'This Week' Transcript 1-4-26: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie
This is a rush transcript of "This Week" airing Sunday, June 4.
A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, January 4, 2026 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.
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ANNOUNCER: "THIS WEEK" with George Stephanopoulos starts right now.
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GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Regime change.
GEN. DAN CAINE, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: The United States military conducted an apprehension mission in Caracas, Venezuela.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife are captured by U.S. forces as large-scale strikes rock Venezuela's capital.
President Trump declares the U.S. will take over the country.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because we’re going to run it essentially until such time as a proper transition can take place.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Maduro now in America's custody. Democrats question the operation.
REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): Maybe this is all about the oil, and he’s just trying to steal their oil. But we don't know because we can't trust anything the president says.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The stunning attack following months of military build-up in the region and dozens of deadly strikes on alleged drug boats.
SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: Nicolas Maduro had multiple opportunities to avoid this.
STEPHANOPOULOS: This morning, reaction from around the world. Is Venezuela on the verge of a new chapter or could it slip into chaos? We’ll have full team coverage this morning.
Plus, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and our powerhouse roundtable.
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ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, it’s “THIS WEEK.” Here now, George Stephanopoulos.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to “THIS WEEK.”
Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn this morning, swept out of office by Army Delta Forces on the orders of President Trump.
This was the scene as Maduro landed in New York to face drug trafficking charges. President Trump and his team claim it was a legal law enforcement operation, but the military mission had no congressional approval. And President Trump declared yesterday that the U.S. will run Venezuela and take control of its oil.
The big question now, what does it mean for the U.S. to run Venezuela? Will American troops be needed? For how long and what cost? How will Venezuela, the U.S. Congress, and the rest of the world respond?
We're going to examine all the fallout this morning. Chief global affairs anchor Martha Raddatz starts us off.
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MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC NEWS CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANCHOR (voice over): It was a stunning operation in the dark of night, and an extraordinary declaration from President Trump.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.
RADDATZ (voice over): But the president, surrounded by his national security team, providing little explanation about what that will mean and what role the U.S. military might play in Venezuela.
TRUMP: Well, it’s largely going to be for a period of time the people that are standing right behind me. We're going to be running it.
RADDATZ (voice over): Those remarks followed what appeared to be a precision U.S. military in law enforcement raid in Venezuela's capital city dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve, it was the culmination of months of preparation, with more than 150 military aircraft launching from 20 different bases and ships.
GEN. DAN CAINE, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: The force included F-22s, F-35s, F-18s, EA-18s, E-2s, B-1 bombers and other support aircraft, as well as numerous remotely piloted drones.
RADDATZ (voice over): Late Friday evening after waiting for the green light from the president and a break in the weather, the mission was a go. Nearly a dozen helicopters sweeping low over the dark ocean at just a hundred feet, warplanes targeting Venezuela’s air defense system and military targets, allowing the helicopters carrying the extraction team to reach Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, at their compound. Trump said the couple gave up when the military burst in.
TRUMP: The men and women of our military, working with U.S. law enforcement, successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night.
It was a lot of opposition. There was a lot of gunfight.
RADDATZ (voice over): Trump posting this photo on social media of Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded on board the USS Iwa Jima before arriving in New York City late Saturday. President Maduro has faced narco-terrorism charges in New York since 2020. Now facing additional charges of drug trafficking.
SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: At its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice and the Department of War supported the Department of Justice in that job.
RADDATZ (voice over): But just over a month ago, Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, serving a 45-year prison sentence in the U.S. for drug trafficking. Now the biggest question, what next in Venezuela and who will remain in charge?
Trump saying yesterday he’s not afraid of U.S. boots on the ground to enforce the U.S. goals. And the president insisting Venezuela's oil infrastructure would be a top priority.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.
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RADDATZ (on camera): Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, is now the interim president, with President Trump making clear he wants her to do what the U.S. wants. But she has been defiant, saying that Maduro is still the president and saying what the U.S. has done in Venezuela is a barbarity.
George.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Martha Raddatz, thanks.
Let’s go to our senior investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky at the detention center in Brooklyn, where Maduro is being held.
When do we expect the formal charges, Aaron?
AARON KATERSKY, ABC NEWS SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: As soon as Monday we expect Maduro to make his first appearance in Manhattan Federal Court like so many other defendants before him, George. And, in the meantime, he's going to be here at this decrepit federal jail in Brooklyn for the foreseeable future with Luigi Mangione, also awaiting trial in Manhattan Federal Court. Sean Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sam Bankman-Fried have all spent time here and have all complained about the conditions inside.
Maduro is facing a four count federal indictment that puts him atop a 25-year conspiracy to flood the United States with cocaine. And along the way enrich himself and partner with some of the world's most dangerous and violent drug traffickers and corrupting his country. Every single position Maduro has held in Venezuela, federal prosecutors say, he has used for his own benefit at the expense of Venezuela.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Aaron, Martha mentioned that the president pardoned last month the former president of Honduras, Juan Hernandez, on remarkably similar charges.
KATERSKY: Yes, they are similar, George. They’re not exactly the same, but they are, at the core, drug traffickers according to the United States government. And Maduro, both, Juan Orlando Hernandez, were accused of prolific drug trafficking, enriching themselves, corrupting their country, and allowing violence and danger to flourish. But the difference, as President Trump discussed it yesterday, was that Hernandez was charged under the Biden administration and, he said, treated unfairly, comparing the indictment of Juan Orlando Hernandez to other attempts by the Biden administration to go after him, President Trump.
George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Aaron Katersky, thanks very much.
Of course, Hernandez was convicted in that case.
We’re going to go now to Matt Rivers. He’s in the region right now, Bogota, Colombia. What are we hearing from inside Venezuela this morning?
MATT RIVERS, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: George, no question, things are very tense inside Venezuela right now as really an entire country waits to see what’s going to happen next and who will govern that country on a day-to-day basis.
We have seen some video of small-scale pro-Maduro protests breaking out in Venezuela. But certainly that doesn't represent the feeling in the country overall. I've been speaking to people personally inside Venezuela for at least the last couple of days and many people are saying two things. One, a sense of relief and happiness that Maduro is gone, but also a sense of worry of what is to come after President Trump's announcement that the U.S. will, quote, “run the government,” George, without any real specific as to what that looks like.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Matt, the president also seemed to have a warning for Colombia, where you are right now, Secretary of State Rubio for Cuba. What's been the reaction in the region?
RIVERS: Well, the region, as you might expect, more left-leaning governments, Colombia, where I am, Mexico, Cuba, all condemning U.S. actions. We have seen other protests pop up internationally as well. Some major European cities seeing some small-scale protests against U.S. actions. But the U.S. also finds overwhelming support in the millions of Venezuelan refugees that have left that country over the past couple of years celebrating openly in places like Miami, Santiago and Madrid.
So, George, it really is a contradiction here. Many people in this region very happy that Maduro has left. But when President Trump talks about dominating the western hemisphere, about seizing U.S. resources, the so-called -- seizing resources for the U.S., the so-called “Donroe Doctrine,” that brings up very real, painful memories for people here of colonialism. So, so many people, George, at this moment just don't really know what to think.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Matt Rivers, thanks.
We're joined now by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us this morning.
President Trump was pretty clear yesterday. He said the United States was going to run Venezuela. Under what legal authority?
SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: Under -- well, first of all, what’s going to happen here is that we have a quarantine on their oil. That means their economy will not be able to move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interest of the Venezuelan people are met. And that’s what we intend to do.
So, that leverage remains. That leverage is ongoing. And we expect that it's going to lead to results here.
We're hope so -- hopeful that it does positive results for the people of Venezuela, but ultimately, most importantly for us in the national interest of the United States. We will no longer have, hopefully, as we move forward here, will set the condition so that we no longer have in our hemisphere a Venezuela that's the crossroads for many of our adversaries around the world, including Iran and Hezbollah, is no longer sending us drug gangs, is no longer sending us drug boats, is no longer a narcotrafficking paradise for all those drugs coming out of Colombia to go through into the Caribbean and towards the United States.
That -- and obviously, we want a better future for the people of Venezuela. We want them to have an oil industry where the wealth is -- goes to the people, not to a handful of corrupt individuals and stolen by, you know, pirates all over the world.
That's what we're working towards, and we intend to use the leverage we have to help achieve that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask the question again. What is the legal authority for the United States to be running Venezuela?
RUBIO: Well, I explained to you what our goals are and how we're going to use the leverage to make it happen.
As far as what our legal authority is on the quarantine, I'm -- very simple. We have court orders. These are sanctioned boats and we get orders from courts to go after and seize these sanctions. So there -- that's -- I don't know, is a court not a legal authority?
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, is the United States running Venezuela right now?
RUBIO: Well, I've explained once again. I'll do it one more time. What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward. And that is we have leverage. This leverage we are using and we intend to use. We started using already.
You can see where they are running out of storage capacity. In a few weeks, they're going to have to start pumping oil unless they make changes. And that leverage that we have with the armada of boats that are currently positioned allow us to seize any sanctioned boats coming into or out of Venezuela loaded with oil or on its way in to pick up oil.
And we can pick and choose which ones we go after. We have court orders for each one. That will continue to be in place until the people who have control over the levers of power in that country make changes that are not just in the interest of the people of Venezuela but are in the interest of the United States and the things that we care about.
That's what we intend to do.
STEPHANOPOULOS: When the president was asked yesterday --
RUBIO: The legal authority is the court orders that we have.
STEPHANOPOULOS: When the president was asked yesterday who will be running Venezuela, he said it was you. He said it was the defense secretary. He said it was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Are you running Venezuela right now?
RUBIO: George, I've explained again that the leverage that we have here is the leverage of the quarantine. So, it -- that is a Department of War operation, conducting in some cases law enforcement functions with the -- with the Coast Guard on the seizure of these boats.
I'm obviously very intricately involved in these policies. And by the way, very intricately involved in moving forward and what we hope to see some of these changes being addressed.
Unfortunately, the person that was there before who was not the legitimate president of the country was someone we could not work with, was someone that we could not -- he had already suckered the Biden administration a couple years ago on a deal he didn't keep. And this is someone we simply couldn't work with.
We are hopeful that there are people in place now. We're going to find out. The proof will be in what they do or fail to do that will start making some of these changes that will ultimately lead to a Venezuela that looks substantially and dramatically different from what's been in place for 15 years.
But my number one objective is America. We care about Venezuela. We want it to do well moving forward. But our number one objective here is America.
No more drugs. No more drug -- no more Tren de Aragua gangs coming our direction. And no more -- an area of the country in our hemisphere that becomes a crossroads for every single adversary we have around the world. Hezbollah, Iran, all of them have turned it into their playground. That can't and will not continue under this administration.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, is it your position now that the vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, is now the legitimate president of Venezuela?
RUBIO: Well, this is not about the legitimate president. We don't -- we don't believe that this regime in place is legitimate via an election. And that's not just us. It's 60-something countries around the world that have taken that view as well, including the European Union.
But I -- we understand that they are -- there are people in Venezuela today who are the ones that can actually make changes. So, for example, when we want to send in the migrant flights, even though we never recognized the Maduro regime as legitimate, we had to deal with the authorities that controlled the airport. We had to deal with the people who had guns and the people had control of the airports. We had to deal with them to achieve these objectives.
That's different from recognizing their legitimacy. Ultimately, legitimacy for their system of government will come about through a period of transition and real elections, which they have not had. And by the way, it's the reason why Maduro was -- is not just an indicted drug -- an indicted drug trafficker. He's an illegitimate president. He was not the head of state.
And I continue to see these media reports referring to him as President Maduro and the head of state. He was not the head of state. He was not the head. And it's not just us saying it. The Biden administration said it, and so did 60-something countries around the world hold that position.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The President said that you spoke with the Vice President Rodriguez and that she promised to do whatever the United States needs. But in her televised statement, she was pretty defiant, saying that Maduro is still president, and that the Venezuelan people will no longer be slaves or the colony of an empire. That's a quote.
What exactly did she say to you, and what comes next?
RUBIO: Well, we’re not going to judge moving forward based simply on what’s said in press conferences. We want to see action here at the end of the day. Rhetoric is one thing. You see rhetoric for a lot of different reasons. There’s a lot of different reasons why people go on TV and say certain things in these countries, especially 15 hours or 12 hours after the person who used to be in charge of the regime is now in handcuffs and on his way to New York.
So, what I will say is, moving forward, it’s very simple, we’re not going to be reactive here to statements at press conferences or what people say in a certain interview or what some media posts -- some media post somewhere.
What we are going to react to is very simple, what do you do? Not what you’re saying publicly. What happens? What happens next? Do the drugs stop coming? Are the changes made? Is Iran expelled? Is Hezbollah no longer able -- and Iran no longer able to operate against our interests from Venezuela? Does the migration pattern stop? Do the drug trafficking boats end? Do you deal with the ELN and the FARC, two narco-terrorist organizations who control territory and operate with impunity from the territory of Venezuela against the interest of Colombia and the United States?
These are the things we want addressed. If they are addressed, that’s how we’ll judge it. If they’re not addressed, that’s how we’ll judge it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And what happens if they’re not addressed?
RUBIO: Well, as I said, we retain all the options we had before this raid and this capture and this arrest was made. We continue -- the quarantine is in place right now. If you are a sanctioned boat and you are headed toward Venezuela, you will be seized either on the way in, or on the way out, with a court order that we get from judges in the United States. We will continue to enforce our sanctions. And we -- and that is going to continue to happen until such time as changes are made.
I cannot overstate how crippling this is for their future. That -- on the other hand, there’s an alternative to that. And here’s the alternative. And that is, an oil industry that actually benefits the people, that actually goes to the benefit, not of people, of “the people,” not just two or three or five people who are stealing it, and certainly not to Iran or any of the other sanctioned entities that we’re going after.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But how does the United States intend to secure the oil fields? Won’t that take U.S. troops?
RUBIO: Well, ultimately, this is not about securing the oil fields. This is about ensuring that no sanctioned oil can come in and out until they make changes to the governance of that entire industry.
Because right now, that industry is non-existent in the traditional way. These oil fields basically are pirate operations. People literally steal the oil from the ground, a handful of -- that’s how they hold this regime together. A handful of cronies benefit from this oil -- specific oil wells. They’re producing at like 18 percent capacity because the equipment is all decrepit and they basically pocket the money to their benefit. They sell the oil at a discount on global markets, you know, 40 cents on the dollar, 50 cents on the dollar.
But all that money goes to them. Those oil fields have not benefited the people of Venezuela in over a decade. They have -- but they have made multi-millionaires, billionaires out of just a handful of people. And that’s what’s held this regime together. That’s what needs to be addressed.
The way to address it to the benefit of the Venezuelan people is to get private companies that are not from Iran or somewhere else to go in, invest in the equipment that hasn’t been invested in, in 20 years, because none of the profits that have been made from the oil has been reinvested. It’s all been stolen. And that’s going to take outside companies that come in and know how to do that. That -- the people who do this stuff will know how to do it. But it all begins with dramatic changes at the way the government -- on the way that the authorities that are in charge of that industry behave. And until those changes happen, this quarantine will remain in place.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Chevron is the only American company working in Venezuela right now. The only American oil company working in Venezuela right now. Have you gotten commitments from any other U.S. oil companies to go in?
RUBIO: I haven’t spoken to U.S. oil companies in the last few days, but we’re pretty certain that there will be dramatic interest from Western companies. Non-Russian, non-Chinese companies will be very interested. Our refineries in the Gulf Coast of the United States are the best in terms of refining the heavy crude. And there’s actually been a shortage of heavy crude around the world that -- so, I think there will be tremendous demand and interest from private industry if given the space to do it, if given the opportunity to do it.
And that will spin off tremendous royalties for the people of Venezuela, to benefit the people of that country, not the handful of people at the top, but the people. And, you know, that can -- that can happen. There will be interest.
I haven’t spoken to the companies since all of this has happened. I'm certainly aware of who they are. And I have spoken to Secretary Wright and Secretary Burgum and others on -- I know they’ll soon be sort of taking an assessment and speaking to some of these companies. But I don’t have any concerns that there won’t be interest. There will be tremendous interest if it can be done the right way.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm still not clear on what the legal authority is for the United States to run the country of Venezuela, but several members of Congress and other legal experts have said this operation to take Maduro was illegal because you didn’t seek congressional authorization. Why wasn’t congressional authorization necessary?
RUBIO: It wasn't necessary because this is not an invasion. We didn't occupy a country. This was an arrest operation. This was a law enforcement operation. He was arrested on the ground in Venezuela by FBI agents, read his rights and removed from the country. Have you -- I encourage everyone. I know it's Sunday. People are busy. But I -- you know, the indictment has now been unsealed.
People should read this indictment. They should read this indictment. They should read what this man did for 15 -- the last 15 years of his life against the United States. Him and his wife. He was arrested. Obviously, this was not a friendly territory. So in order to arrest him we had to ask the Department of War to become involved in the operation. The Department of War went in. They hit anything that was a threat to the agents that were going in to arrest him, and they hit anything that was a threat on the way out.
And they hit anything that was a threat to them while they were on the ground. And that a very limited and targeted operation. If we -- it is also a trigger-based operation. All kinds of conditions had to be in place. The weather had to be right. He had to be staying in a certain spot. Everything had to be in place in order for that to happen. You can't congressionally notify something like this for two reasons. Number one, it will leak. It's as simple as that.
And number two, it's an exigent circumstance. It's an emergent thing. You don't even know if you're going to be able to do it. You can't -- we can't notify them we're going to do it on a Tuesday or on a Wednesday, because at some points, we didn't know if we were going to be able to carry this out. We didn't know if all of the things that had to line up were going to line up at the same time in the right conditions.
You know, it had to be at the right place at the right time with the right weather, and all things like that. So those are very difficult to notify, but the number one reason is operational security. We would have put people --
STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know --
RUBIO: Carry this on -- in harm's way, and frankly a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason, and we thank them for doing that, or lives could have been lost.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And you know --
RUBIO: American lives.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The congressional Gang of Eight has a history of not leaking. But you mentioned the indictment of Mr. Maduro, and of course it does detail his drug running operations in the same jurisdiction, the former president of Honduras was actually convicted on similar charges, yet the president pardoned him.
And here's what the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner had to say about that. He said, "You cannot credibly argue that drug tracking charges demand invasion in one case while issuing a pardon in another."
What's your response?
RUBIO: Well, the president has the pardon authority. He's the one that reviewed the file with the folks at the White House to make these pardon decisions, and I refer questions do them because I was not involved in the pardon process so I can't comment on that because I wasn't involved in that process. But the president outlined yesterday that he felt that in that particular case there was unfairness, and that there was unfairness in the way that that individual was treated and he also pointed to the fact that the party that's now won the elections in Honduras had asked for this.
And so I would point to those comments as the rationale for it. In the case of Maduro, look, it's very simple. This guy was indicted. No one ever did anything about it. He didn't think he was under threat, that the indicted was every going to be enforced.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hernandez was convicted.
RUBIO: It was enforced yesterday.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hernandez was convicted by a jury.
RUBIO: I understand. You're asking me -- the pardon authority is something that, you know, I'm not involved in my role. I'm not criticizing it. I can't just comment on it because I just wasn't involved in those deliberations.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you support it?
RUBIO: I wasn't involved in those deliberations. I haven't looked at the case file. I haven't looked at the arguments made by -- you know, I've got a bunch of other things going on that are within my purview as secretary of state and national security adviser. But pardons aren't one of them. So I just -- I can't comment on a case that frankly I'm aware of but not deeply familiar with. And I don't want to comment on something that I haven't had a chance to be involved in reviewing the file and the rationale behind it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Secretary, thanks for your time this morning.
RUBIO: Thank you.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Up next, the Democratic response from Senator Chuck Schumer. We're back in two minutes.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: We're back now with the Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.
Senator, thank you for joining us this morning.
Let me just start out. Is it -- do you think it's a good thing that Maduro has been removed from office?
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Look, Maduro is a horrible, horrible person, but you don't treat lawlessness with other lawlessness. And that's what's happened here.
The American people this morning, George, are scratching their heads in wonderment and in fear of what the president has proposed.
The United States will run Venezuela. We have learned through the years when America tries to do regime change and nation-building in this way, the American people pay the price in both blood and in dollars.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You heard Secretary Rubio there. He says the United States has the authority to do what they're doing right now.
SCHUMER: They do not.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why not?
SCHUMER: He couldn't even answer your question. They -- there is no authority to go.
They did not just do ships off the water. They went inside Venezuela, bombed civilian as well as military places. And it's a violation of the law to do what they did without getting the authorization of Congress.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, what can the Congress do about it is the next question.
SCHUMER: Well, the next question is very simple, and that is that we have the War Powers Act. That's a privilege resolution, which means the Republicans can't block it.
Tim Kaine and I and Rand Paul are sponsors of it. It's going to come to the floor this week. And if it is voted for, if it's voted positively in both houses, then the president can't do another thing in Venezuela without the OK of Congress. We have to pass it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: In your view, who is running Venezuela right now?
SCHUMER: Nobody knows. The problem here is that there are so many unanswered questions.
Here are some questions they haven't answered and must answer. They're so important in terms of what's where we go in the future. And this could change our history for years.
A, how long do they intend to be there? B, how many troops do we need? After one day, after one week, after one year? How much is it going to cost? And what are the boundaries?
So, the American people are worried that this is creating an endless war. The very thing that Donald Trump campaigned against over and over and over again was no more endless wars. And right now, we're headed right into one, with no barriers, with no discussion.
This is reckless. And the American people are just, this morning, in fear of what's going to happen here. As I said, we pay the price. We pay the price in terms of treasure and in terms of blood.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We -- the president spoke a lot about oil yesterday, and we just heard Secretary of State Rubio talk about that as well.
In your view, can those oil fields be secure? The president suggested that they were actually stolen.
SCHUMER: Look, again, this is sort of -- it seems sort of a back of the envelope operation, at least by what they've told people.
These oil fields have been in disrepair for years. We have no idea of how long it's going to take, how much it's going to cost, and whether we need military troops guarding the oil fields while we do it. Again, there's an obligation to tell the American people.
But I want to say one other thing, George. Rubio, I just heard him in your interview, said they're doing what's good for the American people. If they want to do what's good for the American people, it should not be some escapade in Venezuela. It should be focusing on lowering the cost of living that Americans are struggling with every week, and tell us it's the most important issue they face.
We Democrats are on our front foot. We are going to fight to lower the cost of living and undo all the bad things Republicans have done to raise the cost of living. It's going to be our number one focus in 2026.
If they really wanted to do what the American people wanted, they'd be focusing on cost of living, not on some escapade in Venezuela, which could only lead to trouble.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Those premiums have gone up for a lot of Americans as of January 1st. Is there any way to reverse that right now?
SCHUMER: Well, you know, the bottom line is that we passed this -- we passed legislation to renew them for three years and the Republicans blocked it in every -- in every single way. They're a mess. They're a mess.
John Thune has said he will not renew them. Johnson has said they will not rem -- he will not remove them. And so, it's -- the Republicans have screwed this up to a -- fairly well. If they can find a way out of the mess, we want to work with anybody to lower the prices.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Are we headed to another government shutdown at the end of the month?
SCHUMER: No, there are two separate tracks here. Democrats want to fund the appropriations, the spending bills, all the way through 2026. We want to work in a bicameral, bipartisan way to do it. And the good news is our Republican appropriators are working with us, and we're making good progress in that regard.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And you expect to see bipartisan progress on the health care premiums?
SCHUMER: Until the Republicans straighten out their mess, they're coming up with these goofy ideas. They want to privatize the whole thing, which will leave Americans holding the bag. They want to add more anti-choice provisions to it. They're stuck.
And when their two leaders say they're not going to extend the premiums for a day, let alone the three years that we want it to do, they're just in a hole. Maybe they'll dig themselves out of it, but so far, they can't be. They're just stuck.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Schumer, thanks for your time this morning.
SCHUMER: Good to be here, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Roundtable is up next. We'll be back.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: And we are back with the roundtable.
We’re joined by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former DNC chair Donna Brazile, Doug Heye, the former communications for the Republican National Committee, and the executive editor of the “Associated Press,” Julie Pace.
Thank you all for joining us. Happy New Year to you all.
Let me start with -- start with you, Chris.
Pretty remarkable watching President Trump yesterday. You would never have imagined eight years ago, when he first ran for president, that this is how he would be spending his time and his energy.
CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. I was on that stage with him eight years ago, George. And if you would have said “regime change” and “nation building,” there were ten people on that stage. The one person who you know would not have been for that was Donald trump. And yet here we are.
Look, Maduro’s a bad guy. We all agree on that. Getting him out there is good for the Venezuelans more than anything else. But now the hard part comes. We’ve seen this over and over again through (ph) Republican administrations, Democratic administrations. The problem is, what now?
And the thing that concerned me most about the press conference yesterday was him dismissing Machado and saying, no chance. She’s not popular enough.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Of course, the Nobel Prize winner. She was leading the opposition.
CHRISTIE: Yes. And so -- and making a deal with the current vice president.
Look, one of the things anybody knows who’s run anything is, if the guy who’s corrupt at the top has been there as long as Maduro has, he’s got a lot of corrupt people around him who are enabling him every day. The defense minister, the interior minister and others. And the vice president. So, the idea that we're going to leave that person in place and think somehow it's going to get better for the Venezuelan people, it's not.
And so, you’re going to talk about full regime change at some point. And that's when it's going to start to get messy and difficult and long.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Donna, you saw my interview with Secretary Rubio. He says the blockade is -- and having the court orders for the blockade is legal authorization enough to run the country and for regime change. A lot of Democrats in Congress are going to disagree.
DONNA BRAZILE, FORMER DNC CHAIR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think the Republicans should also, because under what law, international or domestic, are we operating under? What are we operating under? I mean Venezuela did not give us their consent. The U.N. did not authorize this. This was Donald Trump believing that, you know, you can go and bomb all of the boats in the water, but you know what, the bottom line, regime change. This is not regime change.
Chris mentioned the interior minister, who controls a lot of the infrastructure, the defense minister, who actually control the distribution of food. He talked to the vice president of Venezuela and basically said, OK, we’re coming in. Coming in to do what? We have no legal authority to be -- to be in there.
And let me just say this, because I know people are going to say Democrats are weak. No, we are not sitting here saying Maduro should have stayed. He is a thug. He’s a criminal. Illegitimate. He did not win the last election. But this is no way to handle the matter in South America.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Julie, a lot of people watching yesterday were reminded of the early days of the Iraq War under President George W. Bush. A lot of talk about oil yesterday. And it made me think of what Colin Powell warned George W. Bush on in 2003. You break it, you own it.
JULIE PACE, ASSOCIATED PRESS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Absolutely. And, look, we are 24 hours from what happened here. And we have a long way to go. How long is the question?
You know, in talking to our journalists at AP who are on the ground in Venezuela, we’re one of the few organizations there, they are saying there is no visible sign of U.S. presence, there's no sign of the U.S. running Venezuela right now. So, what that means, I think, is really uncertain. To Donna and Chris’ point, you know, who they will be working with is really uncertain.
And I do think for the American people, the question will become what is the benefit for them? Do they see a tangible benefit, whether it's from a safety and a drug standpoint?
Ultimately, so much of this will come down to an economic question for Americans. It will come down to a safety question for those who are serving in the military, those with loved ones in the military, if there's some type of U.S. military presence here.
So yes, when you break it, you do buy it. And for how long, I think, is really the question right now.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And right now, Doug, Republicans on Capitol Hill falling and for the most part behind President Trump. But do you expect to see some splits in the MAGA movement over time given how in the past, President Trump had been so against these what he called “forever wars”?
DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST & FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I think you're already seeing some of that. Steve Bannon has come out and been critical of this. Rand Paul, we can certainly expect to talk about the War Powers Resolution.
But there's also a very real political fact coming up for everybody on Capitol Hill. And we face a potential shutdown in less than four weeks. That also means the State Department and the Department of Defense, Department of War, whatever you want to call it.
So, there are very real political realities that Republican leadership and to some extent Democratic leadership have to face just in the coming weeks as they're asking themselves, what is this mission? What comes next? And ultimately, how do we fund it if we want to do so?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Big question is going to be, what is the exit strategy?
CHRISTIE: I still wonder what the entrance strategy is, right, George? I mean, like, how are we going to take control of it?
We've now taken out Maduro, and he's going to -- he made it very clear yesterday, we're going to run the country. Okay. Well, what does that mean?
And I think --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, yeah, because Senator -- Secretary Rubio didn't really want to reinforce that.
CHRISTIE: No, he -- I think they were all made uncomfortable by that, especially when he pointed back at Rubio and Hegseth and said, "Yeah, these guys back here are going to run it."
I -- look, I think that the strategy here for the president is a good 24-hour, 48-hour strategy. Getting Maduro out, most people are going to agree with that.
The question now is, how do you execute what comes next? And that is the hardest part. The Bush administration learned that in Iraq and there, they made no secret about the fact that they were going to take the entire regime out.
We also saw the problem in Iraq. When you take out the military, if we decide to do that, those people often become the ones who are fighting against you on the ground when you try to take over.
There's a lot of complicated questions, and we got some very simple answers yesterday. President's going to have to come forward and give the complicated answers. We'll see how that goes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Another group of people you haven't heard anything from are other American oil companies besides Chevron, Doug Heye. They're not -- they're not saying right now that they're ready to go in.
Hard to imagine the circumstances in which they would.
HEYE: Right. And obviously, this all happened by surprise. We knew some people knew about it. Obviously, you mentioned some media organizations. But they're all caught by surprise as we were.
And I think one of the striking things here to the governor's point talking about the Bush administration is typically you have a political communications plan. You're talking about this -- what you're going to do and then what comes next for weeks if not months. Democrats talked about a rush to war in the Bush administration for months.
This has caught all of us by surprise. Certainly, oil executives. I'm thinking of the American Petroleum Institute specifically.
Mike Summers, who runs that organization. They've got a lot of work to do, not just today, but coming in the next weeks and months.
BRAZILE: But U.S. oil production is already up. I mean, I'm from a petrochemical state. So, it's one of the few commodities that I follow all the time. Our oil production is really number one right now.
So, this crude oil -- this is a very different kind of crude, takes months to not just extract, but to really go and, you know, make sure it's the best of the best. So, it's going to take even more money to get it extracted and to put it back onto the market.
PACE: Well, in part because --
BRAZILE: So that's another issue that they have not figured out.
PACE: In part because this is not an oil industry from an infrastructure standpoint that has been well taken care of over the years. You know, I -- you talked to one analyst earlier who was saying the bones of it are there, but this is going to be a multi-year project to be able to build that infrastructure into a place where these companies would be able to take advantage of it in a really profitable way.
CHRISTIE: And, George, I'd also say, as we enter 2026 today, you know, the effect on the midterms is going to be very unknown. And you saw Chuck Schumer already starting to pivot into saying, you know, what can --
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Pretty quickly.
CHRISTIE: -- do. Right.
I mean, for now, as usual, I thought he did it pretty poorly. That's just Schumer's way.
But it shows you what the political stakes are for the president and the Republican Party. Because if we can't articulate why all the time the president is spending on this rather than on reducing prices, increasing job growth, and making the economy better is good for the American people, then it's going to be even harder midterm than what we anticipated just a week ago.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And it's pretty clear as Chris was saying that the Democrats are -- this is exactly where they want to take the debate --
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: Absolutely. George, if we learned anything in 2025, Democrats had a -- really, they faced a stiff headwind. But throughout the entire year, Democrats overperformed. Even the last election of 2025, Democrats captured a state senate seat and right outside of Des Moines, Iowa, in Drake County.
This is going to be a year where Democrats have to use every tool in the diplomatic and post-diplomatic toolbox. They are going to have to go into those Republican districts, hold those town hall meetings.
But on Capitol Hill, they got to force Congress to come back and act like the first branch of government. They have to continue to stay on message on affordability, but most importantly, they have to run good campaigns because the primary season starts early in North Carolina and Illinois.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Doug Heye, for the last eight years, President Trump has said that health care plan is a few days, a few weeks away. As we enter 2026, Republicans seem to be in complete disarray over what to do.
HEYE: Well, that's unfortunately nothing new.
(LAUGH)
HEYE: When I worked in House leadership in 2014, every week, we spent on what a replacement would be. The repeal was easy. Replacement was tough. And we had our four committee chairs of jurisdiction, John Kline, Fred Upton, Dave Camp, Paul Ryan, your smart thinkers in the group. They couldn't even put a white paper together.
So, how are we going to be able to move forward when all we can identify is what we don't want and we can't identify what we do want to do? It makes it very tough as we move into this very real political reality, as people's bills are going to be going up immediately.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Five months from now, which issue is going to be bigger, Venezuela or health care?
PACE: Oh, I think health care and the economy, for sure. And potentially, Venezuela could link in with the economy for some of the reasons that we talked about there. But I think Chris is right. You know, when you come into a midterm year, the public just wants to know, is this president and is this party serving me well in my everyday life? And Venezuela feels distant for a lot of Americans.
And we were already having this conversation coming into 2026 about the amount of time that the president was spending on some very real and very important foreign policy challenges and whether those were starting to distract his attention, his administration's attention from the issues that we know Americans are going to be voting on in November.
CHRISTIE: And there are real -- look, you could make a real argument here. China was making their way into Venezuela. Russia is in Venezuela. We had enemies coming into our hemisphere that it makes sense to try to keep them away. There's a big foreign policy argument to be made here, but it wasn't made yesterday. All we heard was about oil. And you know --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, we also heard from the president that Colombia may be next. Cuba may be next.
CHRISTIE: Right. So when you do that kind of thing, you have to put it in a larger geopolitical picture for the American people to say, why will this make us more secure and more safe. They haven't done that. And when you combine that with not talking about the economy in the way it needs to be talked about, it creates a real political -- potential political problem.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Donna, we only have about 30 seconds left. What's the best way for Democrats to respond to this?
BRAZILE: Clearly, to speak up, to go loud and to continue to hammer away at the right of Congress to hold hearings and to make sure that they inform the American people on what the priorities that they will care about this year.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Thanks to you all. Up next, a political newcomer leading a turnaround in San Francisco. Jon Karl has a conversation with Mayor Daniel Lurie, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: After years of high crime, widespread drug use on the streets and businesses fleeing the city, San Francisco is a city that seems to be on the rebound.
Jon Karl met with Mayor Daniel Lurie for his first network interview since taking office one year ago this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the heart of one of America's most liberal cities, a tough-on-crime, pro-business moderate Democrat has become one of the most popular local leaders in a long time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Best mayor ever.
MAYOR DANIEL LURIE (D), SAN FRANCISCO: Thank you.
KARL: Elected to clean up his city, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie's constant presence on social media has turned the 48-year-old political newcomer and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune into an unlikely local celebrity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm watching all your videos on TikTok and Instagram.
KARL: As we talked about San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, it seemed as if everybody wanted to talk to him.
LURIE: Good to see you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you for everything.
LURIE: Thank you. I appreciate it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I vote for you.
LURIE: Thank you very much.
How's business?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Business is great. Can't complain. You know, with the new administration, you guys, SF has really, really gone up.
KARL: You've now been in office about a year. I want to get to what you have done. And it does seem like there is something of a renaissance going on in San Francisco. But before we get to that, what went wrong in this city? I mean, San Francisco had become the symbol of in some ways progressive or liberal failure. What happened here?
LURIE: We lost our way as a city. We all know that. We had, you know, career politicians that were focused on what was next for them instead of what was best for San Franciscans.
KARL: And what specifically was it, Mayor?
LURIE: I think we got away from the basics of government. Now, today, if you come to San Francisco to commit a crime, we're going to catch you and we're going to prosecute you. If you come to San Francisco to deal drugs or to do drugs, we're going to prosecute you. And I think we sort of had a laissez-faire attitude. We said, OK, it's somebody's right to do drugs. Our progressive values sort of overtook common sense. We had 812 people die of overdose a few years ago in our city.
KARL: In a single year?
LURIE: In a single year. There's nothing progressive about that. There's nothing progressive about car break-ins. This year, this past year, we're at a 22-year low when it comes to car break-ins. We have fundamentally shifted what's happening and how people feel.
KARL: I mean, one of the things that you'd see in San Francisco is kind of wide open basically drug markets. I mean, people selling, doing drugs just out in the street. You still see some of that in the city.
LURIE: We still have our challenges. There's no question. I'm not going to sit here and say you can't go down a few of our streets and see some of the things you saw in the last few years. But we've made great strides.
Crime in San Francisco, Jon, is down 30 percent citywide. It's actually down 40 percent in our downtown.
KARL: You've taken some heat for being pro-business, too, and also having, you know, some of the wealthiest companies out here help fund the renaissance that you'd like to see in San Francisco.
LURIE: Yes. Listen, I can take that heat. I think what we're doing is working in San Francisco. And yes, I am pro small business. I am pro bringing conventions back to San Francisco. I'm pro big business being here in San Francisco. And my demand of the business community is, get involved in our city. Get involved in our public schools and in our arts and culture.
KARL: What do you make of the new mayor in New York?
LURIE: Well, I called the mayor the day after he won. We had a very nice conversation. I think New York City is -- I love it. You know, it's no San Francisco, let's be clear. But I wish him nothing but the best. I want New York to succeed. And, you know, a lot of people want to try to compare us.
KARL: Well, you're both young mayors. I mean, he's a little younger than you, to be clear.
LURIE: He's a lot younger.
KARL: But -- but coming in with, we're talking about real change.
LURIE: Yes. I think we both ran against a broken system.
KARL: But you have very different approaches. Some would say a different path for the Democratic Party. Is it Mamdani or is it Daniel Lurie?
(LAUGH)
LURIE: This is what I don't understand about politics. I'm over here in the greatest city in the world just focused on getting results for the people of San Francisco.
KARL: Yeah. What about homelessness?
LURIE: Well, we did just pass family zoning, which is going to help us create more affordable housing and more housing at all income levels. But when you talk about homelessness, and when I think about it, I also, it's intertwined with the drug crisis, with fentanyl. We were caught flat-footed as a city in how we respond to it. We kept putting people with addiction into shelter, into housing with no support.
We've changed our approach on that here in San Francisco this past year. We're no longer just handing out drug supplies and letting people kill themselves on the street.
KARL: Now, not long ago, Donald Trump threatened to send the National Guard here to San Francisco. He said, crime is out of control, and he's going to send in the Guard. You talked to him, and you seem to have talked him out of it.
LURIE: He gave me a call. I was sitting in my car in North Beach.
KARL: So he called you?
LURIE: He did.
KARL: Did you know it was him? Was it arranged ahead of time? (Inaudible).
LURIE: I was told by somebody five minutes before that I would be getting a call from the president.
KARL: Yeah.
LURIE: I received the call, and he -- his first question was, how's it going? And I told him what I'm telling you, and I'm telling the world, that San Francisco is on the rise. Our numbers are going in the right direction in terms of our economy. Crime is down.
I think people had an outdated notion of what was happening in San Francisco. And so, he asked me some questions. I really appreciated him listening, and I think we're proven that it was the right decision.
KARL: Was it a back-and-forth or -- ? --
LURIE: It was. It was an almost 30-minute conversation. He asked me if I was a Democrat, and I said, sir, I was born and raised in San Francisco. Yes, I'm a Democrat. So I appreciated the conversation with him. I will work with anybody that wants to help San Francisco. And of course, when the president calls, you ,talk and it was a conversation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Thanks to Jon and Mayor Lurie. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: That is all for us today. Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us. Check out "World News Tonight," and I'll see you tomorrow on GMA.
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