Not Unhinged: CBS, NBC Morning Shows Keep Emotions in Check on Venezuela

In contrast to ABC’s Good Morning America injecting an aura of chaos, concern, and negativity concerning Saturday’s U.S. military operations in Venezuela, Monday’s CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today were able to remain critical while not losing their proverbial noodles.

On CBS Mornings, the Bari Weiss-led network show largely stuck to the news — imagine that — and constructively wondered aloud what comes next. In other words, CBS avoided deploying bite-sized pieces of commentary and posturing on ABC.

Following a straightforward story about the criminal charges Maduro faces from chief correspondent Matt Gutman, co-host Gayle King welcomed him to CBS and took note of the irony the Maduro regime’s collapse is his first story at the network (following 17 years at ABC):

 

The first half hour’s Venezuela coverage ended with a sober, realistic look at what the administration is looking to achieve from CBS News contributor H.R. McMaster, who served in the first Trump White House:

 

And, ahead of a live report from Lila Luciano at the Colombia/Venezuela border, soundbites aired showing the celebrations on American streets from Venezuelan expats (while far-left kooks offered boilerplate denunciations).

Luciano highlighted the fact that the U.S. intervention marked the end of “nearly three decades of authoritarian rule” by Maduro and the late Hugo Chavez that resulted in “millions” having fled the country. She also pointed out the most recent election was widely viewed as rigged with “the opposition showing evidence they won with nearly 70 percent of the vote.”

Nonetheless, there were still a few points worth highlighting. The second hour began with foreign correspondent Remy Inocencio floating the possibility the U.S.’s actions have given China the justification to invade Taiwan:

 

Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan — who’s become a meme at this point with her comically biased interviews of Trump officials — also weighed in and gave the globalist perspective by touting the supposed importance of “international law”:

 

In other words, she’s still the Karen who wants to speak to the manager.

Sadly, the Venezuela coverage wrapped with a rather lame, softball-filled interview of Democratic Senator Tim Kaine (VA) (click “expand”):

DIAZ: Speaking of this briefing later today —

KAINE: Glad to be with you.

DIAZ: — with members of Congress — thank you so much — what do you think the White House needs to tell Congress in this briefing?

(....)

DIAZ: So, senator, what is the role of Congress here? This operation went forward without a lot of members’ knowledge, but you do have the power of the purse. Do you plan to use that to have influence?

(....)

BURLESON: Let’s stay right there for a quick second. Even if that passes the Senate and then the House, it would need to be signed by President Trump himself, correct? So why move forward with that —

KAINE: That is correct.

BURLESON: — resolution if that is unlikely?

(....)

BURLESON: Senator, speaking of that running of Venezuela, President Trump said that the U.S. needs total access to the oil in Venezuela and threatened the interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, that if that does not happen she will, “be in a situation described worse than Maduro” if that access isn’t granted. What do you make of that?

Shifting to Today, chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander stated in the first segment that the “stunning surprise raid may prove to be the easy part” because “[n]ow, President Trump faces a massive new challenge, transforming Venezuela, which he says is a broken country, into a stable functioning one.”

Alexander stuck to more behind-the-scenes details on planning the operation and Sunday soundbites from the President and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, staying away from trying to draw any conclusions or spin-spoiling like ABC’s Rachel Scott did.

“A senior White House official tells NBC News that Maduro’s ‘overt arrogance,’ including his rejections of multiple offers to surrender and regular public dancing helped persuade some within the President’s team that Maduro was defiant and would not leave on his own. That senior official..telling me the U.S. will exert its power in the country by control of Venezuela’s oil, saying that the U.S. will keep its restrictions on the oil there in place for ‘maximum leverage,’” he concluded.

Following correspondent Sam Brock’s piece table-setting for Maduro’s court appearance, senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez flew down to Colombia’s border with Venezuela and spoke to the “profound uncertainty in the Caribbean” and particularly Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico.

“At first, the streets of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, were eerily empty. Now, armed, pro-government civilians are patrolling outside supermarkets. Neighboring Colombia is bracing for an influx of refugees and ramping up security, fearing a new wave of cartel violence,” he added

Chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel was also in Colombia and compared the situation to U.S. “regime change” operations from the early 2000s (i.e. Afghanistan and Iraq) (click “expand”):

MELVIN: You’ve covered similar foreign interventions like this one across the globe over the years. What are the challenges you see going forward for both the United States and also Venezuela, Richard?

ENGEL: Well, Craig, welcome to the new year. And it looks like we’re going to be talking about Latin America a lot this year. Last several years, it’s been the Middle East. Now, it looks like it’s going to be South America. President Trump talking about Cuba ready to fall, making threats against Colombia. There are enormous challenges when you talk out regime change, when you carry out regime change. And that’s what we’ve just seen. It was carried out under the guise of narco trafficking, but already, President Trump is talking about oil. He’s talking about how this has to expand. There are really three options right now for Venezuela. Let’s start talking about Venezuela itself. It seems like President Trump’s preferred option is to keep the regime in place, but he wants at regime to be compliant. You just heard it a few minutes ago. President Trump says, unless the vice president, who’s the acting leader, who is a Maduro ally, complies, she could face an even worse fate than Maduro. It seems like you would want that regime to maintain order, not have American troops there, but to do what the U.S. wants. Not clear if that’s going to happen. He also thinks if that happens, others will follow, namely Cuba. For the United States, this is President Trump asserting his policy that he is defining, I think we can call it the Trump doctrine now, in which he wants the United States and him personally to assert dominance all over the region, for — if not just to be America first, but the Americas first, with him in charge, and it is a new policy. It is a risky policy. And a slippery slope.

SHEINELLE JONES: Richard, this is a region on edge. Is there a sense among neighboring countries of how all of this will impact them?

ENGEL: Neighboring countries are very nervous. I’m here in Colombia. I interviewed the president when I was here last time. He was very worried that you get a kind of mission creep, that the U.S. is focused on Venezuela at the moment, perhaps Cuba next, could be Colombia after that. But it is not just in the region. The world is watching. There — China is certainly watching. And as President Trump projects this new policy in which political power is tied with economic power, again, remember, this was launched to stop drugs, but mostly, he’s talking about oil, security, how the U.S. has to protect itself, potentially take control of Greenland. It’s really about national security and American dominance in the region. That sounds very good to China and would certainly make the leadership in Taiwan very nervous, because they could apply that same logic to their neighborhood.

Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles covered congressional reaction, but did not paint it as uniform opposition by acknowledging “congressional leaders have a lot of questions,” but what took place “did not bother most Republicans” and described Democrats as having felt “much differently, calling it illegal and dangerous.”

Nobles continued:

There’s little appetite on Capitol Hill for the U.S. taking the lead on rebuilding a nation...Across the country, the reaction has been divided...Some celebrating from a rally in South Florida to Venezuelan Americans the west coast...But in other places, protests against the administration’s military action and new worries of a prolonged conflict.”

While tonally different from GMA, Today similar saved for the back end of its first-hour coverage the impact on oil and travel. On oil prices, Romans said “in the short-term, you’ve got this uncertainty, which could actually push up oil prices a little bit,” but it might not stay as Venezuela has been putting out far less oil than it could be given “so many problems, for so many decades in that country, so whatever happens next is going to take years.”

“[T]he longer term would be maybe gas prices, very long-term would start to drift lower, if you’ve got Venezuela pumping a lot of oil,” she later said.

And, on travel, the co-hosts conceded after senior correspondent Tom Costello’s item about flight cancellations that it’s not all that bad for those stranded given they’re stuck in a place like the Caribbean.

To see the relevant transcripts from January 5, click here (for CBS) and here (for NBC).