BENSON BYTE: Sen. Eric Schmitt SHREDS Dems For Hypocrisy After Drug Boat Strike Briefing

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the intel behind these strikes, etc. Still controversial, constitutionally, operationally, right? There are critics all over the place. What is your view on these strikes? What can you tell us about the briefing beyond what is classified, obviously? Well, I thought I'll start with the briefing. The briefing I thought was very informative. I think the biggest takeaway is they really walk through methodically. sort of the decision tree on when to take out which boats and why. They're not all taken out through kinetic strikes. Some of them are, in fact, the Coast Guard will detain and confiscate. That is still happening. That's happened before. But I think it's also true that there's been a very big deterrent effect now because of these strikes. And I think to take a step back into the larger picture, This is really part of how the Trump administration, and I think foreign policy realists are kind of... pivoting from a wandering foreign policy that saw a lot of our assets and concerns halfway around the world and a refocus on the homeland in our Western Hemisphere, right? So you have 100,000 Americans who are poisoned and die every year. People have talked about fentanyl. They've talked about drugs over the years. But you really haven't seen a concerted effort that includes our military of taking out the cartels, which have been designated as terrorist organizations. to take them out because of the role they play in that supply chain. And so from a legal perspective, I reviewed the... 40 page plus legal memorandum from the Department of Justice about this. And the president has been delegated the authority by Congress to designate terrorist organizations. He's done that for a handful of these cartels. The intelligence then informs what's happening on these boats and where they're at. And then if they, you know, if they determine that they are obviously on their way to poison Americans, they have every legal right to blow them out. Now, you might want to have a political argument about that. or a discussion about priorities about that. But the Democrats' call of reflexively saying this is a war crime and this is illegal action, that's patently false. The United States of America has every right to do it. He is doing it. I think it's a good thing that we're doing it. I think we're sending a message in saving lives along the way. And I think the Democrats are playing a very, very dangerous game here by effectively asking service members to violate the chain of command and selling distrust. among the American people for something that's been done before. I mean, not to, you know, to go back into ancient history guy. I mean, Barack Obama used drone strikes, again, halfway around the world, including killing American citizens. You didn't see any of these people talking about it then. So I just think it's sort of the height of hypocrisy.

Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FN Radio 20. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026, must be 21 order to order. Please drink responsibly. It does seem to me, and this is at least my impression, because I've only followed this story a little bit, right? Because there's just so much going on. But it does seem to me... that once these briefings started to happen on Capitol Hill, where the intelligence was shared, at least some of the volume got turned down on this notion that perhaps these were just innocent fishermen getting blown up because of mistaken identity or something. It did seem like there was at least an idea that, okay, they absolutely have confirmed. These are definitely cartel drug runners. When you were briefed, was this bipartisan? Were there Democrats in the room? Today the briefing was an all-Senator briefing, which is kind of rare, although there had been briefings, as Secretary Ruby had mentioned, for weeks, if not months now, about the activity and, in fact, that this was guided by intelligence. I think you're probably, honestly, being a little bit more generous than I would be guided. I think what this really comes down to is the Democrats continue to search for some front where they can break through. as relates to their Trump derangement syndrome and everything opposing everything that's out of Trump. In particular interest on Pete Hegseth, they were unsuccessful. I mean, it was a tough fight in defeating his nomination. And I think their sort of sour grapes continues. And so to the point where they went, had a recorded video. asking service members to disobey orders. Right, no, no, and I get that, and I understand there's a component here definitely highly political. I'm just wondering in the room today if, let's say, not every single one of your colleagues probably showed up, but if a bunch of them showed up across the aisle, and this intelligence was being very meticulously... sort of revealed and walked through on a specific level, did you get any sense that at least some of the concerns that Democrats have been talking about were allayed at all? Like were Democrats saying, okay, well, we still might be worried about X, Y, and Z, but at least we're more convinced that... You guys are taking out definitely guilty parties here. Did you get any sense of any movement, I guess? Well, it should be very clear and obvious. I've not seen, as of the time we're talking, I've not seen a lot of comments of how Democrats...

what their impression of it was. My guess is that the same loudest voices that have been complaining will continue to complain because either they don't like the mission or they don't like the actors, you know, that are declaring that this is our mention principally President Trump and Pete Exeter. But to answer your question, they, I mean, it was very detailed as far as how they're obtaining this intelligence. and then how that guides the decision tree of when they have the vote. And I guess the best way to put it, this isn't like some, like, Google Maps and you try to find a boat somewhere, and then we blow it out of the water, right? And the description of these things is fishing boats by one reporter last week who was asking about this is comical. These are cartels that are brutal. They rape, they murder. They have zones of control, not only in Mexico, but into the interior of the United States. Effectively, what's happened now, the southern border can close guy, they're in the high seas. They're on the high seas, and we're now making progress, so not as many of them are on the high seas. You combine that with a very important effort that's taken place with China to have the precursors for fentanyl blocked and not actually make their way to Mexico. I think in a month or two, you're going to see. Well, you see it right now, but I think the American people will be more obvious. Plus the closed border, right? The closed border is part of this, too. Correct. You close the border, so then they go on the high seas, and now you're blowing boats out of the water to protect the 100,000 Americans that are dying every year from overdoses. So that's tangible. It's actionable in our own hemisphere. It's clearly in the core national interests of the United States of America. And like I said, you combine that with the efforts in China to prevent the precursors for fentanyl ever coming across the Pacific. That's real progress. One more point on this, and it's one component of this larger debate, but Democrats want to release a specific video of a so-called double-tap strike, where one of the boats was hit. And then it was hit again because there were survivors or Democrats are saying the whole goal was to just kill everyone. So there would be no survivors. And there's been a big food fight about what actually happened there. And was that a war crime? And you heard some reference to that in the soundbite that we played earlier this segment. What can you tell us about that? particular incident because it feels like that's the one a lot of people are seizing on and Americans will at least hear some account of what happened or some versions of it and say, oh, that does seem potentially troubling. Based on what you know, Senator, what's your impression? In that particular instance that they seemed to seize on, the individual was seeking, well, the individuals were seeking to continue their mission. And so you've got to remember, the effect here is to destroy the infrastructure, so the boats that are proceeding. And so they were seeking to continue their mission. And I guess, and I would say that one of the reasons why this is so disappointing on behalf of the Democrats, there is at least one other instance.

where, in fact, there were survivors that were rescued because they were no longer a threat. They were no longer trying to continue their mission. And so this is not some indiscriminate effort. But, again, I think that just kind of shows what they're really up to here, which is to try to sow doubt, to try to politically damage Pete Hegseth who they never liked in the first place. So they're being, I guess the takeaway is they're being very meticulous and deliberate. about which boats, and then to make sure those boats are actually taken out on their way to either other Caribbean, other islands to make their way to the United States, or to meet up with other vessels or directly to the United States. So that is one thing I think that today, for sure, was made very clear. So if anybody talking about ambiguity about how they're making these decisions based on real intelligence, that would be false because that was made very clear today. All right, Senator, I want to move on to this. You're a member of the Judiciary Committee. You have a legal background, of course, in Missouri. And I posed this question last week to your colleague, Senator Ernst from Iowa. Ed Whalen, who's a conservative, writes at National Review, court watcher, very knowledgeable about these issues. He expressed a concern that there are dozens of judicial vacancies right now with no nominee at all from President Trump. These are federal... judicial vacancies across the country. And in many of these, as I just said, President Trump and his team have not yet made a nomination to fill those crucial lifetime appointments. And it's not just in states where there's a blue slip issue with Democratic senators. A lot of these open seats, so to speak, these open judicial seats are in red states with two Republican senators. Are you satisfied with the pace coming out of the White House on that front? Because to me, it seems like a no-brainer slam dunk priority that everyone involved at the White House and in the Senate Republican majority should be coordinated on and gunning for maximum efficiency here. Yeah, I agree. I do. I am satisfied with it. I can just, I guess I can speak to my own personal experience. In Missouri, we had four vacancies on the Eastern District of Missouri, so Missouri has the Eastern and Western District. Those four were the first four filled. Senator Josh Hawley and myself had broad agreement. We worked with the White House. We got those names. Actually, all four of them worked in the Attorney General's office when I was Attorney General. So I could personally vouch for them. They're great. judges, President Trump now will have 7 of the 8 appointees in the Eastern District. And now you include that with a vacancy now we have on the 8th Circuit. We have also one in the Western District that's going to be moving forward, too. So I guess I can only speak. We were ready to roll. I was very, I mean, obviously with my background, very committed to this process. So I can't speak to what's happening in each one of those states, but I do know the White House is working very diligently to work with the senators from those states. to fill these vacancies because I can tell you, when I was Attorney General, we brought the, you know, student loan death forgiveness case that we won at the Supreme Court, some of the vaccine mandate case that made it all the way the Supreme Court we won, the censorship case. Having judges who actually view the law as it's written and interpreted as it's written out how they wanted to be was critical to that success. And President Trump now has another run at this for four years, and we cannot miss any opportunity because I saw what was like.

in the last months of Biden's presidency, the people he was putting up for these lifetime appointments were terrible. Like they had no experience, not qualified. They were activists. And so we've got a chance, I think, again, to kind of remake the judiciary in the right way. And we should take every opportunity and move expeditiously. Finally and quickly, we've seen a bill. over on the House side from Republicans when it comes to health care. We know the Democrats' position is just blindly extend the Obamacare temporary, quote-unquote, emergency, quote-unquote, subsidies from the COVID era. They created Obamacare. They created these cliffs and these deadlines and these very expensive subsidies, including to rich people, going directly, in many cases, through the insurance companies. rife with fraud and waste we talked about that here on the show quite a lot the republicans need to have a policy and messaging rejoinder if you had a minute to pitch the gop side versus the democrat talking points what would you say Well, let me, let me, I will get there. But I think it's important to point out, Obamacare, these subsidies, they all did it with just Democrat votes. They never wanted Republican input, which is why some of these are so terrible. Insurance companies have gotten rich. Healthcare has gotten way more expensive for everybody because of the Democrat plans. And the COVID-era subsidy they're talking about is one-half of one percent of everybody on the exchange. So. Do we need to have a plan? Absolutely. And I think for us, it's a reform agenda. It's putting money in the pockets of patients, not insurance companies. It's greater transparency and giving more options. One of the great lies of Obamacare was that if you liked your doctor, you could keep it. That's not true. Employers dump those policies. People were given some bronze plan on Obamacare. It just hasn't worked. It's become unaffordable. So I think we've got to empower consumers. to make their own decisions through health savings accounts, that will bring down costs. That's the most important thing we can do right now is have a marketplace where costs are front and center. Consumers are making their decisions, and we reform the disaster that's been Obamacare. Republican Missouri-U.S. Senator, Eric Schmidt, our guest, on Guy Benson. Merry Christmas, Senator. We'll talk soon. Merry Christmas. Take care. That was yet another Guy Benson bite. For full episodes of Guy Benson, go to Guy Benson.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to this show ad free on Fox News Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.