While discussing President Donald Trump’s strikes on drug boats off the coast of Venezuela, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) was involved in a heated exchange with Clinton adviser turned ABC host George Stephanopoulos during Sunday’s episode of “This Week.”

Schmitt answered questions about President Donald Trump’s recent decision to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted on drug trafficking charges in 2024. The senator stated that he was unfamiliar with the facts surrounding the case, but dismissed criticism from Democrats as a distraction tactic.

He argued that portraying Trump as “soft on drug smuggling” was “ridiculous,” emphasizing instead the administration’s aggressive stance against narco-terrorists in the nation’s backyard.

“And the fact is these cartels now, because the southern border is closed, they’ve gone to the high seas. So President Trump is acting with his core Article Two powers. No serious legal expert would doubt that the president has authority to blow narco terrorists out of the water who are poisoning a hundred thousand Americans every year,” Schmitt said.

“If you watch the SEC championship game yesterday, the Big Ten championship game, combine those two stadiums with the number of people there, that’s how many people are dying each and every year from the poison that’s coming from these narco terrorists. So the fact is, George, President Trump has been delegated the authority by Congress to designate terrorist organizations. He’s done that. He sent a letter to Congress saying he was going to initiate these strikes. We’ve had regular briefings about it, including from Secretary of State Rubio, including from the high -ranking officials in the Department of Defense. ”

The senator went on to argue that outrage over the strikes from elected Democrats like Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) — a number of whom have accused the president and War Secretary Pete Hegseth of “war crimes” — is purely politically motivated.

“And so now what we have now are Democrats who have such X -ray vision and clairvoyance that they know the intentions of narco -terrorists on boats, yet we’re so blind to see that they had a president for four years that was operating as a vegetable in Joe Biden. So, you know, forgive me if I’m a little skeptical that this isn’t all about politics and trying to take out Secretary Hegseth. That’s what this whole thing’s been about, George,” Schmitt continued.

“They didn’t want him confirmed. They didn’t want a realist in place. They didn’t want to shift from their pet projects around the world and trying to build democracies in the sands of the Middle East by the barrel of a gun. We have core national interests at stake, the homeland in the Western Hemisphere, and the rise of China. That’s what this administration is focused on. The Democrats are just upset about that, and they try to create some controversy each and every week, and it goes nowhere.”

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Stephanopoulos responded to the lengthy answer by asking what the senator meant when he said he was unfamiliar with the facts surrounding the Orlando Hernandez case. “He’s the former president of Honduras. He was convicted of conspiring to bring in 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, also guns and other materials. It’s been front page news across the country. Aren’t you curious about that?” the host asked.

Schmitt shot back by stating that during the show’s prior segment with Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Stephanopoulos had minimal pushback and allowed the congressman to list Democratic Party talking points.

“Well, I’m curious about your pushback on that particular point. With your previous guest, you had zero pushback because he’s giving the Democrat talking points like you spew every single week, which is probably why your ratings are so bad,” the senator said. “But to make the point, what I’m saying is that you’re trying to you’re trying to divert here the attention from what the American people actually support. 75 percent of Americans support us blowing narco terrorists out of the water in the Caribbean.”

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