Bulwark Takes - Republicans Have No Answer For Trump's Latest Pardon

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Will Saletan breaks down Donald Trump’s shocking pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras convicted of trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States. Since the pardon, Republican senators have been asked to explain it, and the results have been excruciating. Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/BULWARKTAKES. Promo Code BULWARKTAKES

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that will be able to allow others to stand on my shoulders to be able to be helped. Join the Fight for Cures. Tell your elected representatives to support American medical research. Visit UnitedforCures.org slash action to send a letter today. paid for by United for Cures Action. Hey, everybody, it's Will Salatin from The Bullwork. So you probably heard that about a week and a half ago, Donald Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez,

who had been convicted in an American court of massive, massive drug trafficking. And he was supposed to serve this guy about a 45-year sentence. Instead, he's gone, he's out of jail forever. So this is kind of hard to explain. because Trump's Department of War has been blowing up boats in the Caribbean ostensibly to stop the flow of drugs into America. But this guy, who's basically a drug kingpin, gets a free pass. So since that pardon was announced, Republican senators have been asked to explain it. And what I want to show you is these gutless senators, I want to show you them squirming and trying to come up with excuses for this totally outrageous pardon.

So let me show you the first one. It's Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma. He was on CNN on November 30th. That's a little over a week ago, two days after Trump announced the pardon. Here he is. Why is he planning to pardon the former Honduran president who was convicted by an American jury of drug trafficking who allegedly said, this is according to testimony from his trial, he would, quote, shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringoes by.

flooding the United States with cocaine. Well, the particular circumstances that I'm not quite aware of. However, I do know we're trying to build relationships with Honduras. We're trying to build relationships throughout South America and Central America. And so I think by building new relationships, by allowing people to have a new beginning, he's showing good face saying, hey, we're going to work with you as long as you work with us. Building new relationships, allowing people to have a new beginning. Right.

I guess that's why we're blowing up all these guys on drug boats. Well, we claim their drug boats. And then we circle back to kill the survivors. Do they get a new beginning? No, no, they get death. So Senator Mullen has no clue what he's talking about. In fact, later that day on Air Force One, Trump got asked about the pardon. And here's how he explained it.

Well, I was told I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, They said it was a Biden setup. The people of Honduras really thought he was set up, and it was a terrible thing. He was the president of the country. And they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. And they said it was a Biden administration set up. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them. Nothing about new beginnings, nothing about building a relationship with Honduras.

Trump's answer was, number one, this guy was prosecuted by the Biden administration. And Trump doesn't like the Biden administration. So he let him out of jail. And number two, the only reason that Hernandez got prosecuted, says Trump, was because he happened to be the president of a country that had a drug problem, which is total bullshit. There was lots of evidence in the trial that this guy Hernandez was doing the drug trafficking. And then two days after Trump said that, which was just a week ago, Tuesday, Trump gave basically the same answer.

Watch. He also pardoned to the former president of Honduras, and he was released from prison yesterday. Well, he was the president, and they had some drugs being sold in their country. And because he was the president, they went after him. That was a Biden horrible witch hunt. Okay, so that was last Tuesday. Now, by that point, it was totally clear why Trump had pardoned this guy. But the next morning, Wednesday, another Republican senator, Roger Marshall of Kansas,

went on Morning Joe. And when they asked him, Marshall, about that pardon, here's what he said. So what explanation do you have for President Trump offering a pardon to the fore-president of Honduras, who prosecutors said ran a massive drug cartel, including sending tons and tons of it to the United States? Yeah, you know, I don't know the details of that particular pardon. Happy to look into it, but I just can't really speak to it. Oh, he didn't know. bullshit. The details were all over the media by that point, including from Trump's own mouth,

as you saw. But Marshall was still pleading, oh, I don't know. In fact, he said he shouldn't comment because he's a doctor. Watch this. I'm a doctor. If you ask me a question, I don't have a good answer or a factual answer. I'm going to say, I don't know. I'm happy to go research it. I'm really locked in on health care right now. Oh, I'm a doctor. You know, usually. When senators get asked about something like, why is it okay for Trump to lie about vaccines? They say, oh, I can't comment because I'm not a doctor. But Roger Marshall has a new twist on that excuse. He says he can't comment because he is a doctor and he only knows doctor stuff.

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order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at the checkout. For the next three days, there was no more explanation from the White House about the pardon. Trump was sticking with his answer, which was it was a Biden witch hunt, which it wasn't, and that Hernandez was just an innocent bystander in the drug trafficking, which was also focus. And so this Sunday, two more Republican senators got asked about the pardon. Here's one of them, Tom Cotton on Meet the Press. Just this week, the president pardoned, the former president of Honduras who trafficked more than 500 tons of cocaine into the United States. He was serving a 45-year sentence, Senator. How does that make America safer? Well, I haven't spoken to the president

about that pardon. There may be strategic reasons to pardon a former president of Honduras. because of our relationship with Honduras and trying to move them in a more pro-American direction. I'll leave that open as a possibility. But, Chris, I think you know, my general approach to crime is that we should lock them, we should convict them, and then we should lock them up. And once they're locked up, we should keep them locked up.

So given that, do you oppose the pardon? Given that you're saying you want to protect Arkansas. I'd have to know more about the circumstances. He'd have to know more about the circumstances. It's a week later at this point. We've heard from Trump what his reasons were. There wasn't some geopolitical strategy. Trump did this because somebody told him this was a Biden prosecution and Hernandez was just

an innocent bystander, which, again, is bullshit. But Cotton pretends there's some strategy involved. And then also on Sunday, another Republican senator, Eric Schmidt, got asked about the pardon. This you've got to see. Do you support this pardon of the former Honduran president? I'm not familiar with the facts or circumstances, but I think what's telling here is to try to imply that somehow President Trump is soft on drug smuggling is just ridiculous. There it is again.

I'm not familiar with the circumstances. And you know how when you see a politician say something like that, you wish the interviewer would follow up? Well, you're in luck because that's what happened here. The interviewer is George Stephanopoulos, who's probably the best interrogator on the Sunday shows. And Stephanopoulos doesn't let Schmidt off the hook. He digs in. Watch. What do you mean you're not familiar with the facts and circumstances apart? And it's been well reported all across the country. He's the former president

of Honduras. He was convicted of conspiring to bring in 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, also guns and other materials. It's been front page news across the country. Aren't you Aren't you curious about that? Well, I'm curious about your pushback on that particular point. With your previous guest, you had zero pushback because he's giving the Democrat talking points like you spew every single week, which is probably why your ratings are so bad. Whoa, your ratings are so bad. Schmidt is getting nasty, and the question is, why is he doing that? And the answer is he has no answer to the question Stephanopoulos is asking.

He can't defend the pardon. So he's trying to change the subject. But Stephanopoulos won't let him. And again, this is why I love Stephanopoulos. He just ignores the insult and he repeats the question again. Do you support the pardon of the convicted drug smuggler or not? George, like I said, what we're talking about here are the narco-terrorist poisoning Americans. This attempt to try to focus on a pardon is classic because you've lost the debate now on the narco-terrorist question.

You've lost the debate. You know who lost the debate? The guy who won't answer the question. And that is Senator Schmidt. Look, it's not hard to answer this question. The answer is this pardon was totally wrong. And it's a betrayal of everything this administration ever said about fighting the drug cartels. In fact, I can show you a Republican senator making exactly that point.

This is Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky. doing an interview last Tuesday. He is comparing the pardon to the Trump administration blowing up the alleged drugboats. Watch. If they label you a narco-terrorist, they can kill you without trial, but if they say you're not a narco-terrorist, you can be given a pardon even though you have been convicted, even though he's gloated over all the people he's loaded with drugs, including some who have probably and inevitably have died in our country, but he's okay because the administration

does not label him a narco terrorist. See, that wasn't hard. It's only hard if you're too gutless to speak up when the president does something wrong. And unfortunately, with a couple of exceptions, that describes just about every Republican in Congress. See you next time.