October 24, 2025 • 40 mins
Todd walks through the stakes and the questions around Trump authorizing strikes against cartel targets, framing it within America’s fentanyl and overdose crisis and the fight over border security. He lays out the rationale the White House gives, the legal gray zones of declaring a non-international armed conflict with “narco-terrorists,” and the prudential questions conservatives should ask any president who uses force abroad. Todd also shares context on border interdictions, why cartels target the U.S. market, and why reasonable people can see both risks and benefits in this approach. Plus: a quick Pacers double-OT recap and notes on show sponsors that help keep the program free for listeners.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Attention. You're listening to The Todd Huff Show, America's home
for conservative not bitter talk and education. Be advised. The
content of this program has been talking about it to
prevents and even cure liberalism, and listening may cause you
to lean to the right. And now, coming to you
(00:29):
from the full suite Wealth Studios, here is your conservative
but not Bitter host, Todd Huff.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, greetings, my friends, welcome to today's episode of The
Todd Huff Show. It is my absolute pleasure and privilege
to be here with you today. Let's see, I'm gonna
get into some things today that you know, I for
the program, I was well, I was just sharing here
(00:58):
behind the microphone that this is. There's occasionally things that
I talk about on here that I don't feel one
hundred percent up to doing. And that's because they mean
a lot. And there's a lot of details and information
(01:21):
that I do my level best to stay on top of.
But you know, I I some things I'm still figuring out,
you know. I you know, when you pursue truth, I
think I think what's been revealed, what we've learned about
how to live this side of heaven as a culture,
(01:44):
as a society, as a people, as a as a government,
as a state, a country, whatever. You know. You can
have a firm handle on those things. And then there's
things that come up that are complex and difficult, and
we're gonna te talk about one of those today. One
of those today, and that would be what is happening
(02:06):
with these drug cartels. I want to do my best
with Trump basically striking these folks with with drones and
so forth, and I want to go through this. I
want to present this as fairly as possible. I want
to explain the rationale for what Trump is doing and
raise some questions that I think are fair that I
(02:27):
think all of us should ask, no matter who the
president of the United States is. I also time permitting.
I did write about it yesterday in the newsletter, because
I told you I would if I didn't get to it.
But I wrote in the newsletter yesterday, and if we
have time today, I'll get into on top of what's
happening with the cartels and Trump's use of force here.
(02:49):
I will also talk a little bit about his well
the the plans to move forward with this ballroom. In fact,
there's been progue Res made demolition work to prepare the
grounds for the new ballroom that has been that Trump
(03:10):
is pushing for here. That's funded, by the way, not
by taxpayer dollars, but by donors and by Trump himself.
So that's where we're headed today, my friends. Thank you
for taking this journey alongside us. Also, I will tell
you got home late last night. If you listened yesterday
to the toodcast, you will have heard me say that
(03:33):
we went to the Pacers game last night, or we
were going heck of a basketball game double overtime. You know,
the Thunder played two games. Both of those games have
gone to double overtime. The Pacers came out shorthanded last night,
losing in double overtime to the reigning NBA champions. And
the Pacers didn't have they didn't play I think their
(03:56):
top five what I would consider point guards. We're not
on the court by the end of the game. So anyway,
it was a good time and enjoyed it a lot,
but I wish there was a different outcome. So that's
where we're headed today, my friends, the cartels and so forth.
Let me say one more thing before I get started here.
(04:18):
If you are if you haven't visited Freedom Marketplace dot net.
Yet I would ask you to do that. You know,
part of the way that we're able to deliver this
content to you free is to partner with people that
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are businesses who are aligned with you from a ideological perspective,
(04:45):
and these are companies. They have services and products that
some of you in this audience undoubtedly could benefit from.
So that's why we started Freedom Marketplace. Freedom Marketplace dot
net is where you can go. You can also go
to tot have show dot com, Slash Freedom dash Marketplace.
We can just go to the website and you can
(05:05):
find the main link there, but find out more information,
see if you can support the folks who help bring
this program to you on Freedom Marketplace, Freedom, I should say,
liberty and business for all my friends. All right, let's
talk about let's talk about what's going on here with
Trump and the cartels and these strikes that Trump is
(05:30):
making against these cartels. And I think to understand the
full scope of this, we've got to go back a
little bit in time and we have to understand the
drug crisis in America. Now, let me say this. Let
me say this. The so we know that this is
(05:57):
a problem that has as existed in this country for
some time, and we first seek to understand. I know
that there's opinions, you know, opinions happen immediately from some
people some people. In fact, it's the opposite of what
we do here. I like, you'll rarely ever, you'll probably
(06:21):
never see me trying to break news. That's not what
we do here. We help, We help people walk through
the news and figure out how the best think about
what's going on and have a conversation and a dialogue
to put it into the proper framework, and to try
to understand it and to wrestle with some of these
(06:43):
difficult sides every once. Sometimes it's very easy to understand
and know what the right side is. Other times it
can be a bit complex. And this might be one
of those one of those times. And so it's been said,
and I've said this on this program before, the sign
of one of the of being an adult is to
be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. I've
(07:05):
noticed that many on the left can't do this. There's
some on the right who can't do this as well. Actually,
many people of all walks of life are incapable. I
shouldn't say incapable. They're unwilling to do this. And I
don't know if sometimes it forces people to be uncomfortable
to question some of their beliefs or either support of
(07:29):
an individual person or party or politics or whatever. I
think there's a lot of things that go into it.
Sometimes it's just we live in a sound bite culture.
But we really do try to dig deeper here to
get to the truth. The core mission here at the
tod Have Show is to help people here and receive truth. Now,
so we have to first understand the rationale for why
(07:51):
we're here. So overdose deaths in this country now. The
data that I have in front of me is from
twenty twenty two. I don't know if that's the most recent.
That's what I was able to find. Approximately one hundred
eleven thousand US deaths in twenty twenty two from drug overdoses,
(08:13):
mostly from synthetic opioids. Synthetic opioid death rates they have climbed.
Listen to this from approximately this is. This is in
the past twelve it's over a course of twenty years,
from two thousand and two to twenty twenty two. Listen
to this synthetic opioid death rates climbed from about zero
(08:36):
point four per one hundred thousand in two thousand and
two today or in twenty twenty two. The most recent
data I have shows that there are now in twenty
twenty two, twenty two point seven deaths per one hundred
thousand people. Now, I don't have my calculator in front
(09:02):
of me, but that's approaching. That's approaching fifty times, I
believe oz. I don't know if you can do four
to two point seven divided by point four and tell
me what that number is. But that is a massive,
massive rate of growth from yes, see what that number
(09:26):
is fifty six fifty six point seven times seven, five
times more, fifty six times more in twenty years, So
from point four to twenty two point seven per one
hundred thousand people dying of synthetic opioid debts overdose deaths.
(09:49):
Now that leads us to that this is all connected. Now,
now you think about the border, the war at the border,
the open borders that we had under Biden, going back
to Trump in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, build that wall,
all this stuff that meant a lot of things, but
(10:09):
tucked into that argument was the illegal importation of some
of these drugs that are undoubtedly killing citizens in this nation.
Smuggling networks cartels in Mexico and South America of course,
(10:31):
took advantage of US southern border entry points and weaknesses.
Trump's taking care of that in a lot of ways.
The border is largely secure. It's not ever going to
be one hundred percent secure, but it is very very close.
I mean, it's ninety plus percent secure, which of course
proves that everything that they had told us in the
media and on the left for the past well during
(10:54):
Biden's entire presidency was not true. Because Biden said he
couldn't do anything, he needed Congress to fix the problem.
That problem has been fixed, and so Trump has gone
from a defensive sort of position where we're securing our
border to now he's saying we're going to proactively and
offensively target these people, target these groups who are trying
(11:19):
to import drugs like fentanyl that are incredibly deadly, very dangerous,
and that are killing Americans in well in the homeland here.
So there have been broader seizures of drugs by the
US Customs and Border protect Protection. They say more fentanyl
(11:41):
seized in the last two years than in the previous
five years combined than the previous five years. And they
have that well that makes sense, right, because we've got
a more secure border and there is just tighter they're
not able to get these things, get these things through
(12:04):
like they they once could. So they're trying to adjust.
The smugglers are trying to adjust the way that they
smuggle things into this country. United States of America. For
all the problems that we have, is still for for
all things. If you think, if you think about take
(12:26):
take legal and illegal markets or products out of the
mind for a second. If you think about people who
want to really make a profitable living, what again, legally
or illegally, they would want to sell to the American
people because this is still the greatest economic engine on earth,
(12:49):
And so they're trying to find ways to get this
before the American people get them addicted to the products.
Now I'm not listening, I'm not trying to gloss over
the personal choices that it exist here. But sometimes these
are very complicated issues. I mean, if you're raised in
a house where you're your your parents are doing drugs,
(13:09):
you know some of those some kids have a remarkable
ability to see that and say I want nothing to
do with that. Others heck, for all we know others
may have. Of course, we know some of this is true,
that some babies are born with addictions to drugs because
the mother during pregnancy is taking drugs. So there's all
sorts of factors here and in difficult situations, in scenarios, obviously,
(13:34):
human choice is a factor, but sometimes the environment in
which we are raised, you know, I I know when
I started running a nonprofit organization. I ran a boys
and girls club for about I think three years, and
I it was in my community. It was actually in
it was in the next community away from mine. I
(13:54):
was in a small town. Well, the town that the
boys and girls club was in many people would consider
a small town. My town was much smaller than that,
but the it was rough. It was my community, right.
It's where when I was a kid, when mom said
we were going into town to go to the grocery
store or whatever, we would go to this town. And
(14:15):
you know, I was naive because I was raised by
two just amazing people, and I lived a bit of
a I don't know, ah, just like a fantasy childhood.
Everything was was good for me, and I didn't understand
how bad it was for some other kids. I had
(14:38):
a mom who stayed home. She when I went to school,
she was always involved in whatever was going on in
the classroom. She was a homeroom mom or whatever they
called them, involved in the PTA or PTO, whatever, it was,
just involved, just and cared about us. Was home all
the time. We just had constant access to my my mother.
(15:00):
My dad, of course worked, but he would rearrange his
working hours so that he could coach us, you know.
He was My dad was always the coach of our teams,
and I just it was just a blessing. I didn't
realize until I ran that boys and Girls club, and
I was in my twenties, so you might think that
that's a little naive, but maybe it was. But I
(15:24):
remember I remember, as as a young guy running that club,
just being blown away by some of the circumstances that
these kids had growing up that I never had to
even remotely deal with. I remember a couple of brothers
once we had a program that we called the Shuffle
(15:48):
and this will day, this will date when this happened.
This was in the mid two thousands, like two thousand
and six to two thousand and nine in that vicinity,
we had this program. It was targeting teen. The reason
we did this program was because the local law enforcements said,
you know, we're getting a lot of calls in this
community where we're having to respond to youth that are
(16:11):
you know, having law enforcement contact because they're doing things
that require the police to be called. Is there something
that can be done proactively here? There was a partnership
formed with us and we went into this community and
I love these kids. I had a great time, played
basketball with them, did a bunch of things. I had
cookouts there, got some of them to come from the
(16:33):
club as well on other days of the week. But
we would go one day a week and do the
shuffle and we would have a drawing for an iPod
shuffle that'll date that'll really date this. And so we
had a grant to do this this program, and so
we bought a few iPod shuffles and every time you
would attend, you would get a ticket that you would
get to put in and we would draw I don't
(16:54):
know once a month or whatever month, once a quarter.
We did it at the beginning, but it didn't continue.
You know long, but we did it at the beginning.
And I remember both of the brothers had won an
iPod shuffle. Several months later, they were asking me, They said, Todd,
when are we going to have another drawing for iPod shuffles?
And I started to say, well, you know that was
(17:15):
a grant. We don't have funds to do that right now.
Whatever the answer was, and I said, wait a minute,
I said, you both won one. I said, what do
you want other ones for? I was kind of teasing,
having fun with them, and they looked at me and said, well,
we had to sell our iPods in order to bail
our mom out of jail. And that was perhaps the
(17:35):
biggest eye opener for me. There were lots of them,
but that was probably the one that hit me the
hardest between the eyes, because I had no idea that
that was the level of problem they were dealing with.
And so some of these things run really deep, is
my point. And you know, it's easy to point the
finger and say, well, what's all your choices? It certainly is.
(17:56):
We're responsible for ourselves, but man, it's it's a lot
easier having been raised in the way that I was
than the way that some of these folks, maybe some
of you were raised not for comparative purposes, but just
to understand that it's not always it's not always about
trying to, you know, to just say it's it's just
(18:18):
personal choice. It is. I'm not minimizing that. I believe
that that's critically important. But you know, sometimes before we
fully understand things, we may have a lifestyle that's been
thrust upon us that causes us to be to have
some really bad things in our lives, like these these drugs.
So that's the deal. That's that's kind of what's going
(18:38):
the backdrop to all of this. Now. In August, President
Trump ordered US forces to strike suspected drug smuggling vessels
in the Caribbean near Venezuelan waters, and on September second
of this year, the first publicly acknowledged strike was which
(19:00):
was a boat linked to Venezuelan gain Trend de Aragua,
which of course you hear about here, right. This is
all connected to border security. The intentions of those evil
doers in that country. Of course, they're all over the place.
There's people that are born here that have really evil intentions,
but this is one These are not American citizens. They're
(19:21):
trying to smuggle their drugs and violence across the border,
get it in, you know, somehow figure out the weaknesses,
and we've gone. Trump has gone from a defensive posture
to saying, we're going to begin to take this to you.
Now he's done this, and I'll get more into this
in the next segment. So let me give you the facts.
(19:41):
But there's rationale. He didn't just wake up one morning
and just say, hey, strike these boats or whatever. We'll
get into that, but I really want to give you
the kind of the timeline here before we get out
of this first segment. So mid September, so a month
or so ago, there were additional strikes that were reported,
and they began referring to these well trende Aragua and
(20:04):
people that were doing these things as narco terrorists, which
is important. Then earlier this month, the administration told Congress
that it is in a non international armed conflict n
IAC with these drug cartels. Now pause for a moment,
because when I was first doing some research on this,
(20:26):
I thought, what does not international mean? It took me
a minute. But the reason that this term is used
is not because it means they're not happening outside this country.
It means that it's not between it's not between two
nation states. The cartels are not the Venezuelan or Mexican
or whatever government. They have a lot of power, and
(20:47):
maybe in some degree they are by proxy controlling the
government or at least heavily influencing the governments of their
respective nations. But they're not nations, so it's not international.
This is a different type of conflict. This is between
a nation and a group that has been deemed or
termed as a terrorist organization. October eighth, just a couple
(21:13):
of weeks ago, AP reports Congress lacks hard public evidence
that vessels that these vessels carried drugs. Questions have been
asked about this. October eighteenth, which was just last week,
Trump announces that the survivors from one of these strikes
will be set for prosecution in Ecuador and Colombia. And then,
(21:35):
just a couple of days ago, on the twenty first,
this week, Trump says that it's possible that there will
be limited land operations to quote eliminate narco terrorist infrastructure.
So that's kind of the background. You got through what
I wanted to get through here. This first segment. Friends.
(21:56):
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time out, sit tight back here in just a minute.
(23:03):
Welcome back, my friends, cruising rod along here today. So
we've gone through the timeline. We've gone through kind of
the what I want to say, the background, some relevant
context regarding how we got here to Trump now issuing
strikes against these narco terrorist organizations from Venezuela in particular here.
(23:28):
So what's the legal framework and justification and argument that's
that's being had here. So let's go through that. I'm
glad you asked. The Article two, of course of the
United States Constitution. That is where the well, the president,
the executive branch, the President of the United States is
(23:50):
defined as the commander in chief. Commander in chief. So
there is an immediate acknowledgment that the President of the
United States has the ability and the responsibility, I would say,
to order the military to do things that protect this country. Now,
if you dig deeper, of course, in the Constitution and
(24:12):
you look at the powers in the executive or excuse me,
the legislative branch, they have the powers to declare war.
So but does every active military intervention require a formal
declaration of war? I mean, the obvious answer is no.
And hear me what I'm saying. Some of you are
(24:33):
very certainly, very much opposed to the president acting in
any way with using military force, but at least in
situations where our forces were directly attacked, surely we wouldn't
have to wait on Congress to declare war. So there
is obviously circumstances where military violence can be used. That
(24:57):
is not that doesn't require an active war. Where that
line is drawn, you might draw it right there, you
might say, unless there is a direct attack, then we
can't do it. Well, there's, of course, there's questions that
that could come from all levels of this. No matter
where you draw the line, and that's where this I mean,
(25:19):
reasonable people here can have a disagreement on where this
line should be drawn. The Law of armed conflict that says, well,
the administration is treating the cartels as organized armed groups
in a non international armed conflict with the US. So
they've legally they've said this is this is the justification.
(25:41):
So they've cited certain laws and well justification for the
things that they are doing. There's also this thing called
the War Powers Act, which we've talked about on this
program before. In nineteen seventy three, the President must notify
Congress within forty eight hours of any hostilities, and then
(26:01):
any forces that are used in these hostilities are not
supposed to remain more than sixty days without congressional authorization.
I think there's a built in thirty day an addition
for the withdrawal of forces. But there are rules and
laws on the book. On the books, I should say,
(26:21):
But there are some questions, of course, when you go
to implement or cite these laws as justification. And it's
a healthy thing to do. That's another thing. It's a
healthy thing no matter who's president. It's a healthy thing
to ask these questions because it is important that we
follow the law and the constitution of the land. But
it's still even in doing that, reasonable people can think
(26:44):
that the line is drawn in a place that differs
from one another. They might see the line being drawn
in different places. So there's also the Authorization for Use
of Military Force. The au MF is what this is
sometimes referred to. The Congress has not passed any authorization
(27:05):
for use of military force in particular pertaining to these cartels.
None of that has been have been passed. And of
course some lawmakers, some members of Congress, raise questions about this.
Some people are political. Listen, there's different people. There's people
who have legitimate objections. This would be people typically like
(27:26):
rand Paul Thomas Massey, and there's others as well. There's
there's some even on the Democrat side. But then there's
political opportunists. There are people that, no matter what they do,
are going to criticize what Trump says and make it
into something no matter what the issue is. It reminds
me I may have told this story on here before,
but back when I was a teenager, a young a
(27:47):
younger Christian, we were having a youth group meeting. We
were playing a game. It was a Bible trivia game.
It's kind of like trivial pursuit. In fact, it might
have been just like it a Bible version. I'm just
I'm not I can't remember. It's been thirty thirty years ago,
thirty plus years ago now, and I remember it was
boys versus girls, and I remember there was a question,
(28:07):
a question that was asked on the card and it
said the Bible says money. What does the Bible say
about money? Well, what does what does the Bible say
about money? Something like that, and the girls respond, Now,
let me pause. Whatever the girls were going to say,
as a member of the other team, I was going
(28:29):
to I was going to dispute it, just because that's
I was just having fun and that's what you did. Right,
So even if it was right, I was going to
try to find some technicality or just just to try
to keep them from getting the point, just to rile
them up, have a little bit of fun, banter or whatever.
But but so in that sense, I was acting like
(28:51):
Chuck Schumer, obviously just in a playful way. But Chuck
Schumer and the Democrats, many of the Democrats just to
post Trump that they already know no matter what he says,
they're going to oppose it. But when they answered the question,
they actually got it wrong. And so I went from
planning to object to no matter what they said, to
(29:12):
it having a real, a real objection because they answered
that money is the root of evil. And I said,
but beat back it up. That's not what it says.
It says the love of money is the roots of
is the root of all kinds of evil. It's the
love of money. It's not money. It's tough. Money is
a moral right. Just like again, this this is one
(29:33):
of the reasons, one of the many reasons. But when
people say guns don't kill people, people kill people. It's
the way that the the gun is used. It's the
it's the way that the human decides to look at
and put to use some of these things that we
have this side of heaven, from money to firearms to
the way that we engage in free speech. You know,
(29:54):
you can say whatever you want, but sometimes it's just
wise not to say it. Sometimes you should just keep
your mouth shut. Sometimes it doesn't mean you don't have
the right to say it. It just means sometimes, in
a sane world, even though I have the freedom to
say something, it's probably wiser or maybe wiser in some instances,
not to say it. And so I had a real
(30:14):
objection there to the answer because it was wrong, but
I was going to oppose it no matter what. So
there are people that fall into both camps. There are
people who oppose that did both of what I was
preparing to do in that example, that analogy. There are
people who have legitimate objections ran Paul Thomas Massey types,
(30:34):
and there are people who no matter what Trump says
or does, they're going to have a problem because it's
a pre orchestrated sort of reaction and response. So, but
Congress has not authorized the use of force military force
specifically for this. There's also the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement
Act of nineteen eighty six. This gives US jurisdiction over
(30:56):
drug trafficking on the high seas, but traditionally for interdiction
and arrest, not full military strikes. Terrorist organization designation, which
is a big part of this I mentioned in the
first part of the program. Trump administration has designated major
cartels as terrorist groups, which they're calling narco terrorist organizations
(31:18):
narco terrorists, and that is what is used to justify
the use of force under self defense and the law
of armed conflict. So there is a justification laid out
as to why Trump is doing this. I would say
the responsible thing as people in this country who don't
just get an opinion on something in five seconds and
(31:40):
go out there and start posting or screaming about it
as though we're experts in this. I think it's wise
to ask these questions because there is a justification that
Trump is laid forth, the administration is laid forth. The
question is is it sound, is it airtight? Are there
things that legitimately should prevent him from doing this? And
(32:01):
it does matter, It absolutely does matter. Well at the
same time, recognizing that he is trying to prevent what
we talked about off the top, these massive drug problems
that are killing Americans. He's trying to protect Americans. He's
got what he thinks is a justification for this. Other
people are screaming because they hate Trump. Some people are
(32:22):
screaming because they have legitimate questions and concerns. I respect
that group, I do. I respect that group. I have
questions and concerns, but I wanted to go through this
as fairly as I could today getting here to the
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Quick time out my friends back in a minute. Welcome back,
my friends. What did surprise you? Maybe it would maybe
it wouldn't, But it surprised you that I don't know
entirely where I fall on this issue. This is not
(34:16):
the first time something like this has happened where there's
questions regarding the president's authority to use force. It won't
be the last Congress has tried to deal with this.
They've put certain mechanisms and things in place to try
(34:36):
to create clear rules. But honestly, the more rules there are,
it seems like the more loopholes that exist, and it
sometimes becomes maybe even more problematic or unclear as to
where the actual goalposts are. You know, it's one of
the things. Who is the philosopher who said I'm drawing
(34:57):
a blank here, but one of the philosophers says, many
laws many law breakers. Basically, if you want to if
you want to make a law about everything, you're going
to have everybody end up breaking the law. And there's
different types of laws. Right, there's the moral law. So
there are things that are against the law, that are
against illegally in this country or other countries around the world.
(35:19):
Things that are against the law, that violate the moral code.
Those are laws you don't have to even tell people
to follow. For example, you know, murder, you don't have
to You shouldn't have to explain to someone. Legitimately, I
never had a conversation with our children to sit them
down and say, hey, murder is wrong. They that's built
(35:41):
in that that's built into the human conscience. We know
this the uh the divine moral code. While we may
not understand every detail, we do understand kind of the biggies,
the biggie that the Ten Commandment type things. So, but
(36:02):
the more laws that you make that are administrative and
purpose that are not morally wrong, it's just, hey, this
is the way that government does it, and if you
do it a different way, you're going to face major consequence.
You're going to be considered a criminal. Those are big
problems because we don't have any way of knowing it
unless we're experts in all of the pages of law
(36:22):
that exist out there. And so that's a part of this.
You know, this is a country. We're approaching our two
hundred and fiftieth birthday, which will happen next year with
Trump and the White House, which is going to be
epic by the way. But you look at this and
you think, you know, when it comes to rules and
(36:44):
arbitrary rules and guideline, it becomes complicated. You've got a
country that's been dealing with these kind of core questions
in some capacity for a long time. You have different
congresses that have different perspectives. You have the general evolution
of culture and society. You have presidents who push the
envelope on these things, and it becomes murky. And I'll
(37:06):
tell you A big part of this, from my vantage point,
is that Congress. Congress oftentimes, you know what's remarkable to me.
They want to tell you that they can make equal
pay for everybody on planet Earth for equal work. They
want you to believe that they can control the sea
levels in five years or whatever, but they won't do
(37:27):
the things that are laid forth in the Constitution. Congress
a lot of times says, look, we don't want to
do that here. The president can do more of this
or more of that, and it becomes more chopped up
and convoluted than you've got terrorist organizations, which is obviously different, right,
different than fighting crime here in the country. When you're
dealing with, for example, in a war, obviously you're not
(37:49):
when you're engaging with the enemy. You don't go up
and give them their miranda rights before you engage with
them militarily. I mean, there's obvious differences, but then there's
questions about where that line can be drawn. A lot
of reasonably people can disagree. Congress. There's some senators out
there who are pushing for a vote on this. That
(38:11):
would include Rand Paul, who I do respect, and Tim
Kaine and others on the well, both sides. But there
are those who have true questions and those who simply
and true concerns, and those who are just opposing the
president because they hate him, and all that there's international
law to concern concern yourself with. Some says that the
(38:32):
administration haven't shown the proof necessary for each target to
show that it's met the criteria. And there's Trump who's
trying to prevent drugs from coming into this country and
contributing or adding to the one hundred and eleven thousand
people who die a year from overdoses. So I wanted
(38:53):
to paint that picture today. And you know what, it's
It's okay if you say, you know what. I'm not
sure why I fall on this. I can see, I
can see the concerns. What is wrong with that. I
can see the concerns from both sides. We don't want
a president who does things that's not permitted by law,
But we also don't want a president to sit on
his hands when he can do things to protect the
American people, when he's following the steps and the law
(39:15):
as laid out. I think this case can be made
from either side. I think there's concerns on legitimate concerns
that abound on both sides, but I want to present
it fairly today, my friends. I think I've done that
at least to the best of my abilities. But I'm
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(40:20):
One more thing as we close, my friends, we have
and did I talked about this on the Todd Talk today,
But short version is, there's are the things that we're
changing to try to bring the message of truth to
as many people as possible. One of the things we're
looking to do is have more guests, and so I'd
(40:40):
like to know what you think. You can either email
me Todd at todhofshow dot com or go to todofshow
dot com slash guests. Tell us who you think we
should talk to. But I gotta go sdjink
Attention. You're listening to The Todd Huff Show, America's home
for conservative not bitter talk and education. Be advised. The
content of this program has been talking about it to
prevents and even cure liberalism, and listening may cause you
to lean to the right. And now, coming to you
(00:29):
from the full suite Wealth Studios, here is your conservative
but not Bitter host, Todd Huff.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, greetings, my friends, welcome to today's episode of The
Todd Huff Show. It is my absolute pleasure and privilege
to be here with you today. Let's see, I'm gonna
get into some things today that you know, I for
the program, I was well, I was just sharing here
(00:58):
behind the microphone that this is. There's occasionally things that
I talk about on here that I don't feel one
hundred percent up to doing. And that's because they mean
a lot. And there's a lot of details and information
(01:21):
that I do my level best to stay on top of.
But you know, I I some things I'm still figuring out,
you know. I you know, when you pursue truth, I
think I think what's been revealed, what we've learned about
how to live this side of heaven as a culture,
(01:44):
as a society, as a people, as a as a government,
as a state, a country, whatever. You know. You can
have a firm handle on those things. And then there's
things that come up that are complex and difficult, and
we're gonna te talk about one of those today. One
of those today, and that would be what is happening
(02:06):
with these drug cartels. I want to do my best
with Trump basically striking these folks with with drones and
so forth, and I want to go through this. I
want to present this as fairly as possible. I want
to explain the rationale for what Trump is doing and
raise some questions that I think are fair that I
(02:27):
think all of us should ask, no matter who the
president of the United States is. I also time permitting.
I did write about it yesterday in the newsletter, because
I told you I would if I didn't get to it.
But I wrote in the newsletter yesterday, and if we
have time today, I'll get into on top of what's
happening with the cartels and Trump's use of force here.
(02:49):
I will also talk a little bit about his well
the the plans to move forward with this ballroom. In fact,
there's been progue Res made demolition work to prepare the
grounds for the new ballroom that has been that Trump
(03:10):
is pushing for here. That's funded, by the way, not
by taxpayer dollars, but by donors and by Trump himself.
So that's where we're headed today, my friends. Thank you
for taking this journey alongside us. Also, I will tell
you got home late last night. If you listened yesterday
to the toodcast, you will have heard me say that
(03:33):
we went to the Pacers game last night, or we
were going heck of a basketball game double overtime. You know,
the Thunder played two games. Both of those games have
gone to double overtime. The Pacers came out shorthanded last night,
losing in double overtime to the reigning NBA champions. And
the Pacers didn't have they didn't play I think their
(03:56):
top five what I would consider point guards. We're not
on the court by the end of the game. So anyway,
it was a good time and enjoyed it a lot,
but I wish there was a different outcome. So that's
where we're headed today, my friends, the cartels and so forth.
Let me say one more thing before I get started here.
(04:18):
If you are if you haven't visited Freedom Marketplace dot net.
Yet I would ask you to do that. You know,
part of the way that we're able to deliver this
content to you free is to partner with people that
want to put their business in front of you. These
are businesses who are aligned with you from a ideological perspective,
(04:45):
and these are companies. They have services and products that
some of you in this audience undoubtedly could benefit from.
So that's why we started Freedom Marketplace. Freedom Marketplace dot
net is where you can go. You can also go
to tot have show dot com, Slash Freedom dash Marketplace.
We can just go to the website and you can
(05:05):
find the main link there, but find out more information,
see if you can support the folks who help bring
this program to you on Freedom Marketplace, Freedom, I should say,
liberty and business for all my friends. All right, let's
talk about let's talk about what's going on here with
Trump and the cartels and these strikes that Trump is
(05:30):
making against these cartels. And I think to understand the
full scope of this, we've got to go back a
little bit in time and we have to understand the
drug crisis in America. Now, let me say this. Let
me say this. The so we know that this is
(05:57):
a problem that has as existed in this country for
some time, and we first seek to understand. I know
that there's opinions, you know, opinions happen immediately from some
people some people. In fact, it's the opposite of what
we do here. I like, you'll rarely ever, you'll probably
(06:21):
never see me trying to break news. That's not what
we do here. We help, We help people walk through
the news and figure out how the best think about
what's going on and have a conversation and a dialogue
to put it into the proper framework, and to try
to understand it and to wrestle with some of these
(06:43):
difficult sides every once. Sometimes it's very easy to understand
and know what the right side is. Other times it
can be a bit complex. And this might be one
of those one of those times. And so it's been said,
and I've said this on this program before, the sign
of one of the of being an adult is to
be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. I've
(07:05):
noticed that many on the left can't do this. There's
some on the right who can't do this as well. Actually,
many people of all walks of life are incapable. I
shouldn't say incapable. They're unwilling to do this. And I
don't know if sometimes it forces people to be uncomfortable
to question some of their beliefs or either support of
(07:29):
an individual person or party or politics or whatever. I
think there's a lot of things that go into it.
Sometimes it's just we live in a sound bite culture.
But we really do try to dig deeper here to
get to the truth. The core mission here at the
tod Have Show is to help people here and receive truth. Now,
so we have to first understand the rationale for why
(07:51):
we're here. So overdose deaths in this country now. The
data that I have in front of me is from
twenty twenty two. I don't know if that's the most recent.
That's what I was able to find. Approximately one hundred
eleven thousand US deaths in twenty twenty two from drug overdoses,
(08:13):
mostly from synthetic opioids. Synthetic opioid death rates they have climbed.
Listen to this from approximately this is. This is in
the past twelve it's over a course of twenty years,
from two thousand and two to twenty twenty two. Listen
to this synthetic opioid death rates climbed from about zero
(08:36):
point four per one hundred thousand in two thousand and
two today or in twenty twenty two. The most recent
data I have shows that there are now in twenty
twenty two, twenty two point seven deaths per one hundred
thousand people. Now, I don't have my calculator in front
(09:02):
of me, but that's approaching. That's approaching fifty times, I
believe oz. I don't know if you can do four
to two point seven divided by point four and tell
me what that number is. But that is a massive,
massive rate of growth from yes, see what that number
(09:26):
is fifty six fifty six point seven times seven, five
times more, fifty six times more in twenty years, So
from point four to twenty two point seven per one
hundred thousand people dying of synthetic opioid debts overdose deaths.
(09:49):
Now that leads us to that this is all connected. Now,
now you think about the border, the war at the border,
the open borders that we had under Biden, going back
to Trump in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, build that wall,
all this stuff that meant a lot of things, but
(10:09):
tucked into that argument was the illegal importation of some
of these drugs that are undoubtedly killing citizens in this nation.
Smuggling networks cartels in Mexico and South America of course,
(10:31):
took advantage of US southern border entry points and weaknesses.
Trump's taking care of that in a lot of ways.
The border is largely secure. It's not ever going to
be one hundred percent secure, but it is very very close.
I mean, it's ninety plus percent secure, which of course
proves that everything that they had told us in the
media and on the left for the past well during
(10:54):
Biden's entire presidency was not true. Because Biden said he
couldn't do anything, he needed Congress to fix the problem.
That problem has been fixed, and so Trump has gone
from a defensive sort of position where we're securing our
border to now he's saying we're going to proactively and
offensively target these people, target these groups who are trying
(11:19):
to import drugs like fentanyl that are incredibly deadly, very dangerous,
and that are killing Americans in well in the homeland here.
So there have been broader seizures of drugs by the
US Customs and Border protect Protection. They say more fentanyl
(11:41):
seized in the last two years than in the previous
five years combined than the previous five years. And they
have that well that makes sense, right, because we've got
a more secure border and there is just tighter they're
not able to get these things, get these things through
(12:04):
like they they once could. So they're trying to adjust.
The smugglers are trying to adjust the way that they
smuggle things into this country. United States of America. For
all the problems that we have, is still for for
all things. If you think, if you think about take
(12:26):
take legal and illegal markets or products out of the
mind for a second. If you think about people who
want to really make a profitable living, what again, legally
or illegally, they would want to sell to the American
people because this is still the greatest economic engine on earth,
(12:49):
And so they're trying to find ways to get this
before the American people get them addicted to the products.
Now I'm not listening, I'm not trying to gloss over
the personal choices that it exist here. But sometimes these
are very complicated issues. I mean, if you're raised in
a house where you're your your parents are doing drugs,
(13:09):
you know some of those some kids have a remarkable
ability to see that and say I want nothing to
do with that. Others heck, for all we know others
may have. Of course, we know some of this is true,
that some babies are born with addictions to drugs because
the mother during pregnancy is taking drugs. So there's all
sorts of factors here and in difficult situations, in scenarios, obviously,
(13:34):
human choice is a factor, but sometimes the environment in
which we are raised, you know, I I know when
I started running a nonprofit organization. I ran a boys
and girls club for about I think three years, and
I it was in my community. It was actually in
it was in the next community away from mine. I
(13:54):
was in a small town. Well, the town that the
boys and girls club was in many people would consider
a small town. My town was much smaller than that,
but the it was rough. It was my community, right.
It's where when I was a kid, when mom said
we were going into town to go to the grocery
store or whatever, we would go to this town. And
(14:15):
you know, I was naive because I was raised by
two just amazing people, and I lived a bit of
a I don't know, ah, just like a fantasy childhood.
Everything was was good for me, and I didn't understand
how bad it was for some other kids. I had
(14:38):
a mom who stayed home. She when I went to school,
she was always involved in whatever was going on in
the classroom. She was a homeroom mom or whatever they
called them, involved in the PTA or PTO, whatever, it was,
just involved, just and cared about us. Was home all
the time. We just had constant access to my my mother.
(15:00):
My dad, of course worked, but he would rearrange his
working hours so that he could coach us, you know.
He was My dad was always the coach of our teams,
and I just it was just a blessing. I didn't
realize until I ran that boys and Girls club, and
I was in my twenties, so you might think that
that's a little naive, but maybe it was. But I
(15:24):
remember I remember, as as a young guy running that club,
just being blown away by some of the circumstances that
these kids had growing up that I never had to
even remotely deal with. I remember a couple of brothers
once we had a program that we called the Shuffle
(15:48):
and this will day, this will date when this happened.
This was in the mid two thousands, like two thousand
and six to two thousand and nine in that vicinity,
we had this program. It was targeting teen. The reason
we did this program was because the local law enforcements said,
you know, we're getting a lot of calls in this
community where we're having to respond to youth that are
(16:11):
you know, having law enforcement contact because they're doing things
that require the police to be called. Is there something
that can be done proactively here? There was a partnership
formed with us and we went into this community and
I love these kids. I had a great time, played
basketball with them, did a bunch of things. I had
cookouts there, got some of them to come from the
(16:33):
club as well on other days of the week. But
we would go one day a week and do the
shuffle and we would have a drawing for an iPod
shuffle that'll date that'll really date this. And so we
had a grant to do this this program, and so
we bought a few iPod shuffles and every time you
would attend, you would get a ticket that you would
get to put in and we would draw I don't
(16:54):
know once a month or whatever month, once a quarter.
We did it at the beginning, but it didn't continue.
You know long, but we did it at the beginning.
And I remember both of the brothers had won an
iPod shuffle. Several months later, they were asking me, They said, Todd,
when are we going to have another drawing for iPod shuffles?
And I started to say, well, you know that was
(17:15):
a grant. We don't have funds to do that right now.
Whatever the answer was, and I said, wait a minute,
I said, you both won one. I said, what do
you want other ones for? I was kind of teasing,
having fun with them, and they looked at me and said, well,
we had to sell our iPods in order to bail
our mom out of jail. And that was perhaps the
(17:35):
biggest eye opener for me. There were lots of them,
but that was probably the one that hit me the
hardest between the eyes, because I had no idea that
that was the level of problem they were dealing with.
And so some of these things run really deep, is
my point. And you know, it's easy to point the
finger and say, well, what's all your choices? It certainly is.
(17:56):
We're responsible for ourselves, but man, it's it's a lot
easier having been raised in the way that I was
than the way that some of these folks, maybe some
of you were raised not for comparative purposes, but just
to understand that it's not always it's not always about
trying to, you know, to just say it's it's just
(18:18):
personal choice. It is. I'm not minimizing that. I believe
that that's critically important. But you know, sometimes before we
fully understand things, we may have a lifestyle that's been
thrust upon us that causes us to be to have
some really bad things in our lives, like these these drugs.
So that's the deal. That's that's kind of what's going
(18:38):
the backdrop to all of this. Now. In August, President
Trump ordered US forces to strike suspected drug smuggling vessels
in the Caribbean near Venezuelan waters, and on September second
of this year, the first publicly acknowledged strike was which
(19:00):
was a boat linked to Venezuelan gain Trend de Aragua,
which of course you hear about here, right. This is
all connected to border security. The intentions of those evil
doers in that country. Of course, they're all over the place.
There's people that are born here that have really evil intentions,
but this is one These are not American citizens. They're
(19:21):
trying to smuggle their drugs and violence across the border,
get it in, you know, somehow figure out the weaknesses,
and we've gone. Trump has gone from a defensive posture
to saying, we're going to begin to take this to you.
Now he's done this, and I'll get more into this
in the next segment. So let me give you the facts.
(19:41):
But there's rationale. He didn't just wake up one morning
and just say, hey, strike these boats or whatever. We'll
get into that, but I really want to give you
the kind of the timeline here before we get out
of this first segment. So mid September, so a month
or so ago, there were additional strikes that were reported,
and they began referring to these well trende Aragua and
(20:04):
people that were doing these things as narco terrorists, which
is important. Then earlier this month, the administration told Congress
that it is in a non international armed conflict n
IAC with these drug cartels. Now pause for a moment,
because when I was first doing some research on this,
(20:26):
I thought, what does not international mean? It took me
a minute. But the reason that this term is used
is not because it means they're not happening outside this country.
It means that it's not between it's not between two
nation states. The cartels are not the Venezuelan or Mexican
or whatever government. They have a lot of power, and
(20:47):
maybe in some degree they are by proxy controlling the
government or at least heavily influencing the governments of their
respective nations. But they're not nations, so it's not international.
This is a different type of conflict. This is between
a nation and a group that has been deemed or
termed as a terrorist organization. October eighth, just a couple
(21:13):
of weeks ago, AP reports Congress lacks hard public evidence
that vessels that these vessels carried drugs. Questions have been
asked about this. October eighteenth, which was just last week,
Trump announces that the survivors from one of these strikes
will be set for prosecution in Ecuador and Colombia. And then,
(21:35):
just a couple of days ago, on the twenty first,
this week, Trump says that it's possible that there will
be limited land operations to quote eliminate narco terrorist infrastructure.
So that's kind of the background. You got through what
I wanted to get through here. This first segment. Friends.
(21:56):
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my friends, for your values. I have to take a
time out, sit tight back here in just a minute.
(23:03):
Welcome back, my friends, cruising rod along here today. So
we've gone through the timeline. We've gone through kind of
the what I want to say, the background, some relevant
context regarding how we got here to Trump now issuing
strikes against these narco terrorist organizations from Venezuela in particular here.
(23:28):
So what's the legal framework and justification and argument that's
that's being had here. So let's go through that. I'm
glad you asked. The Article two, of course of the
United States Constitution. That is where the well, the president,
the executive branch, the President of the United States is
(23:50):
defined as the commander in chief. Commander in chief. So
there is an immediate acknowledgment that the President of the
United States has the ability and the responsibility, I would say,
to order the military to do things that protect this country. Now,
if you dig deeper, of course, in the Constitution and
(24:12):
you look at the powers in the executive or excuse me,
the legislative branch, they have the powers to declare war.
So but does every active military intervention require a formal
declaration of war? I mean, the obvious answer is no.
And hear me what I'm saying. Some of you are
(24:33):
very certainly, very much opposed to the president acting in
any way with using military force, but at least in
situations where our forces were directly attacked, surely we wouldn't
have to wait on Congress to declare war. So there
is obviously circumstances where military violence can be used. That
(24:57):
is not that doesn't require an active war. Where that
line is drawn, you might draw it right there, you
might say, unless there is a direct attack, then we
can't do it. Well, there's, of course, there's questions that
that could come from all levels of this. No matter
where you draw the line, and that's where this I mean,
(25:19):
reasonable people here can have a disagreement on where this
line should be drawn. The Law of armed conflict that says, well,
the administration is treating the cartels as organized armed groups
in a non international armed conflict with the US. So
they've legally they've said this is this is the justification.
(25:41):
So they've cited certain laws and well justification for the
things that they are doing. There's also this thing called
the War Powers Act, which we've talked about on this
program before. In nineteen seventy three, the President must notify
Congress within forty eight hours of any hostilities, and then
(26:01):
any forces that are used in these hostilities are not
supposed to remain more than sixty days without congressional authorization.
I think there's a built in thirty day an addition
for the withdrawal of forces. But there are rules and
laws on the book. On the books, I should say,
(26:21):
But there are some questions, of course, when you go
to implement or cite these laws as justification. And it's
a healthy thing to do. That's another thing. It's a
healthy thing no matter who's president. It's a healthy thing
to ask these questions because it is important that we
follow the law and the constitution of the land. But
it's still even in doing that, reasonable people can think
(26:44):
that the line is drawn in a place that differs
from one another. They might see the line being drawn
in different places. So there's also the Authorization for Use
of Military Force. The au MF is what this is
sometimes referred to. The Congress has not passed any authorization
(27:05):
for use of military force in particular pertaining to these cartels.
None of that has been have been passed. And of
course some lawmakers, some members of Congress, raise questions about this.
Some people are political. Listen, there's different people. There's people
who have legitimate objections. This would be people typically like
(27:26):
rand Paul Thomas Massey, and there's others as well. There's
there's some even on the Democrat side. But then there's
political opportunists. There are people that, no matter what they do,
are going to criticize what Trump says and make it
into something no matter what the issue is. It reminds
me I may have told this story on here before,
but back when I was a teenager, a young a
(27:47):
younger Christian, we were having a youth group meeting. We
were playing a game. It was a Bible trivia game.
It's kind of like trivial pursuit. In fact, it might
have been just like it a Bible version. I'm just
I'm not I can't remember. It's been thirty thirty years ago,
thirty plus years ago now, and I remember it was
boys versus girls, and I remember there was a question,
(28:07):
a question that was asked on the card and it
said the Bible says money. What does the Bible say
about money? Well, what does what does the Bible say
about money? Something like that, and the girls respond, Now,
let me pause. Whatever the girls were going to say,
as a member of the other team, I was going
(28:29):
to I was going to dispute it, just because that's
I was just having fun and that's what you did. Right,
So even if it was right, I was going to
try to find some technicality or just just to try
to keep them from getting the point, just to rile
them up, have a little bit of fun, banter or whatever.
But but so in that sense, I was acting like
(28:51):
Chuck Schumer, obviously just in a playful way. But Chuck
Schumer and the Democrats, many of the Democrats just to
post Trump that they already know no matter what he says,
they're going to oppose it. But when they answered the question,
they actually got it wrong. And so I went from
planning to object to no matter what they said, to
(29:12):
it having a real, a real objection because they answered
that money is the root of evil. And I said,
but beat back it up. That's not what it says.
It says the love of money is the roots of
is the root of all kinds of evil. It's the
love of money. It's not money. It's tough. Money is
a moral right. Just like again, this this is one
(29:33):
of the reasons, one of the many reasons. But when
people say guns don't kill people, people kill people. It's
the way that the the gun is used. It's the
it's the way that the human decides to look at
and put to use some of these things that we
have this side of heaven, from money to firearms to
the way that we engage in free speech. You know,
(29:54):
you can say whatever you want, but sometimes it's just
wise not to say it. Sometimes you should just keep
your mouth shut. Sometimes it doesn't mean you don't have
the right to say it. It just means sometimes, in
a sane world, even though I have the freedom to
say something, it's probably wiser or maybe wiser in some instances,
not to say it. And so I had a real
(30:14):
objection there to the answer because it was wrong, but
I was going to oppose it no matter what. So
there are people that fall into both camps. There are
people who oppose that did both of what I was
preparing to do in that example, that analogy. There are
people who have legitimate objections ran Paul Thomas Massey types,
(30:34):
and there are people who no matter what Trump says
or does, they're going to have a problem because it's
a pre orchestrated sort of reaction and response. So, but
Congress has not authorized the use of force military force
specifically for this. There's also the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement
Act of nineteen eighty six. This gives US jurisdiction over
(30:56):
drug trafficking on the high seas, but traditionally for interdiction
and arrest, not full military strikes. Terrorist organization designation, which
is a big part of this I mentioned in the
first part of the program. Trump administration has designated major
cartels as terrorist groups, which they're calling narco terrorist organizations
(31:18):
narco terrorists, and that is what is used to justify
the use of force under self defense and the law
of armed conflict. So there is a justification laid out
as to why Trump is doing this. I would say
the responsible thing as people in this country who don't
just get an opinion on something in five seconds and
(31:40):
go out there and start posting or screaming about it
as though we're experts in this. I think it's wise
to ask these questions because there is a justification that
Trump is laid forth, the administration is laid forth. The
question is is it sound, is it airtight? Are there
things that legitimately should prevent him from doing this? And
(32:01):
it does matter, It absolutely does matter. Well at the
same time, recognizing that he is trying to prevent what
we talked about off the top, these massive drug problems
that are killing Americans. He's trying to protect Americans. He's
got what he thinks is a justification for this. Other
people are screaming because they hate Trump. Some people are
(32:22):
screaming because they have legitimate questions and concerns. I respect
that group, I do. I respect that group. I have
questions and concerns, but I wanted to go through this
as fairly as I could today getting here to the
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Quick time out my friends back in a minute. Welcome back,
my friends. What did surprise you? Maybe it would maybe
it wouldn't, But it surprised you that I don't know
entirely where I fall on this issue. This is not
(34:16):
the first time something like this has happened where there's
questions regarding the president's authority to use force. It won't
be the last Congress has tried to deal with this.
They've put certain mechanisms and things in place to try
(34:36):
to create clear rules. But honestly, the more rules there are,
it seems like the more loopholes that exist, and it
sometimes becomes maybe even more problematic or unclear as to
where the actual goalposts are. You know, it's one of
the things. Who is the philosopher who said I'm drawing
(34:57):
a blank here, but one of the philosophers says, many
laws many law breakers. Basically, if you want to if
you want to make a law about everything, you're going
to have everybody end up breaking the law. And there's
different types of laws. Right, there's the moral law. So
there are things that are against the law, that are
against illegally in this country or other countries around the world.
(35:19):
Things that are against the law, that violate the moral code.
Those are laws you don't have to even tell people
to follow. For example, you know, murder, you don't have
to You shouldn't have to explain to someone. Legitimately, I
never had a conversation with our children to sit them
down and say, hey, murder is wrong. They that's built
(35:41):
in that that's built into the human conscience. We know
this the uh the divine moral code. While we may
not understand every detail, we do understand kind of the biggies,
the biggie that the Ten Commandment type things. So, but
(36:02):
the more laws that you make that are administrative and
purpose that are not morally wrong, it's just, hey, this
is the way that government does it, and if you
do it a different way, you're going to face major consequence.
You're going to be considered a criminal. Those are big
problems because we don't have any way of knowing it
unless we're experts in all of the pages of law
(36:22):
that exist out there. And so that's a part of this.
You know, this is a country. We're approaching our two
hundred and fiftieth birthday, which will happen next year with
Trump and the White House, which is going to be
epic by the way. But you look at this and
you think, you know, when it comes to rules and
(36:44):
arbitrary rules and guideline, it becomes complicated. You've got a
country that's been dealing with these kind of core questions
in some capacity for a long time. You have different
congresses that have different perspectives. You have the general evolution
of culture and society. You have presidents who push the
envelope on these things, and it becomes murky. And I'll
(37:06):
tell you A big part of this, from my vantage point,
is that Congress. Congress oftentimes, you know what's remarkable to me.
They want to tell you that they can make equal
pay for everybody on planet Earth for equal work. They
want you to believe that they can control the sea
levels in five years or whatever, but they won't do
(37:27):
the things that are laid forth in the Constitution. Congress
a lot of times says, look, we don't want to
do that here. The president can do more of this
or more of that, and it becomes more chopped up
and convoluted than you've got terrorist organizations, which is obviously different, right,
different than fighting crime here in the country. When you're
dealing with, for example, in a war, obviously you're not
(37:49):
when you're engaging with the enemy. You don't go up
and give them their miranda rights before you engage with
them militarily. I mean, there's obvious differences, but then there's
questions about where that line can be drawn. A lot
of reasonably people can disagree. Congress. There's some senators out
there who are pushing for a vote on this. That
(38:11):
would include Rand Paul, who I do respect, and Tim
Kaine and others on the well, both sides. But there
are those who have true questions and those who simply
and true concerns, and those who are just opposing the
president because they hate him, and all that there's international
law to concern concern yourself with. Some says that the
(38:32):
administration haven't shown the proof necessary for each target to
show that it's met the criteria. And there's Trump who's
trying to prevent drugs from coming into this country and
contributing or adding to the one hundred and eleven thousand
people who die a year from overdoses. So I wanted
(38:53):
to paint that picture today. And you know what, it's
It's okay if you say, you know what. I'm not
sure why I fall on this. I can see, I
can see the concerns. What is wrong with that. I
can see the concerns from both sides. We don't want
a president who does things that's not permitted by law,
But we also don't want a president to sit on
his hands when he can do things to protect the
American people, when he's following the steps and the law
(39:15):
as laid out. I think this case can be made
from either side. I think there's concerns on legitimate concerns
that abound on both sides, but I want to present
it fairly today, my friends. I think I've done that
at least to the best of my abilities. But I'm
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(40:20):
One more thing as we close, my friends, we have
and did I talked about this on the Todd Talk today,
But short version is, there's are the things that we're
changing to try to bring the message of truth to
as many people as possible. One of the things we're
looking to do is have more guests, and so I'd
(40:40):
like to know what you think. You can either email
me Todd at todhofshow dot com or go to todofshow
dot com slash guests. Tell us who you think we
should talk to. But I gotta go sdjink
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