See below for video and highlights from a great intervivew by Bill Kristol of The Bulwark, with Sen. Mark Warner saying a bunch of interesting stuff on the Trump/Hegseth boat strikes. As Bill Kristol puts it: “When Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and an experienced and sober legislator, is alarmed, we should all be alarmed. By the boat strikes, and generally by what the Trump administration is doing to our national security.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “I learned that the overall policy predicate that went into this you know has got real questions. The policy was decided in late July. The legal opinion was not even fully drafted until September 5th, three days after the September 2nd strike.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “…the video itself is is chilling, grim, whatever term you want to use…some of the most biggest claims that this could put us into the category of war crimes that is such a serious accusation that I think anyone that jumps to conclusion on that before you have all the information is doing a disservice and…my belief is that the admiral and the troops were put in frankly a fairly untenable position… it’s pretty chilling that these individuals who were holding on to this boat were somehow still in the fight really stretches anybody’s imagination.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “…the fact that this group has used these videos, frankly, as they thump their chest and show, isn’t this great for them to now say, we’re going to show you the first strike, but somehow the balance of the next hour with the subsequent strikes is somehow classified, know, that doesn’t pass any smell test. So, we’re going to keep pressing them. I think the Congress needs to see it. Frankly, I think the American people need to see it”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “I’ve seen a lot of these videos over my time as chair and vice chair. I see nothing here that would display any kind of sources and methods. The idea that they lost all ability to make that argument, I think, when they put these videos out in the first place, right? So now the idea that they’re suddenly trying to change the rules is just…not untypical for this administration. But I do hope all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will keep pressing on them because it’s just, you know, they love this policy. They claim it’s great. Well, show the American people and show Congress. And I think people will, I think the human judgment people will make is going to be pretty pretty stunning, because they would make the argument that if and there were subsequent strikes where people were in the water and in the water, they were viewed as shipwrecked sailors and they were actually picked up, the idea that somehow these guys were still on this boat and getting ‘back in the fight’ doesn’t pass the smell test.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “But it again goes back to the underlying, was the mission first and foremost to kill everybody? Because it clearly wasn’t a mission to interdict the boat. And it clearly didn’t seem to be a mission to retrieve the drugs. There was no effort made to retrieve the drugs. So are all these strikes simply to kill, not just the first but all the subsequent ones as well? And then it only becomes if you’re not 100% effective, how much further should you go if there are survivors? So again, this goes to do we really want to have the policy of America against drug runners that kill kill kill is the first second and third priority?”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “If we’ve not made the case to the American people, if we’ve not made the case clearly to Congress, if we don’t have an authorization of use of military force…people will view this and could potentially view this as against international law, boy oh boy, we’re putting our military in the potential for legal jeopardy that we just – it is disrespectful.”
- Bill Kristol: “This strikes me as the opposite of the fog of war. We have total visibility, these people are zero threat to us, they are literally 1,000 miles away from our coast — they could have waited a day and taken care of them later.” Sen. Mark Warner: “To your point, this is the opposite of, you know, you’re in a firefight and people react very quickly. This had the time for judgment.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “My biggest disappointment in my whole time in public life…is I absolutely believe that my Republican colleagues…at least national security items, would’ve drawn the line…So far, people have not stepped up.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “There was the claim that they were going to meet with a second boat. There was no evidence that there was ever a second boat. But if you assume there was a second boat…wouldn’t you wait until they get with the second boat?”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “None of these drugs are fentanyl, this is all cocaine. Number two, the vast majority of the transit of cocaine from Columbia, Ecuador comes through the eastern Pacific, not through the Caribbean…The hypocrisy of going after these guys at the same time the president pardons a convicted drug dealer who was the former Honduran president, who was the masterminds, is hypocrisy beyond belief.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “This has been the most obvious buildup of military capabilities maybe since the first Gulf War, and yet the president has not asked Congress or gone to the American people and say here’s why we need to take out Maduro.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “My biggest disappointment in my whole time in public life from being governor and senator is I absolutely believed that my Republican colleagues, who I know love our country every bit as much as I do, would have on at least national security items would have drawn the line. And there’s been lots of private conversations I’ve had. ‘Well, Mark, you’re right. Mark, you’re right.’ Even when senators said, ‘Mark, it’s like you’re our conscience. I don’t want to be your darn conscience!”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “The things that are happening in our country right now, I never thought would happen. And I again I hope and pray that the level of unease from a lot of my Republican friends is growing. But they’ve got to be willing to not just talk to me, but they’ve got to be willing to say, ‘ok, no more, no mas… if we accept without any debate the policy is kill them all regardless and if you then have settings where based not upon simply our rules of contact but international law rules of contact and…I even hate to mention the term war crimes. I mean, that is not where America should be.”
- Sen. Mark Warner: “This National Security Strategy that was just released the other day…barely mentions China or Russia. It spends more time talking about culture wars in Europe than about how Europe can be our partner.”
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