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The Situation Room

Secretary of State Marco Rubio Testifies Before Senate. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired January 28, 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]

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[11:32:42]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, we're going to get back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, answering questions from Senator Jeff Merkley about the future of Venezuela. Let's listen in.

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: That basically takes this money, doesn't reinvest in it at all, and basically sprinkles it to its people to keep -- the glue that keeps the regime together.

We want it to becoming normal oil economy. That's what the ultimate goal is here. And in a normal oil economy, companies are going to go in, they're going to look at Venezuelan law, they're going to look at Venezuelan authorities and they're going to make a determination about whether or not it's worth their investment.

And that will be -- that's the normalization process that we're talking about. That's going to be up to them, if they want to have a normal oil economy as opposed to one that is basically used as a way to feed graft in a very inefficient way, but they didn't care about that.

If they do it the right way, we think it has great promise and potential over the long term especially because these investments take a long time. But the U.S. doesn't have to put any money to encourage companies to go in and invest, nor is there any interest in doing so.

But a lot of it was...

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR): That's a point I really do appreciate.

RUBIO: Yes. No, I mean, that's...

MERKLEY: I don't want to see American taxpayer dollars going in.

RUBIO: Well, I don't even think that's even been discussed or considered by anybody.

Your second point was -- well, I wrote it here, but now... MERKLEY: It's the $300 million being redistributed to corporations in Venezuela and...

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIO: The second one was what? I'm sorry?

MERKLEY: ... lack of accountability over that. The $300 million...

RUBIO: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

MERKLEY: ... that has already been distributed.

RUBIO: On the account.

So that's not the permanent structure we want to see. In the long term, we just want them to have a normal industry where the companies are involved in it, they're selling it directly to the market and we're out of that game.

What we're talking about now is the sanctioned oil, the oil that's under our sanction. So we have to monitor how that money moves. So, yes, the first $300 million moved for the following reason. We would all agree we didn't want to see systemic collapse.

Like, one of the things a lot of you told me you were worried about on the short term is, this is going to trigger internal chaos in Venezuela. A million people are going to storm the border with Colombia. Colombia even stood up troops to their border to prevent it. Brazil was worried about it as well. It's going to lead to fighting in the streets between rival factions and shooting.

None of that has happened. And key to that stabilization is ensuring that the government had enough money to meet payroll and meet their basic needs as part of the stabilization. We should not confuse stabilization with transition.

This is not what the permanent structure is going to look like. I can't -- look, the Treasury is handling the structuring of that account. So I would refer you to them. And I can get you an answer for them as to what the legal framework of that Treasury...

(CROSSTALK)

MERKLEY: That'd be very helpful, because what you just mentioned, money to meet payroll, is very different than what we have heard about the money being used to give hard currency to key corporations inside of Venezuela, which would not be meeting payroll. Money to meet payroll is very different than what we have heard about the money being used to give hard currency to key corporations inside of Venezuela, which would not be meeting payroll.

[11:35:10]

RUBIO: Well, which corporations?

MERKLEY: This is where complete oversight is required.

RUBIO: Well...

MERKLEY: We would like to have transparency over how that's...

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIO: Yes. Remember, the first $300 million, we're going to have to -- on that one, because of the urgency in moving funds to keep the place stable is going to require us to undertake a retroactive audit of how that money was spent, the first $300 million.

But there's probably another $2.5 to $3 billion down the pike at some point, which will have front end through this process I described. I'm not sure if you were here or I described it, and we're still finalizing it. But, basically, the way it would look is, we would send them a letter saying, on the sanctioned oil proceeds, this is what it could be spent on, and you have to agree to contribute -- you have to agree to pay for an auditing system to make sure that that's how it's being spent.

That's the process we're trying to create. Again, on Friday, we will mark the four-week mark of this all began. I understand we live in a world where the items move very quickly. This was front-page news three weeks ago, when we scheduled this hearing, and today other items have captured the attention, but we remain focused on it.

So it's only been three or four weeks, but that's the process we're setting up with Treasury. And, obviously, as we finalize it, we will provide that to you. But this is not permanent. This is not the system we want to see in place in the long term. We want to see a normal country.

What was your third question?

MERKLEY: Cuba.

RUBIO: Oh, Cuba.

MERKLEY: Cuba.

RUBIO: OK. I will tell you about Cuba. OK.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to take another very quick break and resume our special coverage right after this.

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[11:40:49]

BLITZER: We're going to go back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, answering questions from senators, including fellow Floridian Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, who is asking him about the impact on Cuba involving all of this.

Listen in.

RUBIO: And that's what Venezuela was under Maduro. And that's what we hope will -- and intend to change.

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): So would you -- if you're a Venezuelan that lives in Miami, so what you would say is that you're working hard, there's a lot of variables outside your control, but you would say right now political prisoners are being released, never fast enough, the oppression is being reduced, not fast enough, opposition leaders are speaking up more and more.

So we're making progress and you're going to continue to control the oil to make sure that we continue down this path.

RUBIO: What I would say is that we share the same goal and the same outcome we want for Venezuela.

And the question is, we have to do it through a realistic process that has the highest chance of success. OK, the way to view it, if you use the medical analogy, is, this is a critically ill patient that has suffered some very serious things. They have broken their leg, but they also have a ruptured spleen or something.

You have got to deal with the life-threatening first before you deal with a broken leg. And even when you deal with a broken leg, there's going to be a period of rehabilitation. You don't just go from having your leg repaired in a surgery to running on a treadmill the next day.

There's going to have to be a process here, but the process has an arrow moving towards accomplishments, achievements and positive things. What I would say to the people who I know quite well, as you do, is, for the first time in over a decade-and-a-half, there is the real possibility of transformation.

And a lot of it will depend on them, because there are many people living in Florida and across the country who would like to go back and be a part of Venezuela and economic life. Many of them are eager to do so. And they're going to need them. Venezuela is going to need them to come back and rebuild the businesses that were taken or lost and engage themselves in both civic and economic life.

But, again, I remind everybody on Friday we will mark the four weeks since this happened. I get it. We all want like something immediately, but this is not a frozen dinner you put in a microwave and in 2.5 minutes it comes out ready to eat. And these are complex things.

And we have seen this play out. I have used the example of Paraguay and Spain. There are others where there is a transition from autocracy to democracy. It's not linear. It's -- in some cases, there are ups and downs along the way, but it's trending in the right direction so far, with the recognition that more work needs to be done.

SCOTT: Thanks for your hard work.

SEN. JAMES RISCH (R-ID): Senator Booker. SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): I just want to start by saying what's plain

-- I -- frankly, be plain to Senator Rubio and plain to members here is that it should not have taken this long to have this hearing.

Fundamentally, we have a crisis, I believe, in our democracy right now, which is the failure of Congress to do its job, to provide checks and balances, oversight, to provide the kind of constitutionally mandated work that we should be doing to keep a balanced government.

We have operations right now that are literally costing the American taxpayer tens of millions of dollars a day. The buildup in the Caribbean alone is hundreds of millions of dollars a month, but we're not providing that kind of oversight that's necessary.

So from our power to the purse to our important work of providing a check and balance to an administration, what we're seeing right now is unacceptable and speaks to what I think is a growing constitutional crisis in our country, which is Congress is just lying down for the administration to do whatever it wants whenever it wants.

I want to pick up on my colleague's questioning, because I actually know from years of conversations with you your heart about human rights in countries like Venezuela, Mr. Secretary. And you issued a travel warning, a Level 4 travel advisory from your department's Web site.

It says: "Right now in Venezuela, there's a high risk of wrongful detention, torture, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of laws, crime and more."

And when we hear from the president that he is in charge, that you all are running this government to that extent, I have a lot of concerns when it comes to the rampant human rights violations that are persisting.

[11:45:04]

Cabello, Maduro's key hard-line enforcer, has continued to intimidate and suppress Venezuelan voices. He remains in control of Venezuelan security forces, security services, the colectivos.

We're seeing extraordinary examples that the constant oppression of the people is continuing as these folks are remaining in control of the country.

So I just want to know what is the plan to address in a much more aggressive manner these severe human rights violations and to try to stop these armed militias, because, if we are doing things to stabilize their government, if we're turning over resources and money to the very groups that are creating these horrors, that seems to me against America's values and it seems to me something that should be unacceptable to Congress on both sides.

RUBIO: Yes, well, absolutely. The Venezuela I describe that we want to see emerge from, this is one in which none of that is happening. If you think about travel advisories, travel advisories are us

imagining worst-case scenarios. We have a duty to warn American citizens when they travel to a place that does have a history of Americans being arrested, of Americans being taken.

And they may be taken by a deliberate action of a government or entity related to the regime. They may be taken by criminal gangs that control parts of that society. For example, they have these colectivos, as they're called, which basically are these armed motorcycle gangs that are allowed to act with impunity and return for their support for the Maduro regime in the past.

And you have the ELN and the FARC and other drug trafficking organizations, including Tren de Aragua, that are involved.

BOOKER: Again...

RUBIO: So these are real risks that we have a duty to warn Americans, because here's what we didn't want to see. And I don't mean to interrupt you.

We have this announcement that Maduro has been taken. All of a sudden, people conclude, oh, he's gone. Let's flood over there. Let's all go over there. And we could expose people to danger.

BOOKER: But this is the hypocrisy that I see.

At the same time that you're issuing these human rights cautions about what's going on there for Americans, you have a president that's lifting temporary protected status for Venezuelans. Many of them are individuals that have lived in our country for years, if not decades.

When I hear from the Venezuelan community, I hear an outrage that, at the very same time that you are affirming here that these armed militias are running around suppressing voices, we have an administration that has said very clearly that they're not only going to be lifting contemporary protective status for Venezuelans living in the U.S., but instead of protecting longtime American residents, their -- quote -- excuse me.

The administration is putting people back on deportation flights and sending them into that madness.

BLITZER: All right, bottom line right now, don't go back to Venezuela. It's pretty dangerous on the scene right now, Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey, making that point. And it seems that the secretary of state is agreeing.

Let's take another very, very short break, resume our coverage right after this.

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[11:52:24]

BLITZER: All right, Secretary of State Marco Rubio continuing to answer questions, this time from Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. Let's listen back.

RUBIO: ... exists for the following reason.

When something is sanctioned, when we say it is illegal for them to move this oil, none of the traditional legitimate tankers will carry that oil. They won't touch it because they don't want to be sanctioned by the United States. So you have to turn to these pirates.

You have to basically turn to these ships that are either falsely flagged, meaning they're flying the flag of Liberia, but they don't really have a Liberian flag, or are stateless in their capacity. And they have to turn to them. And they turn to these vessels.

And these vessels are made up with crews from all over the world. We seized one where the majority of the crew members were Ukrainian. We have seized others the majority of them are Russians and a mix and what have you.

And so what's happened is, a lot of this oil is going -- a lot of this shadow fleet oil is going even outside the PDVSA system. And those are the ones that we have now been seizing as well, is the ones that are involved outside the PDVSA system.

Our goal is to rope all of this illegal oil into a channel that goes into this account that ultimately goes to the benefit of the Venezuelan people. This is an interim step. This is not the way we want the oil industry to look like in perpetuity. This is simply a way to provide revenue so that there isn't systemic collapse while we work through this recovery and transition phases.

So there's no doubt that, while Maduro was there, we had no cooperation on any of this, zero cooperation. But I will tell you this. Since the time Maduro was removed, not a single, not a single illegal ship has headed towards Venezuela.

And the ones that you hear us seizing are all the legacy ones that took off or have been seized in the past. So we have got a really good handle on this as a result of it. And what's really changed is the dynamic that the Venezuelan interim authorities are now actually helping us identify shadow fleet ships that they want us to seize and feed into this new interim mechanism.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): So let me turn to Iran.

Obviously, the president authorized a strike against Iranian nuclear -- Iranian nuclear the program in what I consider to be a magnificent demonstration of American military power.

And even though the arrest of Nicolas Maduro was not primarily a military operation, but they provided the support to law enforcement authorities as they executed an arrest warrant against Nicolas Maduro, likewise, I think most Americans were very proud of what -- how the U.S. government and particularly the U.S. military have performed.

[11:55:06] But I know the president is very concerned about the -- what's

happening to the demonstrators in Iran. And, of course, there are some estimates that as many as 30,000 Iranian demonstrators have been executed by the regime.

But I know the president is being presented with a range of options. We are -- notice a lot of movement into the region by our Navy and other authorities. But what happens if the supreme leader is removed in Iran? What happens next?

RUBIO: Well, that's an open question. I mean, no one knows who would take over.

Obviously, their system is divided between the supreme leader and the IRGC that responds directly to him. And then you have got these...

BLITZER: All right, continue to stay with us.

Our special coverage of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's testimony will be picking back up on "INSIDE POLITICS" with Dana Bash right after a short break.

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