On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House rejected Democrats’ War Powers Resolution to end the Trump administration’s military strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Congressman Jim Himes (D-Conn.) issued a statement along with co-sponsors Reps. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), Jason Crow (D-Colo.), and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.):
“The Trump administration’s ongoing lethal U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Western Hemisphere are legally questionable, and ineffective. Under existing U.S. law, these vessels could have been interdicted and their occupants subjected to judicial process. Instead of pursuing prosecutions, this administration has deliberately avoided judicial scrutiny by conducting lethal strikes, repatriating survivors, and in at least one instance, carrying out a second strike on defenseless persons.”
Today on Lincoln Square, Anchor Watch host Bobby Jones pressed Himes on what it actually means when Congress is cut out of life-and-death decisions that traditionally required debate, authorization, and accountability. Himes, the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, lays out how intelligence oversight exists precisely because secrecy and democracy are in permanent tension, and how that balance breaks when lethal force becomes routine rather than exceptional.
The discussion connects foreign policy choices directly to domestic consequences, arguing that governance failures abroad and affordability failures at home come from the same disregard for process and transparency. There’s a moral warning embedded here: when policy shortcuts push impossible decisions down to commanders, doctors, or families, leaders avoid responsibility while others absorb the risk. This is not about ideology, but about accountability—what happens when power moves faster than law, and when silence replaces democratic consent.
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