Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Thursday criticized the Trump administration’s decision to bomb a boat near Venezuela over claims that it was carrying drugs, an action that was taken without providing any evidence.
“It’s hard to have any sympathy for drug dealers trying to import product into our country,” Paul said in an appearance on Newsmax. “But at the same time, I guess, you might ask the question, ‘Where does it end? Are we the world’s policemen?”
The Kentucky senator said that US authorities wouldn’t bomb a boat if it were off the coast of the US and suspected of running drugs. “We all assume these people were bad people and drug dealers, but if they were caught off the coast of Miami, we would stop the boat. If they don’t shoot at us, we don’t shoot at them,” he said.
Paul said that the “reason we have trials and we don’t automatically assume guilt is what if we make a mistake and they happen to be people fleeing the Venezuelan dictator?”
He added that in the US, even the “worst people” accused of terrible crimes are entitled to a trial.
President Trump claimed that the strike on the boat killed 11 people who were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang the US government has labeled “narcoterrorists.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other US officials have said more strikes are coming and are not ruling out the possibility of pursuing regime change in Venezuela, which may be the real purpose of the deployment of multiple US Navy warships to the Southern Caribbean.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has denied the US accusations that he’s involved in drug trafficking and is vowing to fight if the US attacks his country. Other Venezuelan officials have downplayed the US strike on the boat, claiming that the video Trump released purporting to show the bombing may have been a fake, AI-made video.
