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.”
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:
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.
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