Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Andrew Ross Sorkin, the founder of Dealbook. Every year, I interview some of the world's most influential leaders across politics, culture, and business at the Dealbook Summit, a live event in New York City. On this year's podcast, you'll hear my unfiltered conversations with Gavin Newsom, the CEO of Palantir and Anthropic, and Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk.
Listen to Dealbook Summit wherever you get your podcasts.
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.
Chapter 2: What recent military actions by the U.S. have raised legal concerns?
It's been three months since the American military began firing on boats from South America, killing more than 80 people and prompting Democrats to raise urgent questions about whether these attacks might be illegal.
But now... We're going to conduct oversight and we're going to try to get to the facts.
New questions about one of those operations, in which the military killed survivors with a second missile, have prompted congressional Republicans to join those calls for accountability.
There are very serious concerns in Congress about the attacks on the so-called drug boats.
Today, my colleague Charlie Savage explains the renewed debate and how the administration is justifying its actions.
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Chapter 3: How did congressional Republicans respond to the military's actions?
It's Wednesday, December 3rd. Charlie, we had you on the show a couple months ago to talk about the Trump administration's campaign of boat strikes in the Caribbean against boats that they argued were carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States. And from the beginning, there were questions about the legality of these attacks, right?
And those questions took on new urgency this week with lawmakers, notably Republicans, announcing plans to investigate. And that's where I'd like to start today with the Washington Post story that seems to have kicked all of this off.
Chapter 4: What details emerged about the September 2nd boat strike?
So the day after Thanksgiving, the Washington Post published a very good story about the first of Trump's boat attacks way back on September 2nd. Now, that had always been the most questionable of the 21 attacks that have happened so far.
And part of the reason for that is that there were some additional complicating details that had come to light in September, including that the boat had turned around before it attacked. that there were more missile strikes on the boat before it sank than just the one that was shown in a video that Trump had put out.
And The Intercept had reported that there were initial survivors of the first missile strike that died in the subsequent strike. But that was all kind of bare bones. This new story added significant and rich detail about this strike.
And among the other things it reported was that Admiral Frank Bradley, who was running the operation, had ordered the second strike to kill the survivors of the first one. Because Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had said to kill... Everyone.
Chapter 5: What justifications is the administration providing for these strikes?
And this set off a furor that had not happened back in September when the basic outlines of these facts had first come to light.
So explain that for a second, Charlie. Why is it that this is now producing this kind of bipartisan outrage?
So to understand that, I think you have to work through the administration's explanation of what it's doing. The administration has put forward a legal theory that this is an armed conflict. This is a war that Trump has decided we're at war, even though Congress has not authorized one, a war with drug cartels.
and that the people on the boat smuggling these drugs supposedly for the drug cartels are not criminals, they are combatants. And a lot of people do not think that is a legitimate interpretation of the law and think this is not an armed conflict. But even if you accept it under the laws of armed conflict very explicitly,
You cannot fire upon people who are out of the fight, people who have surrendered, people who are incredibly wounded and unable to fight you back, or explicitly shipwrecked sailors cannot be fired upon. That is a war crime.
So based on what you just outlined, this first strike in September that destroys the boat, kills most of the people, but leaves a couple of survivors, that second strike that kills the remaining survivors because of the rules of war about not striking people that basically pose no imminent threat to you seems illegal on its face.
And that is why this Washington Post story catches everybody's attention. What exactly do we know, though, about what Hegseth did or did not do in relation to that September 2nd strike? Like, what do we know about the order he gave?
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Chapter 6: What legal theories are being debated regarding the strikes?
So Hegseth has acknowledged from the beginning that he authorized a lethal strike on this boat. This was not a capture operation. They weren't aiming to disable the engines and then go arrest the guys. The aim was to kill the people on the boat, sink the boat, destroy the purported drugs on the boat. So that's not in dispute. But...
The question is whether the orders he gave contemplated that the first missile wouldn't accomplish all those things and that there might be shipwrecked survivors. And if that happened, should they be killed too? Or was the order silent on that possibility? But whatever was in those orders... We have been told that Hegseth gave no additional instructions to Bradley once the attack commenced.
In other words, he didn't see or hear that there were initial survivors and then say something. But this is something Congress needs to figure out. And regardless of what Hegseth said or said, intended.
Chapter 7: How does the administration's legal rationale impact military operations?
The next question is, what did Admiral Bradley understand his orders to be? Is his intent, we want to kill those two people? Does he say anything that leaves a contemporaneous record that would explain whether he thought he was specifically trying to kill shipwrecked survivors or was just hitting what he thought was a lawful target again?
Then this starts to get kind of esoteric because what difference does it make if his intent was to specifically kill these people versus... destroy the vessel if the same missile is hitting the same object, causing the same damage regardless. And this is part of the reason why trying to apply the laws of armed conflict to this situation starts to become very unsatisfactory.
Because these rules are written for naval engagements between warships of nation states that have guns that They're flying colors. And if a ship wants to surrender, it can lower its colors and stop firing its guns, and then it's out of the fight. But this is not a warship. This is a speedboat that may or may not be carrying an illicit consumer product.
So basically what you're saying is that if the intent here from Bradley was to simply kill the two remaining survivors, it would be really pretty clear-cut what he had done and whether it was legal in terms of the laws of war. But if he was aiming to sink the boat or destroy the drugs, which was also part of the initial mandate and order from Hegseth, that's where it gets a bit murkier, right?
Yeah.
That's where it gets murkier.
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Chapter 8: What oversight powers does Congress have in this situation?
Of course, even for that initial order to be lawful, this has to be an armed conflict, which very, very few people outside of the administration think it is. And so if it's not an armed conflict, the first missile was murder, the second missile was murder, they were all unlawful.
How has the administration responded so far?
The administration as a whole has defended the entire operation. It is stressed that Hegseth did not specifically order the killing of the two initial survivors.
Mm-hmm.
and has suggested that that is a misinterpretation of what happened. Nevertheless, it has defended the actions of Admiral Bradley in ordering the follow-up strike, insisting it was lawful. And that's the administration as a whole. That said...
Very interestingly, on Sunday night, there were a second strike that killed wounded people.
President Trump was asked about this by reporters, and he distanced himself from the second strike.
No, I wouldn't have wanted that, not a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine if there were two people around. But Pete said that didn't happen. I have great confidence in him.
He said the first one was fine, including the fact that it was lethal, but he wouldn't have wanted the second one. Well, why not? The suggestion is he has some kind of discomfort with that follow-up strike.
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