Morning Joe - Joe: Trump needs to explain how Venezuela operation makes the lives of Americans better

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Joe: Trump needs to explain how Venezuela operation makes the lives of Americans better To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. It's not running. It's running policy. The policy with regards to this. Don't ask me who's in charge because I'll give you an answer and it'll be very confident. What does that mean? Yes, we're in charge. All right, President Trump last night, insisting the U.S. is in charge of Venezuela, somewhat undercutting the Secretary of State. He said we're running it, and then Marco Rubio said, we're not running it. Right.

And then he said last night, no, no, no, we're running it. We're running it. Good morning. And welcome to morning show. Has he ever been to Potry Bar? Happy New Year. I don't think he's been to Potry Barrett. Break it, you bought it?

Yeah, this is like Colin Powell all over. With us, we have the co-host of our 9am hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post, David Ignatius, decorated combat veteran and former commander of U.S. Army, Europe, retired. Retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurling and presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, John Meacham. Now, that is a redneck Riviera. Right there. That's how we say retired in Northwest Flood, retired general.

I'm a southern drawl on this. Retired general, I'm sure the retired general is going to have a lot to say about Potra Barne in the second here. I will be very interested here from all of our panelists today, but let's get, we have a lot going on, a lot of moving parts today. ousted Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, will make their first appearance in Manhattan Federal Court this afternoon facing drugs and weapons charges. It comes just days after the couple was captured from their Caracas compound in the dark of night operation by U.S. Special Forces that included more than 150 military aircraft. The pair were then transported to New York late Saturday night where they are being held in a Brooklyn jail awaiting today's

arraignment. The strike and seizure by the U.S. military was the culmination of a month's long campaign in the region, building up forces, targeting alleged drug boats, and intercepting oil tankers. But now there are major questions about what comes next. President Trump said over the weekend the United States will run Venezuela for an unspecited amount of time, zeroing in on advancing American oil interests there. Secretary of State Marco Rubio then tried to clarify that comment, saying the focus is not on governing, but on setting future policy. The president, however, doubled down on his assertion just last night while outlining what he says he needs from the acting leader of Venezuela

and Maduro's former VP Delci Rodriguez. Don't ask me who's in charge because I'll give you an answer and it'll be very controversial. What does that mean? We're in charge. Have you spoken with her? We're in charge. Have you spoken with her? No, no, I haven't, but other people have.

Do you want to? At the right time, I will. Did the U.S. give Delcy Rodriguez any guarantees in exchange for cooperating with your administration? No, but she's cooperating. Short term, next two weeks, what do you need from Delcy Rodriguez? You threaten to total access. We need total. access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country that allow us to rebuild

their country. If you had to sum up operation to absolute resolve, would you say that it was about oil or it was about regime change? It's about peace on earth. How is it peace on earth? We've got to have peace. It's our hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was very important when it was done and other presidents, a lot of them, they lost sight of it. I didn't. I didn't lose that. But it really is its peace on earth. You know, it is stunning.

It's breathtaking, talking about we own this place. It reminds me of what George W. Bush said, and I looked it up on May the 1st, 2003. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And 22 years later, there are still thousands of troops in Iraq trying to maintain order there. Donald Trump, very critical of that. Yeah. So you will hear, certainly not hear from me, any suggestion that Majuro was a good leader, a good man, a legitimate leader of Venezuela. He certainly was not.

And I suspect in time, we hope the hemisphere will be much. better with him gone. But the problem here is things never go as you expect. When you're trying regime change, the lesson in the last 20 years is regime change doesn't work. It never goes the way you expect it to go. And Miko, we saw that right out of the gate the other day when President Trump said she's going to do what we tell her to do and she's going to work with this. And then immediately after that, Delci Rodriguez delivered a much different statement. Yeah. Well, last night, she read, said one that reads in part, quote, we invite the U.S. government to collaborate with the U.S. on an agenda of cooperation oriented toward shared

development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence. The acting leader went on to directly address President Trump, writing, quote, our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war. This diplomatic tone marks a shift for Rodriguez, who on Saturday called the administration's actions in Venezuela an atrocity and maintained that Maduro was the country's rightful leader. It comes after President Trump told the Atlantic yesterday that if Rodriguez, quote, doesn't do what's right, she's going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro. And he also talked, David Ignatius, about a second wave that would be going into Venezuela, larger than the first wave. Of course, the military operation was executed from

every report I've seen flawlessly. But let's talk about what we've learned over the past 20 years and the concerns that I think most Americans share with me. Not that Maduro has been taken but what happens next so that what next problem is is the part that haunts anybody who was president as i was uh as u.s troops rolled into bagdad in in 2003 you could hear in president trump's voice last night uh as he spoke on air force one the exhilaration that presidents feel when they use military power successfully just there was a lion's roar as he talked about, you know, watch out Colombia. It's a sick leader that says that they're next and watch out Mexico. Mexico's run by cartels. Cuba's about to fall apart. This was a president who was just

feeling what military power can do. And the problem is you don't look over the next hill to all the problems you're going to encounter. It was within, within a week of that arrival in Baghdad that the U.S. began struggling. But the reality, who's going to govern this? now that Saddam Hussein has been deposed and you have all the different factions competing for influence. It's obvious that the strategy that are outlined really by Marco Rubio, the Washington Post cleverly is calling the viceroy of Venezuela, that his approach is to leave President Delci Rodriguez in place, to try to work with the military rather than fire at wholesale the way

it was done in Baghdad and hope that through coerced cooperation, the Venezuelans will maintain sufficient order that this process of U.S., I want to say, you know, reappropriation of Venezuelan oil can take place and the country will be modernized. But boy, I can't imagine, Joe, a more slippery slope ahead than what they're describing is the process for putting this country back together. It is a mess. Trump is right. in saying that. But I haven't heard anything yet that tells me how they're going to transform the mess into a viable, stable country. Nothing. Again, we look back and see what happened with Iraq, and even Afghanistan, which for a while

people were saying, well, that was a good war. Well, Afghanistan and Iraq both ended in tragedy. And John Meacham, I just keep going back to the early days, as David Ignatius talks about exhilaration. The early days of Iraq, after the March invasion, we had, you know, generals fist bumping me, saying, can you believe how great things are going? Retired generals, can you believe how great things are going over there? I had people in the media saying Bush is going to be president forever, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I even remember John Stewart, who just unmercifully grilled George W. Bush. At one point, when things were going so well in Iraq in those first few months, he threw his hands up and said,

I guess my children are going to be going to middle schools named after George W. Bush. Of course, that didn't happen. Things turned south badly. And there's very little a president can do when you try to occupy a foreign country as things unraveled. Certainly not what we're hoping for here. But it is what history, recent history, has taught us over the past 20 years. Yeah, I mean, the wars are the sometimes the easiest things to begin and the hardest things to get out of. And that's a perennial lesson of history, as everybody knows very well. I think David's makes a really good point about the ambient force around Trump, around President Trump. yesterday. It was clearly a high for him. And that's a human factor. There's no arguing with, as you say,

the fact that Venezuela was, you know, Maduro was not the Thomas Jefferson of Central America. This was not going to be. It was not going to be, you know, there are merits to, there are merits to, removal. And I don't think we do ourselves any favors by reflexively, no one here is, reflexively denouncing anything President Trump does. That's not a responsible act of citizens. What is very clear is that we have now taken on an enormous burden. It is going to be something President Trump believes that the pictures you were just showing of Maduro in custody will be a signal around the world to every potential strong man, strong person, that be careful you could be next. That's an intoxicating message to be sending. And so in some ways, there's a test not only about what happens in Israel right now, but what,

does the administration do with this sort of surge of self-capital? Will this encourage them? I was struck by Secretary Rubio saying, if I were in Cuba and in the government, I would be worried. You know, that wasn't wildly subtle, right? Last point here is that this is why presidential elections matter. people can argue all they want about, oh, you know, there wasn't the right authorization, there wasn't the international law. Look, there's a precedent, as we all know, for almost any kind of military

intervention. And so you can argue the merits of that, but it is the fact. That's why presidential elections are so central. Yeah, no doubt about it. You know, John, I just, again, And we, we, Jonathan O'Meer, we heard John Nietzsche talk about the audience, audience of dictators and thugs around the world. There are two audiences here. There's a foreign policy audience. There's what this message sends abroad to allies and adversaries. And that's a mixed signal.

But it certainly does put adversaries on notice. But there's also the message to Middle American. I just want to rewind the tape. It's kind of hard after something this momentous happens. But I want to rewind the tape back to the government shutdown. And what were we talking about constantly? The president was overseas. He was focused on the Middle East and positive things in the Middle East.

He was focused on Asia on a trip that I said at the same time. Two things can be true at once. That was important for the president, too. At the same time, Republicans at home were rightly concerned that people in Middle America, would say he's taking his eye off the ball. When's he going to come home? When's he going to start being concerned about government shutdown, the economy, affordability, etc., etc., etc. As I've heard insiders, and as certain news anchors would say elites and academics talk about this, I've heard them talking about, well, whether this is good for the United States, which is actually what they

should do. But politically, I just sit there thinking as a politician, former politician, about swing voters who have seen the president, the Middle East, who've seen the president in Asia, and now they're watching football over the weekend. They're not doing what we do and watch news all weekend, and they're seeing another war. And I promise you, the politician to me knows. They're not going here. Yay, we're getting involved in another war. And now they're talking about invading Cuba politically, this will likely accelerate the affordability issue and challenge that Republicans had during the government shutdown. When you talk about health care, when you talk about home heating prices, when you talk about all of these issues that are at front of mind of America.

I guarantee you, Maduro is not front of mind. guarantee you, most Americans haven't looked to see where Venezuela exactly is on the map. Fundamentally, so many Americans in recent days, even Trump supporters will look at this and go, how does this make my life better? Like, why? What's the point of this? And it does, Joe, to you know, that's what the president will need to explain. How does this make their lives better? And there's been no effort to do so outside of making some American oil companies better, their lives better. There's been no interest to suggest to their average American that things have improved for them. It also will, to your point, reinforce this idea that we've been

chronically on the show for the last month or two, and I've written about it, just this idea that he's in a bubble, that he seems to have lost touch with what got him elected. And they're on Air Force One, and David DeNation started to go through the list. Just in that one gaggle on Air Force One last night, he issued threats, not just a second wave of Venezuela. Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Iran. And the administration's really turned up the heat about Greenland again, too. again, owned by Denmark. That's part of the European Union. There is a lot that he is focused on overseas right now, and that's not necessarily what Americans want, because polling from late

last month pre-operation painted a pretty clear picture of how Americans view the situation of Venezuela. According to the economist and UGov, 60% said they opposed the United States using military force to invade Venezuela. Just 19% supported the idea. 52% opposed using American military force to overthrow Maduro. 22% supported it. And 74% said President Trump should first seek congressional approval to use force in Venezuela. We should note, of course, he did not do that. A gang of eight briefing is scheduled for later today.

So three out of four Americans said if he's going to do this, he needs to go to Congress first. That's what it said. And the majority of Americans did not approve of any action at all. But if you're going to do it, talk to Congress, he has not done so. This administration continues to just blow past any idea that they need to consult the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. General Hurtling, let's go to you now. It obviously was an impressive military operation, the Friday night into Saturday that led to Madora's removal, and now that he's awaiting trial. But the U.S. military's role may not be done.

It's not just the potential of other strikes in other places, which President Trump seems to be telegraphing. But even in Venezuela, they're keeping assets nearby, as someone put to me yesterday, almost like a loaded gun pointing at Venezuela and its new leader saying, you better do what we want, and that includes giving us access to your oil or we'll come in and fire again. Yeah, that's true, Jonathan. And what I'd say, I'm going to go back to something David Ignatius said. Whenever you're in military operations like Iraq, like Venezuela, the role of the military and the role of anyone in government, government that's extending politics into conflict is to control chaos. So that operation on Saturday morning was controlled chaos and it was controlled very well, very effectively and very efficiently by the U.S. military. It endangered the Cuban security forces that were

inside Venezuela. It actually did the mission in a very unique and an understandable way. It shut down the power. It got rid of all the air defenses that were defending Venezuela. But now we're into, again, harkening back to Iraq, we're into the stabilization phase, allegedly. And I wrote a piece surprisingly on Friday, not knowing what was going to happen on Saturday, about what comes next. And it's chaotic. And if you don't have someone in charge of that, be prepared for a lot of chaos and bends and branches and sequels to the kinds of planning that you've conducted. So what happens next, as you just ask, is an important requirement? Is there going to be more military involvement?

It's a costly mission, and it was prepared very well. Can they do it again? Of course they can. That's what the U.S. military trains to do is repeat any kind of action they're asked to do. But the question is, I'm confused in listening to the president and secretary Rubio over the weekend of number one, who's in charge? And what is actually the plan for what's next? The so-called, as we use the phrase in Iraq, phase four, the stability operations. You know, who is controlling that and what is it consist of? I can't tell you what it is in terms

of listening to various people in the government. So that tells me the plan is not as firm as it was in Iraq when Lieutenant General Garner retired was supposed to take over the stability operations. And then Ambassador Bremer was appointed a few days later. And then there was confusion between General Tommy Franks and Secretary Rumsfeld in terms of what was going to happen. And there was chaos in the early stages of that Iraq war. The military performed brilliantly there as well, but it quickly, as Joe said, broke down.

And devolved into chaos because it wasn't planned out. And when you had Brimmer decide to, you know, start debathification, there were a lot of military men and women over there who told me later, they're like, well, there goes, there goes our efforts. Things are going to fall the pieces and they did. Yeah. If I can address that, I was in the room with 600 Iraqi retired generals when my aide came up to me in Baghdad, when my aide came up to me in Baghdad, when my aid came up to me. me with a note saying, Ambassador Bremer, it just conducted debathification. And I had to announce that, and you could feel the insurgency starting right there. That was in 2003. It started right there. And why did that happen? David Ignatius, that happened because they had not planned ahead the way

they should have planned ahead. And my God, they planned ahead a hell of a lot more, it seems. and this administration planned ahead for Venezuela. But we don't know the plan moving forward because it changes every couple of hours coming out of the administration. And the purpose also very ambiguous. Is it about drugs? No, you can't say it's about drugs

because of the pardoning of the biggest drug kingpin in the hemisphere by this president. You can't really, you can't say it's about narco-terrorism. You can't say it's about liberation because Donald Trump just decided that the Nobel Prize winner, Peace Prize winner, who should be the next president. Ah, she's not up to it. So it's not about democracy because they've said, oh, we need to wait on that. And the woman that everybody wants in shouldn't go in. And maybe it's about oil.

It sounds, it certainly sounds, as the Wall Street Journal said, the president talked far. too much about oil. We don't need Venezuela's oil. So that is all a big, big windup for me to now ask you a question that we haven't asked in 22 minutes because we're so concerned about the fallout of this, given what we've seen over the past 22 years. But at 22 after the hour, I ask you this, give me the good news here. Why is Venezuela better without a dictator who, throughout the 2024 election results, who will take help from Russia or China or Iran or anybody who hates America. Talk about what could come out of this that would be positive geopolitically for the United States. So, Joe, here are a few positives. First, the performance of the U.S.

military was spectacular. This was an extraordinarily difficult operation because the Venezuelans knew that the U.S. was coming. Trump has been telegraphing his desire to take action now for months. Back in October, he said the CIA was conducting a covert action. He sent an enormous fleet into the Caribbean

to say, I'm coming, I'm coming. And so they were prepared at that bunker. Cuban security forces. One of the things President Trump said last night that was significant was we killed a lot of Cubans Friday night coming in.

Security forces were Cuban, they were supposedly highly trained and professional. Boom, they're gone. So that's one thing. Demonstration of the power of the U.S. military. Trump has, I think, demonstrated in a way that matters the power of the United States in its own hemisphere. It is a fact, as Trump says, that we've spent too little time on this hemisphere. Our attention has been focused on Europe and Asia. not on Latin America.

Latin America is important, so there's more focus now on Latin America, and that's positive. I think the problem that Trump is encountering is that presidents love the use of executive power, and there's no more dramatic use than the military, and they just get almost intoxicated by it. And the planning for the civil side, the reordering and restructuring, would be done by parts of the government that Trump is basically wiped out. I mean, you know, you use the U.S. Agency for International Development if you're trying to rebuild a country. That's gone. There isn't any U.S. idea anymore. You use the specialists at the U.S. Institute of Peace who know how to do reconciliation. Well, that's been taken over.

They've basically all left. You know, I think you can credit Trump with a desire to use power to reorient U.S. efforts more to our own hemisphere. But still, insist, why hasn't this been thought out more carefully when it commits American forces for what's basically, Joe, an open-ended commitment? We don't know how long this is going to last. I mean, maybe everything will go great, and President Delci Rodriguez will bow down. the U.S. threats of another invasion, and the military will cooperate. But maybe they won't, and there's really no way to know, for me, looking at the evidence today, whether this is going to go well or badly.

And that's just not a situation you want to be in. Also, we can talk about this after the break. Does it lead to global instability? Is it a message to other authoritarian that you can grab what you want when you want it? The Washington Post, David Ganesias, thank you very much. retired army lieutenant general mark hurdling thank you as well he's the author of the forthcoming book entitled if i don't return a father's wartime journal and still ahead on morning joe we're going to show you what secretary of state marco rubio is saying about all of this the vice roy of

venezuela another job time another job time well also is like he's going to be running like the white house bowling alley this he's doing everything it will take away from his time as the national archivist there's that We'll also talk about where Congress stands on all this as Trump appears to test the limits of his executive power by leaving lawmakers in the dark. Plus, we'll run through some of the other headlines that Republicans and the White House may have wanted you to miss over the long holiday weekend. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Ackyweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Miko, we're tracking a little bit of snow today across the northeast about a coding in an incher to from Buffalo,

or Syracuse toward Albany, coating to an inch of snow in Boston tonight, but ACUweather says snow stays north of New York City with nothing more than a flurry. Across the southern U.S. fog this morning. Burrano Foghorn in Charlotte, Atlanta, and Orlando. Other than that, it's warm.

Your ACUther travel forecast some minor delays in Charlotte, Orlando, and in Atlanta this morning. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the ACUther app today. White. House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, told Vanity Fair that an attack on Venezuela's mainland

would require approval from Congress. Why didn't that happen and will it happen with any future action the administration plans to take in Venezuela or elsewhere? This was not an action that required congressional approval. In fact, it couldn't require congressional approval because this was not an invasion. This is not an extended military operation. This is a very precise operation that involved a couple of hours of action. It was a very delicate operation too. It was one that required all these conditions to be in place at the right time and the right place. You couldn't afford leaks. We couldn't afford anything out there that would have endangered the mission and gotten people killed or killed off the mission and the optionality.

We didn't even know if the mission was going to happen. How can you notify something you're not even sure if it can happen? Joining us now, co-founder of Punch Bowl News, John Brezhnehan and MS now, Senior Capitol Hill Reporter, and host of way too early Alley Vitale. Good to have you both as we continue covering this still developing story. Yeah, so John, you and I have been around quite a while. And it always seems to me, I was saying to me, I mean, I remember back ages ago when I was on the Hill and the House. And it always seems there's a familiar pattern. The party who's in power at the White House is perfectly fine with any military operations.

and the Constitution doesn't come into play. The party that is out of power will be the ones that will say, oh, you have to notify Congress first. And there are always a few stragglers on both sides. But isn't this something that we've seen play out all too many times? Yeah, definitely. I agree with that. I do think I watched all of Rubio's speeches and his appearances yesterday on the Sunday

shows. they had him everywhere. And what was, to me, was fascinating was he was describing it as a law enforcement operation with a military function. And that even if they seize tankers in the Caribbean, they're going to have, you know, court orders to do so. Again, that if it's a law enforcement function, that falls under the presidential authority. And he doesn't need Congress. They're very specific on that. And I think that's like, to me, that's a place I've not seen any president in my time on the Hill, and it's 30 plus years. I've never seen a president go that far and saying clear use of military force is not a use

of military force that Congress has to approve. And of course, Sally, the contradiction comes in when you listen to what the president says, not what Marco Rubio says. Marka Rubio says is a law enforcement operation. And then the president keeps correcting him said, no, we've taken over this country. We're in charge now. Yeah, that's exactly right. But I think Brez is right to point out the rhetorical sleight of hand that the administration is trying to use here as they bypass Congress once again, right? I mean, this is an administration that has made ignoring Congress a feature, not a bug, on everything from military or law enforcement operations in Venezuela to the way that congressional money flows to various agencies after it's been appropriated. So again, I think

This is just a continuation of the way that we've seen Congress continue to be sidelined. What I'm looking ahead to this week is the way that the Senate does or doesn't change the way it's voted on a war powers resolution that Rand Paul and Tim Cain are once again trying to bring to the Senate floor. That vote's going to happen at some point this week. I talked with Senator Cain yesterday on this network just about why he thinks things might change. It's a vote that failed in December. What might be different now? and he said that what Republicans privately told him at the time was they didn't feel that Trump

had crossed any significant lines yet, and Kane was openly wondering about if this latest action would be enough to compel Republicans to change their votes. It's an interesting dynamic, but I think, again, it comes back to the thing we've seen again, which is that, as you're saying, whoever, whatever party is in power tends to go along with what the White House is doing, whether or not Congress was consulted. But then, of course, the deep well of support the Republicans have long had for Trump, whatever the action is. I think the only interesting thing that I'm watching for is if people are trying to take the America First mantle for themselves in the final years of the Trump administration, do they find issue with this

action? And otherwise, how are Republicans saying that this is America First when really on its face, interventionism was the opposite of America First, at least the way the Trump campaign the exact opposite. And that's what's so fascinating about what is going to to happen for people who are concerned about the re-elections coming up this year and also decide they want to take over the mantle of Trumpism later. John Meacham, obviously, there will be a divide in the MAGA world. But let's talk more about, again, when Congress should get involved and when it should not expect to be involved.

As you've said, as we've all said, there are many presidents on both. both sides where military action was taken without Congress's consent. And that has become really the norm. And Bres is right. If your argument is this is a law enforcement action, and if that is where the administration had started and continued through the weekend, then there would be, I think, more of a problem for Congress. to make that argument. However, when you have a commander-in-chief saying repeatedly, correcting his Secretary of State repeatedly, saying we're going to run the country, we're taking over, we're going to run the country, we're going to send oil companies down there, and we're going to rebuild the

infrastructure and get oil, at that point, I don't know how Congress is. doesn't insist on getting involved. If you're now talking about the United States of America, quote, running a foreign country. Well, a couple of things, right? It's going to depend on the deployments. It will depend on the nature of the military force that we project. So that's an unknown question that's going to be vital here. The other thing, and I think, I don't think anybody can disagree with this. If you want to know how the Republicans in Congress are going to react to this, you need to wait for their internal polling to come in over the next few days. And I would predict to you that what the base in each zone said in each district, each Senate, each state,

that will in many ways drive what's going to be said. I suspect there's going to be a kind of quiet over the first couple of days here, a kind of wait and see. And it's not going to necessarily be on a human level, wait and see what happens in Venezuela. I think it's going to be wait and see what people's voters are going to say. So that's one thing. The other is, as you say, look, there's a precedent for almost anything, right? And everybody, as we've been saying, everybody's for executive power until they're against it. And if you want to know who's for it, It's the people who have it. The people who are against it are those who are seeking it, right?

That's just a reality. Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana purchase. If Alexander Hamilton had tried to do it, Jefferson's head would have exploded in fury, right? It just depends in many ways on who's in the chair making the decision. That said, that said, that's why, if you allow me, biography matters as much as history here. the character of the person cloaked with this enormous power is vital. And here, you know, and if you doubt that, let's look at the last 72 hours, right? President Trump has won the presidency twice running on an essentially isolationist platform.

And he has now become a great interventionist gunboat diplomat. And that's because in his character, I would argue, that's more natural for him to do. If those who think that, oh, there's a system that will stop someone or a system that will be the check and the balance, it's not the system. It's the people who populate the system. It's not Congress. It's congressmen and senators. It's not the courts. It's judges.

and it's not the people, it's all of us. And so whatever the question is about the specifics of Venezuela, this is a huge reminder of why the stuff that we talk about all the time matters so much. Presidential historian John Meacham, thank you very much for coming on this morning. We will see you soon. We've got a lot of other news to get to. So after the break, we're going to talk about what is going on with the full release of the Epstein files. Also, the House Judiciary Committee released the full video and transcript

of the closed-door deposition of former special counsel Jack Smith. We're going to play for you what he said. Well, I mean, and when they released it, John, was the most telling thing. They tried to bury it on New Year's Eve. The afternoon of New Year's Eve, the ultimate news dump of time. Well, we have it, and we'll play for it after the break. We'll be right back. 47 past the hour Saturday marked the deadline for the Department of Justice to submit written justifications for its controversial Epstein file redactions and withholdings. What did they say? Well, House Oversight Democrats noted the deadline in a social media post amid the Trump administration's operation in Venezuela. Wait, wait, wait, wait, right, right, right, they didn't, wait, what? They didn't meet their deadline?

We're sure it's just a coincidence, adding they have not forgotten and won't let up on the issue. By the way, I just want people to know, that's the law. They were required by law in a nearly unanimous, what was it, like 427 to 1, that they had to make these deadlines. And they didn't make the deadlines. Lawmakers have criticized the DOJ since missing the original December 19th deadline set by Congress to release the files after the passage of the Epstein files transparency act last year. That's the law that they keep breaking over and over again. Of California has said he is looking into asking a federal court to appoint a special master to ensure full release of the documents. The DOJ reportedly still has roughly 5.2 million pages

of Epstein documents left review and does not expect to finish until January 20th. Jonathan, obviously again, this is the the law, and they keep breaking the law. Yeah. The administration, the DOJ keeps breaking the law. Yeah, this is now a couple of deadlines they have missed. January 3rd, is the House Oversight Committee made clear the Democrats on the committee. This is when this sort of been released.

It, of course, was not. And every time the Trump administration, I think, is trying to be too cute by half, they and the Republicans on the hill, trying to bury this, trying to delay this. But every time they do it, they simply extend the lifespan of this story and, continues to be more... We're set a time in time again. Just get it behind you. Just get it. They can't do it.

And the number only seems to grow of the documents they still have to get through. 5.2... My God. And they're not going to be able to bury this like they did. The Jack Smith testimony, which I said in real time. Jack Smith was not the dog

catching the car. Jack Smith was the dog catching the 18-wheeler. And the second they caught him, they wanted to let him go. That's right. And they've tried. And they tried to bury it on New Year's Eve because they won't no part of this guy anymore. At first, denying an open hearing, keeping it behind closed doors, despite Smith's request, making him the first special counsel to not get an open hearing.

And then they finally do release it. But when? Well, the afternoon of New Year's Eve, when they thought no one was paying attention. But we were. The House Judiciary Committee quietly released the full transcript in more than eight hours of video of its closed door deposition. of former special counsel, Jack Smith. The deposition took place before the Republican-led panel back in December. In the deposition, Smith firmly stood by his decision to charge President Trump in two criminal investigations, that Trump interfered in the 2020 election and that he improperly took classified documents to Mara Lago.

The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine. But the basis for those charges. rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power. Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained

highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. The evidence here made clear that President Trump was, by a large measure, the most culpable and most responsible person. in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol as part of this case does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit. So in terms of why we would pursue a case against him, I entirely disagree with any characterization that our work was in any way meant to hamper him.

the presidential election. The timing and speed of our work reflects the strength of the evidence and our confidence that we would have secured convictions at trial. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat. One of the strengths of our case and why we felt we had such strong proof is our witnesses were not going to be political enemies of the president. They were going to be political allies.

We had numerous witnesses who would say, I voted for President Trump, I campaigned for President Trump, I wanted him to win. Our case was a case in which the president was praying on the party allegiance of people who supported him. well brez we can see why republicans wanted to keep that hidden jack smith's commanding confident delivery right there at the end let's highlight that notes that the witnesses that he had for this case these were not political opponents he made clear political allies fellow republicans members of the marlago club employees this is extraordinarily damning stuff for this president um and you know the house's

efforts to keep this behind closed doors well we are seeing it now it this matters. Yeah, I know Jack Smith. He is an outstanding lawyer and, you know, he's very calm. He handled corruption prosecutions inside the Justice Department previously before he left and then was brought back a special counsel for the Trump case. He's highly respected. You know, this is a guy who's unflappable. So, I mean, you saw what he was like. He was not going to, you know, if they tried to bring charges against him, they try to indict him, that's going to be a witness that no, you know, that no prosecutor's going to want to see. And with the case he's, you know, the case he makes that Trump was the one responsible for January 6th, which we all know already. That's obvious. Of course, I mean,

we all were there. I mean, I was in the building. You know, we all know what happened on January 6th. And, you know, now you can make, it's a different case about the classified documents. That's a whole different issue. But in terms of the January 6th case, I think that's pretty clear that Smith was in the right there and bringing charges were, you know, whether you agree with it or not politically on a legal basis, he's on pretty solid ground. It is clear, Bres, but at the same time, the Republican Party has done a lot to try to muddy the waters around what happened on January 6th. You and I have covered both the January 6th select committee hearings where there was such clarity and such a breadth of evidence against the president and key members

of his orbit in what they were trying to do to overturn the results of an election that he lost. But then at the same time, watching Republicans come in and try to cloud what actually happened. And look, I think it's right that the judiciary committee tried to bury this with a New Year's release. But at the same time, it comes mere days before tomorrow's five-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection. And I actually think that it worked. to have the moral clarity that Jack Smith can uniquely provide around what happened that day and also the president's role in it, even as the president has pardoned and commutated the sentences of the rioters who were in part responsible for what happened on that day.

And so this is what you get when you investigate the investigators. You revive the very thing that they were investigating in the first place. It never worked. There you go. It never works. That's it right there. And they can try to, they can try to create conspirators. theories. They can try to lie their way out of it, but you all were there. You saw what happened.

Republican senators, members of Congress were there. They saw what happened. We heard what they said right afterwards before they got scared. Yeah, the conspiracy theories, even that were pushed by some people of the administration, of course, just completely undermined by the FBI just a few weeks ago. So anyway, this, you know, it's, listen, again, investigating, I don't know how many times I have to tell these people this. I, you know, it's seriously, it's, my shoulders are growing heavy. I'm growing weary.

Are they trying to help you? Stop investigating the investigators and what the investigators who are investigating is so damning to your party leader. Or? As the GOP's chief counsel told them after, Jack Smith testified, Arnold the pig, by the way, just let it go, bro. Just let it go. This doesn't end well.

Or don't. MS now, senior Capitol Hill reporter, Ali Vitale, and co-founder of Punch Bowl News, John Bresdenhan, thank you so much. We greatly appreciate it. Arnold LePig making an appearance from Green Acres. I mean, that is a very healthy pig. Still, he was Comer's chief legal counsel, and as in Green Acres. You know, he's the smartest, is the smartest animate object in Green Acres?

Mortis person on Commer's Committee. I'm so glad this bit has been revived. It's been a while since we've had Arnold Pigg reference. Getting into the hearing room, trying to revise Chairman Comer whether or not this makes sense. Let it go, probably. Right now he's saying it. Let it go.

No, please don't. Okay. Anyway. Should we do sports? High quality footage. That is high quality footage. Only the best here. You think that was easy to get?

Oh, that was like 8K, I believe. The licensing required. Look at that. Come on. Looks like an oil painting. Great.