Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) pushed back hard against a recent New York Times article critical of President Donald Trump’s authority to use deadly force against suspected drug smugglers.
“Overdosing takes 100,000+ American lives every year. Cartels wage this war against our nation everyday. Maybe it’s time for our nation to push back and hold the cartels fully accountable,” Fetterman wrote on social media platform X.
“By ordering the U.S. military to summarily kill a group of people aboard what he said was a drug-smuggling boat, President Trump used the military in a way that had no clear legal precedent or basis, according to specialists in the laws of war and executive power,” the piece, written by New York Times contributor Charlie Savage, says.
Conservative lawmakers and analysts argue that labeling such groups and their members as terrorists makes them lawful targets for the U.S. military. The drug smugglers killed earlier this week were identified as members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated as “narcoterrorists.”
According to a report from the Daily Wire, the smugglers received no warning from the Coast Guard. There was no attempt to bring them into custody.
“Until now, the absolute worst-case scenario is that they might get detained, very briefly, and maybe have to answer a question or two about why they’re heading towards the United States on a boat with four outboard motors and millions of dollars’ worth of narcotics. And then some NGO, armed with tax dollars commandeered by the Democrat Party, would jump into action and spring them loose, as Ivy League academics demanded that we respect the ‘civil liberties’ of sociopathic foreign drug traffickers,” the report added.
The report argued that NGOs and academics were not given time to weigh in on behalf of the gang accused of trafficking lethal drugs, nor were federal judges afforded a chance to intervene.
It concluded that Trump’s aggressive approach to combating the U.S. drug trade is unsettling to liberals and Democratic lawmakers.
