You've made so clear how you want to keep drugs out of the US. Right. Can you explain more about why you would pardon a notorious drug trafficker? Well, I don't know who you're talking about. - Which one? - Juan Orlando Hernandez. Well, I was told, I was, uh, asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, [00:00:17] they said it was a Biden setup. Everything that goes wrong is a Biden setup. Uh, the reporter there was asking the president, uh, you know, why, on the one hand, he is saying that he wants to protect us all from drugs and drug traffickers, and [00:00:34] we know what's going on in the Caribbean. On the other hand, he's pardoning the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is currently in prison, serving a 45-year sentence for helping drug traffickers move hundreds of tons [00:00:50] of cocaine into the United States. We will, uh, we'll talk about that a little bit, but, uh, Cenk, your, uh, your dos centavos. Got that. Uh, okay. So number one, there's a killer quote in this, uh, article about how this guy was [00:01:06] basically making fun of Americans, and how he was gonna get us all hooked on drugs. So if Obama had let this guy off, ooh, or Biden? Wow. Okay, so you, wait 'til you find out who this guy is. And then, of course, the second question is, why? [00:01:24] Why are we letting one of the worst drug traffickers in history off with a pardon? It's insane. - So let's try to figure out why. - Well, well, not j- but, okay, yeah. We will, uh, but not just that if, imagine if Obama or Biden had let them off. Blame Biden for putting him in jail, is the other side of it. [00:01:42] - Yeah. - Right? So it's damned if you do, damned if you don't, right? Where's the- Yeah, like can you imagine if Tr- if they're like, Biden comes in, he's like, "Oh, Trump put this terrible d- drug trafficker in jail. That was so wrong to poor drug trafficker." I mean, he's so, what a terrible guy Trump was. So I released him right away so he could sell more drugs and make [00:01:59] more fun of Americans as he does it. I mean, people would've taken his political head off, right? So, uh, let's see if Trump's under different rules or not, 'cause this is outrageous. Well, I don't think we need this next segment to tell us that Trump is under different rules, but we will go ahead with it anyway. [00:02:15] Late, uh, la- last week, the president forecast this on Truth Social, uh, writing, uh, this. He said, "I will be granting a full and complete pardon to former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who has been rec- according to many people that I greatly respect , [00:02:31] treated very harshly and unfairly. This cannot be allowed to happen, especially now, after Tito Azzura wins the election, when Honduras will be on its way to great political and financial success. VOTE," now we're all caps, "FOR TITO AZZURA FOR PRESIDENT, AND CONGRATULATIONS [00:02:47] TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON." Hernandez was sent, sentenced to 45 years in prison, as I mentioned, last year, for his role in orchestrating not just one thing, but a decades-long drug trafficking conspiracy that not only flooded America with cocaine, but also [00:03:08] ravaged his own country of Honduras. Prosecutors said that Mr. Hernandez was key to a scheme that lasted more than 20 years and brought more than 500 tons of cocaine into the United States. As president, Mr. Hernandez told the US officials that he was doing his utmost [00:03:25] to stamp out druf- drug trafficking. But prosecutors said his political career had been fueled by drug money as early as 2009, when he was still a lawmaker and vying to lead the Honduran legislature. Hernandez, uh, was, uh, you know, uh, somebody who used bribery, [00:03:43] and that bribery went all the way with the, with Hernandez. Hernandez directed the police and military to protect smugglers who paid him off. To protect smugglers. And he promised to shield them from extradition to the United States. One accused co-conspirator was killed in a Honduran prison to protect the president, [00:04:03] according to those court documents. He used drug money to manipulate the, uh, he used drug money to manipulate the vote in two elections, the document said. During his initial run for president in 2013, prosecutors stated that his campaign was partially funded by notorious drug lord El Chapo, [00:04:23] who gave him a $1 million bribe. Uh, Davis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, Maradiaga, a former leader of a gang called, uh, Los Cachinos, no, Los Cachiros, uh, who admitted to being involved in the deaths of 78 people, [00:04:38] also testified that he had bribed Mr. Hernandez with 250,000 delivered to the president's sister, Hilda, in exchange for protection. Another witness at his 2021 trial also stated that Hernandez boasted that, "We are going to stuff the drugs up the gringos' noses, [00:04:59] and they're never even going to know it." I missed that party, by the way. Uh, even though the country of Honduras celebrated his arrest after he left office in 2022. You'll recall the president just before saying that it's what the people want. The country celebrated his arrest. [00:05:15] Trump still believes he's a great guy, and this was all a setup. You've made so clear how you want to keep drugs out of the US. Right. Can you explain more about why you would pardon a notorious drug trafficker? Well, I don't know who you're talking about. [00:05:31] - Which one? - Juan Orlando Hernandez. Well, I was told, I was, uh, asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden setup. And I don't mean Biden, look, Biden didn't know he was alive. But it was the people that surround, uh, the Resolute Desk surround Biden [00:05:47] when he was there, which was about, uh, very little time. And, uh, the people of Honduras really thought he was set up, and it was a terrible thing. Uh, he was the president of the country, and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. [00:06:02] And they said it was a Biden administration setup, and I looked at the facts, and I- ... her that he was set up and that he wasn't... When you take a look, I mean, they could say that, uh, you take any country you want. If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn't mean you [00:06:18] arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life. It's amazing. So, just because he was the president, apparently. Hernandez shouldn't be called a drug trafficker is what, uh, Trump says, but he is. But it's all, i- it is okay to call Nicolas Maduro one when there's [00:06:35] absolutely no evidence to support that? Is that what the president is telling us? Again, this move completely undermines everything he is carrying out in the Caribbean basin. Now, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, that's a tough business card, [00:06:54] called Trump out on that, saying on Face the Nation Sunday that, "Hernandez was the leader of one of the largest criminal enterprises that has ever been subject to a conviction in U.S. courts, and less than one year into his sentence, President Trump is pardoning him, suggesting that President Trump cares [00:07:12] nothing about narco-trafficking." So, uh, Cenk, there's a lot here, but I, I, it is the most blatant, and actually the fact that the, the most blatant hypocrisy in the fact that any presidential advisor said, "Hey, [00:07:29] this is a good idea," as we're trying to mount what, what appears to be a, you know, a false war with Venezuela. Yeah. There's an obvious culprit here. Uh, let me give you the three potential- Joe Biden. He somehow didn't make my list of three potential culprits. [00:07:45] Okay. Um, but one w- with a bullet, if you will. So- ... when Trump on the Truth Social post talked about, "Many people that I greatly respect told me to let him go, " and then he started talking in the video you just saw about people around the Resolute Desk and how they were the wrong guys under Biden but they're [00:08:02] the right guys, uh, uh, in his case. And he's basically, seems to not know anything about the guy. They told him to pardon him and he thought it was to his advantage to do so, so he did. By the way, uh, first, before I get to the cul- potential culprits, those are the people he respects that he got the advice from. [00:08:19] I'm gonna give a little bit more detail about this guy. Uh, aided in at least 56 murders that we know of. Dozens of traffickers, drug-traffickers t- testified during his trial and said, "Oh, yeah, we did all these murders and he knew about it and he aided and abetted it." Uh, [00:08:35] so, and by the way, we gave him the money so that he could rise up from an unknown rural congressman in Honduras to the presidency, right? So, drug trafficking was not something he did on the side because he had access to power. That's how he rose up to having power in Honduras. [00:08:52] And, uh, El Chapo apparently gave his brother a million dollar bribe. And by the way, all of this stuff was proven in U.S. courts, so there's not really any doubt about it at all and he was convicted, so no question he did all these things. [00:09:09] By the way, the, whoever the people were that advised him, they might want him back in power because N- there's a ruling in Honduras that says he could run again. So, he, now he might be, like, out of a 45-year prison sentence for being one of the worst drug-traffickers, uh, in, in, in our lifetime [00:09:27] and back to running a country, okay? So, who, who, who might've put him up to this? So, uh, number one is potentially donors, right? So, that's who Trump usually does favors for. Oh, why are we going to potentially war with Venezuela when they do [00:09:44] the least drug-trafficking, right? Uh, because of oil companies, and oil companies were huge donors to Donald Trump. So, that's culprit number one, but I don't think the most likely. Culprit number two is, um, well, I gotta tell you this fact. [00:10:00] Apparently Hernandez moved Honduras' embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and that was very, very well received in power circles in Washington. Okay, so that's of course what Israel wants. They're very happy with it, so maybe they did a whispering. [00:10:16] "Um, nah, you know, he's a terrible drug-trafficker, but he did what Israel ordered him to do, so, re- here we go. Go ahead and pardon him." By the way, it's not like Israel hasn't asked for pardons for people who have betrayed us and gotten it. Jonathan Pollard, right? One of the worst spies in American history. [00:10:32] Um, and by the way, that, the par- kind of pardon was Obama and Trump which allowed him to return to Israel. Okay, but I think that those are two less likely choices. I think the most likely choice is the CIA, uh, because has the CIA wor- worked with foreign leaders who might be dealing drugs? [00:10:50] Of course! We know that for a fact. They used to work with Noriega, then they turned on Noriega, and so now they used to work with Her- my guess is they used to work with Hernandez, then once he lost power they didn't need him anymore and they knew how, what a terrible guy he was, so they turn on him and that might be the guys around the Resolute Desk [00:11:07] that told Biden, "Hey, you know what? He's a terrible guy. I mean, we used him all we could. Now let's throw him in a, in jail." And Trump thinks, "Oh, you can't do that." Now new CIA guys come in and go, "No, no, no, no. We could put him back in charge, deal all the drugs we want, kill everybody we want, [00:11:24] as long as we get whatever we want." And I don't know what we want from Honduras, but i- in my experience, in my lifetime, the CIA has never justified its existence. It has been a horrendous cancer in this country that has served corporations and foreign interests and almost never served the American people. [00:11:42] So, I don't know what the dirty CIA is up to, uh, but apparently they like this disgusting creep, is my best guess. Now, you know the facts about him. You know my guesses. What's your guess? I, my guess is that it's a combination. I, you know, I, I don't know enough as to what the motivations for the CIA would be. [00:11:58] I'm not disagreeing with you. I ju- I, I just don't know and I didn't think about it. I think Nayib Bukele in, in El Salvador and trying to sort of have a, a kind of a uni- uni-party governance in El Salvador where it's the rich and the influential, uh, of, in Central America, which is what Bukele wants. [00:12:15] So, he wants r- regime change in all the countries surrounding El Salvador.Uh, so I think that it's probably, uh, partly to do with that, uh, I suspect. And also, you know, it, it's, I think it falls under, and we'll talk about this in the next story on Alina Habba, I think it, [00:12:32] it also falls under this idea that undoing everything that the previous administration did is still job number one for this president, and it happens at every turn. Now, I'm not saying that this is exactly that or, or that there's motivation [00:12:49] for doing it just on that basis, but it is consistent, and they do it all the time, and it is so hypocritical. The other thing is, you know, when I was, uh, down in Honduras, uh, doing an immigration story in 2021, I guess, uh, one of the people I was [00:13:04] interviewing who was upset that, uh, with America's position on immigration said, "Why do you, why do you guys care so much if some Hondurans come across when our government has been sending cocaine across and nobody does a damn thing about it? [00:13:21] You, all you care about are the people 'cause they look different, but the drug," the guy said to me, "The drug is white, so it's okay." Which I thought was, you know, an amazing thing at that time, and I didn't even know the intricacies of the Hernandez case at that point. But when he said it to me, it made a lot of sense. [00:13:37] "Okay, we'll, we, we don't want people to come over, but we'll, we'll be happy to fund any of the drug running that comes over here because it, of national security interests." Yeah, so le- last two things here. N- number one, he also mentioned people from Honduras he said that vouched for him. So, it could incredibly wealthy people from Honduras who might also be [00:13:55] drug traffickers, by the way- Right. Uh, that are promising him a Trump Towers, I don't know, right? Or, he could be lying and there are no people in Honduras- That's totally right. Or it's one guy he met at a party who said, "You know, we sh- you should get rid of our president." Right. And we bring him back, yeah. Or it could be, uh, the president of El Salvador. [00:14:11] - Yeah. - Right? Right. And so could be nobody from Honduras, but whoever it is that told him to release one of the worst drug traffickers in our lifetimes is not the good guys. They're the bad guys. Whether it's some rando rich person in Honduras or it's this, a foreign [00:14:27] government like El Salvador or whoever, or it's the CIA, whoever's said, "Let him go," is definitively the bad guys. And so the, my last question then becomes, okay, the base has turned on him on Epstein, they've turned on him on Israel, they've turned [00:14:42] on him on a number of things, okay? And o- on inflation, which is probably the most important on those three, so now he's at minus 24 in polling. Disastrous shape. The second worst of any president, and the guy who was at negative 36 was Richard Nixon right before he resigned, okay? [00:15:00] So, now my, w- what I wonder about this, Michael, and I don't know the answer, um, and I'm not shy about it when I think I know the answer, right, so, but here, I don't know if his base looks at this and goes, "Atta boy, way to let that drug trafficker go," and him talking about how Americans [00:15:17] are so stupid we're not even gonna notice it when he shoves the n- drugs up our nose and kills our family members. "Yay, Mr. Trump, President Trump." Or are they gonna be like, "Wait, wait, wait, what the hell is this?" Right, especially because, and I don't say this, uh, uh, tongue in cheek, his last name's Hernandez and so many people [00:15:35] in his base think that everybody with the last name Hernandez either shouldn't be here or should be in jail. So, eh, eh, e- even if you take the, the details of it out, it's the kind of thing that I agree with you, Cenk, goes at the gut of what his base is, and his base is gonna say, "What the hell is this?" You know, this i- and you're starting to hear it. [00:15:52] I mean, you're starting to hear it among congressional Republicans who are now emboldened by the lame duckness of this president as early as it is. Yeah, maybe there's a third of his base that goes, "Hernandez, I'm done with the guy," right? I don't know, okay? His base, not everybody who voted for him- No, no, yeah. ... not the party, but his base. [00:16:09] His base, right. But I think that a ton of his base and the majority of his base, if you just remove this from the guy that Donald Trump pardoned and you read him this quote saying, "We're gonna stuff the drugs up the gringos' noses and they're ne- never even gonna know it," that Trump's base would be furious with that guy, right? [00:16:28] And they should be, and they should be. And that's the guy Trump just pardoned. So, what happens when those two things clash? I like President Trump, but he did something that i- infuriates me. Well, if it gets enough press, maybe we'll find out. [00:16:43] Yeah. The elevator music to this though remains the fact that he's trying to wage war in Central America in the Caribbean Basin over the exact same thing that he's freeing a man for. It's i- un-conscionable and really hard to understand politically. Yeah, if all y- if you thought he's acting in a way that is in our interest, American [00:17:03] voters' interest, this is inexplicable. Yeah. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.