The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Jan. 4, 2026.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes. He is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and he joins us this morning from Greenwich. Congressman Himes, you are part of that “Gang of Eight,” which means that information about these secret operations is statutorily intended to be shared with you as part of this very small group, given that and what you should know, can you clearly explain what the United States is doing?
REP. JIM HIMES: Yeah, by the way, I was delighted to hear that Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been in regular contact with the administration. I’ve had zero outreach. And no Democrat that I’m aware of has had any outreach whatsoever. So apparently, we’re now in a world where the legal obligation to keep the Congress informed only applies to, to your party, which is really something. But yeah, no, look, I know exactly where we are, Margaret. We’re in the euphoria period of acknowledging across the board that Maduro was a bad guy and that our military is absolutely incredible. This is exactly the euphoria we felt in 2002 when our military took down the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2003 when our military took out Saddam Hussein, and in 2011 when we helped remove Muammar Gaddafi from power in Libya. These were very, very bad people, by the way, much, much worse than Maduro in Venezuela, which was never a significant national security threat to the United States. But we’re in that euphoria phase, and what we learned the day after the euphoria phase is that it’s an awful lot easier to break a country than it is to actually do what the president promised to do, which is to run it. And so again, let’s, let- let’s let my Republican colleagues enjoy their day of euphoria, but they’re going to wake up tomorrow morning, knowing, oh my God, there is no plan here any more than there was in Afghanistan, Iraq or in Libya.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you heard the secretary of state say, well, this is not the Middle East. There are conflicting statements from cabinet members. Hegseth told CBS, you know, the president of the United States will absolutely be in charge here, and leaned into the idea of military options. President Trump said there will be an option of boots on the ground. Secretary Rubio, though, really just leaned into an oil quarantine here. What- what exactly is the point of leverage here? When do you expect to get answers? Do your Republican colleagues promise you that they will get some of these answers to the questions you have?
REP. HIMES: Of course, not Margaret. I mean, look, you’re seeing it on television today, right? Two thirds of my Republicans wake up every single morning, and the only question they have is, what can I do to prove my loyalty to the president today? And we see this because the president has completely shifted who he was. I mean, as I watched that news conference yesterday, I thought, oh my god, this is Dick Cheney and the neocons. Not only are they taking out a- they’re doing a regime change in a country, by the way, not a Tier 1 threat to the United States, but that they just don’t like. They’re warning the other dictators. This is Dick Cheney in 2002 saying we’re taking down Saddam Hussein and, by the way, Syria and Iran better watch out. And the fascinating thing about that, and why it’s really hard to answer the question of where the hell they’re going to go from here, is that the president won by promising MAGA and his own people that this kind of stuff was done, that the neocons were over, and here we are. That was Dick Cheney in the conference yesterday, you know, deciding that the United States was going to, you know, militarily change regimes and threaten other ones, just because we don’t like them.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, but then the secretary of state was talking about working with the regime and working with Maduro’s number two, who is now running the place, and other indicted criminals, according to the Southern District of New York who are continuing to run Venezuela. So can you really say that’s regime change if they’re working with the regime?
REP. HIMES: As you pointed out, it’s right and a loss to explain any consistency here. I mean, as you pointed out Maduro was a very bad guy and indicted Trump. Weeks ago, the pardoned bad and indicted . Weeks ago pardoned indicted drug- . These guys get a pardon full them New York. I that. There is no law maybe, maybe believes that work with the but, I mean, look again, go back
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Himes, I’m sorry to cut you off here. I’m having a terrible time, audio-wise. I’m going to take a break because hopefully our technicians can fix it in those two minutes. So please stay with us. We’ll be right back.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
MARGARET BRENNAN: Back to our conversation with Connecticut Democratic Congressman Jim Himes, who I think can be heard now. Congressman, I’m glad we got the link back up. For those viewers who lost you there, can you explain to us? The administration is arguing that what they did is legal, and that the snatch and grab operation of taking an indicted criminal, Nicolas Maduro, to the United States through military force has precedent, and they point back to what happened in the late 80s with Noriega in Panama. What’s your challenge to that?
REP. HIMES: Yeah, well, first, it’s clearly illegal under international law, right? No full stop, UN Charter. No question there. Now you may not care about international law, but if you don’t care about international law, remember, you’re going to be making an appeal to international law to try to get restitution for the seizure of Chevron’s oil stuff. So maybe you want to rethink how much disdain you show for international law. Clearly, not legal under the Constitution because though Presidents of both parties have argued against this, the Constitution is really pretty clear that the representatives of the people get to be consulted and ultimately approve military activity. That has not happened here at all. And, so again, there’s nothing legal about this. And, more to the point, again, under the international law point, think of what Russia and China just learned. Russia and China just learned that all you need to do if you want to go into Estonia is to say that the leader of Estonia is a bad person. You don’t even need to make a particularly good case. Look, there’s no national security expert saying that Venezuela was a mortal threat to the United States three weeks ago. So what China and Russia just learned is that the beacon of liberty and rule of law in the world has now green lighted snatch and grab operations in Estonia, in Taiwan, wherever Xi and Putin decide they want to go next.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So I take your point on the precedent there. Do you think that China or Russia would have the ability to carry out that kind of lightning operation the United States did?
REP. HIMES: Well, no, but that doesn’t mean, well, China, yes. China, yes. China, very soon. And you know, their leader has said, we will develop this capability. We know that their intent is to do precisely this in Taiwan. Russia is a more complicated case. It’s, you know, Russia loses 10,000 people to get in, you know, three acres of land in eastern Ukraine. But that may not be true five years from now, and by the way, back to the Noriega case. Because you do ask a good question there, Panama is a terrible precedent. Why do I say that? Because when we went into Panama, the Panamanian Congress had declared war on the United States of America, right? They had killed a United States Marine and wounded two others, and the Congress had been consultant. The Congress in the Noriega mission had, had authorized regime change. So it’s a terrible precedent that the administration is using to say that this is legal.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, as we understand it, because we looked this up, Noriega claimed head of state immunity, and the court said that that immunity was meant to protect official state functions and private profiting off the drug trade. Basically, the courts ruled on his actions as a leader and not on the legality of the snatch-and-grab operation itself. So we’re going to continue to track all of this. Thank you Congressman Himes, thank you Senator Van Hollen. We will be right back.