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In our latest Two Brothers Talking conversation, Don Lemon and I dig into what may be one of the most disturbing scandals of Trump’s second term: the unlawful Venezuela boat strikes and the role of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
We walk through how Hegseth, a man with a long record of incompetence and extremism, was put in charge of life-and-death decisions he was clearly unqualified to make. With his reported “kill everybody” order that led to the second strike on survivors clinging to wreckage, Hegseth may have committed a clear war crime — especially given there’s no declared war, no demonstrated proof of drug smuggling, and no credible legal justification.
We also examine how this didn’t happen in a vacuum. Hegseth fired military lawyers early on, clearing out top-level Judge Advocates General (JAGs) and other legal guardrails that might have stopped an unlawful operation. Don and I break down how the Trump Admin is now trying to reverse-engineer a justification for a “fake war,” scapegoat Admiral Bradley, and hide behind a culture of blind loyalty. We talk about the lawsuits already emerging from the families of men killed in these strikes, why Hegseth doesn’t enjoy Trump’s presidential immunity, and how international law could come into play if the U.S. system fails to hold anyone accountable.
As Don puts it, there is no legitimate justification for the second strike on survivors clinging to wreckage. That is textbook war crime territory. I also zoomed out and noted that all of these strikes are likely unlawful, given there was no formal declaration of war, let alone any hard proof of drugs on these boats. And even if these were drug smugglers, they deserve due process, not extrajudicial killings.
We close by connecting this to other strands of Trump’s second-term corruption: the administration’s slow-walk on releasing the Epstein files, the Signal chat scandal that endangered U.S. troops, and the staggering double standard that hammered someone like Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin over a hospital visit while excusing Hegseth’s catastrophic decisions.
Through it all, Don and I keep coming back to the same point: none of this is normal, none of it is defensible, and none of it should be allowed to fade into the news cycle without accountability.
It’s a wide-ranging conversation about war crimes, corruption, and the dangers of a government run by sycophants instead of professionals.
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