Fox News host Will Cain welcomed back U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) to his show on Wednesday and reminded Lee that the last time the Senator appeared on Cain’s program he said he “was ready to put together a posse of good ole boys ready to take on the Mexican drug cartels.”
On his recent appearance, Cain asked Lee, “Are we still headed to that? Private citizens taking on the drug cartels at the border?”
Lee, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, replied: “Privateers, is what they’re called, letters of marque and reprisal” and cited Article I, Section 8, Clause 10 of the Constitution, which “gives Congress the right to issue letters of marque.”
Lee smiled as referred to modern day privateers as “pirates, essentially,” who can “carry out acts of piracy, if you will, outside of the United States, bring in the spoils back to the United States to share in the proceeds.”
Lee added: “This is one way the United States could take on the cartels without actually deploying U.S. military personnel.” (President Donald Trump has suggested using the military to combat the cartels and bombing them.)
Lee suggested that the U.S. government “incentivize those who are willing to take the risk to go down there and deprive them of their assets, to return to the United States and receive a reward commensurate with what they seize.”
A senator told Fox News that one solution to sinking Mexican drug cartels could be the deployment of pirates. pic.twitter.com/BeqDAPYOt6
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 27, 2025
Note: Letters of marque and reprisal were commonly used among Europeans from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century; the letters authorized a private person (known as a privateer) “to attack and capture vessels of a foreign state at war with the issuer, licensing international military operations against a specified enemy as reprisal for a previous attack or injury.”
When Cain asked Lee if this is something we can realistically expect Congress or the President of the United States to endorse, Lee answered, “Look, it hasn’t happened in a couple of centuries, so I’m not going to kid you here into thinking this is a certainty to pass. What I’m saying is that it should be considered.”
Lee’s suggestion is being met with doubt, sarcasm, and more questions on X including: “So paramilitary paid by the U.S. instead of military paid by the U. S.?” and “So we will invade another country via proxy?” and “What could possibly go wrong?”
Lee is not the first 20th Century Republican to suggest using letters of marque: In February 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) proposed that Congress authorize President Biden to issue letters of marque and reprisal “to seize any asset, such as a yacht or plane, outside of the United States that belongs to a Russian citizen on the Office of Foreign Asset Control’s List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons.” (Note: In April 2024, Gooden voted against the $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine.)
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