Megyn Kelly Complains Trump Isn’t Prolonging Deaths of Alleged Drug Traffickers: ‘I’d Really Like to See Them Suffer’

Megyn Kelly defended the Caribbean boat strikes ordered by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, not only calling the criticism “manufactured” but also complaining that the people on the boats were being killed too quickly and she would prefer to “see them suffer.”

The Trump administration has been facing increasing scrutiny for the strikes on boats they have said were carrying “narco-terrorists,” especially after recent reporting of a second strike being ordered on survivors after an initial strike has led to growing accusations that these strikes are war crimes or otherwise illegal.

Kelly discussed the controversy on the latest episode of The Megyn Kelly Show during an interview with Mark Halperin (relevant section begins around the 36 minute mark).

After mentioning that Hegseth had denied that he personally ordered the second strike so “that may get Hegseth off the hook,” Kelly said she thought it was “kind of annoying to even debate it.”

Our armed forces “should, umm, not commit war crimes,” Kelly continued, but also “I feel like I object to even the scrutiny of this, of this event, because it’s all manufactured,” arguing the criticism was “only being done to retroactively justify” the video by Democratic members of Congress who Hegseth was calling the “Seditious Six,” who had posted the video urging troops to “refuse illegal orders.”

The video from Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and others “was based on nothing,” Kelly argued, and they were “just now digging” in a “fishing expedition” to find something to accuse Hegseth of doing.

“That’s how it feels to me, so I’m really not that into it,” said Kelly. “Nor do I really care that we’re killing the drug boat guys trying to kill my kids and yours right now by bringing their fentanyl to the United States, to try to get our kids when they go to college with, you know, some drug in some moment of weakness where they think they’re taking a Xanax.”

Kelly continued, describing how she would like to see them suffer and die:

So I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they’re on the boat or in the water, but I’d really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little. Like I’m really having a difficult time ginning up sympathy for these guys who ten seconds earlier almost got taken out by the initial bomb, but because they managed to get ejected, you know, a little too soon, had to be taken out in the water. I realize legally it may make a difference, but truly, Mark, this is a tough case to really gin up the sympathies of the American people.

The alleged second strike on survivors was a textbook example of a war crime, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said on Monday:

In a word, they were illegal. It is a core principle of the rule of law and of the law of war that you cannot target and kill people who have been rendered incapacitated or defenseless. That conflicts with the Geneva Convention.

There was a group of Judge Advocate General, former military attorneys, who came out with this statement over the weekend saying that these acts would be patently illegal. Colonel Cedric Leighton just told you 15 minutes ago on air that it would be illegal.

And Wolf, if you look at the Department of Defense’s own manual on the law of war, it uses as an example of something that would be illegal this exact scenario. It says if you have survivors of a shipwreck, they cannot be targeted because they are incapacitated. So if somebody took this order or gave this order knowingly and with the intent to take out two survivors who had been rendered helpless in the water, then yes, it would absolutely be illegal.

Watch the video above via The Megyn Kelly Show on YouTube.

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