Rep. Himes: Cartel Members Aren’t Narco-Terrorists, Trump Just Wants Them to Be
“There’s no such thing as a narco-terrorist. There are very, very bad narcotics people, cartels, etc.”
In remarks to MSNOW’s Katy Tur on Wednesday, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) said, “There’s no such thing as a narco-terrorist. There are very, very bad narcotics people, cartels, etc.
“They’re desperate to make this look like it’s ISIS or Al Qaeda,” he added, “because that’s the very thin line on which their illegal use of the United States military to take these people out resides.”
Connecticut Democrat Jim Himes angrily defends terrorists who are smuggling illegal narcotics into the country, killing Americans.
HIMES: "There is no such thing as a narco-terrorist!!!" pic.twitter.com/he5tnY6YTS
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 2, 2025
Coming from an otherwise intelligent man, it was an extraordinarily ignorant statement, and I’m surprised he could deliver it with a straight face. It showed just how far Democrats are willing to go in their resistance to President Donald Trump.
Does Himes seriously believe Trump lacks the authority to target the cartels that have made billions trafficking deadly drugs into the U.S.? Of course he does. Previous U.S. presidents could have and should have confronted the cartels head on. We’re lucky to finally have a president with the courage to act.
Since 1999, drug overdoses have taken more than 1.25 million American lives, dwarfing the number of deaths caused by Al Qaeda and ISIS over the same period. And these “very, very bad narcotics people” are directly responsible.
Each U.S. strike that wipes out a drug-laden vessel prevents American deaths. Moreover, as Trump noted at his Tuesday cabinet meeting, the repeated strikes on these boats over the past three months have had a powerful deterrent effect.
As I wrote in a previous post, the crew members on these drug boats know exactly what they’re signing up for. They understand that a U.S. missile could appear without warning and blow them to smithereens. They also know the drugs they’re trafficking will ultimately kill countless Americans. But the lure of a massive payday from a single run makes it a risk worth taking. A drug boat pilot recently told the Wall Street Journal he earns up to $100,000 for a successful run.
Himes’s unfortunate comments come several weeks into the Democrats’ latest manufactured hoax. Fresh off their crusade to hold the government hostage until Republicans agreed to undo Medicaid cuts and to extend COVID-era Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end, they launched a new campaign.
The opening salvo was the bizarre video released by six Democratic lawmakers instructing service members to defy unlawful orders. It quickly morphed into a full-court press to oust War Secretary Pete Hegseth from power, which I wrote about here and here.
A New York Times report on Monday took much of the air out of the scandal, and by Wednesday night, ABC News had gone even further in exonerating Hegseth. According to a source:
The two survivors climbed back onto the boat after the initial strike. They were believed to be potentially in communication with others in the vicinity and were salvaging some of the drugs that had been the boat’s cargo, the source said, and because of these actions were determined to be “still in the fight” and considered to be valid targets.
Once the pressure on Hegseth had eased, the Left pivoted to a fresh line of attack: the alleged “illegality” of the strikes. Their claim now is that Trump has no right to target the narco-terrorists who are bringing lethal loads of drugs into the U.S.
In an appearance on MSNOW, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said, “In many ways, the uniformed military may help save us from this president and his lame people like Hegseth because I think their commitment is to the Constitution and obviously not to Trump.” Was he suggesting a military coup?
All of their disinformation campaigns follow the same unmistakable pattern as the countless hoaxes that have come before.
The troubling reality is that opposing Trump takes precedence over confronting the cartels flooding our country with poison. Their eagerness to elevate anonymous whispers over verifiable facts is matched only by their indifference to the Americans dying as a result of this crisis.
They will always choose the narrative that damages Trump — even if it means siding with the very traffickers killing Americans. When forced to choose between the safety of their own citizens and the cartels fueling America’s deadly overdose epidemic, they chose the cartels. That truth needs to be driven home every day between now and the midterms.
As for Rep. Himes, an X user summed his remarks up perfectly:
OK He Wins 🏆 👏 👌 pic.twitter.com/Gblcpqkfu4
— Marlon East Of The Pecos (@Darksideleader2) December 2, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“Coming from an otherwise intelligent man…” Assumes facts not in evidence.
“…it was an extraordinarily ignorant statement…” No, it was just normal Democrat stupidity. Nothing extraordinary about it.
“I’m surprised he could deliver it with a straight face.” I’m not, I’m sure he actually believes it. Always remember that Democrats lie like the rest of us draw breath: without thought and without cease.
“…it was an extraordinarily ignorant statement…” No, it was just normal Democrat stupidity.
No, it was lying.
Terrorism is a legal category, not a fact in reality.
The closest you get is blacks burning down cities, and that’s to terrorize fellow blacks. The Koreans arm themselves and shoot looters.
Some things and people get more idiotic with time. 9-11, October 7, just legal categories, especially to the dead and those left behind. Just a legal category for lawyers.
Nobody’s terrorized. It just produces retaliatory strikes, the opposite. Contrast blacks in cities being burnt down. No retaliation, just cowed into silence. That’s terrorizing.
More idiocy. Victims of terrorism, that feel terrorized, can certainly retaliate. Who are you to proclaim that no one is terrorized, as if you determine what others feel. Your idea that it must result into being cowed into silence is lunacy and something a low IQ person would cherish. Then again, your attempts to impress so often fail. Terror is simply a legal concept. Ha!
Terrorism is real (peaceful blacks in burnt out cities) but the word is usurped for a legal category having nothing to do with terrorism. It’s marketing.
The idiocy comes full circle:
“Terrorism is a legal category, not a fact in reality”
“Terrorism is real”
Interesting that people affected by skyskrapers falling or music festivals don’t seem to count, but riot victims do.
These very same cartels corrupt law enforcement and politics in their host countries with the policy of “Silver or Lead” – either take our money or we’ll put a bullet in your brain. And they really really are doing their best / worst to make US one of their host countries.
Back in the late 80s I had a coworker who had family in both the US and Mexico, his family had fled Spain starting centuries ago to avoid the Inquisition and forced conversion (being Jewish). He told me about S&L, and mentioned that to his knowledge & belief that one cousin – who was the highest LE official in his state – overseeing the State Police – and was the ONLY such top official who hadn’t chosen silver in all of Mexico – thus needing 24/7 body guarding for him and his immediate family – it was that bad.
And in the decades since it apparently hasn’t gotten much better.
Any criminal group that routinely murders and uses terror to facilitate their goals is – by any reasonable definition – a terrorist group.
Hines (and Biden) et Alia have had no problem with ludicrous labeling of parents who merely criticize school boards at public hearings as “terrorists”. And so directing the FBI.
He’s either an idiot, a hypocrite, himself corrupt –
or possibly all of the above.
Tell it to the families and friends of the 100K+ killed by Fentanyl poisoning every year.
Your first sentence was intellectually defensible. The other two were incomprehensible.
The Left love to coin phrases….. ghost guns, weapons of war, Christian Nationalism, Maryland man….or reinvent meanings… Nazi or fascist. Only they are allowed… Now we have only very bad people doing something.
You could see it all coming in the 80s and especially the 90s, when the left fell in love with so-called “post-modernism” and the associated garbage that goes with it. The truth is what they say it is and it changes (sometime from hour to hour). Orwell would be appalled…but probably not surprised.
He would not be surprised or appalled. He would note that he had warned us.
And then, like a good socialist, which is what he was, he would insist that this was not ‘real’ socialism or leftism, it was something else, because the true thing had never been tried.
Because Orwell was the most devout of useful idiots.
It never occurs to them that socialism doesn’t ever get tried because it simply does not work. All ‘socialism’ leads to authoritarian, totalitarian dictatorship. Always.
Because you need that to keep people repeating (if not believing) the lies that are leftist thought.
From the people that told us that if you went to a school board meeting you were a right wing racist terrorist….
Remember when all military and former military members were possible terrorists?
Also traditional Roman Catholics, and the FBI was going to churches and listening to sermons?
How about prolife Americans? They were straight up going to their houses with SWAT teams and arresting them.
And that’s just off the top of my head.
These are the same people that get upset over walls.
When do we start offering a hard choice, abide the law with your neighbors and enjoy the fruits of a healthy relationship, where your neighbor holds the pruning shears or exile to an entirely lawless land where libertarianism and democracy will eat you?
Spoiling for a chance to show how they would bring down the country. Well done, representative!
Can we get rid of CT now. Their congressional delegation is a dumpster fire of stupidity and unAmericanism. If we can’t let’s ship all the muslims and illegal aliens there so they can enjoy what they have voted for repeatedly.
But CT is the only thing keeping western RI from floating out to sea!
And that’s a bad thing?
But that’s the non-socialist half!
Another Democrat whoring the language. I bet if these were somehow Maga drug operations destined for his state, he would want every last one of them killed.
Maybe Trump should get someone to start smuggling that abortion-pill-reversal drug into America. See if the Dems jump onto the “narco-terrorist” bandwagon then.
The Democrats have a list of “designated liars” – people on whom they can count to say anything, no matter how obviously false. Apparently, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) has been added to the list.
No he just wants to be a senator but competing with Murphey and Blumenthal in terms of stupidity is tough.
Like most Dems, he doesn’t care a whit about the “boatmen” or the people killed by drugs. All they care about is their team beating the other team. Remember, these are the people picked last in gym class, people who never actually played competitive sports where they learned to win with grace and lose with dignity. Because of this they think beating the other party on any topic is the honorable equivalent governing and the place their energies should be focused.
The vile, stupid and evil Dhimmi-crat reprobates never met a domestic criminal, domestic terrorist, foreign criminal or foreign terrorist whom they didn’t attempt to whitewash, coddle, lionize, enable and otherwise cast as an alleged “victim.”
The Dhimmi-crats are sick Satanists.
At least they’re being honest that they’d rather support foreign terrorists than the citizens they’re supposed to be representing.
One wonders how much money indirectly flows to the Democrats from the Drug Cartels. One thing you know about the Democrats – whenever there is illicit money moving around, they get their cut.
Think prohibition and alcohol running by Joe Kennedy during prohibition. That money bought a presidency.
They have the route into their pockets all mapped out before they even start the money moving.
It is about time that a president has taken seriously the issue of smuggling, particularly drug smuggling. We can learn from history the disastrous results of ignoring or abetting the problem. It was almost 200 years ago that China first attempted to halt the opium drug trade. They failed and the country became a target for exploitation by the Europeans, Russians, and Japanese. It took some 150 years for China to recover. Not only has the American life expectancy dropped but we now have a plague of drug addicted homeless people not to mention the countless people who fail to contribute to society up to their full potential because of drug abuse or addiction. This is a cost to American society that far out reaches any war in our history.
Democrats developed a new, secret super-technology that they are using for themselves and refuse to share. I think they are calling it “a.i.” or “Artificial Ignorance”.
Not to be confused with the other AI.
Seems to me that if it is really illegal (instead of just being so inside his pointy head) he should get Congress together to stop it. Don’t you?
Who but Trump could make the “progressives” defend human trafficking, billionaire drug dealers? Future historians will be amazed. Once they stop laughing. What a moron.
Democrats supported human trafficking back when it was called slavery.
The “graphic novel” version
You have to understand why Trump is so interested in Venezuela. It has nothing to do with drugs, except to the extent that the drug trade is financing the regime and allowing them to smuggle Iranian terrorists to the US. No, this is geopolitical. Venezuela is a close ally of China, Russia, and Iran, and Maduro is kept in power by a legion of Cuban troops. Iran has a huge base there of 4000 square miles. Trump wants those powers out of our hemisphere – which is the Monroe Doctrine. Once Venezuela has been dealt with, Cuba is next.
There is also the possibility that Vz invades their neighbor Guyana.
There is no such thing as an ‘illegal use of the military’ because only the President is commander-in-chief and therefore any laws that limit that power is blatantly unconstitutional.
So they start off with word games (“narco-terrorists”) to frame a false equivalence with terrorism and therefore create a false premise (illegal use of the military).
Cartel Members Aren’t happy fuzzy bunnies just bringing recreational drugs to the masses. Rep. Himes Just Wants Them to Be.
“narco-pirates” plying their trade on the high seas. A little advice for them from the Bible
Proverbs 1:10-19
10 My son, if sinners entice you, Do not consent. 11 If they say, “Come with us, Let us lie in wait to shed blood; Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause; 12 Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, And whole, like those who go down to the Pit; 13 We shall find all kinds of precious possessions, We shall fill our houses with spoil; 14 Cast in your lot among us, Let us all have one purse”— 15 My son, do not walk in the way with them, Keep your foot from their path; 16 For their feet run to evil, And they make haste to shed blood. 17 Surely, in vain the net is spread In the sight of any bird; 18 But they lie in wait for their own blood, They lurk secretly for their own lives. 19 So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; It takes away the life of its owners.
Call them what you want but they are ‘hostis humani generis”… an enemy of the human race.
A comparison can be made between this concept and the common law “writ of outlawry”, which declared a person outside the king’s law, a literal out-law, subject to violence and execution by anyone.
I don’t think the Democrats bizarre love of drug dealers is a mystery now that it’s being reported that the Venezuela Cartel of The Sun has been fixing elections for the Democrats via the voting machines that it owns the software for.
Remember when Obama’s campaign turned off the feature that told where donations were coming from? Yeah…
Sen Himes have some skin in this game?
What they call “A piece of the action.”
Has Slime’s name appeared in the Epstein files yet?
Next thing will be Democrats proclaiming ISIS members aren’t Islamic terrorists, Trump just wants them to be!
What is it with Democrats defending evil, and attacking the good in America?
I think it’s closely related to the “White Culture” posters the black caucus in the Smithsonian put out, to a rousing popular response of, “so what’s wrong with any of that?”
Evil, greedy, and ignorant are the demonrat support base.
Jim Slime to Katy Turd.
Great info sources. /s
Perhaps Connecticut should get a waivers allowing drug cartels free access to the state since it appears this is what the voters want.
Is there really a significant difference between a drug dealer and a drug wholesaler?
Boy, if it’s evil, if it’s bad, if it’s corrupt, if it’s degenerate, if it’s unsafe, if it’s immoral, ungodly, and dishonorable, and especially if it’s Trump at the helm, the commie left will oppose it. But don’t worry, they’re safe and far away from all the perversion they force onto us. Toilet floaters, all!