I really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time, so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little. Well, here we are again, Jake. The same conservatives who salivated over the George W Bush [00:00:15] administration's war crimes are now coming out of the woodwork to essentially cheer on Trump's war crimes. So, Jake. Honestly, it feels like 2003 all over again. But I'm curious what you think. What are your $0.02? Yeah, 100%. This is one total replay. We were on the air during the Iraq War. [00:00:33] We said, don't do it. This doesn't make any sense. Here we are, total BS. Allegations of wrongdoing. Needless war. Oh, it's an oil rich country. Same exact playbook. And I think what's really interesting here, and that's why the Megyn Kelly clip, [00:00:48] is instructive, is which way are Trump voters going to go? Are they going to fall for it again, just like they did with George W Bush and Dick Cheney? Or have they learned their lesson? And I think that's the critical part here. And we'll see here in the story. Well, let's give you the details and then the audience can decide for themselves. [00:01:06] And this story really has to do with what's being referred to as a double tap or a double strike on one of those fishing boats that the Trump administration and Pentagon had suspected was a drug trafficking boat. Now, just to give you a little bit of context, before we get to the reactions [00:01:24] to this by conservatives, let me just tell you that it happened in September. September 2nd, to be exact. The Pentagon had targeted a boat that had 11 individuals on it. The Pentagon has, by the way, already killed 80 people, at least 80 people, [00:01:41] as a result of these strikes on various fishing boats in the Caribbean. Now, some current and former US officials and law of war experts, as if laws of war even really exist or followed. I mean, I think it's a joke at this point, but nonetheless, [00:01:56] there are experts in that field. They've said that the Pentagon's lethal campaign is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution, which I personally find laughable. If there's one thing I know as an American, American and Israeli war crimes [00:02:13] are never punished. Now, experts say that the traffickers do not pose an imminent threat to the United States and are not in an armed conflict with our military, which is why the boat strikes in general are being questioned. The legality of those boat strikes are being questioned. [00:02:31] But the strike that we're talking about in particular happened on September 2nd. Basically, the Pentagon suspects this boat carrying 11 people is trafficking drugs. They carry out a strike, and then they notice that there are two individuals kind of hanging on to parts of the boat that had been blown to smithereens, [00:02:50] and they were trying to survive. At that point, another strike takes place to kill the two surviving individuals. So because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats amounts to murder, said Todd Huntley, [00:03:07] a former military lawyer who advised special operations forces for seven years at the height of the US counterterrorism campaign. Even if the US were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat's occupants if they were no longer able to fight would, in essence, [00:03:24] be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime, said Huntley, now director of the National Security Law Program at Georgetown Law. Now, Admiral Frank Mitch Bradley, happened to be the commander overseeing the [00:03:41] operation from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And, he defended the double tap in a secure conference call, essentially arguing that the survivors were legitimate targets. Okay, because they could have. I'm not kidding. This is what he argued in the in the conference call, that they [00:03:59] were legitimate targets because they could have called for other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo. How is that an imminent threat to the United States? That's insane. He ordered the second strike to fulfill his directive that everyone must be killed. [00:04:16] But fourth. But it's also worth noting real quick that three people who spoke to The Washington Post said that the protocols were actually changed after the double strike to emphasize rescuing suspected smugglers if they survived the strikes. [00:04:32] Seems like there was an admission internally that, hey, doing these double taps, flies in the face of international law and could lead to prosecution. So they kind of changed their protocols. But it also looks like there was an effort to kind of cover up the double tap strikes. So in the weeks following the attack, the Trump administration notified Congress [00:04:49] that the US was in a non-international International armed conflict with designated terrorist organizations, supported by an opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. So after the fact, the Trump administration comes out with [00:05:05] these claims, I guess, in an in a way, to basically set them up to defend the strikes should it become a big controversy. And it has, in fact become a big controversy. The DOJ alleged that because the US was in an armed conflict, personnel taking part in military strikes, [00:05:21] who were following orders consistent with the laws of war, would not be exposed to prosecution. And since the first attack happened, the Pentagon has struck at least 22 additional boats, killing in total at least 80 individuals. By the way, we still have not seen a shred of evidence that indicates that [00:05:40] these individuals who have been killed were, in fact, trafficking drugs. Now, shockingly, the Trump administration's boat strikes have sparked a potential bipartisan Investigation, you know, meaning Republicans are wanting to investigate this, which is, [00:05:56] honestly shocking because they've been nothing but lapdogs for Trump. They're terrified of Trump, even if he's doing things that are not popular with the Republican voters. But Senator Roger Wicker, who's a Republican from Mississippi, and Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island, a Democrat, respectively, [00:06:12] the chair and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a statement about the alleged follow on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels, saying that they intend to conduct vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances. And perhaps that's the reason why Trump is now saying that he would not have wanted [00:06:31] a second strike on the alleged drug boat, and even regurgitated Pete Hegseth initial denials about all of this. He said, quote, this is Trump. I wouldn't have wanted that. A second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine. But Pete said it didn't happen. I have great confidence in him now. [00:06:51] Pete Hegseth called the post reporting Washington Post, which broke the story. He called the reporting fake news, basically saying in a post on X, and this is part of his post. There's more to it, but it was lengthy. This is the relevant part. As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory [00:07:07] reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland. As we've said from the beginning and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be lethal, kinetic strikes. The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco boats, [00:07:24] and kill the narco terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Look, at this point. I mean, if you've been following this story, you know that that's a bunch of hooey. It's it's a complete and utter lie. But the way he wrote that post makes you question is Hegseth. What is he denying exactly? [00:07:40] Now, reporters asked Caroline Leavitt that question. So let's take a quick look at that. Secretary Three hex that had denied that, that second strike, that reported second strike on an alleged drug vote on September 2nd. The secretary said to the president that that didn't happen. [00:07:58] But to clarify, I just wanted to clear this up. In his social media posts, Secretary Hegseth didn't go into details about that strike. He just said U.S. Operations in the area were lawful. And he said that the story and media reports were fabricated. So, to be clear, does the administration deny that that [00:08:14] second strike happened or did it happen? And the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order? The latter is true. And I have a statement to read for you here. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting [00:08:33] in accordance with the laws of war. With respect to the strikes in question. On September 2nd, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Okay, so Hegseth authorized Bradley to do these strikes, which are illegal, [00:08:52] and fly in the face of international laws. And by the way, Senator Rand Paul, who is not in favor of this build up to a war with Venezuela, not happy. Right. He had something to say about Hegseth saying yesterday. They said, absolutely. [00:09:07] Pete says he didn't do it. And then today they admit that he did it. You think there would be ramifications? Was he incompetent enough not to know that it happened? Or was he lying yesterday? And then today, during a press conference, Hegseth issued some statements about it. [00:09:25] Let's take a quick look at what he had to say. I watched that first strike live, as you can imagine, at the Department of War. We got a lot of things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours or whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. [00:09:41] A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the which he had the complete authority to do. And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat. [00:09:58] And he was the right call. We have his back. And the American people are safer because narco terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water. And eventually on land, if necessary, to the American people, we will eliminate [00:10:13] that threat, and we're proud to do it. So, Jake, I need to get some comment from you on this, because what do you think is happening here? Do you think they're just throwing, you know, Admiral Bradley under the bus? And by the way, you are the secretary of defense. [00:10:31] You couldn't wait to see the operation conclude. You decided halfway through it like I've got other things to do. What do you what do you have to do, Pete? Like what are you up to? Two. I mean, on one hand, he's talking about narco terrorists and how they're [00:10:47] a big threat to the United States. And then, on the other hand, halfway through this operation, it's like, yeah, I got I had other things to do. Yeah. - Did you? - Yeah. There are two obviously related stories here. One is the effort to start a war with Venezuela, and the other is [00:11:03] whether Pete Hegseth or Admiral Bradley committed a war crime and should be brought up on charges of murder. So, are they throwing Admiral? Admiral Bradley under the, boat, if you will? Of course they are. [00:11:19] Otherwise Hegseth would say, yeah, it's illegal strike, and I ordered it. Why are you trying to shift the blame to Bradley? The buck stops with the secretary of defense. So if you thought it was a perfectly legal order, you wouldn't bother saying it was him. [00:11:34] It was him, right? Okay. That's what cowards do. All this tough talk, right? Oh, you generals, you're too overweight and too many of you have beards. I don't. I don't like your grooming. And I'm going to make comments about your pants or whatever the stupid fashion advice he's giving them. [00:11:51] Meanwhile, the minute he's in trouble for giving an illegal order, it was them. It was them, you coward. That's what Hegseth is, by the way. Bombing these boats is a total act of cowardice. So Rand Paul made another good point. He said of the boats that are stopped historically, that are [00:12:09] these type of boats coming from Venezuela? You know, good news. A lot of them actually do carry drugs. Good news for the administration. So, you know, some of them are narco terrorists. Well, not terrorists is a stupid word, but our drug dealers, we should stop them. [00:12:24] We should prevent the drugs from coming in. They're not going to America. There's no way a boat that can go 100 miles can go 2000 miles to America. But either way, perfectly happy to stop them and the drug dealing. Even if it's going to Trinidad or wherever it's going. Okay. But 21% of the boats were perfectly innocent people. 21%. [00:12:45] Imagine an error rate of 21% on any lethal action we're taking. Oh, we killed a bunch of, you know, drug dealers, first of all. Is that what we're supposed to do? Are we supposed to kill drug dealers? It didn't do to get into a lot of trouble in International Criminal Court [00:13:01] for killing drug dealers without trials. Right. Well, society has been degraded since then. Yeah. So now we're. Talking about how much things have devolved since Duterte was the leader. Yeah. So now we're apparently like the, you know, the head of a junta [00:13:16] in a third world country. I don't know if we're allowed to say that anymore, but who cares, right? And so now we're just like, oh, okay. There's someone I kind of think might be a drug dealer. Let's just murder him. And. Oh, well, we didn't kill all of them. And oh, remember why we're doing this and having this conversation [00:13:33] in the first place? Because the last time there were survivors in one of these bombings, the American government was embarrassed because it turns out they were innocent and they had to let them go. Oops. That means everyone else they killed on that boat was also innocent [00:13:48] and we murdered the wrong people. So since Hegseth and Trump and the entire administration don't want to be embarrassed that they're killing random people from time to time, in fact, a good percentage of the time they are like. And they have no evidence at all at all. [00:14:03] They've never presented a single drop of drugs. They've never presented a single piece of evidence. So since they're obviously wildly acting illegally, that's why they're like Admiral Bradley, it's all his fault. I mean, we we stand behind him. I mean, when he says he stands behind him, what he's saying is, yeah, I'm standing [00:14:19] behind him and pushing him under the bus. Okay. So that's the kind of cowards there. Look, guys, the most important part of this story is they're trying to start another war. Okay. It's. This is textbook. Same exact thing is right. Oh. Don't worry. We have secret intelligence. Well, show me the intelligence. [00:14:36] Oh, no. No. They're very dangerous. Now, we came up with a new word just so we could use the word terrorism. Narco terrorists. And are you in favor of Maduro? Are you in favor of Saddam? You sound like a narco terrorist sympathizer, right? I've been through this movie before. Young Turks was on the air during the Iraq War. [00:14:52] So to me, Anna, the surprising parts of this story is why is Roger Wicker, a Republican senator and so many other Republican senators all of a sudden considered about care about war crimes? I've never seen them care about war crimes. Americans murdering innocent people, our military, because the orders of [00:15:12] some jackass in the Department of Defense, Republican or Democrat. I've never seen them care. Never ever, ever. So it's weird that that's happening. That's interesting. Maybe it's a positive turn of events. I don't know if it's something else. And then most importantly, Anna to me is how conservative media [00:15:28] is going to deal with this. Because in the old days, it was just Fox News, New York Post, all Wall Street Journal, all owned by Rupert Murdoch. And they would all tell you war is the only answer. We must destroy all the terrorists. Your babies are in danger if we don't start this war on behalf of oil companies. [00:15:44] Israel. ET cetera. ET cetera. Back in the day, this seems to be mainly oil companies and defense contractors. So. But now Megyn Kelly's like, yeah, let's kill them. Kill the innocent people and watch them bleed out. But Tucker Carlson is saying, this looks a lot like Iraq. [00:16:01] I don't know why there's a pressing need for the American people to start a war in Caracas and have ground troops there. This is mental. So, yeah. Tucker's. Tucker's totally right. Megyn Kelly is a dinosaur of the media elite from the Bush administration. [00:16:18] It's actually devastatingly embarrassing. So before we go to our video, I just want to give you another factoid that's really important to keep in mind. As we all know, there's been a military buildup off the coast of Venezuela. There have been additional American troops who have been sent to the area. [00:16:33] And there are some contracts that have already been signed that I know about as a result of Dave Dechamps incredible reporting over at Antiwar.com in a video that he published yesterday. He disclosed that the US has signed contracts to provide meals to soldiers [00:16:49] who have been deployed through 2028. We're going to war. It doesn't matter what the American people think. It doesn't matter what kind of war crimes are being committed. This is the real world. And the real world means that none of us matter. [00:17:05] The the rules of engagement don't matter, and the lives of our soldiers don't matter. They're just pawns for various wars that are carried out by moneyed interests and, you know, unhinged presidential administrations. Now, with that in mind, you're about to hear, unhinged commentary [00:17:22] from the likes of Megyn Kelly. So I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they're on the boat or in the water, but I'd really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time, so that they [00:17:38] lose a limb and bleed out a little. Like, I'm really having a difficult time ginning up sympathy for these guys who 10s earlier almost got taken out by the initial bomb, but because they managed to get ejected, you know, a little too soon, [00:17:55] had to be taken out in the water. I realize legally it may make a difference, but truly, Mark, this is a tough case to really gin up the sympathies of the American people. We don't know anything about the 11 people who were killed. Nothing about them. We haven't seen a shred of evidence indicating that they were actually [00:18:11] engaging in drug trafficking. And even if they were engaging in drug trafficking is. So that's that's where we're at now as a country that our government should be allowed to engage in extrajudicial killings. No due process, even though it's part of our constitution. [00:18:27] Just kill whoever you want on the mere suspicion that they are attempting to bring drugs to the United States. Yeah. And by the way, let me just say one final thing about that. I thought I thought Trump secured our borders. What happened? So I guess our borders aren't secure. [00:18:44] So much so that we literally have to bomb and do double taps of boats off the coast of Venezuela or in the Caribbean Sea. Okay. Anyway, Jake, take it away. Yeah, she sounds like Dick Cheney. Oh, yeah. We got to do enhanced interrogations. I don't want to just kill them. I want to see them bleed out and etc.. So what happened? [00:19:02] Republican voters are Trump voters. I thought you guys were against Dick Cheney. I thought you guys were against, unnecessary wars. Now you're going to buy the same load of crap again. Come on, guys. So, and by the way, another talking point that she used from the old days [00:19:19] is it's hard to gin up sympathy for this. Oh, it's hard to get sympathy for Saddam. Why do you have sympathy for Saddam? Oh, he likes Saddam. He likes like Saddam. We should go lose 5000 American boys in Iraq because he likes Saddam. And you should all hate Saddam. [00:19:35] You hate him, hate him, hate Maduro, hate Maduro. Now go die there. But we have meals for you guys. All right, guys. On whether the double tap is illegal. This is a hilarious fact. So not only is it illegal under international law, it's illegal under US law, but the military, our military, US [00:19:52] military has an example of a killing that is definitely a war crime and illegal. It is when a ship is sunk and there are survivors of that ship and you kill them. It's literally in the manual, this exact example. [00:20:10] Yeah. What they did was definitely murder. Now, I grant you that Israel does it all the time. America did it with the Apache helicopter video in Iraq and probably did it many, many times in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this is getting stupid now where we say, okay, we'd like to invade [00:20:26] your country because you have the number one oil reserves in the world. So we'll pretend that you guys are narco terrorists. And we're the good guys, even though we're the ones doing the extrajudicial killings of you that are totally outside of even our own laws. But you see how we're the good guys and you're the bad guys. [00:20:42] No, I don't see it. Saddam was a bad guy. Maduro is a bad guy. That doesn't mean we should invade Venezuela and that we should kill random people on boats. And just to really just end the conversation about how this is about narco [00:20:58] terrorists, Trump pardoned someone and released them from prison today, actually. And, that individual. This is this is such an incredible story. So, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, he, [00:21:14] was in prison for drug trafficking, and he was just pardoned by President Trump. He's been released from prison. And, Glenn Greenwald is going to give us some more details on that. Let's take a quick look. Trump just pardoned one of the most malicious and destructive [00:21:32] actual drug traffickers from that same region, Latin America. He pardoned them. The president of Honduras, the former president of Honduras. Who was convicted with ample evidence, not just that people in his country [00:21:48] were sending drugs into the United States, but that he himself was overseeing the drug trafficking ring and benefiting from it. Hopefully, Megyn Kelly can spare a minute or two to maybe opine on that on her show. [00:22:03] I doubt that's going to happen. But, you know, maybe in between salivating over watching people, potentially innocent people bleeding out through legal, illegal double taps that the United States military is carrying out. Maybe just spare a moment to talk about the fact that a prolific drug trafficker [00:22:21] was just released from prison, thanks to the president that she pretends to love so much. Yeah, we covered that story yesterday on The Young Turks. And if you missed that, there was a trial here in the US of this guy, a drug cartel leader said, yeah, we picked him from when he was a rural congressman [00:22:36] because he was willing to work with us. We elevated him to the presidency of Honduras. And then he knew the dozens of murders that we committed. I mean, he's one of the worst drug traffickers in human history. We just pardoned him for no reason at all while we're pretending to care about [00:22:56] drugs being brought into this country. And then the last one, if you didn't see the quote, he has this amazing quote about how he's like, we're going to shove that cocaine up the noses of the gringos and they won't even know it. So that's the guy we're letting go. But the random fishermen were murdering. Okay. [00:23:14] Gee, I wonder if it has to do with the oil. 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.