On Wednesday morning, MSNBC’s melodramatic Joe Scarborough echoed Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) concern over military strikes against narcotic-trafficking boats originating from Venezuela. This came a day after President Trump announced the sixth strike of its kind during his second term.
The Morning Joe co-host first lamented the military’s typical efforts at traffic-prevention:
… Rand Paul’s concerns are so legitimate. He talks about how — you know, the Coast Guard, at their best, sometimes they board ships and maybe only two out of four, or three out of four, actually have drugs on them. That means a quarter of the time they’ve made a mistake.
The Coast Guard was doing too thorough of a job! Being safe and not sorry was outdated, apparently.
And one of the reasons the strikes were so deplorable was that “we don’t know who’s on those boats […] which of course we don’t know because this is based on intel maybe from rival gangs, maybe from people who want the people killed on the boat. We don’t know. We’re literally killing people, shooting first and asking questions later, when we can just board the boat.”
The strikes weren’t simply about stopping drug trafficking. They’re about sending a message to the perpetrators. Criminal suspects operating in international waters aren’t entitled to inspection-first privileges.
Scarborough started to concede the usefulness of stopping drug mules in their tracks, but couldn’t do so without demanding details that compromise the whole mission:
Listen, if these are drug dealers, if these people are coming to bring poison to the United States and kill our children with their drugs, okay. As Rand Paul said, give us the names, give us the organization. […] Give us the evidence that you had that had you commit this extrajudicial killing without telling members of the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee. We're not asking you to embrace narco-terrorists.
Maybe, just maybe, the Pentagon wasn’t going to expose its strategy and tactics to the enemy just yet. The weakness of congressional oversight was the resulting lack of secrecy, which would undermine the entire campaign.
Scarborough ended by sarcastically alluding that the Republican Party holds unyielding devotion to Trump’s agenda:
We're asking you to follow the Constitution […] Not because you don't like the administration, not because you're not being loyal to Donald Trump. But because you're being faithful to the Constitution and you need answers. […] This is not even hard. You can like Donald Trump and like the Constitution at the same time if you're a member of Congress. Get the oversight like you're supposed to do based on the Constitution.
Simply put, Scarborough hated the fact that Trump had taken unilateral action against the flow of dangerous substances the federal government had long failed to stop, so he had to rely on a non-MAGA Republican to create a semblance of any real opposition.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" read:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
October 15, 2025
6:03:34 a.m. EST(…)
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Also ahead, the Trump administration carried out another deadly strike on a boat it claims was carrying drugs. We’ll bring you the latest on that, and the comments from a Republican Senator calling out the administration — it happened again, Joe. But appears some Republicans —
JOE SCARBOROUGH: It did. Yeah, I think Rand Paul, Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul’s concerns are so legitimate. He talks about how — you know, the Coast Guard, at their best, sometimes they board ships and maybe only two out of four, or three out of four, actually have drugs on them. That means a quarter of the time they’ve made a mistake. Rand Paul legitimately asks the question, if we don’t know who’s on those boats, if we don’t board those boats, and if we’re only getting it right half the time, if we’re only getting it right three quarters of the time — which of course we don’t know because this is based on intel maybe from rival gangs, maybe from people who want the people killed on the boat. We don’t know. We’re literally killing people, shooting first and asking questions later, when we can just board the boat. This is something that I know is causing Republican Senators, Democratic Senators, everybody a lot of concern. The question is, when will more people speak out like Rand Paul.
(…)
6:36:17 a.m. EST
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, in that case, we know who the target was. It was Pete Madeira, we would understand who the target — we have no idea who these people are who are getting killed. These are extrajudicial killings. You've said it. It's why Duarte is facing the problems that he's facing right now, the former leader of the Philippines, because just went out and started killing people who he suspects or who look like they could be drug dealers.
And there's a problem, and John Heilemann — let's think about all the Venezuelans, think about all the people who were rounded up in the United States of America and taken to just one of the grimmest prisons in this hemisphere down in El Salvador. We find out — again, the government tells us, “Oh, well these are all gang members.” And the White House kept telling us these are all gang members. “Oh, they're members of gangs. They're gang” — no. We found out so many of those people that they just rounded up off the streets were not gang members.
If they're wrong, the same percentage of these extrajudicial killings that they were in rounding up all of those people and sending them to the high security prison in El Salvador, those are very bad percentages for the number of innocents killed in these strikes.
JOHN HEILEMANN: Right, very bad percentages, Joe. And also, I mean, look, I mean, we played that Rand Paul clip earlier. The question is — there's questions about the justification, questions about the evidence and the pretext for these killings and whether — and the extent to which there's been any kind of outside the executive office, outside there's — outside the executive branch whether there's been any real kind of rigorous review or what's really going on here. But this is, you know, clearly a question that there should be some kind of Congressional consultation on. It's the kind of thing where if there was this kind of a pattern in any other administration, where at least with the senior members of House and Senate leadership, you would have some kind of consultation.
I think there's a — this goes back to this question we've been facing for the last — since the start of Trump 2.0, which is the abdication of the role, the rolling over of Congress for the Trump administration. There's Rand Paul and some others who look at this and say, “Um, if this is a pattern of practice here, if this is part of some kind of a campaign, there's got — it may not be a declared war, but there's got to be some kind of Congressional consultation here. Because other than that, without that, there's just the President that — the administration acting essentially on its own with no oversight and no kind of accountability whatsoever.”
SCARBOROUGH: Marjorie Taylor Green has been talking about weak men in Congress. I will tell you old chairman that I worked for on the Hill, that chairman of the Armed Services Committee, would not be so weak. If things like this were happening, they wouldn't care who the president was, they wouldn't care who the SecDef was. They would call them before the committee and they would do their constitutional duty, and that is they would provide oversight.
Where are these men? Where are these women on Capitol Hill?
BRZEZINSKI: This is a great question.
SCARBOROUGH: At what point does oversight, constitutionally mandated oversight that every real man running a committee back when I was in Congress and real woman back when I was in Congress would be conducting basic oversight?
Listen, if these are drug dealers, if these people are coming to bring poison to the United States and kill our children with their drugs, okay. As Rand Paul said, give us the names, give us the organization.
BRZEZINSKI: Proof.
SCARBOROUGH: Give us the evidence that you had that had you commit this extrajudicial killing without telling members of the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee. We're not asking you to embrace narco-terrorists. We're asking you to follow the Constitution, and especially members of the Armed Services Committee –
BRZEZINSKI: Absolutely.
SCARBOROUGH: - members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Foreign Relations Committee. Call them to the Hill and get answers.
Not because you don't like the administration, not because you're not being loyal to Donald Trump. But because you're being faithful to the Constitution and you need answers. You need answers, I deserve answers. Exactly. It's like a scene from A Few Good Men. The Constitution says they deserve those answers. This is not even hard. You can like Donald Trump and like the Constitution at the same time if you're a member of Congress. Get the oversight like you're supposed to do based on the Constitution.
(…)
