In a very entertaining live TV smackdown that came on Sunday, January 4, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went nuclear on CBS host Margaret Brennan, whom he hilariously ridiculed as \u201cconfused\u201d when totally roasting her, noting the true scope of the operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As background, after the operation over the night of January 2 to 3 that led to the capture of Maduro, the leftist media went absolutely berserk, insisting that the operation was illegal, wrongheaded, or something similar. MAGA Republicans largely found those criticisms ridiculous, pointing to past such operations and noting the immense benefits of seizing the Venezuelan oil and mineral reserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In any case, Brennan\u2019s attempt to attack the Trump Administration and Secretary of State Rubio during his appearance on \u201cFace the Nation\u201d consisted of her snapping, \u201cI\u2019m curious because you just described the regime as still in place, essentially. I\u2019m curious why the Trump administration decided to leave it intact and only arrest Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Continuing, she angrily listed off a number of Maduro regime-connected figures who are still in place and involved with the running of the South American country, saying, \u201cI\u2019m confused. Are they still wanted by the United States? Why didn\u2019t you arrest them if you are taking out the narco-terrorist regime?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubio fired back and mocked her without missing a beat, turning her words on her and saying, \u201cYou\u2019re confused? I don\u2019t know why that\u2019s confusing to you.\u201d Brennan then kept rambling about the matter of a number of figures in the former Maduro government who are still in power despite the operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Firing back yet again, Rubio noted that the Trump Administration explicitly wanted to avoid this being an occupation operation, and instead wanted to focus just on dealing with the intransigent Maduro and retaking American oil field property that had been stolen by the Chavez government when it nationalized the country\u2019s petroleum industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Making that point and noting what the administration wanted to do, he said, \u201cYeah, but you\u2019re going to go in and suck up five people? They are already complaining about this one operation. Imagine the howls we would have from everybody else if we actually had to go and stay there four days to capture four other people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“*” indicates required fieldsGOP should investigate Nancy Pelosi*YesNoEmail*This poll subscribes you to our premium network of content. Unsubscribe at any time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubio further noted that the operation was complicated enough as it was, saying, \u201cWe got the top priority. The number one person on the list was the guy who claimed to be the president of the country that he was not, and he was arrested, along with his wife, who is also indicted. And that was a pretty sophisticated and, frankly, complicated operation.\u201d Brennan, chastened, was forced to admit, \u201cIt was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Continuing, Rubio noted how complicated the matter was all on its own, and noted that doing what Brennan seemed to want would have been impossible and to insist it was \u201cabsurd,\u201d saying, \u201cThat\u2019s not an easy mission, and you\u2019re asking me why didn\u2019t we do that at five other places at the same time? I mean, that\u2019s absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a very entertaining live TV smackdown that came on Sunday, January 4, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went nuclear on CBS host Margaret Brennan, whom he hilariously ridiculed as \u201cconfused\u201d when totally roasting her, noting the true scope of the operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. As background, after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot_30.png",535,607,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"flashpoint","author_link":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/?author=1"},"comment_info":2,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":34,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":34,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashpointupdates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}