Bulwark Takes - Sen. Tom Cotton Defends the Indefensible

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Tim Miller and JVL take on the wildly conflicting stories coming out of Congress after lawmakers watched the same “double tap” boat strike video—from Jim Himes’ alarm to Tom Cotton’s macho fantasy version.

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller here with my buddy, JVL. Go sign up for his newsletter at the bulwark.com. It's called The Triad. It's the best newsletter in the business. We are here in Washington ourselves, just in different offices. And across town, Congress has just been briefed about the so-called double-tap strike in the Caribbean, where Secretary of War, Pete Hagseth, took out the boat of alleged drug smugglers. And then, It's proceeded to not kill two of the drug smugglers and then just bond them again in the water against against the rules of engagement. During this briefing on the Hill, they actually got to watch videos of it. And so we have now can see some reactions from Congress. Before I go to Jim Himes, any anything you want people to look out for, Javille? Any top, top thoughts? Well, I mean, we do seem to have conflicting stories, which is hard. because everybody saw the same video.

Yeah. So I just want people to keep that in mind while they listen to the accounts of what people say they saw. First up is Congressman Jim Himes, friend of the Bullwark takes feed. And here's what he had to say. Let me just say this.

Admiral Bradley and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did the right thing. And Admiral Bradley defended the decisions taken. and Admiral Bradley has a storied career, and he has my respect, and he should have the respect of all of us. But what I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service. You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel. We're killed by the United States. Under the DOD manual for abiding by the laws of armed conflict, the specific example given of an impermissible action is attacking a shipwreck.

Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors. Bad guys. Bad guys. But attacking shipwrecked sailors. Now there's a whole set of contextual items at the Admiral. explained yes they were carrying drugs they were not in the position to continue their mission in anyway we don't we don't people will someday see this video and they will see that that video shows if you don't have the broader context an attack on shipwreck sailors the last thing I'm gonna say the last thing I'm gonna say is that the Admiral confirmed that there had not been a kill-them-all-order

and that there was not in order to grant no quarter. That's again, Congressman Jim Hines, Democrat from Connecticut, one of the most distressing things he's ever seen. Jonathan? So I'm a little confused. He said that the Admiral did exactly the right thing, that what he did should be respected, and that it was one of the most disturbing things he's ever seen,

and that these were ship wrecked sailors who had no means of locomotion in open water. I'm having trouble reconciling this also saying that we know that these were bad guys and that they had lots of drugs. Again, very eager to see the evidence of this. I assume there must be.

But hard to parse, am I misreading this? This is what I fully understand. This to be, well, I'll parse it, I think. This to me seems like a congressman that does not want to impugn one admiral in the military who has served the country in particular, for whatever reason, maybe he has reasons, maybe his information about what Secretary Hague Seth did or he's just trying to be respectful. I don't know. But I mean, that's what that was, right? And he's saying, look, anybody that sees his video will see us just eat two shipwrecked sailors out of the water who had no ability to do anything to the country. And that's what he said. And so assuming that that part of the press conference is accurate, we can all see it. Then the debate comes over like the implications of that and, you know, who is responsible for that. And he then says there was no kill order, right?

So he then disputes the Washington Post reporting that there had been an order to leave no survivors ahead of time. Now, how he would know there was none is, again, I mean, he may have testimony from the admiral that there was none, but that is different than saying there wasn't a thing. Again, if we're just going to parse it all very fine. Sure, of course, yeah. We have a counter-narrative from Senator Tom Cotton, Republican Senator for Arkansas. Really trying quite hard in this upcoming video to butcher himself up. I want to warn everybody, it's long because what he's saying doesn't make a lot of sense. He's taking some questions from reporters. And so there's a back and forth. So stick around for it. If you can only take so much of his little fake

lilt, you know, you can just hit the fast forward button and we'll give you the details on the other side. Let's watch Senator Cotton. Yeah, I want to thank Admiral Bradley and General Kane for coming to brief about the strikes on September 2nd, which were righteous strikes. These are narcotor terrorists who are trafficking drugs that are destined for the United States to kill thousands of our Kansans and millions of Americans. The first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on September 2nd were entirely lawful and needful. and they were exactly what we'd expect our military commanders to do.

Were there survivors in the boat? What exactly did you see in terms of the video of the second strike? Were there survivors? I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs, bound for the United States, back over so they could stay in the fight. And potentially, given all the context we heard, of other narco-terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to recover their cargo and recover those narco-terrorists.

And just like you would blow up a boat off of the Somali coast or the Yemeni coast and you'd come back and strike it again if it still had terrorists and it still had explosives or missiles, Admiral Bradley, and Secretary had said that exactly what we would expect him to do. Did he said it's one of the most disturbing things he's seen in his career? Who did? No, I didn't see anything disturbing about it. What's disturbing to me is that millions of Americans have died from drugs being run to America by these cartels. What's gratifying to me is that the president has made the decision, finally, after decades of letting it happen, that we're going to take the battle to them. And we're going to continue to strike these boats until cartels learn their lesson that their drugs are no longer coming to America. After what you heard today, do you think it's appropriate for Senator that there were to be a longer than to continue its investigation into the second string?

Well, I mean, I think what we saw today and what Senator Wicker and Senator Reid on the Armed Service Committee saw today is a. very thorough inquiry into exactly what happened. I can't say what's going to happen on the committee in the future. But I think what happened today with General Kane and Admiral Bradley coming up and showing us the videos, kind of talking through everything that led up to September 2nd is a very thorough review of what's happened. No more information. I don't personally need any more information. You said that the strikes were righteous, that there were four of them. Would you've taken the same shot if you're in that position? If I was Admiral Bradley and I'd been delegated at Thornton, absolutely and I'd do it again okay um hmm righteous righteous righteous we must kill him

kill them all okay baby um look you know you could parse the hym's statement there's he's there's nothing to parse there i mean one of them's lying i mean like cotton's story now they saw the same video hym said that anybody that sees the video would see clearly that it was too sailors that had no locomotion, you know, in a burning boat. Cotton is saying they're trying to, these are active terrorists, trying to flip the boat back over. Is it a little raft? Is it like a kitty raft that be, or is it a fast?

Again, these are things that it would be nice. What is the displacement on this boat? So we can understand, would it be possible for two people to flip it? They're trying to salvage the cargo. Okay. How does that work? Where was the cargo? Is the cargo loose? Is it at the bottom of the ocean? Is it floating in packets? Did the, did the drugs have little life vests on it in case such a thing happens? Did a waterproof pack? You know, packaging? I have a third question. I don't know if you wanted. I'm sorry. I'm monopolizing things. But we did get testimony from another person just the other day where the Secretary of Defense, not war, war is just how he identifies. That's his preferred pronoun.

But the Secretary of Defense said that he did not give the order for a double tap because after the first strike, there was nothing to see because the boat was destroyed and it was on fire. And so he got up and he left the room because the damn thing was on fire and it was destroyed. Right. And there was nothing to see any other important things to do. So, like, again, was it on fire and destroyed? These things can't be the same.

It's a Titanic situation, you know. Leo's in the water. They're paddling around. Maybe there was a life. One of the lifeboats wasn't on fire. The cocaine just kind of landed fortuitously, like right next to the shipwreck sailors. So they're sort of hugging the keys of cocaine and like using them as a raft, possibly, is how you could, you know, make the two stories work together. Again, these people are all making.

radically different representations on what is the exact same video, and they can't all be true. That's usually every time we bring this up, I do want to take the lens back. Because one of the other things you heard, Mr. Cotton saying there, he's masculine. He loves killing people.

He talks about the threat to the country from the two guys that we had to kill out of the sea, right? Millions of people. Yeah, he cares this. He starts with thousands, and it goes quickly to the millions of people who work about to die from these drugs. He compares this to the terrorists and how we would act outside of Yemen and Somalia. And it's interesting when he's telling the stories because he's like, okay, you know, let's say this has happened and we're off the coast of Yemen and these terrorists, they still have weapons, they still have, you know, tools they'd use to attack us with. This is no different than that, right?

Because it's Venezuelans, the Caribbean and he doesn't say they have dangerous weapons are easy to come attack us with. He says that they've got drugs. The drugs are the weapons. Yeah. So the whole basis of this act of war, which we haven't declared,

which Congress hasn't voted on, where there's no authorization of military force, is that it's so dangerous. The threat is so dangerous from those drugs that are floating in the Caribbean that we had to bomb. We defined six, seven these guys from the sky. Had no choice. There was no other choice

because the threat is so great. That's crazy. I didn't you take one piece of self-accountability. It's important as a pundit. I have a comment to bring this up. When we're commencing on the same question on TNL and we're like, how does this even work that it could be millions of Americans that are in threat of these drugs? Like they'd have to do the drugs to die, right? It's not like cocaine is like anthrax. Like if you're around it in the air, you could die. There's no secondhand smoke for cocaine. It's a very bad business model for the cartel to sell a product which kills the people who will purchase their product. I don't understand how they're doing so well with their narco terrorism.

And I was speculating. And I was like, well, let's even say that all the people that were doing this for a die. Like, what percentage of Americans do cocaine? I was like 15%. And one of the commenters was like, does Tim really think 15% of Americans are cocaine users? I was like, fair critique. I was just spitball it. okay. I was on the high end. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. So to speak.

Yeah. I was like, let's just say, I mean, who is, how are millions dying? Like, the whole thing is preposterous. Like, that is something what makes you a little bit upset about Himes, who at least is speaking clearly about, about the atrocity that happened. It feels like even the Democrats that are speaking there are like giving too much, you know, credit to the, to like, the rationale for us doing this at all? What is the threat? Well, I mean, I'll take it a step further. If true, that each of these boats is responsible for the death of 25,000 Americans, meaning that we are only like 12,000 boats away from every man, woman, and child in America being dead. Like, America could become extinct if 12,000 of these boats reach our shore. Then why

haven't we invaded Venezuela to put a stop to these weapons from these narco-terrorists who are trying to kill America? Why are we just, why are we just dropping bombs in the middle of the ocean instead of going after him on the land? Where the president said it was much easy. And we're going to start doing those strikes on land, too. You know, the land is much easier. It's okay. So we should be invading Venezuela tonight. Senator Scarfie said he was for that. It's like, yeah, sure, we could go to the cartel core. How are all these Americans, is there forcible cocaine use happening in Arkansas?

He's worried about Arkansas citizens. Does he think that the Trenta, they come into the country, they've got their hairdresser implanted in America, you sit down, you go to the barber shop, and they're just like, you know, you think they're going to cut your hair, then he sticks a little fentanyl cocaine for Venezuela in your nose and you drop dead like what the the whole thing that the premise of this is just totally preposterous I do I didn't feel crazy like watching these serious senators like they're on TV a serious senator and a congressman like oh I'm going to do a press conference about about what whether this was right or like the whole thing is crazy that

we're doing this do they not believe in personal responsibility exactly Tim couldn't people just say no to cocaine in fact shouldn't people deal with consequences if they're actions. That is, I believe, the conservative way. No? Something to think about. One final clip. Different senator, Roger Wicker, Republican from Mississippi, he off, well, let's just, let's just watch together what he had to say coming out of the meeting. Are you concerned, though, what you saw in the video? I'm going to withhold comment beyond the fact that we were briefed, not very... Did you see evidence of a war crime in that video? I'm going to withhold comment, but thank you so much.

it's nice that he doesn't reach over and start tapping the door closed door closed door close button because he wants to he's like why is this taking so long i guess if i was pete higseth i'd be a little concerned about that video senators watched this video he's not received the talking points yet he's not as shameless as tom cotton who's just going to go outside and put on his big boy britches and scarf and say whatever war crimes he saw was great because he's the national security man like wicker saw the video looked at it saw the thing that that hym said it was one of the most disturbing things that he's seen and he came out of there before he could hear you know get his get his message points from the white house and his response was no comment maybe a war crime maybe yeah i i mean this is actually to go back to cotton so cotton did say the second strike was righteous and so was the third and the fourth and again i'm sorry to be parsing everything were there a a third and a fourth strike? Like, this is a real question, right?

Or was he just rhetorically trying to say, no matter how many strikes we do, they're all righteous, right? Like, there is no such thing as an unrighteous. Which, again, it just seems like it's an important thing to know, because if Cotton's position is that there is no such thing as a war crime and we can do, we can do what we need to do to stop these narco terrorists, okay, that's a position. but it is strange that if that's so self

obviously correct why is the other senator the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi being like yeah don't ask me I don't know

maybe it'll work on I'm not sure no comment yeah I think Cotton's as long as the bombs got a bald eagle and a U.S. flag on it don't matter

don't matter what happens because it's it has it's righteous by definition You know, it has God's stamp on it. It's an ethos. JVL, it's been good to see you in person, buddy. Everybody else, subscribe to the feed.

We're going to have a bunch coming at you tomorrow. I finally figure out who the podcast was going to be. I think you'll like them. And so we'll see you all then.