Watch: Warner criticizes Trump administration’s exclusion of Democrats from boat strikes briefing

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee warned Thursday that increasing efforts by the Trump administration to exclude Democrats from national security briefings could put troops at risk and keep important information from the public.

Watch Senator Mark Warner’s remarks in the video player above.

“I don’t know how you can begin to rebuild trust,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said after Democrats were not invited to a news conference this week about U.S. military strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs. “This goes against every standard of how national security policy works.”

Read more: A timeline of US military strikes on boats off South America and what Congress said

It’s a must-read for every senator, Warner said, “and when you politicize decision-making about putting service members in harm’s way, you make them less safe.”

Lawmakers from both parties had questions about U.S. strikes on boats in the waters off South America — 14 strikes so far, killing 61 people — and the legal justification for them, given that Congress has not authorized military action. President Donald Trump’s administration is also building an unusually large force of warships in the region, raising speculation that the moves are aimed at ousting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Senate votes on war powers

The Senate could have a say next week with an expected vote on a Democratic-imposed war powers resolution that would ban strikes in or near Venezuela, unless Congress approves. Several Republicans considered potential swing votes in favor of the resolution were part of the briefing this week.

One Republican senator, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said he and others requested the briefing. He said that helped alleviate some of his concerns, but he would “continue to consider” the decision.

Tillis said he didn’t see anything wrong with Republicans having their own briefing because the issue had become “politicized.” Tillis said Democrats “should be entitled to a briefing” as well.

Democrats shut down

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham also said Democrats should hear from the administration. Asked if he was concerned about the precedent of their exclusion, Graham replied that “they will be informed.”

This is “the bull—-,” Warner said.

“Someone has to be held accountable for this,” he added. “Some ‘oops’ make-up sessions don’t do the trick.”

Warner has criticized the Trump administration for months as military and intelligence officials increasingly move away from the long tradition of giving bipartisan briefings at the Capitol and crack down on access to national security information.

Trump officials only contacted Republicans in Congress, not Democrats, before launching strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities earlier this year. They also canceled a routine secret meeting that Warner had scheduled with career intelligence employees at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency after it was criticized by far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.

Erosion of party partnership

Congress’s national security committees have long been among the most partisan, and lawmakers in both parties closely guard their access to information because power can shift quickly in Washington. But Warner directly criticized fellow Republicans for their “blind loyalty” to Trump and failure to speak out.

“Someone had to walk out of the meeting,” Warner said.

South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, another Republican who attended the convention, said he did not know until he arrived that the convention would be so partisan. He said he received a phone call from the White House on Thursday morning asking if he had concerns.

I said: Yes. “Since Intel and the armed services, we do things on a bipartisan basis when it comes to this, we want to keep it that way,” Rounds said.

The administration held a separate classified briefing for the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday that included Democrats. But Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who attended the meeting, said the Pentagon withdrew its lawyers without warning. The lawyers were “the specific people who would provide legal justification for these strikes,” Moulton posted on X.

Lawmakers question the attacks

Trump justified the attacks on the boats as necessary to stop the flow of drugs into the United States and stressed that the United States was engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Read more: Trump declares that the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels

The administration says it is relying on the same legal authority that the Bush administration used when it declared a war on terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But lawmakers said they want more details about that rationale as the frequency of attacks increases.

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said excluding Democrats from the briefing was “extremely poor judgment.”

“It’s about this administration’s mentality that they don’t have to deal with Congress unless there’s an emergency, and that’s usually what Republicans try to galvanize,” Reid said.

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Konstantin Torobin contributed to this report.