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The Gist

Chris Murphy: "Congress needs to take war powers back."

The Gist

Mike Pesca

News, Politics, Arts, Daily News

4.43.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mike revisits his 2019 conversation with Senator Chris Murphy on the AUMF — the two-decade-old law still used to justify U.S. military strikes from Yemen to the Caribbean. Plus, a new strike on a Venezuelan vessel raises questions about presidential authority and transparency. We trace how "temporary" wartime powers became permanent policy, and what it would take for Congress to reclaim its constitutional role.

Produced by Corey Wara


Production Coordinator Ashley Khan


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi, it's Saturday. It's the Saturday show where we do one from the vault and one from the week.

0:08.1

And this week, and this is going to be the spiel I play for you, I talked about the bombing.

0:13.4

It was the sixth bombing or strike against a vessel in the Caribbean, a vessel that the Trump

0:20.5

administration claims was spreading

0:23.2

drugs.

0:24.2

They killed, well, this is an update, in fact.

0:27.2

The original reporting was that five or six died in this strike, but now it comes out that the

0:36.3

U.S. military is holding two survivors

0:38.6

who were rescued from that suspected drug vessel. I'm sure we'll get their testimony and

0:45.8

take it seriously if they deny being drug dealers. Another development in the story is that

0:50.6

U.S. Navy Admiral Alvin Halsey, not Admiral Halsey, famous from having psoriasis in

0:57.2

World War II and being in a Paul McCartney song, but Alvin Halsey, who commanded the U.S.

1:03.8

Southern Command, he's out. I think it was because he didn't like all these strikes that you can

1:10.0

argue are done without proper authorization.

1:13.5

And that brings us to our one from the vault.

1:16.0

In 2019, I interviewed Senator Chris Murphy, and I wanted specifically, there's always a lot to talk to a senator about, but I wanted to talk with him about something that he had been pressing on, and this was 2019,

1:29.1

the AUMF, that is the authorization for the use of military force.

1:35.1

And in 2001, and again in 2002, another version was passed allowing the United States

1:40.5

to strike out against terrorists and al-Qaeda and the 2002 one was allowing the war

1:46.0

in Iraq to continue or to proceed. And it hasn't been updated. And for loathies now,

1:53.0

quarter of a century now, this has been the justification for all these military strikes

1:58.7

throughout the world. Maybe not necessarily the one we saw in the

...

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