This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The White House is facing growing bipartisan criticism over its targeting of boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that it says are carrying drugs, though have not presented a shred of evidence. The Washington Post recently reported Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of two people who survived an initial strike on a suspected drug boat off the coast of Trinidad on September 2nd. According to the Post, Hegseth gave a verbal order to, quote, “kill everybody,” unquote.
Many legal experts and lawmakers said such an order would be a war crime. This is independent Maine Senator Angus King on CNN Monday morning.
SEN. ANGUS KING: The law is clear. If the facts are as have been alleged, that there was a second strike specifically to kill the survivors in the war — in the water, that’s a stone-cold war crime. It’s also murder.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday afternoon, the White House confirmed the second strike on the boat did occur, but claimed the order came not from Hegseth, but from Admiral Frank “Mitch Bradley, who at the time was the head of JSOC — that’s the Joint Special Operations Command. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was questioned about the strikes.
GABE GUTIERREZ: To be clear, does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order?
PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: The latter is true, Gabe, and I have a statement to read for you here. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narcoterrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting 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. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday night, Secretary Hegseth wrote online, “Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since,” unquote. While he was showing his 100% support, many took his statement to make a distinction between him, Hegseth, and Bradley himself as to who gave the order.
This all comes as Hegseth is threatening to court-martial Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who’s a former naval officer. Kelly and five other Democrats, all military or intelligence veterans, recently appeared in a video urging soldiers to disobey illegal orders.
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN: I’m Senator Elissa Slotkin.
SEN. MARK KELLY: I’m Senator Mark Kelly.
REP. CHRIS DELUZIO: Representative Chris Deluzio.
REP. MAGGIE GOODLANDER: Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander.
REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN: Representative Chrissy Houlahan.
REP. JASON CROW: Congressman Jason Crow.
SEN. MARK KELLY: I was a captain in the United States Navy.
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN: Former CIA officer.
REP. CHRIS DELUZIO: Former Navy.
REP. JASON CROW: Former paratrooper and Army Ranger.
REP. MAGGIE GOODLANDER: Former intelligence officer.
REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN: Former Air Force.
SEN. MARK KELLY: We want to speak directly to members of the military.
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN: And the intelligence community.
REP. JASON CROW: Who take risks each day.
REP. CHRIS DELUZIO: To keep Americans safe.
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN: We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now.
REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN: Americans trust their military.
REP. CHRIS DELUZIO: But that trust is at risk.
SEN. MARK KELLY: This administration is pitting our uniformed military.
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN: And intelligence community professionals.
REP. JASON CROW: Against American citizens.
SEN. MARK KELLY: Like us, you all swore an oath.
REP. MAGGIE GOODLANDER: To protect and defend this Constitution.
REP. CHRIS DELUZIO: Right now the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad.
REP. JASON CROW: But from right here at home.
SEN. MARK KELLY: Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN: You can refuse illegal orders.
REP. CHRIS DELUZIO: You must refuse illegal orders.
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN: No one has to carry out orders that violate the law.
REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN: Or our Constitution.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump accused the Democrats appearing in that video of engaging in, quote, ”SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
On Monday, Senator Mark Kelly revealed he and his wife Gabby Giffords have received death threats following President Trump’s threats. Yes, that family knows violence well. Gabby Giffords is the former Arizona congressmember who was shot in the head in a mass shooting in a Tucson shopping mall when she was meeting with constituents years ago.
We’re joined now by David Cole, professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, former national legal director of the ACLU. His recent piece for The New York Times is headlined “Mark Kelly Is Being Investigated for Telling the Truth.”
We last spoke to you in October after your widely read piece in The New York Review of Books headlined “Getting Away with Murder,” about the boat strikes. So, these two issues, to say the least, are coming together very strongly this week. One, you have the revelations in The Washington Post of the second boat strike killing the shipwrecked, the two men who were hanging on for dear life to this boat when they hit it again, and you have the attacks on Mark Kelly to court-martial him, after he and others talked about soldiers not obeying illegal orders. Talk about the merging of these two issues, and specifically what’s happening to Kelly right now.
DAVID COLE: So, you know, this entire operation, from the outset, is illegal. It is not legal to engage in premeditated targeting of people because you believe they’re engaged in criminal activity. We have a system in this country for trying people, convicting them, sentencing them. Even if you are found to have been guilty of smuggling massive amounts of drugs, you cannot be executed. The death penalty is limited for people who have actually committed a homicide.
The president says this is a war, but he’s mixing metaphor with reality. The “war on drugs” is a metaphor, like the war on cancer. It doesn’t allow us to kill people who are carrying drugs, just as the war on crime doesn’t allow us to kill people who are criminals.
What we’ve now learned is that not only is the entire operation illegal from the outset, but it is — they’re now actually targeting survivors of these strikes, people who pose no threat whatsoever to the United States, are seeking to hang on for dear life, and the military is targeting them and killing them in cold blood. It is getting closer and closer to My Lai.
And yet, when members of Congress say to members of the military, “You know, you have an obligation not to follow illegal orders,” what does the president do? Not say, “Hey, that’s right. These orders are problematic. We should rethink them. We should pay attention to all the lawyers who told us they were illegal before we pushed them off the table.” Instead, he goes after Mark Kelly, a senator, a former — a combat veteran, for merely —
AMY GOODMAN: Former astronaut.
DAVID COLE: — telling the truth. And a former astronaut, for merely telling the truth. It is a true statement that following orders is no defense to a war crime. And killing civilians who are not engaged in armed conflict against us is a war crime. This is criminal activity from the get-go, doubly criminal when you start targeting survivors. They have to rethink this policy, not claim that their critics are engaged in sedition.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, David, I’m wondering, all of these — all of these boat attacks are actually creating a climate where, basically, the United States — the people of the United States get used to the fact that the United States is going to war, in essence, is going to militarily attack Venezuela. And, for instance, The Guardian just reported recently that Trinidad and Tobago, which is right next door to Venezuela, has a hundred Marines that have installed radar. And there was a quote from a political leader in Trinidad and Tobago, David Abdulah of the Movement for Social Justice, that accuses their government of being complicit in these extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean. I’m wondering: Under what pretext do you think the United States will use to actually militarily attack Venezuela?
DAVID COLE: Well, this entire operation is a pretext. There is no war going on. We are not under attack. You know, no one has been drafted to fight the enemy. President Trump has taken a crime problem and has said, “I’m going to use the military to solve the crime problem. How? By killing people in cold blood.” And Pete Hegseth translates that to say to his folks, “Kill everybody.” And so, then Admiral Bradley responds to that by ordering the killing even of survivors who are merely holding on for dear life. This is crimes that the government is trying to justify as acts of war.
If they go to war with Venezuela, that, too, will be a war crime. It will be an act of aggression against a country which has not attacked us. The fact that people are maybe — probably are — smuggling drugs into this country from Venezuela doesn’t distinguish that country from Mexico, from Canada, from many other countries into which drugs are — from which drugs are smuggled. It doesn’t give us the authority to kill Canadians. It doesn’t give us the authority to kill Mexicans. It doesn’t give us the authority to kill Venezuelans. And it certainly doesn’t give us the authority to go to war with a country.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’m wondering also about another major legal battle of the Trump administration: the admission of the Justice Department that it was Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who made the decision to deport a group of Venezuelan men to the notorious mega-prison complex in El Salvador, ignoring a judge’s order to keep them in custody. What do you — what do you make of this?
DAVID COLE: Outrageous. Outrageous. We are a country of law. That means that government officials, just like you and I, have to follow court orders. In this case, the Trump administration, again using this pretext of a war, said we’re going to deport hundreds, several, a couple — more than a hundred Venezuelans, on the assertion that they are part of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan drug gang, which Trump says is engaged in armed conflict against us, notwithstanding the fact that no one ever heard of this group before Trump made this ridiculous assertion.
The ACLU went to court to challenge that on an emergency basis. The judge held a hearing. He told them, on no uncertain terms, “Do not remove these people. And if the planes have taken off, turn the planes around. And if they land in El Salvador, do not let the people off. Bring them back.”
And instead, Kristi Noem, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, tells her people to defy that order and to continue the plane flights to El Salvador and to turn these men over to the El Salvadoran authorities, where they were put in, essentially, a torture prison.
That is not how the rule of law is supposed to operate. I think it’s going to lead to contempt charges against Kristi Noem and the others who engaged in that blatantly illegal disregard of the judge’s order.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to continue on that line of the deporting of people. You have Kilmar Abrego Garcia — right? — who a brave Justice Department lawyer said in court — because he had to tell the truth — that it was not clear why he was even sent to CECOT. Now he’s being faced with being sent to one African country after another, a continent that he is not from. They are not backing down on deporting him. I wanted to ask about that.
And also on this issue, we just had a headline yesterday on this young woman, a Babson College student, deported to Honduras this weekend while she was trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. Nineteen-year-old Any Lucia López Belloza was told there was an issue with her boarding pass at the gate, before she was detained by immigration officials. The day after she was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting the government from removing her from the United States for 72 hours. But instead, she was deported and is now in Honduras, where she hasn’t been in many years. She did not grow up there.
DAVID COLE: So, I think we have to ask President Trump: Have you no sense of decency? Have you no shame? The kinds of cruelty that he is imparting on people who have lived here their entire lives, on Mr. Abrego Garcia, who was admittedly a mistaken deportation. And instead of admitting their mistake and saying “sorry,” they’re now seeking to send him to a third country, to Africa, a place that he does not know, has never lived. This is — this is just beyond the pale. It is absolutely beyond the pale.
And I think the American people recognize that what the administration is doing in the name of immigration enforcement is far too harsh, far too cruel. It is not singling out criminals. It is not singling out people at the border. It is taking college kids. It is taking people turning up to their interviews and to their court appearances and spiriting them off to countries they never came from.
AMY GOODMAN: David Cole, we have this breaking news. The former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was just released from prison in the United States, where he was serving a 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking and firearms charges. His brother, Tony Hernández, also serving a life sentence here in the United States. He was convicted, the former president, of sending in tons of cocaine into the United States. Put this against what the U.S. is doing in the Caribbean, bombing so-called drug boats to prevent drugs from coming into the United States.
DAVID COLE: Again, have you no shame? Here’s somebody who was essentially a drug kingpin, someone who used the authority of his office to ensure that drugs, in massive quantities, were brought into the United States. He is prosecuted, he is convicted, and he is sentenced. And what does President Trump do? He lets him out of jail.
Meanwhile, fishermen on boats in the Caribbean, who have never been tried or charged with anything, are shot and killed from the air. And when people are holding on for their lives, they follow through and shoot and kill those people.
It is — this is not about fighting to stop drugs from coming into this country, because then you would not see the pardon of somebody who was convicted for that offense. This is pure politics, and it is playing with people’s lives, ending people’s lives, for partisan political advantage.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, David Cole, I’m wondering, Trump’s use of the pardon. Most presidents wait ’til their final year in office, and around Christmas time they they do a bunch of pardons, but Trump has been on a rampage with these pardons. Could you talk about what the message that this sends about presidential power?
DAVID COLE: Well, the pardon power is one power in the Constitution that was given to the president without check. We’ve generally relied on, you know, the principles of presidents to use it in wise ways, use it to dole out mercy in appropriate cases, not to award donors, not to award the kids of donors, not to award those who have violated laws in the same way Trump violated laws.
Trump is using — is abusing the pardon power as no president before ever has, and I hope no president afterward ever will again. But it really raises questions about giving the president absolute power. Absolute power corrupts, and President Trump has proved that with his use of the pardon power. He’s pardoning people who do — you know, do good to his business interests. He is essentially using it to line his pockets and to let people off who he identifies with, not to engage in any kind of principled grants of mercy.
AMY GOODMAN: David Cole, we just have 30 seconds. The judges finding the U.S. attorneys that President Trump appointed, his personal attorneys, Alina Habba in New Jersey, Lindsey Halligan, finding that they are illegally serving, the significance of this?
DAVID COLE: Well, this is — this is what happens when the president insists on hiring loyalists who can’t get Senate confirmation, even from a Senate that the Republicans control. He instead tries to use these tricks, calling them interim, calling them acting, etc. And now two courts have held that that kind of back-to-back appointment to avoid Senate confirmation is unconstitutional.
AMY GOODMAN: David Cole, I want to thank you for being with us, professor at the Georgetown University of Law Center, now a visiting professor at Columbia Law School, former ACLU national legal director. We’ll link to your piece, “Mark Kelly Is Being Investigated for Telling the Truth.”
When we come back, Senator Bernie Sanders and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani join striking Starbucks workers on the picket line in Brooklyn. Back in 20 seconds.
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AMY GOODMAN: Down Hill Strugglers, performing at the Brooklyn Folk Festival in November.
