Transcript: Sen. Chris Van Hollen on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Jan. 4, 2026

The following is the transcript of the interview with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Jan. 4, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face The Nation. I just want to apologize to our viewers there. Congressman Himes did not have a bad case of the hiccups. We have technical problems. That's why he was getting interrupted there. It's called LiveU, that's the technology being used, and it wasn't working. So apologies for cutting that short. You're back with me now in studio, and we're going to talk to Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, who is here in-person–

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: –and will not have those problems, we hope. But let's pick up on that very same point that we were discussing with Congressman Himes there. He says that no information was being shared with the top people who have oversight, like himself. What leverage do Democrats have to force the administration to treat Congress as a co-equal branch of government?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, Margaret, it's hard when the Republicans in Congress are totally AWOL, right? When they want to give Donald Trump essentially a blank check, because they continue to have majorities, of course, in the House and the Senate. Obviously in 2026 if Democrats regain control of either house, we will have the gavel, but in the meantime, we need to go directly to the American people and just make it very clear that in this case, it's my view that the Trump administration has been lying to the American people. This has never been about stopping drugs from coming to the United States. We all support stopping drugs. This, from the beginning, has been about getting rid of Maduro, grabbing Venezuela's oil for American oil companies and Trump's billionaire buddies. That's what this is about. That's why Donald Trump spent so much time yesterday talking about oil.

MARGARET BRENNAN: 20 times the word oil was used in those remarks. The Defense Secretary spoke to my colleague Tony Dokoupil and used the word oil about six times. There is a lot of focus on those natural resources, but arguably, isn't that what China, Russia, Iran, others, are also trying to do? Which is to extract their own benefit from this country. You know, What is the counter to that point that the administration would argue?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, the counter is, you don't invade a country to grab their natural resources, right?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you consider this an invasion, even though, although it's unclear, because–

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, let's put it this way–

[CROSSTALK]

MARGARET BRENNAN: –Senator Cotton both said there were boots on the ground and that there aren't.

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, they took- they had boots on the ground, right? They took, they took out the leader, and now they're demanding access to Venezuela's oil. That's what this has been about. I mean, Donald Trump, you know, claimed that he'd been against the war in Iraq from the beginning. That wasn't true, but what we do know is he said, well, having gone into Iraq, we should have gotten their oil. This is what drives Donald Trump and our service men and women perform magnificently, but I think it's outrageous that the President of the United States puts American lives at risk so big American oil companies and his billionaire buddies can profit.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But arguably, there are also critical minerals there. There are all sorts of natural resources in Venezuela that the drug cartels even were getting in the business of, that the Chinese were there trying to get. How do you do both things? Both corner the market on things that are of vital national security interest, those kind of minerals, and still actually maintain the principles that you're arguing should be upheld?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, the United States is working, and under the previous administration, also worked to secure critical mineral supply chains. Unfortunately, in many of these areas, the Trump administration actually has surrendered to China. I mean, if you look at, for example, clean energy and all those issues and batteries, we've essentially surrendered that market to China. What you don't do Margaret is you don't put American lives at risk to go in and grab oil resources to benefit the billionaires that support Donald Trump.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So Chevron, an American Oil Company, has been operating in Venezuela throughout and they told CBS yesterday that they continue to work there. My understanding is there are hundreds of Americans working and living in Venezuela still. Reportedly, there are at least four who have been detained by the regime, the regime that remains in power. You are on Senate Foreign Relations, what do you know about the detained Americans? What can you find out about how they're doing?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: I've not gotten an update from the administration on those detained Americans. Months ago, I did work to secure the release of an American, a Marylander, who we now have back in Baltimore, Maryland. I think the administration is looking at those detentions currently ongoing in Venezuela and determining how many of them are wrongful detentions, how many that they don't think are wrongful detentions. But certainly, my view is we should work to bring back every American who is wrongfully detained overseas. I think this is going to complicate that effort, what the Trump administration just did.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Because they could designate Venezuela as a state sponsor of hostage taking? Is that where you're going with that?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: No, my view is that the administration should designate as wrongfully detained any Americans that the Venezuelan Government has seized wrongfully. And then there are ways to continue to put pressure on. Now, normally, that pressure would be through sanctions. Here, the administration obviously has taken military action. As you've been pointing out, we're still left with the regime. I mean, the Vice President is part of the regime. Donald Trump says he's running Venezuela. This is not going to end well. Iraq did not end well. Other efforts to try to get rid of bad people, and we're glad to get rid of Maduro. I'd like to get rid of leaders in other countries, but you don't do it through force. That just doesn't work out well in our experience.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right and even on that point, the Secretary of State Rubio challenged me in saying, oh, we couldn't grab all those people at once, but Attorney General- former Attorney General Bill Barr was on Fox News this morning, the man who put together that first indictment of Maduro, and he said the intention was to clean the place out of this criminal organization, so there's going to have to be follow up action. To be clear, do you oppose all Snatch and Grab operations of indicted people?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, I don't think we should be putting American men and women at risk in a situation like this. I mean, I'd have to look at every situation, but again, the motivation here is about grabbing Venezuela's oil for American oil companies. You already see folks on Wall Street lining up, so let's just be real as to what is really behind this operation. I mean, Donald Trump said he was going to focus on the United States. We have people's health care costs going through the roof because they refuse to extend the Affordable Care tax credits. Meanwhile, he bails out Argentina and wants to run Venezuela for the benefit of American oil companies.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We're going to have to talk about all the things you just raised as we- in a future episode of Face the Nation. But clearly on the question of war powers, does the President have the legal authority to do what he's doing?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: No, he does not. I mean, this is–

MARGARET BRENNAN: You're on the Appropriations Committee. You've got power. What can you do about it?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, I worked with Senator Merkley already to offer a resolution in the United States Senate to cut off any U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund an attack against Venezuela. Republicans blocked us from doing it. So yes, we will continue to push. In fact, I'm sure we're going to have a vote on a war powers resolution, probably as early as this week, if not next. Last time we offered those Margaret, Republicans voted no, all, but one or two. Senator Paul voted with us, maybe one other. But for the most part, Republicans are happy to give Donald Trump a blank check and surrender their constitutional responsibilities to Donald Trump,

MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Van Hollen. A lot more to talk to you about. Thank you very much for joining us here today.

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Thank you

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