{"id":215613,"date":"2025-09-10T13:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/215613\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T13:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:41:11","slug":"trump-strike-on-alleged-drug-boat-raises-military-power-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/215613\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump strike on alleged drug boat raises military power questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Within a week of Donald Trump\u2019s election, Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a> counseled the president-elect to quickly send a message to the drug cartels from the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlow up something,\u201d Graham told Trump.<\/p>\n

The brazen military strike<\/a> on a suspected drug-smuggling speedboat<\/a> carrying 11 people from Venezuela<\/a> this month is just what the South Carolina senator had in mind. But it has cleaved fresh divisions within the Republican Party over Trump\u2019s campaign promise<\/a> to keep the U.S. out of foreign entanglements and the reality of a commander in chief whose America First agenda<\/a> is pursuing a tougher military stance.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s raising stark questions about just how far Trump intends to wield his presidential power over the U.S. military without a robust check on the executive branch<\/a> from Congress. <\/p>\n

Already, Trump has dropped 30,000-pound (13,600-kilogram) bombs<\/a> on Iran\u2019s nuclear sites without any new authorizations from Capitol Hill. He deployed the military to Los Angeles<\/a> over the objections of California\u2019s Democratic governor and wants the National Guard in other cities<\/a>, too. Trump\u2019s allies pressured senators<\/a> to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary<\/a> despite objections to his past behavior<\/a> and skepticism of \u201cwarrior culture\u201d<\/a> at the Pentagon. And last week Trump rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care whether it\u2019s a Republican president or a Democrat president,\u201d said Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky<\/a>, once a Trump rival for the White House. \u201cWe can\u2019t just want to kill people without having some kind of process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just going to blow up ships? That just isn\u2019t who we are,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Killing cartel members\u2019<\/p>\n

The Trump administration, and the president himself, have said the lethal strike on the vessel<\/a> from Venezuela was intended to make it clear that the U.S. would not tolerate drugs being shipped into this country. They said those killed on the boat in the Caribbean included members of the Tren de Aragua gang<\/a>, which operates from Venezuela, though details have been scarce.<\/p>\n

\u201cKilling cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,\u201d Vice President JD Vance posted on social media.<\/p>\n

When a prominent commenter suggested that killing civilians without due process would be a war crime, Vance replied that he didn\u2019t care \u201cwhat you call it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul, the senator, responded to Vance with his own questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?\u201d Paul wrote. \u201cDid he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation??<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bipartisan briefing on the matter for the Senate\u2019s top national security staff was abruptly canceled last week. And Tuesday\u2019s rescheduled session left many questions unanswered. <\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s a legal way to do that\u2019<\/p>\n

The Trump administration did not explain its authority for the strike and would not provide legal opinion, according to a person familiar with the briefing who insisted on anonymity because it was closed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is the legality here?\u201d said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former Navy combat pilot and astronaut.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand the need for us to be able to take out drug dealers from being able to deliver drugs into the United States,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a legal way to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Kelly said he worries for the military officers involved with the mission. \u201cWhat situation did we, did the White House, just put them in?\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if this was legal or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Venezuela had to say<\/p>\n

After Trump announced the strike, Venezuelan state television showed Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores walking the streets of his childhood neighborhood. A television presenter said Maduro was \u201cbathing in patriotic love\u201d as he interacted with supporters.<\/p>\n

Maduro did not immediately address the strike directly but charged that the United States was \u201ccoming for Venezuela\u2019s riches,\u201d including the world\u2019s largest proven oil reserves.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s national security vision and the power to enact it<\/p>\n

Republicans have been shifting their national security priorities since Trump\u2019s first term moved the GOP away from its traditional mooring as a party with a muscular approach to confronting adversaries and assisting allies abroad.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s America First approach initially launched a new era of U.S. neo-isolationism more aligned with the libertarian-leaning Paul than traditional defense hawks like Graham.<\/p>\n

But in his second term, Trump is testing not his national security vision but his power to enact it.<\/p>\n

Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he is \u201cextremely confident\u201d that the target of the boat bombing was \u201ca group of narco-terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many lives were saved by the president of the United States when he pulled the trigger on that,\u201d Risch said Tuesday. \u201cThere were tons of drugs that went down with that that would\u2019ve wound up right here in the USA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gesturing to the Supreme Court building across from the Capitol, GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said he believes the president\u2019s actions fall under his Article II authority, since the administration said the drugs were heading to the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy gut intuition is it\u2019s within the president\u2019s commander in chief powers,\u201d Hawley said.<\/p>\n

Briefing for lawmakers<\/p>\n

But Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called for lawmakers to receive a full briefing from the Trump administration, including the legal rationale for the military strike.<\/p>\n

If the president exceeded his authority, then the Senate must consider all remedies available, including limiting the use of funds for further unauthorized military operations, he said. \u201cWe cannot risk the life of American servicemembers based on secret orders and dubious legal theories,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n

Graham, a former judge advocate general, or JAG, officer in the Navy, recalled his advice as Trump prepared to return to the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s a lab, I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s in Mexico, I don\u2019t care where it is,\u201d Graham recalled. \u201cI said, \u2018Look for a target that changes the game.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if the strike on the Venezuelan boat was it, Graham said: \u201cWorks for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti, Mary Clare Jalonick and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow the AP\u2019s coverage of President Donald Trump at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/donald-trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Within a week of Donald Trump\u2019s election, Sen. Lindsey Graham counseled the president-elect to quickly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":215614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[1613,117850,327,69,20228,90,57,89447,2066,117849,1612,16541,7250,8132,14944,50,92550,6986,80,26390,4217,89,322,67,8128,370,326,132,68,32322,93,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-215613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-central-america","10":"tag-cilia-flores","11":"tag-congress","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-drug-crimes","14":"tag-elections","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-jack-reed","17":"tag-jd-vance","18":"tag-jim-risch","19":"tag-latin-america","20":"tag-lindsey-graham","21":"tag-mark-kelly","22":"tag-military-and-defense","23":"tag-national-security","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-nicolas-maduro","26":"tag-pete-hegseth","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-rand-paul","29":"tag-south-america","30":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","31":"tag-u-s-republican-party","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-united-states-congress","34":"tag-united-states-government","35":"tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","36":"tag-unitedstates","37":"tag-us","38":"tag-venezuela","39":"tag-washington-news","40":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}