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 “confused” when totally roasting her, noting the true scope of the operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
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.
In any case, Brennan’s attempt to attack the Trump Administration and Secretary of State Rubio during his appearance on “Face the Nation” consisted of her snapping, “I’m curious because you just described the regime as still in place, essentially. I’m curious why the Trump administration decided to leave it intact and only arrest Nicolás Maduro and his wife.”
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, “I’m confused. Are they still wanted by the United States? Why didn’t you arrest them if you are taking out the narco-terrorist regime?”
Rubio fired back and mocked her without missing a beat, turning her words on her and saying, “You’re confused? I don’t know why that’s confusing to you.” 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.
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’s petroleum industry.
Making that point and noting what the administration wanted to do, he said, “Yeah, but you’re 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.”
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Rubio further noted that the operation was complicated enough as it was, saying, “We 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.” Brennan, chastened, was forced to admit, “It was.”
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 “absurd,” saying, “That’s not an easy mission, and you’re asking me why didn’t we do that at five other places at the same time? I mean, that’s absurd.”
Watch him here:
Marco Rubio schools Margaret Brennan after she demands answers over why the U.S. did not arrest all of Nicolas Maduro’s henchmen:
“You’re confused? I don’t know why that’s confusing to you. … It is not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the… pic.twitter.com/56xk622Yxc
— Ryan Saavedra (@RyanSaavedra) January 4, 2026
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video