Ben Rhodes

Well, I'm very pleased to be joined by Congressman Joaquin Castro, who represents the 20th District of Texas down there in San Antonio.

Wonderful place.

He's the ranking member of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

So he's the most senior House Democrat on these issues.

He's also a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

So he's looking at this from multiple directions.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

I do just want to start, actually, by saying...

After the tremendous New York Knicks victory in the NBA Cup, your San Antonio Spurs ripped my heart out on Christmas Day and sent the Knicks spiraling.

No, no.

I remember that was the David Robinson, Tim Duncan.

Well, anyway, those are better days.

We're here to talk about grimmer news.

But look, you've been one of the most outspoken Democrats about what Trump's been doing in the Caribbean and in the lead up to the attack on Venezuela.

You obviously were not notified in advance of that attack, and we'll get to that in a moment.

I just wanted to start by asking you, as someone who's followed this closely, when you heard the news, first of all, how did you hear the news?

Normally you would have heard it in a briefing before it happened, but how did you hear the news and what was your first reaction?

Actually, I want to stick with that for a second because you, like me, I'm sure, watched Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the press conference with Trump after the operation.

And he basically was describing what sounded like months of planning, pre-positioning all these resources.

Obviously, you have to plan a complex special forces raid like that.