Trump administration officials speak with Congress about strikes on alleged drug boats

HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and State Secretary Marco Rubio met with members of Congress on Wednesday to discuss the Trump administration’s strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs.

A dozen lawmakers attended the meeting, including high-ranking Republicans and Democrats and the heads of the armed services and intelligence committees in the House and Senate, multiple outlets reported.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said after the meeting he still didn’t know why the U.S. hasn’t intercepted the boats the administration says are carrying drugs, according to NPR. The military has blown them up, and officials, including Hegseth and President Donald Trump, have posted videos of the attacks on social media.

“Showing by interdiction, and drug recovery, and that the individuals on the boats are known narco-terrorists would sure go a long way in convincing Americans and for that matter, the rest of the world,” Warner reportedly said.

Some lawmakers were satisfied after the meeting with Hegseth and Rubio, according to NPR. Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch, chairman of the foreign relations committee, said he and some of his colleagues have been “fully advised” and “fully satisfied” with the administration’s actions, the outlet reported.

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, reportedly agreed that Congress is receiving information on the strikes but noted that it has taken a while. The administration is sharing its legal justification for the attacks and information on other military operations, NPR quoted Himes as saying.

“In my world and the intelligence world, when something is done, we get a great deal of detail on every operation. That has not been shared,” Himes reportedly said. “Finally they’ve started to notify Congress of this stuff, until basically ten days ago we had nothing.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that the administration has been “incredibly transparent” about the strikes, adding that it would be happy to speak to lawmakers about them.

The administration held a meeting on the attacks with Republicans last week but didn’t invite any Democrats. Warner called it a “partisan stunt” and a “slap in the face” to Congress.

“Shutting Democrats out of a briefing on U.S. military strikes and withholding the legal justification for those strikes from half the Senate is indefensible and dangerous,” he said in a statement. “Decisions about the use of American military force are not campaign strategy sessions, and they are not the private property of one political party.”

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