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U.S. In "Active Pursuit" Of Third Oil Tanker Linked To Venezuela; Trump Admin Removes Dozens Of Career Diplomats From Overseas Posts; Record Number Of Travelers Heading Out This Holiday Season; Growing Outrage Over Release Of Heavily Redacted Epstein Docs. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 22, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Finland have increased defense spending and it's carrying out large-scale military training.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YEUNG (on camera): Finland seems like very optimistic, but also very prepared country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's smart to prepare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YEUNG (voice over): As Finland preps for the worst, Kujala (ph) is hoping for the best.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KUJALA: Hopefully, Mr. Trump, if you hear me, do everything to try to stop this war. If we cannot fix this wolf situation quickly, some part of the area is going to be without reindeers.

YEUNG (on camera): And what would that mean to you?

KUJALA: Like somebody -- somebody took my life away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YEUNG: Isobel Yeung, CNN in Northern Finland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: And a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

Active Pursuit: The U.S. says it's trying to intercept a third sanctioned oil tanker near Venezuela after the ship refused to let the Coast Guard on board and sailed away.

Plus, Jeffrey Epstein survivors are slamming what they call extreme redactions with no explanation after the Justice Department released files related to the late convicted child sex offender. And now, some lawmakers are warning Attorney General Pam Bondi could be held in contempt of Congress.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: And just hours before its scheduled airtime, CBS News abruptly pulls a segment from 60 MINUTES about the Trump administration's deportations to a notorious mega prison in El Salvador. Now, the correspondent behind that report is calling the move corporate censorship.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: We're standing by to see President Trump next hour as the U.S. military is chasing down a third oil tanker right now that it tried to seize off the coast of Venezuela. Over the weekend, the Trump administration took control of that second vessel in less than two weeks. That is the video that you're seeing here now.

HILL: An official tells CNN, though, this third ship actually refused to stop when the Coast Guard tried to board it. And it says, U.S. forces are now -- they're said to be in active pursuit of that vessel, a move that at least one Republican senator is calling a, quote, "prelude to war." CNN's Kevin Liptak is near Mar-a-Lago, where the President is set to soon speak as these tensions escalate.

So, where do things stand at this hour, Kevin?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and we'll hear the President. He's supposed to be talking about shipbuilding with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy. But obviously, the backdrop to that announcement is going to be this dramatic escalation in the international waters off the coast of Venezuela as the U.S. works to interdict these oil tankers.

Now, when it comes to that ship that the U.S. is pursuing, it's called the Bella 1. It was covered by U.S. sanctions. And it was heading towards Venezuela. It was empty to pick up a cargo of Venezuelan oil. When the U.S. tried to board the ship, the crew there essentially refused to submit, turned the Bella 1 around, and began fleeing into the Caribbean Sea, leading to what one U.S. official told me was an active pursuit.

Now, that pursuit seems to still be underway. But one official I was talking to made the point, the fact that the ship is now heading away from Venezuela and not loading up on oil in a port there is itself a success as President Trump works to cut off Venezuela's main economic lifeline, its oil industry. It's really what has allowed the President there, Nicolas Maduro, to retain his grip on power.

And you see this massive military buildup in the region, as much as 25 percent of the entire naval fleet, which we'll hear the President talk about later today, is now in that region as the President really tries to tighten the grip on Maduro.

Now, this is the third ship that the U.S. has attempted to interdict. They were more successful on Saturday when the Coast Guard boarded the tanker called the Centuries. We saw Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, tweet out a pretty dramatic photo of a Coast Guard helicopter hovering over the deck and personnel boarding that ship.

Of course, we know the Skipper. That was the ship that the U.S. seized earlier this month. That is now at -- anchor off the coast of Texas as the U.S. works out whether it is able to seize its oil.

The big question is what happens next, where all of this is leading. You've heard Maduro step up his rhetoric. He has called all of this psychological terrorism and he's ordered his Navy to begin escorting oil tankers out of Venezuela, which of course leads to the prospect that there could be some sort of armed conflicts down the line.

President Trump has said that he will order land strikes in Venezuela soon. He's been saying that for some weeks now, but so far has stopped short of giving the final order, guys.

KEILAR: All right, Kevin, thank you so much for that.

[15:05:00]

We're joined now by James Story. He is the former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela under Presidents Trump and Biden.

Ambassador, thanks for being with us. How are you viewing these actions by the U.S. against these oil tankers and how -- how the U.S. is approaching this?

JAMES STORY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO VENEZUELA UNDER TRUMP & BIDEN: Well, certainly it's opening up a new economic front to constrict the amount of money that Maduro has to give out to those that are keeping him in power. That's pretty clear. I think in the case of the Skipper, that was a righteous judicial action based on a stateless vessel playing the Guyanese flag when it wasn't registered in Guyana, plus it was sanctioned.

My questions now are about the Centuries, whether or not that's a -- that's a vessel that the Panamanians are going to leave on the registry, is it going to become a stateless vessel? To what extent was it not sanctioned or not sanctioned? I believe this indicates a new tack from the administration, something much broader than merely going after sanctioned vessels.

KEILAR: Yes, explain that.

STORY: Well, you have a -- you have a vessel that is stateless. So, according to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, vessels that are involved in piracy or involved in illegal broadcast or slavery or -- or stateless are fair game. So, having a vessel like the Skipper, which was stateless, was fair game for international interdiction. It also happened to be transporting a sanctioned product on a sanctioned vessel.

The Centuries is a little more interesting to me because from what I've understood, it was not -- it was flying a Panamanian flag and was on the Panama's registry.

Now, Panama hasn't come out and supported this ship. I wonder whether or not they're going to delist the ship in the short-term, making it stateless, but that would be kind of fixing the facts after the fact. But this was not a sanctioned vessel in and of itself from what news reports have had. So, this -- this would indicate, if that's true, the more broadening of the approach in -- in going after oil -- oil assets for -- of Nicolas Maduro.

KEILAR: So, the U.S. military involvement in the region had really been going after these alleged drug boats. And now, you're seeing this action with the tankers. You've seen the President talk so many times now about, you know, the U.S. taking an approach by land here. Looking at how the U.S. military is now approaching these tankers, is that a signal to you that this is indeed about regime change? How are you viewing it?

STORY: From the very beginning, I believe this to be about regime change. I -- I never thought that having this many large assets of the U.S. Navy in the Caribbean was ever going to be about drug trafficking or stopping drug trafficking. This is about a recognition that Maduro lost the election last year and refused to cede power. The opposition overwhelmingly won that election. It's about stability in the region. It's about Maduro and his corrupt criminal enterprise being in bed with our strategic competitors. There are lots of issues going on here.

I do think it's about restoration of democratic order in Venezuela over all other issues.

KEILAR: So, if there is regime change, if Maduro goes, then what? And what are the possibilities for unforeseen problems with that? Is the opposition capable of leading the country? How do you see it?

STORY: Well, this is going to have to be an all-hands-on-deck situation, of course. You -- you have somebody who's been elected, Edmundo Gonzalez, in the election in July of last year. You know, 70 percent of the people came out to vote Maduro out of power. But the real issue here is you've had the deinstitutionalization of the country over 25 years. So, who can you trust?

And this is a country that is riddled with illegal armed groups and foreign terrorist organizations such as the FARC and the ELN, Hezbollah, and others. So, you're going to need to have the armed forces of Venezuela also provide stability and security during a transition. Big question for me is, who do you trust in that military now? And that's something that the Venezuelan people are going to have to make that decision.

Transitional justice will be an issue. And then, certainly providing for the immediate needs of a population that has not had enough to eat, has had enough -- had enough electricity, has really been beggared across the board economically. How do we do that reconstruction very quickly? And we're going to have to have a significant investment to make sure that this -- this works.

KEILAR: And I also want to ask you about something we're also learning about today, which is that the Trump administration is removing at least two dozen senior diplomats from their post. This is what sources are telling us. These were folks who were appointed to ambassadorships around the world during the Biden administration, but they're career diplomats. So, they're not political appointees. They have served for years in the foreign service under presidents of both parties.

You spanned both the first Trump and the Biden administrations as ambassador to Venezuela. How are you seeing this? Have you ever seen anything like it?

STORY: Well, it's -- it's -- it's novel. I'll say that.

[15:10:02]

All of us that serve as ambassadors serve as the president's direct representative abroad. We serve at the pleasure of the president. We actually, all of us, when there's a change of administration, we put forward a letter stating that we're ready to leave, right? We go ahead and resign.

Generally speaking, those are not accepted. What's interesting here is it's been nearly a year since the President took over, and to have this kind of wholesale release of ambassadors is really something that's novel. It's new. I haven't seen it before. And you're talking about really good people who've worked across administrations.

We -- we take great pride in following the direction of the president. Of course, we work for the executive in being very bipartisan, nonpolitical in our roles. And I could name for you a dozen people right now I know who were just told to go back to Washington who are outstanding diplomats and have been representing the American people extraordinarily well, regardless of the political party of the president in power.

KEILAR: Ambassador James Story, thank you so much. Obviously, a lot to talk about. We appreciate it.

STORY: Thank you very much.

KEILAR: Still to come, it's expected to be the busiest holiday travel season ever, and now coast-to-coast storms could make it rather messy. So, we'll talk about where you might be seeing delays.

Plus, for the first time in decades, bourbon maker Jim Beam is about to pause production at its main distillery. What that means for the iconic brand.

And then later, a college basketball coach loses his cool, shucks a water bottle into the crowd, hits a kid. The punishment he's now facing. We'll have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[15:15:58]

HILL: In case you weren't aware of the holiday travel rush, it is fully on. And this could mean that you're facing record-breaking crowds, so many friends wherever you go. AAA projecting more than 122 million Americans are set to travel over this 13-day holiday period.

KEILAR: Love friends, except for like this. And gas prices are cheaper than last year. Catching a flight is not. A round-trip domestic flight costs about $900.

HILL: Wow.

KEILAR: CNN's Aviation Correspondent, Pete Muntean, with us now from Reagan National Airport.

That's a lot of money, Pete. How are lines looking there?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It is a lot of money. You know, this is the baggage drop-off point for American Airlines here at Terminal 2. You can see the lines have picked up a little bit now that we are fully ensconced in the evening rush now. So many people trying to get out of work, and to the airport, and to grandmas, and grandpas and the in-laws. Really a big time for travel.

TSA says 2.8 million people screened at airports on Friday, on Saturday and on Sunday. Monday is still a big day, though we're not going to break any records. I want you to look at the calendar here because TSA says the big days are still ahead. As so many people come home after the holiday, also intersecting with people leaving for New Year's, you'll see some pretty big numbers on Sunday the 28th. So, we are just at the start of what is a huge holiday travel rush.

And what happens is this is not a condensed holiday like Thanksgiving. So many of the numbers really sort of blend into one another because it's big day after big day. I want you to listen now to travelers who tell me that really things are going pretty smooth and they're taking it all on stride. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DREW GAGNON, BALTIMORE: It was pretty easy. It was easy. All things -- yes, all things considered. I mean, pretty fast, pretty easy.

MUNTEAN (off camera): No one ever says that.

GAGNON: I know.

MILDRED JONES COLLINS, MEMPHIS: Oh, I think everybody is in a joyful spirit and traveling is going smoothly. They're really doing the rearrangements to make sure everything transpired very smoothly. So, I think it went well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Here's the departures board here at Reagan National Airport. I'm counting five, six, seven delays out of about a hundred flights on these four screens. So, things getting a little worse, although the weather here on the East Coast has been mostly pretty good. And the FAA has been warning of delays potentially at the New York area airports. Also, we've seen ground stops earlier today in San Francisco and

Orange County because of low clouds and bad weather on the West Coast. So, we're not totally out of the woods yet. The good news is just check FlightAware, cancellations just barely in the triple digits. We're seeing about a hundred flight cancellations nationwide so far today.

HILL: I feel like that -- that feels like a win to me.

KEILAR: Right.

HILL: Barely anything?

KEILAR: For sure.

HILL: Yes.

KEILAR: Amazing.

MUNTEAN: Yes. Take it where you can get it.

HILL: It's probably your -- it's probably your good energy, Pete.

KEILAR: Yes, normally we go to Pete.

MUNTEAN: Thanks.

KEILAR: He's like, look at everything on the board. It's a nightmare. He's like, oh, look, it's kind of a dream.

Pete Muntean, thank you so much. Live for us at Reagan Airport.

And still to come, a group of Jeffrey Epstein survivors are accusing the Justice Department of violating the law after its partial and heavily redacted release of files. We're talking pages of just total black redactions related to the convicted child sex offender. One survivor calling it the opposite of transparency.

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[15:23:26]

KEILAR: A new statement in from former President Clinton's spokesperson in response to the newly released Jeffrey Epstein files that reads in part, quote, "What the Department of Justice has released so far, and the manner in which it did so makes one thing clear: Someone or something is being protected. We do not know whom, what or why, but we know this: We need no such protection." And he goes on to call on the DOJ to release any remaining materials related to Clinton.

HILL: More than a dozen Epstein survivors slamming the Justice Department today for releasing just a fraction of the Epstein files by Friday's congressionally mandated deadline. The survivors expressing a list of concerns in that new statement, including their objections to the, quote, "abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation." You see some of them here. They also note that victims' identities were left unredacted, which in their words caused real and immediate harm, pointing out financial documents were absent and also that they found it, quote, difficult or impossible to search for information about their own cases.

KEILAR: Adding to all of that, more than a dozen files released by the DOJ on Friday were no longer available Saturday afternoon, including this one that showed a photo of President Trump in a desk drawer, among several other photographs. The Justice Department says it was removed while it reviewed rather -- whether more was needed to do -- to be done -- to -- to be redacted to protect the victims and that it has been restored to the online database. President Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing or charged with any crimes in connection with Epstein.

We're joined by Adam Horowitz. He represents eight Epstein accusers who had civil lawsuits over claims of sexual abuse.

[15:25:05]

Adam, what's your initial reaction to the documents that we've seen so far?

ADAM HOROWITZ, ATTORNEY FOR EPSTEIN ACCUSERS: Yes. So, from the perspective of many victims, the -- the rollout of the Epstein file has been an absolute disaster. And from my perspective, I think we have three problems. First of all, we have the late delivery of the documents. Second, we have the over redaction in certain areas. And -- and finally, we have the under-redaction in other areas.

So, we have victims' names being exposed. We have documents that should have been produced not being produced. And then, we have a late delivery. We still don't have the complete file.

HILL: I'm -- I'm also curious, and we've been asking a number of survivors this question, about any sort of communication from the Justice Department ahead of this release. There was, of course, that letter to Congress. So far, everyone I think that we have spoken with has said they didn't know at all what was going to be released. Is that consistent for your clients?

HOROWITZ: Yes, so on -- on Thursday, the day before the document production was -- was due, I received a letter from the Department of Justice alerting me that the document production would be forthcoming and asking me for the first time for the names of my clients who wished to have their identities redacted. We -- we promptly replied. But it's startling that they didn't already have these names. These are victims who have come forward to law enforcement in some cases decades ago, many of them at least 15 years ago.

And so, their names were known to -- to the Department of Justice for a long time. So, it was a bit shocking, too, that they were first asking for the first time for the names of our clients.

KEILAR: And in a court filing, DOJ says they erred on the side of over redaction by blacking out all women who appeared in photos with Jeffrey Epstein. In a letter to Congress on Friday, Todd Blanche, who is the deputy attorney general and also formerly President Trump's personal attorney, said that names, faces and other identifying information, more than 1,200 people are redacted. Does what Blanche and DOJ are saying comport with the experience of you and your clients as you're going through the files?

HOROWITZ: Not at all. Not at all. And -- and the concern, of course, isn't the -- the victim names being redacted. We support that where the victims want their names redacted. It's the other materials that are being redacted. It's the grand jury testimony that was completely redacted. It's the indictments that was to be presented to Jeffrey Epstein on 30 counts before the -- the famous non-prosecution agreement that was entered into that hasn't been produced.

So, victim names, of course, they should be redacted. It's the other materials that were over-redacted that we have a concern about. Transparency matters, but partial -- partial disclosure without accountability only re-traumatizes victims.

HILL: We should point out that the AG in his letter to Congress said that this shows their transparency. I'm paraphrasing here, but it did point out what they see as transparency multiple times in that letter. We were also told in that letter to Congress that the extensive review by DOJ of these Epstein-related materials, quote, "did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties." What do you make of that assessment?

HOROWITZ: Well, first of all, we don't have the complete filing yet, right? The bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act required the Department of Justice to complete document production by -- by Friday, December 19th in a searchable and -- and downloadable format. And that didn't happen. We still don't have the complete files. The law also directed clear and specific reporting to Congress about what was released, what was withheld, and why. And that didn't happen.

HILL: Adam Horowitz, we really appreciate your time. And we'll continue to stay in touch to see if you learn more as well. Thank you.

HOROWITZ: Thank you.

HILL: Still ahead here, we are learning more this afternoon about the internal backlash at CBS News following a 60 MINUTES story on President Trump's deportations to that mega prison in El Salvador after that story was pulled just hours before air last night. Those new details ahead.

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