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Leadership in Venezuela; Bob McNally is Interviewed about Oil in Venezuela; House GOP Margin Narrows. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 07, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:31:52]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It's half past the hour, and here's what's happening right now.

In a few hours, the son accused of killing Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, will make another appearance in court. Nick Reiner is being arraigned today in Los Angeles, where he will be formally charged with the stabbing deaths of his parents in December.

Testimony postponed today in the trial of a former school cop accused of abandoning children during the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. The judge will instead consider defense claims that the prosecution withheld evidence from them. Adrian Gonzales has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of child endangerment or abandonment.

And today, members of Congress are going to get a classified briefing on the operation in Venezuela. House Democrats are said to be working on legislation to limit President Trump's war powers on Venezuela, Greenland and other potential targets. Sources tell CNN, Democrats worry there could be limited Republican support.

So, in the meantime, who is running Venezuela? We've been talking about that this week. It is officially Delcy Rodriguez, the former vice president, and a Maduro loyalist who's been sworn in as acting president. But is it also Donald Trump? He's been saying he's in charge. According to "Politico," Trump has three demands for Rodriguez. First, crack down on drug flows to the U.S. Second, kick out Iranian and Cuban and other operatives who are hostile to Washington. And finally, stop the sale of oil to U.S. adversaries. Rodriguez claims she's in charge and insists there is no outside force that's going to influence her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DELCY RODRIGUEZ, ACTING VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We are a people who do not give up, who do not surrender. And we are here, governing together with the people. The government of Venezuela governs our country. No one else. There is no external agent that governs Venezuela. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I want to welcome Rick de la Torre to the group chat. He's a former CIA operations officer and CIA station chief in Caracas.

We had you on earlier this week, and I wanted to bring you in because Garrett had just written this article that was titled "Three Keys to Understanding Trump's Retro Coup in Venezuela."

Garrett, can you at least just give us a sense of, like, what is the thing you think people most need to understand that they're not really following?

GARRETT GRAFF, JOURNALIST AND HISTORIAN: Yes. So, I think to me the challenge of this Venezuela operation is it combines two things that the U.S. is historically very bad at. One is political meddling and military interventions in Latin America and South America, which we have a sort of shameful century of history.

CORNISH: We do. We actually have a graphic of this from Guatemala to now listing all of these countries.

GRAFF: And then the second thing is, Donald Trump's lack of planning, which is just actually the fundamental way that Donald Trump operates. I had a big conversation with John Bolton about this, Trump's longest serving national security advisor, of course, from the first term. And he said that the hardest thing that he had to wrap his mind around in -- when he was at the White House was the fact that Donald Trump just doesn't do policy, doesn't do plans in the way that we would expect a national leader to do.

[06:35:09]

And so, to me, we're sort of setting ourselves up on quite the international adventure where there's no reason historically, either for our own operations or Donald Trump's own way of thinking, that makes me think that we're headed toward success here.

CORNISH: OK, Rick, for the view -- the view from you, because you said backstage, you disagreed with everything that was in -- that was being said out here. So --

RICK DE LA TORRE, FORMER CIA OPERATIONS OFFICER: Just about. Yes. Yes, just about. Respectfully disagree. Respectfully disagree.

CORNISH: Yes, yes, but you have the experience on the ground. So --

DE LA TORRE: Sure. Sure.

Look, I think -- I certainly agree with your point, Garrett, about the president looking at things from -- and from a very different optic. And, obviously, his approach is something that most of Washington and the world isn't normally accustomed to.

But there's no denying it. It does get results. It does get folks to pay attention, to consider different options, different viewpoints. And in some way or another, he's just been, this past year, winning over the issues that are -- continue to be important to him, especially in the foreign affairs community.

With -- in regards to Venezuela, in this case in particular, I think that the region itself, and the hemisphere, and our foes in Beijing and Moscow understand that the dynamics have changed fundamentally over this past weekend. Right now, the United States stands in a position where we control overwhelmingly a vast majority, if not the total majority, of oil out there now, right? I mean, think about that. Between our oil and --

CORNISH: Yes, that's till in the ground and not very set up to go anywhere else.

DE LA TORRE: No, no, of course not.

CORNISH: They're doing a million barrels a day, I think, when they could be doing who knows how much more.

DE LA TORRE: A lot more. A lot more.

CORNISH: So, let me bring in the rest of the group here. Oh, Charlie, you look like you have a question.

CHARLIE DENT (R), FORMER PENNSYLVANIA CONGRESSMAN: Yes, Rick, I guess my question is this. Do you think our competitors, our rivals in Russia and China are viewing this interventionism in a way that emboldens them or is it deterring them? You know, we're talking spheres of influence here.

DE LA TORRE: Right.

DENT: And if you're in Estonia right now, in Latvia, hey, it's our neighborhood --

CORNISH: Or Taiwan.

DE LA TORRE: Yes.

DENT: Or Taiwan, how are you feeling right now?

So, I mean, this , this, this spheres of influence, you know, just trashing the whole world order after the Second World War, busting up Europe, as Ian Bremmer just said, is -- why is this in America's interest long term after the greatest generation sacrificed so we would have a peaceful, stable Europe and not return to what it was?

DE LA TORRE: Sure. Look, I think -- I think the argument that somehow Russia or China will look at our actions and say, well, if the Americans do it, what's to prevent us from doing x, y, or z? I would answer that with, nothing's preventing them from doing that now. And that's the behavior they've been doing in the past. How many, how many politicians have died at the hands of poisoning by Putin in foreign lands, right?

DENT: Hasn't invaded NATO countries. DE LA TORRE: Well, I think -- I don't think that dynamic is going to

shift or change either, by the way. I think -- I think NATO and the United States have made it perfectly clear. I don't think he is strong enough, especially now, bogged down in Ukraine as he is, I don't think he's strong enough to do anything of that sort.

CORNISH: Yes.

DE LA TORRE: But in regards to China and the others, you know, if anything, this operation this past weekend demonstrates that overwhelmingly that the -- their capabilities, the systems that they have sold to adversarial countries and others like Venezuela failed horribly. You know, those surface to air radar systems, those surface to air missile systems, just didn't work.

CORNISH: Yes, let me let --

ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Would you feel the same way if this was, say, president Kamala Harris, the aggressive foreign policy approach, and you say nontraditional how Trump has approached this, would you feel the same way and would Republicans in Washington feel the same way if this was a Democratic administration taking this approach that Donald Trump has taken? That's number one.

Number two, what happens after Donald Trump is no longer president of the United States? And what happens if we do not have a Republican majority in Washington who feels this way? What happens when it comes to maintenance on what Donald Trump has done?

DE LA TORRE: I think if Kamala Harris were -- hypothetically was the president of the United States, first of all, I don't think she would have taken any of these actions. I think we would have seen a continuation of a failed negotiation policy where they placate, they continue to write strongly worded letters and hold seminars and hopefully pray that somehow the Chavistas and the Maduro regime would would find religion somehow. And that has not worked, especially because he's not the leader of a country.

CORNISH: Yes.

DE LA TORRE: He was the leader of a narco-terrorist state. So, there was no incentive for him. He just -- a thin veneer of him actually being a president.

CORNISH: So, the thing I want to ask now is, I think that this week Congress is going to have a conversation about the operation itself.

DE LA TORRE: Correct.

CORNISH: They're going to have a conversation about the War Powers Act.

SEAWRIGHT: That's where I was going.

DE LA TORRE: Yes. CORNISH: I think for the average American, they are all wondering about the next day, right?

DE LA TORRE: Sure.

[06:40:04]

CORNISH: The world of people who said, the U.S. is actually -- we know the military's good. We do not need a pitch on the military being very good. And Venezuela as being not so good.

We need a pitch that says, is this Iraq again? Is this Afghanistan again? Why are we unclear which opposition leader we support?

DE LA TORRE: Right.

CORNISH: Are we going to watch this country collapse in terms of having these little fiefdoms of people running the cartel who just turn on each other? Why is there a Nobel Peace Prize winner hanging out in the wind that he doesn't seem to like? The list of questions about the next day is wildly long.

DE LA TORRE: So, on my end, I used to brief -- actually, I used to brief, at that time, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, when he was -- when he was the ranking leader of SSCI, the Select Intelligence Committee. And what we would do is, at the end of an operation, we would just lay out the case. This is what we did. This is under existing executive orders. And this is how we conducted everything legally and the whole thing. And we would listen to criticism, both, you know, on both sides of the aisle were in these -- in those types of meetings.

This one's more of a political nature, addressing the day after kind of concerns, right? In my view, I suspect what we're seeing with Delcy Rodrguez is going to be as short-lived as possible. We are pinching our noses, and we are dealing with her because ultimately someone has to keep the lights on in that country somewhat --

CORNISH: And not the someone who has been the known opposition leader to the international world.

DE LA TORRE: Oh, well, the physical challenge there is, she's in Norway, right?

CORNISH: Yes.

DE LA TORRE: She's not in Venezuela. Nine and a half million Venezuelans are not in Venezuela, right? So, something has to be there in place in the very short term, in the immediate.

Now, you say, well, why don't we just get her into Venezuela, right? Well, OK, let's say we do that. Well, obviously, we have to provide them security for her. Who's going to do that security? Is it going to be the 82nd Airborne? Is it going to be Navy SEALs? So, now we've got boots on the ground. You know, it's a little bit more complicated when we start to go down that path.

(CROSS TALK)

GRAFF: That's one of the reasons we don't normally let the president just randomly invade other countries and (INAUDIBLE) their leaders.

DE LA TORRE: But he didn't. He didn't invade any other countries. He was following -- first of all, existing covert action authorities that have been cleared, that have been cleared through the National Security Council, that have been briefed to the to the Congress, both sides of the Congress, certainly the Gang of Eight and -- now, on this specific operation, there's never been any requirement to let them know beforehand that we're conducting an operation.

CORNISH: It feels like an evergreen tweet to say, you might need security to secure that thing, right, whether it's the oil infrastructure, whether its stability, whether it's an opposition leader. What scenario is there where there isn't the need for U.S. security operations to maintain the alleged gains by this incursion?

DE LA TORRE: Well, we're still -- I don't believe we're still at that stage yet, right? You know, as you mentioned, most of the oil infrastructure is completely falling apart.

CORNISH: Yes.

DE LA TORRE: Between the corruption and the sanctions, it's not viable. So, there's nothing really -- there's no real asset at this stage where we need to (INAUDIBLE) --

CORNISH: Yes. And we're going talk about that next. Yes. But just in terms of -- I feel like there's this -- people being like, we're not at that yet. We're not at that yet. And for Americans they're like, we're only good at getting in. We're not good at getting out.

DE LA TORRE: Right. The concerns and fears of this turning into another Iraq or Afghanistan, certainly understandable, right? Especially the horrific exit we saw in Afghanistan. I think that's not the case here. I don't -- I don't believe that's warranted. And the reasons why is, this is not an ideological issue. There are no -- there are very few Venezuelan military folks that are willing to die for the Maduro philosophy or ideology. That certainly isn't going to happen. And also, the -- it -- just look at the people that were protecting them. It wasn't Venezuelans protecting them. It was Cuban intelligence operatives that were providing the bodyguard.

And also, we're talking about a country that up until Chavezim (ph) was probably ranked, I think, third or fourth in highest GDP in our hemisphere and now ranked third or fourth lowest GDP in our hemisphere. So, they remember what democracy and capitalism is. They know systems of government. So --

CORNISH: So, it's not a nation-building exercise.

DE LA TORRE: I don't believe it is. With the help of nine million exiled Venezuelans, many of them here in our country who have led successful lives, who have capital, who have now gained from their experiences here. This is an opportunity for them to return back home and make those investments and see a brighter Venezuela.

CORNISH: OK, Rick, stay with us because I want to bring in someone else who knows a lot about the industries we were talking about. And also, if you missed any of this conversation or any part of the show, we are a podcast. Scan the QR code. It's here. Never get that right. It's here. CNN THIS MORNING is available anywhere you get your podcast.

[06:45:05]

Next, President Trump's got a prediction for the midterms. We're going to talk about what he expects to happen if Republicans lose the House.

Plus, this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's all part of a pay to play.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The White House wants U.S. oil companies back in Venezuela. We're going to talk about why it's not that easy to do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have to bring it back and we're going to have to have big investments by the oil companies to bring back the infrastructure. And the oil companies are ready to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The Trump administration is hoping to get U.S. oil companies in Venezuela in an effort to boost oil production. They are concerned about investing in a market that presents, let's say, risks and could cost billions to really get going.

[06:50:01]

Among some of those concerns, safety for companies as they build that infrastructure, political stability as Venezuela moves forward post Maduro and standing U.S. oil sanctions and laws in Venezuela that could impact U.S. oil company investments, along with debt repayments and other financial guarantees.

So, we need an expert. Bob McNally, president of the Rapidan Energy Group.

Thanks so much for being with us.

BOB MCNALLY, PRESIDENT, RAPIDAN ENERGY GROUP: Great to be with you, Audie. CORNISH: So, shorthand history here. After the country nationalized

the oil industry, all of these U.S. companies left. And it's fair to say that it's sort of atrophied since, all of that infrastructure, to the point where despite massive reserves, Venezuela is churning out very little oil per day.

So, what kinds of questions will oil executives be wanting to ask the administration this upcoming Friday?

MCNALLY: Right. So, actually, Chevron hung in there with a little license. But you're right, under Chavez and Maduro, they ran it into the ground. It used to be three million barrels a day. Now less than a million barrels a day. It's in shambles.

So, the oil companies are going to be enticed. Look, they're used to dangerous places, but this is the world's biggest oil reserve. They will be enticed.

However, they will be very, very cautious. This is like a couple considering buying a dilapidated fixer upper they're going to live in forever, well beyond the Trump administration. This is not a vacation rental for the summer or a one-year rental. So, they -- you just spelled out correctly the types of concerns and risks they have to evaluate.

I'll come right out and say it, Audie. I think there's going to be a mismatch in timing between how quickly President Trump would like them to get in and that oil to flow, and how quickly it really will.

CORNISH: I want to share with you what some lawmakers see as -- on this issue about having to use the military to enforce infrastructure changes.

Take a listen

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): I think they're using our military to enforce 20-year-old contracts for oil companies, not so that Americans can get oil or cheaper gasoline, but so that these oil companies can make a better profit. And I think it's wrong to use our soldiers in that way to enforce legal contracts where we have no jurisdiction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I wanted to ask your position on this kind of view.

MCNALLY: Well, no, I think something broader is at stake. I think this is the first concrete application of the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which means we're going to eject Russia, we're going to eject China, and we're going to eject Iran from our hemisphere. And that has broader, to be fair, I think, broader foreign policy, national security and economic considerations. So, I wouldn't say this is all about -- look, when I was in the White House working for President Bush two decades ago, we were going into Iraq. They said the same thing, it's all about helping U.S. oil companies get rich. It wasn't.

President Trump himself said the other day, Bush should have kept the oil. We weren't going after the oil. President Trump is going after the oil. He wants U.S. companies there. But I think it's overstated to say that's the only reason that U.S. soldiers apprehended Maduro and are pressuring, you know, the regime. I think there's many more issues at stake here.

CORNISH: One more thing. In the business world I've heard the term "shakedown capitalism," the idea that when you're doing business with the Trump administration, you're also maybe doing business with the family, or you should, at the very least, expect the government to want a slice of control. Is that something you hear, and is that something oil executives are worried about, that doing these contracts, it's actually going to come with pretty serious strings.

MCNALLY: Look, the president, President Trump, has been clear that he's going to marry sort of business interests with national interest. I mean we see this. And I think he's been open about it. So, I think that is a concern in any sector, including energy. And yes, I think it's fair to say, that's one of the things oil companies are pondering as they look at how and when they enter into Venezuela.

CORNISH: All right, Bob McNally, thanks so much. Hope we can come back to you.

MCNALLY: Thank you.

CORNISH: And, Rick, I just wanted to give you a chance to respond. What did you hear there? Because you've been on the ground in Caracas.

DE LA TORRE: Right.

CORNISH: So, you know sort of how -- what happened to the oil there and the players who had been on the ground.

DE LA TORRE: No, I think -- I think Bob was spot on, on many of his comments. I think the issue there is, obviously, that infrastructure needs some new investments. There are -- certainly there are oil companies, not just here domestically in the United States, but around the world, that wanted to see those investments start over again.

CORNISH: But they're not expecting just expat Venezuelans to come back and do the securing. I mean what I'm hearing is, they expect proper security if we want this to happen.

DE LA TORRE: Well, it's -- I don't even see that it's security. Really it's more along the lines of risk mitigation because the concerns there are, as Bob pointed out, what's going to happen in another administration, or five, or 10 or 15 years down the line. We're talking about billions of dollars in investments to bring these systems back online into something that's going to be profitable, and you're not going to get a return on that investment right away, you know, over the next day.

[06:55:02] So, what that means is, I think the administration needs to codify some way of managing that risk with those investors in those particularly critical sectors, right? The oil, you know, I did like his point about that it's -- these are much broader issues than just oil.

CORNISH: Yes.

DE LA TORRE: And as if somehow oil is a bad word or something, you know, the one thing that keeps our economy and the world running and is used in every possible product that we do.

CORNISH: No, of course, but it's also been called the U.S. Achille's heel in terms of us being led by the nose on issues because -- in pursuit of oil.

DE LA TORRE: Yes. Gladly it's not going to be anymore, as we are energy --

CORNISH: Yes.

DE LA TORRE: We are energy independent now, and now we're going to be truly globally, perhaps, energy dominant.

CORNISH: Perhaps.

DE LA TORRE: Yes, perhaps.

CORNISH: Rick de la Torre, thank you so much for being here.

DE LA TORRE: Hope against hope.

CORNISH: I'm going to let you go because we got to talk about some other things.

DE LA TORRE: Of course.

CORNISH: But thanks so much.

DE LA TORRE: No, thanks, guys.

CORNISH: All right, so, we want to talk about something else. That razor thin House majority for Republicans. It actually got thinner on Tuesday because Marjorie Taylor Greene formally resigned. And then northern California Republican Doug LaMalfa actually passed away at the age of 65.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to express our tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member, a great, great, great member, Congressman Doug LaMalfa.

And our hearts go out to his wife, Jill, and his entire family. You know, he voted with me 100 percent of the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The Republican's narrow majority in the House now 218 to 213. There are four vacancies. And the president is keeping score.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You got to win the midterms because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be -- I mean they'll find a reason to impeach me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Group chat is back.

I wanted to talk about this because as the president was offering his condolences, he also noted that this was someone who voted for him a lot, and that spun out from there.

I want to talk to you, Charlie, about this narrow majority. What are the concerns for Republicans going into the next couple of weeks? I mean there's supposed to be a vote on running the government, right, at the end of January.

DENT: Well, I think there's a lot of concern about attendance right now because -- and, by the way --

CORNISH: Don't get sick.

DENT: Yes.

CORNISH: Yes.

DENT: I was very friendly with Doug LaMalfa and also Jim and Denise Baird, who were in the car accident. I wish them all well, the Bairds.

But the bottom line is, they have a very slim majority to begin with. And now if a few people are absent for whatever reasons, they don't have functional control of the floor. And they need to vote to fund the government this week. There's going to be a big vote Thursday. I don't know who's all here. They just came in last night. So, who's around? So, that's the short-term problem.

Then the other problem is if there are more resignations or, heaven forbid, deaths, you know, you could have a speaker Hakeem Jeffries before the year's over.

So, there is a lot of uncertainty here. And Johnson has no room for error to begin with. And it's even tighter now. So --

CORNISH: It was interesting to hear the president bring up impeachment, because I think Nancy Pelosi, just a few weeks ago, maybe on CNN, said, like, don't spend your time doing that. Like, if given the chance, Democrats, that's not a good use of your time. Is that the prevailing view?

SEAWRIGHT: Johnson has a math problem. January 31st, there'll be a special election to -- for Texas. Hopefully that member will be seated very quickly. If Newsom was smart and did what other Republican governors would do, he would delay the election to fill -- to fill that vacancy. And certainly from a policy standpoint, because Republicans have done nothing with this majority, there are a lot of moderate swing seat Republicans who will not support Johnson Trump's agenda going into a consequential midterm election.

CORNISH: So, you do think -- when we say there are cracks in the Republican, you think those cracks are more than what we often show, which is Thomas Massie or Rand Paul.

SEAWRIGHT: I think -- I think a lot of -- I think many Republicans are in survival mode right now because it's all about re-election. And they're going to do what they need to do to be re-elected to the Congress. And that's why the vote later this week on the ACA subsidies are going to tell a true story.

DENT: And more discharge petitions coming, I'm sure. Which was always bipartisan.

CORNISH: Right. The idea of going around the speaker in order to get something done.

All right, because Garrett hasn't been here in a while, we're going to ask you what's been going on in your group chats.

GRAFF: Oh, gosh. So, what I'm really excited about is Steve Brusatte -- this is a little bit nerdy. Steve Brusatte --

CORNISH: You?

GRAFF: Yes. A British paleontologist, author of this fantastic book, "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs," is teasing on social media today that we are going to have big dinosaur news today.

CORNISH: Dinosaurs in Greenland.

GRAFF: So, I don't know what it is.

CORNISH: No, I just made that up.

GRAFF: But I trust that if Steve thinks it's big, it's going to be big.

CORNISH: OK, dinosaur news.

Is yours news sports?

DENT: Well, it was going to be the slim majority in the House, but now it's sports because we're going right to the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs.

CORNISH: Oh, yes.

DENT: We're excited about that. We're also -- my group chat is talking quite a bit about the transfer portal in college football right now with all the changes in coaching and all these recruits.

[07:00:04]

CORNISH: Oh, yes.

DENT: So, that's us.

SEAWRIGHT: Charlie, the Panthers are in the playoffs and they play on Saturday. So, hometown proud.

DENT: Yes. Good luck.

CORNISH: OK, you guys, thank you so much for waking up with us. Thanks for hashing out some of these big stories with us today. I'm Audie Cornish, and you're going to get some headlines, next.