Unanimous Consent Requests--The Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to ask this body to pass legislation requiring the Department of Defense to show Congress and the American people the September 2 video of strikes that killed two survivors on a shipwrecked vessel after the administration's first strike disabled the craft. The American people deserve to see this video and to witness what is being done in their name.

The administration has proudly published the footage of countless other strikes, including the first one from the very same day, believing it could do so without compromising any sources or methods used by our military or intelligence services. This followup footage should be no different.

Since the beginning of this campaign of unauthorized strikes against boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, there has been one key feature from this administration: an eagerness to push out the videos of these attacks.

We first learned about these strikes when video of an attack was published by the President of the United States, who posted the video of it on his social media. That was video of the first strike on September 2.

In the strikes since--strikes that have killed nearly 100 people in the last few months--the attacks have been announced to the world by the President and the Secretary of Defense, posting videos of them on their social media.

Last week, we saw the administration distribute lengthy footage of the seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.

So why not release the video of the second strike that the administration ordered on September 2? Why is the administration hiding it behind closed doors, sharing it with only a small handful of Members, and leaving the rest of Congress and the country in the dark? What is it about the killing of these two survivors that the administration is unwilling to let the people see?

The legality of the entire campaign of striking these boats and killing those onboard, rather than interdicting and arresting them, has been called into serious question. An attack on shipwrecked sailors is expressly prohibited by the laws of war.

The rationale for hiding this video seems far less about any nebulous claim of the need to protect sources or methods, and far more about protecting the administration from accountability and oversight that the American people demand.

This legislation is simple: Make this video available--first, in full, without edits, to all Members of Congress. Then, if there is any legitimate basis to be concerned with the revelation of some source, method, modus operandi, or technology that isn't already apparent with the eager release of all the other videos, make it public with proper redaction.

Surely, the same people who scrub and declassify every other video the Pentagon has publicly posted can be enlisted to do the same for this one.

Or is the so-called ``most transparent administration in history'' afraid of what this video would show? Would it show a clear violation of the laws of war, which use the killing of shipwrecked combatants as the textbook definition of an illegal use of force?

The truth on this is going to come out. We know that it will. Let it be now. We already know from the reports of our colleagues who have seen the video what it shows--first, a strike on a boat; and then, a short while later, a second strike on the disabled wreckage of the boat and two survivors, killing them.

I should make clear: None of these strikes is lawful because these targets are not combatants. There is no imminent threat of invasion, and there is no legal authorization in the United States or international law for the use of military force for drug interdiction alone.

We have condemned campaigns of extrajudicial killings in other countries that have done so to allegedly combat the drug trade--like the Philippines under Duterte--and we must not engage in that conduct here.

But the second strike on September 2 compounds the illegality. It flies directly in the face of laws and values to underpin the U.S. military.

So I ask my colleagues to support this bill. Allow this legislation to pass and ensure that we are not hiding information from the American people. After all, the President of the United States said he was fine with releasing the footage. ``Whatever they have,'' he said, ``we'd certainly release. No problem.''

It is time we hold the President to his promise to be transparent with the American people. Our servicemembers and their families deserve nothing less.

Right now, we have a massive military force in the region. We have killed almost 100 people. We are beginning a blockade of a country with which we are not at war and with which the American people do not want us to go to war--not over regime change, as despicable as the Maduro regime is. The American people do not want to go to war over regime change, which is apparently the real objective here.

We should pass a War Powers Resolution to make clear that Congress does not support a military campaign that may draw us into another endless war or destabilize the region. And we can start by releasing the video of one deadly strike already undertaken, but the evidence of which has been withheld from the American people.

I urge passage of this bill.

As if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the bill at the desk to require the release of video strikes conducted on September 2, 2025, against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the U.S. Southern Command; that the bill be considered read three times and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, first, as my colleague served on the Intelligence Committee when I chaired the committee, he should well know that Members of Congress actually don't hold clearances that can be revoked; we either serve on certain committees or we don't.

But more to the point, in listening to my colleague address this motion to release the video to the American people, I have heard very little of the basis for an objection to releasing this video except some nebulous claim that somehow this footage must be classified.

I would pose this question to my colleagues: Do you recognize that this video has already been partly displayed to the American people? The administration was all too proud to show the first part of this same video, the first attack on this ship, to the American people. They showed that to the whole world. They just didn't show all of us the rest of that video; that is, they only showed the footage of the first strike. What they withheld was the footage of the killing of the survivors of the strike.

So, to make the claim here without basis that, well, somehow the continuation of that footage is confidential but that the beginning of that footage showing the first attack can be released without injury to sources or methods--it just doesn't pass the smell test.

This is going to come out. It is just a question of how long we have to fight to make this available to the American people.

But if the administration is proud of this, if the administration is proud of what it is doing in the name of the American people, it should be proud to show this video to the American people. And we should hold the President, who said: Whatever they have, we would certainly release; no problem--we should hold the President to that commitment.

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