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The Situation Room

Nicolas Maduro Set For Court Appearance; Trump Threatens Colombia. Aired 11:30a-11:55a ET

Aired January 05, 2026 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: And that's going to be detrimental to us in other parts of the world.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you so much.

LEIGHTON: You bet.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And just ahead, we're going to have more on the breaking news.

Just moments ago, by the way, Nicolas Maduro's son spoke at the Venezuelan National Assembly. We're following that. We will update you right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Right now, Nicolas Maduro's son is speaking at the Venezuelan National Assembly.

Nicolas Maduro Guerra, also known as the prince, is indicted along with his father and stepmother on drugs and weapons charges. Maduro's son says his father was kidnapped, his word, kidnapped by the United States. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLAS ERNESTO MADURO GUERRA, SON OF NICOLAS MADURO (through translator): Nicolas Maduro is a good father, a worker, somebody who learned how to work properly and honestly. He was a faithful friend, Cilia Flores, an honest woman, a mother who was totally dedicated to her grandchildren, a university dean of exemplary conduct.

[11:35:25]

I assure you that they are great people and they promoted the revolutionary ideas and they will never give up.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: And we have breaking news out of Colombia, where the government is making a massive move to secure its border with Venezuela following the U.S. military action there.

At the same time, President Trump again threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Here's what he said aboard Air Force One.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Colombia is very sick too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he's not going to be doing it very long. Look, he has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He's not going to be doing it very long.

QUESTION: So there will be an operation by the U.S.?

TRUMP: It sounds good to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And Colombia's president is warning that he would take up arms if the U.S. decides to attack him or his country.

CNN's Clarissa Ward joins us live from Bogota.

Clarissa, what are you seeing?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Pamela. Good morning from Bogota, where we saw a lengthy and angry screed from Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, essentially warning President Trump about the very serious threat that he appeared to make yesterday, when he said it sounds like a good idea in terms of the possibility of U.S. military intervention here in Colombia.

He wrote a lengthy post on X, where he said, as you mentioned, "I swore not to touch a weapon again." And he went on, "But for the homeland, I will take up arms again." He denied that he is a narco, as President Trump has said many times in the past and again yesterday.

And he said -- quote -- "If you arrest a president who a good part of my people want and respect, you will unleash the popular jaguar," so really not mincing his words there.

At the same time, Pamela, CNN has talked to the Colombian defense minister and a number of other people in the presidential office who are appearing to try to kind of tamp down the rhetoric here. We heard the defense minister really underscoring the crucial nature of the alliance between Colombia and the U.S., saying that Colombia is the U.S.' most crucial partner in the fight against drugs.

He talked also about the challenges that Colombia is facing in this moment with this instability in Venezuela, more than 30,000 troops posted along the border, which is more than 1,400 miles' long, and again saying that the focus here is not on President Trump as the enemy or the United States as the enemy, but rather on nations that share a common enemy in the form of criminals, gangs, and the drug industry writ large.

So, some mixed messages coming here from Colombia, but certainly a fiery response from President Gustavo Petro, who -- making it very clear that he deeply resents these threats. And, of course, it's not just Colombia that we're talking about here, Pamela. A number of other countries in the region, as well as Spain, signed a joint communique condemning the U.S.' actions in Venezuela, and everyone here watching very closely to see what happens in the coming hours and days, Pamela.

BROWN: All right, I know you will be reporting throughout all of this.

Clarissa Ward live for us in Bogota, Colombia, thank you -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And we also have some breaking news coming into THE SITUATION ROOM right now.

Senator Mark Kelly will have his military retirement pay cut by the Pentagon. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, made the announcement on social media just a little while ago. Kelly is a retired U.S. Navy captain. He's being punished for taking part in a video where he and other Democratic lawmakers told U.S. service members that it was their duty to refuse illegal orders.

Hegseth also added in his post he issued, and I'm quoting now, "a formal letter of censure which outlines the totality of Captain Kelly's reckless misconduct." That's Hegseth's words -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, coming up here in THE SITUATION ROOM, Wolf: Just minutes from now, deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is expected to appear in a New York federal courtroom to face drug and weapons charges.

[11:40:04]

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The deposed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is about to appear before a federal judge in New York for the first time. Both he and his wife, Cilia Flores, are facing drug, weapons and narco- terrorism charges.

We caught a glimpse of them earlier this morning. You see them there in their tan jumpsuits.

BROWN: We are covering this story from all angles.

CNN's Evan Perez is outside the courthouse in Manhattan. Alayna Treene is at the White House. And Mary Triny Mena is in Caracas. Also, we have Elie Honig back with us to help us understand what to expect.

[11:45:06]

So walk us through these charges, Elie. ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, Maduro will be advised of

the charges against him today by the federal judge. So there's four charges here.

The first one is narco-terrorism, which charges that Maduro worked with various declared foreign terrorist organizations to commit a string of crimes, including the second charge, which is importation of cocaine into the United States.

The indictment alleges that Maduro was involved in trafficking 200 to 250 tons of cocaine per year into the United States. So, those are the first two charges. The third and fourth charges relate to weapons and destructive devices.

But, interestingly, the indictment charges Maduro with those things, but gives no detail or no specifics about how he was involved in the use of guns or bombs. We may get some more additional information on that today.

BLITZER: We will see what happens. Elie, stand by.

I also want to note to our viewers, you can see on the side of the screen over there, you're seeing CNN reporters giving their analysis from inside the courtroom. No cameras allowed inside the courtroom, but our reporters are there and they're updating us on what we're seeing and what's happening right now.

Evan -- Evan Perez is with us.

What exactly will happen in this courtroom today?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the first things we're learning now, Wolf, is who's representing the Maduros in federal court.

Barry Pollack has now entered the record as Maduro's attorney here in federal court to have these charges read to him. Mark Donnelly, a lawyer from Texas, is now entered as the attorney for Cilia Flores, who is Maduro's wife.

And so now begins the process. We don't know whether they're going to formally arraign them or whether this is just the presentment, which is the reading of the charges against them. But this is, again, going to be a very lengthy process.

One of the things that we know about Barry Pollack is that he represented Julian Assange. That perhaps gives us a sense of where this case is going. You can anticipate that the Maduros are going to argue that these charges are illegal, that he's being essentially politically persecuted in the way that they brought him here to Lower Manhattan to face these charges.

And one of the interesting things about this, people might ask, how -- why New York, why is this case here? Well, one of the things that you see in the indictment is this allegation that there were efforts to bring lower-quality cocaine to the United States. They were going to bring it to Miami, but then they decided that it wouldn't sell in Miami, so they decided to import it to New York.

And that is essentially the way they have established venue to be able to bring these charges here in federal court in Manhattan, Wolf.

BROWN: All right, I want to bring in Alayna from the White House, because President Trump, Alayna, says that the U.S. is -- quote -- "running" Venezuela.

But are we getting any clarity from the White House today about what exactly that means?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: A bit.

And where the president has used very direct language to argue that essentially they are in control of the country after this capture of Maduro, we're hearing a bit more nuance from some of the top diplomats we know who are really leading this strategy behind the scenes, people like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

And, really, what -- from our conversations with administration officials, what they describe is, essentially, they want a client government, at least in the interim right now, to be in charge, and essentially with cooperation from the United States and the Trump administration to kind of move forward here.

And that's an alternative, I should say, to what some were predicting, which would be an immediate call for democratic elections in the country. But, for now, the picture that is emerging in the aftermath of those strikes in Caracas and the capture of Maduro is that they essentially are focused on administrative stability at this point in time.

And then, of course, the other big part of this, the president has been very public as well, is what is going to happen to Venezuela's oil. They have the largest oil reserves in the globe, and that is a key consideration right now in how the administration is going to work with Venezuela moving forward.

And, essentially, what we have heard from Rubio is, he argues that the U.S. has leveraged over Venezuela specifically because of the armada and the massive troop mobilization to the region. They say that is essentially leverage on the country's main source for the economy, their oil.

Now, another key question as well is this idea of coercion and cooperation, which I have been bringing up. Rubio has said essentially this idea of running Venezuela is to try and coerce the current leadership there to cooperate with the U.S.

Right now, that is Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodriguez. She was the vice president to Maduro. So there have been some questions about whether or not she would actually remain because she is -- was considered a loyal person within Maduro's government.

[11:50:08] However, the president has repeatedly said that she is showing signals of cooperation. He essentially said that he needs total access to be given from her and that also, if she does not cooperate, she would -- quote -- "pay a big price." He said she will face a situation probably worse than Maduro.

So there's still a lot of questions, of course, though, that remain unanswered, Wolf and Pam, one of the biggest being, what would the U.S. military presence look like in Venezuela, particularly as it relates to securing and kind of rebuilding the country's energy infrastructure?

How long will it take, for example, to actually call for democratic elections, or are they going to have a much longer time with this interim president, Delcy Rodriguez? All of those kind of still emerging at this point in time.

BLITZER: And we're also just being told that Judge Alvin Hellerstein, the presiding judge in this courtroom, has just entered the courtroom. So this process is about to begin.

I want to bring in "The New York Times" correspondent David Sanger.

David, what are the political ramifications of this latest action, both here at home and more broadly around the world? You're following that.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, a few Wolf.

The first is -- the big question that comes up is, how does this get read by Xi Jinping in China or Vladimir Putin? And while I'm sure they are probably impressed by the speed and skill by which the United States extracted Maduro and brought him to this remarkable court scene we're about to see play out in New York, they also have to be thinking for a bit that there is a lot of utility for them in using the Trump model and saying that power rules here are, not international law.

And there's a lot for them to go deal with there. Putin obviously would make an argument that, just as the United States felt that its national security was affected by Venezuela, that Russia feels that its national security is affected by the disputed territories with Ukraine or maybe the existence of all of Ukraine and could use this excuse.

Same thing for Xi Jinping with Taiwan. So it's possible that we may end up regretting some elements of the kind of replacement for an old law-based system that President Trump has ended up beginning to create here.

BROWN: I'm going to go over to Caracas. That's where we find Mary, because the Venezuelan National Assembly, it is meeting for the first time since Maduro's capture. What's happening there today?

MARY TRINY MENA, JOURNALIST: Well, the National Assembly is now open from -- and it will begin here. It's a five-year ruling over the countries.

Right now, they are selecting the new authorities from 2006 and 2031. But, before that, the son of Nicolas Maduro, Nicolas Maduro Guerra, spoke before the members of the Parliament. He is one of those lawmakers that will begin operations this year in Caracas.

And he basically said that his father and his wife have been harassed by the U.S. He says that they are going to continue to demand their release and mobilize across the country, but he's signaled, Delcy Rodriguez did, that he's open to be -- to engage in the conversations.

He says, we are open to talk with all the countries in the region, in America, and we are open to talk with the United States. And this is significant, because, over the past few hours and months, all loyalists to Nicolas Maduro have been saying that they will resist, that they -- that we will confront all the decisions coming from the United States.

And now they are taking a step back, and especially before the dramatic events that we witnessed and lived over the past hours in Venezuela.

BROWN: All right, thank you so much. And our thanks to our panel as well.

BLITZER: Good discussion, indeed.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: A lot's going on.

We're going to continue, of course, throughout the day to follow these court proceedings and what's going on.

BROWN: So many different angles today.

BLITZER: And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

BROWN: "INSIDE POLITICS" with our friend and colleague Dana Bash starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[11:55:00]