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Trump Boasts Perfect Health After WSJ Report on Health Issues; DHS Begins Slashing FEMA's Disaster Response Teams; Maduro Willing to Negotiate With U.S. On Oil, Drug Trafficking; Americans Prioritizing Saving More, Spending Less in 2026. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired January 02, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: -- health. And he was pretty candid at a lot of times. Another thing, you know, he tried to address was there is very heavily -- very noticeable heavy bruising on his hand, on his right hand. You know, we have great photographers at the White House. They capture it. He's been trying to cover it up with heavy makeup. He's been wearing bandages. He'll try to cover his hand from the cameras to try and shield it from the media.

He talked about that, and he actually attributed it to his daily aspirin regimen and saying that's partly why, you know, it's affecting -- I have thin skin because of the aspirin I take. It was very interesting to hear. The White House, I should say, argues it's also from his constant handshaking. But what was interesting as well, CNN ended up talking to someone named Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a professor at the George Washington School of Medicine, but he also was the former Vice President, Dick Cheney's longtime cardiologist.

He said there is no reason for the president, who is 79-years-old, to be taking not just daily aspirin, but to be taking a 325-milligram-a- day dosage of it. So, I think that he said there was more questions than answers actually, from this interview. And I don't think -- I think part of the reason Trump gave this interview is he wants to try to put these questions about his health to bed. That's not happening.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Certainly not for medical professionals. And then the president also talked about how he doesn't sleep much, and he finds some forms of exercise boring.

TREENE: Yeah. So I found that interesting. He was like, walking on a treadmill, I find it boring. I kind of can relate to that.

KEILAR: I can, too. I feel like a lot of people can.

TREENE: I don't like walking on a treadmill either, or running on a treadmill. But that is something, I mean, we've heard it with -- in my discussions with some officials, you know, the only exercise he really gets is golfing, and he does that so sparingly, well, more and more these days.

KEILAR: When you're in a cart --

TREENE: -- when you are at Mar-a-Lago.

KEILAR: Golfing is great if you're walking.

TREENE: Yeah, exactly.

KEILAR: Let's say this is a golfer.

TREENE: Yes.

KEILAR: The walking part is the exercise.

TREENE: Is where you actually get the exercise.

KEILAR: Maybe there's a little mobility, but the actual, like --

TREENE: Right.

KEILAR: -- that sort of like, long distance, that's the walking, which he doesn't norm -- he doesn't normally walk, right?

TREENE: No, he normally drives in a golf cart.

KEILAR: And he doesn't carry a bag.

TREENE: He also doesn't have a great diet. I mean, there was a great quote in there from someone who was traveling with him who said they were shocked to see how much McDonald's he ate in one sitting and how he must do that on a regular basis.

And then there's also, you know, part of the reason there's also been concern is people are noticing, reporters, but I think the American public as well, he's dozing off during some of his White House meetings. Granted, I mean, one of the big ones, if you ever see the images of him falling asleep, is when he's, like, here. He was in a cabinet meeting that went on for three hours or so.

But this is what the president said about that. He denied falling asleep and he said, "Sometimes they'll take a picture of me blinking, and they'll catch me with the blink." Other aides in the story were saying that, you know, he likes -- he was relaxing. He likes to rest his eyes.

I feel like that's such a good line. I like -- I've used that in the past, because I get up so early that when I can't stay out at night with friends, I'm like, I'm just resting my eyes.

KEILAR: I'm just staring.

TREENE: Like I'm not falling asleep.

KEILAR: Staring at the back of my eyelids.

TREENE: Yes. But, I mean, look, there's, of course, questions. He's 79. He was the oldest president to enter office. He was older at the time he became president for the second time than Joe Biden was. And of course, there's going to be questions. But again, it is a very sensitive subject for Trump because he hates any comparisons to his predecessor. He was the one who spent the entirety of the 2024 presidential election trying to draw attention to what he argued was, you know, Joe Biden not being mentally fit or healthy enough to be president. And so, it's a very touchy subject for the president.

KEILAR: He raised so many of those issues, right? Alayna Treene, thank you so much. Very interesting interview. Coming up, the Department of Homeland Security is starting to cut FEMA's disaster response staff. We have CNN's exclusive reporting next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:37:32]

KEILAR: Two days into the New Year, and the Trump administration is slashing staff at FEMA. It appears to be the beginning of a larger effort to cut the agency's disaster response team. On New Year's Eve, FEMA's new acting chief began sending notices, abruptly cutting dozens of core staff at the front of the agency's disaster response and recovery.

Internal emails obtained exclusively by CNN show these workers will let go with almost no warning. CNN Correspondent Gabe Cohen is joining us with this exclusive report. All right, tell us about these cuts, Gabe.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So Brianna, there's still a lot of confusion right now inside FEMA, because this happened so abruptly on New Year's Eve, as these 50 or so workers got these notices. All of them, it's basically everyone at the agency whose employment contracts expire between January 1st and January 4th of this year, all of them told your positions are being terminated and your services are no longer needed.

And part of that confusion is why these four days, seem very arbitrary even to some senior officials that I've spoken with. And the people we're specifically talking about -- these are workers in this large swath of FEMA known as Core. They're considered really the backbone of the agency, oftentimes the first federal boots on the ground during a disaster, and then afterward, to help communities in their recovery from some sort of national emergency. I spoke to a former senior official who said FEMA cannot do disaster response and recovery without these Core employees.

The regional offices are almost entirely Core staff, so the first FEMA people who are usually on site during these disasters, they will not be there if Core is cut. The impact would be that states are on their own. Again, we're not at that point as of now, but that's the concern as people are seeing what appear to be really sort of odd and arbitrary cuts.

KEILAR: So, it sounds kind of like these folks are, they're the hub of the wheel in a way, right? So what happens to the remaining staff? COHEN: Well, and that is the big question here. Look, the Trump administration has made it clear in recent months, their goal is to shift more responsibility for disaster response and recovery onto states. Just last month, we obtained this final draft report from the task force that Trump put together to help him overhaul FEMA.

They outlined all of these recommendations. One of their biggest proposals is cutting FEMA staff in half, but there are a lot of questions about how exactly they can execute that and what it's going to mean for states that really don't have the staffing or the budget in place right now to fill that gap.

[13:40:00]

And the big question right now is that we're talking about January 1st to January 4th. What does this mean for the thousands of employees at FEMA whose contracts are going to expire between January 5th and the rest of the year? These expirations are going to keep happening. We don't have a clear indication yet from DHS as to what the plan is.

They have said in a statement to me that there has been no policy change here. They told me the core program consists of term-limited positions that are designed to fluctuate based on disaster activity, operational need, and available funding. Core appointments have always been subject to end-of-term decisions consistent with that structure, and there has been no change to policy.

Essentially, they're saying, look, these contracts have always expired. If somebody is no longer needed, then they're going to be out the door. But what they didn't address was these bizarre, again, somewhat arbitrary cuts over these four days and what the plan is to shrink the agency in the months ahead because we know the Trump administration is eyeing that. How they're going to execute it, we're still not so sure about.

KEILAR: It's a change, let's be clear, no matter what that statement says. Gabe Cohen, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Coming up on "CNN News Central," following months of boat strikes, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he's ready for talks with the U.S. Why he may be willing to go to the negotiating table, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:45:49]

KEILAR: Venezuela's President, Nicolas Maduro now says he's ready to negotiate with the U.S. as tensions rise between the two countries. In an interview aired on Venezuela's state TV, Maduro proposed talks with U.S. officials to combat drug trafficking and offering access to Venezuela's vast oil supplies.

But that olive branch, if you want to call it that, comes as sources tell CNN that the Maduro regime has detained at least five American citizens in recent months as the Trump administration has intensified military pressure on the country. CNN National Security Analyst and former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Beth Sanner is here with us now. I wonder what you think about this overture from Maduro to negotiate on the issue of drug trafficking, which is the purported issue that the Trump administration is trying to tackle here, but obviously, there are many hints that it's really regime change. What can come of this?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST AND FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, I guess it all depends on what Trump says. I mean, in the past, Maduro has offered, reportedly, to negotiate with President Trump about the oil. That seems to have come up in the late November phone conversation that they had.

So, you know, I think it just depends. Now, maybe, you know, I think that Trump will smell more blood in the water. That's kind of a terrible metaphor to use in this circumstance. I'm sorry about that.

KEILAR: You didn't mean to do it.

SANNER: That's right. I didn't mean to do that.

KEILAR: Reverse.

SANNER: But I think that --

KEILAR: He's going to smell a vulnerability.

SANNER: Yes.

KEILAR: OK.

SANNER: Yes.

KEILAR: So this other thing with Venezuela detaining Americans --

SANNER: Yeah.

KEILAR: -- at least five at this point, according to a U.S. official, and they have kind of varying circumstances, some perhaps involved in drug smuggling. What do you make of that tactic?

SANNER: Well, this is what people who follow this situation in Venezuela called a revolving door policy of political prisoners, and specifically taking foreigners. One of the human rights groups that looks at this issue, you know, has been tracking this for a long time, and there are sometimes 80, 100 foreigners in custody in Venezuela at any one time. Only a fraction of those are Americans.

But look, we've had and negotiated Americans to be released by this regime in 2022 under Biden, in 2023 under Biden. In 2025, Rick Grenell, Trump's Envoy at that time, now Head of the Kennedy Center, went there and negotiated the release of 10. In July, there was another half dozen released in exchange for the Venezuelans that we caught in the United States accused of breaking the law, only a fraction of whom did, sent to El Salvador and that was the exchange.

So it seems to me we're at our six-month period of revolving door.

KEILAR: And we learned in recent days that in December -- earlier in December, the U.S. actually conducted its first strike on land. There was all this talk about, yeah, we might be going in on land, right? We heard that from Trump. Well, it had happened in early December, hitting a port facility in a CIA drone strike.

And in a New Year's Eve interview, Maduro said he might speak about it within a few days and he broadly sought to assure that Venezuela is safe. What do you make of that, that he wasn't publicly talking about it?

SANNER: Well, either he doesn't know about it and hasn't found out the information about it, or he's just using it as part of a negotiating tactic. So now, here we have Americans that are arrested. We have Maduro reaching out and offering to have negotiations on both drugs and oil.

You know, to me, it seems that we have also seen in Venezuela, a drop in the amount of oil being produced by 25 percent because they have nowhere to ship this oil, and they have to put it in storage and they're out of storage. So they're starting to shut down oil wells.

So, Maduro is getting more desperate. And this, to me, is where we're at right now, is he's seeking.

[13:50:00]

KEILAR: In that interview, and it's translated from Spanish, so I'm just quoting it in English. If they, he's referring to the U.S., want Venezuela's oil, Venezuela is ready to accept U.S. investments like those of Chevron, when, where and how they want to make them. Chevron, of course, a major American oil company. It's the only U.S. firm that drills in Venezuela and it pays a percentage of its output to what is called the PDVSA.

That is the state-owned oil company under a sanctions carve-out. According to the U.S. Energy Information Association, that PDVSA is the largest source of revenue for the Venezuelan government. So that's important to note.

SANNER: Yeah.

KEILAR: How does that complicate the U.S. position here?

SANNER: Well, it has been complicating the position of the United States since the beginning here. I mean, Chevron is the only American company left and they have tankers that are literally going back and forth now to Venezuela even during this blockade that we have.

KEILAR: They're allowed?

SANNER: They are allowed, OK. So, PDVSA is how it's pronounced, the state-owned oil company has this deal with Chevron and this idea of giving Chevron a license or preventing Chevron from doing business has been one of the issues that this administration has grappled with. People who are hardliners in the administration on Venezuela and Latin America, like Marco Rubio, I believe, did not want to give Chevron continuing licenses to conduct that business. They really wanted to strangle PDVSA and the Maduro government. So, there is this little leakage that happens. So it's not 100 percent of a blockade. They're still making money. They're still getting some oil.

But the rest of it has really come to a halt. And now, we'll have to see, but it is tempting for President Trump to think that this is a worthwhile endeavor. There is a news report, however, from about a few weeks ago where the administration reached out to American oil companies and said, do you want to invest in Venezuela? And they said, nope, too complicated. So, this is a really complicated situation.

KEILAR: Yeah, it really is. PDVSA, that rolls off the tongue. Beth Sanner, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

SANNER: Thank you.

KEILAR: And the holidays are over. The bills will soon be coming, though. When we come back, how to stay financially fit this year as affordability becomes tougher.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:56:26]

KEILAR: After a rollercoaster year of affordability concerns and inflation, a new survey from Fidelity finds more Americans are prioritizing financial resolutions in 2026 than in past years. 44 percent say they're focused on saving money in the New Year. Paying off debt and spending less are also high on the priority list.

So, how can you take control of your money and actually stick to your financial goals? It's a great time to talk about that with Personal Finance Expert and author of "Money is Not a Math Problem," Jade Warshaw. All right, Jade, first off, here we are. Happy New Year to you.

We're at the beginning of a whole new year of opportunity. So for someone who wants a fresh financial start, where should they begin?

JADE WARSHAW, CO-HOST, "THE RAMSEY SHOW": Yeah, you know, it's so important. We are in a cost of living crisis. So really knowing your numbers is so important. Understanding how much money do I make? What does it cost me every single month to make my household operate? Knowing those numbers is so important.

I speak to millions of Americans on "The Ramsey Show" week after week, and I'm surprised how many people don't know the answer to a question as simple as, how much money do you earn every month? So knowing those numbers is critical. From there, then you can say, OK, what are my goals? Am I trying to pay off debt? Am I trying to save money? And more importantly, why?

Why is this important to me? If you don't have a strong why, you won't do it. I say it all the time. The stronger the why, the stronger the try. And after you have that, now we can start to build a budget. We can start to figure out margin, and then we can actually start to accomplish those goals.

KEILAR: Figure out your motive for doing this and then move forward. I do want to say, this survey says that people are focused on saving over paying off debt. Is that the right move?

WARSHAW: You know, I can understand that. The way the economy is, people feel uncertain. They want to have stockpiles of money. But the truth is, if you have debt, you don't want to start with saving stockpiles of money. You want to start with just having $1,000 saved.

The average American, 60 percent of Americans, could not cover a $1,000 emergency with cash. So that tells us just having $1,000 saved between you and life, that's a win. So start there. After you have the $1,000, if you have debt, now let's work on paying off the consumer debt. Once you've paid off your consumer debt, now we can start to save that $1,000 up to three to six months of expenses.

So, there's got to be a method to the way that we're doing this so we stay motivated and we're actually able to accomplish the goals.

KEILAR: OK. And so, the biggest mistake that you see when people are trying to reach their money goals, what is it?

WARSHAW: I think they try to do too much at once. They go, OK, money, what do I need to do? I need to save for a rainy day. Then I need my investment funds over here. And then I need to be generous. And they're trying to do so much, it gets overwhelming. And they end up feeling frustrated, which is what I talk about in my book. And they end up stopping because they're doing all this effort and they're not seeing enough progress from that effort.

But if you can focus on one thing at a time, nail it, have laser focus, you can create momentum. And for a lot of us, let's just be frank, for a lot of us, the problem is debt. So if in 2026, if we can say I am not going to borrow any more money, I'm going to turn the faucet off on the debt, that is a huge step for a lot of us. I'm not going to borrow anymore --

KEILAR: Yeah.

WARSHAW: -- because you can't solve a problem while simultaneously creating it. So let's stop borrowing money. And then from there, we can start to say, OK, let's get that $1,000 saved. And then after I've done that, now I can start to look over at my debt. It's just doing one thing at a time. Focused intensity over time creates momentum.

KEILAR: Yeah. So easy to put something on the credit card, maybe not this year. Maybe that's the resolution. Jade Warshaw, thank you so much for being with us.

WARSHAW: Thank you so much for having me.