Tag Archives: Secretary of State Marco Rubio

Raw Story: ‘Two-faced guy’: Trump official creates ‘real worry’ as credibility plunges to record lows

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President Donald Trump’s most popular cabinet official has been plummeting in public approval as he takes aim at a broadly accepted policy.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will conduct a new review of abortion pills, the latest move taking aim at health care matters that has included vaccine mandates and Tylenol use by pregnant women that Americans had come to take for granted as uncontroversial.

And CNN data analyst Harry Enten said his actions have his approval ratings plunging.

“Down it goes,” Enten said. “What are we talking about here? Well, let’s take a look. Net approval rating in March, according to Quinnipiac it was minus-11. You go to June, down it goes to minus-15, and now, data that’s just out this week, minus-21 points. We’ve seen a drop of 10 points since March. The more RFK Jr. Is implementing or trying to implement his policies, the further down his net approval rating goes, and at this particular point, 21 points underwater is not a place you want to be.”

Kennedy had been the most popular Trump official at the start of this month, with a net approval rating of minus-7 points, but the more the public sees from him the less they agree with his policies, Enten said.

“What is going on here?” Enten added. “Well, I think, you know, RFK is sort of a two-faced guy when it comes to the American public. What do they like about RFK Jr.? Well, Americans who support restricting artificial food dyes. Look at this: It’s 60 percent. That, of course, is something that RFK Jr. has been trying to implement, right? They like RFK Jr. when it comes to food dyes and stuff in food.

“But look at this: Trust RFK Jr. on vaccine information, he’s significantly lower. He’s down at 37 percent, and obviously, RFK Jr. has been trying to change some of the advice that’s going on from the federal government when it comes to vaccines. Americans do not trust RFK Jr., they do not like him on vaccines. They like him when it comes to food dyes, they don’t like him on vaccines, and this has been the number that has been far more in the news recently. If I were advising RFK in terms of if he wanted to be more popular, I’d be focusing on this.”

“I think that this is the real worry, right, because they don’t trust RFK Jr., right, on vaccine information, and take a look here,” Enten added. “Gives trustworthy info on public health? The CDC, it was 72 percent last year. Look at this: It’s 64 percent now. How about the FDA? It was 73 percent last year, it’s 63 percent now. Most of this decline is coming from Democrats, who all of a sudden are wondering, can I actually trust the information that’s coming out of the federal government, whether or not it is coming out of RFK Jr.’s mouth? Because obviously, as you said, all those agencies that he’s overlooking, those are very important.

“If the public doesn’t trust them, we’ve got major problems, and at this particular point, when you look at these numbers, the flip side is now more than a third of Americans are not confident in the information that they are getting at either the CDC or the FDA, which I think a lot of public health officials are quite worried about.”

‘Two-faced guy’: Trump official creates ‘real worry’ as credibility plunges to record lows

https://www.rawstory.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-approval

Raw Story: MAGA influencer calls on Trump to use ‘the sword’ against enemies of conservative ‘martyr’

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MAGA influencer Benny Johnson called on President Donald Trump and his administration to ‘wield the sword’ against the enemies of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk during Kirk’s memorial service in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday.

Johnson, who hosts an eponymous MAGA podcast, made the comments during his speech at Kirk’s memorial. The service was attended by high-profile administration figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Trump himself.

During his speech, Johnson compared the Trump administration to the “godly government” that the Apostle Paul wrote about in the Book of Romans. He said God saved Trump’s life from an assassin’s bullet so that he could lead the country through the aftermath of Kirk’s death.

Johnson also lobbed a thinly veiled threat of violence against those he considers “evil men” following Kirk’s assassination.

“And what does the Apostle Paul say in Romans about a godly leadership?” Johnson asked. “He says that rules wield the sword for the protection of good men and for the terror of evil men.”

“May we pray that our rules here, rightfully instituted and given power by our god, wield the sword for the terror of evil men in our nation in Charlie’s memory,” he added.

Johnson also compared Kirk to Stephen from the Book of Acts. Stephen is the Christian tradition’s first martyr because he was stoned to death for his faith.

“Charlie Kirk is a martyr in the true Christian tradition,” Johnson said. “If you cut down a tyrant, his power goes away. If you take out a martyr, his power grows, and that’s what we see time and time again. We’re seeing it across this country.”

“The power of Christ’s blood and the power of martyrdom speak through Charlie,” he continued.

MAGA influencer calls on Trump to use ‘the sword’ against enemies of conservative ‘martyr’

https://www.rawstory.com/benny-johnson-2674014495

MSNBC: Lawrence: One honest thing Trump said about Epstein’s survivors is ‘I haven’t thought about it’ [Video]

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MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell details how “Donald Trump wants you to believe he was the only close friend of Jeffrey Epstein’s who did not contribute to his birthday book” as Donald Trump dehumanized the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein when he said he hadn’t thought about meeting with them.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawrence-one-honest-thing-trump-said-about-epstein-s-survivors-is-i-haven-t-thought-about-it/vi-AA1Memf2

CNN: Trump claims he can do anything he wants with the military. Here’s what the law says

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Having rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the president is going on offense with the US military.

Donald Trump has foisted National Guard troops on Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. Other cities are on edge, particularly after he posted an apparently artificially generated image of himself dressed up like Robert Duvall’s surfing cavalry commander in “Apocalypse Now,” a meme that seemed to suggest he was threatening war on the city of Chicago.

Trump later clarified that the US would not go to war on Chicago, but he’s clearly comfortable joking about it. And he’s of the opinion his authority over the military is absolute.

“Not that I don’t have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States,” he said at a Cabinet meeting in August, when he was asked about the prospect of Chicagoans engaging in nonviolent resistance against the US military.

He’s reorienting the US military to focus on drug traffickers as terrorists and told Congress to expect more military strikes after the US destroyed a boat in the Caribbean last week.

All of this projects the kind of strongman decisiveness Trump admires.

A lot of it might also be illegal.

A ‘violation of the Posse Comitatus Act’

US District Judge Charles Breyer ruled this month that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth committed a “a serious violation of the Posse Comitatus Act” when they deployed federalized troops to Los Angeles over the objections of the state’s governor and mayor.

The Posse Comitatus Act was passed by Congress in 1878 as Southern states worked to oust federal troops and end Reconstruction. Questions over how and whether troops can be used to enforce laws goes back to the pre-Civil War period, when federal marshals sought help from citizens and militiamen in recovering fugitive slaves and putting down the protests of abolitionists, according to the Congressional Research Service.

It is not clear why Trump has not yet, as he has promised, called up the National Guard to patrol in Chicago, but he may be waiting for the Supreme Court, which has been extremely deferential to his claims of authority, to weigh in on a preliminary basis.

Trump has more authority to deploy the military inside Washington, DC, which the Constitution says Congress controls. But Congress has ceded some authority to locally elected officials in recent decades. DC’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb has sued the Trump administration over the deployment.

Testing the War Powers Act

Trump’s strike on a boat in the Caribbean is also on murky legal ground.

After Vietnam, Congress overrode Richard Nixon’s veto to pass another law, the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of a military strike. And Trump did do that, at least his third such notification since taking office in January. Trump also sent notifications to Congress about his strike against an Iranian nuclear facility and Houthi rebels who were attacking shipping routes.

The Reiss Center at New York University maintains a database of War Powers Act notifications going back to the 1970s.

Cartels as terrorist organizations

In the notification about the Caribbean strike, Trump’s administration argued that it has declared drug cartels are terrorist organizations and that he operated within his constitutional authority to protect the country when he ordered the strike.

Strikes against terrorists have been authorized under the catchall vote that authorized the use of military force against Islamic terrorists after the 9/11 terror attacks.

But Congress, which the Constitution puts in charge of declaring war, has not authorized the use of military force against Venezuelan drug cartels.

Lack of explanation from the White House

Over the weekend, CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand and Zachary Cohen reported that the Pentagon abruptly canceled classified briefings to key House and Senate committees with oversight of the military, which means lawmaker have been unable to get the legal justification for the strike.

Many Americans might celebrate the idea of a military strike to take out drug dealers, and the administration is clearly primed to lean on the idea that the cartels are terrorists.

Here’s a key quote from CNN’s report:

“The strike was the obvious result of designating them a terrorist organization,” said one person familiar with the Pentagon’s thinking. “If there was a boat full of al Qaeda fighters smuggling explosives towards the US, would anyone even ask this question?”

Few details

It’s not yet clear which military unit was responsible for the strike, what intelligence suggested there were drugs onboard, who was on the boat or what the boat was carrying.

“The attack on the smuggling vessel in the Caribbean was so extraordinary because there was no reported attempt to stop the boat or detain its crew,” wrote Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal advisor now at International Crisis Group for the website Just Security. “Instead, the use of lethal force was used in the first resort.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US could have interdicted the boat and made a legal case against those onboard, but it decided instead to blow up the boat. The notice to Congress makes clear the administration will continue with other strikes.

War crime? Vance doesn’t ‘give a sh*t’

“The decision to blow up the boat and kill everyone onboard when interdiction and detention was a clearly available option is manifestly illegal and immoral,” Oona Hathaway, a law professor and director of the Center for Global Legal Challenges at Yale Law School, told me in an email.

The view of the administration could be best summarized by Vice President JD Vance stating that using the military to go after cartels is “the highest and best use of our military.”

When a user on X replied that the extrajudicial killing of civilians without presenting evidence is, by definition, a war crime, Vance, himself a Yale-educated lawyer, said this:

“I don’t give a sh*t what you call it.”

That’s not an acceptable response even for some Republicans.

“Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” wrote Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in his own post on X. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”

Congress has power it likely won’t use

Congress has the power to stop Trump’s campaign against boats in the Caribbean. The War Powers Act allows lawmakers in the House and Senate to demand the president seek approval before continuing a campaign longer than 60 days. But that seems unlikely to occur at the moment.

After the strike against Iran earlier this year, Paul was the only Republican senator to side with Democrats and demand Trump seek approval for any future Iran strikes.

During his first term, seven Republicans voted with Senate Democrats to hem in Trump’s ability to strike against Iran after he ordered the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. But there were not enough votes to overcome Trump’s veto that year.

Trump’s authority to use military force without congressional approval of the Caribbean operation technically expires after 60 days after he reports on the use of force, although he can extend it by an additional 30 days, although he could also declare a new operation is underway.

The use of these kinds of tactics has likely been in the works for some time.

In February, Trump designated drug cartels, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, as foreign terror organizations. In April, CNN reported the CIA was reviewing whether it had authority to use lethal force against drug cartels.

But the military strike against the alleged cartel boat happened as part of a broader campaign against Venezuela, including positioning US ships, aircraft and a submarine in the Caribbean, according to a CNN report.

Trump may have campaigned as a president who would end wars, but he’s governing like a president who is very comfortable using his military.

Analysis: Trump claims he can do anything he wants with the military. Here’s what the law says | CNN Politics
Having rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the president is going on offense with the US military.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/10/politics/venezuela-trump-military-strike-war-powers-explainer

CNN: Trump’s credibility challenged in Qatar and Poland

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Assuming President Donald Trump’s claim that he couldn’t stop Israel’s strike on Hamas officials in a Qatar residential district is true, he’s just suffered another devastating blow to his international credibility.

Trump hurriedly made clear that Tuesday’s raid, which killed five Hamas members but not the top team negotiating a new US ceasefire plan for Gaza, was not his decision and that he’d rushed to inform Qatar when he learned of it.

“I’m not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said as he went for dinner at a Washington, DC, steakhouse. “It’s not a good situation … we are not thrilled about the way that went down.”

That seemed a rare Trumpian understatement.

The strike — in which Israel ignored profound implications for vital American interests — is a new embarrassment for Trump at a time when he’s also being taken for a ride by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who grinned through their summit in Alaska, then escalated attacks on Ukrainian civilians. Poland said early Wednesday that it had shot down drones that violated its airspace during a Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the violation of Poland’s airspace was “absolutely reckless” and not an “isolated incident.” NATO, Rutte said, will defend “every inch” of its territory.

Trump, meanwhile, seems sincere in his desire to be a global peacemaker. If he succeeds, he could save many lives and leave a valuable legacy. He returned to the White House in January insisting he’d quickly end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. But eight months later, both are even more bloody. And Putin, China’s leader Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi openly defy him.

Events in the Middle East are unlikely to do much to hurt Trump’s political fortunes at home, as his crime crackdown plays out amid worries about a slowing economy. But Israel’s attack in broad daylight in Doha — just like Putin’s violations — could be ruinous to his self-image as a hard-power-wielding strongman who is feared abroad.

That’s because the strike flagrantly trampled the sovereignty of a vital US ally that hosts the largest US base in the Middle East and was negotiating with Hamas at the behest of the White House on a plan Trump predicted would soon yield a deal.

Not only was this a personal affront to Trump, but it also puts Netanyahu’s goals over the critical security priorities of the United States — even after the last two US administrations rushed to defend Israel from two sets of attacks by Iran. CNN reported that some White House officials were furious that it took place after one of Netanyahu’s advisers, Ron Dermer, on Monday met Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff but made no mention of an operation sure to humiliate the US president.

“The attacks take place at a very sensitive moment in the ceasefire negotiations where the Trump administration, the president, and his envoy Witkoff have made clear that the president is looking for a comprehensive ceasefire, the release of all hostages, prisoner exchange and moving forward and ending the war in Gaza,” former US ambassador to Israel Edward Djerejian told Richard Quest on CNN International.

“Israel is not obviously paying much attention to US national security interests,” said Djerejian, who served in eight administrations, starting with that of President John F. Kennedy and ending with that of President Bill Clinton.

Huge ramifications for US foreign policy

The reverberations of the strike seem certain to end any hope of a negotiated peace to end Israel’s war in Gaza — one reason why it may have recommended itself to Netanyahu. There may be horrific ramifications for the remaining Israeli hostages who are still alive after nearly two years of torment in tunnels under Gaza.

It’s also the latest evidence that the Israeli prime minister places more importance on the total eradication of Hamas — a potentially impossible task — than the hostages’ return. And the almost certain result is an intensification of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has already killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and alienated most of Israel’s foreign allies.

For the United States, there are also serious ramifications.

► The fallout could sour the relationship between the US president and the Israeli prime minister and sow distrust between Israel and its vital ally the United States.

► It will shatter any credibility that the Trump had in posing as a distant mediator between Israel and Hamas and may cause Qatar to pull out of peace talks. The emirate’s prime minister accused Israel of conducting “state terrorism.”

► Some US observers accuse Qatar of playing a double game by hosting Hamas leaders. But Doha will see the attack by America’s closest Middle East ally as a betrayal after its years working to advance US diplomatic priorities, not just in the Middle East, but in hostage release deals beyond the Middle East as far away as Afghanistan and Venezuela.

► There could also be adverse consequences for Trump’s personal and political interests in the wider Arab world, which he energetically pursued during the first Gulf trip of his second term, including a lavish welcome in Qatar.

► And the administration’s hoped-for expansion of the first-term Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and some Arab states — and which is key to Trump’s push for a Nobel Peace Prize — is now more distant than ever.

► Leaders of other states in the Gulf, a thriving business and leisure hub, will wonder — if Israel can strike with impunity at Qatar, under the noses of the US garrison — whether they will be next.

“It’s a pretty big bill for the Israelis to have conducted this strike,” retired Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, told CNN’s Kasie Hunt. He added that Netanyahu has “been in power forever by US standards. And over time, he’s gotten very comfortable in doing exactly what he wants to do.”

Israel insists it acted alone

Many US analysts will interpret Israel’s attempt to kill negotiators considering a US peace plan a day after they met with Qatari government officials as new proof that Netanyahu wants to prolong the war. The prime minister has succeeded in postponing inevitable investigations into the security lapses after the October 7 attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas in 2023. And his personal legal woes can be kept off the boil as long as he stays in power atop his far-right coalition.

Israel’s justification for the strikes was that it will pursue terrorist leaders wherever they are. Netanyahu has waged war on multiple fronts throughout the region, and conducted devastating strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon; Houthis in Yemen; and Iran. He said Tuesday that the “days when the heads of terror enjoyed immunity anywhere are over.”

Many Israelis viewed the Hamas attacks nearly two years ago not just as a strike against Israel but also as the most heinous attempt to wipe out Jews since the Nazi Holocaust. Yet many also now oppose the total warfare on Gaza waged by Netanyahu and are desperate to see the return of the hostages after a negotiated settlement.

Netanyahu was quick to make clear that the attack on Doha was a “wholly independent Israeli operation,” seeking to offer Trump some diplomatic cover. But the Middle East loves conspiracy theories. And the US faces a hard sell over its claim that it knew nothing as Israel got 10 fighter jets and their munitions — possibly American-made F-35 planes — within range of the target.

Some will suspect that Trump gave a green light, or at least tacitly condoned the attacks. The White House, however, said that the US military in Qatar alerted Trump, and he ordered Witkoff to tip off the Qataris. But the government in Doha said it only got a heads-up when the attack, which caused panic in the capital, was already over.

The White House damage-control effort does seem to bolster Trump’s claim that he couldn’t do anything to halt the strike.

“Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard in bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

It was exceedingly rare criticism of Israel from the Trump administration. The president later said on Truth Social that “this was a decision made by Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me.” Trump also said he’d ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to finalize a defense cooperation pact with Qatar.

How Trump’s new Air Force One complicates his response

There are geopolitical reasons to take the president’s comments at face value. But there is a complication. Trump earlier this year accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar to serve as a new Air Force One in violation of any previous understanding of presidential ethics. How can Americans therefore be convinced that he’s acting on his perception of their vital security interests on this matter — and not his own desire to pay back Qatar for the personal gift of a jet worth hundreds of millions of dollars?

That aside, Trump’s credibility with Qatar will need serious repair work.

What of the US security umbrella supposed to be provided by its vast Al Udeid Air Base in the desert outside Doha? It didn’t prevent a deeply humiliating violation of Qatari sovereignty by an enemy the US would like them to engage. By extension, how can other Gulf states and other US allies worldwide be sure that Trump’s security guarantees will be any more airtight than they were for Qatar?

The attack on Qatar will also cement an already widespread belief throughout the Middle East that Trump lacks any influence over Netanyahu despite the leverage of US defense sales to Israel and its vital role in the Jewish state’s defense. There was no public talk from the White House on Tuesday about consequences for the Israeli leader.

The loss of Trump’s credibility is especially critical since the new US peace plan envisages the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas in Gaza in return for a ceasefire. Trump would then guarantee to Hamas that Israel would stick to the deal while negotiations continue. Tuesday’s attacks in broad daylight in Doha suggest that’s an empty promise.

So yet again, Trump’s self-proclaimed role as the president of peace is thrown into question. And his foreign policy team’s understanding of ruthless global strongmen was left badly exposed.

And our Grifter-in-Chief is badly compromised by having accepted the gift of a free 747 from Qatar!

Analysis: Trump’s credibility challenged in Qatar and Poland | CNN Politics
Assuming President Donald Trump’s claim that he couldn’t stop Israel’s strike on Hamas officials in a Qatar residential district is true, he’s just suffered another devastating blow to his international credibility.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/10/politics/trump-israel-qatar-airstrikes-hamas-analysis

Wall Street Journal: Did a Boat Strike in Caribbean Exceed Trump’s Authority to Use Military Force?

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President Trump was operating within his constitutional powers as commander in chief when he ordered the U.S. military to destroy a vessel in the Caribbean, administration officials said, describing the drugs it was allegedly smuggling as an imminent national security threat.

But that claim was sharply disputed by legal experts and some lawmakers, who said that Trump exceeded his legal authority by using lethal military force against a target that posed no direct danger to the U.S. and doing so without congressional authorization.

The disagreement since Trump announced the deadly attack Tuesday underscored how much of a departure it represents from decades of U.S. counternarcotics operations—and raised questions about whether drug smugglers can be treated as legitimate military targets.

“Every boatload of any form of drug that poisons the American people is an imminent threat. And at the DOD, our job is to defeat imminent threats,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Thursday during a visit to an Army base in Georgia. “A drug cartel is no different than al Qaeda, and they will be treated as such.”

Trump administration officials said Tuesday’s strike, which killed 11 people on the boat, was just the opening salvo in an expanded campaign to dismantle the drug cartels they say pose a major threat to Americans.

But in importing tactics from the post-9/11 war against terrorist groups to use against drug cartels, some former officials said, Trump is trampling on longstanding limits on presidential use of force and asserting legal authorities that don’t exist.

The casualties “weren’t engaged in anything like a direct attack on the United States” and weren’t afforded a trial to determine their guilt, said Frank Kendall, who served as the secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration and holds a law degree. “Frankly, I can’t see how this can be considered anything other than a nonjudicial killing outside the boundaries of domestic and international law.”

Unlike the interdictions which are usually conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard, the strike was carried out without warning shots, and no effort was made to detain the ship, apprehend its crew, or confirm the drugs on board. “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders they blew it up,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Mexico City on Wednesday.

Trump said U.S. forces “positively identified” the crew before the attack as members of Venezuelan crime syndicate Tren de Aragua, calling them “narcoterrorists.” Tren de Aragua is among the Latin American cartels and gangs that Trump has designated as foreign terrorist organizations since February.

The White House has provided no further information on the operation against the boat or detailed the legal arguments that it claims support it. Nor have officials disclosed where the strike took place, the identities of the casualties or the weapons used.

Some Trump administration officials suggest that by designating the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, the Pentagon has the leeway to treat the groups as it would foreign terrorists. As commander in chief, Trump has the power to order military action against imminent threats without congressional authorization, they said.

The strike “was taken in defense of vital U.S. national interests and in the collective self-defense of other nations,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, adding that the strike occurred in international waters and “was fully consistent with the law of armed conflict.”

But Geoffrey Corn, a retired lieutenant colonel who was the Army’s senior adviser on the law of war, said: “I don’t think there is any way to legitimately characterize a drug ship heading from Venezuela, arguably to Trinidad, as an actual or imminent armed attack against the United States, justifying this military response.”

Corn, a law professor at Texas Tech University, noted that critics have condemned U.S. drone strikes since 2001 against militants in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries as extrajudicial killings, but those strikes were legitimate, he said, because the U.S. was engaged in an armed conflict under the laws of war against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is now at the International Crisis Group, said that designation of drug cartels as terrorist groups doesn’t authorize the use of military force against them. Rather it enables the U.S. to levy sanctions and pursue criminal prosecutions against individuals who support the groups.

Nor can military action be justified under the law Congress passed authorizing the use of force against al Qaeda and related terrorist groups following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, experts said.

For the military to use force, “there needs to be a legitimate claim of self-defense in international waters, an action that is necessary and proportional in response to an armed attack or imminent armed attack,” said Juan Gonzalez, who served as the National Security Council’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs during the Biden administration. “That clearly didn’t happen.”

The attack was the U.S. military’s first publicly acknowledged airstrike in Central or South America since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. The White House released a grainy black-and-white video that showed the destruction of a small boat, which it celebrated as a blunt warning for drug traffickers throughout the region.

Trump administration officials have offered conflicting accounts of the episode. On Tuesday, 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,” differing from Trump’s statement that the vessel was “heading to the United States.” On Wednesday, Rubio suggested that the shipment was “eventually” headed to the U.S.

No state in the region has publicly appealed for the U.S. to take military action against the cartels as an act of collective self-defense, Corn said.

On Thursday, two Venezuelan F-16 jet fighters flew near one of the U.S. Navy warships that have been positioned near the county. The Pentagon criticized the apparent show of force as a “highly provocative move” and warned Venezuela not to interfere with its “counter narco-terror operations.”

In the past, some U.S. counternarcotics strikes have ended in tragedy. In 2001, Peruvian and U.S. 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.

The U.S. has limited intelligence on small drug boats leaving Venezuela, from which the Drug Enforcement Administration was expelled in 2005 under then-President Hugo Chávez, said Mike Vigil, a former DEA director of international operations.

“The United States doesn’t really have the capability to develop good intelligence about these embarkations,” he said. “You don’t just send a missile and destroy a boat. It is the equivalent of a police officer walking up to a drug trafficker on the street and shooting him.”

In Quito, Ecuador, on Thursday, Rubio announced the designation of two more criminal groups—the Ecuadorean Los Choneros and Los Lobos—as foreign terrorist organizations. He said U.S. partners in the region would participate in operations to use lethal force against drug cartels.

A senior Mexican naval officer with decades of service and experience boarding drug vessels said actions like the one taken Tuesday by the U.S. would never be allowed by its Mexican counterpart, which has been trained in interdiction procedures by the U.S. Coast Guard.

“There is never a direct attack unless you are attacked,” he said. “As commander of the ship, I would get into serious trouble. I could be accused of murder.”

Did a Boat Strike in Caribbean Exceed Trump’s Authority to Use Military Force?
Legal experts said the president exceeded his legal authority by using lethal military force against a target that posed no direct danger to the U.S.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/did-a-boat-strike-in-caribbean-exceed-trump-s-authority-to-use-military-force/ar-AA1LU02a

L.A. Times: Postal traffic to U.S. down 80% after Trump ended exemption on low-value parcels

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  • Postal traffic to the United States plunged 80% after the Trump administration eliminated tariff exemptions for imported goods valued under $800.
  • Eighty-eight postal operators worldwide suspended services because carriers cannot collect the newly required customs duties on low-value parcels.
  • The change ends a duty-free exemption that existed since 1938, with tariffs now ranging from 10% to 50% on previously exempt goods.

Postal traffic into the United States plunged by more than 80% after the Trump administration ended a tariff exemption for low-cost imports, the United Nations postal agency said Saturday.

The Universal Postal Union says it has started rolling out new measures that can help postal operators around the world calculate and collect duties, or taxes, after the U.S. eliminated the “de minimis” exemption for lower-value parcels.

Eighty-eight postal operators have told the UPU that they have suspended some or all postal services to the United States until a solution is implemented with regard to U.S.-bound parcels valued at $800 or less, which had been the cutoff for imported goods to escape customs charges.

“The global network saw postal traffic to the U.S. come to a near-halt after the implementation of the new rules on Aug. 29, 2025, which for the first time placed the burden of customs duty collection and remittance on transportation carriers or U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency-approved qualified parties,” the UPU said in a statement.

The UPU said information exchanged among postal operators through its electronic network showed traffic from its 192 member countries — nearly all the nations in the world — had fallen 81% on Aug. 29 compared with a week earlier.

The Bern, Switzerland-based agency said the “major operational disruptions” have occurred because airlines and other carriers indicated they weren’t willing or able to collect such duties, and foreign postal operators had not established a link to CBP-qualified companies.

Before the measure took effect, the postal union sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to express concerns about its effect.

The de minimis exemption has existed in some form since 1938, and the administration says the exemption has become a loophole that foreign businesses exploit to evade tariffs and criminals use to get drugs into the United States.

Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs now require vetting and are subject to their origin country’s applicable tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.

While the change applies to the products of every country, U.S. residents will not have to pay duties on incoming gifts valued at up to $100, or up to $200 worth of personal souvenirs from trips abroad, according to the White House.

The UPU said its members had not been given enough time or guidance to comply with the procedures outlined in the executive order President Trump signed on July 30 to eliminate the duty-free eligibility of low-value goods.

Postal traffic to U.S. down 80% after Trump ended exemption on low-value parcels
The U.N. postal agency says postal traffic into the United States plunged by more than 80% after a Trump administration move to end a tariff exemption for low-cost imports.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-06/postal-traffic-to-us-sank-80-after-trump-administration-ended-exemption-on-low-value-parcels

Associated Press: Trump signs order to designate nations that hold Americans as sponsors of wrongful detention

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that would let the U.S. designate nations as state sponsors of wrongful detention, using the threat of associated sanctions to deter Americans from being detained abroad or taken hostage.

…. two senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the order being signed cited China, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia as nations that could potentially face penalties under the new designation.

China, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia? Does anyone think those countries will give a hoot? This is just for show.

Trump signs order to designate nations that hold Americans as sponsors of wrongful detention
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that would let the U.S. designate nations as state sponsors of wrongful detention, using the threat of associated sanctions to deter Americans from being detained abroad or taken hostage.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-wrongful-detention-nations-executive-order-16b9533227d86592f6618506425324e8

There is a growing possibility that the boat Dear Leader ordered a missile strike on, killing 11 people, could have been carrying migrants fleeing the Venezuelan Maduro dictatorship

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The Resistance
🚨There is a growing possibility that the boat Dear Leader ordered a missile strike on, killing 11 people, could have been carrying migrants fleeing the Venezuelan Maduro dictatorship. You don’t pack…

https://www.facebook.com/RiseUpAndResist/posts/1376461623846512

CBS News: Trump says the U.S. military destroyed a boat operated by Tren de Aragua off Venezuela. Here’s what to know about the gang.

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The deadly U.S. military strike in the Caribbean this week on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela is the latest measure President Trump has taken to combat the threat he sees from the Tren de Aragua gang.

The White House has offered few details on Tuesday’s attack and insists the 11 people aboard were members of the gang. The criminal organization, which traces its roots to a Venezuelan prison, is not known for having a big role in global drug trafficking but for its involvement in contract killings, extortions and human smuggling.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned Wednesday that the United States will keep assets positioned in the Caribbean and strike anyone “trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco terrorist.”

U.S. officials have yet to explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members. The strike represents a paradigm shift in how the U.S. is willing to combat drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere and appears to send a combative message to governments in the region as well as drug traffickers.

Tren de Aragua operations spread beyond Venezuela

Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years, recruiting from among the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who have fled economic turmoil in their homeland and migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S.

Mr. Trump and administration officials have consistently blamed the gang for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some U.S. cities. Mr. Trump has repeated his claim — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment — that Tren de Aragua is operating under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump described Aurora, Colorado, as a “war zone” overrun with members of the gang. Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain rejected that characterization, explaining the gang was tied to organized violent crime concentrated in three apartment complexes in the city. 

Chamberlain said earlier this year his department had counted a total of nine confirmed Tren de Aragua members who passed through Aurora in the last two years.

The size of the gang is unclear. Countries with large populations of Venezuelan migrants, including Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence in the region.

Authorities in Chile first identified the gang’s operations in 2022. Prosecutors and investigators have said the group initially engaged primarily in human trafficking, organizing unauthorized border crossings and sexual exploitation, but over time, members have expanded their activities to more violent crimes, such as kidnapping, torture, extortion and became more involved in drug trafficking.

While Tren de Argua has dominated ketamine trafficking in Chile, unlike other criminal organizations from Colombia, Central America and Brazil, it has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine across international borders, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that last month published a 64-page report on the gang based on two years of research.

“We’ve found no direct participation of TdA in the transnational drug trade, although there are cases of them acting as subcontractors for other drug trafficking organizations,” said Jeremy McDermott, a Colombia-based co-founder of InSight Crime.

McDermott added that with affiliated cells spread across Latin America, it would not be a huge leap for the gang to one day delve into the drug trade.

Landlocked Bolivia and Colombia, with access to the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea and a border with Venezuela, are the world’s top cocaine producers.

Trump designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization

On his first day in office, Mr. Trump took steps to designate the gang a foreign terrorist organization alongside several Mexican drug cartels. The Biden administration had sanctioned the gang and offered $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three of its leaders.

Mr. Trump’s executive order accused the gang of working closely with top Maduro officials — most notably the former vice president and one-time governor of Aragua state, Tareck El Aissami — to infiltrate migration flows, flood the U.S. with cocaine and plot against the country. A U.S. intelligence assessment released earlier this year found minimal contact between the gang and low-level officials in the Venezuelan government but said there was no direct coordination between the gang and the government.

In March, Mr. Trump also declared the group an invading force, invoking an 18th century wartime law that allows the U.S. to deport noncitizens without any legal recourse. Under the Alien Enemies Act, the administration sent more than 250 Venezuelan men to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, where they remained incommunicado and without access to an attorney until their July deportation to Venezuela.

A U.S. appeals court panel this week ruled that Mr. Trump cannot use that law to speed deportations of people his administration accuses of being Tren de Aragua members. A final ruling on the matter, however, will be made by the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration alleged the men deported to the prison were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but provided little evidence. One justification officials used was that the men had certain kinds of tattoos allegedly signifying gang membership, including crowns, clocks and other symbols. But experts have said tattoos are not reliable markers of affiliation to the gang. 

Trump cites the gang in justifying the military strike

The U.S. has not released the names and nationalities of the 11 people killed Tuesday. It also has not offered an estimate of the amount of drugs it says the boat was carrying.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday told reporters the U.S. military will continue lethal strikes on suspected drug trafficking vessels, but he dodged questions on details of the strike, including if the people in the boat were warned before the attack.

But, he said, Mr. Trump “has a right, under exigent circumstances, to eliminate imminent threats to the United States.”

“If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever, headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States,” he told reporters in Mexico City during a visit to Latin America.

Venezuela’s government, which has long minimized the presence of Tren de Aragua in the South American country, limited its reaction to the strike to questioning the veracity of a video showing the attack. Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez suggested it was created using artificial intelligence and described it as an “almost cartoonish animation, rather than a realistic depiction of an explosion.”

Hegseth responded that the strike “was definitely not artificial intelligence,” adding he watched live footage from Washington as the strike was carried out.

The strike shows that the U.S. government is “quite literally deadly serious” in its targeting of drug traffickers, said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

But he questioned whether the link to Tren de Aragua has more to do with the “familiarity” that Americans now have with the gang.

“I certainly hope that the U.S. government has the intelligence and we are not shooting first and asking questions later,” Berg said.

Eleven Venezuelans murdered without due process!

Trump says the U.S. military destroyed a boat operated by Tren de Aragua off Venezuela. Here’s what to know about the gang.
The deadly U.S. military strike this week on a boat allegedly carrying drugs​ from Venezuela is the latest measure President Trump has taken to combat the threat he sees from the Tren de Aragua gang.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-boat-tren-de-aragua-gang-venezuela