Vice President JD Vance is defending the controversial bombing by the U.S. military of a speedboat in the Caribbean on Friday. According to the Trump administration, the boat carried 11 members of a Venezuelan drug cartel.
[Trump called the targets “terrorists.” The President’s Truth Social account shared a video showing what he said was the attack, with superimposed text reading “unclassified.”]
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared the Trump post, as shown below. Speaking in Mexico, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump ordered the strike, telling reporters that “instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up.”
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) September 2, 2025
Questioned about a lack of due process for the alleged smugglers, and whether the open boat, thousands of miles from the U.S., represented an imminent threat, Vance declared on social media: “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.”
Political pundit and Trump critic Brian Krassenstein replied to Vance, “Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime.”
Vance (a graduate of Yale Law School) replied to Krassenstein: “I don’t give a [expletive] what you call it.”
Being mentored by @netanyahu? https://t.co/oW5gZTw384
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) September 7, 2025
Vance’s position, while popular with much of the MAGA base, is being met with opposition from both sides of the aisle.
On Newsmax, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) noted — as Rubio’s comment indicates — that in traditional interdiction of ships suspected of smuggling drugs in international waters, the suspects are arrested and given a trial. Paul cautioned that “sometimes you have to figure out who people are before you kill them.”
Also emphasizing the attack’s possible transgression of international warfare rules, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA), a fellow Yale Law School graduate, replied to Vance’s post directly.
“Being mentored by @netanyahu?” Khanna asked, linking Vance to the Israeli leader facing international condemnation for his conduct of the war in Gaza. Khanna added: “Even Vance seems embarrassed of publicly standing with Netanyahu these days.”
