Sen. Mullin defends Trump’s strikes on alleged drug boats: ‘Why would we care? They’re terrorists’

At a time when some of his congressional colleagues, including Republicans, are criticizing the administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, Sen. Markwayne Mullin says he has no qualms about what President Trump is doing.

He said the threat from drugs — and fentanyl in particular — is so stark that it demanded somebody take the fight to the cartels.

“How many lives has it saved? That’s what the conversation needs to be,” the Oklahoma Republican said in a new interview for “Sitdown with Alex Swoyer,” a Washington Times podcast.

Mr. Mullin hailed Mr. Trump for expanding the traditional definition of foreign terrorist organizations to now include major Mexican drug cartels, MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, the Venezuela-based gang that the administration has tied to some of the boats it’s sunk.

The senator said that declaration is enough legal justification for the strikes, adding he isn’t troubled by the dozens of crew killed.

“Why would we care? They’re terrorists. They’re terrorizing our cities, they’re terrorizing our streets,” he said. “They don’t give a rip about our families. It’s all about profit for them. And for President Trump to go out there and say we’re going to stop it? Good on him.”

Mr. Trump’s administration has alerted lawmakers about the strikes on the boats since they began in September. Critics have argued the administration should get congressional approval.

In total, dozens of allegedly drug-smuggling terrorists have been killed during the boat bombings.

Mr. Mullin, in a wide-ranging interview, also defended Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has ruffled feathers at the Pentagon with some of his moves. In particular, a speech in September to top brass at Quantico, Virginia, demanding strict adherence to physical fitness and grooming standards, rubbed some Trump supporters the wrong way.

But Mr. Mullin said Mr. Hegseth got it right in going after woke policies.

“The Department of War, at that time the Department of Defense, had got so political that they were so risk-averse, we weren’t winning wars. We were winning battles; we weren’t winning wars. There’s a difference. He’s changing the focus of it,” he said.

Mr. Hegseth announced that members of the military — no matter their rank — must meet certain physical fitness standards. He noted women would be required to meet the same standards as men, which has received particular pushback from critics.

Mr. Mullin also recently joined TikTok, where he has had more views on his short clips than CNN gets during prime time, his office touted.

“We started it four weeks ago,” he said. “We have a lot of videos that are well over a million hits.”

“It took me a while to do it,” Mr. Mullin said, noting the 15-second videos have been fun. “That’s where the attention span is.”

During the interview, Mr. Mullin touted Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, saying the change from Sen. Mitch McConnell has been good for Republicans and their relationship with the White House and with the speaker of the House and his members.

“There’s a huge difference between Mitch’s leadership and John Thune’s leadership,” the Oklahoman said. “He’s very proactive. He’s got a great relationship with the White House, which obviously Mitch did not when Trump was in office in his first term. There’s no daylight between us and the White House, or us and the House.”

The senator said the House aspect is important.

“When I first got here in ’23, we spent half our time trying to figure out what the House was going to do,” he said.

Mr. Mullin also cautioned conservatives pushing to use the “nuclear option” — a rules shortcut — to defang the filibuster and let Mr. Trump’s agenda pass the Senate through majority votes.

He said the filibuster served GOP needs when President Biden was in the White House, including stopping the move to make the District of Columbia a state — which would have added two more Democratic senators to the body; packing the Supreme Court with more justices; and curtailing fossil fuel production.

“I would hate for us to blow that up for short-term gain, but it’s a long-term failure,” Mr. Mullin said.

He also was skeptical that Democrats, who came close to triggering the nuclear option in 2022, would be able to do it in the future, given the political realities.

“They could, I guess, [but] it’s going to be tough,” he said. “Keep in mind … our base is 50 [Senate seats]. But if you look at ’16 and ’24, [Mr. Trump] won over 30 states. So we should be able to prevent them from doing that.”