President Donald Trump, alongside Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, commended the military leader responsible for sanctioning contentious lethal actions against Venezuelan drug vessels on Tuesday. The White House has been navigating a flood of critical media coverage and intense congressional scrutiny over its measures against suspected narco-terrorists in the Caribbean region. To date, the administration has executed over 20 strikes on these alleged drug-trafficking boats, resulting in more than 80 fatalities.

“We’re eliminating those threats,” Trump declared during a Tuesday Cabinet meeting, addressing inquiries about a September operation that necessitated several airstrikes, which some of his detractors have labeled as potential “war crimes.” Trump criticized Biden for allegedly allowing unchecked entry into the country and the influx of drugs at unprecedented levels. When Hegseth took questions regarding the authorization of the follow-up strike in September, he affirmed that Admiral Frank Bradley, the commanding officer, was acting appropriately in launching a second attack.

Nonetheless, congressional Democrats have equated the assault to a “war crime,” arguing that international law prohibits targeting the injured. Hegseth, responding to reporters, queried, “How do you handle threats like al Qaeda and ISIS? Do you capture them, offer treatment, and merely warn them, or do you address the issue decisively with a lethal approach?” Hegseth lauded the military’s “thorough and meticulous” process in confirming the boats’ connections to terrorism.

A report last Friday from the Washington Post claimed that Hegseth gave verbal orders to ensure there were no survivors – a claim that the Daily Mail has not verified and the White House strongly pushes back on. ‘Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law,’ while conducting the operation with multiple strikes, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday. The administration has claimed its strikes on the alleged drug boats are in defense of American citizens.

Trump also opened the door to striking other countries that send drugs to the US. ‘I want those boats taken out, and if we have to, we will attack on land also,’ he said. ‘Anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack … not just Venezuela.’ The Republican specifically noted how cocaine production in Colombia is still rampant and that drugs there are being sent to the US.

Trump has decried how drugs like fentanyl and cocaine being sent into the US from Venezuela have resulted in thousands of drug overdose deaths. Estimates suggest a quarter of a million Americans have died from fentanyl-related overdoses since 2021 . Still, one critique is that only a small portion of the fentanyl bound for the US actually originates in Venezuela.

‘Fentanyl is not coming out of Venezuela. Fentanyl comes from Mexico,’ said Christopher Hernandez-Roy, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, D.C., recently told NBC News. ‘What’s coming out of Venezuela is cocaine.’ The US has deployed nearly a dozen warships, a submarine, over 70 aircraft and 15,000 soldiers to the Caribbean in recent months. Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been seen dancing to anti-war songs at his rallies, signifying he does not want conflict with the US.