider it a provocation and a prelude to war. And I hope we don't go to war with Venezuela.

Look, at any point in time, there are 20, 30 governments around the world that we don't like that are either socialist or communist or have human rights violations. We could really, literally go through a couple dozen. But it isn't the job of the American soldier to be the policeman of the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So, amid all of this, you also see Maduro stepping up his rhetoric. He has described these interceptions of the oil tankers as psychological terrorism. And he's ordered his navy to escort them as they're leaving Venezuela, which, of course, ups the risk of a potential armed confrontation.

Now, the question is what happens next. President Trump has been saying for some weeks now that he will order strikes on land in Venezuela, but he's stopped short of giving the final command.

We will hear from President Trump. He's down here in Mar-a-Lago. He'll be speaking alongside the defense secretary, the secretary of the Navy, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. We don't know precisely what that announcement is about, but it seems certain that we could hear from him about what his objectives are in Venezuela.

Sara. SIDNER: All right. Our thanks to Kevin Liptak there for us.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, listening closely in on what they're going to have to say about that today for sure.

[09:05:02]

But we're also, as you well know, about to welcome in 2026. But new CNN polling shows that half of Americans are already looking towards 2028, or kind of possibly sort of maybe. When it comes to possible presidential hopefuls, there's new polling that shows that among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, no one specific is currently topping the field. And 22 percent of voters though in that group would like to see Vice President J.D. Vance run for president. Vance got the endorsement last week from the widow of Charlie Kirk, now the new CEO of Turning Point USA. And over the weekend, want to play for you what people at the Turning Point conference told CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If we want to move America forward and to be a Christian nation again, we have to keep the same driving force going forward. And right now, President Trump's successor is Vice President J.D. Vance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he says things to try and appeal to certain people. And there's a certain level of fakeness there to J.D. Vance. But with that being said, it is totally possible for J.D. Vance to say the right things. And, you know, in that case, I would support him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Jeff Zeleny has much more on this new polling and what you can see inside of it.

Jeff, what are you seeing?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Kate, good morning.

Yes, it's too early to talk about 2028. But what these numbers do is effectively set a benchmark for the conversation that will be happening in the year ahead. And, of course, no surprise, perhaps, that Vice President J.D. Vance is leading the way among Republicans. But boy, it is certainly not a huge number, as you can see right there.

And he was in Phoenix on Sunday over the weekend speaking at that Turning Point USA conference. Of course, he has many challenges trying to keep this base united, but he also offered a pathway for his future and the future of the party.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests. He says, make America great again because every American is invited.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, self-defeating purity tests, of course, giving a window in there to some really big fissures inside the Republican Party about what direction they would like to go.

But look, overall when we asked Republicans and Democrats, who is sort of thinking more about the presidential campaign to come, some pretty interesting numbers there, the differences between the parties. Let's take a look at that. A lot, some, a little, not at all. Not surprising that Democrats are thinking a bit more, of course, about the presidential campaign to come because they are not thrilled or happy at all by what they've seen over the last year.

So again, Kate, just a benchmark here of what people are thinking and feeling as the -- this year ends in the midterm elections begin, which, of course, that will usher in the next presidential election.

BOLDUAN: So, lay the benchmark then for the Democrats. Who -- what's -- what are they thinking? What -- where is the thinking in terms of the choice right now when you look at '28?

ZELENY: Well, Kate, that is going to be a wide open field. I was thinking back to 2020. I think at one point there were 27 candidates for president. Of course, most did not get even to the starting line. Of course, even to the finish line. But look at these numbers for Democrats. Perhaps not surprising, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, is the top of this. But look, only 11 percent. Vice President Kamala Harris, former Vice President Kamala Harris, is at five percent. We have no idea if she is going to run. Of course, he is likely to run. And, look, they're at number four -- or at four percent. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, of course, a newer voice in the Democratic Party, if you will. Pete Buttigieg there at two percent. And on and on.

But look, six in ten of Democrats, 64 percent say they do not know. Of course there will be a wide field. There will -- the outcome of the midterm elections, if Democrats should win the House or perhaps even the Senate will certainly indicate the direction of the party. But it is a wide-open field. The most wide-open that we can recall since 1988, where there is no frontrunner, no big frontrunner on the Democratic side.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes. I mean on both sides. No one specific is topping the field at this moment.

Good to see you, Jeff. Thank you so much. ZELENY: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: They sort of touched on it right there, but this morning the conservative movement at a crossroads. And it's creating some big divisions between some of the right's biggest stars after conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro ripped into fellow right-wing influencer Candace Owens for spreading conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's assassination at the Turning Point USA conference. Owens responded in a video in which she held up a copy of a truly infamous anti-Semitic book. Owens is an influential voice on the right with her videos regularly getting millions of views.

With us now is Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California.

And, Congressman, I know you are not in the middle of this fight at Turning Point USA, where the movement there is being split in two.

[09:10:02]

But when you see someone who is such a prominent figure, like Candace Owens, holding up the book "The Talmudic Jew," which was written by August Rohling in the late 19th century, a truly horrific anti-Semitic period, and a book that in many ways is like in the hall of fame of anti-Semitic works, what just goes through your head when you see something like that out there in public?

REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D-CA): It's outrageous that someone basically positioning themselves on the pro-Hitler pro-Nazi side would have a main -- would be part of the Republican mainstream, would be treated as part of one of our two great political parties. It is time for the Republican Party to draw the line and to say that those with Nazi views are simply not welcome.

BERMAN: What Vice President Vance said on the stage, though, was, he wasn't going to support self-defeating purity tests. He didn't take a stand while he was speaking there. He did a separate blog interview where he spoke out against anti-Semitism. But on that stage he chose not to. What does that tell you?

SHERMAN: Every party wants to be a big tent, but every party needs boundaries. And the fact that J.D. Vance would not say that extreme anti-Semitism, consistent with the views of the Nazi party, is not welcome in his political party tells us all you need to know about J.D. Vance.

BERMAN: Congressman, you are on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Right now there is a chase on the high seas. The U.S. Coast Guard chasing a sanctioned tanker off the Venezuelan coast. If they seize it, this would be the third such tanker the United States has seized here.

What is your view of this? This is a sanctioned vessel. And in theory, there are -- there's legal justification to go after it. What's your view? SHERMAN: Well, there may be legal justification to go after this one

tanker, but this started as if we were focused on drugs. And we quickly learned that that was just a ruse. Because while Trump has murdered the mules, he has liberated the kingpins, including Juan Hernandez, who was serving 45 years in prison for importing I think it's 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.

So, we saw this as if it was drugs. Now it appears to be an attempt to either economically strangle Cuba, Venezuela or both. And usually that doesn't turn out well.

BERMAN: We're expecting to hear from the president at 4:30 today, along with the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, and the secretary of Navy. Do you have any sense what they might announce or where this is headed? What are your concerns?

SHERMAN: My concern would be that we're going to turn Venezuela into another American military involvement or into a failed state. We'd all like to see the end of Maduro. But I'm not sure that Trump has a logical plan to get there that doesn't involve very substantial risks.

BERMAN: Congressman, the Congress passed a law which the president -- passed a bill which the president signed into law to release all of the so-called Epstein files by midnight on Friday. That's not exactly what has happened here. The administration has released some. Some of it was heavily redacted. This has led your fellow Democrat, Ro Khanna, and Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, to suggest that maybe some kind of penalty should be placed on the attorney general, Pam Bondi, if more is not released more quickly.

Is this something you would support?

SHERMAN: Congress reconvenes I believe it's on January 6th. And if by then we don't have all the Epstein files with the appropriate redactions, it's time for Congress to take action. We passed a law. They missed the deadline. Because of the holiday season they're getting, in effect, many additional weeks. We want to see all the files with the appropriate redactions.

And it's really bad politics for the Trump administration to be so slow. Every day that goes by that we're talking about Epstein is not a good day for Trump.

BERMAN: Congressman Brad Sherman, have a wonderful New Year. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: Speaking of which, still ahead, the DOJ preparing to release more documents related to the Epstein investigation. But the slow drip of files is leading to accusations of cover-up. And the redactions that you're seeing there, page after page blacked out, aren't helping.

Plus, a body camera captures the moment a shoplifting suspect pulls a gun on a police officer.

[09:15:00]

And the NFL investigating what happened here between Steelers wide receiver DK Metcalf and a Lions fan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Breaking this morning, Paramount has upped the ante in its bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, with the father of Paramount's CEO personally guaranteeing billions to finance the deal.

Joining me now is CNN's chief media analyst, Brian Stelter.

Of course we have a reason to pay close attention to this as our parent company.

[09:20:01]

What's the latest? What are you learning?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: The lawyers, the bankers, the executives, they're all working into the holiday season on this deal as this hostile takeover bid for WBD moves forward. The question on the table, who's going to own HBO? Who's going to own the Warner Brothers movie studio? Who's going to own CNN into the future? Whatever happens, it's going to take a while, at least a year, for the regulatory review process. But right now, Netflix's deal to buy Warner Brothers and HBO continues to be challenged by Paramount. Paramount trying to take over all of WBD, including CNN.

And the big development in the last hour is that Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, who has been financing a part of this takeover bid, he is now coming out and saying he will personally guarantee the tens of billions of dollars that is needed to bankroll and backstop this transaction. That has been a big question mark in recent days with the WBD board questioning why Ellison wasn't putting up more of his vast wealth personally in order to guarantee the deal. Much of Paramount's financing for this takeover, this hostile takeover bid, is coming from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. And there have been concerns raised, including by U.S. lawmakers, about the middle eastern financing.

So, here's Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in the world, also importantly an ally of President Trump, now coming in saying he will personally guarantee and backstop the deal. However, Paramount not raising the price it is offering. It is staying at $30 per share. WBD stock moving up in premarket trading as investors react to this news. And that's all we know at the moment, Sara.

SIDNER: Has there been any response from our parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery?

STELTER: Well, let me look over at my phone again and see. No, nothing yet from WBD. I'm told there probably will be a response later in the day. But WBD is moving forward with the Netflix deal. This signed paperwork that was announced earlier in the month. In fact, last week the co-CEOs of Netflix visited the Warner Brothers movie studio lot in Burbank, took a tour. They reiterated their commitment to releasing movies in theaters and investing in Hollywood production.

So, a very tug of war. Corporate tug of war here. Kind of something out of HBO's "Succession" between Netflix and Paramount vying for control of WBD. The important detail for CNN viewers is that Paramount's trying to buy the entire company, which would include CNN. So, this movie or this drama, whatever you want to call it, it's going to continue well into the new year.

SIDNER: There's also this large controversy that's happening over at "60 Minutes" where CBS spiked a story that was promoted and that was expected to air.

STELTER: Yes.

SIDNER: And then, within hours of its airing, was taken down to be revised or looked at. What do you know about this?

STELTER: Incredibly unusual situation to have the "60 Minutes" broadcast suddenly shelved. This was a story weeks in the making about the notorious prison in El Salvador, where the Trump administration has been sending deportees. Some of these detainees have described torturous conditions there.

Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi interviewed some of those deportees for a segment that was produced, it was ready to go, it was fact checked, it was legally vetted. But then over the weekend, editor in chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss, decided to hold the story. Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent of the piece, calls this "corporate censorship" and a "betrayal" of the people she interviewed.

A few minutes ago, though, Bari Weiss spoke to the CBS newsroom. She said the story, while powerful, it prevents powerful testimony. She said it did not advance the ball. She said to run a story on this subject, we need to do more. This is "60 Minutes." She said, it's important to get the principals on the record and on camera. So, in other words she's saying, she needs to hear from the Trump administration. She needs an interview with someone who's involved in this deportation process. And that's not what Alfonsi had.

Sharyn Alfonsi's reaction is to say, hey, if you insist on having the administration comment, that's like giving the administration a kill switch so that they can decide -- so the administration essentially can shut down reporting if they choose not to comment or engage.

Anyway, this is going to go on for a while I think. A real internal battle inside CBS News, with some staffers even threatening to quit over this story being shelved.

SIDNER: Wow. Brian Stelter, those are some really interesting developments. Thank you so much for your reporting for us this morning.

STELTER: Thanks.

SIDNER: Do appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, a deadly weather system bearing down. Rain, flooding and now the threat of heavy snow. What will it mean for your Christmas travel?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:34]

BERMAN: This morning, word that holiday travel is set to break records. AAA expects more than 122 million Americans will travel for Christmas and New Years.

CNN's Pete Muntean watching them all pass by this morning at Washington's Reagan National Airport.

How does it look right now, Pete?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's looking OK, John, and the mood is pretty good. No major strife here at the airport so far.

We have to talk about driving first, though, because the window for driving, the best time, is closing pretty quickly according to AAA. The best time to drive at least local time on the East Coast, 10:00 a.m. That's when things start to get worse. Between 1:00 and 7:00 p.m., according to AAA.

And I want you to listen now to AAA's Alex Diaz. She says really a confluence of things on the holidays, especially at this point in the week because the holiday itself falls on Thursday. A lot of people will still be intermixing holiday traffic with weekday commuters. A lot of people still going to work.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX DIAZ, AAA SPOKESPERSON: The afternoon, early evening hours are the most congested. It makes sense, right? Most people either are leaving later, maybe they're leaving school or work, or they're heading out shopping, going out to meet somebody. Those afternoon, evening hours are the worst.

Early mornings are the best. Those are the times that you're going to have the lighter traffic. Also, you don't have the buildup and more opportunities for there to be crashes or construction later in the day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:30:01]

MUNTEAN: AAA says the number of people driving up about two percent over this holiday season compared to this time last year, due in part because the average.