Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said a classified briefing Tuesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth showed the Trump administration lacks a legal or national security basis for strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the officials acknowledged the vessels were believed to be smuggling cocaine—not fentanyl—and were headed to Europe, not the United States, undercutting the administration’s public rationale.
“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 growing scrutiny of the administration’s boat strikes. The military hit three vessels in the eastern Pacific on Monday, killing eight alleged “narcoterrorists,” bringing the death toll to at least 95 from more than 20 strikes since early September. Murphy said the officials argued President Trump has the authority to approve the strikes based on the State Department’s designation of Cartel de los Soles, an alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking network, as a terrorist organization.
But the Connecticut senator said the designation only authorizes sanctions against the group’s members, not military strikes: “Only Congress, only the American public, can authorize war. And there is just no question that these are acts of war.”
Hegseth said Tuesday that the Pentagon will not release the full, unedited video of the Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug boat, including a disputed second strike that killed two survivors. The operation killed 11 alleged “narcoterrorists,” according to the military. Navy Adm. Frank Bradley, who authorized the follow-up strike, is set to brief House and Senate Armed Services committees on Wednesday, a congressional aide said.
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