Bulwark Takes - Sen. Warner on the Boat Strike Crisis

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

Bill Kristol is joined by Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia to discuss the boat strikes, what really happened, and the latest intelligence raising new questions.

Morning people wake up for peace and quiet. McDonald's breakfast people, we wake up for the sweet rush of getting that warm, delicious breakfast right before it ends. Beef up your morning ritual with a hearty steak egg and cheese bagel or any of your favorite bagel sandwiches. Then kick it up a notch with any size iced coffee for just 99 cents. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Hi, Bill Crystal here, editor at large of the bulwark. Very pleased to be joined today by Senator Mark Warner from my home state of Virginia here.

I guess if you lived there 40 years, you can call out a home state, right? I think that's about, I'm about 45 years in. Okay, good. And vice chair, for today's purposes, formerly chair and now vice chair, depending on which party is the majority of the Senate Intelligence Committee, very well respected, I will say, for your work on that committee by people of different persuasions and both parties. And I really want to talk about the current moment, particularly the boat strike on September 2nd, but then the whole campaign and broader questions

you phrased in a couple of very interesting floor speeches about where we are in our intelligence community. So thank you for joining me. I know how busy you are. And so you were there at Thursday. You had, I think one of what, six senators maybe, six members of Congress who had I was, I was the last interview and I was the only member in that meeting and it was uh i felt there's a little more free-flowing even uh general cane the chairman um because i wanted to get into some of the particulars asked a lot of the folks to to leave so we had a very i think a deep candid conversation oh that's great so you spent someone told me you spent an hour with with uh the chairman general kane and admiral bradley and as you say very

few steps so what did what did you learn and what did we need to know about what happened on September 2nd? Well, I learned that the overall policy predicate that went into this has got real questions. The policy was decided in late July. The legal opinion was not even fully drafted until September 5th, three days after the September 2nd strike. So I had questions to whether that policy had changed. That was a document that we didn't get in the Congress until late November. And the video itself is chilling, grim, whatever term you want to use. And one of the things I've been hesitant to reach, even though I know what I saw and I have

huge questions, enormous conclusions yet, there's still the execution order, there's still the communications the Admiral had with the folks who were firing the shots. because, you know, in my belief, you build them some of the most biggest claims that this could put us into the category of war crimes. That is such a serious accusation that I think anyone that jumps to conclusion on that before you have all the information is doing a disservice. And I think that, you know, my belief is that the ammo and the troops were put in. frankly, a fairly untenable position. And the underlying basis equating basically any drug person with the equivalent of an ISIS and al-Qaeda and that the idea of drugs are the equivalent of having bombs or guns, you know, it's a pretty

legal bit of a stretch of an argument. And then the whole second part, and this is where the public sees this video, I think they will be, it's pretty chilling that these individuals who were holding on to this boat were somehow still in the fight really stretches anybody's imagination. And so, you know, there's the actual video, then there's the legal basis, and I need to get more on the legal basis. You know, the fact was the second strike, and the second strike was three additional strikes. took place 30, 45 minutes after the first strike.

And, you know, I will accept the fact that, you know, Admiral Bradford made that decision. That's why I want to get the information before I make a judgment whether that was a good decision or not. But the underlying legal arguments and policy, which frankly has never been fully vetted with Congress, for that matter, the American people, really is pretty suspect. Well, that's great. Well, let's go through all these different aspects, you know, never vetted with Congress and never authorized by Congress on like previous military actions against terrorists, you know. So let's just, on the video, you said, I think, when we all see the video, do you believe

they will release a complete video? I don't know how the president said he'd be happy to release the video. You know, the fact that this group is, you know, use these videos, frankly, as they thumped their chest and show, isn't this great for them to now say, we're going to show you the first strike, but somehow the balance of the next hour with the subsequent strikes is somehow classified in him. That doesn't pass any smell test.

So we're going to keep pressing them. I think the Congress needs to see it. Frankly, I think the American people need to see it. So they have already started hedging their bets, but this is not something I'm surprised. Again, remember, XF claimed total responsibility and then, you know, not dissimilar to the Signalgate escaped earlier in the year.

Once there's any controversy, he tries to, avoid responsibility on Signalgate, he wouldn't even participate with the Inspector General. Now on the case of this strike, it seems like he is trying to throw Admiral Bradley under the bus. Wow. I want to come back to that one second. But just on the video, yeah, what is the, I mean, if they had not released anything, it seems to me, having been executive branch many years ago, but still there might have been, I mean, it's conceivable. There would have been national security grounds and others for not releasing certain videos. I mean, sources and methods or, you know, operationals, whatever. You know, don't want to give away what we know and how we do these things to enemies. Oh, this is not like the Soviet Union. We're talking about a bunch of trucks, smugglers, alleged trucks mugglers. But still, but once you release part of it, how do you not release the rest of it?

I just want to clarify, there is no national security. There is. I saw the video, you know, there were lots of parts where I think there was just that they lost the boat visibility. You know, I don't, I've seen a lot of these videos over my time. as chair and vice chair. I see nothing here that it would display any kind of sources and methods. The idea that they lost all ability to make that argument, I think, when they put these videos out in the first place.

So now the idea that they're suddenly trying to change the rules, you know, is just it is not untypical for this administration. But I do hope all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will keep pressing on them because it's just, you know, they love this policy. They claim it's great. well, show the American people and show Congress. And I think people won't, I think the human judgment people will make is going to be pretty stunning because they would make the argument that if, and there were subsequent strikes

where people were in the water and in the water, they were reviewed as shipwreck sailors and they were actually picked up. The idea that somehow these guys were still on this boat and, you know, getting it back in the fight doesn't pass the smell test. But again, I want to get all of the information documentation because it's not just about Hegsef. It's about how our military will be viewed. It's about, you know, Admiral Bradley has had a distinguished career, how our military will be viewed in America, but also for that matter in the world. And this is, again, I'm not going to rush you any judgment on this.

No, that certainly makes sense. To just be clear about what happened on September 2nd. I take it, Secretary of Defense, X-Seth is in the Pentagon. somewhere watching this and I and he sort of boasted at one point that he he this was his decision he wanted to be there and take he was taking responsibility so I maybe he was literally the target engagement authority or in any case he sort of certainly signs off on who gives that first order I take it admiral that's what the written execution order as well as the written JAG opinion the legal opinion that was a that was a documentation as well which we've not seen so you haven't

see that yet and that's something that you should see specific jagopin. We've seen the overall legal opinion that was not, you know, was decided July 25th, was not written until September 5th. And again,

I don't think Admiral Bradley would know, but I need to know, you know, in light of what happened with this strike, because it's pretty compelling because of the time between the first strike and the second strike, and there were even people in the room, I think, that were raising concern for these guys trying to surrender, did they change the legal opinion?

Because the last few pages of the legal opinion go into great detail about how American military should not be held liable. And you wonder whether that was written after the September 2nd strike. That's kind of depressing, honestly, but very important to find out. So just to be clear, I don't think this is at all, there's no reason this should be classified. So Admiral Bradley, he's not in the Pentagon, though. I assume he's out at Tampa at... Yes, I believe he was.

I believe he was. At Special Operations Command, yeah, yeah. So they're in touch, and they be, obviously, they will run this secure video conference. They've Pentagon's very good at this. And they begin the operation. And then just since there's so much publicity about where, when Hexeth left and what he was doing, he leaves after a few minutes and goes to... Here's the partnership.

I'm not a fan of Hex-Seth. I think he should resign. I've called for that. that since the signal gate. But I do want to, you know, be accurate. You know, there was the first strike took place. There was then a period somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes. And, you know, you could assume that the first strike might have completely destroyed and killed anyone. It wasn't anti-personnel strike. It was not an attempt to sink the boat because we saw that flame come out in the smoke. So there was a period of time before you got visibility regained. And the

the fact that these survivors were there. So as much as not a fan of Pete, Hexsaf, it's not unreasonable to think that he saw the first and then, you know, didn't come back for the timing of the second. But he doesn't, of course, as you will know, he doesn't have to come back. I mean, it might be that Admiral Bradley

might have wanted to get in touch with them, which they can certainly do in about 25 seconds with secretaries of defense on secure phone. It's not like, it's like Hexeth goes into some meeting and can't be reached with his, you know, military aides and civilian aides and so forth. but you have the impression or Admiral Bradley said that

HECSeth at that point is not making the decision it's Admiral Bradley's decision to go ahead That was how it was conveyed That you know The decision in terms of subsequent action With left with Admiral Bradley But it again goes back To the underlying

Was the mission First and foremost To kill everybody Because it clearly wasn't a mission To like interdict the boat And it clearly it didn't seem to be a mission to, you know, retrieve the drugs. There was no effort made to retrieve the drugs. So are all these strikes simply to kill, not just the first, but all the subsequent ones as

well. And then it only becomes, you know, if you're not 100% effective, you know, how much further should you go if they're survivors. So again, this goes to like, do we really want to have the policy of America against drug runners that kill, kill, kill is the first, second, and third priority. And again, I'm unclear. And that's why I want to see the execution order, or not the execution order. People will hear that and say, well, is that what the second flight, strike was no, the order to execute the whole act. That's out the parameters. I've not seen that. That should be in the right. And then the after action report, I suppose, there should be a real account of what happened, when, and so forth.

I mean, you would think back in the days of the real counterterrorism fights, if I can put it that way, which there was a lot of that, and you knew a lot about it, if there were people were wounded or just incapacitated, I believe we saw, A, we didn't think we should kill people who were wounded. I mean, we captured many, many terrorists, many horrible terrorists who were, you know, we didn't think we could just execute them. And, in fact, people were prosecuted for that when people got in Iraq and Afghanistan. But secondly, that's a chance to get information, no.

I mean, to question them and find out, well, who's in charge of this whole operation? Where are the drugs on land? How much more of this is there? Where is it? I mean, you'd think you'd see this as a huge opportunity to take them captive. Worst case, you imprison them, presumably, the way the Coast Guard has been doing for years when it captures people. Or send them back home, as we did for some reason on October 16th. But I just find it kind of amazing the idea that we would just kill the,

That's, that's, we just, the, the point was to kill everyone? What is that really consistent? Exactly. I got to drill down on this. And then in this particular case, there was the claim that they were going to meet with a second boat. There was no evidence that there was ever a second boat. And, but if you do assume there was a second boat that might have been bigger and kind of higher up the food chain, wouldn't you wait to do the interdiction or even if you say, military strike, you know, wait till they get with the second boat.

Right. So. That's what's kind of amazing, right? This is like typically you want to go up the chain. And now maybe they said they read somewhere. They didn't feel they had the authority to kill the people on the second boat. But of course, we have a very big Coast Guard in Navy who could presumably interdict it and hold it, even if we aren't going to kill them. I mean, that's why I guess I come back to the kill order, apparently, I mean, that seems

to have been their presumption, not just the presumption. I read one of the reports was that they had a list of people who were eligible just to be killed or something like that. I have done that. And again, I do think, you know, they make the client who knew who all the 11 were. And I accept, again, the fact that they knew some of the people were making the communications that were the really bad guys. Simply having the names of the others, though doesn't necessarily mean. that they were all, you know, narco-terrorists. So again, this all is why I don't want to jump to a conclusion, why I want to get the facts, why I want to give the Admiral and all

those involved. But it kind of, again, goes back to the whole premise. If we've not made the case to the American people, if we've not made the case clearly to Congress, if we don't have an authorization of use of military force, if there are these actions where we're, we're right or wrong, people will view this and could potentially view this as against international law. Boy, we're putting our military in the potential for legal jeopardy that we just, it is, it is disrespectful. And again, that probably goes the thing that that has been the tone for as much as they, these guys thumped their chest and say we love the military, you know, this is the guy that put our pilots in harm's way. Hegsef I'm talking about in terms of the strikes in Yemen through the signal gate.

This is the Secretary of Defense who's fired general after general for political purposes, the head of the NSA, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, many others. This is the guy who, you know, brings everybody into Quantico and lectures him on, you know, military behavior. And then, you know, this is the ultimate anti-Herry Truman where the buck stocks here, you know, there seems to be a controversy. And immediately, Hegsef is moving to. fog of war, I wasn't in the room, or I'm not taking responsibility, what this is, what I fear

this is doing to the, you know, just the morale. And these are incredible warriors, you know, protectors of our country. We owe them, we owe them a, we owe them responsible policy and we owe them legal policy. And I can't say in this case, they got either. No, that's so, that's powerful. I mean, the fog of war thing, incidentally, there have, obviously this often is the fog of or exchanges of fires, you're not sure if the person next to the terrorist you've identified as another terrorist or a hostage of a terrorist or a relative, you know, and then there are these very split-second decisions. A lot of our soldiers and officers have had to made and make in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that, you know, there one has some understanding that that's very difficult.

This actually is the opposite of the fog of war. I mean, we have total visibility. These people are zero threats to us. They're literally a thousand miles away from our coast. You could have waited a day and taking care of them later, right? They're not going anywhere. I mean, and that was, it's true of the original boat and all these boats. This is the least, I don't want to minimize the pressure on someone like Edward Bradley. I understand this is still very difficult and, you know, operation with a lot of judgment calls. But these operations are the most straightforward in a certain way.

We're pulverizing these little speedboats with our very advanced weapons with a capacity to call on the Coast Guard and the Navy to help, you know, and so forth. And so we need to really, if we can't get this right, what could we get right? I guess that's been my sense. The point was, as you said, we had time to follow the boat. We took the first action. There was a period of time. And again, if people see the video, you know, there were indications of whether these guys were surrendering or potentially, you know, so-called waiving this money.

Also, you know, there's no evidence there was a second boat. And they even paused again. So, you know, to your point, this is the opposite of, you know, you're in a firefight and people react very quickly. This had the time for judgment. What about the overall campaign? So it's continued. The heck Seth announced another strike. They suddenly changed their mode in the sense that there were a couple of survivors

when they delivered back to whatever country, but mostly we've just been killing people. Do you think Congress will act? Is this just going to be an unauthorized war for the next three years? I mean, what's going on? Here's the remarkable thing. I mean, you know, this whole policy is supposedly about. you know, narco-terrorists bringing drugs in. And by the way, none of these drugs are fentanyl.

This is all cocaine. Number two, the vast majority of the transit of cocaine from Columbia, Ecuador, comes through the Eastern Pacific, not through the Caribbean. It's, you know, it's overweight, it's not even, you know, maybe five, six, eight to one eastern Pacific. You have this effort in the Caribbean, you know, And hypocrisy of going after these guys at the same time the President pardons, a convicted drug dealer who was the former Honduran president, who was one of the masterminds, is hypocrisy beyond belief. And the point I want to make on this is we can argue about narco terrorists and how, what we should go after them.

In that case, we should go after the ones that are doing the most damage, which are in the Eastern Pacific. But then also, this seems to be tied up to a policy that I'm aware, unaware of what the policy is vis-a-vis Venezuela. And the president has asked for no authority to strike Venezuela. Now, he built up with this flotilla that is, you know, huge amounts of American military presence. And he continues to make claims about closing the airspace or he might strike the land. You know, he's asked Congress for nothing. So the idea, you know, that, you know, in normal cases, you know, War Powers Act kicks in when the president has to act quickly and then you give him a 30-day

grace period, because usually it's in reaction to something. This has been the most obvious buildup of military capabilities, maybe since the first Gulf War, and yet the president has not asked Congress or gone to the American people and say, here's why we need to take out Maduro. And let me quickly say Maduro was a bad guy. And one of the many mistakes Biden made was when the Venezuelan people voted overwhelmingly against Maduro. The Biden administration put virtually no pressure on Mexico, in Brazil, when we could have pushed him out. So I'm not excusing what Biden did, but boy, boy, that doesn't mean it's a rationale for a full-fledged invasion unless you make the case of the American people in Congress.

Yeah, as you will know, two days after the strike on September 2nd, September 4th, they did send a war power's notification to Congress, which in a sense is an acknowledgment that, okay, the clock's ticking and we need to get authorization for this. And then when the 60 days ran out in the beginning of November, I suppose it was, it turned out, okay, forget about it, we don't need any congressional action, any congressional appropriation. I think of all the, not just the AEOF, but all the fights over appropriations in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the debates about all the congressional oversight. It's really astonishing to me, I've got to say, that there's been none of that, really. I mean,

no public testimony, no providing you with all the documents you would need to make judgments. The Justice Department report you mentioned is classified for some reason. even though presumably it's an interpretation or parts of it they could redact. A lot of it is an interpretation of legal justification for war, which is kind of important for the American public to understand, though. And again, so many of these things, as a member of the so-called gang of eight, we're supposed to get all, even if the whole intelligence community armed services, we're supposed to get a lot of this.

We've had, I think, one gang of eight meeting at this level that didn't answer all my art questions. And I just, you know, they finally went ahead and released the legal, opinion to all of Congress. I'm not sure why that can't be at least all of America. Yeah. Do you think your Republican, enough Republican colleagues will decide that Congress should act one way or the other or at least understand what's happening or at least understand what's happening in public hearings and with testimony and documentation and that the public should also understand or not? I mean, well, my biggest disappointment in my whole time in public life from being governor and senator is I absolutely believe.

at my Republican College, who I know love our country, every bit as much as I do, would have, on at least national security items, would have drawn the line. And there's been lots of private conversations I've had. Well, Mark your right, even when senators said, Mark, you're not conscious. I don't want to be your non-conscious.

And this is more towards like the undermining of the integrity of the intelligence community. And so far, people have not stepped up. I do think the armed services leadership on both the House and the Senate, if they at least push to have this, this briefing and see the video. I hope and pray that that is a sign of more than come. Talk about the intelligence community.

You've expressed a alarm about what's happening there. Will they still be willing to speak truth to power and give a couple of major floor speeches? That's your, you've been so involved in that sphere for quite a long time now, at least since you got to Congress almost, I think, or, you know, to the Senate, yeah. So what's going on there and how worried should we be? I have, I didn't have an intelligence background. I was a tech guy and a business guy. But boy, boy, I have been so impressed with the men and women in the intelligence community.

Their integrity, they are not political. You know, you have the hardest job. You got to tell the truth that you're superiors regardless. Because when we corrupt our intelligence, bad things happen. So, you know, we saw this early on. And I think hexath is over his head. I also think Tulsi Gabbard should never been put in. We saw in terms of early days where.

There are people with secret identities, those identities were being revealed. We saw when there was a lot of, you know, kind of riffing in terms of the intelligence community. It takes about $250,000 to train the CIA agent. If you're suddenly eliminating those new agents, you know, we're wasting money as well. If you give away their identities, they can't go undercover. We've seen early on senior level members of the intelligence at the OD&I who, reached in conclusions about the drug gang, Trendalawa, and Maduro that didn't meet the political needs of the president. They got fired. And then we saw through the summer it just ramp up enormously

where, you know, the general in charge of NSA, Tim Hock, great professional gets fired arbitrarily, Jeff Cruz, the head of the defense intelligence agency, and a series of other intelligence officials basically get thrown out because they wouldn't cook the books. In many ways, the Defense Intelligence Agency, this was the group that did the first analysis of the Iran strike. And they said, you know, it was a very powerful strike. But because they wouldn't use the words obliterate it, they get fired. I fear that, you know, that we could end up seeing people consciously or unconsciously start to shade the product to try to meet the approval of, you know, a political agenda. And that makes America less safe.

And that's just on the intelligence side. We've seen some of the military activities. We've also seen almost a complete dismantlement of senior leadership at the FBI, including more recently, where upwards of 25 to 45% of the agents who do counterterrorism, counter espionage, you frankly, sex crimes have been taken off those duties and stuck as extra bodies on immigration rates and make America safer. And I just, you know, we've also seen, I guess, final comment on make on this is that our best. the allies, like the British, the Dutch, are publicly stating they're not sure they can share intelligence with this anymore. That's not good news for America. And that's one year into the administration. I mean, I guess what's so alarms me and I don't think people have focused on. I think it was a sort of sense a few months ago, okay, they've come in, they've done a lot of

things you didn't approve of and people like me didn't think were very wise at all and pretty deplorable. But okay, that's sort of the first spasm and now we're going to go back to something resembling responsible governance. But as you said, it seems like the firings, the attempts to intimidate, the politicization of all the national security elements of the government, really. That's not slowing down. It hasn't been, has it?

Seems to be speeding up. And, you know, because what it's also meaning is many cases, our best people are leaving on their own choice. And you can't replace that in a multi-years of experience. I mean, I think it converts, every section head of the FBI has been fired. And that's just not, it's just so untenable. Things that are happening in our country right now,

I never thought would happen. And again, I hope and pray that, you know, the level of unease from a lot of my Republican friends is growing, but they've got to be willing to, not just talk to me, but they've got to be willing to say, okay, no more, no more. Okay, well, I hope you persuade them, And you think that, I mean, I do think at least the step of releasing the information, whatever they're going to end up saying or doing in terms of, you know, policy and confirming new appointees

and insisting on more accountability and all the things that we used to take for granted, you know. I mean, at least let us know what's happening. I just find it, I can't get over how it's downed. I mean, I think back to the Iraq and Afghanistan, God knows, mistakes were made and stuff. But, you know, we knew it was actually being made because people knew what was happening. And John McCain, who I was close to, and you were close to too, was able to criticize Rumsfeld and others in 2003, 4, because we knew what was happening in Iraq. And we knew that our view there weren't enough troops.

Other people thought we shouldn't have been in there in the first place, whatever. But that was a real debate that a democracy is supposed to have. I mean, here we, the degree, I think, of lack of people say transparency. That's not even the beginning, accountability and just even visibility into what's happening. I find it's pretty astounding. And as you know, and you know, you've got to be a nerdy guy like me and you. But you know, this national security document that just happened the other day, you know, the national security document that was released during Trump one, I agree with 90% of it.

It accurately called out China, called out Russia, it called out our technology competition. This document focused almost exclusively on the Western Hemisphere, which frankly in America has under focused on. Not to the exclusion where this document barely mentions China or Russia, you know, spends more time about, you know, cultural wars in Europe than how Europe can be our partner. You know, I feel, you know, one of my overarching issues is technology competition with China. We've never faced, you know, Soviet Union was a military and a ideological competitor. China is at least a military competitor, but we've never faced a nation, a great nation like China, that is a. investing in every technology domain at the level and rate we are. And in some cases, better. And this national security document barely spends any time on that. And the policy so far,

I mean, for all the talk about China and being hawkish on China, it doesn't seem to me as a layman that the policies are very tough on China. Well, many things you are, Bill, I'd not call you a layman in this field. Oh, well, I don't know, but it's, it is, you know, anyway. Another topic, We should have to discuss that some other day in China, but this is a very urgent topic. And some people tell me, oh, well, this is just, you know, it's fishing boats. It's unfortunate maybe we're killing these people. But I do feel like once you start down this road, it doesn't get contained in one place or one instance, right? I mean, once this gets legitimized, you're in a different world in a way that we used to be in.

You're right. And again, you've got the legitimacy of the policy. But if we accept without any debate, the policy is. kill them all regardless. And if you then had settings where based not upon simply our rules of contact, but international law rules of contact. And I didn't even hate to mention the term war crimes. I mean, that is not where America should be.

And a lot of these sailors and others are home ported in Virginia and Norfolk. And I'm getting calls and letters saying, you know, I don't want my kid, one, in harm's way without rationale, but two, I don't like my kid, son or daughter potentially put in something where they may be in legal jeopardy. That's just not fair. It's not right. And again, it showed, in my mind, it shows a level of disrespect, an administration that claims that it's so, you know, pro defense, but then doesn't seem to treat our military services or intelligence community with the respect they deserve. Well, that's a slightly depressing, but important note to end on. So Senator Mark

Warner, thanks so much for taking the time to join me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Bill. Thank you all for joining us.