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Congressional Republicans are steering clear of President Donald Trump’s strike on a vessel allegedly carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela — all of them except Rand Paul.
The Kentucky senator is loudly questioning the Trump administration’s decision to blow up the boat, killing 11 people it alleges were drug traffickers. He said he hasn’t decided whether to convene a hearing of the Senate homeland security committee, which he chairs, but Paul wondered to a pair of reporters whether it’s now the policy of the Coast Guard to “shoot first, ask questions later.”
And the Kentuckian dug in further to his disagreement with Vice President JD Vance, who celebrated the military action and dismissed online criticism with an expletive over the weekend.
“What really ticked me off and got me going was for somebody [Vance] to glorify the idea of killing people without any due process and saying he just didn’t give a shit what anybody who is going to criticize him is going to say,” Paul said.
“That, to me, was a disdain for human life and a disdain for our process,” the senator added.
Summing up his view, Paul said the US government needs “some kind of process before you kill people.” He acknowledged, however, that he didn’t expect any other Republicans to join him in speaking out about the subject: “People are very much afraid to have opinions right now. I doubt anybody else will.”
The White House did not have an immediate comment on Paul’s criticisms, nor did Vance’s office.
Other Republicans declined to criticize the boat strike on Monday, with none expressing qualms about an operation whose legal rationale has drawn skepticism from experts.
“I didn’t have any problem with it. I did not get a notification,” Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Semafor. As for a hearing on the strike, he said, “I don’t have one scheduled.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday he did not get any sort of a heads-up about the strike. He told Semafor that he hadn’t gotten any more information, “but it’s coming. Ask me in a day.”
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Counternarcotics operations tend to draw public support, but potentially extrajudicial strikes occasionally raise questions on Capitol Hill about congressional authorization for the use of military force — even among some Republicans. Despite that past history, no other Republican is openly siding with Paul about the strike.
One Democrat, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, even indicated some comfort with the Trump administration’s action, at least as an isolated incident.
“I think maybe when 100,000 Americans’ lives are taken through overdoses, now’s maybe the time to push back. I’m not saying blow up every single boat or anything, but if you have the intel there?” Fetterman told Semafor.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said that, because the Trump administration had designated the alleged traffickers as members of a terrorist organization, “in the war against drugs, it doesn’t strike me as off limits.”
Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., said he would learn more about it this week, indicating that lawmakers expect more information after the administration scrapped a planned briefing about the strike last week.
“What we’ve been doing up until that point isn’t working very well. I’m open to different approaches. Obviously the president believes that’s within his authority as commander-in-chief under the Constitution,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
“We’ve constantly had battles over the years with the War Powers Act and authorizations for the use of military force,” Cornyn acknowledged. “I’m not sure we’re going to resolve that anytime soon.”
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CNN reported on the postponed classified briefings, as well as the legal questions surrounding the strike.
