President Donald Trump addressed the recent naval operation against drug-running boats, saying, “As far as the attack is concerned, I didn't… I still haven't gotten a lot of information… Somebody asked me a question about the 2nd strike. I didn't know about the 2nd strike. I didn't know anything about people I wasn't involved in.” Trump emphasized the operation’s success while clarifying his limited involvement in details of the second strike, praising the personnel in charge and the overall effectiveness of the campaign.
00:00As 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, but to me it was an attack. It wasn't one strike, two strikes, three strikes. Somebody asked me a question about the second strike. I didn't know about the second strike. I didn't know anything about people. I wasn't involved in it. I knew they took out a vote, but I would say this. They had a strike.
00:24I hear the gentleman that was in charge of that is extraordinary. He's an extraordinary person. I'll let Pete speak about him, but Pete was satisfied. Pete didn't know about second attack having to do with two people, and I guess Pete would have to speak to it. I can say this. I want those boats taken out, and if we have to, we'll attack on land also, just like we attack on sea.
00:48And there's very little coming in by sea. I think we've knocked out over 90% of it. There's very little, and I understand that. There's very little. We're saving hundreds of thousands of lives with those pinpoint attacks.
01:01It's an amazing thing when you see a boat going along, and you know, a lot of the press would like to say they're not, you see the boat. They're not maybe drugs. You see these boats.
01:10First of all, who has five engines on the back of a boat going in weird directions and loaded up with lots of white containers?
01:20They're all, they're bags of things. No, they've done an amazing job, and Pete has done an amazing job. Pete, you could probably better answer the question.
01:29No, you're spot on, sir. I think you've got to start with the baseline, which Marco laid out, and everybody's laid out. We've got 20 million people invading our country over four years. We don't know where they're coming from.
01:39That includes Trendy Aragua and cartels and violent criminals. They bring drugs, and you mentioned it, Mr. President, poisoning, an intentional poisoning of the American people, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.
01:51So the President had the courage to designate these cartels as designated terrorist organizations.
01:57A 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.
02:03How do you treat al-Qaeda and ISIS? Do you arrest them and treat them, pat them on the head and say, don't do that again?
02:10Or do you end the problem directly by taking a lethal, kinetic approach?
02:15And that's the way President Trump has authorized the War Department to look at these cartels.
02:20And I wish everybody could be in the room watching our professionals, our professionals like Mitch Bradley, Admiral Mitch Bradley, and others at JSOC and SOCOM and other commanders.
02:29The deliberative process, the detail, the rigorous, the intel, the legal, the evidence-based way that we're able to, with sources and methods that we can't reveal here,
02:39that makes sure that every one of those drug boats is tied to a designated terrorist organization.
02:44We know who's on it, what they're doing, what they're carrying, all these white bales are not Christmas gifts from Santa.
02:50This is drugs running on four-meter motor fast boats or submarines that we've also struck.
02:55No one's fishing on a submarine.
02:58And I have empowered them to make that call.
03:01Now, the first couple of strikes, as you would, as any leader would want, you want to own that responsibility.
03:06So I said, I'm going to be the one to make the call after getting all the information and make sure it's the right strike.
03:12That was September 2nd.
03:13There's a lot of intelligence that goes into that, building that case and understanding that a lot of people are providing information.
03:19I watched that first strike live.
03:21As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we've got a lot of things to do.
03:24So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs.
03:31So I moved on to my next meeting.
03:33A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the, which he had the complete authority to do.
03:39And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.
03:44He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat.
03:49And it was the right call.
03:51We have his back, and the American people are safer because narco-terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water and eventually on land if necessary to the American people.
04:03We will eliminate that threat, and we're proud to do it.
04:06So you didn't see any survivors, to be clear, after that first strike?
04:10I did not personally see survivors, but I stand because the thing was on fire.
04:15It was exploded in fire or smoke.
04:17You can't see anything.
04:18You got digital.
04:18This is called the fog of war.
04:20This is what you and the press don't understand.
04:23You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill, and you nitpick, and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about kill everybody, phrases on anonymous sources not based in anything, not based in any truth at all.
04:37And then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made.
04:43I wrote a whole book on this topic because of what politicians and the press does to warfighters.
04:48President Trump has empowered commanders, commanders to do what is necessary, which is dark and difficult things in the dead of night on behalf of the American people.
04:57We support them, and we will stop the poisoning of the American people.
05:00And, Mr. Secretary, on the second strike, you said it happened more than an hour after the first.
05:05Did I hear it correctly?
05:05That's not the exact amount of time.
05:07I mean, sir, you went off the room, is what you're saying.
05:09I already stated my answer quite clearly.
05:11So, remember this.
05:13We lost last year.
05:14I think it was more than that, but, you know, people don't like saying it because they always said 100,000, 115,000, the numbers we've been hearing for years.
05:22So, we lost last year more than 200,000 people, dead people, ruined families beyond the 200,000.
05:30And those 200,000, that family will never be the same.
05:33But these people have killed over 200,000 people, actually killed over 200,000 people last year.
05:40And those numbers are down.
05:43Those numbers are down.
05:44They're way down.
05:45And they're down because we're doing these strikes, and we're going to start doing those strikes on land, too.
05:50You know, the land is much easier.
05:52It's much easier.
05:53And we know the routes they take.
05:55We know everything about them.
05:56We know where they live.
05:58We know where the bad ones live.
05:59And we're going to start that very soon, too.
06:01Mr. President, thank you so much, Mr. President.
06:03You know what?
06:04While we start that, we're going to drive those things down so low.
06:07And then you're going to have families be able to live without the fear of their son or daughter just having a pill to have a little fun
06:15and ending up dying within a period of 60 seconds, right?
06:21No, we're not going to let that happen.
06:23We're not going to let it continue to happen.
06:24What Biden did to this country by allowing all these people, and I call them animals in many cases.
06:30I think they're animals, to come into our country and destroy our country and let all those drugs pour in,
06:36let people just walk across the border like it was nothing.
06:40You look at them, a lot of them, you know, and they say, oh, let's not discriminate.
06:44I'm not talking about color.
06:45I'm just talking about you look into the eyes of some of these people.
06:48We're smart.
06:49And you see a killer.
06:51Come on in.
06:52Just come on in.
06:5311,888 murderers.
06:57Many of them committed more than one murder.
06:59He allowed them into our country.
07:00Totally unvetted.
07:02Totally unchecked.
07:03But he also allowed drugs to come in at record numbers.
07:06And hundreds of thousands of people a year died.
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