PUTIN WARNS: New Stage of Escalation /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Patrick Henningsen

Daniel Davis Deep Dive Merch: Etsy store

In a major speech, Vladimir Putin warned of escalating war risks extending beyond Ukraine. Meanwhile, in the U.S., controversy erupted after “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced on X that—on President Trump’s orders—U.S. forces carried out a lethal strike on a “narco-trafficking” vessel in international waters off Venezuela, killing four alleged narco-terrorists. The show’s hosts and guest Patrick Henningsen argue this sets a dangerous precedent: the executive branch unilaterally declaring targets as terrorists and conducting extrajudicial killings without congressional authorization, due process, or international law justification.

They connect the move to past patterns from the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, which steadily expanded executive war powers under the War on Terror and the AUMFs. They contend the Venezuelan “narco-terror” narrative is a geopolitical pretext to demonize and destabilize Nicolás Maduro’s government—echoing past failed U.S. coups and asset seizures—and distracts from the real sources of drug trafficking, including U.S. agencies’ historic complicity.

Henningsen also criticizes Trump’s second administration for being more reckless than expected, saying Vice President JD Vance has become “another Mike Pence” and is enabling escalation in Ukraine and Latin America. The segment frames the current situation as the U.S. moving toward government-by-executive-edict in military affairs, eroding the Constitution’s separation of powers, and risking further global instability.