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Speaker 1: Noah Roffman joins me right now from National Review dot com.

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Speaker 1: He has written about this about Pete Hegseth. Hegseth Feels

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Speaker 1: the Heat is his latest piece over there, And as

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Speaker 1: a guy who certainly follows military operations the geopolitics, I

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Speaker 1: don't think this is the first time we've seen the

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Speaker 1: US military come back and make sure that a target

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Speaker 1: is destroyed when you first read the story, versus now,

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Speaker 1: as you may understand the story, how did you proceed

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Speaker 1: through it.

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Speaker 2: That's a great way to start this.

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Speaker 3: So I agreeted the Washington Post story with skepticism, not

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Speaker 3: because in part because everybody was playing very much to

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Speaker 3: type in a scene chewing fashion, and if your priors

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Speaker 3: are being confirmed like that, your skepticism should be raised.

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Speaker 3: My second point of skepticism was the degree to which

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Speaker 3: the Secretary of Defense War whatever you want to call him,

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Speaker 3: was taking an operational approach, very granular level to this mission,

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Speaker 3: which would be very out of keeping with how the

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Speaker 3: Defense Secretary manages things. The New York Times story, which subsequently,

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Speaker 3: as you said, called into question in my view, the

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Speaker 3: least important detail of the story, which was hit Pete

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Speaker 3: Meigs says saying kill now, and one you know, seeing

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Speaker 3: them their viscera displayed all over the ocean. That really

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Speaker 3: doesn't matter in a legal context. Does matter whether the

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Speaker 3: president where the Secretary's orders were executed, as the Secretary

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Speaker 3: says by Admiral Mitch Bradley, who seems to be being

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Speaker 3: thrown under the bus here in ways that I think

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Speaker 3: probably produced some consternation inside the Pentagon. Was the target

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Speaker 3: these survivors? Was the target the boat? That matters the

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Speaker 3: degree to which cabinet level officials gave these orders and

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Speaker 3: their subordinates acted on them. All this stuff is really live,

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Speaker 3: and you know that tig Seth was at this cabinet

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Speaker 3: meeting yesterday saying, we have all this information, we have

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Speaker 3: all this targeting detail, we have all this intelligence.

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Speaker 2: We know what we're doing.

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Speaker 3: So give that information to lawmakers in a classified setting

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Speaker 3: they need it. There's no congressional buy in for this campaign,

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Speaker 3: such as it is. There's a lot of prospects for

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Speaker 3: things to go wrong if the targeting list expands, and

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Speaker 3: some even more disturbing details. This strike occurred in September second.

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Speaker 3: In the months following, there have been subsequent strikes, one

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Speaker 3: on another boat, where there were survivors. Those survivors were

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Speaker 3: interdicted and repatriated to their countries of origin, suggesting that

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Speaker 3: there was not enough evidence even to hold them in

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Speaker 3: a military tribunal or GITMO, for example, in the absence

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Speaker 3: of probable cause. And we had the resignation in early

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Speaker 3: October of Admiral Adam Holsley, who was overseeing SOCOM Southern Command,

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Speaker 3: And we don't know the reasons why he resigned, but

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Speaker 3: they came at a very conspicuous moment at the time

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Speaker 3: when this operation is ramping up.

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Speaker 2: So there is a lot of smoke here.

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Speaker 3: And just because the Washington Post got one detail wrong,

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Speaker 3: I find that to be well, I'm using and it

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Speaker 3: confirms my skepticism of that story. It doesn't get at

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Speaker 3: the larger details. And the larger details, as you say,

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Speaker 3: are as profound as war and peace on a very

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Speaker 3: broad strategic scale.

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Speaker 1: Yea, I have made the argument that I have no

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Speaker 1: issue with the taking out of the drug boats.

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Speaker 2: We might disagree about that.

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Speaker 1: I would have a hard time believing that, and certainly

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Speaker 1: would would find myself with a sense of dismay that

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Speaker 1: we're just randomly shooting at boats because it's good optics,

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Speaker 1: and we don't have some level of intelligence that indeed

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Speaker 1: these are boats bringing drugs.

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Speaker 2: To the United States.

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Speaker 1: But while I've heard Senator Ran Paul speak about this

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Speaker 1: and others engage in a little bit of puffery, if

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Speaker 1: Congress wants to do something about this, their job is

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Speaker 1: to say, whoa, whoa whoa. Eleven warships, fifteen thousand troops.

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Speaker 1: You're engaging in an active war on Venezuela. That's our department.

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Speaker 1: You have to come to usn't ask us to declare war.

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Speaker 2: And we demand that you do. So I haven't seen

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Speaker 2: that from Congress. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, we have a very sup pine Congress right now,

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Speaker 3: but we won't have one forever. This administration has been

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Speaker 3: rather contemptuous toward Congress. Members of Congress will freely say

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Speaker 3: as much, including the president's allies. But as special election

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Speaker 3: results this year suggest, Republicans are staring down the prospect

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Speaker 3: of losing one or both chambers in twenty twenty six,

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Speaker 3: and the president should rather that this information that he's

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Speaker 3: safeguarding now with relation to the targets that he's striking,

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Speaker 3: or the rationale for those campaign in the first place,

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Speaker 3: You should hope that information comes out on his terms

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Speaker 3: and not the Democratic parties because it will come out.

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Speaker 1: Talking to Noah Rothman of National Review, I move it

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Speaker 1: over to this conversation.

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Speaker 3: Before we depart from Venezuela. Can we talk a little

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Speaker 3: bit about the strategy that I think the administration is pursuing.

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Speaker 1: Oh gosh, yeah, go right ahead. I thought you were

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Speaker 1: coming to a club that I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, my problem with the drug

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Speaker 3: boat strikes is that they're illegal point planning. So well, yeah,

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Speaker 3: because we define in American Statute a very big distinction

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Speaker 3: between terrorism and narcotics trafficking. Making a portmanteau of those

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Speaker 3: words narco terrorism does not magically convey legal legitimacy to

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Speaker 3: this campaign.

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Speaker 2: Congress has to authorize it.

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Speaker 3: There's no reading of the two thousand and one Post

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Speaker 3: nine to eleven Authorization for the Use of Military Force

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Speaker 3: against Terrorist operatives linked to Al Qaeda that gets you

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Speaker 3: to Latin America. There's no good faith reading of the

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Speaker 3: statute there. And we should want to enforce the law

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Speaker 3: qua law by virtue of the rule of law in

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Speaker 3: this country because it benefits the party out of power

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Speaker 3: as much as the party in power Democrats. Oh, every

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Speaker 3: administration builds in the precedents that they're bequeathed, and I

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Speaker 3: don't think we would want to see Democrats engage in

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Speaker 3: this kind of a very cagey foreign policy that completely

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Speaker 3: cuts out the lawmaking institution in this country utterly.

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Speaker 2: El Paique and I listen.

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Speaker 1: If the argument is is that the House and the

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Speaker 1: Senate are going to do whatever it is Trump wants,

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Speaker 1: so they're not going to push back against it because

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Speaker 1: the relationship is contentious, Well, it's already in contention. It's

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Speaker 1: already an issue. Let's just go continue making it an issue.

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Speaker 1: I find it sometimes strange to think that Congress won't

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Speaker 1: engage in the process that is solely theirs. And saw

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Speaker 1: the Senate say to President Trump when he got into

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Speaker 1: office for the second term, We're going to confirm everybody

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Speaker 1: the way we see fit, confirming them, not the way

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Speaker 1: you do. Because Senate confirmation is part of a senator's job,

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Speaker 1: and you're not taking my job from me. It would

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Speaker 1: seem weird that they would not be willing to do

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Speaker 1: their job here, considering a declaration of war is the

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Speaker 1: top job.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't want to do their job on a

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Speaker 3: range of fronts, to say nothing of this one. But

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Speaker 3: it's in the president's interest, not much less Congresses. President's

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Speaker 3: interest to get a buy in from Congress and make

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Speaker 3: them stakeholders of what could be coming. If this deadline

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Speaker 3: passes and the president authorizes strikes on regime targets, we

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Speaker 3: don't know the scale of that operation could be quite broad,

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Speaker 3: and things go wrong in a kinetic operation, nothing goes

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Speaker 3: according to plan upon first contact with the enemy, and

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Speaker 3: the enemy gets a vote, so you will have a

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Speaker 3: chaotic operation. But what is the president's strategic goal here?

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Speaker 3: It's very hard to tell. A lot of people are

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Speaker 3: freelancing rationales. The one that I think is most compelling

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Speaker 3: to me is one that I actually am very favorable towards.

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Speaker 3: Because the Maduro regime and the Chavez regime that succeeded

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Speaker 3: are absolute menaces anti American forces in the region that

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Speaker 3: are produce endless headaches for us and jeopardize our national securities.

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Speaker 3: So the goal to get is a regime change operation,

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Speaker 3: and the regime change would produce a more stable social

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Speaker 3: covenant in Venezuela's which would not be forcing out refugees

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Speaker 3: into the triangle in Latin America and ultimately to the

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Speaker 3: United States. It would also eject an anti American regime

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Speaker 3: from the region, which would help starve Cuba draws a

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Speaker 3: lot of money from Venezuela, and Venezuela oil sales helped

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Speaker 3: starve the Cuban regime, which is another thorn on our side.

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Speaker 3: Deprive the Chinese and the Russians of a foothold in

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Speaker 3: the region, and make the world safe for democracy. Now,

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Speaker 3: that's the sort of thing I can get behind. But

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Speaker 3: the administration, which has argued it's this presidency from the outset,

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Speaker 3: starting in twenty fifteen, has argued fundamentally that regime change

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Speaker 3: operations designed to secure more stable social covenants elsewhere in

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Speaker 3: the world are stupid wastes of time and nation building

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Speaker 3: doesn't work. So how are they going to articulate that

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Speaker 3: rationale for this campaign, even if it is the one

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Speaker 3: that prevails in this administration, when it so contradicts the

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Speaker 3: political narrative that the Trump administration has established for itself.

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Speaker 1: And so we're clear, Nicholas Maduro did steal the election.

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Speaker 1: He stole it twice. The world would be better off

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Speaker 1: without him, and yes, us having a better relationship and

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Speaker 1: a real relationship with a friendly Venezuela. Would I would

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Speaker 1: do wonders in keeping China and Russia bay talking to

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Speaker 1: Noah Rothman of National Review National Review dot Com, I

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Speaker 1: now move it over to take a time because I can.

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Speaker 1: I'll dig deeper gladly at another time. I move over

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Speaker 1: to this conversation about Somalia, this welfare scandal, the billion

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Speaker 1: plus stolen from the people Minnesota, from the American people

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Speaker 1: based on these COVID schemes and saying, oh, we're a

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Speaker 1: group called Feeding the Future, saying we're feeding eighteen thousand

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Speaker 1: children a day. They're not feeding anybody. This has led

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Speaker 1: to President Trump saying We're going to take get rid

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Speaker 1: of the temporary protected status for these Somalis and they

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Speaker 1: have to go. Your arguments, if I understand you correctly,

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Speaker 1: is that the going after the people who engaged in

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Speaker 1: the fraud proper the idea of the broad brush a

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Speaker 1: serious issue.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah. So there are two ways to evaluate this story.

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Speaker 3: The first is that there has been a welcome discovery

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Speaker 3: on the part of the national press of something that

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Speaker 3: people in conservatives in Minnesota have been complaining about four decades.

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Speaker 2: AIDS.

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Speaker 3: A lot of this work is built on Scott Johnson's work,

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Speaker 3: who's been writing for conservative outlids for twenty years about

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Speaker 3: the scams that were being executed here, and they only

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Speaker 3: just ramped up after COVID. For the last five years

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Speaker 3: only about two of which two and a half of

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Speaker 3: most could be described as pandemic years, over a billion

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Speaker 3: dollars of taxpayer funds were absorbed by these false charities.

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Speaker 3: Not just food either, like the notion that they were

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Speaker 3: providing meals that they weren't, but autism support, which has

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Speaker 3: been abused by many more people than Smali immigrants and

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Speaker 3: is arguably responsible for the explosion of non severe autism

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Speaker 3: cases read by the way eg debatable spectrum cases, which

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Speaker 3: account for the entirety of the increased diagnosis in autism.

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Speaker 3: So we're creating financial incentives in order to distort our

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Speaker 3: picture of the medical outlook in this country. This has

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Speaker 3: been a problem for a very long time, and it's

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Speaker 3: valuable that we've seen Democrats and press outlets jump on

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Speaker 3: this thing that they no longer have to run block.

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Speaker 3: For people like Tim Waltz or Joe Biden to expose

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Speaker 3: this sort of thing would be politically inconvenient now that

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Speaker 3: they're gone those obstacles have fallen away. I am discomfited, however,

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Speaker 3: by a lot of the Republican talk, including the President

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Speaker 3: who repeatedly yesterday called these people garbage.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not even just making up the quotes.

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Speaker 3: The quotes are really quite repulsive, talking about the whole

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Speaker 3: breadth of Somali society as individuals who are garbage, people

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Speaker 3: who are culturally disinclined to acclimate into the American experiment.

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Speaker 3: I think that's fundamentally false. I think the notion that

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Speaker 3: this country can absorb and assimilate anybody from any part

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Speaker 3: of the world as long as they buy into the

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Speaker 3: American creed is fundamental and also observable across the swath

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Speaker 3: of two hundred and fifty years of American history. The

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Speaker 3: notion that a certain type of people who maybe have

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Speaker 3: a different religion and are criminally inclined or should not

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Speaker 3: be incorporated into the American ethos. And it's the same

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Speaker 3: thing that people said about the Italians in nineteen twenty four, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: nineteen twenty four. The Minnesota Scandinavian model, as they say it,

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Speaker 3: is a system that just simply cannot work with open borders.

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Speaker 3: The Scandinavian model doesn't work with open borders, and a

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Speaker 3: lot of Scandinavian countries, with Sweden being the exception, I think.

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Speaker 2: Observe that.

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Speaker 3: But the problem that I think is the foremost one

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Speaker 3: in Minnesota is that it is run by Democrats who

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Speaker 3: no longer believe in the assimilation engine in this country.

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Speaker 3: Assimilation works when you have environmental inducements. When you can't

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Speaker 3: navigate society outside your ethnic enclave without learning English, without

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Speaker 3: understanding some cultural precepts, shared cultural precepts, Multiculturalism goes to

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Speaker 3: war with that notion, and that has been the abiding

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Speaker 3: philosophy of the Democratic left for the last thirty years

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Speaker 3: in this country. Multiculturalism assumes there's nothing worth assimilating into.

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Speaker 3: I think a lot of people would agree with that

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Speaker 3: on the left, that America doesn't have a culture that's

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Speaker 3: worth assimilating.

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Speaker 2: Taught right, certainly what they've taught.

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Speaker 3: So you have a system of very very robust benefits,

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Speaker 3: low social trust, and the removal of all inducements to assimilate.

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Speaker 3: That's how you get the left bank of Asan in Paris,

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Speaker 3: with these ghettos where that are just no gozones, airs

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Speaker 3: of menace. If you happen to wander into them. That's

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Speaker 3: how you get the condition that we're in now. So

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Speaker 3: I think the rights reaction to say, well, these people

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Speaker 3: are just disinclined to integrate with the United States, I

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Speaker 3: think that's false. I think it's first of all, this

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Speaker 3: generalization that's never supported, and we should not be extending

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Speaker 3: the guilt for discreete crimes of individuals who are named

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Speaker 3: in charging documents to their whole ethnic.

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Speaker 2: Caste or tribe.

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Speaker 3: That is bigoted, fundamentally bigoted, and I think it's just false.

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Speaker 3: I think the problem here is that the left in

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Speaker 3: the cities that they own are no longer assimilating these immigrants.

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Speaker 3: And the way to stop that is to say these

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Speaker 3: cities are failing their citizens, and to say it early

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Speaker 3: and often from the bully pulpit of the presidency, and

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Speaker 3: to make these people feel shame and explain themselves. That's

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Speaker 3: how policy and this country works. That's how you make

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Speaker 3: an issue, and how you make a wedge issue that

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Speaker 3: favors you. You don't simply say well, I'm going to

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Speaker 3: solve this problem. Only I can fix and with a

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Speaker 3: pen swipe invalidate a whole population which only gives Democrats

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Speaker 3: more opportunities to say, well, look, they're just.

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Speaker 2: As racist as we always said they were. It seems

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Speaker 2: like bad politics to.

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Speaker 1: Me, and I would only argue in response, and I

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Speaker 1: don't have the time to dig into it now.

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Speaker 2: We will do this again.

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Speaker 1: That your take is not wrong except if we have

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Speaker 1: in America a culture that states that one does not

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Speaker 1: have to assimilate. It doesn't take away from the fact

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Speaker 1: that there might, indeed be yes, cultures societies that are

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Speaker 1: simply incompatible with.

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Speaker 2: How we view the world and how we view ourselves.

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Speaker 1: And that's a conversation I would like to take up

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Speaker 1: at another time. Noah Rothman, I appreciate you being with

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Speaker 1: us more to get to I'm Tony Katz.