00:00I wanted to clarify something that you had said on Sunday regarding the boat strikes near Venezuela.
00:06You had said that you didn't know if the second strike on that one boat had happened, but you wouldn't have wanted it.
00:12Now that your administration has acknowledged that it happened, do you support that second strike?
00:17And, Mr. Secretary, I wanted to clarify something you had said in an interview back in September, I believe on Fox News.
00:22You said that you had watched that strike live on television.
00:26In real time, did you know that there were survivors after the initial strike?
00:31Well, look, all I know is this.
00:33Every boat that you see get blown up.
00:35We save 25,000 on average lives, 25,000 lives.
00:39They've been sending enough of this horrible fentanyl and other things like cocaine and other things.
00:47But fentanyl right now is the leader of the pack to kill our entire nation.
00:53Because a little speck of the head of a pin can kill somebody.
00:57It's very dangerous stuff.
00:59I know so many people where their sons were drug addicts.
01:01They had one little sample and they died.
01:04They died.
01:05They were they couldn't believe it.
01:07But as far as the attack is concerned, I didn't, you know, I still haven't gotten a lot of information because I rely on Pete.
01:15But to me, it was an attack.
01:16It wasn't one strike, two strikes, three strikes.
01:19Somebody asked me a question about the second strike.
01:21I didn't know about the second strike.
01:22I didn't know anything about people.
01:24I wasn't involved in it.
01:25I knew they took out a boat.
01:26But I would say this.
01:29They had a strike.
01:31I hear the gentleman that was in charge of that is extraordinary.
01:35He's an extraordinary person.
01:36Let Pete speak about it.
01:38But Pete was satisfied.
01:40Pete didn't know about second attack having to do with two people.
01:45And I guess Pete would have to speak to it.
01:48I can say this.
01:50I want those boats taken out.
01:51And if we have to, we'll attack on land also, just like we attack on sea.
01:55And there's very little coming in by sea.
01:57I think we've knocked out over 90 percent of it.
02:00There's very little.
02:00And I understand that.
02:02There's very little.
02:03We're saving hundreds of thousands of lives with those pinpoint attacks.
02:08It's an amazing thing when you see a boat going along.
02:11And, you know, a lot of the press would like to say they're not.
02:14You see them, but they're not maybe drugs.
02:16You see these boats.
02:17First of all, who has five engines on the back of a boat going in weird directions
02:23and loaded up with lots of white containers, their bags, their things.
02:30No, they've done an amazing job.
02:32And Pete has done an amazing job.
02:34Pete, you could probably just want to answer the question.
02:36No, you're spot on, sir.
02:37I think you've got to start with the baseline, which Marco laid out.
02:40Everybody's laid out.
02:41We've got 20 million people invading our country over four years.
02:45We don't know where they're coming from.
02:46That includes trendy Aragua and cartels and violent criminals.
02:49They bring drugs, and you mentioned it, Mr. President, poisoning, an intentional poisoning of the American people,
02:55killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.
02:58So the President had the courage to designate these cartels as designated terrorist organizations.
03:04A number of us here served in the military and spent 20 years fighting terrorists like al-Qaeda and ISIS on the other side of the world.
03:11How do you treat al-Qaeda and ISIS?
03:13Do you arrest them and treat them, pat them on the head and say, don't do that again?
03:16Or do you end the problem directly by taking a lethal, kinetic approach?
03:22And that's the way President Trump has authorized the War Department to look at these cartels.
03:27And I wish everybody could be in the room watching our professionals, our professionals like Mitch Bradley,
03:32Admiral Mitch Bradley and others at JSOC and SOCOM and other commanders.
03:35The deliberative process, the detail, the rigorous, the intel, the legal, the evidence-based way that we're able to,
03:43with sources and methods that we can't reveal here,
03:46make sure that every one of those drug boats is tied to a designated terrorist organization.
03:51We know who's on it, what they're doing, what they're carrying.
03:53All these white bales are not Christmas gifts from Santa.
03:57This is drugs running on four-meter motor fast boats or submarines that we've also struck.
04:02No one's fishing on a submarine.
04:04And I have empowered them to make that call.
04:08Now, the first couple of strikes, as you would, as any leader would want,
04:12you want to own that responsibility.
04:13So I said, I'm going to be the one to make the call after getting all the information
04:17and make sure it's the right strike.
04:19That was September 2nd.
04:20There's a lot of intelligence that goes into building that case
04:24and understanding that a lot of people are providing information.
04:26I watched that first strike live.
04:28As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we've got a lot of things to do.
04:31So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever,
04:34where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs.
04:38So I moved on to my next meeting.
04:40A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the,
04:43which he had the complete authority to do,
04:45and by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision
04:48to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.
04:51He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat.
04:56And he was the right call, we have his back, and the American people are safer
05:01because narco-terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water
05:06and eventually on land if necessary to the American people.
05:10We will eliminate that threat, and we're proud to do it.
05:13So you didn't see any survivors, to be clear, after that first strike?
05:16You personally.
05:17I did not personally see survivors, but I stand, because the thing was on fire.
05:22It was exploded, and fire and smoke, you can't see anything, you got digital.
05:25This is called the fog of war.
05:27This is what you and the press don't understand.
05:30You sit in your air-conditioned offices, or up on Capitol Hill,
05:33and you nitpick, and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post
05:37about kill everybody, phrases on anonymous sources not based in anything,
05:41not based in any truth at all.
05:43And then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes,
05:48about the judgment that they made.
05:49I wrote a whole book on this topic,
05:52because of what politicians and the press does to warfighters.
05:55President Trump has empowered commanders,
05:57commanders to do what is necessary,
05:59which is dark and difficult things in the dead of night
06:02on behalf of the American people.
06:04We support them, and we will stop the poisoning of the American people.
06:07And, Mr. Secretary, on the second strike,
06:09you said it happened more than an hour after the first?
06:12I couldn't tell you the exact amount of time.
06:14Minutes, or you had left the room with what you're saying.
06:16I already stated my answer quite clearly.
06:18So, remember this.
06:20We lost last year.
06:21I think it was more than that, but, you know,
06:23people don't like saying it,
06:24because they always said 100,000, 115,000,
06:27numbers we've been hearing for years.
06:29So, we lost last year more than 200,000 people,
06:32dead people, ruined families beyond the 200,000.
06:37And those 200,000, that family will never be the same.
06:39But these people have killed over 200,000 people,
06:43actually killed over 200,000 people last year.
06:47And those numbers are down.
06:50Those numbers are down.
06:51They're way down.
06:52And they're down because we're doing these strikes,
06:55and we're going to start doing those strikes on land, too.
06:57You know, the land is much easier.
06:59It's much easier.
07:00And we know the routes they take.
07:02We know everything about them.
07:03We know where they live.
07:05We know where the bad ones live.
07:06And we're going to start that very soon, too.
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