Trump Ramps Up Military Strikes and Troops Near Venezuela, Amid Questions About Goals and Legality // California Condors Alight in the East Bay After 100 Year Absence

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Pentagon announced Friday that the military is sending an aircraft carrier to South America. It’s the latest in the escalating show of force against Venezuela, including strikes on ten boats that the Trump administration says were involved in drug smuggling, which killed 43 people. We talk about the legality of the actions and what the administration hopes to achieve. Then, we turn to the mighty California condor. Once nearly extinct — with only 23 birds remaining in 1982 — the largest bird in North America is making a remarkable comeback. Biologists have recently tracked 30 condors soaring over Alameda and Contra Costa counties, areas where they haven’t been seen in a century. We’ll explore what’s driving their return and the threats they still face in the wild. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.8	From KQED.
0:34.0	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madribble. The airstrikes on the boats in the Caribbean are just the tip of the iceberg about what the Trump administration is doing in the waters off South America. Our military is building a large presence off the coast of Venezuela, justifying the strikes on boats in the waters by saying they're drug traffickers,
0:55.4	while perhaps using the violence to press a larger agenda in the country,
1:00.3	or at least that's what some experts think the Trump White House is up to with these
1:04.7	unprecedented strikes. As one law professor put it, you can't just call something war to give
1:10.2	yourself war powers.
1:11.6	We've got a trio of experts here with us this morning to discuss Eric Schmidt,
1:15.6	is Senior National Security Correspondent at the New York Times. Welcome, Eric.
1:21.6	Thank you.
1:23.6	Good to have you with us. We've got Hecela Salim Pyer, who's an associate editor with The Atlantic. Welcome, Isela.
1:30.3	Thank you so much for having me.
1:32.3	Yeah. And we've got Harold Hong Jo Ko, who's Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. He was the legal advisor to the U.S. Department of State from 2009 to 2013 and was the senior political appointee
1:46.1	in that office in the first Biden administration. Thanks for joining us. Oh, happy to be here.
1:53.1	Eric, let's just start with you. Tell us about the latest. People may not have been paying
1:58.1	attention over the weekend. There's a big escalation happening here.
2:03.1	Yeah, so on Friday, the Pentagon announced that it was sending its newest and biggest aircraft carrier,
2:08.4	the USS Gerald Ford, which is currently in the eastern Mediterranean, to the Caribbean,
2:14.1	or at least to the waters off of Latin America. The Pentagon didn't see exactly where
	...

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