HEATHER 12-16

December 16, 2025 Heather Cox Richardson Dec 17 While President Donald J. Trump was gloating over the horrific murders of Hollywood legend Rob Reiner and his wife, photographer and producer Michele Singer Reiner, the U.S. military yesterday struck three small boats in the eastern Pacific, killing eight people. U.S. Southern Command announced the strikes on social media, saying they were conducted “at the direction of [Secretary of] War Pete Hegseth.” It claimed that intelligence had confirmed that the vessels were “engaged in narco-trafficking.” This brings the number of people killed in the U.S. strikes to at least 95. As Piper Hudspeth Blackburn of CNN reports, the administration maintains the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” against drug cartels. But legal experts dismiss this claim and say the U.S. has no legal basis for the deadly attacks on the small boats. Notably, as Bill Kristol of The Bulwark pointed out on December 11, the government has gotten legal justification for its actions when it can: before the U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela last week, the government apparently secured a warrant for the seizure from a federal judge because the Treasury Department had sanctioned the ship in 2022 for illegal activities related to smuggling Iranian oil. In the case of the strikes on the small boats, though, the administration has not provided evidence of its claims either to the public or to Congress, whose permission to continue the strikes is required by the 1973 War Powers Act if indeed the country is engaged in an armed conflict. Today, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed the House and the Senate on the strikes but continued to refuse to show the lawmakers an unedited version of the video of a strike of September 2 that killed two survivors of a previous strike, an event that legal analysts suggest is a war crime or murder. After he left the briefing, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said “that the administration had no legal justification for these strikes and had no national security justification for these strikes.” He noted that the officers admitted that the drugs going through Venezuela were not fentanyl, as the administration has suggested, but rather primarily cocaine headed for Europe. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D-NY) called the briefing “a joke.… There was not a single piece of intelligence that was shared that even rises to the level of any other briefing that we’ve seen on Ukraine, China, anything…. This was not a serious intelligence briefing; this was a communication of an opinion.” Hegseth later told reporters that members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees will be able to see the unedited video tomorrow, adding: “Of course, we’re not going to release a top-secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public.” Ashley Murray of News from the States quoted Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who said after the meeting: “The administration came to this briefing empty handed. If they can’t be transparent on this, how can you trust their transparency on all the other issues swirling about in the Caribbean? Every senator is entitled to see it.” Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said: “It is hard to square the widespread, routine, prompt posting of detailed videos of every strike, with a concern that posting a portion of the video of the first strike would violate a variety of classification concerns.” The Department of Justice today argued in court that Trump’s ballroom project must go forward for reasons of national security despite the lawsuit filed on Friday. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is suing to stop the project from going forward without legally required reviews and public input. Secret Service deputy director Matthew Quinn told the court that when Trump tore down the East Wing in October, he destroyed the security infrastructure under the building. Now, he said, “any pause in construction, even temporarily, would…hamper the Secret Service’s ability to meet its statutory obligations and protective mission.” But while Trump focuses on his architectural projects, the administration seems unable to meet other obligations. Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel is facing criticism for announcing on social media that the FBI had detained a person of interest in Saturday’s mass shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, that killed two and injured nine others. That individual was released hours later. This is not the first time Patel has rushed to make an announcement that later turned out to be incorrect. When asked why the FBI is having trouble locating the suspect, Trump tried to blame the university. “You’d really have to ask the school a little bit more about that because this was a school problem,” he said. “They had their own guards. They had their own police. They had their own everything, but you’d have to ask that question really to the school, not to the FBI. We came in after the fact, and the FBI will do a good job, but they came in after the fact.” An interview with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles published in Vanity Fair today reinforces the impression that the administration is chaotic. In eleven interviews with Wiles over the course of Trump’s second term so far, journalist Chris Whipple examined the administration’s handling of major issues: the destruction of USAID, deportations of immigrants, Trump’s tariff war, the deployment of National Guard troops in Democratic-dominated cities, Trump’s “revenge” against those he perceives as enemies, the destruction of Gaza, and the administration’s attack on small boats from Venezuela. Wiles told Whipple that Trump “has an alcoholic’s personality,” suggesting he cannot imagine limits on his behavior, and quoted him as judging people “by their genes”; that Vice President J.D. Vance converted from being a Never Trumper to a major MAGA booster for political reasons; that director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, a key author of Project 2025, is “a right-wing absolute zealot”; that Musk’s reposting of a tweet about public sector workers killing millions under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao was a reflection of his drug use; and that Trump is, indeed, embarked on a project to use the power of the government to hurt people he hates. After the article appeared, Wiles issued a statement that did not say Whipple had misquoted her, but called the article “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.” She continued: “Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story. I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.” Apparently to demonstrate unanimity, the White House got senior officials to put out on social media statements supporting Wiles. One of the things Wiles discussed with Whipple was the administration’s strikes against the small boats from Venezuela. Wiles suggested that, for all his talk about drug dealers, Trump is primarily interested in regime change. “He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” Wiles told Whipple. “And people way smarter than me on that say that he will.” This afternoon, Trump announced he would address the nation tomorrow night. Then, at 6:46 this evening, he posted on social media: “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before—Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us. The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping. For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. Therefore, today, I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela. The Illegal Aliens and Criminals that the Maduro Regime has sent into the United States during the weak and inept Biden Administration, are being returned to Venezuela at a rapid pace. America will not allow Criminals, Terrorists, or other Countries, to rob, threaten, or harm our Nation and, likewise, will not allow a Hostile Regime to take our Oil, Land, or any other Assets, all of which must be returned to the United States, IMMEDIATELY. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) noted that the “threatened military action directly contradicts what Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth told my Senate colleagues and I today about the mission and goals of their operations in the Caribbean. This is a dangerous escalation, and this administration must come before Congress for public hearings and explain to the American people why they are risking pulling us into another forever war.”