Q1. Earlier this year, President Trump designated several Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and directed the Pentagon to prepare to use military force against them. The Dept of Defense has historically played a supporting role to the Coast Guard (part of Homeland Security during peacetime) in interdicting drug traffickers.

Last month, Trump ordered three Navy warships to counteract drug activity off the coast of Venezuela, and last week he posted that the military had carried out a strike against a drug-carrying boat from Venezuela in international waters, killing "11 narcoterrorists" on board.

In his post, Trump attached a video of a small speedboat exploding from what appeared to be a strike from the air.

Generally speaking, do you approve of an expanded role for the Dept of Defense in combating drug cartels?

Q2. In his post on the strike, Trump said the military had "positively identified" gang members from the Venezuelan cartel Tren de Aragua operating a small boat carrying drugs to the US, though officials have not disclosed where the strike took place, the weapons that were used, or the identities of the casualties.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the drugs the vessel was carrying “were probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean and could contribute to the instability these countries are facing." In a subsequent interview, he said the shipment was "eventually" headed to the US.

In 2001, Peruvian and US counterdrug agents mistook a small plane carrying American missionaries over the Peruvian Amazon as belonging to drug traffickers. The Peruvian Air Force shot down the plane, killing a 35-year-old woman and her infant daughter

Venezuela’s communications minister alleged on X that the video of the boat strike was fake and generated by AI.

How confident are you the boat was running drugs that would eventually end up in the US, and do you approve of the strike?

Q3. Coast Guard drug-interdicting vessels carry a law-enforcement detachment trained and deputized to make arrests.

After identifying a ship as a drug runner, the Guard attempts to get it to stop. If the ship tries to flee, a sharpshooter manning a 50-caliber rifle aboard a helicopter can get the order to take out the engines.

Some say Trump exceeded his legal authority by using lethal military force against a target that posed no direct danger to the US with no congressional authorization, there were no warning shots or attempts to detain the ship, and those killed were not afforded a trial.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth countered "Every boatload of any form of drug that poisons the American people is an imminent threat."

Did the president have the authority to order the strike, and do you think he should have the authority?