‘That’s a Preposterous Question!’ CNN Panel Clashes Over Trump’s Strikes On Alleged Drug Boats
A CNN panel launched into a heated back-and-forth over the legality of President Donald Trump’s strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats.
On CNN’s NewsNight, anchor Abby Phillip brought the controversy of Trump’s strikes to the table. The U.S. military announced just on Tuesday it would lay waste to multiple new boats in the Pacific Ocean it accused of drug smuggling.
The bombings have received some bipartisan backlash, mainly from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), calling them “extrajudicial killings” with no oversight or due process.
“When the government just says, we can kill whoever we want because we’re telling you that they’re bad guys, isn’t that a bad precedent to set?” Phillip asked Republican Betsy McCaughey, who defended Trump’s strikes.
“That’s a preposterous question!” McCaughey said, insisting that proof of the drug smuggling will be revealed in due time.
McCaughey argued that those being targeted are “foreign combatants” and not entitled to due process, while Phillip and others called for proof.
Phillip eventually asked if she even knew the kind of “drugs” on board, considering the lack of information on the strikes.
“What drugs are we even talking about?” she asked after CNN commentator Bakari Sellers pressed the panelists in support, including New York Post columnist Lydia Moynihan, on the same point.
“I’d like the government to supply that information, but to suggest that Trump is becoming an authoritarian military dictator over this is preposterous,” McCaughey said.
Check out the exchange below:
ABBY PHILLIP: When the government just says, we can kill whoever we want because we’re telling you that they’re bad guys, isn’t that a bad precedent to set?
BETSY MCCAUGHEY: That’s a preposterous question!
PHILLIP: Not just for you, not just for those people, because I don’t know who those people are.
MCCAUGHEY: These are foreign combatants.
PHILLIP: But what if the government said that and it was not the government you supported?
LYDIA MOYNIHAN: There’s no transparency with the Biden administration. Trump is at least letting us know what’s happening and they have promised more information.
PHILLIP: But, Lydia, last time I looked we didn’t have this scenario in the Biden administration. I mean, I think everybody would be raking them over the coals if they were striking boats on a daily basis without providing a shred of evidence of who they were striking. What kind of drugs were they carrying? Where were they going? I mean these are really important questions, don’t you think?
BAKARI SELLERS: I’m curious because I’ve always wanted to know how people who are diametrically opposed to me on issues think, so do you want to know if they had drugs? Do you want to know where they were going or coming from do you? Do you ant to know who they were do you wanna know who there that see do you care about?
PHILLIP: Betsy, do you want to know?
MCCAUGHEY: Information is going to be provided. In the meantime, Rand Paul has gone to Congress and he’s expecting to get, and I think he will get, a bipartisan resolution asking Congress to give permission to Trump to conduct this kind of activity. That’s a good step. But nevertheless, Trump realizes, I believe, that his duty is to keep these drugs out of the United States.
PHILLIP: But what drugs are we even talking about… You said that the drugs that are killing all those hundreds of thousands of Americans, well, that drug is fentanyl. So the reason I’m asking you, do you even know what drugs we’re talking?
MCCAUGHEY: I’d like the government to supply that information, but to suggest that Trump is becoming an authoritarian military dictator over this is preposterous.
Watch above via CNN.
