Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Everybody seems to have moved on from the awful story involving President Trump’s decision to bomb a small boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea. That’s a shame, because really bad stuff is continuing to happen on this front. The White House is now circulating a draft of a bill that would vastly expand Trump’s authority for exactly these types of bombings. We’ve also had another one of these strikes, and it appears just as dubious as the first one. And Trump announced that strike with an absolutely deranged tweet that should raise alarms everywhere, but isn’t. Meanwhile, Democrats just introduced a measure to restrain Trump and the prospects for getting the GOP support it needs are approximately zero. Brian Finucane, an editor at Just Security, has been doing some great writing on this topic. So we’re talking to him about all of it. Brian, thanks for coming on.
Brian Finucane: My pleasure.
Sargent: So let’s start with the second bombing. occurred in international waters, killed three people. Trump said these people were quote unquote positively identified as drug smugglers or narco-terrorists. But according to the Times, he hasn’t identified the group or the people. Brian, has that changed? Can you bring us up to date on this bombing and how forthcoming the administration has been about it?
Finucane: Well, the administration has not been very forthcoming, unfortunately. We don’t have much additional information. We have various assertions from Trump and others in the administration, mostly in his Truth Social post, including the characterization of the people aboard the vessel as confirmed narco-terrorists, characterization of the supposed illegal narcotics aboard as, “a deadly weapon poisoning Americans,” representations about the threat this supposedly poses to Americans that would justify the use of lethal force here. But we don’t have information about the identity that people aboard the vessel, who they might have been affiliated with, the destination or the exact nature of the cargo.
Sargent: Yeah. And the reason he’s calling the drugs a deadly weapon is to try and recast this as a strike against war combatant, right?
Finucane: Right. So the administration is trying to cloak its operations in the Caribbean under the mantle of counterterrorism and war more broadly. And it’s using not just the wording, but also the tools and the tropes of counterterrorism and war. But that’s a misappropriation of those frameworks because this is not a war, this is not an armed conflict, and this is not like prior counterterrorism strikes the US has been conducting for two decades post 9-11.
Sargent: It certainly isn’t, and the administration, by the way, still hasn’t even presented any kind of detailed legal rationale or any information about the first strike, which killed eleven people. Now the Times reports that the White House is circulating this bill that would essentially let him unilaterally wage war against drug cartels that he decides to label terrorists and against nations that harbor them. It seems to say that part of this would be done in consultation with Congress, but it doesn’t define what it would entail to consult with Congress. The Times says this bill is setting off, “alarm bells among some people,” at least in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Brian, what do we know about this and what do you make of it?
Finucane: So I want to caveat at the top, but it’s hard to know at this point how seriously to take this legislation. Reportedly, it was introduced or was put forward by Representative Corey Mills of Florida. It’s also been reported that it’s been circulated by OMB to departments and agencies for comment. That’s normally a process associated with legislation that the administration takes somewhat seriously, but I don’t think we know for certain just how seriously the administration is taking this. But the text is really quite striking. It is modeled on the 2001 Authorization of Use of Military Force, which has been the principal statutory authority for the US war on terror for the use of force against the Taliban, against Al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Shabaab, and other Al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates. And it really gives the president a blank check to use force anywhere in the world against anyone he designates under the provisions of this as a narco-terrorist. There’s no geographic restrictions, so potentially they could include the United States. It would provide a detention authority. And I think it’s really important to note here that this would represent a dramatic reallocation of Congress’s war powers to the executive. It would be the president deciding who the United States goes to war with and where that takes place.
Sargent: Well, I want to jump in, Brian, and say that this story was written by Charlie Savage, who’s a very serious national security and legal reporter. And he seems to be taking it very seriously and he reports that it’s setting off alarm bells. And after your description, I’m taking it even more seriously.
Finucane: Yeah, I’ve had a number of conversations with people in the administration and on the Hill. You know, I hear different things from different people, but I think people should be concerned and you should be prepared to push back against this. A really key point I want to make goes to the framing of these military actions generally and also this legislation. Again, the administration is not engaged in counterterrorism in the same way that the US was against Al-Qaeda or ISIS. And it is not responding to an armed attack on the United States akin to 9-11. Okay, on 9-11, Al-Qaeda mounted an armed attack against the United States and killed almost 3,000 people. That is not the scenario here. Moreover, in the immediate aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, it wasn’t immediately clear who all the perpetrators were. So that is why the 2001 AUMF, the model for this new legislation, that is why the 2001 AUMF provided discretion to the president to determine who the force would be used against, because it wasn’t known to Congress. It was assumed to be Bin-Laden, but they didn’t know the full list of perpetrators, organizations that might have been involved. So that is not the scenario here. There is no situation where they would justify Congress transferring the authority to decide who gets to whom the United States will go to war and where, it would be remarkable for Congress to give away its powers this way.
Sargent: Well, I just want to clarify for people that when you say AUMF, you’re talking about the authorization for the use of military force. If the Times reporting is right, and if I’m hearing you correctly, it seems like this bill would allow Trump to wage war against a nation that he declares by fiat is harboring drug cartels, that he also declares by fiat are terrorists. It’s just obviously clear that none of the pushback that he got to the first strike has registered at all. They’re just trying to vastly expand these authorities. Am I wrong to be alarmed by that?
Finucane: Well, I think people should be alarmed and very concerned about this. It remains to be seen where, you know, how much interest there is in the administration for this legislation, whether the president himself will endorse the introduction of it. I think the administration has claimed authority to these strikes under the president’s unilateral authority under Article 2 of the Constitution as president, as commander-in-chief and chief executive. And if the president is interested in only doing a few more performative strikes in the Caribbean, he may feel that relying solely on Article 2 authority is sufficient. And I would say that for the US president who has stalled himself as the president of peace and boasting about the wars he has ended, it would be strikingly off message to endorse an authorization for a global war.
Sargent: Wait, Brian, how many wars has he ended unilaterally? I think it’s either seven or eight, depending on the moment.
Finucane: You know, I’ve lost count, but I think that his self-image as a peacemaker, as a dealmaker is important him, regardless of the facts. So it would be somewhat surprising to me if he put this forward. And I don’t want to in anyway cast Donald Trump as a dove. I was a lawyer at the State Department under both Obama and Trump and provided advice on the use of military force to both those administrations. I’m well familiar with Trump’s use of force track record. And these strikes in the Caribbean are very much consistent with that. President Trump has a penchant for performative and dramatic military operations strikes on terrorists in the Middle East and now in the Caribbean. But I don’t get the sense that he wants to be owning a major conflict or perceived as initiating some sort of global crusade against narco-terrorists.
Sargent: Yeah, I sure hope you’re right. I want to talk about Senators Adam Schiff and Tim Kaine who have introduced this new bill designed to block Trump from doing these bombings without congressional authorization. The bill says that illegal drug trafficking does not constitute sort of armed attack or threat of an armed attack that Trump might otherwise be authorized to deter. Can you talk about this bill a bit?
Finucane: Yeah, it’s an important measure and it follows one in the House introduced by Representative Ilhan Omar. So this is legislation under the War Powers Resolution. And the use of force in the Caribbean, the strikes on these vessels trigger a provision in the War Powers Resolution that both requires reporting to Congress [and] also starts a 60 day clock for the withdrawal of US forces from hostilities in the Caribbean. And also enables Congress to introduce legislation, members of Congress introduce legislation that will be guaranteed a vote. There are benefits from expedited procedures. So it’s a tool for the minority to get legislation forward that will get a vote. And it’s an important vehicle for Congress to on record to oppose military action, to go on the record about its views on the law. And if it were to be enacted, to require the president to withdraw US Armed Forces from the hostilities in the Caribbean, from the military situation in the Caribbean.
Now, I want to be very honest with you that the odds are not great about any legislation being enacted, including because of the potential for presidential veto. But nonetheless, I think it is very important step. And it can be important political signal both to the American people and raising the salience of what’s taking place in the Caribbean and also signal to the White House that there is congressional opposition. Hopefully it will be bipartisan.
Sargent: Do you expect that? Do you expect a number of Republicans to join this thing? I certainly don’t. A number of Democratic senators put out this letter recently. I believe it was two dozen Democratic senators. And this letter asked a bunch of really fairly pointed, but reasonable questions about the first strike. And as we reported right here on this podcast, Senator Kaine, who spirited that letter as well, reached out to Republicans, numerous Republican senators to try to get them on the letter and none would do it, which is just appalling. And I think we’re going to see something similar here. What do you anticipate?
Finucane: Well, to his credit, Senator Rand Paul has spoken out publicly about these strikes. In the past, Senator Kaine has been able to persuade some of his Republican colleagues to join on similar measures. So in the wake of the 2020 strike on General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad, Tim Kaine introduced a similar war powers resolution. He managed to get bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress to vote for it. It was ultimately vetoed by President Trump in his first term. So I think there is a potential there to peel off a few Republicans. I’m hopeful. The calculation with regards to the letter may have been that this is a one-off strike and we can move beyond this, but the administration has signaled that it’s going to do more. It has said as much. And I think that regardless of your party, members of Congress should be concerned not only about the president of United States using military force in this manner without congressional authorization, but also using military force to engage in the premeditated killing of people outside of armed conflict. And the prerogative that is being asserted here should alarm members of Congress, no matter of their party.
Sargent: You’d hope, although I just want to point out that the Republican Party of 2025 is substantially different than even the Republican Party of 2020.
Finucane: That’s certainly true. But we would hope that people can appreciate the stakes here. I just want to emphasize that last point about what the president is asserting here. We do not have an armed conflict. We don’t even know who it is the administration is bombing here. And so, you know, the law of war might provide some limited permission to take life in the first instance in an armed conflict. That’s not the case here. OK. And we the president engaged in the premeditated killing of people and they haven’t articulated any sort of limiting principle to this prerogative.
Sargent: Yeah, it’s really alarming. And I think there’s another kind of noise in the background that we should grapple with. It’s clear that Trump and the people around him are really relishing the spectacle of him unilaterally blowing up little boats and killing the people on them. And they think that when anybody objects and tries to defend the rule of law or or object to extrajudicial killings like this, well, that’s a good strong position for Trump. Listen to this from J.D. Vance.
J.D. Vance (voiceover): So I was talking to our great, I said, Secretary of Defense, but our new secretary of war, Pete Hegseth. And I was talking to Secretary Hegseth and he, you know what he said. He said, you know what, Mr. Vice President? We don’t see any of these drug boats coming into our country. They’ve completely stopped. And I said, I know why. I would stop too. Hell, I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world.
Sargent: And then on top of that, Trump’s tweet announcing the second bombing was just sick. It said, quote, all in caps, “be warned if you are transporting drugs that can kill Americans, we are hunting you.” Now, this is a bloodthirsty kind or a quality that I really find worrisome. Am I being overly alarmist here?
Finucane: No, I don’t think so. Unfortunately, I think it’s a piece of, you know, we earlier in the year, we saw Trump showing photos and video of the men who were sent down to CECOT being abused at the prison there, he was showing these at rallies. And so I think it’s similar to that. I think there’s a few different things going on here. One is, again, the president likes performative military actions. That’s why he’s posting these videos. I think there’s an aspect of, you know, they own the libs, know, trolling going on here. But also like using this framing about counterterrorism, war, protecting Americans, of strength, you know, they’re trying to, you know, maneuver Democrats or the opponents of these operations into a bad spot politically and paint them as weak and, you know, will they tolerate the poisoning and death of their fellow Americans? A lot of this is obviously malarkey, right? So I think that, the framing of terrorism and counterterrorism just doesn’t work. The United States has not suffered an attack like on 9-11 on the threat posed to this country by illegal drugs. It’s very different. It doesn’t have any military solution. You’re not going to bomb your way to victory in the war on drugs.
Sargent: I want to bear down on that point just to close out because it’s really critical and I think it escapes a lot of people. People who didn’t politically come of age in their aftermath of 9-11 don’t really understand just how bloodthirsty and how Islamophobic the atmosphere in this country was. People really wanted blood. They were baying for blood. We’re not in anything close to a similar situation right now. Trump and Stephen Miller, in particular, and some of the other more authoritarian types around Trump have really tried to manufacture a sort of similar sense of terror and emergency out in the country and it’s failing. And I think that’s essential and I hope Democrats keep that in mind when they sort of think through how to respond here and don’t get suckered into thinking, we can’t object because we’ll look weak. We’re really far away from anything like the post 9-11 environment, and that matters, doesn’t it?
Finucane: I think it does, and I think we are in different place. The American public has not experienced the same shock and trauma that it did after 9-11, after watching thousands of their fellow citizens be murdered in an armed attack. I don’t want to minimize the scourge of illegal drugs in this country, but it is fundamentally a different issue. It has different solutions or ways to approach it. But I also want to highlight that this tarring of criminals in Latin America as terrorists is a piece of with tarring migrants generally as terrorists. And again this week, domestic political opponents as terrorists. And I think that is particularly worrisome with the invocation of this prerogative to kill essentially outside the law, kill people designated terrorists. How broadly is this asserted authority going to be used?
Sargent: Right, can he label you and me terrorists and drone strike us on American soil is what you’re saying.
Finucane: I think the migrants or other Latin American cartels or criminal groups are more likely to be targets first, but they haven’t asserted any limiting principle. And if the president can designate you to be a terrorist and simply kill you outside the law on that basis, yeah, I think people should be concerned.
Sargent: OK, just to close this out, are we going to find out more? I fear that we’re not. What’s gonna happen, say, in the next few months? Are we gonna see more of these strikes and no information forthcoming from the administration? It may be that we have to wait until Democrats win one or both houses of Congress, at which point we would get, I would think, extremely robust oversight and scrutiny into this sort of stuff. But are we gonna be able to really crack through and learn anything about what this campaign that Trump is waging is really up to or not?
Finucane: So I think we’re going to have a drip, drip, drip of information probably from within the US government and possibly from on the ground in Venezuela. The families of those killed or these vessels may eventually speak to the press. We may hear more of their stories. But I also think even now there is a role for oversight in Congress, even by the minority. In the past, the confirmation process for members of the president’s government, federal judges, have provided a leverage point to extract information, documents from the executive branch. And that’s how we got the Al-Awlaki OLC opinion, Office of National Council opinion, during the Obama administration. And so if there is a similar Department of Justice opinion that blessed the lawfulness of these strikes, this is an opportunity for members of Congress, in the Senate in particular, to try to extract it. To use the confirmation process for generals, judges, or other members of the government to try to get those documents, those legal rationales out of the administration and to expose them to the American public.
Sargent: What about the details of the strikes? Do you think we’ll learn anything or not?
Finucane: I think additional information is going to come out, probably in a drip, drip, drip type fashion. I think a lot of people are probably unhappy about what is happening on the inside of the US government. And so I think the potential for this stuff to eventually surface is pretty high.
Sargent: I’ve said it before on here and I’ll say it again. We need whistleblowers now more than ever. Ryan Finucane, thanks so much for coming on, man. We really appreciate it. Very illuminating.
Finucane: My pleasure. Thanks so much.