U.S. Seizes Tanker Claimed by Russia in Atlantic (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Breaking news with a major development just moments ago. Sources just confirmed to CNN that the United States has seized an oil tanker that had been linked to Venezuela. Now, Russia is responding to the seizure, saying they are the owners of this vessel. The Trump administration has not acknowledged the Russian status, claiming the ship to be stateless. But nevertheless, you can see the sensitive nature of the situation. Russia had sent ships to track and maybe even protect this vessel over the last 24 hours. The United States has been tracking it across the Atlantic. It's the same ship that the Coast Guard had tried to seize last month near Venezuela. They were unable to board it, and the ship changed course and fled. But now, the breaking news, the United States has seized it. Nick Robertson, tracking the developments for us. Nick, what are you learning?

[00:00:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, over the last few days, John, U.S. Air Force has been flying P-8 surveillance aircraft tracking this ship as it came into the northern Atlantic. It's been heading sort of skirting wide of Ireland, heading up towards Iceland, and that sort of gap to go towards the north of Russia, the Arctic Circle. Marine tracking experts believe a vessel of this size was likely headed towards Mamantz. That was the track that it was on, but that all came to a sudden, screeching halt about two and a half hours ago. Marine trackers noticing that the ship turned direction at that moment. And this really comports with the information we're getting now that the ship has been seized by U.S. military and Coast Guard. It has been tracked closely by them, as we say, since it fled the coast of Venezuela about two weeks ago. What makes this even more interesting, if you will, the ship, when it started its journey two weeks ago, was called the Bella One. Halfway along that route, it changed its name to the Marinera and re-flagged itself as Russian. Not clear why. Were they trying to get protection from Russia? Was it always Russian? Unclear. The port that it appeared to be headed for in the past couple of days does appear to have been a Russian port. But now that ship has turned around, no longer heading north for the last couple of hours, heading south. Not clear where it will end up. It is believed to be empty or at least devoid of oil. We don't know what else or who else may be on board of it, but certainly enough for Russia to deploy military assets to try to give it some shadow of some kind of protection, and clearly not enough to deter the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. military assets that seized it a few hours ago, John.

[00:02:41] Speaker 1: All right, Nick Robertson tracking the situation for us. Let's go to the White House now. CNN's Elena Treen is there. Elena, bring us up to speed on what you're hearing and whether the White House is saying anything about conversations they may be having with Russia about this.

[00:02:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I'm actually, so this has been a big thing that they have been, you know, considering, John, regarding the seizure of the oil tanker. And it comes, of course, as they have really made moves to seize other tankers off the coast of Venezuela. What the administration view largely on this is that they had already moved forward with this operation in trying to get what was previously known, as Nick laid out, as the Bella One oil tanker. And so this does add the fact that Russia has, you know, tried to claim ownership of it, that they renamed the tanker, does add complications to it. But, John, I do want to get to some of the new reporting I have as well and what we are learning about the Trump administration's conversations as it relates to Venezuela and what they need to do, the conditions they need to meet in order to resume oil production, which is, of course, one of the priorities for Venezuela and to continue with their economic stability. So sources have told me, White House officials, I should say, that the Trump administration has translated to Delcy Rodriguez, the now interim president of Venezuela, that in order to resume oil production and oil sales, they must sever economic ties with the United States' foreign adversaries. That includes countries like China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, all countries that have really been propping up what was Maduro's regime for so many years. They also said that they want Venezuela and the interim government to partner exclusively with the United States on this. Now, of course, this comes as the president has been making clear that a key goal in this entire operation and the next steps for Venezuela is to try and have the U.S. have a higher stake in their oil. I'm also told, according to a senior White House official, John, that the president is meeting with different oil executives at the White House on Friday. That includes companies like Chevron, which I should note is the only U.S. oil company currently operating inside Venezuela, but also companies like ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil. I'm told other American oil executives are expected to be at that meeting as well. This comes as the president has told others – he said this to Joe Scarborough on MSNOW the other day – that essentially it's really all about the oil and that his priority is to make sure that the U.S. gets the oil. So this is going to be a huge topic of conversation, of course, as we look ahead, but also a key question. I think lawmakers in the House and Senate who are getting a full all-members classified briefing from the Trump administration today will have four of those officials inside the room.

[00:05:28] Speaker 1: All right, Elena Trean at the White House for us in our thanks to Nick Robertson, who's tracking the situation with that now-seized vessel. All right, Sarah.

[00:05:36] Speaker 4: All right, joining me now is Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, who is also running for Senate in that state. He sits on the House Intelligence Committee. Because we've just had this breaking news, this vessel has been seized. It now has a Russian flag on it. It is a Venezuelan oil tanker that reportedly does not have any oil in it that is empty. What are your concerns here, and were you briefed on any of this?

[00:06:02] Speaker 5: No, not at all. I think that this is obviously going to come up in our classified briefing in a couple hours. We have the right, obviously, to enforce international sanctions. However, nobody wants conflict or a war, and we don't want a situation of open hostilities with the Russians.

[00:06:21] Speaker 6: I also want to bring in CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. We also have CNN global affairs analyst Kevin Dozier. Great to have you both. Cedric, I want to start off with you. Just a few minutes ago, we heard the news that the United States has now seized Baylor One, the oil tanker that's now under a Russian flag. It was in December under a flag of Guyana. The U.S. wasn't able to seize it about a month ago and now successful. Take me through what you're reading into the operations out at sea.

[00:06:51] Speaker 7: Yeah, well, Eleni, this is a very sophisticated operation that took place here. It involved a lot of assets from both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as possibly some other assets, including special operations assets. So, there was a movement of U.S. forces to Great Britain in the days just prior to the seizure today of the tanker Baylor One, slash Marinera. And that is a critical indicator that this ship had been followed by the U.S. and they had, for whatever reason, wanted to really focus on this tanker. So, on the one hand, it's an oil tanker, but there may be some other things associated with this because if the Reuters reports are correct that Claire mentioned, then there might be something else associated with this tanker because the Russians moved assets, including possibly a submarine, to try to protect this. So, from a purely military standpoint, when you look at how this was undertaken, it was very sophisticated operation and they did it in spite of Russian attempts to protect it. And those Russian attempts were apparently based on these reports that were getting unsuccessful.

[00:08:08] Speaker 6: All right. Kim Dozier also with us. Kim, what are you reading into this? I mean, President Trump making good on his word, frankly, and wanting Venezuelan oil. This is a tanker that they tried to seize and were unsuccessful. And of course, the question of Russia comes into play here as he tries to negotiate with him on the issue of Ukraine. Is this going to infuriate the Russians and all sides involved?

[00:08:37] Speaker 8: It may well do, but it seems that Trump is emboldened by the seizure of Maduro and riding high on the success of that. And the lack of the world's pushback, there have been some statements against it, but it has made Trump realize anew that when you're the superpower, there's nobody who can push back in the short term to stop you. And as Cedric was saying, there was a lot of Russian attention being paid to this ship, a lot of resources and assets protecting it, which makes you wonder, what the heck are they carrying? And now the U.S. is going to be able to find out. It also comes at the same time that both Russia and China are upset over the attack on one of their allies, Venezuela, that they rely on for oil. So it is a way of Trump sending a signal to those other would-be superpowers that he has a way of seizing the jewels and making them sit up and take notice. But there will be some sort of payback down the line, and I don't think the White House is really calculating that yet.