A member of the House Armed Services Committee told the Washington Examiner he wants to see “more” attacks against drug smugglers after Democrats challenged President Donald Trump’s decisive drone strikes against cartels operating off of Venezuela‘s coast.
“I commend President Trump for his decisive counternarcotics action and I am hopeful that we get more. I’d rather have every panga full of drugs be at the bottom of the ocean, than any more Americans be six feet in the ground due to drug overdoses,” Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) said.
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Scott’s call comes as Senate Democrats claim that Trump has “no legal authority” to use military force, even though the Constitution designated him as commander in chief.
In a joint statement shared with the Washington Examiner, Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) said “blowing up boats without any legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens.”
Along with over two dozen other Senate Democrats, Kaine sent letters to the White House questioning the legal basis for the strikes. The letter stated that the administration had provided “no legitimate legal justification” and that no president can “secretly wage war or carry out unjustified killings.”
I think taking lethal action against narco-traffickers that aim to poison American cities is justified, but that’s just me.
Regardless, the senator introduced a resolution to direct the removal of armed forces from the Caribbean, which would allow an unprecedented amount of drugs to continue to enter the country.
“We’re introducing this legislation to require a debate and vote on whether the U.S. should be conducting these strikes without congressional approval,” Kaine said in the statement.
The Democrats have also challenged the validity of the president’s strike, adding that despite video footage clearly showing a speedboat attempting to go undetected and carrying packages of suspicious substances, it may not have been narco-traffickers after all.
“Your administration asserted, without evidence, that the individuals on the vessel and the vessel’s cargo posed a threat to the United States,” career politician Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) and 24 other Senate Democrats said in the letter to Trump.
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“Did the individuals on that vessel pose an imminent threat to the lives of others?” the Democrats wrote in their letter, acting as if the introduction of highly lethal narcotics into American cities isn’t enough of an “imminent threat to the lives of others.”
The recent actions by Senate Democrats prove that, regardless of the magnitude of the threat posed to American lives, Democrats will continue to oppose any actions that Trump takes to put America first.