Speaking from the Oval Office Wednesday night, President Trump stated that the U.S. will “hit” drug runners attempting to enter the U.S. by land, after a string of deadly strikes on cartel boats at sea.
Following the eighth such strike in recent weeks, the president was asked about his utilization of military force to clamp down on drug runners in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Trump admitted that “it is violent” while saying that “every one of those boats that gets knocked out is saving 25,000 American lives.”
“We have the best military in the world. We have the best weapons in the world. And you see a little of it there, one shot, every one dead center. And you can only feel bad about it if you don’t realize … that every time you see that happen, you’re saving 25,000 American lives.”
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“Whenever I see that, I tell myself, I just saved 25,000 lives,” he added.
Trump said that after these strikes, “there are very few boats traveling on the water, so now they’ll come in by land to a smaller degree.”
“And they will be hit on land also,” he stated.
When questioned on whether he has legal authority to unleash strikes on drug runners on U.S. soil, Trump confidently answered, “Yes, we do.”
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“We have legal authority, we’re allowed to do that,” he said, also mentioning that “if we do by land, we may go back to Congress.”
“We’ll probably go back to Congress and explain exactly what we’re doing when we come to the land,” he mentioned, while insisting, “We don’t have to do that.”
“This is a national security problem,” Trump said. “They killed 300,000 Americans last year and that gives you legal authority.”
“We will hit them very hard when they come in by land,” he vowed, adding, “They haven’t experienced that yet, but now we’re totally prepared to do that.”
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“Something very serious is going to happen. The equivalent of what’s happening by sea. And we’re going to Congress just to tell them what we’re doing, just to keep them informed. But we have to do it for national security. We have to do it to save lives.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that at Trump’s direction, the military executed its first kinetic strike on “narco-terrorists” in the Eastern Pacific. This was the eighth such strike in recent weeks.
