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Trump Celebrates Maduro's Capture in Speech to House GOP; Maduro Lawyers Have Multiple Ways to Derail Case Against Him; Trial Underway for Former Uvalde School Officer; Gonzales Has Pleaded Not Guilty to 29 Counts of Child Endangerment or Abandonment; Video of Person of Interest Released in Case of Slain Ohio Couple. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired January 06, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": -- remain about the future of that country and the United States' plan moving forward. Plus, a former officer on trial opening statements getting underway in the case against the first law enforcement official to arrive on the scene of the Uvalde school massacre.

We'll have the latest from court. And new details in the killing of an Ohio dentist and his wife, their two children were found unharmed near their parents' bodies. But now, police say they have footage taken near the scene that they hope will help crack the case.

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": This hour, we're learning new details on the capture of ousted Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Just over 24 hours after Flores appeared in court with bandages on her head, sources tell CNN that lawmakers are being told that she and her husband were injured after hitting their heads as they try to flee elite U.S. forces.

Just a short time ago, President Trump during a speech to Republicans praised the operation this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It was so complex, 152 airplanes, many, many -- talking about boots on the ground, we had a lot of boots on the ground. But it was amazing. And think of it, nobody was killed. And on the other side, a lot of people were killed.

Unfortunately, I say that soldiers, Cubans, mostly Cubans, but many, many killed. And they were -- they knew we were coming and they were protected. And our guys weren't, you know, our guys are jumping out of helicopters and they're not protected. And they were, but it was so brilliant. The electricity for almost the entire country was, boom, turned off. That's when they knew there was a problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN National Security Correspondent, Natasha Bertrand joins us now. Natasha, it sounds like they're looking at the former first lady having a potentially fractured rib too.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Boris, and administration officials were trying to make clear to lawmakers yesterday, we're told in that two-hour long briefing, that these injuries that were sustained by Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, they were not inflicted by U.S. forces, rather they were -- they happened because Maduro and his wife were trying to escape U.S. forces. And when they were trying to hide behind this massive steel door inside their compound, which has been alluded to multiple times by President Trump, they actually hit their heads on that doorframe as they were trying to enter that secure area.

And at that point, they weren't able to escape. U.S. forces were, of course, able to detain them. And when they brought them back onto the helicopter, according to what these briefers told lawmakers yesterday, Delta force operators began to render first aid. Now it's unclear, of course, whether that explains the alleged fractured rib that Cilia Flores' attorney has said that she suffered, but she did appear in court yesterday with numerous bandages on her forehead, according to court sketches of the hearing yesterday.

And Maduro, of course, he also had trouble kind of standing up and sitting down. So, you know, all of this kind of adds to the color surrounding the operation and the fact that it was much more chaotic than I think people originally assumed, especially because when U.S. forces arrived at that compound, they were actually encountered by a Cuban quick reaction force, which was nearby, made up of about over two dozen Cuban security operatives.

According to what the briefers again told lawmakers yesterday, there erupted a huge firefight at that point in gun battle and many, if not all of those Cuban forces were killed in the aftermath of that. And so, there was a significant gunfire exchange. There were Delta force operators, as we know, who sustained bullet wounds, shrapnel wounds, but they are expected to make a full recovery and they are receiving treatment now back in the U.S., Boris.

SANCHEZ: Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much for the update. Now that Maduro and his wife have been charged and pled not guilty to drug and weapons charges here in the United States, the couple is set to remain in that New York city jail as their lawyers formulate a defense strategy.

KEILAR: The criminal case against Maduro is so legally complex. His defense team could attempt several different ways of derailing the case before a trial. We're joined now by CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent, Katelyn Polantz and CNN Legal Analyst, Elliot Williams. And Katelyn, it's interesting because you've been talking to former prosecutors who have tried cases against the likes of Manuel Noriega, El Chapo and other high-ranking Venezuelans. What have you found?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the things that is -- I was actually surprised to hear is everyone that I talked to said, expect this to go to trial if the judge greenlights it to do so. Usually, you have a lot of plea deals, guilty pleas in the system. And you would think with the foreign policy implications around this, there could be some deal making as a possibility, but that is not how the Justice Department is likely to look at this because that's not how you look at drug trafficking cases.

[14:05:00]

The amount of prison sentence that Maduro could face here is, if he is convicted, is life. That is a lot. That's a very high stakes and he has nothing to lose. He's now in the U.S., in U.S. custody. And so, it's very likely that he would not be interested in talking if that becomes an opportunity. The other thing that was really interesting about learning about these sorts of high-level cases is that the cooperating witnesses here are what are very likely to be key at a trial. The people who may have been in the room, who may have witnessed up close what Maduro was alleged to be doing. And you even see little glimpses of that in this indictment.

The indictment is relatively short to document the many decades of the alleged narco terrorism activity. But in this indictment, there's an episode in 2013, after Maduro becomes president, where they write about Venezuelan officials dispatching 1.3 tons of cocaine on a commercial flight into Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. And then a meeting happening where Maduro would have convened others and said they shouldn't have flown out of the airport that they had flown out of.

How did the prosecutors get that episode is going to be a really interesting question to watch for.

SANCHEZ: Elliot, we can already anticipate some of the motions from the defense --

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: -- before they're even introduced, chiefly whether Maduro and his wife were apprehended legally.

WILLIAMS: Right. And the no brainer there, that's another thing, that one was the apprehended legally as a head of state or at least a purported head of state as he has indicated. Now, to be clear, courts are likely to defer to the executive branch on this question. Courts are far more concerned with the fact, at least in these international contexts, that the individual is now in the United States rather than the circumstances that got him there.

Now, again, very smart lawyers are going to debate this question, but it really will come down to believing that he was here -- that he's here properly.

POLANTZ: And also, the possibility that he claims he has some level of immunity because he was -- the -- now the deposed president of Venezuela. But in that context, the courts when they had to deal with this with Noriega and a few others, there aren't very many. The list is short. The end -- the final decision there lays with the State Department ultimately. And Maduro hasn't been recognized.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. And a big part of that is the fact that the Constitution of the United States says that the executive branch or the president has the duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That can mean carrying out military actions in other countries to support law enforcement, even though the United States does have treaties with the United nations and other countries, courts will regard the Constitution and what it says, and with a broad notion of the powers of the president and the white house to carry out functions like this.

So, I just think the courts are probably going to defer here and are likely to not strike the case down on that basis.

KEILAR: I wonder how the kind of differing explanations we're hearing from different people inside the Trump administration is going to affect whether prosecutors are able to secure a conviction here. You have Marco Rubio saying it's an isolated law enforcement matter and Stephen Miller saying U.S. involvement is an ongoing military operation. What do you think about that? That's very different. Two different things.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, very different. But I would say that there's two different questions here. There's the legal basis for the case. Should he be in the United States? Is this proper? And of course, Nicolas Maduro will use those points to say that, wait, there's a legal question with even my being brought here for trial, right?

The basic question of a drug trafficking conspiracy is relatively straightforward. Now, it can be hard to prove for some of the reasons that Katelyn was laying out, trustworthy witnesses or witnesses that even in your article might face threats at home if they are to testify. But just as a matter of convicting somebody, it's really just a question of going into court and establishing that this individual knew that there were criminal offenses happening, participated in them and carried out steps to make them happen.

POLANTZ: Also, there are cases back in the history of these types of cases where at the end of the day, the courts don't really care how you got here.

WILLIAMS: Right.

POLANTZ: If you're on American soil and you're before the court on a criminal charge, that's it. They don't necessarily need to unravel the circumstances. But the head of state immunity thing is the other big issue that could go the whole way up to the Supreme Court. Maduro claims that he was the head of state of Venezuela. The U.S. hasn't recognized him for a couple of years since that 2024 election. How do the courts interpret that and how far will his arguments go in court? Could it drag things out?

SANCHEZ: To the point that you were both just making, but what Elliot was saying about this being a direct action, whether it's a military operation or a law enforcement matter, does that argument from the administration get complicated by the way that they've been enforcing their actions against the folks on these ships in the Caribbean and the Pacific as well?

[14:10:00]

Because in part, they've been saying that this is an urgent --

WILLIAMS: Right.

SANCHEZ: -- war effectively, or an urgent threat that the United States is facing. I mean, could that undermine their argument?

WILLIAMS: I don't think so. I think it's the kind of point that a smart defendant would put in pleading saying that, wait a second, this justification is muddied and so on. But to Katelyn's point, truly what matters, at least in this context, is that the person is in the United States and got here.

And all of these questions of international law and so on really involve in many ways, for lack of a better way to put it, deferring to inter -- like American prosecutors deferring to international law and the courts don't really want to do that.

SANCHEZ: It doesn't matter.

WILLIAMS: Well, it could, but it's just, they're not likely to.

KEILAR: It's so interesting. And there's so much to watch here. Thank you guys so much for the great discussion. Really appreciate it, Katelyn and Elliot.

And still to come, testimony beginning in the first trial over the deadly mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. We'll have the latest on the prosecution's case against former Uvalde school officer, Adrian Gonzales.

SANCHEZ: Plus five years later, another march on the streets of Washington, D.C., how pardoned rioters are retracing the steps they took on that day in 2021. And the agency that funds public broadcasting voting to shut down. What does this mean for NPR and PBS. That and much more coming your way next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:45]

KEILAR: Testimony is underway in the trial of former Uvalde School District Police Officer, Adrian Gonzales, who has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of child endangerment or abandonment in the 2022 school mass shooting that killed 19 fourth graders and two teachers.

Prosecutors claim Gonzales, who was the first officer on the scene, failed to engage, distract or delay the shooter before the gunman got into the classrooms. If convicted, he faces six months to two years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000 for each count. CNN Senior Crime and Justice Correspondent, Shimon Prokupecz, is in Corpus Christi watching today's proceedings.

Shimon, the jury heard some of those terrifying 9-1-1 calls in court.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, they did. This was one of the first things that prosecutors did this morning after opening statements. They had the first witness on the stand who was a pastor at a funeral home that was just outside of the school. And he saw the gunman entering the school, walking down this long stretch of road into the school, onto the school campus. And he described seeing the gunman.

And then, in this just really emotional, emotional moment, people were crying in the courtroom. They played his 9-1-1 call to authorities that day, begging for the police to respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And there you hear it. You could hear him on that call saying, he's going into the school. He goes on to talk about seeing the gunman. And the point of all this is that it took so long for the initial officers to get inside that classroom.

You could hear him trying to direct the 9-1-1 operator as to where the gunman was. And this is all very important because at this trial, the former school police officer, Adrian Gonzales, what prosecutors are alleging is that this officer did not do enough in those initial moments, in those beginning few minutes as this shooting was unfolding to try and prevent the gunman, to try and distract, challenge the gunman in some way.

And so, this is all part of the evidence that prosecutors are trying to use to show that this officer failed in his job and that it's criminal. Of course, the defense team is arguing, look, our client, Adrian Gonzales is not to blame for this. Who to -- who you should be blaming for this is the gunman. And so, this is just the first morning of what is expected to be a very heavy, a very emotional trial as we go here for at least two weeks now.

KEILAR: And Shimon, tell us about prosecutors' attempts to display autopsy photos to the jury.

PROKUPECZ: Yeah, so this happened right from -- in the beginning of this morning. Prosecutors have indicated they want to present autopsy photos, these photos that have never been seen. Just you can imagine, they would show some of the injuries that the dead children suffered, those horrific gunshot wounds from these large bullets from an AR-15. And so, prosecutors want to show the damage and the injuries to these children. And of course, the defense is arguing, wait, wait, wait, we can't -- you can't allow this because it's going to be too prejudicial.

And my client is not on trial for the murder of these children. He's on trial for endangerment. So we'll see, the judge has not made a decision on that yet. But you can see also where prosecutors want to put in a lot of emotion. And of course, for the defense, they're like, if you put too much emotion into this, it could perhaps sway the jurors unfairly. And that's what they're trying to prevent.

KEILAR: And Shimon, you have some exclusive reporting and analysis that Gonzales was actually on scene for more than a minute before the gunman entered the building.

[14:20:00]

PROKUPECZ: Yeah, it's just so -- we have been able through sources, our team, to obtain pretty much the entire investigative file, some of it is now coming up at this trial. It's being used -- what we have been reporting on is now being used at this trial. And what we found, our team found is that he was on scene in what could be plenty of time to have stopped the gunman and that there was a coach, a school coach who was expected to testify, pointing and telling him where she believed the shooter may be, where the gunshots were coming from. And what you see happening in surveillance footage and body camera footage is that Gonzales just kind of waits to go in.

He doesn't go in directly. He doesn't go towards the gunfire. His defense attorney is arguing that he was confused. He didn't necessarily know where things were coming from. There was a lot of chaos, but that he -- ultimately, the argument by prosecutors is that he waited for backup and didn't do enough to go in towards the gunfire.

KEILAR: All right, Shimon, a very emotional day, no doubt, and a lot of information coming out that we'll keep our eye on. Thank you for that report from Texas.

Still to come, police share new evidence in the hunt for the killer of a dentist and his wife. Investigators hope these images could turn into an arrest soon. And Venezuelan Opposition Leader, Maria Corina Machado says she wants to give or share her Nobel Peace Prize with Donald Trump and also that she hasn't spoke to President Trump in months. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:26:03]

SANCHEZ: Police in Columbus, Ohio are releasing new video they hope will lead to whoever gunned down a dentist and his wife as they were home with their young kids. It shows what investigators are calling a person of interest walking near the residence of Spencer Tepe and his wife, Monique, who were a month shy of their fifth wedding anniversary.

Their bodies were found inside the house on December 30th and their kids, just one- and four-years-old, were also inside. Fortunately, they were unharmed. The couple's brother-in-law says the little ones are now with relatives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you tell a four-year-old that, you know, she's never going to see her parents again? It's just awful, but we've been giving them all of our love. The person didn't just take two lives, right? They took a son and a daughter, a brother and a sister, an aunt and an uncle, cousins. And they obviously took two beautiful souls who are just lovely parents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN's Jean Casarez is tracking this story for us. Jean, what are you learning about that video?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this video, it is out of Columbus, Ohio, because that is where all of this happened. And they really want people to study this video because you see someone who is walking, they're walking nonchalantly, and examine their physique, examine how they walk. You see a black jacket. It is a hoodie. The hood is up.

You see light-colored pants. And it's between the hours of 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. a week ago today, because that's when all of this happened. And they believe that this is a person of interest, if anyone has any information. Now, we've put together a timeline here, which was a week ago today, and he was a dentist. Spencer was an Ohio State graduate, American Dental Association member. His practice was Athens Dental Depot in Columbus.

And it was 8 o'clock in the morning that the dentist's office opens. And as we know, if we go to a dentist, normally the patients start coming in. But by 8:58, he had not come in. And so, the employer contacted police saying, this is not Spencer. He doesn't do this. We want a wellness check.

Police went out about 9:22. It looks like they knocked at the door, nobody answered. That was about it. Well, then the colleagues and friends start coming to the house. And between that time and 10:03, they're coming to the house. They're hearing children crying. Nobody's coming to the door. They can't get in, which is interesting. And then at 10:03, a friend arrives, and we have a quote from the 9-1-1 call.

He says, our friend wasn't answering the phone. We just came here, and he appears dead. And that's when law enforcement then took action. But here's what is very perplexing. There was no murder weapon, and we understand they were shot to death. No murder weapon at all.

There were some projectiles on the floor. But that's how they determined this is a double homicide. They're still not coming out with a lot of information here. The children were alive. They were crying. As you said, they're in the arms of their family now.

But this was a loving couple. And Monique, the wife, her background was early childhood education.

SANCHEZ: Jean Casarez, thank you so much for giving us that update. Hopefully, the families get some answers soon. Still to come, a new march, this time with a different message. We have a reaction on this fifth anniversary of the Capitol riot in Washington.

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