December 2, 2025 • 37 mins
Hour 2 of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show continues the deep dive into the Venezuelan drug boat strike controversy and the political firestorm surrounding Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. The discussion kicks off with legal analysis on the phrase “finish them off”, clarifying whether it referred to destroying the boat or targeting survivors. Former Assistant Secretary of State and Navy intelligence officer Bobby Charles joins the conversation, offering expert insight into rules of engagement, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and historical precedents for counternarcotics operations. He asserts that the strikes were lawful under U.S. policy and international law, emphasizing that narco-terrorist boats are legitimate targets as designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
The hour explores why the Trump administration’s communication strategy has faltered, allowing Democrats and media outlets like The Washington Post to frame the narrative as a potential war crime. Clay and Buck argue that clear messaging—supported by existing legal opinions—could neutralize the controversy and prevent political damage. They stress that the real story is deterrence: Trump’s aggressive maritime strategy aims to cripple cartel operations and reduce fentanyl trafficking, which kills over 100,000 Americans annually.
Listeners weigh in with passionate calls, debating war crimes, rules of war, and presidential authority. Some callers defend Trump’s hardline approach, while others question the legality of targeting non-uniformed combatants. A retired Air Force colonel shares firsthand experience from the decades-long war on drugs, comparing current maritime strikes to past air interdiction missions. Another caller highlights the political motive behind the attacks on Hegseth, framing it as a deliberate effort by the left to delegitimize key Trump cabinet members.
The conversation also touches on broader geopolitical stakes, including Venezuela’s instability, the potential for regime change, and historical lessons from deterrence versus appeasement. Clay and Buck underscore that Democrats want this story to dominate headlines instead of Biden’s failures on border security and the chaotic Afghan withdrawal. Hour 2 closes with a preview of upcoming interviews and continued listener engagement on this high-stakes national security issue.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show. We are
breaking down many different stories out there off the top.
We want to encourage all of you in the Tennessee
seventh Congressional district that stretches all the way from Kentucky
to Alabama, parts of Nashville, parts of Franklin, Brentwood, Clarksville, Waverley,
(00:24):
all the way down to the border with Alabama, all
the way up to the border with Kentucky. A lot
of you listening perhaps in the Clarksville area, Fort Campbell,
A lot of you are familiar with that area. This
is in that district. Go vote special election today. Matt
(00:46):
Van Epps is the Republican. He's running against a crazy chick,
Afton Baine. We'll continue to talk about that during the show.
I went and voted already. This is my congressional district.
I do not want to be represent it by a
crazy chick that makes AOC sound sane. Now, as we
finished off the last hour, we were talking about the
(01:07):
boat strikes off Venezuela. A bunch of you want to
weigh in on those, and I was saying, again, this
is me behaving as a lawyer. Finish them off. Can
mean multiple things. It can mean to me, finishing off
the boat so that it's no longer able to do
(01:29):
what it was intended to do, so that the drugs
are not there, still floating that could be picked up
by another boat. And so what is and is not
intended by the orders is likely to be an issue
right now. I don't think the communication has been clear
buck as to exactly what the story is, just that
(01:53):
the White House has said, hey, we support the admiral here.
The President supports the admiral. The Secretary of War supports
the admiral and his ability to make decisions on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
There.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
We had a call from a individual who was still
with us, and that is I want to make sure
that I get his name right. I got so many
different text messages in here. That is, let's see Bobby
Charles from Maine. He's running for governor. By the way,
the primaries in June. Not a bad way to get
(02:25):
people to know about the primary. Here, Bobby, you've got
a pretty big radio show, so you're a smooth operator.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
We like it.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I feel like you guys invited this one, so I'm
just gonna pick it up.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Oh we did, we did all right.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So, Bobby, when I say what finished them off means
this is me, being a lawyer. Finished them off can
mean a lot of different things. It can mean finish
the boat off. It can mean finish the survivors off.
That seems like a pretty clear defense. If I were
advising Secretary of War Headset, if I were advising President Trump,
if I were advising the admiral in this case, as
(02:58):
an attorney representing them, I would say, go ahead and
get your story out there.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What has finished them off? Mean?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We wanted to end the threat that this boat brought
to bear. We had not done that yet. It was
still floating out there. There was the possibility that drugs
could be picked up, and so we ordered a second
strike to.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Take out that boat.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Is that a valid argument from your perspective, based on
your knowledge of the rules of engagement?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yes, So let me give you my perspective. I was
a US Court of Appeals clerk after Columbia Law School,
long before being Assistant Secretary, managing counter narcotics programs around
the world, among which were shoot down programs in Peru
and Columbia in which we gave orders we didn't give them.
I worked with the heads of southcom who gave them.
But those field commanders gave orders to finish off planes
(03:49):
that were in the sky carrying drugs. We had cute intelligence.
They refused to comply. They continued moving forward. The same way.
If you were in World War Two on a battlefield
and a tank is coming at you, and you've disabled
the gun, but the tank keeps rolling, you have every
right to stop it. So I am believing, and I
think they should ask for this, and I think everything
else is a false bogie. There is a legal opinion.
(04:10):
I guarantee you, as a former Navy intelligence guy for
ten years and an assistant secretary doing counter narcotics, there
is a legal opinion in the file that says something
like this. That organization is identified as an FTO. It
is a foreign terrorist organization trafficking drugs. Because it is
an FTO, it is by definition engaging in premeditated, politically
(04:31):
motivated acts of violence against non combatant targets. Because it
is doing that, you have every right to hit and
destroy the drugs and to hit and destroy the boat.
And there is no under the rules of law and
the UCMJ, there is no requirement that you warn the
combatant that you're going to do that if you hit
half the boat. And we currently have policies that the
US Coast Guard uses in a latoral waters with snipers.
(04:53):
They don't call them snipers, but they're snipers. They have
big they have big firearms in a slang dedicated to
taking out the engine of a boat, of a go
fast drug boat. They've been there for twenty five years.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
If we feel that we have not hit and disabled.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
And finished the task of a combatant coming at us,
we have every right to do that. You do not
have a right to then shoot folks in the water.
But I will guarantee you that there is no legal
opinion in the file in the Defense Department. If they
subpoena and I did oversight for five years with Gingridge,
there is not going to be a legal opinion it
says you can finish off people.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
In the water.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
It will say just what I said here, and that
is what they're doing. And so it is completely lawful,
and it's protecting the national security of the United States
and every single American, including in states like Maine where
we had ten thousand overdoses last year.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Okay, that's a perfect argument why isn't the Trump administration
making that argument right now?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I'm guessing that as much as I'm a lawyer, I
hate lawyers. You know, if you're Irish, you get to
say words about the Irish, and I am that too.
If you're a lawyer, you get to hate lawyers. There's
lawyers in the Pentagon going, hey, we can't release that.
That's a legal document. Hey, we've got to back off.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
We can't.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
We can't get the legal argument involved in politics.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Yeah. What what I think Hegg says should do is
just say, look, I have every legal right to be
doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
That's that's what I'm Hegseth is not we know him,
he's not an attorney. But what I'm saying is I
would if I were Secretary of War heg Seth or
I was advising him, I would be telling him to
say exactly what you just told us right now at
the press conference, because I think it would end this
story instantaneously. Also, it's importantly that hasn't happened, Clay, and
(06:29):
so now they have the back and forth of different
versions of what happened and what was this and what
was that?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Why?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Sir, that's Mike we're all Bobby, why wouldn't he make
that case?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well, because they screwed up, because they've screwed up the comps,
just like they screwed up the I mean, I'm gonna
jump in and just say because they messed up, because
this is where we are right now, just like they did.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
You know, the truth is, your point is well taken.
You take the world as it is. What has transpired
up to this moment in time. Has the future is
for us to define. They should do the press conference.
Take it verbatim what I said, that's the truth. I
don't know the exact wording of the legal memo, but
I guarantee before they took one shot there is a
legal memo there. They should release it. They should say,
(07:08):
we have every right to have done what we did.
Let's clarify the record and the facts of the facts.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, look, I think we're all aligned on this.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I just want to be clear, Bobby, because there are
people out there who are saying, oh no, When I
say people, I mean online. You'll see people who don't
know anything who are saying the clinging to the wreckage,
we could mow them down to No, that's not true.
But what you've laid out is the legal justification for
what we believe happened here, which we're all aligned with.
But I just want to be very clear, because I
(07:37):
have seen the argument made by people with followings and
buy people who are part of this conversation. If we
have to finish off people in the water, so be it. No,
that's actually not that's actually not how this goes, and
that's not what was going on here.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
You're absolutely right, and in World War Two there were
bad mistakes made on both sides. This is one where
we don't have to make a mistake.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
That would be a mistake. We're not going to do it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I'm going to tell you though, as a guy running
for governor in Maine, and I'm up by double digits
on everybody. But the reality is right now, people throw
crap at you that is untrue every day and you
just have to keep responding. And that's what hegseth I
suspect will do and that's what Trump does every day.
And that's what you got to do. You beat you know,
it's like the old Supreme Court case said, right, you
beat bad.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Speech with good speech.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
You just keep going, Bobby, We're leveraging your expertise here
a lot. But I actually want to transition you because
you said you transition the topic.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I should. I should. Yeah, I'm going to transition the topic.
Speaker 7 (08:29):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Hey, gotta be clear these days to you said you
oversaw or involved in overseeing narco programs in the Caribbean. One,
how effective you think taking out these boats is actually?
And two talk to us about Venezuela. You would have
a very important perspective on what's going on there with Maduro,
the narco trafficking, the possibility of the overthrow. Talk us
(08:51):
through some of that.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, So I have had multiple hats in life. Blessed
a thousand ways from Sunday. But the reality is, yes,
I did oversight for five years for Gangrich.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I was his top.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Oversight investigator looking at counter narcotics, but also the Pentagon
Justice I.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Did to Waco hearings all that.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So at the end of the day, our counternarcotics policy
in the Caribbean was effective when we could create twenty
five percent deterrence, So when we could cover twenty five
percent of the Caribbean at a time. Incidentally, when there
was no land bridge, as in there was no coming
up through the Mexico Pan American Highway. What we did
is we shut down the Caribbean by shutting down twenty
(09:30):
five percent, creating enough uncertainty that the traffickers thought they
would get more losses than it was worth. They shifted to.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
The land bridge. What they will do right now.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
It is relatively effective because it's creating that one thing
we know again, let's go back to World War two.
Everything is about deterrence versus appeasement. You do nothing, you
appease it. Same thing with people coming into this country.
You do nothing. You appease the behavior. Appease bad behavior,
you deter it. All of a sudden, they're going to
stop coming all of a sudden, they're going to stop
shipp drugs through the EPACH Eastern Pacific, which is where
(09:59):
some of the this is happening, or through the Caribbean.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
And so deterrence works. It absolutely works.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
But you always have to remember it's like trying to
block a water that is being pulled by gravity down.
It's going to look for another way around. The bad
guys always look for another way around. So you've got
to constantly be one step ahead. You know, we don't
ever win anything, finally and decisively. You know you what
you do is you manage the process so that you're
(10:25):
always one step ahead. That's why we've not had another
nine to eleven. We've always stayed one step ahead. Same
thing is true with the drug traffickers. What I love
that he's doing, what Trump is doing, is he's calling
a spade a spade. He's saying, we lose more people
every year to this foreign drug infusion, this chemical weapon
brought into this country. Then we lost in all of Vietnam.
(10:47):
We lose one hundred thousand more or less every year
to this. They are a threat to the United States.
We are going to treat them as ftos. We are
going to come back them. And so ultimately, what you
do is you start to destroy the industrial strength of
the cartel. There are Colombian cartels, there are Mexican cartels,
and you want You're never going to get rid of
(11:08):
all crime, but what you want to do is drive
it down to a level that's so low that most
people don't have to engage it. And here in the
state of Maine, I will tell you I am going
to thoroughly support law enforcement. I am going to thoroughly
stop these foreign drug trafickers from getting in here and
then having created deterrence, I'm going to do put the
rest of the population that's addicted on a get well,
stay well plan, get real treatment programs in here, and
(11:28):
solve it. That is what Trump is doing in all
the places that he's been allowed to do it. And
by the way, I will mobilize the National Guard too
if needed to support law enforcements.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Bobby, thanks for all of this. I mean, this is
well said. You got my vote. You got to be
the next governor, remain buddy, so you got to come
back and talk to us more about this.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
We're very impressed here.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Guys call me anytime, and I love talking to Greg.
So we're good to go, all.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Right, producer, Greg is the man, so you have good
taste in radio and radio producers. Well done, sir, and
we'll talk to you again, Sue. But Clay, I just
want to say our legal analysis was all spot.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
On, so there's that you know before.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And also again I think we hit on this correctly.
It's a communication issue and I just I understand, and
he pointed out lawyers can sometimes say, well, we can't
talk about this publicly yet Sir, I would talk about
it publicly. If I repeat Hegseth, I would put this
story to Bed. I would say that this was the goal,
we had the authority to do it, and it vanishes
(12:25):
if you tell the story the way that he just did.
It's a version of it's not the crime, it's the
cover up. There was no crime here. There are are
acting in the lawful authority. But if you have differing
narratives about what happened, even if it's in good faith,
but there's daylight between what the you know, Trump White
House says and what Secretary of Heggseth says or whatever,
(12:47):
then that becomes the story and they just say, see
they're hiding, they're changing there. So you just it's a
comms issue to be very clear on this, so that
everybody understands. Because what the Democrats that their biggest story
this week is the you know, the war crimes thing.
What they don't want to be talking about is the
Biden Afghan withdrawal slash importing people with no vetting whatsoever,
(13:10):
including the terrorists who just killed two, killed one and
grievously wounded another National Guard member.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
That's what they don't want to be talking about.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
This week correct, and you can limit their ability to
drive the narrative by telling your story in the best,
most effective way possible. And I don't think that has
occurred yet, But I think if they said what Bobby said,
what I said, what you have said, I think it
would go a long way towards putting this story to rest.
I want to tell you fighting in Ukraine, we'll talk
(13:37):
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Speaker 2 (15:02):
Want to begin to know when you're on the go?
Speaker 7 (15:05):
The Team forty seven podcast Trump highlights from the week
Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed.
Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Play Travis with the Clay and Buck Show.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Wishing you and your family of very merry Christmas and
a happy New Year. Buck Sexton here the entire Clayan
Bucks Show wish you and your family a warm Christmas
season and a joyful New year. Welcome back in Clay
Travis buck Sexton show, a lot of people weighing in.
I think was a really good conversation about this story
(15:42):
and the degree to which the communication should and could
be better to put stories like these to rest. By
the way, this all emerged via the Washington Post as
their big expose. They're big, We're gonna get Pete hegseth
over this and again, I think if the defense had
been rendered in a better way, this story would have
(16:06):
vanished almost overnight instead. The message to your point, Buck,
when you give different stories, when they are different, multiple
days of stories, it just makes it look like there
is more going on here than there actually is. I
think one of our callers is upset with us. We
always enjoy that producer Greg my call screen has gone
(16:29):
down here, but somebody was upset saying, oh, you're gonna
regret this.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Is that guy still there? You can pull him up,
all right, Doug in San Diego, light us up.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Yeah, Clay, Hey, you know that the vote was using
davem pronouns so that when they say blow up them
blow them up again, and they're refering to the vote.
I'm just I can't believe you're using this argument that
you know just when you put up a big bomb
(17:03):
in the water. Okay, look, I have a lot of
sympathy for Trump. If I had been through what he's
been through, I would have been driven mad just the
way he was. But one of the good things of
his former philosophy was you realize that wars like the
Vietnam War were wastes of blood and treasure.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
And we will say so, I don't really understand your argument.
You can make arguments against us, but it doesn't seem
cohesive or understand what is.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Your you think?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You think that this is a war crime and that
Trump should be impeached and removed from office.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
I don't want to go that far, but I'm gonna
tell you what. It's a lot of people that voted
for Trump in twenty four that when they see his
undeclared war, you're basically claiming he can he can commit
acts of war anywhere in the Western hemisphere because of
I mean, this analogy with a tank is not apt.
That vote was not full of weapons of war like
(17:57):
a tank. Like the previous caller said, there know.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
What is what should we got to go to break here,
but I appreciate the call. I don't understand. If you
think that a boat is loaded with drugs and it's
coming to the United States, what should we do.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I don't even know.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Buck used to buy marijuana from a willing seller and
we didn't want the person that sold that to be killed.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Okay, I I bought marijuana for somebody. What I think?
Speaker 5 (18:23):
I think?
Speaker 1 (18:23):
My boy there, Yeah, I don't even know. You spend
a lot of time in San Diego with weed dealers.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
When we uh? When we come back?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I don't know. I mean I would I thought we
were going to get an actual argument. Again, I do aread.
We got commerce to do.
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buck Sexton show. Sounds like Buck Island may have been
a little bit more of a happening place than we
knew based on our caller there, who's angry at the
(19:22):
drug strike boat the boat drug strikes that I phrased
that right, the drug boat strikes. Are you suggesting that
there was a wafting smell and perhaps the sultry tones
of some reggae in the background on Buck Island, mister Clay,
As it went under the sea, much like Atlantis back
in the day, it may have done so in an
(19:45):
odorifous odoriff for restsmanner. Odoriferous. That's an interesting word. I've
gotta I haven't used that word in a long time.
I understand the argument that, hey, I'm concerned about a
mayor authority, I don't really understand it as it pertains
to the drug boat strikes in international waters.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
And so.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Look, you can make that argument, but that doesn't seem
like something that I think is going to, pardon the
expression here, blow up in Trump's face.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Linda and Florida.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
You want to react, A lot of you want to react,
by the way, loaded lines right now.
Speaker 8 (20:27):
Hi I do, thank you, guys. So for four years
I lived with Biden letting in twenty million illegals crossing
our border, illegally, breaking our laws, and you know, and
everybody knew about it. The media knew about it. They
discussed it, but we didn't give it oxygen. Like we're
(20:48):
giving this Narco terrorists, two guys to twenty billion do
the map, okay, And all we do is we're browbeating
this two Narco terrorists to death literally, and and you know,
we just keep discussing it. And who cares about the
two guys in the water. They were bad guys, but
(21:09):
so were the twenty million that.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Okay, Linda, let me play. Let me play devil's advocate here.
If if it were to be reported and confirmed that
the Narco terrorists, which I agree are bad guys, were
floating in the water and we ordered a helicopter to
go in and to mow them down as they floated
in the water, you wouldn't have an issue with that.
Speaker 8 (21:35):
I wouldn't have an issue with that at all. After
letting in twenty million illegals.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I have appreciate is that your granddaughter in the background.
Speaker 8 (21:46):
There no, no, no, I've got three dogs that are
laying on.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Oh okay, so I those dogs don't mess around. Those
are well behaved dogs.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Get around.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I was gonna say, Linda, Linda is running into her
up with a with a browbie. Thank you for the
call there. Look, that would be a crime. Okay, So
I appreciate that if I had given the order, I
want Linda on my jury because I appreciate that she
is the Nathan Jess up there she.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Is. You're damn right.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I ordered the code ed, So thank you Linda for
that call. That would be illegal, That would be a violation,
That would be a war crime. So I don't think
if there were American soldiers floating around in the waters
off the shore of a foreign country and they ordered
(22:40):
for the American soldiers to be summarily executed or American citizens,
I think a lot of people would say, yeah, we
have an issue with that, and it would be illegal.
That to me is not what occurred here. However, yes,
it would be a war crime. In fact, it actually
would be there. There is even with really bad people,
(23:02):
and even if Trump is in charge, we do need
to understand there is such a thing as a war crime.
We are saying one was not committed here because they
did not do anything wrong based on the facts. But
to my point, Clay, that I keep making of, people
need understand. We just had a caller who was like,
I mean, if we have the machine gun them in
(23:23):
the water, no big deal.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
No, that's not good. We don't do that.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Jury.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
If I'm Colonel Jessup, I will say that is a
war crime. And for people out there who say, Okay,
this is not a big story, they are. I mean,
the lead story right now on MSNBC and CNN is
about the boat strikes. Now, I think the communication here
(23:49):
we should also mention the cabinet meeting live on Fox
News has been going on now Buck for nearly two hours,
so our entire show. Trump has been allowing his cabinet
members to field questions from everybody out there.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Joe and Florida.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Retired Air Force colonel fighter pilot, what's your take on
the story so far as you can tell?
Speaker 9 (24:14):
Hi, Well, first of all, I heard a previous callers say,
undeclared war, but we've been fighting the quote, Well, we've
not been fighting, but we've been participating in the quote
war on drugs for fifty years or so. Yeah, you know,
I came back from Vietnam. I flew one hundred and
fifty three combat missions over there in Tantoms, came back
(24:35):
to Homestead Air Base, and then we would sit on
the air defense of alert pad and intercept drug airplanes
that were flying into our territory, many of which were
actually over the Everglades, over our dirt throwing out at
that time bales of marijuana, and we would try to
get the tail number of the airplane to identify them.
(24:57):
Sometimes these same guys would just fly in daytime and
that made it easy to identify the tail number, but
generally they would get rid of that airplane and move
on to something else that over time that progressed to
I was a F sixteen count operational test pilot where
I worked on the program to outfit the airplanes with
(25:20):
night vision goggles, and then we could join on these
guys at night, look at the guy, look at the load,
look at the airplane's tail number, hand them off to customs,
and that air bridge where they would fly drugs into
the country basically was reduced. I can't say shut down,
(25:41):
but it was greatly reduced.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And then let me ask you this, Colonel and thank
you for all the work that you did in the
Air force. What would have happened if you had you know,
if you had ordered you shoot down one of those planes.
There are guys floating hanging on to the refuge of
the plane, and you said, we're gonna go by for
another pass. We want to machine gun those guys in
(26:05):
the water holding on to the holding on to the refuse.
Speaker 9 (26:11):
Well, if I shut them down, I would do it
in such a way there'd be no survivors.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That's a great answer. But if and and by the way, uh,
I appreciate that answer. But if there were and you
said we're gonna go by, and I want you to
lean out my tailgunner here or whoever's with you, and
I want you to pick off those survivors. And it
later came out that you had done that. Do you
think you would have had the ability to make that
(26:36):
decision legally?
Speaker 9 (26:40):
You know, I would like it. Let me put on
my kernel sat now I was about to have the
survivors from an intel standpoint, Yeah, in fact, talking guys
about why are you still doing this? What are they
doing to motivate you to go out and risk your lives?
Because you know you're stand a good chance of dying.
(27:01):
I'm not a Navy guy. I'm an Air Force guy,
but I'm a top gun graduate. So I do want
to make the bad guys go away and pay for
their crimes. You know, in Vietnam, I had a guy
on the Mekong River shoot at me as I flew
by him, and so I went back and he and
I discussed the merits of twenty milimeters versus a K
(27:23):
forty seven, and he was not a happy camper.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 9 (27:30):
As far as the Navy rules of engagement and the
international rules, I hate to admit it, I'm pretty much
clueless on that.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Thank you for the call, and thank you for all
the service, and I love that the number of people
we have listening to the best call. The callers are awesome,
can be top gun pilots who flew and Look, I'd
like to have Linda on my jury in this situation,
but you have to make the story.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Look, here's what I think is if you want me
to say, I appreciate what Linda is saying.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Linda wants to go full Genghis Khan on the enemies
of civilization, and I get that. But the challenges is
not is not a crazy cat lady For Kamala Harris,
I feel very competent. I would like Linda in my
foxhole with me. Let me say this. I think really
what this represents. I love the call where he said, hey,
(28:23):
I'm not going to leave any survivors.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
They don't want to have to rescue these guys because
if they rescue them and bring them in as combatants,
they can challenge the policy in court. And I think
by the way, I think they go to it. Do
they go to GIDMO? Where do they go?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
It's a great question. Where do we put them? That's right,
I think may be the answer.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Although you know, we've been trying to shut GITMO down,
but we can't shut it down because that's war on
terror stuff. Look, we can't even execute the nine to
eleven terrorists.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You know, they still you know this.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
We've talked about it with some They haven't even been
able to prosecute the guys who were in GITMO because
they're worried about the interrogation tactics that were used on them,
such that I don't even know what the absolute latest
on that story was, but it was, hey, we're not
going to go for the death penalty. They're gonna admit
complicity in all of the deaths. It's been twenty four,
(29:22):
twenty four years since nine to eleven, and those guys
are still living in relative comfort now in Cuba and
we can't even prosecute them. So I guarantee you they
do not want to have these guys in possession for
the next twenty years. So when they said again they
(29:42):
should do a better job of communicating on this, But
when they said finish them off, they meant the boat.
That's the legal argument, and they wanted to make sure
that the boat was not able to continue its mission
to deliver drugs to the country. By the way, a
lot of great calls already on this, and we'll continue
to take your calls.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Eight hundred and two eight two two eight a two.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, we'll got into all the takes and we're gonna
dive into It's gonna be very very exciting, very interesting
show here on Clay and Buck. All right, the holiday season. Clay,
you know my trees already up. You know my wife
did this year double tree. We got two trees, one
in one outdoor trees. Uh, well, one is in the
living room. And one is on like a buy but
it's one for the little for the for the kid,
(30:28):
and like how were they designed here?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
No, she just got two Christmas trees. She wanted to
double up, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
She's going bigger going home, and she's home, so clearly
she's going big.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
The holiday season brings us closer together. As you all know,
it's a lot of fun, it's a wonderful time of year.
But in the midst of all this activity, we want
to find a way to gather around the table, share
stories and celebrate those are These are the people we
want to stay in touch with, especially on a day
like today when nearly the entire East Coast is contending
with severe weather rain, snow, and ice that can cause
service interruptions and day inuris driving conditions. Rapid radios this
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Speaker 7 (31:47):
News you can count on as some laughs too. Clay
Travis and Buck Sex find them on the free iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Buck Sexton here hire Clay and Bucks Show.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Wish you and your family a warm Christmas season and
a joyful New Year. It was a banner day yesterday
for Crockett Coffee everybody, the best, most delicious coffee anywhere.
And you don't even have to wear one of those
raccoon skin hats to enjoy it and drink it Davy
Crockett style, although you could. But we have a great
(32:21):
deal for you this holiday season where Clay Travis's book Balls.
You will get a signed copy of Clay's Balls if
you subscribe to Crockett Coffee. So now is the time
my friends get in, get after it. Go get yourself
a signed copy of Clay's best selling book Balls, get
the best, most delicious coffee in America. Ten percent of
(32:42):
the profits tunnel the Towers Foundation. It's just a win,
all right. It's a great time to do with this
holiday season. Try our coffee. Don't drink the communist nonsense
that's out there. You don't need any of that stuff.
I'm signing them myself. This is not an auto pin situation.
And you get coffee. So look, here's the reality. I'm
giving up people a bit of a cheat code.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Here.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
You can get coffee for yourself and an autograph copy
of my book, and you can give the book away.
You can read it, and then you can give the
book away as a gift. I mean that's a pretty
good combo. So you get coffee for yourself and then
you get the opportunity with the gift. You can read it,
you can pass it along to somebody else and you
(33:22):
can say, hey, I know how much you love Clay
and Buck because you have fantastic taste in radio, and
you can pass it on to a friend. A bunch
of people still play in crockfac Dot com crocketcofee dot com.
Go subscribe today, guys, make it happen. A huge day yesterday,
a lot of you joining the Crockett Revolution. Thank you
so much for that. I'm just going to say that
if we needed to overthrow a small country, we have
(33:44):
both the planners and the and the operators to do that.
With this audience alone, it's pretty amazing. I mean, we'd
have air cover, clay, we'd have we got some submariners,
we got everybody we need, we got seals, we got
spec ops, we got everybody. We also got a lot
of jurors that would say, no matter what choices we made,
(34:04):
that got our back. I don't think we get convicted
by this audience no.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Matter what we do. Sometimes you gotta sometimes you gotta
smoke the drug lords. And that's that.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Here we go, who is perfect called the dogs sitting
in her lap. She's like, waste them, take them out,
takes a drag, takes a drag on this cigarette. Waste them,
rubs the dogs. No retreat, no surrender from Linda. I like,
don't be a pussy Willow, take them out. Let's get
a Derek and Phoenix, Arizona listens on this is an
(34:34):
ff on talkback.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Hit It, hit It, This is a Derek got a buckey.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
I served ten and a half years in the Marine
Corps and I'm sorry, but the rules of war do
not apply to non uniform people. Only applies to uniforms
that are by the country, i e. If it was
a Venezuhalen soldier in that in that boat, then.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Rules of war apply.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
So sorry, I don't agree with that.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I think he's wrong, He's wrong, unfortunately. I mean, here's
that put it in perspective. You can't kill civilians if
they throw down their weapons and they are not a
threat to you, whether I mean, wasn't this the whole
my my lie, the whole massacre in Vietnam was basically
they just wiped out the whole village. And this is
(35:27):
why war crimes probably are going to be brought in
many of the actions that Russia has undertaken in Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Let's take let's take Matt in Arizona with a live
call here, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Matt?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call. Hey, I just
had a different perspective. I wanted to throw out there
and see what you guys think. It seems to me,
the left who's good at you know, smoking mirrors, and
they're kind of slimy deceptive. We all know that. What
if they're just accusing Pete hag Seth of something that,
whether it's true or not, I don't think any of
(36:02):
us think it's true. I don't even think they think
it's true. You know that that he's committed war crimes.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
The the goal?
Speaker 4 (36:09):
What if their goal is to delegitimize Pete haig Seth.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Oh, that's the I mean, sorry, thank you for the call.
The entire goal is to delegitimize Pete Haggs. Yes, that
that that is the that is.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
The heart of the enemy's plan here.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I don't need the secondary analysis so that when he
does X, yes, the goal is to completely delegitimize Pete
hegg Seth. And again the phrase finished them off. Uh,
they are trying to argue was a direct order by
the admiral to kill the guys. Again, I think we
(36:49):
hit on this, and I hope the White House is listening,
and certainly I think they could help themselves by specifically
explaining that finished them off meant in the boats ability
to interdict, to bring drugs into the country or for
someone else to come to pick up the drugs from
the boat. Right, They had to completely wipe it out.
(37:09):
We got a ton of emails, a ton of your calls.
We'll get to all those, plus Senator Marsha Blackburn I
think is with us in the third hour.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
We'll talk with her too,
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show. We are
breaking down many different stories out there off the top.
We want to encourage all of you in the Tennessee
seventh Congressional district that stretches all the way from Kentucky
to Alabama, parts of Nashville, parts of Franklin, Brentwood, Clarksville, Waverley,
(00:24):
all the way down to the border with Alabama, all
the way up to the border with Kentucky. A lot
of you listening perhaps in the Clarksville area, Fort Campbell,
A lot of you are familiar with that area. This
is in that district. Go vote special election today. Matt
(00:46):
Van Epps is the Republican. He's running against a crazy chick,
Afton Baine. We'll continue to talk about that during the show.
I went and voted already. This is my congressional district.
I do not want to be represent it by a
crazy chick that makes AOC sound sane. Now, as we
finished off the last hour, we were talking about the
(01:07):
boat strikes off Venezuela. A bunch of you want to
weigh in on those, and I was saying, again, this
is me behaving as a lawyer. Finish them off. Can
mean multiple things. It can mean to me, finishing off
the boat so that it's no longer able to do
(01:29):
what it was intended to do, so that the drugs
are not there, still floating that could be picked up
by another boat. And so what is and is not
intended by the orders is likely to be an issue
right now. I don't think the communication has been clear
buck as to exactly what the story is, just that
(01:53):
the White House has said, hey, we support the admiral here.
The President supports the admiral. The Secretary of War supports
the admiral and his ability to make decisions on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
There.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
We had a call from a individual who was still
with us, and that is I want to make sure
that I get his name right. I got so many
different text messages in here. That is, let's see Bobby
Charles from Maine. He's running for governor. By the way,
the primaries in June. Not a bad way to get
(02:25):
people to know about the primary. Here, Bobby, you've got
a pretty big radio show, so you're a smooth operator.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
We like it.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I feel like you guys invited this one, so I'm
just gonna pick it up.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Oh we did, we did all right.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So, Bobby, when I say what finished them off means
this is me, being a lawyer. Finished them off can
mean a lot of different things. It can mean finish
the boat off. It can mean finish the survivors off.
That seems like a pretty clear defense. If I were
advising Secretary of War Headset, if I were advising President Trump,
if I were advising the admiral in this case, as
(02:58):
an attorney representing them, I would say, go ahead and
get your story out there.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What has finished them off? Mean?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We wanted to end the threat that this boat brought
to bear. We had not done that yet. It was
still floating out there. There was the possibility that drugs
could be picked up, and so we ordered a second
strike to.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Take out that boat.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Is that a valid argument from your perspective, based on
your knowledge of the rules of engagement?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yes, So let me give you my perspective. I was
a US Court of Appeals clerk after Columbia Law School,
long before being Assistant Secretary, managing counter narcotics programs around
the world, among which were shoot down programs in Peru
and Columbia in which we gave orders we didn't give them.
I worked with the heads of southcom who gave them.
But those field commanders gave orders to finish off planes
(03:49):
that were in the sky carrying drugs. We had cute intelligence.
They refused to comply. They continued moving forward. The same way.
If you were in World War Two on a battlefield
and a tank is coming at you, and you've disabled
the gun, but the tank keeps rolling, you have every
right to stop it. So I am believing, and I
think they should ask for this, and I think everything
else is a false bogie. There is a legal opinion.
(04:10):
I guarantee you, as a former Navy intelligence guy for
ten years and an assistant secretary doing counter narcotics, there
is a legal opinion in the file that says something
like this. That organization is identified as an FTO. It
is a foreign terrorist organization trafficking drugs. Because it is
an FTO, it is by definition engaging in premeditated, politically
(04:31):
motivated acts of violence against non combatant targets. Because it
is doing that, you have every right to hit and
destroy the drugs and to hit and destroy the boat.
And there is no under the rules of law and
the UCMJ, there is no requirement that you warn the
combatant that you're going to do that if you hit
half the boat. And we currently have policies that the
US Coast Guard uses in a latoral waters with snipers.
(04:53):
They don't call them snipers, but they're snipers. They have
big they have big firearms in a slang dedicated to
taking out the engine of a boat, of a go
fast drug boat. They've been there for twenty five years.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
If we feel that we have not hit and disabled.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
And finished the task of a combatant coming at us,
we have every right to do that. You do not
have a right to then shoot folks in the water.
But I will guarantee you that there is no legal
opinion in the file in the Defense Department. If they
subpoena and I did oversight for five years with Gingridge,
there is not going to be a legal opinion it
says you can finish off people.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
In the water.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
It will say just what I said here, and that
is what they're doing. And so it is completely lawful,
and it's protecting the national security of the United States
and every single American, including in states like Maine where
we had ten thousand overdoses last year.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Okay, that's a perfect argument why isn't the Trump administration
making that argument right now?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I'm guessing that as much as I'm a lawyer, I
hate lawyers. You know, if you're Irish, you get to
say words about the Irish, and I am that too.
If you're a lawyer, you get to hate lawyers. There's
lawyers in the Pentagon going, hey, we can't release that.
That's a legal document. Hey, we've got to back off.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
We can't.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
We can't get the legal argument involved in politics.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Yeah. What what I think Hegg says should do is
just say, look, I have every legal right to be
doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
That's that's what I'm Hegseth is not we know him,
he's not an attorney. But what I'm saying is I
would if I were Secretary of War heg Seth or
I was advising him, I would be telling him to
say exactly what you just told us right now at
the press conference, because I think it would end this
story instantaneously. Also, it's importantly that hasn't happened, Clay, and
(06:29):
so now they have the back and forth of different
versions of what happened and what was this and what
was that?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Why?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Sir, that's Mike we're all Bobby, why wouldn't he make
that case?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well, because they screwed up, because they've screwed up the comps,
just like they screwed up the I mean, I'm gonna
jump in and just say because they messed up, because
this is where we are right now, just like they did.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
You know, the truth is, your point is well taken.
You take the world as it is. What has transpired
up to this moment in time. Has the future is
for us to define. They should do the press conference.
Take it verbatim what I said, that's the truth. I
don't know the exact wording of the legal memo, but
I guarantee before they took one shot there is a
legal memo there. They should release it. They should say,
(07:08):
we have every right to have done what we did.
Let's clarify the record and the facts of the facts.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, look, I think we're all aligned on this.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I just want to be clear, Bobby, because there are
people out there who are saying, oh no, When I
say people, I mean online. You'll see people who don't
know anything who are saying the clinging to the wreckage,
we could mow them down to No, that's not true.
But what you've laid out is the legal justification for
what we believe happened here, which we're all aligned with.
But I just want to be very clear, because I
(07:37):
have seen the argument made by people with followings and
buy people who are part of this conversation. If we
have to finish off people in the water, so be it. No,
that's actually not that's actually not how this goes, and
that's not what was going on here.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
You're absolutely right, and in World War Two there were
bad mistakes made on both sides. This is one where
we don't have to make a mistake.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
That would be a mistake. We're not going to do it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I'm going to tell you though, as a guy running
for governor in Maine, and I'm up by double digits
on everybody. But the reality is right now, people throw
crap at you that is untrue every day and you
just have to keep responding. And that's what hegseth I
suspect will do and that's what Trump does every day.
And that's what you got to do. You beat you know,
it's like the old Supreme Court case said, right, you
beat bad.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Speech with good speech.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
You just keep going, Bobby, We're leveraging your expertise here
a lot. But I actually want to transition you because
you said you transition the topic.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I should. I should. Yeah, I'm going to transition the topic.
Speaker 7 (08:29):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Hey, gotta be clear these days to you said you
oversaw or involved in overseeing narco programs in the Caribbean. One,
how effective you think taking out these boats is actually?
And two talk to us about Venezuela. You would have
a very important perspective on what's going on there with Maduro,
the narco trafficking, the possibility of the overthrow. Talk us
(08:51):
through some of that.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, So I have had multiple hats in life. Blessed
a thousand ways from Sunday. But the reality is, yes,
I did oversight for five years for Gangrich.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I was his top.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Oversight investigator looking at counter narcotics, but also the Pentagon
Justice I.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Did to Waco hearings all that.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So at the end of the day, our counternarcotics policy
in the Caribbean was effective when we could create twenty
five percent deterrence, So when we could cover twenty five
percent of the Caribbean at a time. Incidentally, when there
was no land bridge, as in there was no coming
up through the Mexico Pan American Highway. What we did
is we shut down the Caribbean by shutting down twenty
(09:30):
five percent, creating enough uncertainty that the traffickers thought they
would get more losses than it was worth. They shifted to.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
The land bridge. What they will do right now.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
It is relatively effective because it's creating that one thing
we know again, let's go back to World War two.
Everything is about deterrence versus appeasement. You do nothing, you
appease it. Same thing with people coming into this country.
You do nothing. You appease the behavior. Appease bad behavior,
you deter it. All of a sudden, they're going to
stop coming all of a sudden, they're going to stop
shipp drugs through the EPACH Eastern Pacific, which is where
(09:59):
some of the this is happening, or through the Caribbean.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
And so deterrence works. It absolutely works.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
But you always have to remember it's like trying to
block a water that is being pulled by gravity down.
It's going to look for another way around. The bad
guys always look for another way around. So you've got
to constantly be one step ahead. You know, we don't
ever win anything, finally and decisively. You know you what
you do is you manage the process so that you're
(10:25):
always one step ahead. That's why we've not had another
nine to eleven. We've always stayed one step ahead. Same
thing is true with the drug traffickers. What I love
that he's doing, what Trump is doing, is he's calling
a spade a spade. He's saying, we lose more people
every year to this foreign drug infusion, this chemical weapon
brought into this country. Then we lost in all of Vietnam.
(10:47):
We lose one hundred thousand more or less every year
to this. They are a threat to the United States.
We are going to treat them as ftos. We are
going to come back them. And so ultimately, what you
do is you start to destroy the industrial strength of
the cartel. There are Colombian cartels, there are Mexican cartels,
and you want You're never going to get rid of
(11:08):
all crime, but what you want to do is drive
it down to a level that's so low that most
people don't have to engage it. And here in the
state of Maine, I will tell you I am going
to thoroughly support law enforcement. I am going to thoroughly
stop these foreign drug trafickers from getting in here and
then having created deterrence, I'm going to do put the
rest of the population that's addicted on a get well,
stay well plan, get real treatment programs in here, and
(11:28):
solve it. That is what Trump is doing in all
the places that he's been allowed to do it. And
by the way, I will mobilize the National Guard too
if needed to support law enforcements.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Bobby, thanks for all of this. I mean, this is
well said. You got my vote. You got to be
the next governor, remain buddy, so you got to come
back and talk to us more about this.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
We're very impressed here.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Guys call me anytime, and I love talking to Greg.
So we're good to go, all.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Right, producer, Greg is the man, so you have good
taste in radio and radio producers. Well done, sir, and
we'll talk to you again, Sue. But Clay, I just
want to say our legal analysis was all spot.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
On, so there's that you know before.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And also again I think we hit on this correctly.
It's a communication issue and I just I understand, and
he pointed out lawyers can sometimes say, well, we can't
talk about this publicly yet Sir, I would talk about
it publicly. If I repeat Hegseth, I would put this
story to Bed. I would say that this was the goal,
we had the authority to do it, and it vanishes
(12:25):
if you tell the story the way that he just did.
It's a version of it's not the crime, it's the
cover up. There was no crime here. There are are
acting in the lawful authority. But if you have differing
narratives about what happened, even if it's in good faith,
but there's daylight between what the you know, Trump White
House says and what Secretary of Heggseth says or whatever,
(12:47):
then that becomes the story and they just say, see
they're hiding, they're changing there. So you just it's a
comms issue to be very clear on this, so that
everybody understands. Because what the Democrats that their biggest story
this week is the you know, the war crimes thing.
What they don't want to be talking about is the
Biden Afghan withdrawal slash importing people with no vetting whatsoever,
(13:10):
including the terrorists who just killed two, killed one and
grievously wounded another National Guard member.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
That's what they don't want to be talking about.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
This week correct, and you can limit their ability to
drive the narrative by telling your story in the best,
most effective way possible. And I don't think that has
occurred yet, But I think if they said what Bobby said,
what I said, what you have said, I think it
would go a long way towards putting this story to rest.
I want to tell you fighting in Ukraine, we'll talk
(13:37):
about this a little bit there. Right now are meetings
going on in Russia to try to end the war
in Ukraine. Both sides, Russia and Ukraine are acknowledging loss
of lives, more than a thousand soldiers each day. Far
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of the nonprofit organizations to have moved on, but not
(14:19):
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Speaker 2 (15:02):
Want to begin to know when you're on the go?
Speaker 7 (15:05):
The Team forty seven podcast Trump highlights from the week
Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed.
Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Play Travis with the Clay and Buck Show.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Wishing you and your family of very merry Christmas and
a happy New Year. Buck Sexton here the entire Clayan
Bucks Show wish you and your family a warm Christmas
season and a joyful New year. Welcome back in Clay
Travis buck Sexton show, a lot of people weighing in.
I think was a really good conversation about this story
(15:42):
and the degree to which the communication should and could
be better to put stories like these to rest. By
the way, this all emerged via the Washington Post as
their big expose. They're big, We're gonna get Pete hegseth
over this and again, I think if the defense had
been rendered in a better way, this story would have
(16:06):
vanished almost overnight instead. The message to your point, Buck,
when you give different stories, when they are different, multiple
days of stories, it just makes it look like there
is more going on here than there actually is. I
think one of our callers is upset with us. We
always enjoy that producer Greg my call screen has gone
(16:29):
down here, but somebody was upset saying, oh, you're gonna
regret this.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Is that guy still there? You can pull him up,
all right, Doug in San Diego, light us up.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Yeah, Clay, Hey, you know that the vote was using
davem pronouns so that when they say blow up them
blow them up again, and they're refering to the vote.
I'm just I can't believe you're using this argument that
you know just when you put up a big bomb
(17:03):
in the water. Okay, look, I have a lot of
sympathy for Trump. If I had been through what he's
been through, I would have been driven mad just the
way he was. But one of the good things of
his former philosophy was you realize that wars like the
Vietnam War were wastes of blood and treasure.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
And we will say so, I don't really understand your argument.
You can make arguments against us, but it doesn't seem
cohesive or understand what is.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Your you think?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You think that this is a war crime and that
Trump should be impeached and removed from office.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
I don't want to go that far, but I'm gonna
tell you what. It's a lot of people that voted
for Trump in twenty four that when they see his
undeclared war, you're basically claiming he can he can commit
acts of war anywhere in the Western hemisphere because of
I mean, this analogy with a tank is not apt.
That vote was not full of weapons of war like
(17:57):
a tank. Like the previous caller said, there know.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
What is what should we got to go to break here,
but I appreciate the call. I don't understand. If you
think that a boat is loaded with drugs and it's
coming to the United States, what should we do.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I don't even know.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Buck used to buy marijuana from a willing seller and
we didn't want the person that sold that to be killed.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Okay, I I bought marijuana for somebody. What I think?
Speaker 5 (18:23):
I think?
Speaker 1 (18:23):
My boy there, Yeah, I don't even know. You spend
a lot of time in San Diego with weed dealers.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
When we uh? When we come back?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I don't know. I mean I would I thought we
were going to get an actual argument. Again, I do aread.
We got commerce to do.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
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Code clay do it today. Welcome back in Clay Travis
buck Sexton show. Sounds like Buck Island may have been
a little bit more of a happening place than we
knew based on our caller there, who's angry at the
(19:22):
drug strike boat the boat drug strikes that I phrased
that right, the drug boat strikes. Are you suggesting that
there was a wafting smell and perhaps the sultry tones
of some reggae in the background on Buck Island, mister Clay,
As it went under the sea, much like Atlantis back
in the day, it may have done so in an
(19:45):
odorifous odoriff for restsmanner. Odoriferous. That's an interesting word. I've
gotta I haven't used that word in a long time.
I understand the argument that, hey, I'm concerned about a
mayor authority, I don't really understand it as it pertains
to the drug boat strikes in international waters.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
And so.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Look, you can make that argument, but that doesn't seem
like something that I think is going to, pardon the
expression here, blow up in Trump's face.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Linda and Florida.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
You want to react, A lot of you want to react,
by the way, loaded lines right now.
Speaker 8 (20:27):
Hi I do, thank you, guys. So for four years
I lived with Biden letting in twenty million illegals crossing
our border, illegally, breaking our laws, and you know, and
everybody knew about it. The media knew about it. They
discussed it, but we didn't give it oxygen. Like we're
(20:48):
giving this Narco terrorists, two guys to twenty billion do
the map, okay, And all we do is we're browbeating
this two Narco terrorists to death literally, and and you know,
we just keep discussing it. And who cares about the
two guys in the water. They were bad guys, but
(21:09):
so were the twenty million that.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Okay, Linda, let me play. Let me play devil's advocate here.
If if it were to be reported and confirmed that
the Narco terrorists, which I agree are bad guys, were
floating in the water and we ordered a helicopter to
go in and to mow them down as they floated
in the water, you wouldn't have an issue with that.
Speaker 8 (21:35):
I wouldn't have an issue with that at all. After
letting in twenty million illegals.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I have appreciate is that your granddaughter in the background.
Speaker 8 (21:46):
There no, no, no, I've got three dogs that are
laying on.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Oh okay, so I those dogs don't mess around. Those
are well behaved dogs.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Get around.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I was gonna say, Linda, Linda is running into her
up with a with a browbie. Thank you for the
call there. Look, that would be a crime. Okay, So
I appreciate that if I had given the order, I
want Linda on my jury because I appreciate that she
is the Nathan Jess up there she.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Is. You're damn right.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I ordered the code ed, So thank you Linda for
that call. That would be illegal, That would be a violation,
That would be a war crime. So I don't think
if there were American soldiers floating around in the waters
off the shore of a foreign country and they ordered
(22:40):
for the American soldiers to be summarily executed or American citizens,
I think a lot of people would say, yeah, we
have an issue with that, and it would be illegal.
That to me is not what occurred here. However, yes,
it would be a war crime. In fact, it actually
would be there. There is even with really bad people,
(23:02):
and even if Trump is in charge, we do need
to understand there is such a thing as a war crime.
We are saying one was not committed here because they
did not do anything wrong based on the facts. But
to my point, Clay, that I keep making of, people
need understand. We just had a caller who was like,
I mean, if we have the machine gun them in
(23:23):
the water, no big deal.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
No, that's not good. We don't do that.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Jury.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
If I'm Colonel Jessup, I will say that is a
war crime. And for people out there who say, Okay,
this is not a big story, they are. I mean,
the lead story right now on MSNBC and CNN is
about the boat strikes. Now, I think the communication here
(23:49):
we should also mention the cabinet meeting live on Fox
News has been going on now Buck for nearly two hours,
so our entire show. Trump has been allowing his cabinet
members to field questions from everybody out there.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Joe and Florida.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Retired Air Force colonel fighter pilot, what's your take on
the story so far as you can tell?
Speaker 9 (24:14):
Hi, Well, first of all, I heard a previous callers say,
undeclared war, but we've been fighting the quote, Well, we've
not been fighting, but we've been participating in the quote
war on drugs for fifty years or so. Yeah, you know,
I came back from Vietnam. I flew one hundred and
fifty three combat missions over there in Tantoms, came back
(24:35):
to Homestead Air Base, and then we would sit on
the air defense of alert pad and intercept drug airplanes
that were flying into our territory, many of which were
actually over the Everglades, over our dirt throwing out at
that time bales of marijuana, and we would try to
get the tail number of the airplane to identify them.
(24:57):
Sometimes these same guys would just fly in daytime and
that made it easy to identify the tail number, but
generally they would get rid of that airplane and move
on to something else that over time that progressed to
I was a F sixteen count operational test pilot where
I worked on the program to outfit the airplanes with
(25:20):
night vision goggles, and then we could join on these
guys at night, look at the guy, look at the load,
look at the airplane's tail number, hand them off to customs,
and that air bridge where they would fly drugs into
the country basically was reduced. I can't say shut down,
(25:41):
but it was greatly reduced.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And then let me ask you this, Colonel and thank
you for all the work that you did in the
Air force. What would have happened if you had you know,
if you had ordered you shoot down one of those planes.
There are guys floating hanging on to the refuge of
the plane, and you said, we're gonna go by for
another pass. We want to machine gun those guys in
(26:05):
the water holding on to the holding on to the refuse.
Speaker 9 (26:11):
Well, if I shut them down, I would do it
in such a way there'd be no survivors.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That's a great answer. But if and and by the way, uh,
I appreciate that answer. But if there were and you
said we're gonna go by, and I want you to
lean out my tailgunner here or whoever's with you, and
I want you to pick off those survivors. And it
later came out that you had done that. Do you
think you would have had the ability to make that
(26:36):
decision legally?
Speaker 9 (26:40):
You know, I would like it. Let me put on
my kernel sat now I was about to have the
survivors from an intel standpoint, Yeah, in fact, talking guys
about why are you still doing this? What are they
doing to motivate you to go out and risk your lives?
Because you know you're stand a good chance of dying.
(27:01):
I'm not a Navy guy. I'm an Air Force guy,
but I'm a top gun graduate. So I do want
to make the bad guys go away and pay for
their crimes. You know, in Vietnam, I had a guy
on the Mekong River shoot at me as I flew
by him, and so I went back and he and
I discussed the merits of twenty milimeters versus a K
(27:23):
forty seven, and he was not a happy camper.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 9 (27:30):
As far as the Navy rules of engagement and the
international rules, I hate to admit it, I'm pretty much
clueless on that.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Thank you for the call, and thank you for all
the service, and I love that the number of people
we have listening to the best call. The callers are awesome,
can be top gun pilots who flew and Look, I'd
like to have Linda on my jury in this situation,
but you have to make the story.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Look, here's what I think is if you want me
to say, I appreciate what Linda is saying.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Linda wants to go full Genghis Khan on the enemies
of civilization, and I get that. But the challenges is
not is not a crazy cat lady For Kamala Harris,
I feel very competent. I would like Linda in my
foxhole with me. Let me say this. I think really
what this represents. I love the call where he said, hey,
(28:23):
I'm not going to leave any survivors.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
They don't want to have to rescue these guys because
if they rescue them and bring them in as combatants,
they can challenge the policy in court. And I think
by the way, I think they go to it. Do
they go to GIDMO? Where do they go?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
It's a great question. Where do we put them? That's right,
I think may be the answer.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Although you know, we've been trying to shut GITMO down,
but we can't shut it down because that's war on
terror stuff. Look, we can't even execute the nine to
eleven terrorists.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You know, they still you know this.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
We've talked about it with some They haven't even been
able to prosecute the guys who were in GITMO because
they're worried about the interrogation tactics that were used on them,
such that I don't even know what the absolute latest
on that story was, but it was, hey, we're not
going to go for the death penalty. They're gonna admit
complicity in all of the deaths. It's been twenty four,
(29:22):
twenty four years since nine to eleven, and those guys
are still living in relative comfort now in Cuba and
we can't even prosecute them. So I guarantee you they
do not want to have these guys in possession for
the next twenty years. So when they said again they
(29:42):
should do a better job of communicating on this, But
when they said finish them off, they meant the boat.
That's the legal argument, and they wanted to make sure
that the boat was not able to continue its mission
to deliver drugs to the country. By the way, a
lot of great calls already on this, and we'll continue
to take your calls.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Eight hundred and two eight two two eight a two.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, we'll got into all the takes and we're gonna
dive into It's gonna be very very exciting, very interesting
show here on Clay and Buck. All right, the holiday season. Clay,
you know my trees already up. You know my wife
did this year double tree. We got two trees, one
in one outdoor trees. Uh, well, one is in the
living room. And one is on like a buy but
it's one for the little for the for the kid,
(30:28):
and like how were they designed here?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
No, she just got two Christmas trees. She wanted to
double up, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
She's going bigger going home, and she's home, so clearly
she's going big.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
The holiday season brings us closer together. As you all know,
it's a lot of fun, it's a wonderful time of year.
But in the midst of all this activity, we want
to find a way to gather around the table, share
stories and celebrate those are These are the people we
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Speaker 7 (31:47):
News you can count on as some laughs too. Clay
Travis and Buck Sex find them on the free iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Buck Sexton here hire Clay and Bucks Show.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Wish you and your family a warm Christmas season and
a joyful New Year. It was a banner day yesterday
for Crockett Coffee everybody, the best, most delicious coffee anywhere.
And you don't even have to wear one of those
raccoon skin hats to enjoy it and drink it Davy
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(32:21):
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You will get a signed copy of Clay's Balls if
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I'm signing them myself. This is not an auto pin situation.
And you get coffee. So look, here's the reality. I'm
giving up people a bit of a cheat code.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Here.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
You can get coffee for yourself and an autograph copy
of my book, and you can give the book away.
You can read it, and then you can give the
book away as a gift. I mean that's a pretty
good combo. So you get coffee for yourself and then
you get the opportunity with the gift. You can read it,
you can pass it along to somebody else and you
(33:22):
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and Buck because you have fantastic taste in radio, and
you can pass it on to a friend. A bunch
of people still play in crockfac Dot com crocketcofee dot com.
Go subscribe today, guys, make it happen. A huge day yesterday,
a lot of you joining the Crockett Revolution. Thank you
so much for that. I'm just going to say that
if we needed to overthrow a small country, we have
(33:44):
both the planners and the and the operators to do that.
With this audience alone, it's pretty amazing. I mean, we'd
have air cover, clay, we'd have we got some submariners,
we got everybody we need, we got seals, we got
spec ops, we got everybody. We also got a lot
of jurors that would say, no matter what choices we made,
(34:04):
that got our back. I don't think we get convicted
by this audience no.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Matter what we do. Sometimes you gotta sometimes you gotta
smoke the drug lords. And that's that.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Here we go, who is perfect called the dogs sitting
in her lap. She's like, waste them, take them out,
takes a drag, takes a drag on this cigarette. Waste them,
rubs the dogs. No retreat, no surrender from Linda. I like,
don't be a pussy Willow, take them out. Let's get
a Derek and Phoenix, Arizona listens on this is an
(34:34):
ff on talkback.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Hit It, hit It, This is a Derek got a buckey.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
I served ten and a half years in the Marine
Corps and I'm sorry, but the rules of war do
not apply to non uniform people. Only applies to uniforms
that are by the country, i e. If it was
a Venezuhalen soldier in that in that boat, then.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Rules of war apply.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
So sorry, I don't agree with that.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I think he's wrong, He's wrong, unfortunately. I mean, here's
that put it in perspective. You can't kill civilians if
they throw down their weapons and they are not a
threat to you, whether I mean, wasn't this the whole
my my lie, the whole massacre in Vietnam was basically
they just wiped out the whole village. And this is
(35:27):
why war crimes probably are going to be brought in
many of the actions that Russia has undertaken in Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Let's take let's take Matt in Arizona with a live
call here, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Matt?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call. Hey, I just
had a different perspective. I wanted to throw out there
and see what you guys think. It seems to me,
the left who's good at you know, smoking mirrors, and
they're kind of slimy deceptive. We all know that. What
if they're just accusing Pete hag Seth of something that,
whether it's true or not, I don't think any of
(36:02):
us think it's true. I don't even think they think
it's true. You know that that he's committed war crimes.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
The the goal?
Speaker 4 (36:09):
What if their goal is to delegitimize Pete haig Seth.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Oh, that's the I mean, sorry, thank you for the call.
The entire goal is to delegitimize Pete Haggs. Yes, that
that that is the that is.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
The heart of the enemy's plan here.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I don't need the secondary analysis so that when he
does X, yes, the goal is to completely delegitimize Pete
hegg Seth. And again the phrase finished them off. Uh,
they are trying to argue was a direct order by
the admiral to kill the guys. Again, I think we
(36:49):
hit on this, and I hope the White House is listening,
and certainly I think they could help themselves by specifically
explaining that finished them off meant in the boats ability
to interdict, to bring drugs into the country or for
someone else to come to pick up the drugs from
the boat. Right, They had to completely wipe it out.
(37:09):
We got a ton of emails, a ton of your calls.
We'll get to all those, plus Senator Marsha Blackburn I
think is with us in the third hour.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
We'll talk with her too,
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