{"id":394488,"date":"2026-01-08T04:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/394488\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T04:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:49:12","slug":"live-updates-us-seizes-russian-flagged-tanker-and-a-second-venezuela-linked-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/394488\/","title":{"rendered":"Live updates: US seizes Russian-flagged tanker and a second Venezuela-linked ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n US lawmakers had a lot to say today as the Trump administration outlined its strategy for Venezuela in the aftermath of the capture this weekend of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife in Caracas.\n <\/p>\n

\n They also weighed in on the US seizure of oil tankers linked to Venezuela and the White House remarks about acquiring the Danish territory of Greenland.\n <\/p>\n

\n Here\u2019s some of the reaction:\n <\/p>\n

\n Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri told reporters he thought the administration outlined a clear plan during a briefing today.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf anybody comes out of here saying that they didn\u2019t get a clear picture of what this looks like moving forward, they\u2019re not being truthful,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\"Sen.<\/p>\n

\n GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said the administration\u2019s briefing was like a good \u201cmovie script\u201d and the operational details they heard were very interesting. He said he\u2019s not upset his Senate Armed Services Committee was not briefed ahead of time because it had to be closely held.\n <\/p>\n

\"Sen.<\/p>\n

\n Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN he believes the administration\u2019s plan right now is to \u201csort of force the current regime to cooperate,\u201d noting that it is \u201cbasically the Maduro regime without Maduro\u201d and concerns remain about links to drug cartels.\n <\/p>\n

\"Rep.<\/p>\n

\n Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said each of the briefers \u2014 which included Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio \u2014 spoke for roughly 15 minutes, with very little time for substantive back-and-forth with members.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bulls*it briefing. Nothing comes out of it. They\u2019re just checking the box,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\"Sen.<\/p>\n

\n Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut accused Trump officials of lacking a cohesive strategy, saying\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is an insane plan. They are proposing to steal Venezuela\u2019s oil at gunpoint forever and use that leverage to run the country.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Sen.<\/p>\n

\n Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico demanded public hearings and the declassification of some Venezuela operation information:\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhy the hell is the Trump administration scared to face the American people in an open setting, or the Senate or the House? I don\u2019t understand that. They keep wanting to hide in a box somewhere. I don\u2019t get it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Sen.<\/p>\n

\n As for Greenland:\n <\/p>\n

\n GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana warned against using the US military:\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cTo invade Greenland and attack its sovereignty, a fellow NATO country, would be weapons-grade stupid. President Trump is not weapons-grade stupid, nor is Marco Rubio,\u201d Kennedy told reporters. \u201cThere will be more to happen with respect to Greenland.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Sen.<\/p>\n

\n And on the US seizure of a Russian-flagged oil tanker linked to Venezuela, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania praised the US:\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI love it. I love it. \u2026 Calling bulls*it on the Russians, you know on the dirty Russians, absolutely,\u201d Fetterman told reporters.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN\u2019s Alison Main, Manu Raju, Logan Schiciano, Ted Barrett, Sarah Ferris and Camila DeChalus contributed to this post.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US lawmakers had a lot to say today as the Trump administration outlined its strategy for Venezuela in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,100016,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-394488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-intl","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-united-states-of-america","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}