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Trump Levels Threats at Other Countries; Early Polls on Maduro and Venezuela; Trump Demands Total Access to Venezuela's Oil; Dan Harris is Interviewed about New Year's Resolutions. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired January 05, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:32:22]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we are standing by for news out of a federal courthouse in New York City. The now ousted former leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, are there now, about to face a federal judge for the first time on drug and weapons charges.

This dramatic chain of events triggered by the military operation that President Trump launched in Caracas this weekend to capture them. And in the aftermath, Donald Trump continues to declare and state that the United States is now in charge of Venezuela. He's also leveling even more threats after this. Colombia, Mexico, Greenland again.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.

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BOLDUAN: I spoke earlier in the show with independent Senator Angus King about, well, all of this.

Listen to this.

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SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): He's basically saying, we have the authority to do whatever we want in our neighborhood, quote, unquote. He's already talking about Greenland, talking about now in Venezuela, talking about Colombia. Well, what does that say to Putin about eastern Europe, about the Baltics, about Ukraine, about Poland? And what does it say to Xi Jinping about Taiwan? Because basically we're saying, a great power can do what they want in their neighborhood, and we're not going to worry too much about what the other great powers do.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: Joining us now for more perspective on that, CNN's senior military analyst, Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander.

It's good to see you, as always.

Help with that broader view of the impact of this military intervention that Senator King was getting out there, the impact of what happens -- what's happened in Venezuela on Russia, China, even Iran.

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: Kate, I'm Greek American, so I'm required to get some Greek history in every time. Thucydides Peloponnesian wars, he said, the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must. I fear we are headed into that kind of world. I think Senator King lays out the dangers here.

And we're very focused, appropriately in the moment, on what's happening just to the south of us in Venezuela. And Maduro is going to go to court. All that is important.

I think the larger question here is, exactly as the senator categorizes it, how does this land with Russia? The obvious thing to say is, well, Putin will be even more emboldened in attempts to take over Ukraine.

OK, how about central Asia? Will he push on Kazakhstan, an oil rich, vast country, former Soviet Republic, or go to the Pacific?

[09:35:07]

Senator King says appropriately, Taiwan. I'd say the big land grab there by China is the entire South China Sea, which they claim as territorial waters.

So, all of this behavior by the Trump administration is going to land as a kind of a flickering, at least, green light to authoritarian states. That's what I worry about.

BOLDUAN: This also gets at the overall cost, not just in dollars of an operation, but also in terms of time, attention, focus, resource allocation. I mean, what does an extended U.S. presence that may be now required in Venezuela, in that area of the world, mean for the United States elsewhere?

STAVRIDIS: When President Trump says, we're going to run Venezuela, we're going to be in charge of everything, he is the living embodiment of Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule, you break it, you own it. Colin Powell applied it to Afghanistan and Iraq.

I worry about such sweeping claims of absolutely running a huge country like Venezuela. Big population. And as you correctly point out, Kate, the cost of doing so at a minimum is going to include boots, maybe not on the ground, but boots at sea. Think about this, we tend to say, oh, we don't have any boots on the ground in Venezuela so it's not costing us anything yet. Wait a minute. We've got 15,000 to 20,000 boots at sea on these warships.

And to your point, this not only has obvious costs, tens of millions of dollars a day to operate these carrier strike groups, but it's also the opportunity cost. Those carriers, those escorts, those marines, they're not training to do their missions. They're not deterring China in the South China Sea. They are not patrolling the Mediterranean to push back on Vladimir Putin. So, there's both a monetary cost, a cost on your personnel, who are increasingly exhausted -- those ships, in some cases, have been at sea more than six months -- and an opportunity cost against other adversaries.

BOLDUAN?: And from your, I mean, vast experience, from -- and from a military strategy standpoint, where -- is it clear where the line is between an operation and influencing policy, which is what Marco Rubio says they want to do, and an occupation, essentially where the line is between what you talked about, the Pottery Barn analogy, that you break it, you own it implications here?

STAVRIDIS: You know, we don't have to imagine what would be required to really subdue Venezuela and run the joint. It would be about 200,000, 250,000 troops. We should not do that. I don't think anybody's contemplating it. But we tried that in Iraq, and we tried it in Afghanistan. Didn't work very well in either place.

So, that leaves you with two other options. One is, you work with the existing regime, which is corrupt, rotten, anti-democratic and stole the last two elections, or you get your shoulder behind the democratic elected team of Edmundo Gonzales and Maria Machado and you try and push them over the top.

So, how will it come out? Kate, we don't know yet. I would say -- I hope Secretary Rubio, who is savvy, smart, fluent in Spanish, knows this terrain, hopefully he will try and construct some kind of transitional government, get to elections quickly and, at a minimum, keep the U.S. engaged but not with tens of thousands of troops on the ground.

BOLDUAN: Yes. It's great to see you, Admiral. Thank you so much, as always.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, ahead, she was one of the most controversial members of Congress. Her aggressive shock and awe MAGA style was loathed by Democrats and loved by Trump. But then things changed. Today is the last day in office for Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And today, the trial begins for the first member of law enforcement to arrive at the scene of the Uvalde school shooting. And this morning, we have new CNN reporting on what he was allegedly told just moments before the gunman entered that school.

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[09:43:08] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, the U.S. seizure of Venezuelan Leader Nicolas Maduro has major international implications. Big implications in the United States as well. So, how do people in the country feel about it? And what might the impact -- lasting impact be?

With us now, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.

Good to see you, sir.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Nice to see you.

BERMAN: So, obviously, no poll since the seizure.

ENTEN: No.

BERMAN: But when people were asked beforehand, what did they think?

ENTEN: Yes, I'd be really surprised if this turns out to be a positive for Donald Trump, or at least support for this operation.

Why? U.S. military ousting Venezuela's president beforehand. Look at this, 47 percent opposed. Just 21 percent of Americans favor it. The unsure was higher than the favor, 29 percent versus 21 percent. And, get this, just 39 percent of Republicans favor it. People are saying, oh, this could be a wag the dog moment. I have to ask, which dog are they wagging the tail of?

BERMAN: Sometimes these numbers change when an operation is seen as successful, but we just don't know yet.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: We just don't know yet.

All right, how interested have people been since this news broke Saturday morning?

ENTEN: Yes, one of the reasons why I don't think this, you know, wagging of the tail will actually work out is because folks, interest in this story has very much been going, adios, amigos, goodbye. I mean, just take a look here. Take a look here. Google searches for Nicolas Maduro. After peaking this weekend, down, down 70 percent. Down 70 percent versus Saturday. There was a peak on Saturday. But, John, then the interest went, see you later. Goodbye.

And more than that, we can look at history, right? We can look at history. Look at another time we went into a foreign country, right? Take a look here. Google searches for Maduro at the peak, 74 percent lower than when we went into Pakistan and got Osama bin Laden back in May of 2011. And that had a little bit of a boost for Barack Obama, the president, back then. But it was very much of a fleeting boost.

So, the bottom line is, you look at these numbers, there's fleeing interest in this story and way less interest than we had back during a military operation that did provide a boost to Obama, but not really one that was long lasting. [09:45:09]

BERMAN: Interesting to see if that changes over the course of the week with football over, but this really does show that people stopped paying attention pretty quickly on Saturday.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: In terms of what happens next. Obviously, the United States says it's running Venezuela, but what do the prediction markets say? Who do they think will be running Venezuela?

ENTEN: Yes, who do we think is going to be leading Venezuela. Look, it's a little bit of a cluster car right here. What are we talking about, chance of leading Venezuela at the end of 2026. Delcy Rodrguez at 43 percent. Edmundo Gonzalez at 24 percent. And then you've got Machado here at 20 percent.

The bottom line is this, there's still a lot to be determined here. We don't know exactly what's going to happen. That's going to be a political story that we have to develop.

BERMAN: This is the current vice president. This is the person that actually won the last election the United States says.

ENTEN: Correct.

BERMAN: This is the person who is the Nobel Prize winning, you know, opposition leader.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: Just so people know.

Harry Enten, thank you very much for that.

ENTEN: Thank you, my friend.

BERMAN: A lot of news. Stay with us.

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BOLDUAN: So, one of the many confusing declarations President Trump has made around the U.S. intervention in Venezuela is that the U.S. is taking control of Venezuela's massive oil reserves, and that he also expects U.S. oil companies to invest billions of dollars to revive the country's oil industry. Venezuela does sit on the world's largest oil reserves, but it only accounts for about one percent of the world's oil production.

CNN's Brian Todd has a closer look at the industry and what this all means.

Brian, what are you learning?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, as you mentioned, this is a massive oil industry in Venezuela. It's been an oil-based economy for about a century. Since the 1920s. But as you mentioned, it has been underperforming basically as an oil-based economy for about two and a half decades.

[09:50:02]

Much of that due to the alleged mismanagement and corruption of Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

Let's take a look at the oil production, again, underperforming here. Before Chavez took power in the 1990s, Venezuela would produce more than three million barrels of oil a day. It has gone down steadily since then. Back when Maduro took power in 2013, shortly after that, oil prices took a hit, so their production started to go down steadily. But a lot of that that was his mismanagement, allegedly, and also oil prices taking a hit.

In 2019, then President Donald Trump and the Trump administration banned Venezuela's oil exports to the United States. That was an important move then. It then kind of hit rock bottom in 2020 with the pandemic.

Now in 2022, then President Joe Biden issued a permit for Chevron to operate in Venezuela. So, the production started to go up. But still they're underperforming.

As of today, they are producing just a little over a million barrels per day. That's only less than 1 percent of the total production.

And if you look at their reserves, that's really where it comes into stark contrast. They sit on one-fifth of the world's oil reserves total, 303 billion barrels according to OPEC in 2023, far ahead of Saudi Arabia and the others.

Who do they export it to? Well, take a look. China is the big customer. Almost 70 percent of Venezuela's oil goes to China. About a quarter of it goes to the United States. That's produced by Chevron. That's the only U.S.-based oil company still there.

And, Kate, as you mentioned, the Trump administration wants American oil companies to go back in there and ramp up their production. But as our colleague Kylie Atwood has reported recently, that the Trump team engaged some of the oil companies about possibly going back in a Maduro era, and some of them are having some reservations about that, basically because of the political instability there.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and the billions and billions of dollars it would require and the years and years of lead time it would take to have any of the infrastructure needed in order to pump anything out in a significant fashion.

TODD: Right.

BOLDUAN: Brian, thank you so much for that closer look.

John. BERMAN: All right, this morning, Larry David says it's too late to

wish people a Happy New Year, but the struggle to abide by your New Year's resolutions, well, that's just beginning, and it is a struggle. It turns out, for a reason.

With us now is Dan Harris, the host of "10% Happier with Dan Harris," that podcast. Also, I have to say, a longtime friend and former colleague of mine, but don't hold that against him.

Dan, why is it so hard to stick to our New Year's resolutions

DAN HARRIS, HOST, "10% HAPPIER WITH DAN HARRIS" PODCAST: First, I love Larry David, but Happy New Year, John. Great to see you.

BERMAN: Thank you.

HARRIS: It is hard because of evolution. Our brains evolved at a time where we really had to be good at short-term tasks like finding food or avoiding saber toothed tigers. But habit formation is a long-term slog. So, that may sound like bad news, but it's actually good news. First, because you don't have to tell yourself a story that you're dysfunctional because you struggle with this. You can just blame evolution. And second, because there are ways to hack these brains so that you can boot up a habit.

BERMAN: So luckily for all of us you've got some tips about how we can stick to our New Year's resolutions. And I want to go through some of my favorites here.

First, you say you just have to -- you have to pick the right ones. What do you mean?

HARRIS: Well, it's important to pick things that are specific and achievable. A lot of us say, well, we're going to get fit. Well, getting fit is quite vague. So, it's better to say something like, I'm going to exercise three times a week. Or instead of saying, I'm going to be a better reader, oh no, I'm going to read a book a month. So, specific and achievable gets you there.

BERMAN: And then I think my personal favorite is, is pick something easy. Why is that so important and how easy?

HARRIS: Because the -- our brains really are not good at this. We're not -- we did not evolve for this. So, you want to set the bar as low as possible. So, if running is your goal, you should start by -- and this is going to sound ridiculous, just putting your shoes, your running shoes, near the door. If you just get some wins on the board, starting super small, you really (AUDIO GAP) get your back. So, for example, as you know, I'm a big fan of meditation. I often say to people, one minute counts. That's a great way to start.

BERMAN: Setting the bar low is like my mantra in life. I mean, always set the bar low, Dan. It's always easy to reach. I live by that.

You also say -- you also say, you need to be flexible, which I think is important when you're dealing with resolutions, right? HARRIS: Absolutely, because many of us go into this with gritted

teeth. We say we're going to, you know, do whatever our resolution is every day. We're going to work out every day. And then the first day where life intervenes and we fall off the wagon, we tell ourselves a whole story about how we're failures and then, you know, we quit. So, flexibility is incredibly important.

Here's a little mantra I heard that I find really helpful. Daily-ish. Instead of saying I'm going to do something every day, give yourself some room to fall off the wagon, some flexibility.

[09:55:03]

There's data to shows -- that shows that this is a great way toward booting up a long term, abiding habit.

BERMAN: And you say, make it a team sport, Dan. What do you mean?

HARRIS: Well, we evolved as social creatures. Everything about modern life militates against that. But it remains true that we are social creatures. So, if you do your exercise or your reading with other people, it becomes more fun. You then feel accountable to other people. You draft off of their enthusiasm. It taps into -- this is a great way to hack our ancient brain in this modern world. It really -- there's, again, there's a ton of data behind this strategy. Make it a team sport. Life is better in the carpool lane.

SIDNER: Is it though?

BERMAN: It is better in the carpool lane.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

SIDNER: It's faster.

BERMAN: Dan Harris, it's great to see you. I love the "10% Happier" podcast. Dan's advice is so helpful and achievable. So, thanks for everything you do.

BOLDUAN: Ish.

SIDNER: Yes.

BERMAN: Ish.

BOLDUAN: That's what he said.

SIDNER: I read his book. It's really good. It's helpful. It really is. I love it.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much for joining us. This is CNN NEW CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM" is up next.

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