Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, drew criticism this week for comments made on MSNBC suggesting that supporters of President Trump’s military strikes against suspected narco-terrorist boats should be “worried about who gets killed” when a future Democratic president takes office.
“There will be a Democratic president someday,” Himes said during an interview earlier this week. “And all my MAGA friends who are cheering on these illegal killings need to imagine who gets killed when President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that it doesn’t matter what the law says, she’s going to do what she’s going to do.”
Himes was responding to remarks from Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who had defended the Trump administration’s use of military force against boats suspected of trafficking drugs off the coast of Venezuela. Graham said that Trump’s actions were legally justified and in line with long-standing presidential powers.
“To say that we’re engaging in murder is just such an outrage,” Graham said earlier this week in response to Sen. Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, who called the strikes “sanctioned murder.” Graham noted that presidents have exercised similar authority for decades, citing historic examples from both Republican and Democratic administrations. “The president of the United States as commander in chief has the authority to do these strikes,” he said. “Nobody accused Bush of committing murder when he invaded Panama to take down Noriega. Nobody accused Reagan of murder when he went into Grenada to stop Cuban influence… The president has history on his side, he has the Constitution on his side.”
Graham added that “Congress has declared war five times in 250 years,” emphasizing that modern presidents have relied on their constitutional powers to protect U.S. interests without requiring new war declarations each time. “If you want to fight over this, let’s fight over this,” Graham said. “I think most Americans are going to be with Trump.”
Himes, however, took a sharply different view. He accused the White House of concealing its legal reasoning from Congress. “There is a purported memo inside the White House articulating the legal basis for these strikes which has not been shared with the Congress,” Himes said. “I wonder why it hasn’t been shared with the Congress—because I bet if it exists, that it’s nonsense.”
He went on to criticize Republicans, arguing that their support for the strikes represented a dangerous precedent. “If Lindsey Graham and other Republicans want to go the route of saying, ‘It’s OK to kill people illegally, just so long as the American public supports it,’ the American public needs to really think that through,” Himes said.
Notably, Himes did not address the Obama administration’s own record of lethal action without congressional approval—including the 2011 drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al Qaeda leader and American citizen, as well as his 16-year-old son.
In early October, Himes joined other Democrats in sending a letter to President Trump demanding that he release the list of organizations designated as terrorist groups and provide evidence justifying the recent Caribbean strikes. His office did not respond to a request for comment.
For Republicans, Himes’s remarks highlight what they see as a familiar double standard: Democrats who tolerated unilateral military action under Obama now decry similar measures when deployed by Trump.
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