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Interview with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA): Trump Administration to Brief Lawmakers on Maduro Raid Tonight; State Department After Maduro Arrest: This is Our Hemisphere; HHS to Recommend Fewer Vaccines for Most Children. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 05, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Soon on Capitol Hill, CNN has learned that several top Trump administration officials will brief a select bipartisan group of lawmakers on Saturday's military operation in Venezuela. This briefing comes as some members of Congress are questioning the legality of the mission, as well as the government's plans for Venezuela going forward. Multiple Democratic lawmakers have been especially critical, accusing President Trump of violating his constitutional responsibility to uphold the law and protect democratic norms.

Let's discuss with Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu of California. He is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a U.S. Air Force veteran where he served in the JAG Corps. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us.

I want to start on the broader strategy here for the United States and whether you think that the U.S. is today better positioned with Nicolas Maluto out of power and Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere potentially weakening.

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: Well, if you want to talk about the broader context, let's just first say that we know that health care costs are skyrocketing, food prices are increasing and electricity rates are surging. And what is Trump focused on? He's focused on, in his words, quote, running the country of Venezuela.

That is insane. And the American people want the president to focus on what's happening in our country, not doing the bidding of oil companies.

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And in terms of does this make America stronger?

Well, we just put in Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez. She is now in charge of the country, the same Maduro regime. I'm not sure this changes very much.

SANCHEZ: I do want to ask you about that. I also wonder whether you think that this move potentially emboldens or validates China's ambitions in Taiwan or Russia's claims about Ukraine, given that the justification from the administration is that this is the Western Hemisphere, this is happening in our backyard and those adversaries should be out of the picture.

LIEU: Certainly, this illegal action by the president does also take away the moral argument that the United States had against China and Russia with respect to their aggressive actions towards other places and other countries. And it also weakens America if we were to view the world in terms of just hemispheres. The world is completely interconnected.

And if you're going to enhance Russia in where it is, it's going to threaten Europe. And then if you're going to enhance China, it's going to threaten countries in the Pacific. So it's not good to view the world in just hemispheres.

It is all interconnected.

SANCHEZ: Congressman, you mentioned that this was an illegal act by President Trump. What about claims from the administration that Maduro is not a legitimate ruler, that he's not the real head of state because he lost the last election and that under the eyes of U.S. law, he's simply a wanted drug trafficker? And this is a law enforcement effort.

LIEU: I've never seen a law enforcement effort that uses bombs and airplanes and Delta Force. So this is clearly a military operation as well. And if the president is going to use force against a sovereign nation, he needs to get the approval of Congress.

Congress never authorized this action. We were never told about it beforehand. We never authorized his use of force.

It's simply flat out illegal. And again, the American people want the president to focus on helping our economy. That's why, according to Reuters poll, only one in three Americans support this operation.

Instead of helping our economy, the president, again, is helping oil companies. And that is wrong.

SANCHEZ: I do want to ask you, as you noted a moment ago, about Delcy Rodriguez, the interim president in Venezuela, a very interesting character, given that she is an avowed leftist, that she was handpicked by Maduro, that she she came out saying that Venezuela will not be a colony or slaves to the United States. Last night, she put out a statement saying that she would be open to some form of cooperation.

Clearly, administration officials, people that have spoken to CNN as sources, they have confidence that she is going to allow entry to U.S. oil companies, that she is going to apparently at some point facilitate some kind of democratic process, as the president put it last night on Air Force One. Do you think that she has struck some kind of deal for protection with the United States? Why else would she seek to execute the Trump administration's vision for Venezuela if she herself, her entire background is refuting that? LIEU: So first of all, thank goodness none of our brave military personnel died in this operation, but several, in fact, were injured. And according to Venezuela, approximately 40 people in Venezuela died. And so if the president is going to use military force for oil acquisition, he's got to get the approval of Congress.

We can have a debate on this. Should we use our military to just go to different parts of the world and try to help oil companies get oil? We can have a debate on that, but he can't just send in military force to do that.

So this is simply an illegal operation. And how did Iraq work out when we went out there to get oil? I mean, presumably, according to reports, Iraqi officials also cooperated with the U.S. and that was an endless war. And so the fear is that this may not work out in Venezuela. And again, it's the same regime that Maduro put in place. We now have his handpicked successor in place.

I don't see how this changes very much.

SANCHEZ: What should the U.S. do then to guarantee that there will soon be democratic elections in Venezuela?

LIEU: Well, we should absolutely push for democratic elections. And by the way, the person who was elected democratically, the administration, the Trump administration is not supporting the person who is not allowed to run, Machado, the administration is also not supporting.

So the administration is basically supporting the same brutal regime that Maduro put in place. And so I don't really understand what the administration strategy is. And that's because the president hasn't articulated a strategy.

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Look, it's really easy to use our amazing military to accomplish amazing missions. It's always the day after that America has a lot of problems figuring out. And this day after that, the president and the administration has not articulated as if what the end goals even are.

SANCHEZ: Lastly, Congressman, what questions do you think your colleagues should be asking the administration officials that are briefing some lawmakers later, including administration officials, I should note, like Secretary Marco Rubio?

LIEU: Well, Secretary Marco Rubio needs to explain why he lied straight up to Congress. I was in the classified briefing where Secretary Rubio looked us in the eye and said basically the use of military force would not occur without first coming to Congress to get authorization for the use of military force. He straight up lied to Congress.

He needs to explain to himself or to us why he did what he did.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Ted Lieu, we have to leave the conversation there. We appreciate your time and your sharing your perspective.

LIEU: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, the capture of Nicolas Maduro, marking the first time in decades the U.S. has intervened in Latin America. How this operation differs from past efforts in the region.

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SANCHEZ: So the U.S. State Department has a new message following the arrest of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro in a post this afternoon. It says, quote, "This is our hemisphere and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened."

HILL: The actions over the weekend mark yet another moment in the complicated history of U.S. interventions in Central and South America. Joining us now is retired Brigadier General Ty Seidule. He's a professor at Hamilton College.

The former head of the history department at the U.S. Military Academy. It's good to have you with us. You know, based on what we just saw with that new statement from the State Department, I'm curious, when you look at this operation, do you believe it makes the U.S. more secure?

BRIG. GEN. TY SEIDULE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): No, I don't think it makes the U.S. more secure. We have done 41 different interventions in Latin and South America from 1898 to 1994, and I don't think any of them really made us that much safer. We did it for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes it was gunboat diplomacy for commercial interests. After World War Two, it was for a communist -- to prevent communism. But we have gone over 32 years since the last time we had a military intervention in there.

I would say that that really it hasn't hurt us as a country or as a hemisphere that we have retained -- we have refrained from military action.

SANCHEZ: General, what do you make of the approach from the administration here? Not full regime change, but essentially decapitation and then relying on people that had vowed their loyalty to Nicolas Maluto as of, you know, a few days ago.

SEIDULE: Yes, I mean, the United States in our history has been very good at toppling governments and very bad at living with the consequences. So we just don't do it very well. The reason we don't do it well is because it's really, really hard.

Putting in a new government is one of the most difficult things that a military has to do. And it requires strategy, operations, tactics. It requires all the elements of governmental power to come in and help and help change it. And again, we have just not had a great track record because it takes so much effort to do that. Now Maduro was a horrible person who did terrible things for Venezuela. No one doubts that.

And he stole the last election. But there's the old Pottery Barn rule that both Tom Friedman and Secretary Colin Powell use, which is if you break it, you own it. And I know you've heard that and I think that's that's what we have here.

But it's unclear for me anyway, is President Trump going to put boots on the ground and control this? What does he mean by control? So the number of outstanding questions that we still have seems to me enormous.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: What does that tell you about the overall planning then? And I don't mean necessarily I don't mean the execution of this of this military operation, which by all accounts was incredibly well done, certainly well executed. That's one part.

It's the day after part of the planning that appears in many ways to be lacking.

SEIDULE: Well, this is the difference historically, is we now have a military, along with the CIA and the National Security Agency, that can do these kind of missions in a way that we have never been able to do -- that no one in history of the world has ever been able to do. But the face of -- we often call the phase four in the military, that is, how do you create stability after you have done the regime change? And that's what we've had a lot of problems with.

And I haven't seen anything other than coercion and the threat of boots on the ground that says we're going to do to do this correctly. Correctly means it's a -- it's a generational thing. Venezuela was a democracy, but it's been 20 years since they have had -- 25 years since they've had a democracy.

They have eight million people have left. It is a shell of its former self. And to get that back is going to require enormous effort from the United States and regional powers.

But we didn't do that ahead of time to ensure that this was going to be done by everyone. And so it's not so we own it, but I haven't seen a plan to fix it.

SANCHEZ: General, how do you think Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin see this?

SEIDULE: Well, I think they're very comfortable with it. It's something that they would do in a heartbeat. So I think they love it.

Now, they don't like the fact they did have -- they were supporters of Maduro in Venezuela. So in that case, it could hurt them. But the idea that that it's going to create some larger problem in Taiwan or elsewhere.

Well, we've already seen that those two those two countries will do that no matter what. I think for us, the more the more pressing thing is, you know, he continues the president continues to say we should go to Greenland, a NATO member. That is really terrifying to me to break apart that alliance at a time when it is very, very difficult to put it back together again.

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And this is something we have broken something and putting it back together is extraordinarily hard, easy break, tough to fix.

HILL: And to that point on Greenland, we also start by some of the comments in response to that. Not that just not just from officials in Greenland, of course, but also in Denmark, rather, I should say. But even the German foreign minister basically saying, hey, just a reminder, Denmark and therefore Greenland, this is all part of NATO.

And we have to -- if we have to look at strengthening those protections from a NATO standpoint, we will. What does it say about the overall standing of the United States in this moment?

SEIDULE: Well, I think one of the things that we've always said, a truism is -- I mean, Churchill said -- the only thing that worse than going to war with allies is not having allies. The reason that we have done so well is we have so many allies. We have bases all over the country, all over the world.

China has two bases. We have friends. Other people don't. And when you go to war, you want friends.

The idea that we need Greenland is preposterous. We could get -- we could get work with Denmark to get whatever they wanted.

It's these kind of statements that frankly scare me and should scare our NATO allies, because who is the United States of America? Are we the type that would go and attack a friend? It was the famous saying from Thucydides that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

But when the weak -- when problems happen to the weak, they find other ways, whether it's alliances, whether it's new weapon systems. There is another shoe to drop in this. We just don't know what it is yet.

HILL: We'll talk about giving us some food for thought. That's for sure. Brigadier General Ty Seidule really appreciate your insight, your expertise this afternoon, sir. Thank you.

SEIDULE: Thanks, Boris. Thank you, Erica. Appreciate it.

HILL: Still ahead here, we are following a developing story on a sharp increase in the number of flu cases around the country. All of this happening as the administration also just announced it's dialing back the number of vaccines that it's recommending for children and even reporting on what those vaccine rates are. Those details ahead.

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HILL: Taking a look at some of the other headlines we're following this hour, the Secret Service now plans to interview a man who was taken into custody after officers discovered broken windows at the Cincinnati home of Vice President Vance. The VP and his family were away when the property was damaged. It happened sometime after midnight.

The suspect is being held on trespassing and vandalism charges. Authorities are now trying to determine whether Vance or anyone in his family was being specifically targeted in the incident. The vice president posting, quote, a crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows.

SANCHEZ: Yikes. Meantime, Novo Nordisk, the company that makes Wegovy, is now offering a daily pill version of their popular weight loss drug. The lower starter dose will cost one $149 a month for people paying cash.

In comparison, the lowest dose of the injectable version cost $349 a month for self-pay consumers. The cheaper price, making the pill a more affordable option for folks whose insurance plans won't cover the drug.

HILL: The Department of Health and Human Services will begin recommending fewer vaccines for most American children. Health officials say the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, as well as those for polio, chickenpox and HPV will still be recommended. However, the department plans to narrow the recommendations for the RSV and hepatitis A and B vaccine.

SANCHEZ: Let's go now to CNN's Meg Tirrell. Meg, walk us through what else parents need to know.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this essentially changes the broadly recommended vaccines for children in the U.S. from recommending for essentially all children protection from vaccines against up to as many as 18 different diseases. That was the previous schedule. And now the new schedule will, as you noted, recommend vaccination against 11 different diseases.

And many of these are vaccinations we're all familiar with. Measles, mumps, rubella will still be recommended broadly. Diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, as well as vaccines for polio and other diseases.

However, this is going to soften the recommendations for diseases like flu and for rotavirus. And what they're trying to do here, they say, is to move the U.S. vaccine schedule to something that more closely resembles one from a country like Denmark. And that has raised a lot of eyebrows in the public health world because, of course, Denmark is a country with a population of about six million people, which is about the size of the state of Wisconsin.

It also has free universal health care. And so you're even hearing some head scratching reactions from people in Denmark, including one of the researchers there who heads up vaccine safety and effectiveness research, who told us these are two very different countries. Public health is not one size fits all.

He noted that vaccines can prevent infections that may have poor outcomes for children who do not have access to good health care, pointing out, of course, the differences in our health care system. So a lot of concerns today, even though insurance guys will still cover all of these vaccines, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

HILL: So good for parents to hear that, that if they that those vaccines will still be covered. But, you know, you hear this alarm from health experts. What is the recommendation for people who are looking for vaccine guidance?

Who do they go to now?

TIRRELL: Yes, a lot of the outside public health experts are telling us they're looking to groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the AAP, which maintains its own recommendation list of childhood vaccines, other groups for vaccines during pregnancy, ACOG, for example, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. So a lot of public health experts are saying, unfortunately, they're not turning to the CDC anymore as it's been led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at the HHS, who has a long history of questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

SANCHEZ: Really a stunning development and important for parents to get that guidance potentially not through the CDC anymore. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it.

Well, Erica, great to have you today.

HILL: Always a pleasure to see you, my friend.

SANCHEZ: Happy New Year.

HILL: Happy New Year to you. It's never a quiet news day around here, is it?

SANCHEZ: No, no shortage of news, even as we start a new year. We're grateful for you joining us as well. "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts in about 10 seconds.