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Opening Arguments

Is Trump Playing “Pardon, Marry, Kill” With Narcotraffickers?

Opening Arguments

Opening Arguments Media LLC

Law, Opinion, Politics, News, Liberal, Legal, Supremecourt, Harvard, Atheist

4.33.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

OA1213 - Thomas is back for an action-packed Rapid Response Friday! This week: we compare the letter that just earned the former President of Honduras a pardon of his conviction for definitely being involved with narcotrafficking against the Trump administration’s excuses for murder on the high seas of Venezuelans suspected to be involved with narcotrafficking--and if House Speaker Mike Johnson actually has a point in blaming Barack Obama for all of this. Matt then takes a quick look at Steve Bannon’s petition for review of his conviction for contempt of Congress by the Supreme Court and explains how “safe third country” agreements now give ICE the power to deport asylum seekers to Central America without a hearing on their claims.

Finally in today’s footnote, Matt shares an incredible story from his week: an astonishing beyond-Kafkaesque legal argument the government has ordered his client to respond to that you will have to hear to believe.

  1. “Double-Tap Warfare: Should President Obama be Investigated for War Crimes?” Florida Law Review (Jan. 2017)

  2. Steve Bannon’s cert petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in Bannon v. US (10/15/2025)

  3. U.S. v. Helen Bryan, 339 U.S. 323 (1950)

  4. Matter of C-I-G-M & L-V-S-G-, 29 I&N Dec. 291, (BIA 10/31/2025)

  5. Asylum Cooperative Agreement with Honduras, Federal Register (7/8/2025)

  6. ACA with Guatemala, Federal Register (7/15/2025)

  7. “The Night Raids,” Lynzy Billing, ProPublica (12/15/2022)

  8. Juan Orlando Hernandez letter to Trump seeking pardon, New York Times (12/2/2025)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

Transcript

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0:00.0

Oh, maybe they would, what, get back to the boat that's nothing, so they're dangerous?

0:17.1

There were known double taps, that this is something that we have done before as a military, and I think we have to say that out loud.

0:22.8

There's no reason to protect the people who did it.

0:32.9

Hello and welcome to opening arguments.

0:34.8

This is episode 1213, I think.

0:37.0

If I, I don't know, I haven't been on these in a minute. So hopefully I'll count right. Thomas Smith. Is that you? Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing here? What are you doing here? Why did you show up to work on Friday? What's going on? Well, unfortunately, Janessa is ill. So we wish Janessa the best and hopefully she gets better soon. Sounds like a rough one. In the meantime, I'm happy to be here. We got so much to talk about. Not the greatest of news, but hey, that's our world. But getting answers is always good. What are some of the questions we're in some answers to? Is it okay to murder people if they're in a boat? That's one of my questions. I'm just going to straight up say that it's still not okay to murder people on a boat or to do it twice. Spoilers! Sorry, yeah. We're not even going to talk about that much. I'll wait for the segment to get the valuable insight that you shouldn't be able to just kill people because they're on a boat in a place. It's supposed to be inside the show sandwich not on the bread but uh given away why why would they buy the cow if they give them the milk

1:29.8

for free they buy the calf?

1:45.2

Give them the milk for free. They get the opinions for free. And then what else are we going to be talking about today? We need to talk about the new safe third country removals because I don't hear anybody talking about this. It's a dramatic overhaul to the asylum system. Probably not the first time I've said that on this show, but I just saw it in action and Monday, so I want to tell you about it.

1:46.4

I don't know what that term means.

1:47.5

What does that term mean exactly?

1:46.2

I don't know what that term means. What does that term mean exactly? It allows us to deport people who have never been to a country to that country just because we don't want them to do their asylum claims here. Ah, right. And then we've got a story about Steve Bannon, who's almost completely vanished from the news other than being a friend of Jeffrey Epstein's, but we do have a legal issue to talk about with Steve Bannon.

2:02.2

Boy, disappeared from the news other than being a friend of Jeffrey Epstein's, but we do have a legal issue to talk about with Steve Bannon.

2:02.2

Boy, disappeared from the news, but not from evil planning layers. No. He's always active, that one. Always in the shadows. We have a real problem with our focus, and I really think it is, a la Steve Bannon, because the world is so flooded with shit. For example, I was just listening to another podcast, and in the same way that we don't

2:19.4

know Steve Bannon, now that he's like not, you know, front and center, now that

2:23.0

that Elon Musk left, we just don't care about Doge anymore.

2:26.1

But it still exists.

2:27.3

It's still doing shit.

2:28.5

But nobody, it doesn't get covered.

2:30.0

I think it's basically gone now.

2:31.2

No, it's not.

2:32.0

It's still doing stuff. I thought it shut down. Based on what I just listened to, they sort of did it as a way to reduce focus on it, but it's still doing bullshit. I don't know if they did it in name only, but well, we'll put a pin in that. Point is, things are still evil when we're not looking at them. Oh, absolutely. And that's a tough one. Yeah, it's really hard to know. But we're going to try to stand some of the most people today.

3:06.0

And then in a quick footnote, I'm just going to tell you another story from my day about the directly ties into what is going on with Afghani refugees in this country right now. This is quite a story. This is a real Kafka joints I've got for you. So, plenty to get through today. Glad to have you.

...

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