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Trump Takes Venezuela Victory Lap Amid Uncertainty Over Next Step; House Democrats Hold Unofficial Hearing, 5 Years After January 6 Attack; Pardoned January 6 Rioters March to Capitol to Mark Anniversary; George Conway Launches Congressional Bid as a Democrat. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 06, 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]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: As President Trump takes a victory lap over the capture and arrest of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's capital city of Caracas is on edge. That is gunfire that could be heard in the city overnight amid reports of confusion between security units. CNN also verified this video of anti-aircraft fire over the city.

The government says police were firing at drones that did not have permission to fly. Let's talk about these developments with Leon Panetta. He's a former Secretary of Defense and CIA director under President Obama.

Sir, thanks so much for being with us. That chaos that we saw last night in Caracas stemming from some sort of apparent misunderstanding between paramilitary groups associated with the regime. How do the paramilitary loyalties and the military loyalties factor into U.S. planning for the future here.

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it raises some very serious questions about what's going to happen in Venezuela. Look, the jury is very much out on this operation. Although the military operation was well planned and executed, I think it's fair to say that the plan for governing Venezuela was not well planned and it's not being well executed.

We are basically relying on Maduro's cabinet to operate in Venezuela. And that means that their primary loyalty is to Maduro, not to the United States. So it's going to be very difficult to achieve stability using basically the henchmen for Maduro to run the country. I think that raises a lot of questions about the future stability of Venezuela.

KEILAR: We learned that over the summer, the CIA had a covert team inside Venezuela and a source close to Maduro. This is what sources are saying. The CIA analysis on the impact of Maduro no longer being in power informed Trump's decision to allow Delcy Rodriguez, who he says will do whatever the U.S. wants to take power rather than the U.S. looking at an opposition leader.

The Trump administration had been in touch with Rodriguez for months, according to an official who had briefed Congress. You're a former CIA director. What questions does that raise for you about potential agreements made ahead of Maduro's ouster and how much the Trump administration can really bank on them, considering what you've just said?

PANETTA: Well, I think that's the concern. I mean, I can understand the CIA making a very practical analysis that if the United States is interested in stability, the best way to gain stability is to keep Maduro's people in power. But that raises a fundamental issue about what the hell are we doing in Venezuela?

I thought the goal was ultimately to remove Maduro, to create regime change, and to give the Venezuelan people the opportunity to be able to govern themselves, to achieve some kind of hopeful election, and the ability of the Venezuelan people to be able to govern themselves. I think that was the fundamental goal. And so, to suddenly say that all we're going to do is rely on Maduro's people, try to bully them, try to threaten them into accepting our approach to governing.

[15:35:00]

I think that's going to be very difficult to do from Washington. That's that's just not going to work. And you saw the violence that took place in Caracas last night. Venezuela is fundamentally a violent country.

There's a lot of violent different groups that are there. It's going to be very difficult to be able to maintain order to be able to govern in a way that ultimately can deliver a more stable Venezuela. You can't do it by in absentia. In the hope that somehow you can bully from Washington.

And get people to do what you want. I just don't think that's going to work very well.

KEILAR: Secretary Panetta, the president is making it clear elections aren't the goal for him, right? He ruled out having them within 30 days telling NBC elections come after fixing up the oil and the country. He's putting I think an 18-month timeline on that, which a lot of experts will tell you that is way too optimistic. Stephen Miller told our Jake Tapper that it's a quote, neoliberal frame that the United States' job is to go around the world and demanding immediate elections right away to create a vacuum, essentially.

How should elections be approached? And what do you think about what you're hearing from Trump and his top official there?

PANETTA: Look, the fundamental strength of the United States, yes, it's our military. We have the strongest military on the face of the earth. But the other thing that makes the United States strong is our values.

The fact that we believe in freedom, we believe in democracy, we believe in the right of people to be able to self govern. Those are fundamental values that the United States stands for.

And to hear individuals basically talking as if they are part of Putin's team or part of Maduro's team is just not what the United States ought to represent to the world. If we're going to be strong, we have to stand by our values. We have to support the people of Venezuela to be able to ultimately gain the ability to govern.

Now, look, you can't just do that by bullying people. You can't do that by having Maduro's people in power. Ultimately, what you're going to need to do is to develop a coalition of other countries in Latin America, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, others putting a structure in place in Caracas that can then promote a better and more democratic approach to governing. That's what's needed here, and it's not happening.

KEILAR: There are examples of the U.S. attempting to do that, sort of maybe moments of success, but overall struggling, certainly in recent decades, to do that. What lessons should be on the minds of the administration from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from Panama, when they are figuring out the path forward, as they do sort of seem to be figuring it out very much as we speak?

PANETTA: Well, that's the problem. The United States does not have a very good record when it comes to nation building.

We didn't do well in Iraq. We didn't do well in Afghanistan. We didn't do well with Syria. We didn't do well with Libya. You know, it goes all the way back to Vietnam.

We have not done well in terms of promoting nation building and stability. Why? Because we tried to do it alone rather than working with other countries. I mean, the reason we got a ceasefire in Gaza is because we work with other countries to achieve a plan that we could put in place in order to achieve a ceasefire.

You're not going to be able to handle Venezuela without developing a coalition of allies working with you to help promote the structure that's going to be necessary in order to govern Venezuela. That is going to be required. That's the lesson that this administration has to learn from all of the other failures of past administrations when it came to nation building.

KEILAR: Secretary Panetta, great to get your thoughts on this. Thank you so much.

PANETTA: Good to be with you.

KEILAR: And ahead, dueling events in Washington to mark five years since the January 6th Capitol riot. Democrats holding a hearing to, quote, set the record straight, while the president's supporters, including the Proud Boys, recreating their march to the Capitol. We'll have that next.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Today, on the five-year anniversary of January 6th, it's a deeply divided nation, and you can see that disconnect playing out right here in Washington, D.C., very much. Inside the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats held a hearing today to reexamine the January 6th Select Committee's findings, including President Trump's role in inciting the violence.

One of the witnesses today, Pamela Hemphill, was the only Capitol rioter to reject a pardon for her actions that day. Here she is speaking about that decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA HEMPHILL, CONVICTED JANUARY 6 RIOTER WHO REJECTED TRUMP PARDON: Accepting that pardon would be lying about what happened on January the 6th. I broke the law. To me, taking a pardon would be a slap in the Capitol Police's face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:45:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Outside the Capitol, a group of pardoned rioters marked the day much differently, retracing their steps from five years ago, marching from the Ellipse near the White House to the Capitol building, setting flowers as well for Ashli Babbitt.

Marc Short joins us now. He served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence. He was also White House legislative affairs director during the first Trump administration. He's currently board chair of Advancing American Freedom. Marc, great to see you as always. How do you remember January 6th?

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VP MIKE PENCE: Well, I mean, January 6th was a tragic day for the country, Boris. I think that for those of us who were in the Capitol that day, the sight of seeing the riots inside the Capitol or something you didn't anticipate and certainly wouldn't want to see again. And I think it was important that the hallmark of democracy reconvene that night in complete, you know, it's business.

And I think that 2020 was an incredibly divisive election. I think you're on the heels of COVID and there are a lot of concerns. And I think a lot of people who have every right to go protest at the Capitol. But the notion that the people who were prosecuted really were innocent bystanders is not, it's a canard.

The reality is that many of the judges that convicted the people who ended up serving time were Trump appointed judges. These are not Obama judges. These are not Biden judges.

These were Trump judges who who prosecuted people -- or convicted people because there is evidence of assaulting police officers. And I think that, you know, we as conservatives and Republicans have pride ourselves in being a party that stands with law enforcement. And I think that the notion that you're championing those who violently assaulted police that day and celebrate them being pardoned is a detour from where our party has historically been.

KEILAR: What do you think about how a number of people have wrapped their arms around the revision of what happened. There are so many people on the Hill in the White House right now who watched that day with horror, and yet today will defend Trump's pardons of violent rioters, some who've gone on even to commit other heinous crimes.

SHORT: Well, I think not just those were served on the Hill or in the White House, but even in the president's own family, as we know from various tweets or text exchanges that were discovered later. So I think that there was obviously at the time enormous concern about the events happening inside the Capitol and believing that it was on American to witness it. And even the president said so the next day.

But but yes, there's been. There's been a significant amount of revision, but I think there's some things that we know are factually true that in 250 years of our republic, no vice president has assumed that he or she had the authority to decide which certificates to accept or reject or overturn the results.

And those who advocate for that today certainly wouldn't have wanted Kamala Harris to have authority in 2024 when she was vice president and say, oh yes, she could have unilaterally decided which states to reject when they were doing the certification in January of 25.

SANCHEZ: What do you see as the downstream effects of some of the pardons that Trump issued essentially as soon as he walked through the doors of the White House? So a lot of those folks, we should note, have since faced criminal prosecutions for an array of other.

SHORT: Yes, again, Boris, I think that there is this notion that the people were prosecuted were sort of innocent bystanders or people got caught up in something wandering through the Capitol. That's not the case. The people were truly prosecuted were those who are actually assaulting police officers. And so, it wouldn't be surprising that you end up seeing many repeat offenders as we have, and I think and you probably will continue to see more.

KEILAR: What do you think about the conditional embrace of police officers? And the way we saw it on January 6th, the way we've seen it on other times, and I'm talking -- I mean, I think what we saw on January 6th was pretty heinous. You have Republicans who generally consider themselves the party of law and supporting law enforcement, but at times we see it with Democrats, right?

It seems that politicians are willing to embrace law enforcement when they're sort of in service of what they want them to be in service of politically. What do you -- what's your message to people about that?

SHORT: I mean, you know, you've you've covered politics enough to know that politicians often can -- it can be sort of two faced on this. But I do think that our party, Republicans, have traditionally been loyal supporters of law enforcement. I think January 6 is an exception, and I and I think that we should be standing with those officers who were trying to protect the Capitol and did help secure many of the safety for many elected officials that day.

SANCHEZ: Do you worry at all, Marc, that a generation, two generations down the road, the truth of that day is going to be obfuscated, is going to be as divisive as it is today?

SHORT: I don't, Boris. I think it'll be the reverse. I think that over time, more and more people will recognize what truly happened on that day.

They'll recognize that even under, you know, examination, that Trump's own campaign officials acknowledged that there was no evidence of fraud, no evidence of theft of the election.

[15:50:00]

There were plenty of people outside the campaign that he later consulted for advice. Many lawyers he consulted who came up with theories about theft, but, you know, even those who served on Trump's own campaign acknowledged that the election had not been stolen. And so, we may have concerns about in the midst of COVID. Many states changed their election laws. I think there are concerns about that, but that's different than saying here's evidence of a certain number of you know ballots that were stolen.

KEILAR: Pence talked about Capitol police quelling the violence in his statement today. Speaker Johnson has not put the plaque up that actually law says he should to honor what Capitol police did that day. How do you see that choice?

SHORT: You know, I'm honestly not too worried about the plaque. I do think that the reality is that we should be celebrating the law enforcement officers who are standing to protect the Capitol and standing to protect elected officials that day.

SANCHEZ: Marc Short, great to get your perspective. Thanks for being here.

SHORT: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it, guys.

SANCHEZ: Appreciate it.

Still ahead, George Conway is officially announcing his bid to run for Congress with a clear goal to take on President Trump. We'll discuss in just a moment.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: George Conway, someone you may have frequently seen on CNN, a former Republican turned outspoken critic of President Trump, is now running for Congress in New York as a Democrat. Conway was once married to Trump's 2016 campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, and he says that he never expected to seek office.

KEILAR: He says his decision was driven by a single goal, and that is to take on President Trump. Conway officially announcing his bid today on the fifth anniversary of January 6th with this scathing ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE CONWAY, (D) NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: We have a corrupt president, a mendacious president, a criminal president whose masked agents are disappearing people from our streets, who's breaking international law, and he's running our federal government like a mob protection racket. As for the economy, hey, it's great for him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Jeff Zeleny is here on this story. All right, Jeff, when did George Conway become a New York Democrat?

ZELENY: Very recently. He moved to New York City to Manhattan and registered as a Democrat within the last several days or potentially weeks, but very, very recently. And it's so interesting because this is something that is kind of at odds with the beginning part of his career.

He was a Republican lawyer, obviously made his profit largely on Republican based cases. He was kind of at odds with President Clinton back in the day. Of course, all of that changed in the Trump era, as we know. And now, of course, he has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the president.

And when you watch that full ad there, we just saw a clip of it, it really shows that it almost looks like he's running for president against President Trump. Of course, he's not. He's running in the 12th District of New York, which is the Upper East and Upper West Side. And he is running because he says he believes that Democrats should be talking more about Trump.

He said, Yes, affordability is a concern. Obviously, healthcare costs are a concern, but he believes that Democrats should talk more about Trump, and that is why he is in this race.

SANCHEZ: Not a coincidence that he's launching his campaign on the anniversary of January 6th.

ZELENY: Not a coincidence at all. I mean, of course, it's the beginning of 2026. The primary is not that far away, just in a couple months' time, so it makes sense in that respect, but his entire video is largely built to remind people about what happened five years ago today the whitewashing of history that has gone on. Of course, George Conway was at the forefront of many of the legal arguments against the Trump administration, the Trump presidency.

And that's another reason that he is running. He told our Jamie Gangel that he wants to be a wingman for Jamie Raskin and other Democrats in the House. He wants to be elected so Democrats can win the House majority. And then for the final closing a couple of years of the Trump administration, Democrats can investigate President Trump.

But, of course, he has to get through some other fellow Democrats first.

KEILAR: Yes, how many? ZELENY: A lot. It is a lot of Democrats running. The main ones running are these. Let's take a look at them on screen here. A couple members of the New York Assembly, Alex Bores, he represents the East Side.

KEILAR: Great last name.

ZELENY: Exactly. Spelled slightly different about how to pronounce his name.

Cameron Kasky, of course, he is a Parkland survivor. He's become an activist. Micah Lasher, he's an assemblyman also, represents the west side of New York. And perhaps the most famous one on screen and in the race there is Jack Schlossberg. He, of course, is the grandson of President John F. Kennedy, the son of Caroline Kennedy.

So these are only a few of the candidates running. Michael Cohen has also suggested the possibility of running. So it's a of a circus, there's no doubt, but George Conway has some, some of financial backing behind him. A very serious campaign operation. He's hired Anna Greenberg, who's a well-known pollster, so he's serious about this.

The question is, what are New York voters looking for? You know, they often like a fighter. He definitely is a fighter. But is this race going to be about Trump or not? Is that what? So I think it really speaks to a bigger picture here as Democrats kind of decide who's going to run in their quest to win the House. How much do they make the races about Trump versus other issues on the front of people's minds?

SANCHEZ: To that point, do you have a sense of how these other candidates are shaping their campaigns, or are they leaning more into that anti-Trump argument, or are they talking about health care and affordability?

ZELENY: I mean, there's no doubt that it's one of the bluest districts in the country, so anti-Trump kind of makes him one of everyone else. But some interesting responses from Alex Bores. He welcomed George Conway into the race and he said, I will show you around the district and show you restaurants that are not next to TV studios.

[16:00:00]

Suggesting that he is simply a talking head. But George Conway spent time there. He lived in New York for years. So an interesting race to watch of many primaries to watch.

KEILAR: Very interesting. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for that.

And "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END