00:00President Trump's plan to go after narco-terrorists in the Caribbean is certainly making some waves.
00:05Don Bacon, a retired Air Force general turned GOP congressman, says the president may find smoother sailing if he includes Congress in the war plants.
00:18All right. So, Congressman, first question I had for you today, these these suspected drug smugglers being labeled as unlawful combatants.
00:28You know, you you served in the Air Force for 30 years. You've been a congressman for 10.
00:35How do you how do you view that label of unlawful combatants on some of these suspected smugglers?
00:43I grappled with it a little bit. I'm not a lawyer. If I was President Trump, I would make sure this was well.
00:51Researched by the, you know, the attorney general, the legal team around them, make sure got right.
00:55We also got to make sure that these boats are indeed narco boats that are shipping drugs and are not, you know, accidentally misidentified because that would be terrible.
01:07That said, it's not a big stretch to go from going against Al Qaeda and other terrorists and then looking at these folks who are who killed 100,000 Americans a year.
01:16So I'm inclined to be supportive of the policy because I lost, you know, you may know I lost three brothers from drugs and alcohol.
01:25And so I and I know a lot of people in Omaha died from fentanyl or their families. Right.
01:30And so I tend to be supportive of it. But it's not a it's not a clear cut policy thing for me.
01:35I mean, it's stretching the norms once again.
01:39What could the president do to to earn your full fledged support in in this kind of military operation?
01:48Like what would it take for you to be like, yes, we're doing it the right way now?
01:52Well, take it to Congress in the end because we only have the War Powers Resolution.
01:56So if he's going to continue going against these narco boats, we should do a War Powers Resolution and it should be voted on by Congress.
02:05And I think this would give it legitimacy to do it that way.
02:09Like I said, we've gone against terrorists, but the Congress voted on it.
02:13Right. We did that 2001. And then we did it again in 2003 when we expanded with Iraq.
02:19And so I don't think it's a big stretch to go from terrorists to people running drugs in our country, killing 100,000 people a year.
02:26I do think Congress should be the vote.
02:29They should vote on it and probably use the War Powers Resolution as a vehicle to do so.
02:35With that, I mean, critics are going to hear that and say that's going to open up the opportunity for another forever war.
02:41We just got out of Afghanistan not too long ago as a result of the 2001 attack.
02:48So what's your response to, you know, if Congress's votes on it and War Powers Resolution is passed, what would Congress do or what would you hope Congress does?
03:00Because I know your time is running short in the House.
03:03But what would you hope that the body would do to make sure that it's not another forever war at the expense of the American taxpayer?
03:12Well, I don't think we should be going into Venezuela or at least any kind of ground operation.
03:17But I think if we're strictly interdicting boats and trying to interdict the drugs coming into our country, I already believe that some of the gangs or the narco organizations out there are probably thinking, rethinking how they're getting drugs in our country.
03:34Because you hit three boats and they're like, you know, we don't want to die here doing this.
03:39I saw this as deterrence.
03:41You go after a few and then maybe you can stop these shipments from coming in.
03:45A lot of these boats go into Guatemala, Honduras, and they go up through Mexico.
03:50So I suppose going after the drug routes, I think, is good.
03:55I mean, I think it's 100,000 people a year dying.
03:59You think about it, we lost 58,000 people in Vietnam over 10 years.
04:03So we're losing 100,000 every year right now from this.
04:07And so I think there will be general support for us taking stronger action.
04:13But I think it should involve Congress once again.
04:16If it's determined, and this is, you know, we're postulating at this point.
04:20But if it is determined that the president, you know, did not have all of the ducks in the row and that some of these boats had civilians on them that were not running drugs.
04:31What recourse is there?
04:35Is there any recourse at that point?
04:36Well, he would lose all support for this if that happens.
04:40And I think Congress would have to take action in the other direction to prevent or to say we don't support it.
04:46We cut funding for it.
04:48No, he's got to have good intelligence here.
04:51This better be 100% locked and loaded that you've got the right people shipping in here, whether it's cocaine or fentanyl, whatever it may be.
05:00And he's got to have that right.
05:02You know what?
05:02We can't afford to have what happened under Joe Biden in the last days of Afghanistan where they misidentified that terrorist and they hit a family.
05:11That was terrible.
05:13You know, that's been swept under the rug.
05:15It was a terrible mistake on innocent people's lives that day.
05:21We can't afford to have that happen here.
05:23Congressman, I really appreciate your time today.
05:24Is there anything else that you'd like to add, a question I didn't ask that you feel like needs to be answered?
05:28Well, it's a complicated question, and I'm giving you a nuanced answer.
05:31I wish it was just 100% black or white.
05:34You know, I've had to grapple with this.
05:35It's like, you know, when I was in combat and I commanded five times, we always have a lawyer.
05:42And I don't believe in just giving stuff to a lawyer and then making a decision.
05:45You come up with a policy thing that you want to do.
05:48Then you make sure it's legal, that you're not crossing some kind of line.
05:52And I just think this here's the attorney general and the lawyer's got to study this very carefully and make sure we have it right.
05:58And I'm not a lawyer.
06:00So my gut tells me, when you're losing 100,000 people a year, we've got to take action.
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