There’s nothing like a dramatic military action by President Trump to underline how much National “Public” Radio sounds like DNC Radio. On Weekend Edition Saturday, within hours of Maduro being seized, guest host Daniel Estrin interviewed Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and energetically pushed that Trump’s actions were illegal:
ESTRIN: You were among the lawmakers who said the Trump administration's strikes on boats in the Caribbean were illegal. You were even discussing the possibility of those strikes constituting a war crime. So how do you see last night's operations?
KAINE: Daniel, I think these strikes are clearly illegal. They have not been authorized by Congress, and the Constitution is clear that the U.S. doesn't engage in military action or war without a vote of Congress, except in cases of imminent self-defense. The Constitution is absolutely clear on that. And so the boat strikes in international waters are illegal. Murdering shipwrecked sailors clinging to wreckage in those waters is illegal. And a U.S. invasion of Venezuela to depose its president and arrest him is illegal. And I have a vote scheduled in the next few days when we get back to Congress on Monday to put all senators on the record as to whether we should be at war with Venezuela without a vote of Congress.
This was the toughest question:
ESTRIN: Senator, many Venezuelans do not support Maduro. Do you see anything positive from this development?
KAINE: Maduro is a disaster, and he's been disastrous for the country. And we could say the same thing about 150 leaders of countries around the world. But our Constitution is very, very clear that we don't order servicemen and women into harm's way, risking their lives, unless there is a congressional debate and vote about whether the war is in the national interest. Here, there was no real notification, no real Consultation, no real debate, and definitely not a vote. The president believes he can wage war on his own.
Estrin concluded the interview by repeating the main DNC talking point: “That's Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, calling the U.S. strikes in Venezuela an illegal war.”
NPR didn't wonder why Kaine made this argument when in 2011 there was no congressional vote before President Obama took out Osama bin Laden. At the time Senator Kaine didn't care about that. He called it a "major victory in our long-fought war against terrorism" and stated that "justice was served." Kaine had just been Obama's leader of the DNC.
On Saturday night's All Things Considered, NPR host Mary Louise Kelly gently questioned Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) with very simple softballs:
What's your top concern?
When and how did you learn that this attack was underway?
So safe to say you did not get advance notification?
Then there was a mildly challenging question about Trump: It’s “a change of pace for him, but didn't seem all that focused on drug trafficking. He was much more focused on regional stability, on the U.S. having good, reliable allies across the region. What's wrong with that?” Smith said it wouldn’t turn out right:
SMITH: Well, what's wrong with that is, if you try to enforce that at the point of a gun, that does not typically lead to greater stability. So we've removed a leader. We don't know what's coming next. There is clearly a high amount of chaos within Venezuela to begin with. So how just taking one leader out is going to increase stability in the region, I don't see that argument.
KELLY: Last thing, quickly - you've talked about that you believe Congress needs to exercise oversight. Have you reached out to Republican colleagues to check if they are interested in that, if they are interested in...
SMITH: Yes.
KELLY: ...Holding hearings, asking hard questions, figuring out, OK, we're here, now what's the plan?
SMITH: Yes, I have. And I'm told that we're going to do that. Next week, we're supposed to have a briefing from the Department of Defense for the House Armed Services Committee. I have not talked to the Senate. I assume they're doing the same. But we'll see.
The NPR host's DNC-echoing assumption is that Republicans aren't interested in hard questions or hearings about Trump's actions -- you know, the way Kaine felt about Obama's actions.
