The New Yorker Radio Hour - Leon Panetta on the Trump Administration’s Venezuelan Boat Strikes

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

In the course of his long career, Leon Panetta was a lieutenant in the Army, a congressman from California, Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, Barack Obama’s director of the C.I.A., and later, his Secretary of Defense. David Remnick talks with Panetta about the current Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, the legality of the ongoing Navy strikes targeting civilian boats off the coast of Venezuela, and the problem with using the military as “the President’s personal toy.”New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Some of Donald Trump's most alarming ideas concern military force and the almost unlimited latitude he grants himself as commander-in-chief. Trump has talked about using the military against protesters. In the 2020 election, there was the idea that troops might seize ballot boxes for a recount. This year he's deployed the National Guard into U.S. cities to assist ICE or to reduce crime. And he's rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War. Now Trump seems to be ramping up a conflict with Venezuela.

He says of President Nicholas Maduro, his days are numbered. This week, the U.S. seized a sanctioned oil tanker said to be carrying Venezuelan oil. And for months, the Navy has been striking and destroying alleged drugboats. In particular, there's the man. matter of a second missile strike on one boat for the purpose of killing the survivors of the first strike. Former military officials are saying that this is a war crime. One of those sounding the warning is Leon Panetta. Over the course of a long career in government, Leon Panetta was a lieutenant in the army, a congressman from California, and a White House chief of staff. He directed the

Central Intelligence Agency under Barack Obama, and when he was nominated for Secretary of defense in 2011, the Senate confirmed Panetta by a unanimous vote, 100 to zero. I spoke with Leon Panetta last week. Secretary Panetta in September, the Navy struck a boat off the coast of Venezuela a second time. Secretary Hegsseth has claimed that Admiral Frank Bradley was actually the one to make the call on that second strike, and Bradley has not denied that. But there's a feeling that Bradley is being scapegoated by Hegsaith. So how much responsibility does Hegsaith bear in this? instance, and is he trying to pass the buck? Yeah, I've been very concerned that, frankly, both the president and the secretary have tried to

avoid responsibility for what happened. And the buck stops, frankly, with the president, but it also stops with the secretary. If you're going to be a strong secretary of defense, you've got to take responsibility for the orders that are issued and what happens. and to kind of stand back and say, oh, no, it was the Admiral that took that strike. Bologna. The Admiral was following the orders. That's what they do. And the orders came from the Secretary of Defense.

And I always hold the person at the top of the command responsible, not the person who's in the middle or the bottom of the chain of command. And just to be clear, do you think that second strike is a war crime? Well, you know, obviously the Congress is investigating that. You've got two, the Armed Services Committees on both the House and the Senate are going to be looking at that issue. But I find it very difficult. When you have two people in the water, you know, that are survivors from an initial attack, there's not much question in my mind that you don't blow them up. You have to rescue them.

And frankly, that's what they did in later strikes is they actually rescued some of the wounds. it and returned them back to their country of origin. And that's the way you've got to handle that. Just because you're in the military doesn't mean that you've lost respect for life. I remember Bill McCraven, who was head of special forces. When we did the bin Laden raid, you know, we went 150 miles into another country to conduct that raid with two teams of seals. and they were going through the compound where bin Laden was.

But when they ran into the children, his children and the family, they put them aside and kept them out of harm's way while the seals went ahead to look for bin Laden. And I remember when we briefed Congress, it was a member of Congress, the senator who said, what kind of training did you do to allow them to do that? And McCraven gave an answer, I'll never forget. which is he said, look, you know, we're mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters.

You know, we know what life is about and we respect life. Yes, we do our missions. Yes, we do what has to be done. But we also respect life. Secretary Panetta, I want to play a clip here. This is Pete Hagseth discussing the boat strike in September off the coast of Venezuela. I did not personally see survivors, but I stand because the thing was on fire. have exploded in fire or smoke, you can't see anything, you got digital, this is called the fog of war.

This is what you and the press don't understand. You 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. The key phrase there for Hegg-Seth is the fog of war and that somehow, unless you are a combat soldier, that you, you have no idea what you're talking about, and that the fog of war is this embracing phrase that permits a whole hell of a lot. Is it appropriate for him to use that phrase? I remember when I was a lieutenant in the Army, sometimes it is confusing in war, and sometimes it is tough, but you have to bear responsibility for what happens under any circumstances. And the problem I have with him talking about the fog of war is that we have a very clear video that shows very clearly what happened here.

This is not the fog of war. This is a video that shows two individuals who were in the water, who were survivors of the first attack. There's not much question about the facts involved here. The real question is whether the actions that were then taken were responsible in accordance with the law. Do you ever recall as either Secretary of Defense or as head of CIA such tactics being used against drug traffickers and any other administration? And why is it coming up? Well, why is it coming up now? Because somehow they made the decision to strike at these boats that, you know, that, you know,

you know, may very well be trafficking drugs, and that they're going to just simply blow them out of the water. And then the question became, well, how do you legally justify that? And now they've come up with a rationale that somehow these are the equivalent of military combatants, which, you know, I just think if you begin to go down that slippery slope, I'm not sure where it leads you in terms of our ability to conduct military strikes. I mean, we're a country that doesn't deploy our military without legal justification and without abiding by the law. You know, we're putting our men and women in uniform and harm's way. We have to assure them that the orders we give them,

are not going to violate the law, but are going to, in fact, defend our national security in a way that is not legally questionable. Why would it be thought that the DEA or the Coast Guard or even an international group like Interpol is insufficient in this effort to stop drug trafficking? Well, I mean, that really should be the question, which is, you know, we're not dealing with the military threat. We're dealing with a law enforcement problem. These are individuals who are violating the law. They're criminals. And that's why we basically had the Coast Guard intercept these people, determine what kind of narcotics were on board, arrest them, try them, put them in

jail. That's called law enforcement. But more importantly, I think what's missing, is that if you really want to control drug trafficking coming out of Latin or Central America, you really do have to build strong alliances with the countries there. When I was at the CIA, we had a very good relationship with Colombia. We provided weapons. We provided support. We helped them go after the drug dealers and the cartels in Colombia. And it was a successful program because we were working together to go after a common problem. I think what's missing now is if you really want to deal with the amount of drugs coming into this country,

if you really want to deal with the fentanyl crisis, which is the major concern that we have because it kills Americans, then we really do need a much closer and working relationship with Mexico and with other countries. so that we are not only going after the cartels together, not only going after drug traffickers together, but we are unified in our effort. We're not doing this by ourselves. We're not saying to hell with the law. We're not saying to hell with other countries.

We're doing it together. And that's the only way we're ultimately going to control drug trafficking coming into America. Secretary Panetta, If you look at what's happening in Venezuela and go beyond the strikes on these boats off the coast, what do you think is taking shape in the Trump administration? Do you see a land invasion of Venezuela coming? Do you think there might be a war with Venezuela?

And if so, toward what end? I'm not sure what the actual objective is here. Is it regime change? Is it getting rid of Maduro? Is it stopping drug traffickers? is it getting oil resources? Is it trying to stop the influence of Russia or China in that part of the world? Just exactly what is the objective?

And I don't think the president, frankly, has been very clear with the American people about what that objective is. We've got a lot of people there. We've got a huge armada. 25% of our Navy is located off of Venezuela. We've got thousands of Marines there. We've got F-35 squadrons there. We've got a lot of firepower there. But I don't know that there has been a clear statement about just exactly what is our objective.

And I think the president owes that to the American people, particularly if he's willing to take military action. We've also got a long record of interference in South America, Central America, Cuba, Guatemala, Chile. The list is extremely long. It's a very dark past. How would an invasion like this into Venezuela compare with those other U.S.-back coups in the region? Have we not learned anything from our extremely checkered experience?

You know, I think the problem is we have always taken Latin and Central America and the other countries in our hemisphere for granted. We've always focused on threats in other parts of the world. We've always focused on adversaries like Russia and China, Iran, North Korea, et cetera. You know, we built NATO in Europe. It's a strong alliance, and it was aimed at trying to stop the Soviet Union from expanding into Europe. We need to build that same kind of alliance with Latin and Central American countries so that we have a common objective.

You've got to sit down with them. I mean, I spent a lot of time as director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense going to countries in Latin and Central America, helping them with their security, conducting exercises with their armed forces. It's really important to understand that if we use our capabilities in the right way, we can build friendships in that part of the world. rather than kind of operating like a bully. I wonder, I assume you're in touch with a lot of people from your days as Secretary of Defense in all branches of the military. What is your sense of morale there now? What is your sense of the way people in the building react to Pete Hegg-Seth and the support he's getting from President Trump as well? I'm concerned that I think that there are growing questions within the department about whether they are, in fact, following law and whether or not the military is being used pursuant to what the military should be used for.

The role of the military is to protect us from foreign adversaries. It's not about law enforcement. It's not about sending them to cities in the country. And I think there's a growing concern about the confusion that the administration is raising when it kind of uses the military as kind of the president's personal toy. So, yeah, I think there are a lot of people concerned about that. Their first responsibility is to protecting our national security. That's what they ought to be used for.

I'm talking with Leon Panetta, former Secretary of Defense. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. We'll continue in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and I'm David Remnick. I'm speaking today with Leon Panetta. Panetta is a former CIA director and former Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration. Donald Trump came to power opposing American involvement in foreign wars.

Some Republicans in Congress were concerned about the bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran this past summer, and now Trump is taking military actions against Venezuela. Then there are the wars the president claims he would end, but hasn't so far, like the war, of course, between Russia and Ukraine. I'll return to my conversation now with former secretary Leon Panetta. What would be the proper U.S. stance on Ukraine at this point in the war? It's without question that Russia has been making some gains on the battlefield. field. It seized much of eastern Ukraine to say nothing of Crimea. What should the United States be doing now that Donald Trump refuses to do?

In one word, he needs to stand up to Putin. He needs to be tough on Putin. He can't be catering to Putin. He can't be using his talking points. The plan that was presented for peace, That clearly represented the Russian viewpoint as to what should happen there. And the problem is that what we're dealing with is whether or not we're going to stand up and protect a sovereign democracy that was attacked by Putin. World War II was about standing up to Hitler for doing exactly the same thing. He marched into Poland. He marched into Czechoslovakia. I mean, there was an effort to appease Hitler with Czechoslovakia, hoping that that would answer the problem. And it failed.

I think the appeasement that I see taking place with Putin is as dangerous as the appeasement of Hitler at Munich. You have to stand tough when you're dealing with a tyrant like Putin. You cannot trust Putin. Putin's first interest is to undermine the United States of America, for goodness sake. He reads weakness in the United States right now, and that's why he's taking advantage of it. And so what the president ought to be doing, you know, if the Russians aren't willing to accept a ceasefire and to negotiate for peace, the President of the United States ought to be providing weapons to the Ukrainians that they can use not only to defend themselves,

but to go after Russia. And he also ought to be increasing economic sanctions. He's got to be tough because that's the only language Putin understands. Pretty pleased does not work with Putin. Pretty pleased doesn't work with Putin, but what would be an acceptable piece in the proper U.S. view? Well, look, I mean, you know, Zelensky, I mean, the courage of Ukrainians, the amount of blood that they've spilled has been incredible. innocent men, women, and children getting killed every day. But they've really stood up to Putin.

And the one thing I know is that you do not achieve peace by surrender. That's something we've learned in history. And so it's important to me that Zelensky be able to make decisions that protect the sovereignty of Ukraine that allow for its security in the future so that he knows that the United States and NATO will be there in case Russia decides to do this again in the future. And he is the one to determine what territories he wants to protect and which ones are willing to go to the Russians.

He's the one that's got to make that decision. Does our national security include the protection of Taiwan? There was an interesting piece in the New York Times indicating that Chinese strategy is starting to outstrip us and that there is a plan in place certainly on the books in China to potentially take Taiwan within the next few years. If that were to come into play, do you favor the United States stepping in militarily? I believe the United States has to deal with our adversaries from a position of strength. What do I mean by that? I think when it comes to Putin, you have to make clear that there are lines he cannot cross.

And so, you know, my argument is how can you be tough on China if you're weak on Russia? She senses weakness on the part of the United States right now. that Trump is not going to stand up. He's not going to be tough. And so we've got to draw lines. We've got to say, you know, we are going to defend Taiwan. It's a democracy. They have a right to be able to determine how they govern themselves, not China, but the Taiwanese.

And so, yes, I think we have to be clear on that. We have to be clear that we are a Pacific power, and we're going to remain in the Pacific as a Pacific power. We've got to be clear about that. And then, yes, then you can talk to China about a number of areas where we need to decide, you know, what are we going to do on AI? What are we going to do on technology? What are we going to do on space? What are we going to do on cyber? There's a lot of areas we need to discuss with China, but you cannot do it from a position of weakness. You were on the inside, to say the least. You led the CIA and the Pentagon. You know things that we don't.

You read intelligence reports that we never see. What worries you more than it worries me and why? Well, you know, this may not be the answer you want. But I frankly worry right now that our democracy is dysfunctional. And that because Democrats and Republicans are not. willing to work together because the president is not willing to provide leadership that brings the country together and is not willing to govern the country really in a way that would have both parties working together. I think that represents a real security threat to the United

States because look we just went through a shutdown. I mean I tell the students, here at the Panetta Institute, that in a democracy, we govern either by leadership or crisis. If leadership is there and willing to make tough decisions, we can avoid crisis. But if leadership's not there, we will govern by crisis. And that's what we've been doing for the last 20 years. In order to deal with the budget, for God's sakes, we have to have the threat of a shutdown. And we just came out of a shutdown. Let me tell you, a shutdown hurts our national defense. It hurts our security. It hurts our image in the world.

So right now, I'm concerned that the greatest weakness we're displaying to the world is our dysfunction in Washington and the inability to work to deal with the threats that we face. Just to clarify what you're saying is, more than North Korea, more than China, more than the Middle East, what worries you most is to borrow a phrase from the President of the United States is the enemy within. the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the waygs us here, which is the battle against democracy from within the White House. That's right. That is ominous indeed. I think it's the inability, it's the inability, it's the inability of our democracy to function the way it should, to have a Congress that is working with the executive branch in order to deal with the challenges, to deal with health care, to deal, I mean, we got a debt of what, 35 trillion dollars right now. No, no, no, neither party. wants to deal with that issue. Neither party. And yet it's important to our economy. It's important

to our security. On immigration, yes, we need to protect the border. But what about comprehensive immigration reform? What are we going to do about those that want to come into this country that want to seek asylum? I'm the son of Italian immigrants. You still have to be able to be a country of immigrants in this country. But we're not dealing with comprehensive immigration reform. We haven't worked on that. So they're area after area. I mean, national defense is an important area. But to do that, we're going to have to develop new technologies. We're going to have to be on the cutting edge of AI. We're going to have to be on the cutting edge of the future. And I'm not sure we're there right now. So those are the issues I want our country and our president and both parties to work on

Because building a strong America for the future is building a strong democracy in the 21st century that is needed. Leon Panetta, thank you so much. Good to be with you. Leon Panetta has served as Secretary of Defense, Director of the CIA, White House Chief of Staff, and a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. I'm David Remnick, and that's our show for this week. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer. With guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.