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Speaker 1: Good morning from South Dakota. I closed my eyes from

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Speaker 1: oh anywhere for my half over forty five minutes during

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Speaker 1: your show, and I'm only seventy.

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Speaker 2: Everyone have it's a great day. Yeah? Uh? Is it

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Speaker 2: cold in a well digger's ass and the Dakota's right now.

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Speaker 2: He could have given us a weather report. He didn't

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Speaker 2: do that, so you know, obviously he's failing down. And

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Speaker 2: how about that new rules of engagement from God? I

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Speaker 2: know gold is pretty good. Yeah, you know, Jewish Grandma

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Speaker 2: is pretty damn good. I loved it. We have an

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Speaker 2: email from the Boss that says I'm supposed to do

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Speaker 2: a promo, and I would normally kind of ignore it

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Speaker 2: except it's from the Boss, which is kind of a

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Speaker 2: minor point. But the real reason I'm going to go

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Speaker 2: ahead and do the promo is because it mentions Tequila

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Speaker 2: so and the fact that he was just standing behind

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Speaker 2: your back. Oh oh was he just staring at me? Okay, well,

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Speaker 2: in that case, maybe I'll do it. Let's see promo

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Speaker 2: voice here. Two PM Sunday, watched Broncos Raiders with Benjamin

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Speaker 2: Albright and Nick Ferguson at burn Down, Denver. Yeah, let's

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Speaker 2: do let's burn Down denverh I didn't know that. Is

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Speaker 2: that a thing?

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Speaker 1: Now?

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Speaker 2: Burn Down Denver it's a sports bar, okay. Two pm

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Speaker 2: Sunday he watched Broncos Raiders with Benjamin Albright and Nick

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Speaker 2: Ferguson at Burned Down Denver off Broadway. As opposed to

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Speaker 2: like on Broadway? Is it like a Broadway thing we're

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Speaker 2: doing or an off Broadway thing off Broadway? So it's

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Speaker 2: an off Broadway event. See, I can have so much fun,

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Speaker 2: you know, when they asked me to do stuff like this,

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Speaker 2: I can have so much fun with the promo' stop

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Speaker 2: getting asked. Okay, let's try it again. Two pm Sunday

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Speaker 2: watched Broncos Raiders with Benjamin Albright and Nick Ferguson at

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Speaker 2: burn Down Denver off Broadway. Entered wind Broncos Packers ticket.

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Speaker 2: It's all presented by Art the Tequila, the official tequila

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Speaker 2: of the Denver Broncos. Now we're docing, now, we're docing now. Now,

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Speaker 2: no I remind now I will say anything about that

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Speaker 2: particular brand of tequila. They're sponsoring it, so it must

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Speaker 2: be good. It must be good, right The New York Times.

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Speaker 2: Here's what I really wanted to do. New York Times

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Speaker 2: posted a story today this morning. I read it. Very

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Speaker 2: first thing headline is hegsas that would be the Secretary

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Speaker 2: of War ordered a lethal attack, but not the killings

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Speaker 2: of survivors, official say the subhead amid talk of war crimes,

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Speaker 2: The details and precise sequence of a September two attack

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Speaker 2: on a boat in the Caribbean are facing intensifying scrutiny.

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Speaker 2: Let me just read to you the first paragraph. The

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Speaker 2: Trump administration on Monday defended the legality of a September

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Speaker 2: two attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, as

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Speaker 2: calls grew in Congress to examine whether a follow up

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Speaker 2: missile strike that killed survivors amounted to a crime. Now

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Speaker 2: you know that based on the reporting over the weekend

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Speaker 2: about the story, including all the cable outlets, including Fox News,

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Speaker 2: all indicated, based on their facts, reporting of the facts,

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Speaker 2: that I believed it could rise to the level of

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Speaker 2: a war crime, and I gave you the statutes and everything. Now,

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Speaker 2: based on those facts as earlier presented, I would still

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Speaker 2: make the argument that it rises to the level of

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Speaker 2: a war crime. But as you know, in any case

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Speaker 2: civil or criminal, the facts are what you apply to

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Speaker 2: the law, and as the facts change, or as a

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Speaker 2: fact is presented, say by one side is presented is

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Speaker 2: countered by a so called fact by the other side,

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Speaker 2: then the jury has to decide whether or not the

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Speaker 2: facts meet the elements of the crime or whatever the

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Speaker 2: issue is in a civil court. The article that you

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Speaker 2: can find them on the New York Times website. It

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Speaker 2: may be behind the paywall. I'm not sure. I unfortunately

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Speaker 2: subscribe to The New York Times so that you don't

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Speaker 2: have to. But the article frames the September second strike

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Speaker 2: and the follow on strike in a way that tends

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Speaker 2: to maximize suspicion of criminality around Pete Hagsenth and Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: while giving comparatively little weight to competing legal views. It

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Speaker 2: almost ignores completely operational realities or of course, the broader

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Speaker 2: policy context. So I want to go through a point

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Speaker 2: by point critical review of how it handles facts, sourcing, framing,

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Speaker 2: and law. This is a great lesson in how to

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Speaker 2: read stories from places like The Old Great Lady the

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Speaker 2: New York Times. Let's think about the framing in the headline. Now,

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Speaker 2: the headline that I read you emphasizes that Hages's quote

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Speaker 2: ordered a lethal attack, but not the killing of survivors.

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Speaker 2: Now that implies exoneration on the narrow question of a

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Speaker 2: second strike order, while still tightly associating Hagsa with the

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Speaker 2: most controversial allegation, so that framing both walks back the

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Speaker 2: earlier implications that he directly ordered the killing of survivors.

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Speaker 2: Yet they try to preserve the narrative of suspicion. But

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Speaker 2: the article does not candidly acknowledge how much this undercuts

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Speaker 2: the original Washington Post account that it is in implicitly recorrecting.

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Speaker 2: In other words, this New York Times story tries to

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Speaker 2: correct the inaccurate reporting from the Washington Post, but to

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Speaker 2: lead adopts language liked quote legally contentious campaign or quote

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Speaker 2: treating them as if they were combatants in a conflict,

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Speaker 2: which presupposes the illegitimacy of the administration's arm conflict theory,

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Speaker 2: without at least at that point, explaining that they were

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Speaker 2: divided expert views on whether that kind of characterization is

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Speaker 2: even possible under current law. That's the first problem with this.

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Speaker 2: The second problem with the New York Times article is

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Speaker 2: the use of anonymous officials. The core factual pivot that

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Speaker 2: Heggsath ordered a legal strike on the boat and its occupants,

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Speaker 2: but did not issue a specific quote kill the survivor

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Speaker 2: instruction rests on five anonymous officials. There is no granularity

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Speaker 2: at all in the story about who are these five

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Speaker 2: individuals wrote, what roles did they hold there? How is

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Speaker 2: their access different among the five individuals. So, given that

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Speaker 2: those sources materially contradict, refine, or clarify the Washington Posts

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Speaker 2: earlier very explosive reporting, this article does not squarely address

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Speaker 2: why readers should treat these new anonymous sources as more

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Speaker 2: reliable than the previous anonymous sources. So the story leans

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Speaker 2: heavily on characterizations like according to officials or you know

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Speaker 2: for all the key inferences such as whether HEGSA saw

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Speaker 2: surveillance footage showing survivors or what he so supposedly air

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Speaker 2: quote here meant by his orders, but the article does

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Speaker 2: not distinguish distinguish between what is documented and what is

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Speaker 2: retrospective interpretation or what I might even say is bureaucratic

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Speaker 2: damage control. And then there's a selective treatment of the

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Speaker 2: factual record.

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Speaker 3: Michael, how did the news and media and everybody find

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Speaker 3: out that there was a second air sight on that

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Speaker 3: drug boat.

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Speaker 2: No idea, probably a leak. Yeah, it to the media

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Speaker 2: right there. Well, we have five anonymous sources, so you

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Speaker 2: know that somebody within the bowels of the bureaucracy called

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Speaker 2: somebody at the New York Times this. You know, let

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Speaker 2: me let me divert for just a moment, because you

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Speaker 2: raise a question that many many people may wonder about

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Speaker 2: but never really thought deeply about. And in every cabinet,

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Speaker 2: department and agency, with maybe a few exceptions here or there,

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Speaker 2: a reporter is assigned to that department or agency, particularly

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Speaker 2: the larger ones, Homeland Security, deal, the State Treasury. Somebody

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Speaker 2: is there, just like they're at the White House, twenty

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Speaker 2: four hours a day, seven days a week, and that's

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Speaker 2: what they cover. And over time they develop relationships. Now

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Speaker 2: they try to develop relationships as high up in the

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Speaker 2: hierarchy as they can, but if they're really smart reporters,

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Speaker 2: they develop relationships with the worker bees, the bureaucrats, the

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Speaker 2: civil servants, because those people like to talk and they

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Speaker 2: like to know that when they read about an anonymous

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Speaker 2: source in the Washington Boast, that that was them that

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Speaker 2: talked to that reporter, and then they can tell all

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Speaker 2: of their friends, so they want to remain anonymous, and

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Speaker 2: they don't have the tahonies to you know, put their

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Speaker 2: name out there. But then when they go to dinner

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Speaker 2: that night, they'll tell all of their friends about it.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was me. I talked to them about it.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they're just that stupid. That's just how stupid

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Speaker 2: they are. And then there are people that know where

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Speaker 2: the press office is or they know somebody that in

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Speaker 2: the press, and they'll just reach out to them. It's

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Speaker 2: why I always told my staff there are times when

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Speaker 2: we have to break the rules, or there are times

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Speaker 2: when we have to do X y Z, or there

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Speaker 2: are times when you might make a mistake honest or otherwise.

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Speaker 2: But all I ask of my staff is that you

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Speaker 2: tell me so that when it gets, you know, published

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Speaker 2: in the Washington Post, I don't get blindsided by it.

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Speaker 2: I want to know about it ahead of time. And

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Speaker 2: quite frankly, I want to know about ahead of time

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Speaker 2: because there might be somebody in the White House and

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Speaker 2: I want to make sure, hey, listen, the Post is

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Speaker 2: running a story tomorrow about X y Z and I'm

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Speaker 2: already on top of it, or if I know the reporter,

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Speaker 2: like there were certain Wall Street Journal Washington Post reporters,

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Speaker 2: AP reporters and others that I knew personally, and I

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Speaker 2: would call and say, hey, listen, I understand that one

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Speaker 2: of your colleagues is writing a story about blah blah

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Speaker 2: blah blah. Would you like somebody to go on the

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Speaker 2: record as opposed to the anonymous sources? Would you like

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Speaker 2: to hear our side of the story. Sometimes yes, sometimes no,

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Speaker 2: but at least I made the effort. But then I

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Speaker 2: want you to think about I don't know this. This

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Speaker 2: is from yesterday. I don't know where he was is well,

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Speaker 2: the source is Fort Smith, Arkansas, but I don't think

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Speaker 2: that's where he was. I think he was talking to

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Speaker 2: some I don't know who he was talking to. But

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Speaker 2: here's Barack Obama trying to explain to you the the

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Speaker 2: opposite and what I'm telling you about this story in

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Speaker 2: Today's New York Times lent out there that you would

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Speaker 2: consider the least bias, sort of the most street news,

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Speaker 2: you know, the typical Obama. Don't you miss him.

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Speaker 3: Here's the thing I actually think, I actually think that.

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Speaker 2: Man. There's a lot of stuttering here, trying to figure

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Speaker 2: out what do what do I think? What do I say?

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Speaker 2: What's my answer? What's my answer? What I was saying over.

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Speaker 3: Here's the thing I actually think.

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Speaker 2: I actually think that.

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Speaker 3: The mainstream news still does a very good job of

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Speaker 3: just presenting facts.

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Speaker 2: Come again, play that little last little part.

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Speaker 3: Still does a very good job of just presenting facts.

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Speaker 2: Okay, back there. Huh yeah, yeah, you've just been reading

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Speaker 2: all the wrong things.

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Speaker 3: News still does a very good job of just presenting facts.

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Speaker 2: I think. Really, then let's go next back, or let's

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Speaker 2: go back to the New York Times and see how

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Speaker 2: they play.

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Speaker 1: A game again from South Dakota where it's twenty four degrees,

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Speaker 1: no wind and cloudy. Looks like a nice day to

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Speaker 1: finish putting up by car lights. Everyone have a great day.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, your day's coming. Let's go back to the

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Speaker 2: New York Times article real quickly before I get to

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Speaker 2: the next point, because listen to the headline. Hegsath ordered

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Speaker 2: a lethal attack, but not the killing of survivors. Official say,

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Speaker 2: why is it worded that way? Wouldn't the natural way

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Speaker 2: of framing something be that? You know, officials say that

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Speaker 2: Hegesith did order a legal lethal attack, but he didn't

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Speaker 2: order the killing of of survivors. So you take that

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Speaker 2: and put it into a headline, and the headline would say,

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Speaker 2: officials say, Hegesith ordered a lethal attack, but not the

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Speaker 2: killing of survivors. Well, you put official say at the end,

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Speaker 2: because the brain naturally hears, oh, he ordered a lethal attack,

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Speaker 2: but not the killing of the survivors. So you've got

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Speaker 2: to make sure that you understand that it was a

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Speaker 2: lethal attack and oh the survivors were so there really

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Speaker 2: were no survivors. It's all the subliminal of trying to

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Speaker 2: get you to understand that, oh, they have an agenda.

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Speaker 2: Well they don't want you to understand it, but they

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Speaker 2: want you to understand what the narrative is that they're

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Speaker 2: trying to establish. And then they in the core of

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Speaker 2: the article they correctly note that and this really is

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Speaker 2: what I would call selective treatment of the factual record.

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Speaker 2: They're taking a factual record, but they're just nitpicking and

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Speaker 2: pulling out things that fit their narrative. Because the article

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Speaker 2: does note that the White House in the Pentagon say

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Speaker 2: that Admiral Frank Bradley, and not the Secretary of War,

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Speaker 2: ordered the second strike, and that the administration claims that

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Speaker 2: he the admiral, acted within his delegated authority, But that

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Speaker 2: underplays the tension between this version and the earlier public

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Speaker 2: statements touting a broad, aggressive you know, Heggsa's doctrine of

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Speaker 2: lethal kinetic strikes against these NARCO vessels, you know, statements

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Speaker 2: that really matter for understanding how subordinates might have reasonably

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Speaker 2: interpreted Pete Heggs's intent. Then all of the related reporting

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Speaker 2: makes clear that there have been you know, twenty one

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Speaker 2: such operations eighty plus fatalities across both the Caribbean and

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Speaker 2: the Pacific in the past two months, which obviously speaks

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Speaker 2: to a sustained campaign that this is not an isolated aberration.

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Speaker 2: The article mentions the number of strikes and deaths, but

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Speaker 2: does not delve into the patterns. What's the targeting criteria

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Speaker 2: or any internal reviews that either would strengthen a war

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Speaker 2: crimes narrative or weaken it or complicate a war crimes narrative. So,

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Speaker 2: as a result, The York Times is simply terry picking

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Speaker 2: the most inflammatory operation while leaving the rest of the

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Speaker 2: record not examined. That's establishing a narrative by omission. Then

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Speaker 2: how do they handle the Washington Post allegation? Because all

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Speaker 2: of this kerfuffle started with a story in the Washington Post.

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Speaker 2: I think one of the most striking omissions is the

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Speaker 2: lack of any real media accountability analysis about the Washington

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Speaker 2: Post prior claim that Hegesath gave a verbal no survivor's

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Speaker 2: order and that's what prompted the second strike. The article

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Speaker 2: that was published this morning notes that this earlier report

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Speaker 2: triggered the uproar, but then goes on to treat the

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Speaker 2: discrepancy between quote Hegsath ordered execution of survivors and quote

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Speaker 2: Hegesath did not specify what to do if the first

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Speaker 2: left survivors. That's a matter of nuance, and as a

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Speaker 2: matter of nuance, rather than a potentially what I believe

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Speaker 2: to be a serious journalistic failure, because by adopting a

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Speaker 2: clarification of events postures that Times does, they are effectively

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Speaker 2: cleaning up the narrative without interrogating how such a major

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Speaker 2: allegation tenn themount to accusing a sitting Secretary of Defense

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Speaker 2: of ordering a war crime. How did that make it

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Speaker 2: into prayless such say, shaky ground to begin with. So

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Speaker 2: that choice, that very definite, assertive choice by The New

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Speaker 2: York Times, that's blurring the line between reporting a new

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Speaker 2: fact pattern and reinforcing a storyline that originated in what

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Speaker 2: is probably a flawed coverage by a rival news organization.

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Speaker 2: This is not to beat this dead horse, but this

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Speaker 2: is why I refer to it as a cabal. They

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Speaker 2: don't really want to point out that the Washington Post

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Speaker 2: probably was inaccurate. What they want to do is now

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Speaker 2: lay claim to their own narrative and force the focus

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Speaker 2: back onto them as opposed to the Washington Post. That's

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Speaker 2: why it's truly a cabal. It's the unholy alliance. For

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Speaker 2: those of you knew to the program. The cabal is

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Speaker 2: that unholy alliance between the dominant media, the ruling elite,

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Speaker 2: and the tech giants. Because and when I say to

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Speaker 2: the tech giants, I'm talking about not just Facebook and

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Speaker 2: Instagram or Acts or Instagram. I'm talking about all the

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Speaker 2: different platforms under which all these stories will now be spread.

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Speaker 2: Because it goes to reinforce the drive by consumer of

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Speaker 2: news that well, there's some nuance here. The narrative remains

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Speaker 2: the same even among rivals competing for subscribers, advertising space, everything.

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Speaker 2: And then they go into the New York Times. Does

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Speaker 2: they then go into a legal analysis that in my

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Speaker 2: opinion is really more advocacy than just explanation. When I

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Speaker 2: talked about the possibility of a war crime on Monday,

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Speaker 2: I described the facts as they were reported, and then

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Speaker 2: applied the War Crimes Act and the Geneva and Hay

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Speaker 2: Conventions to those facts as they were reported. I think

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Speaker 2: that's and I'm not a journalist, but I think that's

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Speaker 2: my obligation as a lawyer and talk show host to

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Speaker 2: tell you that, oh, here's this story, and if this

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Speaker 2: story is true, that is tenemount and could possibly be

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Speaker 2: a war crime. And I pointed out, yeah, some legal

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Speaker 2: experts degree some legal experts disagree, but that's not what

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Speaker 2: they're doing here. They emphasize that intentionally killing shipwrecked survivors

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Speaker 2: would be a war crime. They do quote experts who

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Speaker 2: say that such an order would be unequivocally criminal, and

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Speaker 2: who also question whether there is any valid arm conflict

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Speaker 2: going on at all. That is a legitimate and important perspective.

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Speaker 2: But what's my rule about the butt The article mostly

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Speaker 2: sidelines the Trump administration's legal rationale, namely that the president

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Speaker 2: has determined that we are in a armed conflict with

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Speaker 2: certain cartels and the suspected NARCO vessels can be treated

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Speaker 2: as military objectives, and they do that beyond anything that

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Speaker 2: would be a rational or you would look at it

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Speaker 2: and say, oh, you know, Obama tells us that the

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Speaker 2: mainstream it is just because at presenting facts. Well, here's

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Speaker 2: just the opposite of that. The story doesn't do that whatsoever.

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Speaker 2: The story mentions but does not, in any stretch of

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Speaker 2: the imagination, meaningfully unpack the Office of Legal Counsel's memo

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Speaker 2: that supports the administration's theory that drug shipments and crew

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Speaker 2: members indeed may be targeted, and without going into or

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Speaker 2: articulating the memos arguments, if you're a reader of the

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Speaker 2: story like I was this morning, then you're left with

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Speaker 2: a one sided impression. Critics get detailed quotes about why

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Speaker 2: this is illegal, while the government's case gets summarized in

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Speaker 2: maybe two sentences and then just summarily dismissed. It is

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Speaker 2: hard to be a discerning consumer of the news in

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Speaker 2: today's environment, and I know the easy thing to do

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Speaker 2: is to just find somebody that reflects your point of

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Speaker 2: view and then just stick with that. I refuse to

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Speaker 2: do so. If I'm going to come in here and

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Speaker 2: tell you what I really think that I have to

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Speaker 2: be honest with you about listen I do. I read

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Speaker 2: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times,

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Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal. I look at what MSNBC or

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Speaker 2: CNN is reporting, because without doing that, I can't tell

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Speaker 2: you or describe to you the nuance, or tell you

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Speaker 2: definitively or you know, equivocate a little bit and say, well,

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Speaker 2: based on this, this might be true. That's why I

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Speaker 2: try to give you the perspective. That's why I try

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Speaker 2: to give you the analysis so that you yourself can

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Speaker 2: then when you hear about the story of the news,

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Speaker 2: when you go home tonight and it's cold and you

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Speaker 2: got some you know, hot chocolate with the maybe a

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Speaker 2: little bourbon in it, and you're sitting there, you know,

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Speaker 2: watching the TV and the ABC World News Tonight comes

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Speaker 2: on and David Muir says, x y Z. You can

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Speaker 2: say to yourself or think to yourself, hmmm, based on

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Speaker 2: what Michael Brown told me this morning, I wonder what

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Speaker 2: he's not telling me, or I wonder why he used

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Speaker 2: that word. It's both omission and commission. The article circles

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Speaker 2: the kind of who gave the order question, but they

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Speaker 2: don't apply the law of command responsibility, or for that matter,

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Speaker 2: of the military's own doctrine on manifestly unlawful orders. For instance,

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Speaker 2: outside coverage, if you look outside the New York if

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Speaker 2: you don't look outside the pages of this story, there's

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Speaker 2: outside coverage that discusses Judge Effagate General. Those are the

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Speaker 2: lawyers in the military, all these different groups, calling any

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Speaker 2: quote no survivor's order clearly illegal and stressing the service

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Speaker 2: members must refuse such orders. But the Times piece does

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Speaker 2: not fully explore whether Admiral Bradley's second strike, even within

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Speaker 2: his delegated authority, would still be lawful or unlawful if

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Speaker 2: it knowingly targeted non threatening survivors did. Why would they

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Speaker 2: omit that, Why would they omit where the buck stops

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Speaker 2: or the command's responsibility within the military. Because they don't

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Speaker 2: want you to be thinking for yourself. They don't want

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Speaker 2: you to be able to compare and contrast what may

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Speaker 2: or may not be true or you know, because right now,

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Speaker 2: if I haven't looked, I don't have it in front

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Speaker 2: of me right now. But this morning, before I came

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Speaker 2: on there, I refreshed the Drudge Report, and one of

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Speaker 2: the it's not a headline it's it's what Drudge puts

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Speaker 2: as the headline to try to get you to lick

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Speaker 2: to click on to go read the story. But the

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Speaker 2: click the clickbait on the Drudge report was Pete hesitth

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Speaker 2: throws Admiral Bradley. Admiral Bradley under the bus. Hmm, did

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Speaker 2: he or didn't he? Because I'll take you to the

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Speaker 2: New York Times of The New York Times doesn't address

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Speaker 2: that issue about command responsibility and the military's own doctrine

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Speaker 2: on what are manifestly clearly unlawful orders. And in likewise,

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Speaker 2: the article reports that Trump's attempts to try to distance

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Speaker 2: himself from the second strike, saying that he quote would

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Speaker 2: not have wanted that. But they don't scrutinize how credible

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Speaker 2: or legally relevant that statement is, given that he approved

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Speaker 2: the overall campaign and has been publicly lotting its aggressiveness.

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Speaker 2: So now you've got some soft glove treatment of presidential

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Speaker 2: responsibility that contrasts with the harder edge they somehow gets

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Speaker 2: applied to Pete Heggs, which then makes me think that, oh,

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Speaker 2: what this really is is a hit piece directed at

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Speaker 2: the Secretary of War Pete Haiggs. So when you have

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Speaker 2: Trump's derangement syndrome. In this case, The New York Times

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Speaker 2: is willing to inoculate themselves with their against their hatred

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Speaker 2: of Trump, because their hatred of Pete Hegesath is simply

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Speaker 2: a way He's the target. He's the target here, not

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump, because I sincerely believe in the editorial rooms

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Speaker 2: of the New York Times, Washington Post, all the rest

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Speaker 2: of them, they probably agree and understand that intatively, the

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Speaker 2: president has the authority in the in terms of national

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Speaker 2: security interests, to protect the country, and that these narco

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Speaker 2: terrorists fall under that regime of authority. But if we

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Speaker 2: can go after somebody else, and in this case we

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Speaker 2: can go after oh, we can go after Pete Hagsath,

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Speaker 2: then yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll go after Pete Hegesath.

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Speaker 2: You get how it really is difficult to be a

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Speaker 2: discerning consumer the news. But then let's step back from them.

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Speaker 2: Let's think about just the tone in the insinuation the

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Speaker 2: article as a whole, the narrative arc. Every story and

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Speaker 2: every narrative has an arc. Well, this one leans heavily

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Speaker 2: on really ominous language, and we joke about you know,

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Speaker 2: danger weather. Oh, it's snowing out. My god, is the snowmageddon.

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00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 2: It's horrible out there. All the same thing's true here,

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00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 2: like things like political and legal turmoil, or a contentious campaign,

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Speaker 2: or treating as combatants. So what does that do? That

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00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 2: pushes a reader who's just mindlessly reading the story toward

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Speaker 2: a conclusion of wrongdoing, even as the article admits key

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Speaker 2: facts are still being contested, key facts are still in doubt,

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00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 2: key facts are not really fact shit, And that's especially

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Speaker 2: visible when when it states it actually states this in

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Speaker 2: the article, the notion that the Secretary of Defense or

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Speaker 2: Admiral Bradley might have indeed targeted survivors because they write

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Speaker 2: quote has generated significant concern as such actions could be

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Speaker 2: classified as war crimes. What does that do? That very

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Speaker 2: subtly conflates the worst case possibilities with a still uncertain

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Speaker 2: factual record. So when Barack Obama tells me that, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 2: the mainstream media they're really good about just reporting the facts,

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Speaker 2: I want to take this article and smash it in

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Speaker 2: his face because it does just the opposite. At the

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Speaker 2: same time, this story just glosses over evidence that could

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Speaker 2: cut against the war crime narrative because there are official

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Speaker 2: claims that the second strike was aimed at the vessel

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Speaker 2: and the cargo that could have been recovered by cartel,

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Speaker 2: other cartel linked votes, or alleged intercepted communications between the

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Speaker 2: survivors and other traffickers that may have been in the

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Speaker 2: area or willing to dispatch themselves from Havana or Caracus

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Speaker 2: or wherever and go rescue them and go rescue what

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Speaker 2: you know, drugs were not destroyed in the first missile attack.

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Speaker 2: Now those details objectively, they're mentioned, but then they get

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Speaker 2: overshadowed by all the dramatic speculation. So that is where

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Speaker 2: you produce an imbalance between exculpatory and incriminating information. Information

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Speaker 2: that would say, oh, this was lawful, an information that says, oh,

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Speaker 2: this is a war crime. It's all about context, policy, politics, precedent.

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Speaker 2: The article Situation situates the episode in Trump's broader lethal

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00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 2: force against drug traffickers campaign, but it doesn't It never

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Speaker 2: explores anywhere in it how similar maritime interdiction operations have

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Speaker 2: been treated historically or under other administrations, and without that

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00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 2: comparative framework, rules for disabling the go fast boats, dealing

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00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 2: with swimmers in the water, or prior to the base about

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00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 2: treating cartels as nonstate armed groups. If you're a reader

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00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 2: of this story, there's no way you can gauge whether

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00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 2: this campaign is some radical break from precedent or an

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00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 2: aggressive extension of existing in previous practices. And then, politically,

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00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 2: the piece notes by partisan calls for investigation, but never

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00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 2: does it dig into the incentives that some lawmakers and

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00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 2: rival agency might have to leak, or the posture in

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00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:55,959
Speaker 2: ways that damage Pete hesitth individually or the administration as

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00:30:55,960 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 2: a whole. So a critical review must observe that The

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00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 2: Times accepts much of this so called bipartisan concern bull

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00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 2: craft at face value, while delivering to their readers a

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00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 2: skeptical posture almost exclusively toward the administration's defenses, which again

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00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 2: tilts the playing field. This article raises serious and appropriate

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Speaker 2: questions about lethal operation and possible violations of armed conflict,

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Speaker 2: with anonymous sources, selective legal explanations, highly charged framing. This

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Speaker 2: is an advocacy piece, pure and simple