Related video: Admiral Commanding Boat Strikes Off Venezuela Briefs Lawmakers
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Tuesday’s classified briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirms the Trump administration has no legal or national security justification for the strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Murphy said in a video on the social platform X that the two Cabinet officials admitted to lawmakers that the accused drug-trafficking vessels are believed to be smuggling cocaine, not fentanyl. He also said Rubio and Hegseth said intelligence suggested the boats were going to Europe, not the U.S., contradicting the administration’s public justification for the strikes.
“That is a massive waste of national security resources and of your taxpayer dollars,” the Connecticut Democrat added.
Rubio and Hegseth briefed House and Senate lawmakers amid heightened scrutiny of the administration’s boat strikes. The military conducted strikes against three vessels in the eastern Pacific on Monday, killing eight alleged “narcoterrorists.” The U.S. has killed at least 95 people via more than 20 strikes since early September.
Murphy said Tuesday that the two officials said President Trump has the authority to green-light such strikes due to the State Department’s designation of Cartel de los Soles, an alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking network, as a terrorist organization.
But the Connecticut senator noted such a move only gives the president the capability to sanction members of the group, not to authorize strikes against them.
“Only Congress, only the American public, can authorize war. And there is just no question that these are acts of war,” Murphy added.
Earlier Tuesday, Hegseth told reporters on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon will not release the full, unedited video of the military’s Sept. 2 strikes on an alleged drug boat, including a controversial second strike that killed two survivors of an initial blast. In total, the strikes killed 11 “narcoterrorists,” according to the military.
Navy Adm. Frank Bradley, who authorized the follow-up strike, will brief lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services committees regarding the operation Wednesday, a congressional aide told The Hill.
